stop motion and all cut-out

Hour a day sculpt #12

2011-06-23T18:41:00.002-04:00

worked on this one a little longer..

Hour a day sculpt #11

2011-06-20T19:44:00.001-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #10

2011-06-20T19:43:00.003-04:00

sketch of the day

2011-06-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #8

2011-06-03T19:26:00.002-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #7 Time lapse Video

2011-06-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

An hour compressed down to 3 minutes. Enjoy.

Hour a day sculpt #7

2011-06-02T14:24:00.001-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #6

2011-06-01T16:51:00.002-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #5

2011-05-31T14:55:00.002-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #4

2011-05-28T15:40:00.003-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #3

2011-05-27T15:07:00.003-04:00

Hour a day sculpt #2

2011-05-26T14:22:00.004-04:00

Actually, only 30 min today. Distractions.

Hour a day sculpt #1

2011-05-25T13:20:00.002-04:00

Charlie Bronson

2011-05-16T13:36:00.002-04:00

Just finished up my latest.

Started work at Digitalroar Studios

2011-05-01T18:16:00.002-04:00

I recently started work @ Digitalroar Studios doing general character artwork and texturing. I'm excited by the opportunity and look forward to working on my first of hopefully many awesome games.

Video Games

2011-03-13T23:48:00.009-04:00

I haven't written anything about video games in a long while.. so I thought I'd throw something up now. A little top 5 games coming out this year list...

They'll be listed in no particular order.. more so as they come to me... which admittedly, is a little random... a LOT random actually. I haven't really thought this post through up until this second..
I'll preface this by saying, I don't play video games near as much as I use to. I'm out of the loop even. I've been concentrating on my character modeling/animation, finding a job (a little help anyone?) and my upcoming wedding stuffs.. etc.. games have a rough time of fitting into my schedule anymore.. But when I DO take the time to play.. I do enjoy it.. and there ARE certainly a handful of must haves floating out there in the ether.

1. Batman: Arkham City

The last game I played completely through was Batman: Arkham Asylum.. wait scratch that.. it was Red Dead Redemption.. which holds no similarities to the Dark Knight.. so I'll instead restate.. I played through Batman: Arkham Asylum.. and it was awesome.. I didn't get bored once. Love it. Rocksteady did something that I don't believe anyone has been able to do since video games were a thing. Which is like, FOREVER. They made a "fun" Batman game.
From what I've seen, Arkham City is a no brainer.. I'll own it first day.
I may not have time to PLAY it right away.. but by golly, it'll be sitting on my shelf waiting on me for when I can.

2. Dragon Age 2

I love me some Bioware games. I realize Dragon Age 2 is out, but I'm still working my way through Mass Effect 2. So to resist temptation, I've held off in buying it. I firmly believe that Bioware is one of the top 3 companies in the gaming business. They gets so many things right with their RPG's. One of the things that I think impress me the most about Bioware's games of late is how much better their animation tech. is getting with each new game. The facial animation in Mass Effect was kinda.. what's the word? Meh? Stiff? I mean, it got the job done.. but it was a little like watching marionette puppets. Dragon Age up'd the anti pretty significantly.. and other than the stray eyelid here and there (eyes look down and the eyelids stay wide open = FREAKY).. it was impressive. Then Mass Effect 2 came around. I was stunned by the character animation and voice acting... the gameplay was tidied up and overall streamlined. I think Red Dead Redemption may have stolen the crown for the most convincing character acting and animation.. but from what I've seen from playing the demo, Dragon Age 2 has given it a run for it's money and continues Bioware trend of perfecting and smoothing everything out even more.. from animation, graphics, story and gameplay.. top to bottom. Very excited.

3. Gears of War3

I've probably gotten more game "value" out of the Gears of War franchise than any other game.. I've sunk countless hours into the it. I enjoy the single player with co'op option and then have played multiplayer mode until the wee hours of the night.. Usually ignoring all other game releases.. until someone inevitably finds a loop hole and breaks it, discovers a way to cheat, rack up easy kills and ruin the fun for everyone. Gears of War 3 will be more of the same, which I won't complain about.. I'm sure a few unique twists here and there.. (I hear some of the soldiers have breastesess now.. wild).. but I wouldn't cry if it was just amounted to another $59.99 excuse to chainsaw locusts in half in a variety of shiny new locales. Oh.. and "god beams".

4. Star Wars: The Old Republic

Yet another Bioware game. I played a LOT of WOW.. before then I played a LOT of CIty of Heroes.. before then I played a LOT of Asheron's Call 2.. before then I played a LOT of Asheron's Call.. before then I played a LOT of Everquest.. and before then I played a LOT of Dark Age of Camelot.
In betwixt those I played a dash of Conan Age of Hyboria (the first story segment, 20 levels or so was outright AMAZING! what happened? If the game stayed at that cinematic level of quality, I'd be playing it still today) and at least a few weeks invested in Warhammer Online, Star Wars: Galaxies, Final Fantasy 11, Lord of the Rings, Guild Wars, Lineage, Dungeon and Dragons Online, and Champions Online.
I really like MMORPGs. The thing is.. they have a huge time commitment.. well.. they TAKE a huge time commitment. Steal it away the hours like hungry zombie ninjas swiping brains from Brain-Mart (tm). Hours, days slip away.. Point is, they're not games to be taken lightly and while there have been several TEMPTING offers recently (DC Universe being king of them) I've resisted, simply because I know once I delve in, I'll one day wake up with a 3 foot long beard, fingernails like a hobo tiger, and an oder no amount of deodorant can cover... they suck me in. Like recovering from a bad sushi dinner, I've been preparing myself, STEELING myself.. for the right time before I invest myself into one again. I think the Star Wars franchise, in Bioware's able hands is going to finally do what no other MMORPG has been able to do, and chip a noticeable bit of attention away from WoW.. I mean, they handled Star Wars:KNIGHTS of the Old Republic uno and dose so amazingly well.. there is no doubt it will be equal parts amazingly fun and addictive.. fun that I'll eagerly dedicate dollar and my precious time to.. most likely month after month and whether I intend to do so or not.

5. Imma going to have to get back to you on this one...

Well.. that's it for now.. there's a bunch of games I'm overlooking.. I'll come back later and make an "editors note" and add my 5th.. but for now.. it's late.. i need a shower.. and I've run on long enough.

cheers.

New Portfolio Piece

2011-02-14T15:53:00.002-05:00

Finally finished her. Lots of textures.. lots of subtools.. lots of modeling.. lots of nitpicking.. I'm still trying to decide what to call her.
This is the high resolution render straight from Zbrush with a little post work in photoshop. I also created a low poly game version which I'll post some images of on my portfolio website once I update it.

Let me know what you think.

thanks!

3A ad contest submission

2010-12-14T18:17:00.004-05:00

Here's a link to a little 3A ad I made for a contest. It was really rushed since I didn't start working on it until last night and it turned out to be quite a bit of work. It also marks the first time in a long time I just did whatever I randomly came up with and threw it on the screen. It's not "art" of course but it IS play! Sometimes to me, that's just as important.

The main idea behind this silly thing was coming up with the song. When i think about my favorite cartoons and toys from my childhood, most of the time I think of the music associated with it first. Always really corny lyrics about lightning or thunder striking and then some sort of coded message to us to buy more toys!

Anyway, it was fun from start to finish. I wish I started on it a month ago when the contest was announced. I doubt i'll win anything as a few other submissions show a bit more polish.. but no regrets. It was a nice break and a lot of fun to do!

Here's the link!

3A ad

something i'm working on

2010-12-07T13:48:00.004-05:00

WIP

"Bodies torn and ruined from combat, ex-soldiers are brought back from the brink of death and re-engineered as elite biotech warriors with super human abilities no human can match."

brodieperkins.com

2010-10-27T23:15:00.013-04:00

I finally updated my website.
I wanted to simplify the way one could view and navigate my work. Something that doesn't require clicking through too many menus and sub-menus. I've always hated sitting through someones website waiting for a bunch of thumbnails to load, and then have to click them one at a time to see them in detail.
I wanted one click.. you can see all the details about whatever particular thing your trying to see.
I knew I had a few obstacles to get through. First off, I'm not a web designer. So I used what was available to me, which in this case is iWeb. It's user freindly (it IS Apple) and it doesn't take long to get something together that looks pretty decent. On the flip of that, it doesn't take long to realize it's many limitations. The one that is bugging me the most at the moment is it's limitation of page size which is currently limited to 4k X 4k. I understand for most people this would never be an issue but for me and my idea, it is.
In order for people to see my work the way I want them to be able to see my work, several high resolution images at once, I need a lot of space. I found that it only took a couple of decent sized images side by side, to hit that.
It seems like a pointless limitation imposed by Apple. If I want to make a poorly designed massive website, by golly I should be allowed to!
My original concept for the website called for a simple, "scroll to the right, then back to the left" navigation. Like one is scanning over a series of laid out photos without having to click multiple times.
With iWebs frustrating limitation I had to reluctantly stack images top to bottom as well. This afforded me a lot more space, but slightly buggers up the simple navigation I had in mind, and the clean linear design.

Anyway, I'm always looking for ways to improve it. Clean it up. Make it more aesthetically appealing. But for now, I'm happy with my results.

please check it out if you haven't!

www.brodieperkins.com

Zbrush Tutorial : Create Brush for reusable shapes : Ears

2010-09-06T14:49:00.019-04:00

Today I thought I'd make a little tutorial on creating your own custom brush in Zbrush 4. One way I've found custom brushes extremely useful is to easily and quickly recreate forms and shapes that I use often. Having a library of these can be especially useful when trying to get some quick sketch down or some idea fleshed out.

So today I'll go over how to create a custom Brush for that very purpose. We're going to create a brush for an ear. This tutorial will not actually cover how to model an ear, but simply how to create the brush itself. Also note that while I'm showing this "trick", I would always recommend modeling and remodeling something to get your chops up.. the whole practice makes perfect thing. This is simply for those times when you want to focus on something else but have limited time to spend.

While the ear varies for each individual, it's basic structure is by and large the same. If I'm working on a human character, I sometimes use this brush as a starting point for the ear for placement and scale after which I have the option to further modify its form and topology.

First, I start with the "Plane3D" tool and drag it onto the screen.

Hit "t" to make it editable and then click "Make PolyMesh3d" under the tools pallet. This turns the plane into an editable mesh. Under tools/Geometry hit "Divide" 3 or 4 times to make the mesh dense enough for the detail required to create an ear.

Now one thing you want to be careful of is not to mess with the borders of your plane as this could cause seams when trying to use it later.. unless of course this is what your going for. So what I do first off is quickly mask the outer edge of it to prevent any accidents.
To do this, just hold "CTRL" and paint a mask around the edge.

Now your free to sculpt your ear. Generally it's best to have some sort of reference to get the anatomy right, a quick Google search should bring up plenty of options. It's also a good idea to keep your sculpt primarily in the center of your plane, away from the edges. We'll discuss this more later.

I use the Standard and Dam Standard brush for the majority of the sculpt and then the Inflat and Pinch to define the forms a bit more. You can go as far as adding skin texture to your ear if you like, but I leave mine basic as I always modify it later to match my model.

Once you've finished your sculpt, clear your mask and clean up anything that might have overlapped your border until you have a clean, even perimeter around your ear. Be careful not to deform your borders while you do this.

Now to create the brush and generate a thumbnail for it.
First under Document, click "New Document" and then resize your document to be a uniform square. I did mine @ 800x800 but you can pick whatever resolution your comfortable with. Now drag your ear_plane into the workspace, hit "T" and then hit "Frame" so your sculpt fills the documents space.

Under your Alpha pallet hit "GrabDoc". This places your ear alpha into your alpha pallet. Change your stroke to "DragRect". Under Brushes click "Clone" to create a copy of your current brush ("Standard" in this case) as not to overwrite it. This copy will soon be your ear brush.

Now to test your brush settings. Under documents set your resolution and click "new document". Select the sphere3D tool and drag it into your workspace. Hit "t" and then "Make PolyMesh3D" under your Tool Pallet. Divide your sphere under Geometry a few times so that the mesh will be dense enough to support your ear geometry.

Now select your "Standard_1" brush which should contain all your custom brush data, if the ear alpha doesn't automatically load, go ahead and select it under your alpha pallet.

Now drag your brush on the sphere to see what it looks like. You may need to adjust your Z Intensity to get results you like. Mine are set to 50 here.. *

If you like what you see, your basically finished.. if not, you can tweak the alpha to adjust your results. As you can see, I have a little bit of an edge popping up along the border of my alpha, there's an easy fix for that.

Dock your Alpha pallet to the side and look for the "Rf" slider. This is a radial fade slider that will knock out edge artifacts and give you a smooth transition. This is also why when creating these types of brushes you want to do the bulk of your sculpting in the center and leave plenty of room around the border for clean up and a smooth transition into your mesh.
I adjusted mine to about 15 and redraw on the sphere to check the results.

There it is, all better!

If your still not happy with your results you can try to modify the MidValue of the alpha or even play with the AlphaAdjust Curve to fine tune your brush. You can see your results of your settings while you make them in the alpha thumbnail.

Now that you've got your brush all set up, it's time to save it and place it so it's there for you everytime you start Zbrush.

