Deep Crispy Fried

So THIS is what the jerk has been doing.

2011-06-23T19:11:00.004+12:00

Well, it's been officially announced now so I guess I can splurge to the world what has taken me away from doing stuff for this blog.

I've been putting together a book of the art for the upcoming Steve Spielberg movie version of "Tintin".
In it you'll find pieces of art from some of your favourite Weta Workshop artists. Including Frank Victoria, Rebekah Holguin, Rob Baldwin, Christian Pearce, Greg Broadmore, Adam Anderson, Matty Rodgers, Tim Gibson, Paul Tobin, Daniel Falconer, Stephen Crowe and Gus Hunter. Also they are pieces from your favourite Weta Digital artists including Michael Pangrazio and Ravi Bansal. Unfortunately there are also a few scribblings from your least favourite Weta Workshop artist in there too but don't worry. I printed my paintings on cork which can be used as a dartboard if the reader needs to hone their dart throwing skills.

You can pre-order the book from the link below if y'all are interested. It's the perfect Christmas present for people who like getting Christmas presents.

http://www.wetanz.com/the-art-of-the-adventures-of-tintin/

Sketchy Sketches

2011-06-20T19:00:00.000+12:00

Whoo boy! Been busy this year.
Too busy to chuck anything on this blog despite all my half-assed promises. Understandable I suppose considering I'm working on ***TOP SECRET***. Especially the section where ***CLASSIFIED*** kicks ***CLASSIFIED*** in his ***CLASSIFIED*** with a pair of size 10 ***CLASSIFIED***. (Man! I'm glad I've got that off my chest. It's so hard to keep a secret)

Anyways, what I've posted here is the scrap of paper I have sitting next to me when I work. Whenever I need to clear my head or give my A.D.D. freedom for a few moments, I type a random famous person's name on the 'puter and sketch a photo that comes up on Google. Only spend about 5 to 10 mins on each one but it's enough to placate my restless ways so I can get back to work.

In other words, I've just posted brain farts. Hope you enjoy the smell of rotten eggs.

The Slacker Speaks.

2010-11-29T18:51:00.003+13:00

The observant of you ( in fact even the most unobservant of you ) will probably have noticed a severe lack in anything appearing on this blog. I have many excuses, one of which is my usual slacker attitude. But I won't bore you with these excuses (mainly because that would involve too much typing and as I said before, I'm a slacker).
Instead, here's an advert that was published in a couple of NZ newspapers back when a fair few of us New Zealand film technicians were worried the Hobbit was going to be filmed overseas. Because of the tight deadline, it ended up being one of the few times I've sat down at a computer and painted from mid morning, through the afternoon, through the night and way into the following day. In total I was awake for 40 hours straight. (cue the woe is me, sob-story violin soundtrack.) But... hey... it was worth it.

"Way back in the year 2 thousand and diggity 3..."

2010-08-11T18:59:00.009+12:00

"Rowlf" was my Weta merchandising swan song. Made back in (approx) 2002/2003.
That's right! 2003: A time before the invention of the IPod, the PS3 and long before Mr Obama was telling Americans "Yes They could".

After I finished the piece, I handed in my Weta Merchandising badge and schmoozed my way into the design room. Might try sculpting for personal gratification again someday but I doubt I'll ever go back to doing it for money. Not worth it considering the many talented Weta sculptors that are a lot quicker and a hell of lot better than me.

ADDITIONAL BIG, FAT, BLOATED, EGO-BOOSTING FACT: The bust won the 2003 "World's best statue / bust Global Award" from Action-figure.net.
HA! Stick that in your hat and call it macaroni, Yankee Doodle!

Slap Dash Sketches - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" 1

2010-08-11T15:02:00.004+12:00

Re-learned a basic rule while doing this week's Slap Dash Sketches. Namely don't pick your favourite movie to do sketches from. You'll end up watching the movie instead of drawing it.

Anyways, here's the result of about 45 minutes to an hour of drawing and 30-45 minutes of gratuitous slacking off.

