Gogi Studios - Studio Space Development - Red Carpet Theater

The set up of the dailies room is what I have been up to for the past while. The actual name for this working space is still undecided. Some ideas are: Red Room, Red Carpet, Red Alert. The concept of this space is that, since we are creating cartoons for film (cinema), it should feel like the artists are sitting in a cinema as they're making them.

Nothing is instant. So even though the idea was decided, everything has taken a long long time to materialize. Here's a fast forward through the process so far...

... if only the actual process had been this quick. Just a few more phases left now; the box panels need to be painted, I'm considering one more coat for the walls (depending on many factors), one more coat for the golden beading (depending on many factors), the cables need to be neatened up and put into the system cabinet, the main door needs sound proofing, the back walls need picture frames for our posters and last but definitely not the least - a neon Gogi Studios sign on the large wall facing the studio entrance. Phew! (And 'yawn' for 99% of everyone reading this)

Gogi Banner - Books and Bags Distribution

Painted (digital) a large sized banner for an event (in conjuncture with the Ministry of Environment) in which we gave schoolbags, stationery and our books to IDP schoolchildren, Girl Guides and Boy Scouts for free.

The banner. The Urdu on top is translated in English at the bottom.


Here's the original sketch


If you've been to the National Convention Center, you'll know how large this banner is.


The place was packed.


Here's a shot of some of the boys checking out the goodies we put in the bags on their way back to their buses.

PTC - 11 second test

A small test to show PTC for their upcoming internally run channel. They wanted to see something with extremely minimal animation - so this is purposely lip sync only. They want our studio to handle content for the entire channel and create 1 hour of material per week.

I took the sound clip from a past 11 second club post. It's a clip from the movie, 'My Man Godfrey' (1936).

Books - In Distribution

We've been producing quite a lot of books lately. These ones are out ready to be distributed...

Gogi Studios - Garbage Monster Photochop Work

In my previous post I showed our latest additions to the ever growing Gogi Studios library. The Garbage Monster, now translated in Urdu and Pashto, will now be distributed in respective areas. Having a look through the book, we realized there were two pages with a semi naked mermaid in them that might not be looked favorably upon. The following is my photochop work...

Before

After

Before

After

Gogi Studios - Our Latest Book Publications

Gogi has a new book! Going Gogi - a compilation of selected cartoons.

The 'Garbage Monster'. Now available in Urdu!

...And Pashto!

Story of Younus - Color Boards

Color boards for the film, 'The Story of Younus' (commissioned by the World Bank) made together with Sabah Ingvarsson (Sweden).

Story of Younus - Character and Background Development

Commissioned by The World Bank to produce a 5 minute film on Open Defecation in backward regions around the country, I worked with my virtual team to deliver the film within the very very limited time given (less than a single month). My virtual team is spread out over various continents: Sweden, United States, Australia, Pakistan. Almost all the collaboration was done over the internet.

These are my notes over backgrounds made by Sabah Ingvarsson made over my sketches made over her color boards made over my doodles. *cough*

I tried to make the water girl sexy yet indigenously accurate. It wasn't easy.

Which is the friendliest looking 'Younus' available?

The final 'Younus' character.

Gogi Studios - Studio Space Development

Our Creative Room now has an accurate directional star on the ceiling!

I had to draw the compass star after a whole load of calculations while bending backwards at the top of a step ladder under the ceiling to get it right but I think it came out ok. Its very light right now because this is meant to be only an undercoat. We can now have fun with it and draw a face on it, a-la compass stars on treasure maps in shades of red or orange. As you can slightly tell, the rest of the walls have also been painted. The four walls are; purple, yellow, pink and green.

So far, the concept of this room is to break perceptions. To do that, I'm not having anything that lets you sit on the same level as you would on a chair in an office. You can stand, you can jump, you can lie down.

These are development sketches for the takht - a bed/table/stage like piece of furniture we are getting made customized for this room. Butt Bhai, Gogi, and the rest of the Gogi character line up, will be carved in relief around the edges of this takht.

I'm going to bring in a small trampoline. And a midi keyboard set up. And a surround sound music/dvd/images/etc. system (i.e. small tv, wireless dvd player, surround sound speaker system). Also need some white boards on the walls and maybe some more mirrors.