To create a thumbnail for your brush, the easiest way is to take your current document which should have a sample of your ear brush already drawn on a sphere or plane, do a BPR render if you like(not necessary) and resize it to around 150*150. Now go to Documents - Export - and save a PSD in your Zbrush4 startup brush folder(usually C:\Program Files\Pixologic\ZBrush 4.0\ZStartup\BrushPresets).

With your new brush and alpha settings still selected, go under your Brush pallet and choose "Save As", navigate to the same Zbrush 4 startup folder, name your brush and save it there. Now it should be in your brush pallet each time you load up Zbrush.

Now to assign the icon you made for your brush. You'll probably have to redraw something in the workspace since resizing your doc "drops" your tool and it can no longer be edited. Just drag another sphere into your workspace. Making sure that your custom brush is selected, go under your Brush pallet along the top of your screen and select "SelectIcon". Navigate to your the PSD file and select it.

And your done!

You can do this for all sorts of commonly used shapes such as eyes, nose, teeth, eyebrows, nipples, warts, scars, horns etc to help you quickly visualize what your trying to create. You'll want to retopologize and adjust these at some point of course, but I've found it to be a useful way to hit the ground running when your trying to get things together quickly.

Thanks for reading my first ever tutorial, I hope you found useful. If so drop me a note and I might take stab at doing another.

Cheers!

Collecting (cool?) stuff

2010-08-20T20:11:00.004-04:00

Today, I wanted to talk about being a collector. I've been one as long as I can remember. Over the course of the years I'd collect comics, toys, comic cards, movies, vintage video games, old cameras, old glass bottles, key-chains.. the list goes on and on. As a young kid, it was always toys. I didn't have my own cash, but anytime I did, I'd march right up to the corner store and buy the biggest coolest toy I could. Over the years I managed to get together a pretty impressive collection of some of the most desirable Transformers and GI Joe. I was the envy of several of my childhood friends who's folks were under the false impression that Go-Bots were somehow just as cool, and HEY! they only cost five bucks!

Along with collecting toys (which honestly, is something I think most of us strive to do when we're 8) I started to get interested in comic books. Actually scratch that, I got interested in drawing my OWN comic books. Usually these were based off of a recent episode of either the GI Joe or Transformers cartoon. I'd take the basic plot of bad guys vs good guys, mix the characters together so Optimus Prime and Snake Eyes could kick butt together, throw in a couple extra ninjas and 9 out of 10 times the result would be awesome. My interest in drawing later turned me onto actual comics. I think my dad bought me my first at a yard sale. I remember daffy duck, and some Dagwood comics.. but the one I remember most was a Spiderman comic. That was it, I was hooked. To make things even more convenient, a comic book store opened right up the stairs from my dad's shop. Everyday after school, I'd spend most of the afternoon reading and talking to the stores owner Mark, adding countless titles to my weekly comic book list. Collecting seemed to be in my blood.. it was just something I did. From toys to games to comics, it didn't matter my age or where I was, keeping up with them was always a priority.

But something changed over the past couple years, for reasons unbeknownst to me I pretty much cut all of it out. Now days, I prefer to buy comics in easy to manage collections, graphic novels if you will, as opposed to individual issues. I still play video games, but no longer strive to have a great big collection of memorable titles and instead trade them in the instant I beat them or tire of them. I manage to purchase about one random toy every 6 months or so but it's half hearted and usually a genuinely compulsive purchase(though I do admit to puruse the toy isle at Target almost everytime we go, just in case;).
In fact, just the other day I actually had the self realization that, despite some 20+ years of being an avid collector of SOMETHING.. There wasn't one thing that I was keeping up with. What weirded me out about it was that I really couldn't care less. I just had no real interest. Zero.

And things have been going splendidly this way.

That is until about 2 weeks ago. Where I've found myself once again faced with the urge and almost desperate desire to obtain and collect a... toy.

Well TOYS, plural.

Yep, I'm in my 30s and toys are still cool to me. Ladies? Anyone? (I'll take this opportunity to say how cool my girlfriend\future wife is)

Now back to explaining my new habit.. For years I've been a big fan of Ashley Woods artwork. Though most of what I'd seen was from covers and random prints, it was his take on Metal Gear a few years back that really caught my attention. So when his comic mini series "Zombies vs. Robots vs. Amazons" came out, I made sure to grab each one. The story wasn't great literature by any means, but the artwork... ahh.. I love his loose, sometimes rough style. There's always so much energy in his lines that the simplest, almost sloppiest drawing conveys a strong feeling or action.

Well, it turns out that Ash has been making toys based off these worlds hes created the past couple years and somehow his little toy line over at 3A had completely flown under my radar.

When I discovered it, I knew instantly that my admit-able weakness for cool looking pose-able toys, great design and exciting artwork was about to get the best of me in a way that I haven't experienced in years.

I've supplied a link where you can see some photo's of them in action, but if you have a weakness like me, I'd advise you not to click it.

These toys are exclusive, made lovingly in limited quantities and are generally difficult to get. Oh and did I mention expensive?(and in turn valuable)You really have to do your homework to even acquire them.

In short they = all the stuff that makes collecting great and exciting.

Now that I have a couple myself, I can say that they live up to the images and hype. Incredibly articulated, you can pose them in just about any way you want. Amazing detail and care goes into each piece. Coupled with great accessories to mix things up a bit. Some call these things "artwork", an extension or companion to Ashley's paintings.. I still call them toys, though arguably the coolest toys I've ever seen.

Since becoming, lets just say "a fan", I've managed to purchase a few to keep and a few to sell. The one I'm most excited for is coming my way as we speak all the way from Hong Kong(where 3A is based). It's a double box set of a character called Tommy Mission and his foe, a Boiler Zombie (I know, I know, it sounds awesome). This one is definitely staying in my collection. I'm parting with several that I'd like to keep as well simply because my fiancé finds that spending that much on "toys" is crazy, especially when we're trying to save up for a wedding.

And, as usual.. she's right.(She's also extremely supportive and loving when it comes to my hobbies or random crazy interests.. timing is EVERYTHING)
But despite this, it's there... that old feeling.. similar to the one I use to get on comic book day. I find myself reading up on what's coming around the corner, check the blogs, glance over ebay.. see what pops up.. see what's out there.

I guess I agree that buying toys is something that kids do, and some may be a little befuddled by grown men (and women, hey! I've seen it happen) who collect them.

But when I look back and realize where I've come from, where my interests have always been.. in toys, games, comic books, movies.. look at my line of work, animation, 3D character art, and game development... I can't feel too bad about it.

It may be an obsession, but I think it's a healthy one. When I grow tired of this one, I can just store them in their boxes safely in the back of the closet right next to my still pretty huge comic book collection.

Besides, one day this stuff is going to pay for my kids college tuition, right?

Zbrush 4

2010-07-29T20:24:00.008-04:00

I'm extremely excited about Zbrush 4.It's coming out in a few weeks from the good people at Pixologic. They've released a great video and some information that teases us with some of the new features and I'll just say what most have already said about it, shadowbox is going to rock!
Of course not all the features have been announced and there's a good bit of speculation going on over at the forums, but i'll go ahead and say what my top 3 wish list items for Zbrush 4 are.

1. 64 bit support
2. 64 bit support
3. 64 bit support

It'd be so.. SO sexy to almost literally never have to worry about running out of memory after zbrush hits it 4 gig limit. I've matured a bit in how I work with Zbrush in that I take steps and use much more caution before dividing and upping the resolution on my meshes and their subtools. But these precautions are time-sinks, and really boundaries... While I completely understand that once one wall is broken down, all us earnest artist will be immediatly pushing on the next one.. but then, that's progress I suppose.

Anyway, there really are other features that I'd love to see and that I'm sure we'll get. Better render and compositing capabilities with more realistic lighting options... better poly painting with some photoshop like blending and layers... I'd love to see painting somehow be resolution independent of your model... You paint it as nice and clean as you want, then just set the resolution and output it... almost like projection master, minus the dropping and picking up. Some different interesting materials would be candy as well. Hair and fur creation tools.. (I really like Joe Alters Shave and Haircut, but if the models not going to be animated, it'd be great to have a quick way to model realistic hair strands)

I use to think that Zbrush was too complicated for it's own good, and in many ways it is pretty unconventional.. I've gotten to the point where I can get what I want out of the program and have very little problems doing so, but still.. it'd be nice of them to streamline some of the things that seem like excess clicks and palettes..
that being said, Zbrush is an amazing tool as-is. It's hard to be too upset about any "missing" feature.
I really believe the sky is the limit with these guys. I'm guessing they have so many things up their sleeve for this and future releases it's going to be astonishing to us hungry modelers.

The most beautiful part of the whole deal? If you currently have a zbrush license
...you get all the goodness for free! I bought it almost 3 years and havn't paid for a new version since. What company treats their customers in such a generous way anymore? Sure the software isn't cheap on the front end, around $600 I believe.. but free!

Mudbox 2010 and Mudbox 2011 from Autodesk came out less than a year apart.. to buy outright is about $800, to upgrade was like $500.. thanks Autodesk!

Anyway, that's all I have on the matter for now. Here's to waiting until August 9th.

Lucky

2010-07-16T22:44:00.003-04:00

I finally finished her. The entire project was a learning experience for me, but getting the curly hair right was by far the biggest challenge.
Right now, I've just done a quick render and a little photoshop comp for presentation but eventually I'll go back and repose her and add in the background elements to further imitate the Brom artwork that inspired it.

Quick sculpt

2010-07-16T22:40:00.004-04:00

I haven't really decided what project to move onto next, I have a few idea's in my head that I'm playing with but I can't decide what to tackle first. In the meantime I did a quick sculpt of a drawing I had in an old sketchbook. I have so many old sketchbooks with some "great" idea's in them, I'd like to go back and see if I can flesh some more of them out.

This guy was created start to finish in Zbrush. Comped in Photoshop.

The Pacific

2010-07-16T22:34:00.004-04:00

Just finished up HBO's "the pacific" and got inspired. I've always loved World War I and II history and play around with the idea of doing an animation based off that time period pretty regularly.

While an animation may never come out of it, I really enjoyed doing the research and looking up the references to get the look I was going for.

Everything was done start to finish in Zbrush, except for the gun and lighter which I modeled low res geometry of in Maya before importing in to Zbrush to finish.

Update

2010-04-22T12:08:00.004-04:00

So I decided that I wanted to create a 3D reel that would better display some of my modeling and texturing chops. So for the past couple weeks I've been working on a new model that I hope will turn out to be a good starting point to kick things off. She's based off the artwork of Brom, a piece called "Lucky" that I've always liked. The biggest challenge so far has been filling in the blanks as his artwork only depicts a profile of her and much of the detail is obscured in some manner or another. Because of that, I've had to take some creative license. Another challenge has been getting her red, curly hair looking correct. Obviously it's not shown here, but I believe I've worked out a nice solution on that end as well.
So far, I've really enjoyed this project and have already made plans for the next one. Depending on the weather, I hope to have her completed by the weekend. So, until I can get a final, textured render up...

a few more WIP shots...

pirate rock

2010-04-01T15:12:00.002-04:00

poster i did for a small music event a few years back.

tree frog

2010-03-31T22:50:00.003-04:00

This is from a short animation i did for a childrens website a few years back. The poses are higher resolution stills from that animation.

demon #2

2010-03-29T13:25:00.001-04:00

demon

2010-03-20T15:19:00.001-04:00

daily artwork #3

2010-02-16T09:17:00.001-05:00

daily artwork #2

2010-01-09T21:15:00.003-05:00

A quick comic for the masses.

daily artwork #1

2010-01-05T23:50:00.003-05:00

As part of my 2010 new years resolutions, I've decided to up the percentile of artwork I do on a daily basis. Be it sketching, modeling, painting, animation... writing non-literary prose, whatever, I want to increase my creative output as much as possible this year.
While I may not be able to post something daily, I'm going to try to at least post something once or twice a week. Which is something I'm pretty sure I've written here at some point before... but this time I MEAN IT!

Today's image is of a lion head door knocker and it was done in Zbrush. I've been using Zbrush for a few years now and I love it. It's one of the most enjoyable programs out there, but I haven't gotten into it much recently. So as a refresher and to get familiar with Zbrush 3.5 R3 I decided to play around with a few tutorials from Scott Spencer's great book "Zbrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting". I'm finding that sometimes that's all I need to do to get the creative juices going, jump into a little tutorial mess around for a bit.

My Top Ten Lists of 2009

2009-12-30T14:20:00.010-05:00

So here's my list of top tens from 2009 covering movies, music and games. Maybe next year I'll try and add in a top ten books of 2010 catagory. Of course, as slow as I read books, it'd be 2012 before I could get that list together. Perhaps a top 10 books of the last decade would suite me better.
Sad, i know.

Movies:
1. Up
2. Inglorious Bastards
3. Avatar
4. Star Trek
5. Away We Go
6. District 9
7. Where the Wild Things Are
8. Coraline
9. Paranormal Activity
10. Watchmen

Honorable "havn't seen but should, because I'm sure they're great" mentions: 500 Days of Summer; The Fantastic Mr. Fox; Up in the Air; The Hurt Locker

Video Games
1. Batman Arkham Asylum (PS3)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbos 360)
3. Dragon Age (Xbox 360)
4. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
5. Demon's Souls (PS3)
6. Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360)
7. Scribblenauts (DS)
8. Little Big Planet (PSP)
9. New Super Mario Bros (Wii)
10. Borderlands (Xbox 360)

Albums
1. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (track pick: "Two Weeks")
2. Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures (track pick: "Elephants")
3. Dark Was the Night (track pick: Bon Iver - "Bracket, WI")
4. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (track pick: "1901")
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: The Blitz (track pick: "Runaway")
6. Japandroids: Post-Nothing (track pick: "Young Hearts Spark Fire")
7. The Avett Brothers : I and Love and You (track pick: "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise")
8. The Flaming Lips: Embryonic (track pick: "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine")
9. Pearl Jam : Backspacer (track pick: "Fixer" aka the Target song)
10. Arctic Monkeys : Humbug (track pick: "Crying Lightning")

There you go. I was admit-ably conflicted on a few. There may be some loose approximation going on here or there, but these are my choices and I'd like to think they're pretty good ones.

