Little Red Handprints

POW Fest 2012

2012-01-20T20:46:00.000-08:00

The short stop-motion film I worked on in college, "The Box Game" was accepted into the 2012 Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival! In order to submit a film to this festival, it had to be directed or co-directed by a woman (myself). I am proud to say that we had 6 women in lead positions on our stop-motion film crew! The festival happens at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon from March 8-11. I'm not sure what day my film plays yet, but it will be screened during the animation portion of the festival.

I am pretty excited about this one. I felt a rush of excitement when I read the e-mail during my lunch break at work today :)

Here's a still from the short. Trivia: That's a painting of me on the wall in the background.

Not the One with Arnold Schwarzenegger

2011-11-29T18:56:00.001-08:00

The stop-motion Christmas special that I worked on at Bent Image Lab premiered on national television last Friday! "Jingle All the Way"! The one about the husky puppy. So cute! It was really cool to see my character animation on t.v. for the first time EVER :) The credits went by too fast for me to even see my name, but it's there!

Here's a link to the trailer:

http://hallmarkchannel.com/microsites/videos.aspx?simscode=419-32176&pageid=3253&pn=689237cfbdf7440997ac2538c6777710&pnlist=689237cfbdf7440997ac2538c6777710%7C

Here's a photo that's been seen in a few places on the internet so far. This picture makes me laugh because we never see Santa's face in the show, but it's shown here. Hahaha!

Duck Strip

2011-11-29T18:49:00.001-08:00

Here's another comic that my boyfriend drew and I colored:

And here's just the gun shot panel without the line work. I thought it looked like a cool abstract painting. And that is the only time you will ever see me type the words "abstract painting" and "cool" in the same sentence.

Red Hulk

2011-11-10T18:57:00.001-08:00

I woke up sick this morning and couldn't go to work. So I drew a Hulk.

Buffs!

2011-09-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

Here is something I drew after being inspired by all the buffalo I saw when I visited Yellowstone recently. I was also inspired by all the stupid people that got out of their cars to take pictures of the buffalo from like 20 feet away.

I was amazed at how dumb people are when it comes to wild animals. Especially when they gave out this exact flyer at the entrance gate to Yellowstone, along with a newspaper about the park and several other forms of warnings about the wildlife:

I just redrew the sign to be a little more humorous.

My First Paying Job

2011-08-29T21:09:00.001-07:00

Here is what I have been working on at Bent Image Lab since June. It's my first job since I graduated from college in March of this year. My position was Puppet Rigger/Wrangler and eventually Assistant Animator. Yes, I got to do a bit of animation!

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/biz/hallmark-channel-announced-original-animated-special-jingle-all-the-way.html

This was a lot of fun because I got to work with some people I already knew as well as meet people that worked on Coraline AND The Nightmare Before Christmas!! I love stop-motion.

Deadmond Does It!

2011-08-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a cartoon that my boyfriend drew and then I colored.

This is based on a real, hypothetical conversation.

"The Box Game" Premiere!

2011-05-31T19:09:00.000-07:00

Back in April, there was a gallery set up in the Art Institute of Portland that displayed all the puppets, props, and sets that we used in the film, as well as photos of the film in various stages of progress. Here are a few photos of the gallery and film premiere of "The Box Game":

Hopefully soon, I will be able to post the film on my professional website: www.artofsteele.com. The editing team just has to get together again and export a version of the film for the web.

NW Animation Festival

2011-05-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

So, I got to work on a stop-motion short for a whole year at the Art Institute of Portland before I graduated a couple months ago. Roles I served on the project include student director, writer, animator, puppet and set fabricator, rigger, and compositor. With the help of about 30 fellow students of mine from the Art Institute of Portland, we created "The Box Game".

I've been submitting the short film to festivals for the past month, including the Northwest Animation Festival happening right here in Portland, Oregon! They accepted our film along with 77 other films from around the country and world. "The Box Game" will be showing on the third day of the festival, this Sunday. Pretty exciting!

Also, we had DVDs made specially for the cast and crew of the film. Complete with commentaries! I designed the DVD case cover and disc art using images from the film. Take a look!

Job Hunting

2011-05-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

I found this drawing on my boyfriend's desk and decided to paint it in Photoshop. This is what it feels like to look for a job.

Hayden Bug

2011-05-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

I have an idea for a children's book...

Blog Banner

2011-04-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

I finally made my own banner for this blog, as you can see above. Here's the original way I designed it:

And here's what it looks like after I adjusted it to fit better up top:

Figure Drawing Improvement!