I still want to do much more with this room and would appreciate your ideas or opinions.
1. What should this room be called?
2. What else can I have in here to make it more 'creative'?

If you have any suggestions please leave some ideas in the comments link under this post...

Logo Design - YOUTHINK

Inspired by an illustration of her by Chanya Hetayothin, Nosheen commissioned me to make her logo for her news articles printing in the distinguished and international 'Dawn' newspaper.

I love the word play in the title so I think its good that the image is also intelligently playful.

This is the illustration of Nosheen by Chanya Hetayothin.

Sketches - Doodles

I'm too lazy to clean these up and post them properly. But one day you might see these removed and in their place beautiful colored versions of the same images. In the meantime if you have the patience (and if you dare), you can click on the images to see them larger and skim through to attempt to distinguish my thought process in these chaotic doodles. I've actually got a litle bit going on in these. Like a game of 'wheres Wally', I've got character development for my Magimals TV show idea, development of our Gogi Studios work space and some little sketches I tried to impress a girl with - who has a cooking show on a local television channel. I thought it might be cool if her opening credits were animated. Unfortunately we never really talked again since. Someone has to remind me not to make drawings to try to impress people.

Gogi Studios - Paperclip

Now that I'm Director/Lead Animator at Gogi Studios, I need to start thinking 'Gogi'. Here's a design I spun up for novel Gogi merchandising - paperclips!

TV Show - Preliminary Development Sketches

(click on the images to see them properly)

I've decided a TV show would be the best way to start animation on a large scale in Pakistan. I know it'll take time, but why wait til tomorrow what you can start developing today...

These are sketches from one of my TV show ideas, "A Boy and his Hair". It features a band of rockers of which theres an apathetic and lazy boy who's hair is alive and has the complete opposite personality than that of the boy. It also features his grandmother, who is a rock guitarist/drummer and may have been an evil super villain in her younger years.

Logo Design - Bilours Family Crest

To make a little pocket money on the side, I agreed to go back to my Graphic Designing roots and make the family crest for a friend's friend.

Moleskine - Random Selected Moleskine Sketches

Saw the theatrical play, "Dinner with an Idiot" adapted and directed by my good friend Faheem Azam and I was blown away to say the least. The story was a highly artistic adaptation of the French movie (of the same name) perfectly catered to the Islamabadi/Pakistani sense of humor - and in the Urdu language for once(!) Every actor was phenomenal and maintained full control over the stage. There wasn't a pause in laughing until the show was over. If there were any errors, they were all covered flawlessly.

The best part was that they didn't turn the lights down as they normally might in a play like this, so I had a great time quick sketching the awesome animated poses and expressions each strong character moved in.

An evening at the popular "Paper Microphone" and the ex tempo artist performances were great. I love places like these. I get to meet like minded strangers.

Just playing around with character development while thinking of how Gogi might be redesigned too.

The left side was sketched while at 'Hot Spot', a popular ice cream joint in Islamabad. The rest were scribbled while in a meeting at the Environment Ministry with the Minister of Environment (and a whole bunch of other high position people).

It's so much fun sketching at Jam sessions; looking at these sketches again reminds me that I want to go more often. Pretty good guy and getting to know friend, Uzair Jaswal is in these sketches too. I think it would be great to make an animated music video for him. I just feel like the songs I've heard of his so far aren't a perfect reflection of my impression of his personality and it would just be so much more fun to make a video with the ideas I have in my head instead of making a formulaic video without any feel.

After Effects Exercise - The Queen... in Vegas

Since this was an exercise in compositing images in motion using still images to practice on, I didn't 'allow' myself to use anything more than the pen tool to lasso images together.

Margalla Hills Signage

Time to crash course through the passed six months or so. I was working on a lot of projects in this time; I just didn't have time to post them here.

These were suggestions for signage along the Margalla Hills. I thought it would be good to add a little humor while I was at it. ...But why haven't they made these yet?

Graphic Novel - 'The Tinboxed Tiger' Development

This isn't much to show but I have finally begun work on painting my graphic novel!! 'The Tinboxed Tiger'. I am expecting my first painting to take the longest since I will be learning plenty as I go along. The first stage was thumbnailing, the second stage was to prepare the wooden board with emulsion. It is now at the beginning of the third stage - applying the first layers of medium (lining and color). It was as far as I could go amidst one very busy day.