Agree? Disagree? Did I leave anything out... leave a thought or two.

Sketchbook and Brushes: Drawing Apps for iPhone

2009-10-20T14:24:00.014-04:00

Next to reading comics with Comiczeal, my favorite things to do on my iphone during the lull of inactivity is to kick out fun little sketches. For months, I've been using Brushes exclusively. It felt the most natural compared to the other sketching\painting apps I've tried as well as having the most slick and unobtrusive UI. The only gripe I had with it, is something that I'm sure many of you out there won't have an issue with. The tap to zoom feature drives me nuts. The way I draw in general is sketchy, with quick repetitive lines over one another to build my forms, whatever they may be. This causes me some headache when using Brushes as attempting to draw in this way makes my screen zoom in and out like some ill trained, novice, hyperactive videographer. With no way to turn this feature off, I've had to adjust my drawing style slightly to make due.
Well, earlier last month (I believe) Autodesk released their mobile version of Sketchbook Pro for the iphone. This caught my attention because I've been using the parent app ever since the original 1.0 was released under Alias. They even used a drawing I did on their Alias Sketchbook product page for awhile.
Anyway, after a few weeks of use I'm happy to say that it stacks up pretty well to Brushes, even surpassing it in a couple ways. It's every bit as responsive and intuitive as Brushes and a breeze to get around in. Sketchbook also eliminates the one thing that annoyed me about Brushes, the incessant double tap zooming. I can draw and get idea's out about as quickly and naturally as one can expect using your finger and small phone screen. I really like it.
That being said, it's not quite perfect. I still prefer Brushes UI, it just feels a bit more natural to use than Sketchbook's. They both use a pop up menu to access your controls that adjust brush size, layers, change colors, etc.. but Sketchbook requires a few more steps to do everything. Brushes, you tap once to pull up your menu, adjust your size and opacity then tap a second time to get back to drawing. Sketchbook you have to hit a little icon first, select from a circular menu your brush menu, then from the brush menu select "editor" to adjust it's settings, save and exit your menu's. While you can quickly change brush size there is no "on the fly" opacity adjustment. To be efficient, you pretty much have to set up your brushes before hand, or get use to taking a few minutes to do it in the middle of your drawing.

So which do I like better? I'm torn. Now that I have a few custom brushes set up in Sketchbook that I like and use for just about everything, the lack of on the fly adjustment isn't as painful. Plus the ability to draw as crazy and sketch as frantically as I want without zooming all over the place is great. Also, Sketchbook supports higher resolution images than Brushes should you choose to do something with your masterpiece outside of your phone. If the Brushes developers release an update that addressed that as well as allow me to disable the tap\zoom function and creates custom brushes, I'd most likely delete Sketchbook and never look back. For now however, Sketchbook is the app of choice for my daily doodles. I believe they both have free trial versions and I'd recommend that you download both that to see which one fits your style most.

Below are few sketches I've done on each.

Austin City Limits vs Bonnaroo

2009-10-06T15:02:00.009-04:00

Alrighty, just got back yesterday from Austin, TX where I spent the weekend at ACL watching many a wondrous band play. This was my first ACL and I have to say it won't be my last. I thought I'd write my impressions of the event and compare it to my experiences with another big festival, Bonnaroo, which I attended in 2006, 2007, and 2008. This write up is less a review and more a few things you might consider if your thinking about attending one or the other or both. Each have a heady mix of pros and cons, but for me at the end of the day, ACL is a couple comfy pillows ahead of Bonnaroo.

First off, clean rooms, comfy beds and warm showers. This of course depends on where you choose to stay in Austin, but there are few things better than being filthy and exhausted and having those luxuries waiting for you after a long day. While hotels are still an "option" at Bonnaroo, most likely you'll find yourself camping which can be a blast in it's own right, in fact it's a major part of the experience that makes it so great. That being said, staying up until 4am because your neighbor wants to keep the party going, only to be forced out of your tent at 7:30 because it's become a microwave oven in the hot Tennessee heat, quickly wears on you. You'll abide, roll with the punches, but it doesn't keep it from sucking and by the third day, your really feeling it.

Second, the price of things. A hamburger at ACL is about $6, at Bonnaroo it's $10. A soda at ACL $3, Bonnaroo $6. A pint of beer at ACL $8, Bonnaroo $12. You get the idea. Sure the prices are a little higher than what you'd get at Micky Dee's, but you don't really feel like your getting ripped off by the ACL vendors. Bonnaroo on the other hand seems to have taken pricing lessons from a local movie theater.

Third you've got the hippy factor. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad or good thing, that would depend on how you feel personally about one of the oldest music festival going groups of people out there. I'll just say I was surprised at the difference in hippy quota. The only reason I noticed it at all was because at the end of the third day I realized I had seen no body paint, no nudist, no invisible ball passing dances, and no drum circles. Bonnaroo is thick with hippies, ripe(pun intended)with them even. Apparently hippies that like Tool if you look at the Bonnaroo lineup from a few years back, but hippies none-the-less. ACL seemed a little more community based, with tons of families, strollers, fold out chairs as far as the eye can see, people young and old. Now, of the 30,000 or so people that were there, I'm sure there was a seizable population of hippies, and I'm sure a nudist or three slipped through the cracks of my surveillance, wearing nothing but their mud caked smiles and the faint scent of patruli. All I'm saying is that their presences isn't near as noticeable as it is at Bonnaroo. Take from that what you will.

Fourth, schedule.. now here it could go either way, I suppose it depends on your preference. At Bonnaroo, many times the shows would start late, everyone from Flaming Lips to Kanye West started their shows an hour or more after they were meant to go on. Flaming Lips had a combination of technical problems and not wanting to blow out the smaller band playing nearby. Kanye made his fans wait some 3 hours in the middle of the night because he's an ass. At ACL, the shows start on time, there's no chanting their name forever to draw them to the stage. It's simple, they start on time, they end on time. This can be good and bad of course. If you favorite band is up and playing you may want them to go on all night, but unfortuneatly, this being in the middle of downtown Austin, the whole things shuts down at 10:00pm. Bonnaroo, not so much. When the headliner ends their show around 11:00pm or so, that's just My Morning Jackets que to start their 4 hour set on another stage. Which, is pretty awesome, despite what my eyelids and body are telling me to do. In short, ACL's tight schedule is predictable, easy to navigate and plan for, stuff shutting down at 10 leaves plenty of night left to enjoy the Austin night life if you so choose, or just get a few more hours of sleep in your comfy hotel bed. The flexible schedule of Bonnaroo leads to more standing around and waiting, possibly missing the beginning of other acts that butt up to the one your currently watching, but then again, 4 hours of My Morning Jacket can't be a bad thing can it?

Fifth, other stuff.. Bonnaroo has Centaroo which I personally thinks pretty great. A big fountain that offers cool fresh water you can play in to cool off between shows. Over the course of the weekend the water more resembles salty dark brown muck. Still a plus in my book. Bonnaroo also has it's parade, of which I've never seen before myself, but it has people in costume and fire shooting out of things and is suppose to be pretty cool. The biggest thing that sets Bonnaroo apart from ACL for me in terms of entertainment is the comedy tent. Flight of the Concords, David Cross, Patton Oswald, Demetri Martin, and Lewis Black have all performed there which is pretty sweet. That is, if you can get in. You generally have to wait in line for half the day to see any of the more well known comedians. Fortunately, the tent is within earshot of a nearby stage, unfortunately, you might not enjoy the band on said stage. Austin City Limits has none of these things but it does have, well, Austin. There's a ton to do in the city itself, but that of course cost you even more than what you already spent on the festival itself. To me, it's a bit of toss up.

So there you go, just my brief comparison of the two festivals. I'm no expert on the matters of pro-music festival going but if you have any questions feel free shoot me a message and I'll answer your query the best I can. Both were a ton of fun and if you get the opportunity to hit up either you most certainly should.

(Disclaimer: My Morning Jacket will not always play 4 hour sets starting at 11:00pm. However if present, they WILL rock your face off, and when you find your face, it will have a large wide smile across it's lips)

www.brodieperkins.com

2009-09-17T19:36:00.006-04:00

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but soon that will all change! I've been working on a few things which has taken my time away from updating my blog. Two of those things is my demo reel and website.
If you have a spare moment, you should go check them out. The website is still a bit of a newborn, but it will host my current animation reel as well as some sketches. I'll be updating it fairly often.

www.brodieperkins.com

nude: radiohead's song revisionsed

2008-06-06T11:45:00.003-04:00

This is pretty incredible. Some guy(or girl) has taken up some pretty old tech and used their grumbles and squeaks to recreate the song "nude" from Radiohead's latest album "In Rainbows".

When watching, you'll have to wait through about a minute of feedback before it actually get's going.

Very cool.

movies review

2008-06-06T10:50:00.018-04:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

So the day that I had been waiting for since it was first whispered over a year ago finally came. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released in theatres and me, my ticket in hand went to join in with what i was sure to be a small celebration of my childhood. Much like the original Star Wars trilogy, Indiana Jones influenced me and many of my interest growing up.
Up front i'll say, i did enjoy it overall. However, in my original desire to "love" this film, I may have turned a blind eye or two, to things that had they been part of "the mummy" or the "national treasure" franchises, i'd torn apart. To me, those movies steal so much from the original Indy flicks and are so predictable a 3 year old could come up with a more compelling plot. That in itself is sorta the problem with the latest Indy movie. Harrison Fords age aside, the one thing that's really lacking is the sense of "awe", the sense of adventure that the older films gave us. I'm not sure if it was because the script was absolute trash, or if we've just seen everything that an adventure movie can throw at us, we're all jaded, so it's really hard to care. I don't know.
I find it almost ironic that the movies that had clearly ripped of the indy flicks in the past for their story, action, and plotlines, have set the current bar for these types of film, and unfortunately this indy flick now feel derivative of them.
Almost how the Bourne movies, which for me have set the bar for international spy films, with their fast hand to hand action and shaky camera footage, have forced the James Bond franchise to go back to the drawing board a bit and mimic that level of action just to keep viewers from falling asleep in their seats.
Beyond feeling like we've experienced this type of movie too many times before, there were also plenty of times where I think Lucas(who was responsible for the script) jumped the shark. Swinging on vines along side monkys, tarzan style? Come on! Oh, and that ending? Woof. Redo, please!
Still, I think i enjoyed the movie well enough. For a night in Columbus, GA with nothing better to do, it was a good way to kill a few hours.
Here's the best way i can sum up my feelings for it...
If I tell someone that i like Star Wars, i feel it is my responsibility in order to maintain whatever dignity and respect i have as an individual, to specify that i am referring to the original trilogy and not the jar-jar corrupted garbage that's been put out since. When i say i'm a fan of the Indiana Jones films, i feel no need to segregate them. It may be my least favorite of the bunch, but it didn't kill the franchise. I'm still a fan and I'm glad they at least attempted to recapture some of what made the original so darn good.

Still, those monkeys gots to go...

The Short Version: If your a big Indiana Jones fan, there's merit here. You'll probably enjoy seeing Harrison Ford take up his trusty whip and hat again. Just don't hold your breath in hopes that it'll be anywhere near as good as you remember the originals to be. It just isn't. It's a style of film and plot that, much like it's stars, is showing it's age. If your just curious about the film, or have never been that huge of fan, wait to get it on DVD, the monkey bites are a little less painful when you don't spend $10 a piece for them.

