Merry Xmas!

 Merry Christmas from Zad Zak and Angree Dandee! It's okay to smile at least once a year!

VISIT THE ZZ & AD BLOG!

A Comique!

Comic I did for Nocivo Comix. 

Animated Music Video! Pt. 5

Here's the final animatic for the music video! Sorry there's still no sound on this. I wanna keep it a surprise for you when it's fully complete!

Now comes the part where I figure out which areas I want to fix and push more further, but before I do so I have to figure out the timing for each scene. I think this'll be pretty easy for me considering I've approximately matched each drawing to each specific beat and singing.

Stay tuned for more!

Jim Smith

Some Jim Smith art that I love...

 

Look how gorgeous this drawing (above) looks. The solidity and perspective in this are outstanding. This drawing has pure skill and pure talent written all over. You feel as if this character is right in front of you and not as a two-dimensional drawing, but what's cool is that he's NOT drawn as a realistic three-dimensional person. How awesome is that?

Man, I love this Dirty Dog and Cigarretes drawing! I'd love to study Cigarettes' head in this one!

Super appealing!!

This one above is great.

 *EDIT* Someone notified me that these ape drawings on the left (above) were done by film director John Ford. The small image on the right though is Jim's take on those apes. Still, the John Ford ones are amazing and fun to look at!

What I love about Jim Smith is that he doesn't bullshit his way through his drawings. By looking at these you can tell that he actually takes the time to think about what he's drawing. They're not half-assed at all. I love the solidity in his drawings and his skills on perspective are amazing! Skills I wish I had. You can really feel the roundness and surfaces of the shapes. I can tell he accentuates the solidity of the shapes in order for you to really feel them. He definitely puts the cartoon and drawing principles to good use in these. Super professional work.

Visit his blog HERE and see more of Jim's amazing art!

Barf Illustrations

I hope Mr. Craig Yoe doesn't mind I put these up here.

Doin' Some Fixin's!

I've lately been looking a lot at the CD designs I made for my sister's wedding to see what kind of improvements I could make and thought I'd make the composition of the back cover make more sense. There were small things I wanted to fix so I deciced to change 'em real quick and thought I'd share what I've done.

*ORIGINAL*

In the original picture I found that the larger text (the list of songs) were really small and all cramped together. The CD covers were trimmed into their 4.75" x 4.75" size, which is pretty small so I don't think the text would have read too well. I never tested it out, but I've seen a CD cover in that size and thought I made the text too small and too cramped together for that particular size.

*IMPROVEMENTS MADE*

So what I did was strectch down the text more to make it seem bigger and less cramped. I moved the black area of the background down a bit and nudged the text around for it to fit nicely in that area. I then shrunk down a bit the caricatures with the word bubbles to give more focus to the text. I noticed I could've made the area with the caricatures and word bubbles smaller to put more emphasis on the text, but then I would've made the text inside the word bubbles too small, considering the size of paper it is going to be printed on, and it might also make the whole composition feel a little out of balance.

You can flip them back and forth with the arrow keys to see the before and after. You can do so with the new image viewer thing from Blogger.

Doing this really helps me remind myself that the elements in a composition should make sense with not only what they are subjectively, but how they are placed and work together in the composition in a way that they can make sense together and read well as well as look visually interesting, appealing and balanced as a whole for the viewer.

This excercise also helps me see how I myself work and start on something, particularly with figuring out the composition first and spacing of where and why things will be placed in the picture in a way where sense can be made instead of going into it without actually thinking too much about the whole thing, which I hope to never do again. This I think can help me apply what I've learned here into another new illustration.

There's other things in the back cover I'd like to fix, like the dude's head seeming a bit wonky for example, but I wanted to focus more on composition for this one.

The purpose of doing this was to not make the picture be all perfect, but to understand exactly what I'm doing as I'm working on a picture so that the entire thing can make sense for me as well as the viewer.

The Wedding From Outer Space!

Today was my sister's wedding, so this post goes out to her, her husband and their new life together!

I did a CD cover and back cover for some music albums that she and her husband gave out at the wedding reception. Sort of a "thank you for coming" gift to the guests. My sister and her husband came up with the name "The Wedding from Outer Space" for the wedding and we came up with the idea of two aliens getting hitched at a church, with a skinhead, a punk and a mod thrown in the back. My sister and husband love all kinds of music like ska, punk, rockabilly, psychobilly and they themselves picked out all of the songs for the album. They even DJed at the reception.

The title is written in Catalan because the wedding took place in Spain. Me and my family couldn't go to Spain, but we saw the whole wedding and talked and met some people through Skype. You'd think watching a wedding through Skype would be a little weird, but it actually worked out really great! We saw a little bit of the reception where they gave the toast and a friend of my sister's and me showed me the CD album through Skype with my designs and told me she really liked it, which I though was neat-o!

Here's the back cover:

She wanted it to have carcicatures of her and her husband with their cat all saying "Thank You you for coming!" in Catalan.