I would like to figure out a way to paint a complete page every day but that might be quite difficult seeing as Eid and new years are around the corner, Gogi Studios is shifting location and there are innumerable 'mandatory' events in between. Good luck to me!

Digital Paint - Coffee

Here's my promised coffee. I had a lot of difficulty with this one and it still doesn't look right.

Gogi Studios Move Out

Gogi Studios (along with my animation division, Gogimation) is finally moving into its new premises. Ever since properly investing in the studios we have wanted to make Gogi Studios a bigger and better place and a place where people want to work, and not have to work.

Tomorrow will mark the first day of emptying the apartment floor from its previous tenants to make way for the studios. In the meantime, enjoy this lonely tequila. I'm going to need coffee pretty soon after all this alcohol...


p.s. scroll down to see photos updated on the 'Seminar At Hunerkada' post.

Foreign Animation Update - 99

Animation is thriving around the world. 'Freej', the highly popular animated TV series produced and directed by Mohammad Harib in the UAE for the entire Arab world was a pleasant discovery for me. I had also been hearing a lot about an up and coming animated series called The 99 - with a concept and name in reference to the 99 names of Allah. My AWN newspaper came in the mail today and wallah - the news about this project has finally reached the general animation audience.

I had heard rumors that Mohammad Harib is not only involved but is the person heading the animation team for this project. However I didn't notice his name anywhere in the article - credit is given to Dr. Naif Al Mutawa. Also, there is no mention of the concept of '99' being derived from the 99 names of Allah. It is not mentioned in this article and probably wisely so. Instead, focus is given on the execution of the concept of 99 'global values' (global values??) in the form of superheroes. Yerks! I hope they do it well.

I can't wait to see glimpses of the animation. It looks like it is being done with a huge budget and support. The comic clearly has connections with artists from Marvel and DC Comics both in the writing aspects and art. According to the article, the comics are distributed widely throughout the Middle East, Indonesia and South Asia. I personally haven't seen anything of the sort, although I have heard people buzzing a bit. The 99 will soon make its debut on millions of water bottles (?) licensed by Nestle Waters. To top this all, the first of six 'The 99' theme parks is due to open in Kuwait early 2009. Man. If only Pakistan had Arab money to invest in something as big as this.

Feel free to add whatever you know or have heard about the 99 in the comments of this post.

You can read the entire article online HERE. The official website for the 99 is HERE.

Painting Digital Alcohol - Further 'Deliberation'

I didn't work on my graphic novel today either. Instead, I fixed up Santa and painted alcoholic beverages.

My First Digital Paint - Santa

I wanted to paint (acrylics and mixed media) the first page of my graphic novel: 'The Tinboxed Tiger' today. Instead I digital painted Santa for a friends friend. I've never really painted before so this is a first for me.

E Card - Last Eid Mubarak

I made this quick little ecard last Eid. I hope I'm able to make something fun for Eid-Ul-Azha (Bakra (Goat) Eid). It's right around the corner and should be theoretically easier to make into a funny cartoon. If anyone else is making ecards, I'd love to see them.

Seminar at Hunerkada

The seminar yesterday went quite well and the turnout was inspiring! Halfway through my presentation, I noticed the organizers squeezing in more chairs and there were still people who had to stand. Click on the images below if you'd like to read the article that came in the paper today. Thank you Saadia Khalid for your pleasant article:

Errors I must point out:
- My last name is spelled 'Abbas'.
- I was slightly misquoted. No single film to date, including animated ones, have been able to bring in a billion dollars. Shrek is an animated movie series with which episodes 1 and 2 together, along with their merchandising and everything that goes with, have been able to pull in 8 billion dollars by Dec. 2007 for the Dreamworks studio.


Update: Photos! (Click on each to see larger)

Sorry about the blur. I wasn't the camera-person.

This is at the very beginning of the presentation. Double the number turned up halfway through.

Hunerkada Seminar - 29th November

The 'finished' poster jpg has finally been sent to me with final amendments made at the Hunerkada end. Drop the flyers from planes, attach as a virus to computers, distribute to beggars to hand out at traffic signals! Well, do what you must, but tell interested people to come anyway.