I give it 2.5 out of 5 nibbles

movies review: Iron Man

2008-05-04T20:33:00.006-04:00

I've decided to begin reviewing new movies when i see them. Life's usual hustles prevent me from updating this blog with any real regularity, and when i do have the time, it's so far in the back of my mind I don't even think about it until i'm busy doing something else. This is my way to keep updating the blog, keep things swimming along if you will. Without further adu;

My first review will be: Iron Man

Long Version: When i first saw the trailer for Iron Man a year ago, I wrote it off almost instantly. For months, I hardly gave it a second look, chalked it up to another failed attempt by marvel to cash in on their extensive list of super hero franchises. Sure, Spiderman was fun the first couple times, the same could be said for Xmen, but their bloat by the third time around started a very real movie viewing animosity inside of me that's become hard to subside. The overdoing of decent comic book adaptations, along with the garbage they've shoveled out in between(Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider..ugh, Nicholas Cage? Really?)has thrown up a cautionary hockey mask that i don everytime i see the words, "Marvel" flick across the theatre's screen. This,coming from a guy who now in his 30's, still buys comic books on a regular basis.
Well, I'm relieved and actually quite happy to report that all fears can be cast aside for Iron Man. It's a fantastic, fun, summer movie. The things that really sets this apart from the fantastic fours and ghost rider movies is the great script, it's quick pace, and the nerdgasm inducing FX's that are sure to fill the theatres with the cries of joy from fan boys.
I'll talk about the script a little bit. It stays safe in friendly comic book waters. Almost every line from Downey is laced with wit, but it never feels contrived in the least, but is genuinely funny and smile inducing. I read somewhere that it was written by the same two man team that wrote Children of Men, another good movie, but one certainly not known for it's humor, although there's quite a bit to be found here. Now I'm not trying to say this movie will knock your Shakespearean scholar socks off, I'm simply saying you won't be cringing at that annoying one liner that's capable of shredding an entire movie of it's credibility and decency. Because, it's not there. In fact, just when you think one's about to be delivered, they skim familiar waters, but what comes out has just enough spin on it to feel unique enough to be harmless. There is a subtle spit shine to the script that you might not usually find in an summer action flick, much less one based off a comic book.
The rest of the movies is great as well. The CG is very well done, with the action high impact enough to make you wish you had an Iron Man suit of your own to toss on after the film ran it's course. The acting in it's superb for a movie of it's kind, and i dare say, the key characters, Downey, exspecially Downey, Paltrow, and Bridges all handled their characters extremely well. Downey was, without a doubt, the perfect actor to play Tony Stark. Like Patrick Stewart's take on Prof. Xavier, he's the perfect fit for the role, and it's difficult now to see anyone else in those shoes, err thrusters..
The movie squeaks in right under 2 hours, but i felt like i could have stomached another 30 minutes or so before anything even resembling fatigue stirred up. The pace moves along at just the right speed and thus, bypasses any substantial lull in the story. In short, i didn't get BORED.

The Short Version: Iron Man is an extremely fun flick and a great way to start up this big blockbuster season. If the other big name films rolling out in the coming summer months are even close to being as enjoyable as Iron Man was, I can tell ya friends,we're in for a great summer of movies.
I give it 4 out of 5 blings.
'nuff said.

wall-e: great new full length trailer

2008-03-13T16:33:00.005-04:00

Man, hollywood is pining for my monies this summer. Indiana Jones, Iron Man, Dark Knight, and of course, Wall-e. The teaser trailers that Pixar have shown so far, certainly had me at hello, but through my giggles of anticipation, I wondered what sort of "meat" this movie could have to actually get and keep butts in seats for 2 hours. The new trailer soundly puts any hesitation or doubts to rest. Wall-e is adorable, lovable, funny, clumsy, cute and immediately likable, all within the short run time of the trailer.
The gents at Pixar also have changed up the "style" or look of the this film compared to past hits. Though still decidedly "cartoony", they've pumped up the realism in their textures and environments immensely. They also seem to have adapted an almost handi-cam look to many of the shots. You can see many instances of subtle shaky cam and vigorous rack focus techniques, something i've never noticed in other Pixar films. Of course, it's also gorgeous, thanks to their Renderman proprietary rendering software that makes everything look like buttah.
I'm thankful all these great summer flicks aren't landing on the same weekend. I should still be able to make multiple runs to see Indy in May and have ample time to recover for marathon viewings of Wall-e come June.

mike rea; geek wittleing

2008-02-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

I've seen samples of this guys stuff before, but today's the first time i've really paid attention. I'm speechless at the level of craftsmanship that goes into each of his marvelous pieces. The nerdy twist is the icing! It's a good little interview that peaks into Mr. Rea's brain to glimpse a bit of his creative process.
Being a 3d artist, i tend to look at thing's, creative or otherwise, and attempt to gain a sense of what it would take for me to create them digitally.. what this guy has already done with wood, BY HAND, is something that would take me probably my lifetime to recreate in 3D. I'm exaggerating a bit, but still you can't deny the mans got skills.
I remember my first year of college I had a 3d Design(which was actually a sculpting class) teacher that worked entirely with wood as his medium. One day he brought in a table with a large piece of silk draped delicately across the table surface and set it in the corner of the classroom. At the end of class he remarked that it was a piece he'd been working on for a show and invited us all to look at it. It wasn't until that moment that we all realized that the silk wasn't silk at all, but mahogany that he had manipulated and stained into incredibly realistic looking cloth.
I think since then, i've wanted to create things with my hands, to carve and saw, wield and glue, but other than a few clay sculptures here and there, my creativity has stayed tethered to the computer screen...
Still, I like the think that one day maybe i'll have a little workshop of my own where i can finally have the time to spend countless hours turning hunks of raw wood into transformers, lumps of clay into star fighters, and sculpt wookies out of marble.

"where the wild things are" test clip

2008-02-22T10:14:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine shot me this clip the other day and I did a little follow up research on it to find out more about it. Turns out, it's not really from the upcoming Spike Jonze directed film adaption of the childhood classic, but just a test for VFX. Even though it's not real, and not how actually how the film will look etc.. it still has me looking forward to being tossed into a dream land of magic.

here's the official wurd;

This was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later... - Spike Jonze

indiana jones IV trailer

2008-02-14T10:50:00.001-05:00

It's Indiana Jones. I think nothing else need be said, except maybe that i just squeeled like a girl.

defend new orleans

2008-02-12T12:06:00.002-05:00

To me, Jac Currie was always destined to be the vagabond, a marching to his own drum kind of guy. Everyone that was friends with him, or even knew him from college, loves him. He's just one of those great guys that practically seeps creativity and ingenuity. When he started Defend New Orleans in late 2003 I think it was simply a fashion brand focused on the city he grew up in, a city he cherished, where he could flex his creativity and love for design. When Katrina hit, it repurposed the whole label, and I believe, gave Jac a whole new sense of purpose, one that he's been pushing full tilt since.
I don't think anyone that knows him is very surprised at the success he's had with the brand, you just sorta expect that from him... but I AM continually surprised on how it keeps showing up in the media.
At first, we'd spot people sporting DNO tshirts in various airports, news cast, and even a few tv shows. In New York, i'd see DNO stickers stuck to urinals and bathroom walls. In LA, a girl wearing a DNO hoodie walked past me in a convention hall. At Bonnaroo in TN a year ago, a friend of mine snapped a picture of a DNO sticker in full display on one of the side walls, generally reserved for artist stencils featuring the likes of Prince, Dylan, and Borat.
A few months back, Jac went on the Ellen Degeneres show (she also happens to be his cousin)and got to talk a bit about his non profit organization. Ellen sported a DNO shirt throughout the show and Jac, though a little nervous, handled the interview like a champ.
Yesterday a friend of mine(and Jac's) called me to tell me that the latest issue of Blender Magazine has an interview with Lenny Kravitz, who, lo-and-behold, is sporting a DNO tshirt for all the subscribers of Blender to see. Jac apparently had no clue about the photo until that same friend called him to let him know about it.
Anyway, really the whole point of this post is to show some support for Defend New Orleans and to basically say, "way to go Jac!"
It's really cool that someone as geniune as him is having the sort of success he deserves and all for a cause that's certainly worth supporting.
Go buy a tshirt! I can promise it'll do a lot more good for the New Orleans community than buying a new Lincoln MKX SUV.

there will be blood and more

2008-01-28T16:14:00.000-05:00

Last night I decided to check out "There Will be Blood". A critics darling of a film, snug up there in oscar buzz next to "No Country for Old Men", "Juno" and "Robert Clayton". I don't really care much for the oscars anymore and don't skip out on taco night to catch it when it airs. That being said, of all the award shows the masses are privie to, it still seems to be the most "legit", ie I generally agree with the choices in several of the standing categories and even get a small joy when (if) wonderful little films like "Ratatouille" get their dues.

It seems the heaviest buzz for the award of film of the year surrounds "Blood" and while i'm not sure i agree, I don't necessarily disagree either. To me, the film was more a showcase for Daniel Day-Lewis's acting chops. The film itself, simply a canvas for his masterful strokes. The other characters seemed rather hollow, you don't really get to know them, and honestly, you don't really care to. Daniel's portrayal of a slowly gone mad oil man, is by far one of the, if not THE most gripping and believable performances i've seen in a film, PERIOD. A friend mentioned on our way outside the theatre that it had felt very "kubrick-esque" with the dialogue, edits, and shrill violin-laden soundtrack (beautifully composed by Radioheads very own, Johnny Greenwood). As I drove home, my mind kept jumping to the similarities between Daniel Day-Lewis's, "Daniel" character in "There Will Be Blood" and Jack Nicholson's delivery of "Jack" from "The Shining". Odd same-nameness aside, both performances floor you with their plausibility, with their ability to take you right along through to the final drip of their madness. The last 10 minutes of "Blood" were worth my $8 alone.

Beyond Daniels character however, the story isn't overly gripping, there's no massive loopholes or plot twist. It's a very straight forward, simple story. Not to say it's boring in the least, just that a movie such as "No Country For Old Men" had both the interesting characters and the gripping story(to accompany your white knuckles, unforgiving grip on the arms of your chair.) That, to some, may feel like a more balanced film in the end.

Me, i'm not really sure. I liked them both for their own reasons. Still, if Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't win for best actor this year, i'll write off the Oscars forever.. Granted, i haven't even seen Clooney's performance in "Robert Clayton", but after last night, it really doesn't matter.

If i could put in my vote for film of the year, it'd go to "Juno". Funny, charming, sad and sweet all at once. You love just about every character and you actually feel "good" when you leave the theatre. Imagine that.

free okkervil river album

2008-01-22T15:14:00.000-05:00

Head over to http://www.okkervilriver.com/index.php and download a 9-track cover album, complete with liner notes and album artwork from the boy's of Okkervil River. Good of them to put this kind of thing out there for all takers.

If you've never listened to the band before, this is a pain-free way of going about it.

Most disappointing albums of 2007

2007-12-24T22:38:00.000-05:00

There were many great albums that 2007 bestowed upon us. While thankful i can claim that, there were still those few that i waited in just short of baited breath for to deliver gold to my ears, only to wind up with coal.. or at the very most, tin. I want to make it clear that these are by no means "terrible" albums(well, most of them aren't) or the worse albums of 2007 since I've done all i can to avoid those all together. These are simply albums from bands I either respect or who have released some great stuff in the past and I was holding out hope that their 2007 follow ups would continue to deliver.

#10. Foo Fighters:Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace

Lets make this clear. Foo Fighters haven't put out a good album in YEARS. They still release the rocking single from time to time, but Grohl and company have, in my opinion, been skating by on pure gusto since The Color and the Shape. Grohl is still one of my favorite heroes of rock. He just seems like a genuinely great guy. But the man CANNOT write a good lyric to save his life anymore. The stuff is so canned and all he seems to worry about is hooks and making sure each line rhymes. Still, every time a new Foo album drops, i pick it up.. and then i die a little inside. Die hard Foo fans that enjoyed the last few releases will probably love this one too and get plently of play time. But for me, it'll just join the dust collecting race right along side the rest of their shill.

#9. Tegan and Sarah: The Con

The first major label release from Tegan and Sarah isn't bad. There's still some catchy tunes there and I'd never suggest that it should be ignored altogether, it simply can't hold a candle to the great songs from their previous 2 albums, ex specially when compared to their honest and catchy 2004 release, So Jealous.

#8. Modest Mouse: We were dead before the ship even sank

I've got to be honest here, I'm probably not given this album it's fair shake. I picked it up before a trip to Savannah, GA in which I listened to the album in it's entirely once. Unlike two of my favorite Modest Mouse albums, Good News For People Who Love Bad News and The Moon & Antarctica, i didn't dive in for that second listen. I absolutely had no desire to. I guess you could say that's reason enough to be disappointed.

#7. Pinback: Autumn of Seraphs

These two guys are machines. Magic candy machines that can create such tasty tight sounds together that i find myself at a crossroads where I am at once astonished by their science and saddened by it's sameness. This album falls under the "not bad" category, but I need them to do something new with their sound before I start to care again.

#6. Lucinda Williams:West

I saw Lucinda Williams live a few years back. It's the only concert I've ever almost fallen asleep to. I mean that in the most positive way possible. It had been a long day and i was already tired when i arrived to the show. As she poured out sleepy sips from her hit album "Cartwheels on a Gravel Road" mixed up with a handful of covers, it was like being sung to sleep. A lullaby. It was this beautiful and relaxing bedtime story. Now, my concert story is not really related to her 2007 album West except in that it's pretty much the polar opposite type of album as that show was. It's louder, fuller, has more instruments in the mix. It's not as lean and despite her writing songs based off her mother's passing, in someways, it doesn't feel as honest. To me it was akin to Niel Young going techno. Ok, not quite THAT bad... but I'll welcomed her next "stripped down" album with open arms.

#5. Queens of the Stone Age: Era Vulgaris

I've been a massive QOTSA fan since a good friend of mine introduced me to them in 2002 with a double dose of Rated R and their self titled debut. The desert basted robot rock pulled me in and spit me out over and over again. In 2005, my anticipation of Songs for the Deaf was so high I thought for sure there'd be no way for it to meet those expectations. Thanks to Grohls return to reminding drums what it means to be beaten,and Josh Hommees familiar croon swapped for Mark Lanegan's deathly growl on various tracks, it did. THEN Lullabies To Paralyze was released, and i cried. Ok, i didn't cry, i just didn't care. The songs simply weren't there. QOTSA are well known for changing their lineup practically daily, but Lullabies To Paralyze just sounded wrong, shallow. Era Vulgaris continued with the same lineup so my hopes were not exactly SURGING with it's release. Here's the thing. It's BETTER. If Lullabies To Paralyze was 5 steps down, Era Vulgaris is 2 steps up. The songs grow on you after repeated listen. But I was still let down because I wasn't blown away, there was nothing new to write home to momma Hommees about.
That being said, will I pick up 2008 or 2009's QOTSA album? Yes I will.

