Sunday Comics 07-16-06

You guys sick of Guillermo Divito yet? I'm not. Here are a few originals from my collection / obsession ....







gotta get back to my Sunday,
phil

listening to: a Scandinavian typing an ad to sell his couch in NYC.... anyone need a couch?

feeling: like a million ducks

Anniversary

July 5th marked my 1 year anniversary in Los Angeles. It's been a wild ride, and I've had the pleasure of meeting some really great people. I miss New York, and the people in it mostly, but my old friends in LA along with some new ones have really helped me make it feel more like home.

Thanks everyone.


pumping the mega-mix,
Uncle Phil

sketch dump 06-20-2006

Day 8 of 8

I can't believe it. I actually made it through 8 days. Small goals, baby steps, the path to success. Someone buy me an icecreams.



-p

oh, and Andy's t-shirt is being printed at Threadless! Go buy one for the whole family.

Sketch dump 06-19-2006

sketch dump 06-18-2006

Day 6 of 8



My first non-post-it drawing of the potential side kick for my Kosmonaut. Some personality is missing, but it was the first.

feeling: sunburnt and sleepy
listening to: the song-like whisper of a new air-conditioner

g'nite,
Phil

sketch dump 06-17-2006

This lovely lady is actually inspired by a kid I went to high-school with. Between classes he would walk outside of the building in front of a section with large windows. He would collect any birds that had accidentally flown into the window, and take them home to practice his taxidermy.

Last I heard, he is now in Pennsylvania and has a large collection of (live) exotic animals.

saturday,
Phil

sketch dump 06-16-2006

Ever feel like you're straddling the brink of insanity?

POST-ITS!



feeeling: waxy

sketch dump 06-15-2006

Day 3.



.... That was a good question Mike. The truth is, I have no clue were my style is going. I'm just making sure I enjoy the ride. I feel like I've definitely come a long way, and that keeps me going. As a designer, I think my greatest strength is my willingness to work in a very wide range of "styles" and aesthetics. This keeps work really fun, but I think that I stumble when it comes to my own work. I find myself asking the question "How should I draw this?" instead of just drawing, and allowing for my stuff to evolve naturally. So yeah, I have no clue where my work is going, and as long as I'm having fun, I really don't care. Both Mike and Albert probably have a better idea than me of where my work's headed, just because you guys know where I've come from (Oral Hi-jinx *cough* *cough*).

see you when I see you,
UP

sketch dump 06-14-2006

Day 2.



Gotta love post-its.

... And it's my little sister's birthday!

sketch dump 06-13-2006

I was going to post a bunch of drawings, but I thought I could stretch them out over a few days.... 8 days to be exact.

Day 1.



This is what sketch pages of mine typically look like (...like you care). It's 100% completely unaltered. I find that these drawings are actually less about the "finished" drawing, but more about enjoying the liveliness of brush pen on slick copier paper. Lots of happy accidents occur, and it's a great way for me to experiment with design ideas and different types of mark making.

I also updated my links. They're completely unorganized, but they've been long over-due. The whole blog's going to be a-changing soon, so hold on to your pants.

I'm done. See you tomorrow.

listening to: The Raincoats, Black and White

Hey, hey, hey. Hey ladies.

There are two great sets of posts going on right now, both dealing with great drawings of women. First is on Blackwing Diaries; there are a ton of Freddie Moore drawings, most of which are his signature appealing women. This guy's amazing in my opinion. His girls are solid as hell, but delicate as lace... that's good drawing.

Secondly, on Eddie Fitzgerald's Theory blog, he talks about his theory of 'woman are just men with long hair and boobs'. Supported with some amazing examples of hilarious cartooning. Don Martin and Milt Gross to be exact.

So tonight I watched England and Hungary play a friendly pre-World Cup match and decided to plop myself in front of my tv and draw some girls. Here are a few of them, with some self indulgent grey-tones.... well, actually, I think the drawing's themselves are pretty self indulgent. They're not quite as sensitive as I would have liked, nor do they really illustrate any idea or emotion. Oh well.