PLEASE NOTE: Time is 11:00am - 1:00pm (10:30am for people who like to take their time)

Moleskine - Event: Writers Guild Annual Meeting 2008

I went looking to meet creative writers, humorous writers, fiction writers at the fearfully literary sounding: 'Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq'. Yep. That's the official name in Urdu. It roughly translates to - the 'circle of members of taste'. I had my trusty moleskine with me as usual and observed some entertaining faces.

Moleskine - Mehndi Sketches

I went to a Mehndi (the official party thrown by the brides friends before the actual wedding) last night. I got bored for a lot of the time before the dances started so I took out my trusty moleskine and had fun drawing people.

By the time the dances began I had lost all inhibition and went right to the front to draw their movements in clear view. One of the dancers clearly had no inhibitions either and I'm sure a parent or two took their children out of the room for the while she had her 3 minutes on stage.


Oh and a girl next to me told me 'your drawings are amazing'. Wow. Now thats a compliment! ^_^

Coming Soon - Seminar at Hunerkada

As part of my initiative to do my part in spreading animation as an art and career choice in my country that is quite devoid of it, I am signing up with several universities/colleges near and around Islamabad to teach the subject as a regular course. It's quite an endeavor in itself but if I take all these things step by step I hope it'll be worth my efforts.



The course at Hunerkada will be starting very soon. In the meantime I've prepared a flyer to be sent advertising a 2 hour seminar presentation in which I will introduce the subject. It will most probably be held on the 29th of this month at Hunerkada (the address on the flyers above is incorrect) As far as my observation has been, I feel that animation is a lesser known subject here still. So most of my seminar will be an attempt to explain what it is and why it is so exciting to me. If I manage to interest students, they can register for the upcoming course right there.

These are the two designs. I like the flat white design but since this is an introduction of animation to a lot of people who might not be completely acquainted with film, I'm wondering if the more obvious one is the better choice. Anyone want to help me choose?

I'll be looking forward to teaching at NCA (Pindi) and FJWU starting somewhere around January.

p.s. If there is anything anyone would like me to talk about in the seminar, please do let me know in the comments section of this post. I want to do my best to inspire more people to extract as much knowledge of Animation and what I learned living in Hollywood from my brain.

Meeting With An Old Friend In Animation - Taqi

Taqi Shaheen, an old friend from NCA and talented film-making animator came over to my place yesterday and we caught up on things. He is teaching stop motion animation (they call it 'Table Top Animation' there) regularly at the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Pindi. I was excited to get his updates. We talked for hours!

Eventually I asked to see his students work if he had any with him. I got to see the above films, 12 of them in all. These are the first attempts at animation for these students. I think they are a good start and show promise. It seems that these are exercises rather than attempts at complete films, so I appreciated that some did try to present a legible storyline. I particularly liked Jojo's Adventures by Sidra Iftekhar. It had a reasonable sense of story, the characters were nicely designed and it showed plenty of attention to detail (like the face on the door). Duddoo Mian by Anoshia Hamid and Hammad was cute although it seemed to drag a little bit for me. But once again, there was a cute story to follow and was well designed. All of them were cute to watch and showed enthusiasm and the energy to create animation using whatever is available. Good luck girls and I would love to see more from you!

Progress of Animation in Bollywood

Remember the time when Indian movies copied Hollywood movies? I'm pretty sure they still do. Ever since Disney joined forces with Yash Raj Films there are a few movies 'coming soon' that remind me of a few other internationally acclaimed movies. I'll be brash and point out which ones...

Roadside Romeo - (Lady and the Tramp)
Ali Baba - (Aladdin)
Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang - (Antz (name from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang))
Jumbo - (Dumbo)

here are some articles for you to read to keep in touch with animation this side of the planet: http://www.thenews.com.pk/instep_today.asp (scroll down to the bollywood buzz section) and http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/10/04/disney-discovers-bollywood/

a long time coming (back)

Good lord! It's been more than a year since I posted anything on my blog. Even though I would like to say that its been because I've been doing a lot since then, that's only half the truth. I have been very busy doing a lot of art and animation related things, but I've also been busy with a lot of other things in life too. For one I've finished my thesis and have moved to Pakistan for a while.

