A Gran Red Carpet Premiere

Last weekend, I participated in a super fun event to celebrate the release of Season 3 of Dawn of the Croods on Netflix. Starting last year, I have had the immense honor of working on this hilarious show! The event was held at the comic/coffee shop The Perky Nerd in Burbank, and included a live table read of one of our scripts by our illustrious voice cast...as well as a live drawing demo done by yours truly and some of my insanely talented fellow crew members! All of them are so inspiring, to be able to take part in this celebration alongside them for the first show that I've worked on as a Storyboard Revisionist, was such a special moment for me!!

For my portion of the drawing demo, I chose to draw my absolute favorite Crood - the sassy and self-assured Gran! I was thinking, if there were a big fancy Hollywood red carpet premiere for Dawn of the Croods, what (or who) would Gran wear?! The answer that I came up with was this elegant gown made from the fur of a Bear Owl...but no need to worry pre-historic PETA, no Bear Owls were harmed in the making of this dress (I'm pretty sure). To tie the look all together, Gran is also rocking a broach lent to her by my other favorite Croods character, Amber. That's right, that broach is actually Amber's eye patch...but Gran promised to return it as soon as the premiere is over. "Amber need that back!"

Once my drawing demo was done, I was able to meet Laraine Newman, the voice of both Gran AND Amber (that's right, she voices my two favorite characters)! She was one of the original cast members on Saturday Night Live, and has had a legendary career in comedy ever since. She was incredibly nice, and was sweet enough to sign my drawing of Gran!

Our drawing demos were streamed on Facebook Live, but it can be played back below. Unfortunately there were some technical glitches, so the video cuts out at around 12:00 and then comes back on at around 22:30. What can you do, that's live TV...er, Facebook for ya!

And you can see the table read with Laraine Newman and the other fantastic cast memebers below. They're being led by our incomparable Executive Producer, Brendan Hay.

Gaga's Hell Piano

A few weeks ago, my awesome friend Tinah Lai introduced me to the world of the NASA Datanauts. It's an amazing program that NASA is doing right now, to encourage girls to explore the data science frontier through classes, fellowships and apps. Tinah got a group of friends together to show us how to put together a keyboard using some foam core, circuit boards and a mobile app. When you connect it to your smart phone via Bluetooth, you can push the keys and sound FX will play on your phone. I'm talking sound FX...from space!! Everyone assured me that the sound FX were from NASA's vast archives, but I'm pretty sure that we made contact with extraterrestrial beings and now they're super excited to come to Earth and hang out with us.

We also got to decorate our keyboards, and mine of course ended up featuring one of my Post Modern Muses. And who better to communicate with space via keyboard than Lady Gaga?? I'm calling the device Gaga's Hell Piano

It's directly inspired by her extraordinary performance of "Paparazzi" on Saturday Night Live way back in 2009. With its fierce scarlet lighting, flames in the foreground, and Gaga and her backup dancers' red leather ensembles...I'm pretty sure this performance metaphorically takes place in hell. I have my theories about what this all means symbolically, but I'll spare you all from a 400+ paged dissertation.

 

Melissa McCarthy and More

In April, I took an amazing gesture drawing class taught by the incomparable Glenn Harmon at DreamWorks. Glenn covered a ton of ground each week, giving us specific tips and tricks...and then immediately had us put those lessons into action with quick gestures drawings of a live model. Below are a couple of my lightning round sketches.

We were also given a sketchbook, which we were supposed to fill up each week with as many gesture drawings as possible. The first week, I was on a big Melissa McCarthy kick (when am I not?) because she was on a massive press tour for her movie The Boss. I basically DVR-ed every single talk show appearance that she made that week, then paused them a bunch to do quick gestures of her. It also doubled as research for my character Lilinoe...which Melissa McCarthy is a blatant inspiration for.

A lot of the sketchbook pages are of Melissa making her entrances, walking over to greet James Corden, Ellen DeGeneres, etc. BUT THEN she did the most epic Lip Sync Battle with Jimmy Fallon of all time! That was the most fun to gesture for sure! She killed it doing DMX...and then slayed "Colors of the Wind" with an industrial fan that nearly blew her backwards. Awe-inspiring!

Do yourself a favor and watch the Lip Sync Battle below...if you haven't already! Pocahontas would be proud!

        

Post Modern Muses make YouTube debut!

The Post Modern Muses have made their fabulous debut on YouTube! Watch the video above!

Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Britney Spears join forces to help inspire me to stop procrastinating and start drawing! The video is an animatic of a sequence that I storyboarded a while back (you can click through the panels here: Part 1 and Part 2).