#4. Bright Eyes:Cassadaga

"I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning" was one of my favorite albums of 2005 and unlike it's sister album "Digital Ash" it still gets repeated play on my stereo. Bright Eyes sounds like a younger, sane, Daniel Johnston who's lyrics and musical styling hearken back to Dylan and Young. This is another album that I can't call "bad". I can't say, "don't buy it or you will end your life with your iPod chord". This is simply an album that blew right by me and I didn't feel a thing. Not even it's breeze.

#3. The Shins: Wincing the Night Away

Maybe I'm at a point in my life where the at once painful and optimistic voice of The Shins doesn't resonate like it use to. Some critics absolutely loved this album, while others shrugged it off. I am unfortunately part of the latter camp. I love this band, they're one of the few bands on my list of "must see before die" that I've yet to check off. When the opportunity arrives, I'll be there to see them. I think it was the single, Phantom Limbs that killed this album for me. I HATED it when i first heard it. It annoyed me. The funny thing, I'm listening to that very song as i type this review, perhaps I've judged to harshly... NO NO NO, sticking to my guns. The fact is, Phantom Limbs is the best song on the album and that just doesn't cut it for me. Nice try Shins, please try again.

#2. White Stripes: Icky Thump

I'll say this, I love the White Stripes and I like this album. It's not bad. It's just not great. Still, if i was doing a top 10 best songs of 2007, Icky Thump(the song) would definitely be on there, possibly in the top 5. I think that's where the problem is. Icky Thump(the song) was so gritty and raw, the White Stripes that so many of us yearn for, that the rest of the album just couldn't keep up. There's a few pretty great songs on there, just not many. In fact, I find myself remembering the ones i disliked more than the ones I enjoyed. Icky Thump(the song) will have some spotlight on my play list for months to come, but the rest of the album will most likely fade into obscurity somewhere next to that last Chris Cornell album. Ouch, even I thought that was harsh, and I just wrote it.

#1. Wilco: Sky Blue Sky

You know, being a self proclaimed music snob is a funny game. How can my #10 top album of the year also be the #1 most disappointing album of the year? Simple. It just is. I really enjoy this album. It's solid, it's layered, it's got this simplicity to it that I haven't heard in an album from them since perhaps Billy Bragg and Wilco's, Mermaid Avenue. It's more Wilco and I love Wilco. So where's the problem then?
I didn't really want "just" more Wilco. Wilco is one of those bands that teeter on the boarder between easy to digest folk rock songs and slightly more obscure, arty, living, digital fields that give their albums a feel and sound you don't get from most other bands. I wanted more of that. I wanted to listen to this album with my eyes closed, laid back on my couch quietly taking in each note for hours on end the same way I was able to do with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born. But it's just not that kind of album. It doesn't deliver that kind of package. Your getting an album for the road or background music to tap your foot to while your at work at your desk. In short, your not getting anything new and exciting, Wilco isn't "stretching" here. So while i enjoyed the album enough to deem it a "best of 2007", it's Wilco, I expect a lot, maybe too much, and because of that, it's my number 1 most disappointing album of the year.

Top Albums of 2007

2007-12-13T20:46:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus, I've returned with what i believe to be the top 10 albums of 2007. It was actually easier to pick the top 10 most disappointing albums of the year which i will also post at a later date. My opinion's as good as the next guys, but you should know i love you all and would never intentionally steer you wrong.

#10. Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

This is the most deceivingly basic Wilco album in years. Unlike their brilliant, but sometimes mystifying A Ghost is Born, Sky Blue Sky at first sounded to me like a Jeff Tweedy side project, a handful of songs that he wrote in his hotel room while the rest of the band was on holiday. At least, that's how i felt the FIRST time listened to it. The more time i spend with the album, the more you can hear just how perfectly rounded out it is. It won't get the recognition it deserves or knock Yankee Hotel Foxtrot(impossible!) off the best Wilco album of all time list, but it certainly doesn't disappoint.

notable songs: What Light, Hate it Here

#09. Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild

Anyone who knows me, knows i have a soft spot for Eddie Vedder and your probably not surprised to see his solo debut on my short list of great 2007 albums. But there IS merit germinating here and not just fan boy flora you smell. If you don't already know, the album was written for the Sean Penn film "Into the Wild", one of the best I saw in 2007, another list for another day. The soundtrack fits the film perfectly and I challenge you to resist picking it up after watching it. There's something loose, playful, and very open about the feel of the album. Eddie's at his most basic here, man and guitar. There is the occasional tune that someone steps in on some light drums or backing solos, such as the albums single "Big Hard Sun", but mostly it's all about man and guitar which I doubt is a coincidence that it fits perfectly with the theme of the film, man and nature.
At least that's what i think.

notable songs: Rise, Hard Sun, Guaranteed

#08. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

My #8 was a late bloomer for me. It's been sitting in my itunes playlist for months, begging to be played. Well, the other day whilst whittling away at work, that's what i did, I played the album. Then I played it again. and again. and again. In fact if it wasn't for my pick for #4 album of the year, i'd probably still be playing it.

notable songs: Unless it Kicks, Plus Ones

#07. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand

If this list was for the "most beautiful perfectly sung harmonies in the most perfectly gorgeous songs of 2007," this album would be number 1. Allison Krauss, who never disappoints with her perfectly soft vocals and Robert Plant who still sounds like he's 24(albeit wiser) have created a incredible little album. I was surprised at how lovely it was. Buy it for your girlfriend and have brownie points for the rest of the year.. well, the rest of NEXT year.

notable songs: Polly Come Home, Your Long Journey, Gone Gone Gone

#06. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Hands down the most "fun" album of the year. I had the privilege of seeing Spoon for the first time at Bonnaroo this year and you cannot help but bounce around to their music. I think Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (yes, five of them) is their best album in years. "Cherry Bomb" will own your boom box. 100% Aural happy pills.

notable songs: The Underdog, Cherry Bomb, Don't You Evah

#05. Band of Horses, Cease to Begin

Band of Horses 2006 album, Everything All The Time, was one of my favorite albums last year, so I was relieved that this album arrived and turned out too be almost every bit as good as the last. I say "almost" because, well, the first was "SO good"..with a capitol "s" and "o", while this one is "so good" with no capitols. That may sound silly but I'll sum it up like this, if you've never heard any Band of Horses, pick up Everything All The Time first, then once your CD player stops smoking from all the play your giving the disc, buy Cease to Begin. Then go buy another CD player, you'll have to.

notable songs: The General Specific, Marry Song, Ode to LRC

#04. The Avett Brothers, Emotionalism
Holy grandma, what a great album. Emotionalism hasn't left my playlist in several week now. I don't know if there's something inherently hill billy nested somewhere in my brain, passed on by generations of talking about other people inbreeding, or if i just really enjoy great harmonies, songs, and the lovely unity of git fiddle and banjo. I wish I could say I'm well versed on The Brothers Avett, but I'm not. They pick and croon their woeful songs of love and love lost, but they never bring you down, never sound depressing. Instead listening to their music makes me feel elated and happy, like I'm sitting on someones front porch somewhere out in the country side with a couple friends who happen to be killer musicians. I can't comment on their other albums, but I certainly intend to check out each one as soon as this one releases it's grip on my heart.

notable tracks: Die Die Die, Will You Return, Go to Sleep, The Ballad of Love and Hate

#03. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
Take two parts Springsteen, one part Dylan, and toss in a sprinkle of the Partridge Family, top off with a dash of Amish seasoning and you might get something that resembles The Arcade Fire. The follow up to their incredible 2004 album, Funeral, Neon Bible is one of those rare albums that comes along every few years that changes the definition of what an album can be. Packed with epic songs that don't strive to be epic, apocalyptic hymnals set to slow western stride, like their coming from a preacher in a pulpit acknowledging his own sins in front of a congregation of sinners. Each song in Neon Bible plays like a short story, a narrative from eyes that have seen the end of things to come. Not to say the album is depressing or hard to listen to, musically you'll be hard pressed to find an album that compares. Despite the heavy themes that run the coarse of this forty four and half minute opus, I'm having a difficult time remembering the last time it was so easy to completely love an album.

notable songs: Intervention, No Cars Go, My Body is a Cage, Keep the Car Running

#02. Radiohead, In Rainbows

The more I've thought about it, the more perfect the title of Radioheads latest album is. When we see a rainbow, most of us have a passing fascination with it that last only moments, it hardly registers, yet we quietly agree that it's a good thing; aka we LIKE rainbows. But if we take a minute and admire it, really take a break from all the noise around us, the real beauty of it becomes very apparent and you might find your staring at in awe for minutes on end lost in thought. This is my own (probably terrible) way of describing In Rainbows. The first time I played the album, nothing popped out, grabbed me and shook me to made me pay attention to it. Instead, song after song swam by, and before i knew it, the album had repeated itself, and I was listening to Bodysnatchers for the 3rd time. That's when it hit me how effortless it is to listen to this album, how smooth the ride felt. It entranced me and I listened to it on repeat over and over again, each time picking out a new nuance, a new note, or slight of hand that Thom and the boys are so good at throwing into their music. Only, unlike every album since Ok Computer, these "tricks" we'll call them, are hidden like Easter eggs, and you have to really listen to find them. But therein lies the beauty of it, you don't HAVE to find the eggs to enjoy the music, enjoying it's the easy part. In short, In Rainbows is Radiohead's best album since Kid A, and the most approachable album since Ok Computer.

notable songs: Bodysnatchers, Wierd Fishes/Arpeggi, Jigsaw Falling Into Place

#01. The National, Boxer

I can honestly say that no other album deserves the number one spot more than The National's, Boxer. Every song on this album is perfect. Matt Berninger sings his slow thought out baritone over the elegantly textured barrage of music his band creates. His lyrics have a tangibility to them, the way he describes growing older, struggling to be something and failing comes across both sweet and bitter at once.There's such a clumsy beauty to the album, a drunken midlife crisis, a flirtation with awkward disaster. Earlier this year I went to see The Arcade Fire. The National was the opening band. At the time, I'd never heard them, knew nothing of them and had no intention of learning. Then they started playing. I think it took, oh, 42 seconds into their first song to grab me, make me shut up, sit down, and listen. This band had somethings to get off their chest and I was going to hear them out whether i wanted to or not. I went to see Arcade Fire, and they were brilliant in there own right. But I left, a huge fan of The National. I quickly snatched up their previous album Alligator and of course Boxer and drank from them equally for months. It's rare for a band to demand my attention so suddenly, so absolutely. Boxer, hands down, album of the year.

notable songs: Fake Empire, Start a War, Ada, Apartment Story, ahhh ALL of them.

live radiohead

2007-11-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how this slipped by me, but apparently over the weekend, Radiohead launched http://www.radiohead.tv./ and did all sorts of sodding off and silly odd bits, but best of all lots of live music and mucking about. Nothing's going on there at time of this writing but you can find the collection of the video's here thanks to Sterogum.

Some really great performances and random banter via thom and company.
Enjoy.

great ad

2007-11-09T11:38:00.000-05:00

From Nicolai Fuglsig, the same guy that brought us the Sony Bravia "bouncing ball" ad, comes this great Rube Goldburg inspired ad for Guinness.
I'm not sure if it makes me want to drink a Guinness, but by the end i was smiling along with the villagers.
To me, that's the kind of reaction an ad should give.

microsoft's photosynth

2007-11-08T11:53:00.001-05:00

This might be old news to some of you, but it's new and exciting to me.
A friend of mine just sent me a link to what is probably the most impressive little slice of technology i've seen this year. iPhone, schmi-phone.
Though still in it's pre-beta form, this software accumulates photo data from given collection of photo's from Flikr from hundreds if not thousands of users of a related area. The demo shows the Notre dam Cathedral. Everything from cell phone images to high mega pixel images are combined to form an interactive environment which you can, at will, explore.
Watch this video for a rundown and demo by one of the designers of it and then go here if you'd like to play around with it some yourself.
I can't wait for this to be polished up and released for general consumption.

rube goldberg online shop

2007-11-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if i'd actually purchase much from this site, but the unique way in which HEMA show's off their catalogue is the most "inventive" i've seen.

check it.

good ol' moldy greenville

2007-11-06T13:55:00.000-05:00

I came across this story at random today and since it's about my hometown of Greenville SC, i thought I'd post it.
I'm sure that discovering the house your living in is contaminated with dangerous mold, which is quietly destroying the house as well as poisoning you and your family would be a pretty scary find.
This story proves that there are still decent people in the world that look out for others.

i wish i knew half of what he knows

2007-10-17T13:49:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd post this Dstrukt 2007 showreel. Chris James Hewitt has an incredible visual style(styles?) that your sure to recognize from some of his work for clients including, MTV, VH1, Discovery Channel among others.
I'll let the link do the talking, amazing.

click here.

sony bravia play doh bunny spot

2007-10-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

This is the best commericial i've seen in a long while. Instead of skimping and going CG, the agency behind this Sony spot coupled 100% traditional stop motion techniques and play doh(plasticine) and created something truly inspired. Here's another link that shows a bit of the production process behind this cool little spot.