Slap Dash Sketches - "Once Upon a Time in the West" 1

2010-08-05T19:35:00.004+12:00

Blogging twice in one week. Stop the presses, chief!! One of the signs of Armageddon has happened!

"Why, oh god why?" I hear you moan.
Good question.

Well, since I'm supposed to be keeping this blog thing updated now I have a fancy 'puter, I might as well get back into some other old habits while I'm on a roll. Namely One Hour Slap Dash Sketches.

Back in my Cartoon Portraits in Shopping Mall days, I would practice in my time off sketching something that interested me. Since the only thing that interested me most the time were movies, I would pick a scene or two from a favourite movie and sketch it for one hour. No rules except it had to be one hour exact and no erasers allowed except for rubbing out scummy hand smears and stress teardrops on the page.
The result of this whole exercise usually ends up being pretty embarrassing but hey... you guys won't laugh at me, will ya? ( I hope like hell you're nodding in agreement otherwise I'll just go back to living in my spiderhole.)

Well, here goes.
I'll probably make this a once a week thing on the blog.
The movie scene for this week is the opening of "Once Upon a Time in the West"
Remember, be gentle. It's been a long time since I've done this.

SCOOP!! Famous people get insulted by mediocre artist.

2010-08-03T18:23:00.020+12:00

Well, I'm back.
It seems like only several months ago that I posted something on this blog. My oh my. Doesn't time fly when you're doing diddly squat with your spare time.
So what's new?
Well the biggest news is I got me a brand sparkly new computer, which looks something like this...This means I might actually be updating this blog a bit more often. (Please note the word MIGHT. The above sentence is by no means a contract or a promise so you can't sue me if you don't see me post anything for the next 5 years.)
One of the first mediocre pictures I did on my new wonder abacus was a picture for the crew of popular Discovery show "Mythbusters". Apparently co-host Adam Savage is a huge fan of Weta. So he sent us a bunch of Mythbusters T Shirts and autographed Postcards.
"Awfully nice of the chap" I thought. "How can I repay his kindness? I know! I'll draw him an incredibly mediocre picture so he'll end up hating us & never contact us ever again!"
A few chaps from the workshop were due to meet up with Adam at Comic Con. Out of this group, I selected model maker extraordinaire Dave Tremont to be the unfortunate bearer of my aforementioned piece of mediocrity.

Here, in all it's blandness, is this image.
Children, pregnant women and weak stomached people - look away now.

Unfortunately, it looks like I failed my mission. Adam and the Mythbusters gang liked my picture.
Yet another failure to add to my list.

Caloo and Calay. It's a Jelvis today!

2010-02-18T18:49:00.006+13:00

Now I remember why I slacked off posting blogs.
I have so little time yet I have so much procrastination to be done every week. How can I meet my procrastination quota if I have to keep drawing 15 min quick crappy sketches for my blog?

Speaking of which, here's this weeks poop peanut .
Fellow Wetarian and all round incredibly talented bastard Ben Mauro (go look at his feckin' cool artwork at http://www.artofben.com/) sent me a youtube link to a Peter, Bjorn and John music video called "Nothing to Worry About".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwcaQ3qJ88U

Viewing it reminded my remembering meat muscle of the entertaining phenomenon of Dancing Harajuku Elvis gangs. That started my thinking thing a-working which resulted in me saying "I will draw me a Jelvis". 10 minutes later, the picture below had oozed out of my wacom pen.

If you're lucky, a Jelvis will take offense at the image and stab me to death with his oh so pointy hairdo. If you're not so lucky, I will return next week with another time waster.

Fries

WHAT THE...???? THE LOSER HAS POSTED SOMETHING ELSE IN THE SAME WEEK?????!!!

2010-02-11T18:31:00.004+13:00

Believe me. I am as amazed as as you. For almost a year I do squat all on this website then suddenly it's a flood! Sure it's like a flood of tepid artistic yogurt but it's still a flood.
What the HELL is wrong with me??