I worked with the extraordinary Editor, Daniel Ortiz, to cut this animatic together. Editing the sequence together with voices, sound and music was such a blast! It also helped shine a light on B panels that we needed to add and how the overall pace was working. I'm so elated that I got to collaborate with Daniel on the edit, he really made the sequence come to life!

    

Mele Kalikimaka!

Mele Kalikimaka and Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! (I'm pretty sure that means "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" in Hawaiian...hopefully)

Here's Lilinoe spreading holiday cheer...in her own special way.

 

Meet Lilinoe

I'm taking the Story Development for Animation at the Concept Design Academy this semester, taught by the amazing Tron Mai. We're currently working on boarding an "Intro to Character" sequence. I've decided to adapt some Hawaiian mythology, because it's so full of intriguing gods/goddesses with names that are really hard to say. One goddess in particular, Lilinoe (basically sounds like you're saying Illinois with an extra "L" in front of it), is a bit lesser known. She's the godessess of mist...or more literally translated - "light rain." I really loved the idea of a sort of ineffective god. I mean, light rain, seriously? Gee, thanks Lilinoe, we really needed that in this drought we're having. But she means well, and is trying her best. Maybe with enough practice, she'll be able to make it rain (water...not dollars. This is Hawaii, not Vegas we're talking about people).

Here are some initial character designs that I did for Lilinoe...which are heavily influenced by the lovable Melissa McCarthy.

Miss Scarlet

Here are some gesture drawings that I've done over the past few months. The models always deliver some really dynamic poses...not to mention some awesome old-timey costumes.

The first set is a model who dressed up like a sexy sailor circa the 1930s-ish. The class ran out of black sharpies by the time that I got there, so I used red ones instead. I like the results, it adds a boldness that was a fun surprise.

I couldn't see her right foot in this one (it was behind the box that she was sitting on), but I like to think it looks like she's dipping it into a pool...contemplating a lost love.

These were done with the tried-and-true black sharpies. There's a femme fatale quality to her looks, which just so happens to be one of my favorite subjects to draw. Channeling Barbara Stanwyck big time.

Making herself a little more comfortable.

Looking for her lipstick...or a pistol?

And then to change things up - a dude! This guy was doing a 1920s wrestler thing, complete with handlebar mustache. I approve!

Finally, I posted my storyboard sequence entitled Vulture Counter-Culture a while back. Before I started boarding, I did some sketches of the Andean Condor and King Vulture at the L.A. Zoo for research. Below is a video that I took of the Andean Condor as he expanded his massive 10 ft. wingspan!

Vultures always come back for seconds

Before I dove into storyboaring Vulture Counter-Culture, I did a fair amount of research about these intriguing feathered friends (or frenemies perhaps? Vultures are creepy y'all).

I started at the L.A. Zoo, which features two species of vulture - the Andean Condor and the King Vulture. These two birds might be related, but judging from their appearances alone, they are for sure third cousins several times removed (disclaimer - I am not a biologist).

The Andean Condor is gigantic as far as birds go. Their wingspan is ten feet, which is quite a sight to behold when they open them up all the way...Michael Keaton as Batman status.

I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to catch the King Vulture right as she was feeding. So that means I watched a vulture eat a dead rabbit. After initially being severely grossed out, I got over it and started drawing. In the end, I'm that glad I caught this...it's what vultures do best after all.

The main vulture characters in Vulture Counter-Culture, however, were not destined to be Andean Condors (too big) or even King Vultures (they have a turkey-flappy-thing on their beaks that just wasn't right). But thanks to the world wide web, I was able to scour some invaluable information and images to help narrow it down.

I settled on the White Rumped Vulture of Africa for Noir, the story's villain. With their bald heads, sharp beaks and black feathers, they look like the most typical vulture...which was perfect for the by-the-book Noir.

When it came to "cast" Violette, the sweet and unique star of the story, I wanted to find a vulture that was distinctly different and more colorful than the others. I could not BELIEVE my eyes when I stumbled upon the White Headed Vulture. She looks like what I imagine Tilda Swinton would look like if she were a vulture. Elegant, poised, sharp hair styling...and my god that collar.

The beginnings of Violette's design.

Vulture Counter-Culture

Here's a new sequence that I boarded recently. It stars an animal that I have been intrigued by since I was a kid: the vulture. It surprises me how much I'm fascinated by them actually, because they're pretty infamous for their rather macabre eating habits. But still, I find something regal about their giant wingspans, weird bald heads, and quite fabulous feather collars. In reality though, I'd be severely freaked out if I saw one in the wild...with that intense yet vacant stare of theirs directed at me.

Enter my version of a vulture, Violette. She's not like the other vultures. I like to think of her as a subversion of a subversion, if you will...she is what I imagine Leslie Knope would act like if she were born into the Addams Family.