These are much more in the Fred Moore school of drawing versus the Milt Gross. I think I'll sit down tomorrow and try to grow some balls and do something funny.

Hope ya dig.






...and go buy the Venture Bros Season 1 boxed set.

-Phil

.....i'm not kidding. buy it.

Sunday Comics 05-29-06

Here is a Guillermo Divito original scanned for your eyes only. This guy aint half bad.



-p

awesome dudes

Part Greystoke, part Barbarian, part Hulkamaniac. Completely awesome dudes.
what was I thinking?




more stuff to come in a much more timely manner.

promises,
phil

space mechanic sketches

here are a few quick Kosmanaut sketches. be warned, some a pretty ugly. like the top right one on that first page. i don't even know what i was thinking.





can you smell the C.H. Greenblatt influence on some of these? I can, and it smells like bromance.

-p

long time no blog

It's been a wild ride over the last few months, both professionally and personally. I'm not going to get all emo-blogger, but I'll say that the last few months had some of the most powerfully positive and negative moments of my life. That's enough about that.

...

I've tried to make it a personal goal not to include any of my professional work on here, but today I'm going to fall back on my word. Last week, Cartoon Network ran a slew of new Billy and Mandy episodes. To celebrate that, I wanted to share a design I was (I see nothing but mistakes now) quite proud of. His name is Mighty Moe and basically he's an elderly man with an obsession for fitness. So Grim can't do what he does best. The episode he's from is called Major Cheese and was boarded by Brett Varon. I never really got to speak with Brett much about the board, he preferred working from home. But I always enjoyed the insanity of his work. It made for some very funny moments and were a load of fun to design.


...
Jimmy Swinnerton is a pretty amazing cartoonist. His drawings are cute and bizarre all at once. This book was a sweet find on the Heritage Auction site.... don't go there, I don't want to be outbid on anything.
Here are a few pages that I think people should see.



...

Drawing for myself has been a little slow-going lately. My mind has been in a million places. I did these drawings after meeting someone that had a sweet future retro leather jacket. ...just stuck in my head


Drawings of girls with guns really isn't my thing normally, but changing it up never hurts.

...

I went to the UPA screening at the Egyptian earlier tonight (or is it last night by now). It was awesome to say the least. The films were all incredibly entertaining and each were unique in design, execution, mood, and story. The idea of "UPA style", which is something in animation we hear quite regularly, is almost non-existant. The most common trait amongst all of the films was that they were treated with style. Not a repetitive style, but each film was timed with style, designed with style, scored with style, etc. That was some really ballsy stuff those guys were doing. Balls that I dream of.... that sounds awful.

One of the highlights of the night was seeing one of my old teachers from SVA, Howard Beckerman. His history of animation class was one of my favorites, I just wish SVA had a better room for the class. There were poles down the center aisle, so there were 2 small screens instead of one decent one. The rows of seats were incredibly close together so you pretty much had someone's legs around your head and yours around someone else's. Not to mention that Sammy (the awesome... well... I was going to say camera booth guy, but he isn't. He's more like the lord of the amphitheater)..any way... Sammy kept the room's climate set to exactly the conditions of the womb. Simply put, It was a tough viewing experience. But it was good talking to Howard for a few minutes.

That one's for you, Al.

...

I'll leave you with my cats. (i'm the one on the left)

They're a mother and daughter I just adopted. They were named when I adopted them, Savannah and Josephine, but Jared, your suggestions are awesome; Gultar and Megatron. I feel a little funny renaming them. I even picked out some new names, but haven't used them yet. The new names I was going to use were Inca names, which my sister thought was just ridiculous.

She's right, I'm a pollock/wop from jersey.

I guess I'll just call them Tony.

-p

Life Drawing at the EAA

I did some life drawing at the Entertainment Art Academy on Saturday morning. It was a good time and the model was pretty great. I was standing and my easel was a little low, so I kept drawing figures with unnaturally short legs. Oh well.

