The Awesome Kelsey Mann

Here's another buddy of mine (Man I got alot of talented buds!), the awesomely talented Kelsey Mann. He's currently writing and directing shorts at Cartoon Network. His blog is http://kmann.blogspot.com/.

I've been tagged!....

Thanks to the awesomely talented Alina Chau http://alinanimation.blogspot.com/, I have been tagged, thus must relinquish 20 random things about moi. Well here goes:

1. I love to draw! I draw at work, and then at home, I draw to relax. Man, I need a hobby!
2. Went to U.C. Santa Barbara, first as a math major (what was I thinking?!?), then as an Art Studio major.
3. I'm addicted to Starbucks, particulary Venti Americanos!! This stuff is my fuel.
4. I was born and mostly raised in East LA (really!) and damn proud of it!!
5. Just had knee surgery and doing quite well (did someone say marathon --- yeah right!)
6. Sucker for Vegas!!! Dollar YO!
7. Would love to work for Pixar one day.
8. Love romantic strolls on the beach (okay, not necessarily romantic ones, but love the beach nonetheless!)
9. When I can, I try and practice modelling on MAYA. Man I love this program!!
10. Favorite food: Everything, but I have to say that I love chorizo, flour tortillas and potatoes for breakfast. YUM!
11. Love listening to Lyle Lovett, particularly his concerts!
12. Need to lose weight, about 20-30 pounds (see no. 10 for why)
13. Love blogging! This is the thrust to being creative for me lately! In addition, I get to meet so many awesome artists all around the world. Viva la blog!
14. Top three movies currently: The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, LA Confidential (if these movies are on tv, you can bet that I'll be sucked in for the next 2-3 hours!)
15. Started my career in animation at 31 (it's never too late to start!).
16. Love old Warner Bros. cartoons! THESE are what cartoons are all about!!
17. Creative Inspirations: Lots of folks, but I have to say that Paul Felix, Phil Felix, Hans Bacher, Kevin Nelson, Roph Ruppel & Colin Stimpson are the tops!! Learned soo much from these guys!
18. Love Calvin and Hobbes! You can learn so much from Bill Watterson's mastery.
19. Favorite quotes: "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime". Never too late to learn, never too busy to teach, or rather share your craft. And this one:"Just do it!". It was Nike's tagline a few years ago. Yeah very simple, but just those words to take that step into the unknown can be full of amazing things.
20. I truly love my wife and daughter and family. To me, that's what it's all about!

Man that was tough! Definitely made me think that I'm damn lucky to be where I'm at. Okay, without getting too sappy, I'm passing the torch to my bud Jose Lopez http://desoluz.blogspot.com. Jose, TAG, you're it bud!

And Alina, thank you so much for the tag!! You da bomb girl!!

The Crea8tive Mark McDonnell

Meet another talented buddy of mine, the talented Mark McDonnell. He's a great friend and a superb kickass artist to boot. His blog is http://markmcdonnell.blogspot.com. He's an instructor at the www.theanimationacademy.com for Background Design. He's awesome and only getting better!!! Watchout Features, this cat is going places!!

The Amazing David Colman

Meet the amazing David Colman. He is one of the very best artists around. He's a master at drawing animals, as well as everything else. Check out his blog at http://davidcolman.blogspot.com/. He's got a great sketchbook titled "David Colman's Doodles" which can be purchased through www.stuartngbooks.com in the Sketchbook section. Definitely worth the buy!! Great job David and keep them beauties coming!

LOTR quick sketches

Exploring studies on possible character designs. I hope to push the styling more. We'll see.

Compositional Studies 2.0

Working up some various compositions and staging shots. More to come.

Lord of the Rings Concepts

Here are some compositional studies on LOTR. Pushing style so it's more animated. More to come.

The Robo 9000

It slices and dices, chops and mops, and catches bad guys with little to no mess.

Trick or Treat

Mas Spooky

Spooky

Early Life Drawings

Here are some life drawings from a while ago. As I write this, I have only 18 minutes in which to eat or drink anything before I have to stop per doctor's orders. Tomorrow I'm going to have a second knee surgery. It's an in and out procedure and based on the first one, should be easy. For the next 2-3 days I'll probably not post anything because I'll be high on the Vicodin. Hopefully I'll be returning by Wednesday (I hope). In the meantime, I'll be finishing up the sketches for the sketchbook. Hope all have a great week, and by all means necessary, keep drawing! Talk to you soon.

Some Early Concepts

Here are some early concepts I did for a game company about 3 years ago. These were done fairly quickly to suggest varying design possibilities (about 5-10 minutes each). Though the schedule was tight, it was a lot of fun!!!

It's a Whatever Night

Tonight really had no direction, just lettin' the pencil move. I saw "Return of the King" today at work and that film blows me away. Such stunning effects and epic visuals. Need to start a series of LOTR drawings soon.

Hola!

Yay!! Finally got some free time to start posting. For those great folks who've sent checks, THANK YOU for being so patient! I hope to start sending books out by end of this week. And again, thanks to all for all the very inspiring comments. Truly, truly appreciate them! Well here goes,... I want to do at least a drawing a day to get warm.