2011-04-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

I took an advanced figure drawing class from one of my favorite teachers (Za Vue) during my last quarter of school, which ended only a few weeks ago. She is an amazing artist and taught me a lot about figure drawing. She started back at the very basics and rebuilt what we all knew about figure drawing from there. It was one of the best classes I've ever taken, mainly because I became a much better and more confident traditional artist. Here are some of the drawings I got from that class:

Drawings from my sketchbook

1 or 2 minute gestures

5 minute poses

10 minute poses

Chainsaw vs. Super Hipster Part 2

2011-04-13T20:02:00.001-07:00

Here's the clean up drawing I did by hand:

And here it is colored in Photoshop CS5:

And here's a black and white version just because I think it looks cool:

Chainsaw vs. Super Hipster

2011-04-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

My animation friends and I had a Superhero/Supervillain themed party a few days ago. I was given a superhero name by my buddy, Dan Koss, a couple years ago: Chainsaw. I'm guessing it's because of my loud and forceful nature....but I'm only guessing. One of my other friends,Norman, dressed as a Super Hipster. So, I drew the most likely interaction that would occur between Chainsaw and a Super Hipster:

This is also how I was feeling this morning.

I want to clean it up by hand and then color it....soon.

New Sculpt / Photography Project

2011-03-14T01:33:00.000-07:00

So, I tricked myself into sculpting a maquette this quarter. I had to design a personal project around a topic that related to my major, Media Arts & Animation. So I decided to photograph my entire process of sculpting a maquette, from start to finish. The character is a revamp of an earlier character I made into a stop-motion puppet. Thanks to my buddy and awesome character designer, Heather Nesheim, Reggie the frog looks way better than he did last year.

Here's a bunch of the photos I took:

Me Behind the Scenes on "Community"

2011-02-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of me working on various parts of "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", Community's recent stop-motion Christmas special! I got to be an animation intern!

I Got to Work on Something Cool!!!

2010-12-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

It's been a while people! But only because I have been super busy making a stop-motion short at school with a bunch of my classmates. I can't post anything about it yet, but I will once it's completed in April. We are starting the post-production stage in January.

On the other hand, I CAN talk about the amazing internship I just had! I got to venture down to Burbank, California to be an animation intern on the NBC show "Community". They made a stop-motion Christmas episode that airs TONIGHT AT 8 PM!!! It was loads of fun working on this project. I got to meet and work with a lot of cool and talented people, including Teresa Drilling. She has been my stop-motion instructor for the past year and a half. Teresa offered the internship to myself and four other classmates. We all also worked on the short together that we are making at the Art Institute of Portland.

Anyways, here is a short article that was written about the Portland animators that worked on the "Community" Christmas special in The Oregonian:

http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2010/12/portland_animation_talent_behi.html

My name is in there! AWESOME! I got to help organize the puppet hospital, make props, and even help an animator or two with some of their shots. I'll even get an IMDB page out of this. Haha. It was a great experience that I will never forget! Being a stop-motion animator is one of the coolest and most challenging jobs there is. That's why I love it!

Here is the crew credits list too:

Glorification

2010-05-26T00:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a digital painting I created this weekend. It's me. This is what I look like in real life.

Behind the Scenes

2010-04-06T02:13:00.000-07:00

Here's some "behind the scenes" photos of the construction and animation of my Jack puppet:

A Few Production Stills

2010-04-06T01:57:00.001-07:00

These are some fun photos I took during the three days of shooting I did for my final animation with this puppet. If I thought the puppet was in an interesting pose, I would just stop animating to photograph him. There's also some of me animating. I really like those ones. Thank you camera for having a self-timer.

Jack - From Drawing to Puppet

2010-04-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

This is the puppet I created for the advanced stop-motion class I took from Teresa Drilling this past winter. He is a little boy named is Jack. Here, you can see my original drawing/blueprint of Jack, the armature in various stages, and then a turnaround of the puppet when it was nearing completion:

Not-So-Undisclosed Santa

2009-12-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

So, my good friends and I decided to do a Secret Santa together. Except, it was only secret for about 30 minutes. We wanted to know who each other got too badly to keep it a secret. I got my friend, David (whose blog you can check out via a link on this page - David Talaski). David likes Pugs a lot, so I wanted to draw him and myself as if we were Pugs. David is wearing the hat, and I am screaming at him. This drawing fits our personalities quite well, if you know us. The David Pug is supposed to look shocked, but he also ended up looking kind of dumb because of his expression. That was not my intention, but I think it makes it even a bit more humorous. I can't wait to give this drawing to David today!

Pen and colored pencils

The Von Uzbek

2009-12-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

Here's my creature that I designed for Quick Sketch during week three. This is just the profile pose I used to finalize my design. I'll post a more dynamic pose soon.

And here's the description I wrote for it. I wrote it in about five minutes before class, so it's not the greatest. And yes, it's supposed to be a slight caricature of myself:

Name: Von Uzbek

Overview: The Von Uzbek is an aggressive, fearless, and short-tempered creature that lurks in swampy environments. This species is extremely intelligent and stealthy, allowing it to ambush its prey quite easily. When threatened, the Von Uzbek rises to its full height of 6 to 8 feet, turns a dark shade of red, and lets out a piercing scream that brings sudden death to its victims.