In case you missed some of their previous commericials touting bravis colour..check this link. They're all great and you should see them at least once.

new radiohead album

2007-10-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

The new Radiohead album, "In Rainbows" will be available online in just 8 days via download on their website while the physical box set will be available in December.
Why is this such big news? Because, Radiohead, who is sans a music label right now has decided to take business matters into their own talented hands and make the entire album available from their website for the low, low, price of whatever you choose. Yes, even free.
That's right, you decide what a new Radiohead album is worth to you, pay that if anything, and come October 10th, you get to download it.
It's a sweet deal that anyone can take advantage of and I really hope it pays off for them. I'm preordering mine now and while the scent of "free" is strong and alluring, this is Radiohead. I heart Radiohead. Beyond that, this is a fresh way of doing business that I'd love to see more bands be able to do likewise.
I'll be supporting the move financially.

hotel chevalier

2007-10-02T10:53:00.000-04:00

Originally intended to be a companion film to The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier is a short film by Wes Anderson starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. The studio behind the film, pulled it from it's intended spot of showing before The Darjeeling Limited and many feared it'd be lost amongst the interwebs and doomed to the grainy poor compression of youtubes and it's ilk.
"Not so!" bellows Apple.
Apple has released the short on iTunes for FREE. So take a few minutes, hop onto iTunes and get to downloading.

halo III

2007-09-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

In honor of the release of the "final" game in the popular game series Halo, here's a little story about some pranksters who did a delightful mash up on the John P. Harvard statue in Harvard Square.

A quick one for the curious

2007-09-26T10:02:00.000-04:00

Came across these two artist this morning. They basically take garbage and various objects, stick them together, and shine light through them to make an image, like impressively artsy shadow puppets. I'll let the images do the talking since there's not much to say beyond perhaps a comment about "One mans trash is another mans treasure".

Transforming Dresses and the Animated Goodness

2007-09-21T11:40:00.000-04:00

These are a few of clips I've stumbled upon recently that I really found inspiring, I'm sure you will enjoy them as well. This first clip is a painted wall animation that features somewhat disturbing but otherwise ingenious work, the artist was also able to make the piece loop which i thought was brilliant.
The second clip from a runway show featuring the work of Hussein Chalayan in which he creates incredible garments that "transform" and animate on the wearer in a very organic and natural way. I've never been so interested in fashion in my life and I have absolutely no clue how this is achieved. The end results are fascinating and one might easily imagine a future where this type of thing works it's way to mainstream. By the by the clip is most likely NSFW as it does feature brief nudity at the close of the clip.
This last clip is by far my favorite as it is based off a subject in which myself and a good friend of mine have been spending some of our time studying (aka:playing with). Light painting. While certainly not a new idea by any means, it's starting to grow in popularity in the commercial world with companies like Apple, Sprint, and Toyota among others using the "look". While I've shot some photo's of it and have been able to recreate the look Apple used in their previous ipod spots digitally, I've been wanting to come up with a way to bring light painting to life via stop motion photography. Well, these guys beat me to it with an add for Skymovies.com and have done something really cool. All i can hope to do now is come up with something UNIQUE to do with light.

The year 2000.

2007-09-06T16:10:00.000-04:00

Actually, this has nothing to do with the year 2000. But is a testament to how fast things happen in the world we all now live in.
Just as I published the last post about the iPhones $200 price drop, I find out that Steve Jobs has posted a letter on apples site in response to the hundreds of emails he's received about it saying that Apple would be issuing a $100.00 credit (apple store) to all early adopters as a "thank you".
That's class man. Pure class.
Sure, that doesn't put $200.00 in my back pocket, but it does make this situation a lot less painful to deal with.
I'm sure i can find something to spend it on with the holidays coming on.
Man, is it Christmas already?

Time travels fast in the year 2000.

UGH!

2007-09-06T15:21:00.000-04:00

Ok, so Steve Jobs and Co. dropped the price of the iPhone $200 a mere 2 months after it's release date. While this is great news for those who wanted one but didn't want to pony up the $599 required at launch, it's absolutely awful news for those who did.
Everyone knows, technology advances and prices drop. It happens all the time, and generally right after you've run your credit card through at the local stop-n-shop to buy the latest this or that. It is simply a fact of life and one of the undying rules of capitalism. Or as some might say,"Hey, that's technology".
But anyway you look at it, a $200 drop in such a short amount of time is a direct slap in the face of the loyal million that were there on launch day snapping them up at full retail.
At $599 we were told that we were getting a value; a very capable phone packaged in with the most advanced iPod available, creating a revolutionary new communications device and therefore warranting the price of admission. So what's changed in the last two months?
Not much. Sure, new iPods have been announced, including the new iPod Touch which mimics the iPhone in many ways but when it comes to the actual technology of the iphone, nothings changed. In fact, many of the software "upgrades" and "features" that early adopters were promised would be arriving in a few weeks time have yet to be seen.
So whats to be done? What can we, as consumers, do? Well, most likely, nothing.
Apple is a massive corporation. They've managed to hide behind this persona that somehow separates them from all the other big "evil" corporation's like Microsoft, AT&T, Viacom, etc... but the truth is, they share many of the same business practices and are very much after the same thing. Mullah.
So while the mythological Apple would submit perhaps, some sort of "thank you" to it's early adopters in the form of an itunes or apple store credit, the "real" apple will most likely move on, wave it's new iPods under hungry consumers faces and pledge that the iPhone price drop is simply a way to get this "revolutionary device" into more peoples hands.
From a business standpoint, you look at the price scaling of the new iPod lineup, the new lower price makes perfect sense. In fact, the old price of $599 is way out of line. With the availability of the phonefree iPod Touch @ $299(8 gig), trying to sell the idea that having a phone function added to it is worth an additional $299 would be a marketing nightmare. So it only makes sense to instead say "hey, for $100 more you can upgrade to the 16 gig iPod Touch or get the iPhone".
There's the value at play again.
So now what? Who knows. I'm still holding out hope. As an early adopter i'm upset, but i'm not giving up on Apple or boycotting anyone just yet. Despite my gripes I'm still a believer and I still think Steve and Co. are among the "good guys" of the corporate world.

That being said, I'm sure months from now, there will be an interview with Jobs or someone else at Apple and the question will be asked "What do you say to the million early adopters of the iPhone who felt they were left out in the cold a few months later when the massive price dropped $200?"

To which the reply I'm sure will be something like, "Hey, that's technology."

A few great examples of motion graphics in advertising

2007-09-05T16:37:00.001-04:00

Just a couple of cool new commercials spots that have caught my interest.
The way these agencies blend live action with crazy amounts of 2d and 3d animation is inspiring. Truly amazing stuff and really fun to look at.
enjoy.
The first is called Numericable, for a company I've never heard of but that nevertheless has some tight animation and motion graphics going on.
The second you may have seen, is the new HP spot with featuring Serena Williams. This ones the most diverse i've seen yet, and Michel Gondry's aside, my favorite. The company that's handling these spots for HP are nailing it, great stuff. A few more on HPs official site here.

Karaoke

2007-09-05T15:47:00.005-04:00

So this past labor day weekend was spent with some old friends in Athens doing what old friends tend to do when they get together, copious amounts of karaoke. A surprising number of hits were dusted off and brought out and if i do say so, "rocked" mercilessly. This was all done at a sushi joint where you can rent a room by the hour to have somewhat of a private evening making a fool of yourself.

It was a good time and a nice break from the same old same old of Columbus, GA.

I'm sure Columbus has some karaoke action somewhere, but that's not really the point of it, is it? It's all about being with good friends, allowing yourself to forget about all the other things going on in your life and letting go a bit.

Something that occurred to me the other night was just how infrequent these types of evening seem to be for me. Unwinding with a group of your closest mates, talking nonsense and going to bed at the end of the night looking forward to what you might get into the next day. I'm sure much can be contributed to the fact most of my closest or oldest friends live states away. But other than that i believe time is the biggest factor. Who has the time or money to unwind anymore? It seems that the only time my wife and I get to truly get away from the day to day is to make some lengthy plan weeks or months in advance. It's not as easy as calling up a few friends and going out for a bite to eat anymore. That's all too simple, it's all too "normal". The weekends just can't suffice, there's all too much to do then as well. Yard work, home repairs, personal projects, church, catching up on missed days at the gym...

Nope, it seems in order for one to shake the curls from ones head nowadays requires a larger deal of effort, travel, and time.

I think I get most of my day to day enjoyment out of either spending time with my wife Jen or working around the house on some home improvement project. While that can be fun and many times relaxing, Jen and I share many of the same burdens and responsibilities, so to get away from those things, it seems like we literally have to "get away".

It's all so different than from what i remember of college life, where every night seemed to have interesting and strange possibilities just laying in wait. Despite what your classes threw at you, there was always something going on later to take your mind off it.

I suppose that's what makes vacation a vacation. I just wished(as everyone does) they were easier to come by and happened a lot more frequently.

Xbox? more like,"can-i-git-de-NEXTbox".. please, no really, this ones broken.

2007-08-30T15:35:00.000-04:00

I just got my Xbox 360 back from being warranty repaired by Microsoft. This was first time i've ever had to send something off for warranty repair, however in this case, this would be my 4th Xbox 360. Let me explain.
On the launch day for the system, my dear, sweet wife and I stood outside in the Asheville cold in a Circuit City parking lot to get our hands on this highly anticipated system(on my end, not so much on hers). She did this with me in the wee hours of the morn' during our brief vacation in the mountains when she could have stayed nice and warm in the hotel bed. For that, i am forever grateful.
I digress.
The launch day 360 lasted a full year and 2 months. One day it was working as always, and bad guys where being vanquished with aplomb, the next it wasn't. Microsoft had just expanded the warranty of the system from 3 months to a full year(bless 'em) due to the insane amount of 360's crapping out. Unfortunately, mine was still no longer covered by this new policy, missing it by just a few months. Upon calling MS customer service, I was told that it would have cost $175 out of my pocket to send it off and have Microsoft repair it, plus another $25 for the S/H. $200 to get some refurb job when a new system cost $299.99. Desperate for resolution, I called my local game store and asked what their trade-in value on the system was. What do you know, $199. This, as it turns out, sounded like a much better deal.

Now, before anyone thinks me to be devious, underhanded or shifty, know, that i fully expected the trade to fail as for the past several days i had been unable to even get the system to turn on. I packaged the beast up best i could and took it in to watch my dream fail with flying colors.

In short, it worked.

The guy behind the counter plugged it in and turned it on as if nothing had ever been wrong. He then played "Gears of War"for a good 10 minutes before he deemed the 360, "trade-in worthy". The entire trade-in process took almost 20 minutes and the system stayed on and performed like a champ the entire time. I was able to leave with my $199 in store credit, which was used a few days later in sync with a fresh $100.00+taxes to get a shiny new system with a new 1 year warranty in tack.
Not even three days later, that one froze on me as well. The red ring of death flashing it's vulgar eye at me while the screen flickered ugly green and violet. Complimentary colors, but still, ugly.
Being within the stores 15 day return policy, i didn't even bother trying to see if it would happen again. I wrapped it up and in less than an hour i was back home with my 3rd new Xbox.
That was sometime around the end of February. My 360 played flawlessly and again, lawbreakers, terrorist, and aliens fell time and time again under the surgical like precision of my bullets and grenades. That was until about two months ago, where, in an almost overnight "passing on" of sorts, it followed suite into permanent slumber. Fortunately for me, THIS TIME my warranty had me covered. The repairs would be handled by Microsoft and be made at no charge to me, all i had to do was hold off on playing video games for 4 to 6 weeks and everything will be as good as new. At least that's what the lady on the phone told me.

Well, the wait was about 5 weeks and I finally got my system back via UPS Tuesday.
I hooked it up and excitedly put my new copy of Bioshock (more on that later) into the system, which cranked up like a newborn baby opening it's eyes for the first time. After a few hours of not looking once away from the screen (it's called bioshock) i went to bed. Over my morning coffee i decided to check out some downloads and turned on my newly minted system to take it on it's second virtual voyage over what i had missed the past month.
It froze.
sigh....

So here i am now, the system is still working and I'm still able to play it. However in the last 3 days that I've had it, I've had to reboot it twice due to freezing and once more for a "disc read error".
This, i believe, bodes poorly for the life expectancy of this particular plastic hunk of Microsoft goodness. Stories are sadly not uncommon of people on their 6th and 7th systems.
That's really really pathetic. Doesn't Microsoft own the most of the world? Can you honestly think of any other piece of tech or gadget that you've had to send back to the manufacturer more than once, maybe twice? Ever?

Yeah, me neither.

Ideas for a daily post schedule

2007-08-30T14:37:00.000-04:00

I can't seem to get on regular posting schedule with this thing. It's not out of forgetfulness or laziness. I think mostly it stems from the very format of this blog. This is a blog, which by definition i think means that it's primarily about whatever it is i'm thinking about or want to talk about at the moment. Therein somewhere lies the issue. While random interest prevail in my day to day brain, enlightened reading makes, it may not.

It's too scattered, too all over, writers block sinks in and updates don't happen.

So with that in knowledge I've been trying to come up with a schedule, a format where i can be a little more strategic on what to write about day to day or what have you. This i believe will keep things flowing here a little more regular. More updates=more new(ish) things to read about.

So anyway, if anyone has any ideas on weekly contest, columns or drawings or whatever that could be cool to incorporate, i'm all ears.