Anyhows, this time it's not Jean Reno (praise the lord!) Instead it's a quick sketch of a Dragoney type thingy whatsit doohicky. It's rushed, it's rough, it's not particularly great but hey... anything to add to the tepid yogurt flood.

GOOD LORD!!!! HE'S ACTUALLY UPDATED THE BLOG!!!!

2010-02-09T19:20:00.013+13:00

Yeah I know. I ain't done nuttin' on this blog for almost a long time now.
You probably thought I was dead or running across America trying to forget Jenny and her coyly sleezy ways. Well, you were close.

I was being artistic. You know, putting things off then never getting round to actually doing them. It's a fine tradition handed down from lazy artist to lazy artist and who am I to try and break tradition.

Anyhows, I actually did a picture recently which I thought I might splatter on the internet to take up more room between the spam and the Catz images. Did it in 'bout quarter hour or so, so if it looks rushed and slightly 15 minuteish, that's why.

As yes it's Jean Reno again. Don't know why. It just is.
Might try moving onto pictures of Gene Simmons next. Just work my way thru all the Gene pool.

T.T.F.N.
Fries

Inbred Fishing

2009-03-12T19:16:00.005+13:00

Van Gogh - "Sunflowers".
Warhol - "Campbell Soup".
Me - "Jethro Jr. done some fishing with this here shotgun axe".

Who says my work can't be deep and meaningful?

GDT Congrats Advert

2009-03-10T18:26:00.005+13:00

Every so often, I do a card or an advert for some random occasional occasion. Here is an example of one such occasion.

Back in May 2008, director Guillermo Del Toro recieved a Saturn George Pal Memorial Award for his fine work on films such as "Hellboy", "Pan's Labyrinth", "Devil's Backbone" and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo". (actually, I might have to check my sources on that last one).
Anyhoo... some of the guys over here New Zedland wanted to put a congratulary advert in the award show brochure that was handed out at the event. This image was the result.

I am still running from Guillermo to this day.

Weta Calender Pages_Part un.

2009-03-09T18:02:00.008+13:00

Way back in September of Two Thousand and diggity Eight, mankind hadn't invented days or months yet. So it was left to a numerically dyslexic person like myself to make a thing called a calender to help other idjits in the world remember when days like the first of April would be.
This callender was then given as a Xmas gift for people working at Weta Workshop and sold in the official Weta store for the average Joe to buy a copy. Needless to say it was a huge success for landfill owners throughout Wellington.
For your viewing displeasure, here are the first few pages that started the trend for burning calenders you've come to know and love. I'll post the other pages some other time when I feel you need another digital kick in the groinbag.

GRARG WITH GUN!!!

2009-03-09T13:39:00.001+13:00

An old, quick portrait of Weta Designer and Weta Raygun creator Greg Broadmore. You can find his own face-punchingly good work at...
http://gregbroadmore.blogspot.com/
By the way, Greg's face is now 99% beard so this image is a bit out of date.

As an added note, this was the first picture I did using my new "Wacom Cintiq LCD tablet doowhatsit". It's just like using paper except imagine the paper is worth $1000 or so and looks more like a LCD wacom tablet than paper. So in other words, it is nothing like paper.

Old Stuff to fill up an otherwise blank looking blog

2009-03-06T17:30:00.001+13:00

Just looked at my Blog page to see if my first entry worked.

It did. Only problem was my page looked boring as hell with just one picture on it.

So I've decided to add a bunch of old stuff to fill it up... even if some of this old stuff makes vomit happen to my throat with it's try-hardness.

Here's one of Abe Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S.A. , dressed up to look like Hellboy. Or it could just be Hellboy. Whoever it looks more like, it's supposed to be that one.

Roller Derby Poster

2009-03-06T16:50:00.002+13:00

Well, here goes. First blog doohicky whatsit. Was asked to do a poster for a roller derby. Did it. This is it. Sure the poster may be nothing spectacular but I have to admit it was pretty fun to do. 'nuff said.