Anyway, I only intend this blog to be about art and animation and I'll stick by that. I did do a lot of it since the last post and so will also attempt to update this blog with most of that as well. Do keep watching this space, I'll be giving updates about my progress in getting animation, especially traditional animation, started in Pakistan, if not the Subcontinent.

Thief Film - Concept Art for Thief Character

I might not be able to make my animated character have these type of cut-out shadows but I do like how it looks. I think I'm pretty close to a final look for the thief that I'm satisfied with. He's not always going to be just happy anymore, he's somewhat resembling a vulture and his body will be completely seen now - no more gaps because of the stripes in his clothes. There are still unresolved issues but they'll heal with time. Now I need to start placing the design with different backgrounds and getting him to move to see which combination of character over background is readable but still pretty.

p.s. I like that this pose makes my thief take the form of a question mark, which was actually an accident. He is a bit of a mystery to me and I still don't know when he's going to settle down into a design! Hurry up Numair, get with it!

Thief Film - Background Stylistic Choices

Ok anyone checking these out is definitely going to have to click each one to see them properly. The black base color makes all the detail vanish so fast. Hmm.. I'm going to have to keep that in mind for the film too.

I'm trying to experiment with as many styles of brush strokes for the backgrounds before I decide on the final look for this thief film. In the process I'm able to test out possible techniques for the characters too. I'm not sure I can make any concrete decisions with these experiments alone just yet. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to lay out all my options once I feel like I can't come up with any more/get tired and then mix and match with the options of the animated thief. I only know the feelings I'd like to provoke in the viewers so I'm going to have to use that to make my decision. Errr... I might need to hurry soon if I want to have something viewable in time for the Prom!!

These illustrations above are all made with vectors in Freehand. The textures are scans. I don't know if that would make it easier to animate with. That's to be thought of later on anyway. Right now I need to focus on a nice look.


And these two are the same as above but in day situations. Somehow I like how they look in day situation more than night. They're just so much more readable. I can't change that in the story though so I'll just have to be happy looking at them here in the meantime.

TV Show - brainstorming

I'm developing some ideas for a tv show to be sold in Pakistan.

Above is some development. Scanned in paper, illustrated in photochop.



And this above is having made some (deceptive) progress. i.e. none at all. I feel like I'm still undecided which design is best.

So I'm really confused which character looks better (see: more appropriate) than the others and I'm scared to ask for opinions ...because right now I have almost no real opinion of my own!!

I've also posted a little test animation with one of these characters to see how it might end up looking in (not so) glorious 'tv series' limited motion HERE (ON YOUTUBE).

Thief Film - Rich Magnate Design

Here's some development of the rich magnate the thief bumps into on his way out. I'm sorry about the ugly untextured 3d designs. On top are sketches of the final design. I haven't finished modelling the 3d character but I'd say he's pretty much 85% done except for the body and ears. Oops yeah I seem to have forgotten to add those but they're going to be tiny anyway.

I'll try to post some development sketches of this guy later. My scanner/computer isnt really loving me back these days.

Thief Film - Development

Some stylistic experimentation with the look for the backgrounds. I think this would look very jarring on the big screen unfortunately even though I do like the stark graphic design feel of it. It would be nice to use some of my past graphic design experience in my film.
This is a style I could use for the thief / animation itself. It's inspired from urdu/arabic calligraphy and would be nice to show the 'beauty' in his dance.

Btw, I'm trying to think of names for this film now and I've thought 'Possession Dance' might be somewhat explanatory. I'm using this line to explain what my film is about for the Spotlight Show at UCLA - "What's more important? Values or things? A thief and a magnate help figure it out. ". I'm finally doing a film that has meaning but still focuses more on the entertainment values! Hooray!

Thief - Fan Art

Megan made me this Fanart. I love it! And I really like the way she's connected the head with the arms. I think I might actually use that, Megan ...is that ok with you? :)

Bill Plympton at UCLA

Oh did I mention Bill Plympton had come to the lab to give us a talk and presentation with some of his films? :D I've uploaded a video on YouTube HERE. It's not so great but still watchable.

