Halloween

Photoshop CS2 using a custom modified brush.

Sugar! Kids are older, no more trick or treating for a while. Have a safe and happy Halloween. Just got through some drawings. Maybe I'll unveil a few here in the coming days leading up to the gallery show, yea? This one above is a drawing study for a card I was hoping to have done for last summer. Creepy enough for the day's festivities, no?

Be well.

3 Trees poster and shirt!

This will be a poster available at the show. Signed by all three blokes from last year. Neat, eh? Image above links to larger file.

Gallery date approaches. Still working on some offerings for that day at Nucleus. I will be driving down there on Friday evening ferrying artwork so we can hang it the morning after. Then on Saturday, November 4 at 7pm the gallery will open to all viewers till 11pm. Complimentary refreshments will be served throughout the show. Goody.

Oh, let's not forget that in attendance are the Three Flowers (as we've come to call them, following our wistful logic stemming from the 3 Trees exhibit)Wakako Katayama, Icco Sasai and Yoko Tanji. Tremendous illustrators and, as Ben Zhu (proprietor and dreammaker supreme of Nucleus) tells me, they are providing a prodigious amount of prints for all to marvel at. I'm getting my funds ready.

And if that wasn't enough, Tadahiro Uesugi himself will have a gaggle of all new prints and art for the show. Oh, lordy.


A t-shirt created just for the show as modeled by Enrico. Men's shirts are in the gray.

Me, on the other hand have a meager handful (I mean, really) for the day. My excuse is...I have none. Art block. My dog ate my gallery offerings. I'll be there though. I ain't missing this, framed personal work or not.


Women's shirts are available in the green. Found this lovely model and imposed on her to show off our design. Cute.

But wait!

Pre order a 3 trees book at the show and get a free poster signed by all 6 artists. (as shown above) Limited to 100 only! Can't be there? Check out the book at Amazon.com here.

Are you kidding me?! Then on Sunday, there will be a Q and A / Demo session with Tadahiro. Admission is $35


Kuro and Tadahiro hosted us for dinner at Chez Panisse, in Berkeley last year. As with any gathering of artists, drawing happens. Fun to see him doodle.

I've always wondered how he does his work, even after he did a demo for us that first visit we had with him. If he does divulge his secrets, I want to be there when you see this one step he does that made me do a double take, "What?! How do you get all that magnificent light and color starting from here?" Boggled the mind. I want to see a whole room get hit by this.

See you there. I got me some drawing to do.

Nucleus Gallery
Yoko Tanji
Wakako Katayama
Icco Sasai

Tadahiro Uesugi
Enrico Casarosa
Ronnie del Carmen

Expo view

The corridors were full of attendees lining up for the talks. There was a dealer floor where all manner of how-to books on screenwriting could be sampled. And writing software, let's not forget. Didn't get to take as many photos as I wanted. Bumped into many L.A. friends, it was like a reunion.

Da Story. The Pixar day of panels were well attended and we had a blast doing the talks. My brother Louie made it, as well as friends Glen and Vyvan. I missed Andrew's talk but that's only because it was packed. Later that evening I had dinner with my son, Geo, who's already on his first year in UC Irvine.

The Pixar talks were not rehearsed and all resonated the same thing: The structure of leadership in the company revolves around the concept that Pixar's projects are director-driven. The movies are made by those storytellers. It starts there. Oh, by the way, its about story, story, story. Nobody knows everything and not everything is precise, being human after all. We all do the best we can. My view is that the company provides the conditions where making mistakes is not a career ending gaff but is viewed as par for the course in order for all to contribute openly.

Soap box off. Be well, all.


Animation Guild blog on Andrew Stanton's Keynote talk.
Random Anomalies post.


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UPDATE. Jeremy Bernstein did caricatures of, well, almost anyone in sight. Check out his post on the day's activities. Below is his rendition of our Storyboard talk. Thanks, Jeremy. Romney Marino sent me a jpeg. Had to post here, hope you don't mind.



Cartoon Brew post about the drawings.
Captain Yolk blog

Screenwriting Expo 5

Billed as The World's Largest Conference and Trade Show for Screenwriters, The Screenwriters Expo 5 started today and will go on for the rest of the weekend. I'm going. Actually, I'm part a panel on Saturday about Feature Animation Storyboarding.

4:00 PM TRUST THE PROCESS PANEL: A CONVERSATION WITH PIXAR STORY ARTISTS
Just how do they do it? Just how does Pixar come up with consistently touching, funny, endearing stories? Join four of Pixar’s top story artists as they ponder their navels and wonder the same exact thing. Mark Andrews, Jim Capobianco, Ronnie Del Carmen and Jason Katz will walk you through the story process at Pixar, reconfirm the painful truth that story is hell and settle once and for all what exactly is under a Scotsman’s kilt. (Event #1280)

Clockwise from upper left: Mark Andrews, Ronnie del Carmen, Jason Katz, Jim Capobianco. Story supes. As in, supervisors. In other words, whipping boys No.1.

These are the blokes who'll be going through the above mentioned items ( I hope we never get to the kilt subject). I couldn't be prouder to be serving with these guys. Stand up guys ready to clobber a story reel into shape.

Well, actually the big guns, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Lee Unkrich will be there as well as a whole gaggle of other Pixar folk who'll be expounding on how this high wire act of writing animated features is done--Pixar style. See the roster here.


Screenwriters Expo 5
Marriott LAX and The Renaissance Montura LAX.
The travel page for locations.

Been Busy at work

Pencil and watercolor on watercolor paper. This Nina print will be at the 3 flowers show at Nucleus on November 4, 2006.

Been a while, eh? The days came and went, and the posts I thought I'd be making on the blog had be to bussed to the end of the line. Everything's fine. Just a gaggle of stuff is raining down at the moment.

3 Trees book. Been doing work with Gingko press to finish this book. Inspite of everyone's best effort the book will not make it to our November 4 date. But we've got a treat waiting for those who're looking to purchase the book. I'll post details here as we iron them out. 3 Trees& 3 Flowers exhibit at Nucleus.

Artwork. Believe or not, I still have to deliver on artwork for the show. Thank goodness the 3 flowers (Katayama, Tanji and Sasai) will be taking the bulk of the show floor and we gents are the side attraction this year (check out this post about the ladies). But still, getting the momentum to create the images just doesn't happen on demand.

Swallow 3. Ashley wood's announcement lit a fire under me to collect my meager offerings to be a worthy contributor to the roster of talent he's invited me to join. A certain other del Carmen is going to be on there too. Neat, huh?

Making movies. Oh, there's the day job of helping out in making movies here at the house o' Pixar. A challenging and demanding daily foray into practicing the craft of storyboarding for a world-class feature animation studio...well, it keeps you on your toes.

Glen Murakami noticed that I hadn't posted in a while and was concerned enough to ping me with an email. That woke me up. So, I'm back and hope to be updating more regularly.

Oh, and if you care to see, the 3 Trees book is already offered at Amazon. See it here.