Daniel Johnston

2007-08-13T15:20:00.000-04:00

Last night i caught the last half of "The Devil in Daniel Johnston", and now I'm obsessed. I find it extremely ironic that the night i finally see the documentary, which sparked my fervent curiosity, I find out that some of my closest friends were actually watching him perform a small show in Savannah, GA. Ahhh... such is my life.

Anyway, I had heard of Daniel Johnston a long while ago, via Kurt Cobain sporting a t-shirt made by Daniel in the early 90's and hearing bands like, Sonic Youth, Beck, Bright Eyes, Flaming Lips, and Pearl Jam cover songs written by him, but other than vague curiosity and a smattering of informative discussions amongst various friends, I know very little about him.

My first response to watching the documentary was disbelief. It was a little unnerving to see the level of such pure song writing coming out of such a strange looking, sounding and acting man-child. I suppose therein lies the rub, DJ isn't acting at all. He's nuts. Absolutely-nutter-butter-out-of-his-mind, and somehow through that lies the keys to his genius.

One particularly telling incident of crazy (medicated or otherwise)mentioned during "Devil' was how Daniel almost killed himself and his father while they were flying home from Johnston's performance in Austin, TX at South by Southwest. Daniel was reading a Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book, who along side Captain America was a favorite character of his, while his dad(and manager) flew the plane. Daniel suddenly decided that he'd like to float effortlessly through the air like Casper and thought the best way to do that would be to stop the plane. He then attacked his father, wrestled the controls away from him, pulled the keys from the ignition of the small private plane, and tossed them out the window. Daniels father, was able to at the last moment, regain control of the plane and crash land it in a wooded area. Both father and son emerged unharmed, but the difficult decision to send Daniel to a mental hospital was made.

Daniel suffers from all sorts of mental illnesses including, paranoid schizophrenia, obsessive compulsiveness,bipolar disorder, and manic depression. He's heavily medicated also in order to help keep him "level", but in other ways, I'm sure, it's destroying him just the same.

Whats amazing is how art just flows out of this guy as naturally as one of us might decide what type of cereal to eat in the morning or whether or not anyone will really be able to tell that your wearing blue socks with black shoes. His music shifts between painful, insightful songs of love and loss, to almost child-like ditties about Casper the Friendly Ghost.(with the occasional warnings against the evils of Satan) Many of his recordings are very rare and can be difficult to locate, but there are thankfully several available albums out there to get you up and running, including a recent greatest hits of sorts collection put together by Daniel and his family called " Welcome to My World".

I'm most likely late to this game, and everyone reading this is thinking, "Daniel was cool in the 90's dude, where were you?" Well sir, I was probably listening to a band that he influenced and now here i am proclaiming his radness. Better late than never.

"The Devil in Daniel Johnston" is on the required viewing list for everyone reading this that hasn't seen it yet. It's as simple as that. It's a massive testimate to everything from the reality of drug abuse, mental illness, true love, parental patience, artistic influence, the pain of love, the vibrance of real music and honest art.

The music and world of Daniel Johnston is in such stark contrast to the glamorous-squeaky-clean-microwave-over-produced music that's fat-feed to us on a daily basis from artist that hardly know how to even spell the word "art", much less create it.

It's as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.

to wet your appetite

2007-08-10T11:06:00.000-04:00

Thought i'd do a quick post of some movie trailers that might be worth your attention.

Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell. Directed by Peter Hedges, who did About a Boy, and Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, I'm betting all my food stamps this will be a funny, heartwarming tale.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/daninreallife/small.html

The Darjeeling Limited, it's Wes Anderson, when has he lead you astray, just see it.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thedarjeelinglimited/trailerb/

Rocket Science

http://www.apple.com/trailers/picturehouse/rocketscience/trailer1/

The Wendell Baker Story, Dir. by the Wilson brothers & starring Luke and Owen, it could be absolutely awful or it could be comic goodness through and through, either way, i like these guys in 9 out of 10 of their movies, so I'll be giving it a shot.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/thinkfilm/thewendellbakerstory/trailer/

Be kind, rewind, from Michel Gondry, dir. of the Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's got Jack Black and an amazing director, I'll be there opening night.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809761737/video/

Shoot 'Em Up, honestly, this movie looks like dumb, low-brow, high-action.. i won't go for the story, but i'll go for the explosions and shoot em ups... ahhh see what i did there?

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809259474/video/3645289/

American Gangsters, Starring two great actors and directed by none other than Ridley Scott, this movie will undoubtedly be one to see.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809745897/video

This is England, i know nothing about this film other than what i see from the trailer and it looks intriguing to me.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/thisisengland/trailer/

So there ya are my friends, anything else you think might be cool thats on the way, leave a post and clue me in.

New Music, Adobe CS3 stuff, and Winners

2007-08-10T09:10:00.000-04:00

I've become so unorganized in the updating of this blog that my massive readership has plummeted from where it once stood at or around 4 people, to roughly 2. Being as that our readership has fallen 50% we realize that we must work overtime to bring that number back up! One way to get heading back in the right direction is to talk shop about music and shamelessly promote a band or two.
However, the first order of business is to finally put up the winners of the "draw a transformer, win nothing" contest. I'm ashamed to admit this, but the biggest reason this was not already done, is because I had started to sketch a drawing myself and had planned to finish it to post along side the others. I've failed to do this. So without further anything, here are the two winners of the great nothing.

Nick Main:

Mike Thomas:

In truth, they won by default as they were the only two guys to send anything in. It is what it is as they say. Thanks guys, for taking the time, they're both great. Enjoy that nothing.

Onto other business: Cool new(ish) music.

The first on my list of "bands you need to check out" is the band "Okkervil River". I'm not very familiar with these guys and came across them by pure happenstance. Very glad I am that i did. While not entirely unique as a band, their music is loaded with energy and I double dog dare you to resist tapping your foot whilst taken a listen. Their newest album, "The Stage Names" has got me hooked, and i'm already mapping out diagrams and making detailed to plans on how to go about checking out their past efforts (of which there are many). Go to their website, you can listen to the whole album for free and decide yourself.

Anther album I've recently acquired is Tom Waits, "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards". For those of you that have listened to the man before, you know it doesn't really get any more gritty, gruff, or gargley(?). This is a massive 3 CD collection of true down-home-bar-bare blues that after listening halfway through will have you seeking out a porch and a rocking chair to sit on, sweat in the hot summer heat and stomp along. I've always been a fan of Waits, I mean he's a legend, but this album is tops for me, loving it. Find it, buy it, steal it, then pour yourself some lemonade .

For something entirely different, give St. Vincents "Marry Me" a go. This chic heralds in from her Polyphonic Spree roots with her solo debut. She brings some audible bliss via complex melodies, organic and digital beats, screeching guitars, pianos and synths all packaged neatly so you can almost dance to it... what the heck, dance to it! She has a soft, but powerful voice and the way in which she's arranged her music is refreshingly unique. I've always had a thing for Fionna Apple (which by the way, has nothing to do with her video for "criminal" and more with her cover of "all across the universe") but St. Vincent has currently stolen my attention away from Apples smokey tones and affixed them on her own; bright, spooky, and beautiful.

Alright! Next up, lets see whats going on here..ah yes, Adobe's CS3. Anyone out there getting to play our work on this package yet? I just got it a few days ago, and am quite enjoying it. Of them Photoshop and After Effects are the two programs I spend the most time engulfed in. That just goes with the territory of my job and doing any kind of animation pretty much requires their use. PSCS3 Extended has some new, pretty cool, fairly easy to use animation tools built in now, with a track/layer editor similar to the one in After Effects. One feature I'm really exited about is the ability to bring 3d objects into PSC3 Extended and directly texture it. I haven't played with the feature much yet so I'm not aware of it's limitations, still from the looks of it, it seems like it could be an immense time saver when texturing your 3d character or object. Generally when working in Maya, I jump back and forth between Photoshop dozens of times, adjusting a texture, readjusting it, color correcting...etc.. If I can just load up my object and paint away, sweat mercy. I'm also excited that the Production package includes Flash Pro as well. I've tinkered with Flash here and there over the years, but I'm still very much a noob, so it's nice that i can play with it and try to learn a few things without having to shell out anything extra beyond what I'd normally spend when upgrading the production package.

I went and saw "Bourne Ultimatum" last night. I've never been a huge "Bourne" fan, whether the series itself just didn't interest me with their James Bond-wannabe scripts or the fact i can't look at Matt Damon without thinking of Good Will Hunting, but i really liked this one. It was very fast paced and had some truly intense moments where the action didn't let up. I think, unlike the other two in the movie series, they left the romance out of it and focused completely on Bournes ability to out-run, out-think, and out-beat-the-crap-out-of-you-with-his-mad-kung-fu-skills anyone he's up against. I'd give it an 8 out of 10 if I were to instantly make up a rating system for my blog, which i just did.. THAT JUST HAPPENED!

shake and bake.

An update at long last

2007-07-31T11:12:00.000-04:00

I havn't updated this thing in about 3 weeks. Work and life have wrestled me to the ground and the free time just hasn't been there. But here it is, a quickie for those that care. I still have to post the great "Draw a Transformer, Win Nothing Contest" artwork that's been submitted by a few of you and decide who wins said great nothing, I'll do my best to do that this week.

Alright! A couple of movie things going down that are pretty exciting. For all those not aware of JJ Abrams newest, titled at the moment "Cloverfield" here's a link to the trailer, sorta looks like "the blair witch" with an endtimes flair. Not sure if the entire movie is shot this way, but it is suppose to be told from the viewpoint of a small group of people and from the sounds of it i'd say it's a monster flick on scale with Godzilla or King Kong.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/11808/

Breezeing through apples trailers website, I saw this and disregarded it at first, only to find out from another source that it's completly CG. I've never been a fan of this style of motion captured animation, as results tend to look a bit like puppets with a mean case of creepy dead eye. I'm not sure if it's been done to this extent before, with current tech standards and all that. The realism is pretty definitive but even from the trailer you can tell it still suffers slightly from the afor mentioned transgressions, and thus it rubs shoulders with the Uncanny Valley. Still, the effects in the water, enviroment and the characters themselves look amazing, more natural and elegant than past stabs i've seen in this vien (Polar Express, Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within) and while I don't know if this will fair any better than the afor mentioned films, i've always enjoyed the story of Beowulf , and the talents behind it are fairly solid. Neil Gaiman sired the script, so it could very well rock. Take a looksee.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/small.html

The movie project i'm probably the most excited about(Indiana Jones sequel aside), has no trailer to speak of, but indeed above all graphic novel based movies, this is far and away the holy grail.

The Watchmen.

The Watchmen for those not in the know, is a graphic novel written by comic book scribe legend, Alan Moore back in 1986. The story is set 1985, in an alternate reality of the United States. The Cold War is in full effect and superheroes or "masks" have become a thing of the past and those with super abilities are prohibited by law to use them. The story begins as a well known "mask" is murdered and when a paltry investigation follows, other superheroes decide to redawn their costumes and get to the bottom of the mystery. Pixars "The Incredibles" borrowed heavily from this storyline, but in an obviously much more family oriented manner.

As I cannot summerize the story as a whole or with the necessary amount of drama to entice you to read the collection, i'll just say this "read it"! Its the only graphic novel in history to recieve both the Hugo reward and the only one to be in Time magazines 2005 list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.

To be directed by Zack Snyder of the movie "300" fame, the movie will be shot much like 300 was, with heavy use of green screen and compositing. Zack has an eye for composition unmatched by many of his peers as testimate in "Dawn of Dead" and "300". Though not my favorite director by far, I believe the movie is in extremely able hands.

Speaking of "300" I purchased it today on bluray, i've never bought a bluray disc but my purchasing of DVD's has dwindled down to almost nothing in the past 6 months. Most movies I see once, I'm not that anxious to see again once the DVD is released. Comedy's fair better, 40 year old Virgin, Royal Tenenbaums, Old School, Ricky Bobby, Wedding Crashers, Borat, Rushmore, The Big Lebowski...it just seems like you get more mileage out of them than most other films. Though recent movies like The Departed and 300 warrent purchase in my opinion as a matter of principle.

That and sweaty man pecks are sure to look incredible in hi-def bluray quality.

4th of July

2007-07-09T13:54:00.000-04:00

The 4th came and went by with a fizzle this year. Stayed in most of the day, though it was beautiful outside, didn't go to a picnic, didn't go to a baseball game, there was no apple pie anywhere to be seen. In fact, the only activity of the day was a late showing of Transformers, then home, then bed. I don't think I've ever really appreciated the 4th, or better said, don't think i realized how MUCH i appreciated the 4th. Every year we'd get together with friends and or family and eat like kings(or queens) and then spend a few hours blowing things up and sets'n things on fire! This is the first year in memory where i haven't done at least one of those things in celebration of the 4th, and you know what? I really missed it. I think the 4th has always been such an understated holiday. Had you asked me a year ago if I'd care that much if we skipped it next year, I'd probably said "nah, no biggie". But in truth, seeing the distant fireworks while driving home from the movie, and noticing all the burnt firecracker husks left over from mini-pyros in training, it tugged at my heartstrings just a little, and i think i really had a moment there of true appreciation for everything that goes into that little holiday.

Anyway, next year, one way or another, I'm having apple pie...

and a snow cone.

This week wraps up the Transformers drawing competition(worlds best!) here at "Stop motioned", so send those entries in by Friday! DO IT!

a weekend full of it.