Thief Designs

I'm finding it hard to get the particular look for the thief so I thought I'd refer to my inspiration of the character - a vulture. That got me thinking maybe I could try other birds too.
Nope. Vulture suits it best. These are most of the designs I've gone through so far most just modifications of its predecessor. The hardest part is going to be the neck joining the rigid head to the overly flowing torso.
I like strokes for arms and legs. Details like fingers can appear only when he needs them. He's an efficient thief after all and he loves his job to the point where it's an art he enjoys.
I just thought that design modification in the bottom right corner was funny so I added this page in too. Right now I'm thinking; what is it that makes the UPA style so beautiful to me?
Yeah this might be pushing the vulture thing a bit too far. That neck thing really just won't work. He has to stay an 'inspiration' from the vulture design and not an 'imitation'. I don't really think it's that super important in the film as long as the audience feels a slight connection I'll be happy.

Inspirational Animators

Paul Driessen, an amazing Dutch animator gave us a presentation at UCLA today. In the afternoon we had a personal discussion session with him and our animation department and then in the evening the official screening was presented with his fascinating films.

Finals are around and I wasnt able to attend the whole presentation. So unfortunately I don't have footage to upload on YouTube. But I took some notes!

Firstly, I think he's such a humble guy! He's got so much experience and his films are so clear and powerful. His animation style is so unique and the amount of work and care he puts into his work is so obviously more than most mortal animators these days. Anyway, you can see I was inspired. He said unfortunately theres not much money to be made as short film animators. Friends and I talked to him afterwards to suggest some ideas that maybe would work with his high quality work and relationship with the rest of the industry. He took our suggestions in stride and said we might have some good ideas there. Damn, did I mention he's humble?

Quick notes since I'm taking a lot of space here... I like that he does'nt get influenced by other animators; he gets inspired. As animators we should find our own way of storytelling. When asked about style, he pointed that not only do you show your visual style in your films, you also have sensibilities which show in your time and pacing and come from your personal feelings. For his unique sound effects, he often uses stale boiled macaroni...! Now thats ingenious!

Here are some stills I took from the Glen Keane presentation on March 4th. In the top photo Glen is showing samples of art from his portfolio. The bottom photo was when he was demonstrating straight lines and curves and how they look great when youre able to balance them together. Check out the videos I uploaded to hear a bit more about that. One of them got linked on a whole bunch of awesome sites including CartoonBrew, Seward Street and CookedArt !!!

So anyway, some quick notes of what struck me most from what Glen Keane talked about in his presentation... "Don't be afraid to shock. Learn the principles of animation, and then put them at the back of your head when you actually go in to animate - live it... don't formulise it. Don't do 'animation' things - do 'real' things. Find the 'golden poses' in your animation and build the animation around that. Animate the forces in the animation. Art is not age or color (or any other prejudice)".

Thief Film - mansion sketches in vectors

Ok so getting back to my Thief film, here I've tried sketching the mansion in vectors to see if it could be an artistic approach I could take. I know it would be easier to draw whatever within the computer if I want to turn it into a 3 dimensional environment in Maya but somehow I'm just not satisfied with these at all. Its looking more like Fosters than UPA and no matter how good I am at managing vectors, I just really like that coarse feel of hand drawn of UPA. I dont want to be imitating it tho - I mean, its just for inspiration really. Or so I'd like to say. So anyway, I wish people would leave comments on what they think of this stuff and my direction. I know people are viewing this page but no comments! Animation so far is a lonely art *sob*. Hmm.. I might have to post on Devart again now. hehe.

p.s. I know these sketches are incomplete. (e.g. the upper windows are just rectangles right now). These were meant just to be sketches anyway. But if I ever polish them up I'll replace them here.

Storytelling in Photographs - Stalking

Stalking:






Here's a question for everyone... which photos do you think I can take out without harming the story?

p.s. Ofcourse damned auto-focus made the trees beauuutifully sharp in the second last shot. Sorry bout that. :p

Storytelling in Photographs - Lost

Lost:Chanya had some great facial expressions for my stories. Click on each picture to appreciate them better.

Just a little hectic...

