C BLOCK

I made this in 4th year at animation school at Sheridan. 5 months of storyboarding and re-boarding, 2 weeks of design and 3 months of mad production. Its all now but a fuzzy dream. There are a lot of things that were rushed, but it is what it is. Over the last year C Block has been showing in a few festivals around the world, and I was fortunate to attend a couple of them. I will try to make a a summary of it all at some point.

Hand drawn on paper, colored in Photoshop, composited in AfterEffects. Enjoy:

a film in 10 hours

This weekend I participated in a 1 day event called Cinemasports as part of the Mill Valley Film Festival. The mission was to make a 3 min film in less than 10 hours given 3 ingredients that were made public at 9am of the day of shooting. The ingredients were: A Shaman, Stolen Documents, and a Spicy Pepper.

We scrambled for a couple of hours and came up with a rough story, and just started shooting...The editing started shortly after and we built the film as the footage was coming in. We shot around the festival headquarters, in the road, the public library (somehow no one kicked us out), a scary PG&E building, and a local park. 10 hours later we were burning the DVD while other team members were saving spots for us in the line to see the screening with our films.

It was a really fun screening and we are amazed with different creative interpretations of the ingredients. Our film received a ton of laughs and even a little sincere aww..which of course made our night! Our team was titled Team Puppycat (Brandon Hyman, Emma Coats, Erick Tryzelaar, Mach Kobayashi, and Vladimir Kooperman).

Enjoy:

Agent Pepper from SoundsCrazyLetsDoIt on Vimeo.

been long time

Yep, my neglected blog is getting another little post. I've got a lot to post about; just no time to do it! Still setteling in[at my new place... I'll get around to the posts soon I hope. I've got a bunch of photos to show from trips to Annecy and Israel. For now here are a couple of paintings:

Guache and color pencil. 'Best potatoes in the East'

If Vlad made Avatar, it would look like this :-) Water color. (colour - if you are Canadian!)

Future Project

Sketch Crawl 22 - Chinatown

Framed

The first two I did for some friends. The first one was inspired by a book my buddy Oleg recommended to check out, called "Into thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. The author recalls the tragic events of a 1996 expedition to the summit of Everest. He described the mental and physical perils of attempting or even thinking about climbing Everest. What I didnt realize about high altitude climbing until I read this, is the fact that your brain doesnt function as well on the summit at 8,848 metres (29,029 ft). In fact without bottled oxygen most people begin to loose their mind, and take on child-like behaviour (simple tasks can take hours, you are cold, and out of breath all the time). These may be accompanied by severe headaches, and quickly develops into high-altitude sickness which can lead to a very painful death. There are, however, exceptional individuals capable of climbing Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. As I was reading, I realized that this is one of the furthest, most unreachable, and most isolated places on Earth. You cant call your Mom to pick you up, no taxi, no ambulance, no helicopter, only what mother nature deals for you. It either lets you pass, or it doesn't. Its probably easier to rescue someone from the space station than from these 8000 meter titans. Over the course of history this mountain claimed over 200 lives. If this notion is not enough to keep you away, there is also a $50000 ticket ($25000 permit, $25000 to the guide, sherpas, equipment) to get you to the top. Perhaps when I'm really bored....maybe....but then again, my skinny ass will freeze even at base camp. For me, free-diving with the great whites is further up on the list. Anyways, a good read! The drawing was reallyy fun to do as well, just using good old pencils. In the background is the silhouette of Everest.

The second picture is watercolor and color pencils.

The last drawing is for my Grandfather: My family boxer Julya, evil cat Billy, and yours truly in space helmets. What else can a grandpa want!

Gesture Dump

Ranging from 30s, 1, 2, 3 min.

Look back

from life 2 months ago. 5 min pose.

SketchCrawl 21

This weekend I went drawing for the entire day as part of the SketchCrawl. It was my first time participating, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. After drawing in a series of interesting neighbourhoods, everyone met up at the end of the day in a Cafe to share what they have sketched. It was really cool to see every one's approaches and styles! Also, we couldnt ask for a nicer day; it was 20C, sunny, and we were in t-shirts in mid January (still weird for me). Here is my stuff from the day: (We were in Haight District, and Golden Gate Park)

this guy was real! He had what looked like a black band-aid across his cheeks and nose! (Maybe it was a tattoo) Cant wait for the next Sketchcrawl in April.

winter pictures

1/2 a meter tall sand barrier..looks big, no?

Local Venice beach parrot at the cafe.

My governor...how cool is that?

Frozone being forced to sign a Beauty and the Beast book at Disneyland. I dont know why he's smiling?

There is nothing between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

A forgotten onion starts growing. Currently the only plant at my place...Across the street is the bedroom to one of many Berkeley homeless hippies. Arround him is brand new graffiti!

A cop makes a report of the new art.

Another view from the appartment. Downtown SF at the horrizon.

Shoes hanging on the powerline. I've heard different stories as to what that means.

Desk at work.

More posts to come soon: I've been drawing :)

Happy new year!

C Block Poster Sketches

A few quick color pencil poster designs..I like the first one...thinking of developing it further.