Keywords: Vicious, Looming, Crazed

Attributes:
Height - Females: 5 ft when hunched over; 8 ft when fully extended; Males: 3 ft when hunched over, 6 ft when fully extended
Weight - 200 - 400 lbs
Environment - Swampy Regions
Prey - Being a carnivore, the Von Uzbek will eat any species that it can overpower
Predators - Any species that is able to overpower the Von Uzbek

Only the Decent Quick Sketch Stuff So Far

2009-11-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

Sealife

Birds

Lanterns

Musical Instruments

Clocks

Comic Book/Graphic Novel Characters

Disney Characters

Random Characters

I'll post my creature once I get around to rerendering it in pencil and posing it differently. It's the only redesign project that I think turned out alright so far.

More Figure Drawings - November 2009

2009-11-30T19:57:00.001-08:00

We need models who are more dynamic.

Stop-Motion Final: "Smokin'"

2009-10-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3flbZ1GjGMQ&feature=channel_page

Don't Mess With Reggie

2009-09-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

This is my homemade stop-motion puppet that I created for my first stop-motion class at AIPD. His name is Reggie the Toad. The idea is that he is in the mafia, which is why he looks like such a badass. These are a few of the many photos I took during the construction stage and then some from the photo shoot I had to do with him.

I really want to make more puppets and go further with similar ideas I have.

Reinterpretation of "The Death of Marat"

2009-09-18T01:54:00.001-07:00

This is my final project for art history this quarter. It's 48" wide by 60" tall (almost as tall as myself). Done with acrylic paint.

Original painting by Jacques-Louis David below:

Cool Stop-Motion Stuff So Far

2009-08-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

These are a few of my animations from the Stop-Motion class I'm taking this quarter with the one and only, Teresa Drilling.

Figure Drawings - First Half of Spring Quarter 09

2009-08-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

This girl (India, I think her name is) is a really good model. I can finally see improvement in my figure drawings. Yay!

Finally Painting for Fun

2009-07-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

My second dog, Kloi (pronounced like Chloe). This is the first painting I've done for fun since I took Portrait Painting! I did this during finals week before I left for break. It was a gift to my parents. She's so cute!

Intermediate 3-D Animation Final

2009-06-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Here's my Intermediate 3-D Animation final. I like 3-D animation, but staring at a computer for hours on end is not cool.

Portrait Painting Final

2009-06-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my Portrait Painting final - 36" x 36" self-portrait. About 12 hours of work all together yesterday. I really like how it turned out, and the rest of my class had amazing paintings as well!

And here are the last few sketchbook paintings I did:

Original is an excerpt from a Caravaggio painting

Original by Joaquin Sorolla

"Dear Sir & Madam"

2009-06-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here's my final animatic for Storyboarding. Original story, characters, and concept by me. McKinney liked it :)

I'm in an Orange Mood

2009-06-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

In class painting from this afternoon. Joe put crazy red lighting on the model which made for amazing bright oranges and reds. I tried adding his actual eyes, but I thought he looked better without them. I wish this class was two terms long. I'm learning so much!

Another self-portrait I did for homework. I experimented with an elongated, stretched canvas. Stretched canvas is so much better to paint on than gessoed boards. It takes the paint better.

Portrait Painting and Figure Drawings From Last Couple Weeks

2009-05-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

In class painting from week 7 of my Portrait Painting class

5 minute poses from tonight

10 minute poses from tonight. His shoulders were super boney! I loved drawing them.

Poses from two Fridays ago

These were from about a month ago. I really like these two.

Midterm Sketchbook Paintings

2009-05-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some more paintings from my Portrait Painting sketchbook:

Original by Gustave Courbet

Original was a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

Original by Gustave Courbet

Original by Gustave Courbet

Original by Rembrandt

Some Intermediate Animation

2009-05-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

"Young Frankenstein" Lip Sync - This is my first lip sync. The character looked more like a Who on the model sheet. I enjoyed taking the most lovable and innocent looking character and animating him to an angry sounding dialogue. haha

Flour Sack in Perspective - Za really liked his balancing act on the ball :)

Self-Portraits and Such

2009-04-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

Me! My favorite one (above)

This is one I did in my painting sketchbook:

I believe the original of this was painted by John Singer Sargent....awesome!

Color Theory, Drawing, and PVC

2009-04-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Music project from Color Theory - Green Eyes by Coldplay

Drawing projects

Expressive self-portrait

PVC projects

Final project for PVC. We had to design playing cards based on another artist's work. I chose Tim Burton. His sketches are really cool and stylistic....plus, he's just awesome.

My Brainchild

2009-04-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

This is my final project for Image Manipulation last quarter. We had to redesign an existing CD cover - front and back. I was calling it my brainchild for a while because I was working on it every day for about a month....plus, I just love how it turned out. Created with Photoshop CS3 and CS4.

First Painting Session

2009-04-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

Here are the paintings I did in my Portrait Painting class the other day. That class is so much fun!

Old School

2009-04-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

For my first post, something sentimental from high school, about 5 years ago. This is a colored pencil drawing I did of my dog, Buddy. Obviously, this is before I knew how to photograph my artwork properly. It's still one of those I'm most proud of because I got a lot of recognition for it. And he's so cute!