My sister was originally going to do the designs herself, but she was so busy preparing other stuff for the wedding that I decided it was best I do it all. They were sort of done in the last minute so you might see some mistakes here and there, but I plan to fix them later on for a future portfolio.

It was really cool to see my sissy-poo get married and I know that she'll live an awesome and happy life with her man!

*NOW OTHER STUFF*

Sorry I haven't been putting up anything of the music vid or anything else, but I have have been working on the music vid like a sonuvabitch and will show you you some stuff soon. I also plan to get back to work on other stuff (like my film for instance) as I work on the music vid. I'm usually not very good when it comes to working like that, but I'll try my best to work on different stuff at the same time.

So come back again if'n you wanna see some new stuff!

A Beavis & Butt-Head Halloween!

Just some fan art. It's kind of a work in progress. I'll eventually add more to it. Those symbols next to them stand for "buttcheeks".

...Just kidding. It's just their names written in Ukrainian :P


Here's a cool image I found:

And here's some cool Halloween/scary B & B-H comic book covers:

I found this on Google. I thought it was pretty neat:

Sorry I wasn't able to put up anything of the music video this Saturday, but I will some time this week including next Saturday. I've been doing some Halloween hangin' out and been busy doing other stuff.


Hope you have a happy and safe Halloween!!!

Stuff I've Done

Here's a walk cylce for another animation I'm doing that I did a while back in the beginning of the summer:




And here's some secret stuff!

I had to crop the images from their original size. I won't tell you what these are for yet (at least I don't think I can tell), not until what these are for comes out!

All I can say is that I did 16 of these kinds of illustrations for the super awesome CRAIG YOE! It's for one of his awesome upcoming books. Go here to see all the books he's selling!--->YOE! Books They're all really fucking cool!

Craig is known for his really amazing books among other awesome stuff, including animation! He loves all things cool, like cartoons and comics. He is definitely the bee's knees.

He even has his own blog of cool things!--->I.T.C.H.

Definitely check his stuff out.

Here's a photo that someone took of me standing next to Craig:

I look up to this guy and really is an amazing dude.


Here's a cover I did for an underground comic book in Puerto Rico called "Nocivo", which is Spanish for "Noxious":

It's run by a group of artists named Pernicious Press. Anyone can contribute to their comic every month no matter where you're from!

These guys are really fucking cool too. They create some really awesome events and art shows in Puerto Rico. Here's their Facebook page if you want to see more info--->CLICK!

And here's their Nocivo Comics page--->CLICK!

LOOK, LIKE and SHARE! These guy's are the best and are doing so much for the Puerto Rico art scene!


I've also been putting up some Zad Zak & Angree Dandee art at their blog!

Click on the image below to go there NOW!

Well, that's it for now! Come back soon to see some mo' shit!

Animated Music Video! Pt. 4

Here's another update on the music vid! I couldn't get around to finishing the animatic as a whole for today, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to show it in its entirety for next Saturday, but I ain't gonna make no promises. I just gotta keep on truckin', which is more important.

I only put up what I've done so far this time rather than show everything I've made put together for the animatic.

The scene I'm working on now is a lot more longer than what I thought it would be. That scene starts when he gets all spastic and sticks out his tongue like a crazy person. After that there are two more scenes, but those scenes are of two other scenes that you saw before in the previous animatic clip that will repeat in the end, so I'm pretty close to finishing the animatic.

I'm having a lot of fun animating this. Doing the animatic like this really helps me grasp more exactly what I wanna do for the animation. There's a lot of stuff that I have to fix for when I translate the animatic into the final layouts, keys and animation, which I don't think will be too hard.

Well, that's it for now! More stuff comin' your way next Saturday!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

Well, it's not really too important. It's got to do with the music video I'm working on and some stuff about me.

SO! As you know I had planned to finish this whole Halloween music video thing for, well, Halloween, and I can't 100% guarantee that it'll be done by then. In fact I'm pretty sure it won't be done by then. I'll still work on it though, even after Halloween. I'm really happy with where it's going and want it to come out REAL good, so I don't think the time pressure would definitely help me out if I want it to come out exactly how I want it to. Plus this all started out as just for fun anyway, so I don't want to take it too seriously. I'll continue working on it every day and will put up updates on its process every Saturday like I've been doing. I've changed the name of each of the "Halloween Animated Music Video Challenge!" posts to "Animated Music Video!" to not add any confusion.

The reason why I'm doing this is because there's other stuff that I plan and want to do for this month besides just work on the music video. If I work just on the music video for this whole month, I'll feel like I've missed out on other stuff that I'll proabably regret not doing and that I don't want to do for later. Stuff that's gotta do with Halloween, stuff that's gotta do with other people, and stuff for me, like work on my film (something I've been working on for years), do blog posts here and there, make some new drawings, comics, etc.