I've got some really good work coming up soon... my schedule's just gotten even tighter than normal as of late but I'll upload as soon as I'm able. For the time being, here's a little something I made today.Lasting Impressions
(click to see larger)

Flower Film screen tests

Here are a few tests of what my 'Flower Love' (working title) film might look like. The flower isnt rigged yet so thats why it looks all rigid and stuff here. The story is of a flower professing his love for the sun. She is far away from him, but she's the reason he lives. Kind of like my own story. It ends badly.

a little paid work

I know this is weird. But I got paid for it so I suppose I should upload what I can. I designed the layout and illustration of a soda pop for a cell phone game. Anyway, Im not allowed to show the layout etc right now so I'll just upload the glass and bubbles illustration here. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm gearing up for a lot of shooting for my film classes (live action) and also for some serious heavy duty work on my animated films as well as weelll as looking for a place to move into. Please find me something someone! I need to find a room to rent within 700 bucks. I can stretch to 750 or so for a good place that I can still get to UCLA somewhat easily. Anyway, lets see how things go down, I've got to be super careful about time management now. Skateboard don't fail me.

Thief Film Development

Ok so finally I can start uploading development of the films I'm working on right now...

These are sketches of the interior of my 'mansion' where the thief will prance about stealing everything around him. I want this look for my backgrounds but am still working on how to achieve it with the way I'm imagining I'll be animating it. Look about the sketches (click on them to see them much larger) and you'll see I've got a lot of other things developing there too. I'm sorry I've got a pretty messy way of developing my ideas.

photography samples

I did some photography around Los Angeles especially toward the end of last year which I should post before I get into my films development. So these five examples should be good enough samples I hope...

shelved film - Lunch Monkey

This is work from a film I was going to make in 3d but decided to shelf because I'm doing so much else these days I don't have the time to complete 3 films right now. I'm just going to stick to doing 2 for the time being. Click on the images to see them properly. No offence to anyone with the character design but it was meant to add to the film. If anyone has any complaints I'm willing to replace it with my censored version.

some Archie redesigns

Some time back there was a lot of talk going around about on how the Archie comics were going to be drawn in a new (really really ugly) style. As a bit of constructive reaction, I heard people were designing their own versions of the Archie gang. I did a couple but I can only show these because um.. my scanner stopped working ever since I moved house and these are already in the computer. (Damn I've got to stop making everything in vectors now. Its about time I moved on to something else...)

vormator dot com project

vormator.com was having some sort of design/illustration competition where you had to make an illustration using only these elements:

The winners will be featured in a compilation book so I thought I'd give it a shot and I sent them these two options.
I call them 'Scaredy Catch' and 'Alien Invitation' respectively. I dont know whats going on with those vormator guys tho... I mean, it looks like they're still trying to figure out who's going to publish their book...??
Dated: Dec 25th 2006

hand made 2007 new years cards

I made new year cards for friends and family based on this awesome art:I know; mine are nowhere near as good as the original but I needed an idea I could do quickly. All my other ideas were taking waaay too long. ;-(

I also made custom cards...

newspaper comic strip

I wanted to start a comic strip for the newspaper when I was back home. A little local humor not everyone will get. These are two of a lot I never got to send them. Click on them to read them properly.
Dated: Sept. 2005

not communicating

a blog begins...

As a friend of mine says, when its crunch time you want to do anything but work. I don't know how true that is though, because I'm working harder than ever before! Not only that, but I just broke up with my girlfriend, who I was almost going to get married to. (Or rather, she broke up with me. Or rather still, her mom broke her up with me.) So this is my way of forgetting her forever. Here I am.. start a blog!

I'd like this to be a sketchblog in accordance with what all the awesome Cal Arts students do, but I'm also a storyteller and definitely an ideas guy so I just know I'm going to end up throwing a lot of text about on this blog too. Anyone and everyone is more than welcome to advise or criticize. Thats what blogs are for.

So I'm going to upload old work first because I'd like to look back on it one day and see if I'd been moving forward or backwards along time. No worries, I'll try to date it all as accurately as possible. Here goes...

dating further backwards...

If you want to see any of my work even older than whats on this blog, check out http://nimer.deviantart.com . I am blown away by the talent thats on that site/forum/whatever and one day I'll get back to uploading my work there too.