Here are a few that I had some fun making.





-p

feeling: prematurely sleepy
listening to: "Never Had a Dream Come True" Stevie Wonder (Sure, i'm more of a "Hey Harmonica Man" guy, but there are no lies on this blog, and that's what's playing)

Floating Donkey

I was brushing up on some flash and did this sketch. You'll be seeing a lot more of these guys on the blog in the future. They're for a project I'm developing, and I'm still doing a lot of soul searching to figure out who the characters are.



tlazocamati,
Phil

Sunday Comics - Divito -

I just got back from a research trip to Las Vegas. I didn't learn much, but I had a great time. One of my favorite highlights of the trip was eating a deep-fried Twinky in historic Downtown Vegas. I really dug Downtown, it was the Vegas that Hollywood put in my head. If you're going to visit, make sure you don't miss old Vegas.

---

It's been a while since a Sunday Comics post. So, BOOM, you get one today.

These are both scans of Guillermo Divito originals I own. Neither feature any of the lovely ladies he's recognized for, but I think they're cool none the less (here's a great example of said ladies Oscar Grillo posted on one of his blogs). I've always loved seeing how artists grow, so the black and white drawing from 1939 is really interesting for me. He was 25 at the time, and the artistic growth he would experience in just the next 5 years is really inspiring, let alone the growth through the entirety of his career.

I hope you enjoy.





Also be sure to check out Alberto Ruiz's "Process Junkie Blog". He's been posting some real cool stuff by illustrator Jorge Ginès.

-up

Back from New York

I'm back from New York. After attending my first gallery opening with some of my own work on display, I've decided it was pretty sweet and I want to do it again. Thank you Liz for curating the show (and inviting me to contribute) and Stay Gold for having such a sweet space.

It was great to see some old friends out there and being back in New York just feels great. I miss it every day.

Here are some photo's from the night, taken buy Tennessee's own Jenna Adcock. "Do what?"


This is what the gallery looked like from across the street all night.


Inside was unbelievably crowded as well. I didn't really get to see the show until I went back the following day, I wasn't nearly brave enough to try and inch my way around the gallery.


Not 10 minutes after I had arrived, I heard that they had run out of free booze (coincidence i swear). I was extremely happy because I thought that pretty much proved that we had a successful turnout. But then I thought that everyone would clear out and that was a disappointing thought. Nope. People didn't leave, they just simply went to the bodega on the corner and bought their own alcohol. Pretty sweet indeed.


Here's a guy with a mohawk looking at my stuff. I don't know who he is, but I think I may have seen him earlier in the day at my Alma Matter, SVA. So thanks for coming.

The show will be up for the remainder of the month, so check it out if you can. It's worth it just for Christy Karacas's two pieces (and a little bit of new animation). If you haven't seen Barfight or Space War watch them now and then go to the show. And you can buy a strong man while you're there.

**ALSO**

I'd like to retract my statement about the deviants at Warner Bros. Animation. I found my girly marker doodles, they were not removed from my desk. I am sorry if anyone's taste was insulted. I realize that if deviants were going to plot the theivery of girly marker doodles, they would take Bruce Timm's and not mine. I'm retracted.

see you when I see you,
Uncle Phil

New Year Scribbles

My computer's still at the mechanic's so this one's going to be short.

Here are some from the pile next to my desk at work. I really wanted to post some marker sketches I had done, but they seem to have gone missing. Apparently Warner Bros. Animation is not a safe place to leave girly marker sketches over the holidays. Oh well. Maybe I brought them home or something.



















Also......

This Friday, January 13th, is the opening of the "Too Art for TV" show in New York. You may have seen it mentioned on the Brew. I have some drawings/paintings in the show. It was my first time creating work for a group show, and I had a good time doing it. I'm not sure if I like what I produced, but then again I never do. Either way, I'm proud to be in the show. So go see it.



happy new year,
UP

listening to: "The Sounds of Monsterism Island" muffled through Warner Bros. cubicles
feeling: hungry