Sorry for dumping all of this now, but if I wanna live a healthy life and feel happy and free without any weight over me and not having to worry about time, then this is the way to go.

I wish I were a lot more organized when it comes to me and my stuff, so that I can make my life and my work more easy for me. I'm sort of learning and finding out new things about myself when it comes to controlling the stuff I do.

I also want to apologize for not posting in months, but when I do post something now it'll seem like it's something spontaneous, kinda like "Whoa! Where'd he come from? He's doing something else now?" that kind of deal. Maybe that's not how you see it, but I personally see it like that and I don't like it. It's like I've put up stuff about my film months ago and say I will continue working on it and that I'll show you stuff on it later on, but then months will pass without any info and I come back out of nowhere working on something else completely different. To me that seems weird and unfair and I don't want you to think of me as some irresponsible guy who doesn't know how to control his shit. I kinda have this rule where I have to finish what I've started to sort of keep me in control with what I do and I gotta be aware that I don't break it.

Well, I feel pretty good now that I've written this. I feel like I'm now getting closer to having things more under control, which is cool.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this! I see more new people have joined to see this site, so thank you all for joining and watching! :) I'll put up an update on stuff I've done this year probably around this week!

So come back soon to see some more cool crud!

Animated Music Video! Pt. 3

Hey! Here's another update on the music video:



It's another clip of the animatic. Sorry it's not the finished animatic like I said I was gonna put up. I'm still working on it, but I'm almost done with it though. I only have two small scenes left to work out and it'll be finally done! So I'm sure for next Saturday I'll put up the finished animatic without the sound.

I wasn't really expecting to work on the animatic so much. I found myself trying to put more animation (not frame by frame, but kinda like the keys and breakdowns) as well as figuring out the layout and spacing of where the character is going to be placed in each shot. I guess I invest in it so much to better prepare myself for when I start the animation. I think once it's done I will immediately jump into the animation.

Well, that's it! I'm sure i could've gone more in-depth with this post, but since I'm still working on the animatic I kinda don't want to repeat what I've already covered in my last post. So come back next Saturday to see more new stuff!

I'll also try to put up an update of other stuff that I've done throughout this year whenever I can!

Animated Music Video! Pt. 2

Hey, peeps! Here's an update on the process of the music video I'm making!

Here's a clip of the animatic I'm currently working on now. It's probably best viewed full screen or watch on YouTube instead of the small screen below.



The reason it has no sound is because I don't want to reveal what the song is yet until the very end when it's all complete. I know it looks a little weird without it, but I wanna keep it a surprise.

The song is from one of my all time favorite bands. It's of course copyrighted material and I DO NOT plan to distribute it for any financial purposes without the band's and company's consent. I'm basically doing this just for fun and it'll be a fan-made type of thing, something that I hope everyone will enjoy :)

The way I started all of this was sort of done in a quick (but not too quick) sort of way, but also controlled. The song is almost 1m and 30s long and the the animation will be done frame by frame. That basically means it's a lot do even though it might not seem like it's that much. I'm also doing this all by myself unless I want to find some help later on. After all, this is a challenge.

Anyway, the first intention I had was to start doing some really basic and really rough storyboards while at the same time make the animatic. Here I didn't want the animatic to just have stiff drawings floating around that went along with the fast and upbeat music. I had to at least make them jump to the beat so that I could have more the feeling of the music and each beat for when I would time the animation. Trying to match each drawing with each beat was pretty hard to do because the song has no strict mechanical beats, and the beats go by pretty fast too. So I had to do the best I could to match the drawings with each beat. I have, though, found that the song has different patterns of beats in different sections of the song that I could at least try to work with for when I matched the drawings to the beats. This all worked out great because this will make it more easy for me for when I start to work more on the timing and animation.

I have to add that I didn't do the storyboards all willy-nilly and fast-paced. I have envisioned the music video many times in my head and felt confident enough to know exactly what to draw for the storyboards. Also, the way I worked out the storyboards was also like working out the layouts for the animation, but at their very, very rough stage. Some I think I will probably use for when I start animating.

So basically everything you see in the video up top is a combination of the storyboards, rough layouts, the animatic with some really basic and rough timing. That's kinda the great thing about doing it all in the computer. It saves up so much time like this instead of doing it all seperately, and I'm doing this all in my own way. But I still have sooooo much to do. I'll put up the animatic when it's all complete.  I still have to add him lip syncing to the song (hence why you see him with his mouth open all the time) and work on the areas where he walks.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this small look into the process of how I'm doing this music video! Another update will be posted next Saturday. I hope to start working on final layouts, keys and hopefully animation for next week. I think I'll put up the final animatic next coming Saturday without sound, so you can see how it all came out.

Animated Music Video!

Hey! I've got something really cool I've been wanting to do for a while! I'm gonna do an animated music video!

It's gonna star this guy:

I'll be showing my process of creating the music video every Saturday. So stay tuned for more info comin' atcha every Saturday!