2007-07-02T16:51:00.000-04:00

YAWN!! I'm having a heavy case of the Mondays. It's almost 5 though, so I only need to hold on just a few..moments....longer........gasp!

The image above is a WIP of a character i'm working for work.. just thought i'd share...

The weekend went by super quick, as it tends to do when you dread the coming work week. A good part of my weekend was spent playing with my new iPhone, of which, by the by, i am a huge fan. The irony was my old cellphone quite ringing all together the day of the iPhone release..not that it was some sort of deciding factor, i had made that decision well in advance, but i look at it as some sort of "ok" from the cosmo's...

We spent a big part of Saturday cleaning up the backyard of deck construction debris and running back and forth to the city dump. My friend , Justin and I then took all the scrap wood we had into the woods behind our house and proceeded to build a bridge that crosses a rather large ditch that blocks our access to our woods. After that was completed, we still had quite a bit left over so we decided to build and set up little "bunkers" for future games of paintball. Paintball, is something i enjoy very much when played with friends and familiars.. though, every time i walk into a store with "pro's" and self proclaimed pros that take the game so very seriously and own $2000 machine gun like paint ball sprayers... i tend to get a little scared and disinterested in the game as whole... It's like really liking star wars..then going to a convention and meeting all the freaks and geeks that have made it less "something they enjoy" and more, a way of life.

Anyway, with a our little forts built, it's our new intention to try and convince friends and family alike to invest in a paintball gun of some sort and come out and play a few games.. It can be very fun, and even the short game Justin and I played yesterday before God opened the floodgates on us, was intense with a handful of exciting moments...

We ended the weekend with going out and seeing Ratatouille and it was wonderful. The story was funny and lite-hearted, the animation unprecedented.. go see it. It'll be a full year before we get that sort of quality in animation at our local theatres again..

2007-06-28T13:35:00.000-04:00

A reminder to get cracking on your Transformer drawing of the centuary! I'm going to extend it another week because A: that's when the movie comes out.. and B: i havn't gotten any artwork from anyone yet...

go team!

Anyone planning on seeing Ratatouille this weekend? We'll be there friday night. You can watch a free 10 minute sneak peak via iTunes. What are you waiting for? Go! Go! Go!

Draw a Transformer, win a million dollars*

2007-06-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

In light of the unavoidable Transformers the movie marketing railroad, I thought I'd extend a little "challenge" to all two of you that actually read this blog.
This week I want everyone to draw a transformer of choice and send it in, I'll go through them and post it. After which well, that would be it, no award or clapping of hands. Just my appreciation and a digital pat on the back for drawing such a cool (allegedly) robot.

*by million dollars, we mean nothing, you get nothing.

iPhone

2007-06-25T21:09:00.001-04:00

Who wants one, who's going to get one? The thing cost a months rent(depending where your liv'n) or could be compared to purchasing a Playstation 3 and strapping it to your head. I'm a gadget fiend, and find that if you wave something shiny with buttons in front of my nose for too long i'll bite it, deep and hard.
That being said, nothing says "mug me" like the little white wires hanging from your ears, trailing into your pocket. Even if your not into PDOMS (public displays of music snobbery) the second you whip the iPhone out to get a call on the subway or a dark dank alley, that's more than likely the second you'll lose it to someone previously portable music player-less.
Just think of all the crack you could buy hawking an iphone...

mmmmmmmm, crack.

Anyway, I happen to need a new phone now as mine only rings half the time, is hardly audible when it does and overall randomly decides when to work correctly. So, my phone sucks, my current contract is with cingular(AT&T) and I'm filthy rich. Ok, two of those are true, the last sadly, not so much. Still, the iPhone looks tempting to me. Just watching the little videos that show of all it's features gets me squirmy.

Ultimately i think the decisive factor won't be the steep price up front, but the contract\service terms that At&t is apparently keeping mum on until time of release. If we're talking a few extra bucks a month for some media package, I'm cool with that, but if we're talking $100 or more a month just for my phone bill, I'm going to have to stave off my desires for hot-tech and go buy a bag phone.

If I DO get the iPhone, i'll celebrate it by first purchasing The Nationals new(ish) album, Boxer. I've been listening to it now for a few months thanks to the website http://hypem.com/ but have yet to actually pick it up. We saw them a bit back opening for The Arcade Fire and they were amazing. I highly, HIGHLY recommend getting into these guys. Act quick and be the first on your block! A few tracks from their album of recomendation for the curious "Fake Empire", "About Today" and "Start a War" are a few that'll set the mood just right for you.

Best album of the year? It's up there.

Yea, way up there.

Video Games, YAY! part 3

2007-06-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

I think this will do it for the games post this month. I'll try and update what i'm playing monthly, if it's changed at all. The last system that's getting any love this month is the PSP. I haven't played my PSP much since purchase, again it's promise far far outshines it's delivery, but that hasn't stopped a few "gems" from slipping in there over the course of it's short life.

I say "gems" because it ties into the game that's currently stealing my portable soul. "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords" sounds like a D&D game gone terribly wrong.(have they ever gone "right"?) But it is in fact the game "BeJeweled" that most of us has played a dozen-million times before. Big whoop, right? Well, it's that game, with a splurg of rpg elements strewn throughout it's UMD based heart.
Basically, you pick a character type. The character type you pick has various advantageous and disadvantageous specs, much like a RPG, yet tied to BeJeweled. A standard sequence would go down like this. First your given your quest in typical RPG form. "Go forth, kill troll..whatever". Then it cuts to the "world view" where you have a path or two to choose from to get to your destination, once arriving(and sometimes on the way) you encounter a bad guy. This is when the dual starts up and you fight, BeJeweled style. The only difference between the Jewel Quest board and the typical BeJeweled board is that on the Quest board, there's little skulls and money scattered about. Match 3 skulls, you cause damage to your enemy. The money lets you buy better equipment that lets you do everything from extra damage to recovering health.
As you follow the storyline you'll soon be joined by a couple of different comrades who will join you on your quest. These act just like other items and give you a benefit during a match. You can also get mounts that not only speed up your travel time, but give you bonus's during a match as well.
The game is surprisingly deep for it's type. While not the depths of a real hardcore RPG, there are many little touches that keep the game fresh long after you've reached the 18 hour breaking point. You can siege cities, and claim their resources as your own. Your given moments of "choose your own adventure" situations that can have impact on the story. Kill the traitor or let him go? You know what to do because, you know, your the good guy.

It's a fun little game, and perfect for the portable. It's also available on the DS, but if you've the option, stick with the PSP version.. when was the last time it got any attention anyway?

Video Games, YAY! part 2

2007-06-22T16:08:00.001-04:00

The next game on the list is for the nintendo Wii. Now if you’re anything like me, you purchased one of these beauties thinking a plethora of action packed, frantically arm-waving antics would ensue on a month to month basis as you swam in the glory of Nintendo’s basking warmth... But this has not been the case. Save one title since it's purchase, the Wii has been collecting dust. Therefore, i've been ACHING to find a justification for it's place next to my TV.

And found it I have. Resident Evil 4 is one of the best games of 2005, and as a re-release for the Wii it's only better. Sure the graphics are slightly dated, and if you played the game before, you’re not getting much more here. But i can attest to the joy of popping undead (and creepy villagers alike) by pointing your wii-mote at the screen like some ivory dork-gun.

I never beat the original on the gamecub e, but i did play a good deal through it. I can't remember why i even got rid of it, but do remember thinking "why am i doing this?"

This game is NOT to be missed. If you've played a resident evil before, and were turned off by it's plodding pace and awkward controls of your character, never fear, this game they get just about everything right. If you haven’t played one, you’re in for a real treat. In fact, stop reading this blog this instant and rush to you nearest gaming store (of choice or not, just GO!) and buy! buy! buy!

I won't go into anymore details, but instead will send you off to a couple reviews done by those that do it for a living.(it's the least i can do for stealing their images for my own evil purposes) you can draw your conclusion from there. IGN. Gamespot. Gamespy.

$29.99 is a bargain for what's sure to be one of the best games you'll play this year.

Video Games, YAY!

2007-06-22T07:54:00.000-04:00

I wanted to talk briefly about some of the games I'm into at the moment. You ask yourself, why should I care you self-righteous prick, about the type of games YOUR playing? Well, I can tell you this non-believer, each game listed will CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BLESS YOU FINANCIALLY AND ROMANTICALLY!

Ok, that's a lie. In fact, they might indeed be a henderence to the afor mentioned attributes, but I assure you that all games listed will be very much worth your time, and that if you neglect to play any mentioned at some point, you, as a gamer, would be doing yourself an extreme disservice.

I'll start with the PS2 and move through my vast collection (to my wife's chagrin) of systems and give the run down on each of these puppies.

First off, i'll start with the game that's got my full attention at the moment, for the PS2.
Odin's Sphere. Lame name, amazing game. If you like action rpg's at ALL, you must check out this game. The graphics are hands down the best i've seen on the PS2, hand-drawn and animated, very lush down to the details in the leaves. I've stolen a few screen shots from IGN (i'm not 100% on the do's and don'ts of blog pics, but there they are) Game play wise, it's got all sorts of crazy and innovative elements that makes it stand out above the rest. The story is told through a storybook that a child is reading. I've read in other reviews that the story branches to follow multiple characters, though at the time of this post I've only played one. I could write paragraphs on this title, but instead i'll attempt to sum it up quickly. You go to a location, a "world" if you will, fight all sorts of interesting bad guys whilst making your way through several mini-bosses to the main bad guy. Along the way you'll use your weapon to cut down bad guys and mix potions to freeze, poison, and burn them. This is where things get interesting.(snort snort, i'm such a nerd) The alchemy and seed planting aspect of the game is something i've never seen in a game such as this before and it's extremely enjoyable. While your fighting in a stage, you might plant a seed that will grow into various types of fruit to heal yourself or neutralize poisons.
Or you might grow a sheep.

Yes, sheep.

These sheep's will pop off a branch and proceed to run amok the stage until you hack them into little edible bits. The meat from which, will give you almost all your health back. You also hunt lil seed demons(not their christian name, but that eludes me at the moment) that once found, you must smite with your weapon to kill and collect. There are many charming moments like that, to where you'll find yourself thinking how "odd" this game is, but it never ceases to be enjoyable.

One warning, this game can be HARD. I spent about 2 hours last night trying to kill a demon-king-boss-guy, until i had to give in and set it to easy(which, by the by, isn't that much easier and I found myself still dying multiple times before finally prevailing). Fortunately you can adjust this at anytime so your frustrations never last long.

So there you have it. If you have a PS2 (or PS3) go out and buy this game now. It's incredible to look at, and a heck of a lot of fun to play. In the last days of the PS2, you won't find a better game.

More to come.

Bonnaroo 2007

2007-06-20T23:25:00.000-04:00

Bonnaroo 2007 just ended and if you live around the east coast and love tie-dye you were most likely there. I on the other hand HATE tie-dye, but love good music and seeing old friends, so once again, the second year running, we made the trek.
I can say now, just having returned back to normal life after Bonnaroo, I won't be rushing out to spend 4 days without a shower proper, or a clean bathroom, with my batteries running off of 3 hours or less sleep a night. Not such a big deal I suppose when the majority is stuck with the same options, but one thing that the majority(just the lucky few!) WASN'T enjoying, was walking 45 minutes to and from the camp site to get to the festival.. The first night there, we walked to get some ice from the grounds. It was a 2 hour round trip. This caused the immediate scratching of all plans regarding going back to camp during the heat of the day when there were no shows worth seeing and relaxing a bit, I think we all realized this "roo" if you will, wouldn't be as convenient as in the past. All discomforts aside, on the music side of things, it was phenomenal. Personal highlights were the White Stripes, The Flaming Lips, The Decemberist, and Spoon. We also saw/met Lily Allen who seemed to think the only way to get through the TN heat was to chug Jagermeister on stage. When she signed our CD i half expected her to greet us with her morning breakfast. The one "YES!!" moment that topped the others for me was when Wayne of the Flaming Lips came out about an hour before their set was scheduled to begin and said"we can't play right now, we have to keep to the schedule, but we got to do a little sound check first, so hold tight" before ripping into an absolutely incredible version of "Warpigs". I couldn't stop myself from throwing up the "horns" a couple times in there.

Bonnaroo, as fun as it is, goes from being a thrill to being and endurance test over the coarse of it's 3 to 4 days. This year however, 3 of my favorite bands played the last day and even though my health meter was zapped, as soon as The Decemberist went into crane wife..i forgot all my pain and was wide awake and ready to go from them to wilco to the white stripes with nary a delay or pause in my step.

It was a blast, but i'm glad it's over. It'll take another year for me to forget the pain my feet now feel, and regain the hydration I lost, let alone get the dirt out of my many, many, crevices.
Still, i'll most likely return then, with bells on, no less.

UNO

2007-06-20T22:55:00.000-04:00

Well, this is the first blog for this site and...

I've got nothing.

But just so i'm not completely empty handed here, I thought i'd start by throwing up a lil sample of the Cat-guy i've been working on. still very much a W.I.P. here he is though. I'd show more, but at the moment, he has no pants....and this is a family gig.

I don't know for sure what i'm going to do with this site. My intentions are to post personal and interesting artwork of whatever kind, more so to promote creating more of it to post.
A sort of launch pad in getting my fingernails dirtier than they've been of late.

Anyway, there's more to come.