K-Cat's stuff n' stuffs

Demo Reel for Stop Motion & Visual Development (Spring 2009)

2012-12-12T04:53:00.000-08:00

Demo Reel for Stop Motion & Visual Development (Spring 2009) from Marvelous Things on Vimeo.

My portfolio

2010-08-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

The professional world makes it so there's little time for updating, or even personal work. I do, however, update my portfolio out of necessity. Come check it out in the meantime!

Superheroes! Desert Beauties! Narwhals!

'Beautiful Night' color script

2010-05-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Found this while updating the ol' portfolio.

Xtinguish/flame

2010-04-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

Malachi 2:17-3:6, 1 Peter 1:6-7
Acrylic paint, gold leaf on an Anthropologie shopping bag

2010-04-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

Recital poster my friend Laura Geier asked me to design for her. Her music and performance holds true to the mercurial and passionate spirit of the people known as Roma (gypsies) - have a listen!

'Beautiful Night' film Part 1, stills & layouts

2009-05-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of 'Beautiful Night', my BFA4 (mostly) stop-motion film at CalArts about a slave girl disillusioned by beauty, wealth and acceptance.

Beautiful Night (Part 1) from Marvelous Things on Vimeo.

The rest to be uploaded soon!
Narration lovingly provided by Deborah Asiimwe
Violin & Percussion recording by:
Laura Geier, Violin & Composition
Greg Loewer, Percussion (Dumbek & Riq)
Roger Marcelo, Recording Engineer

Made @ CalArts 2009

The images uploaded backwards, darn! Okay, well pretend you're watching my film backwards.

Some 'Beautiful Night' (film 2009) characters & puppets

2009-05-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

Some renders of the consorts, their replaceable heads and a camel with fully moving hinges. Designs of the main character (Leila) was posted a long while ago here!

All puppets are first designed on paper, then scanned into the computer, colored, textured & rendered with each part as a separate piece. They are then printed out, glued to cardstock, cut each piece with an x-acto blade, and finally sewn together to create the puppet suitable for animation.

More to come soon...!

Of silkworms & stalactites

2009-05-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

My parents are spectacular and gave me BBC's Planet Earth series for Christmas, so I spent my spare time soaking in the incredible imagery of creation. And then some friends were practicing for their band and I got all doodly. Some sketches from that night:

Narwhals are real.

Jerry and Nick rocking out. That's a sugar-glider escaping from under Nick's beanie.
Sketches of the leafy-looking leg eventually turned into the pair for the installation.

Silkworm & stalactite doodles eventually turned into this:

Silkworms in New Zealand are the coolest cause they glow, so when you look up it looks like a starry night sky inside this cave!

Historic Superheroes Pt. 2

2009-05-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned a class project in which I turned Marie Antoinette into a modern-day super hero, but I never included her other team members. There was a whole backstory about a Japanese scientist who resurrected them to help save the world from Communism, but that's besides right now. So here they are!

Nikola Tesla - ladies man and celibate scientist extraordinaire. Vegetarian. Builds death-ray guns. Hates round things and pearl jewelry. Also fond of pigeons. The favorite pigeon has a bionic eye with x-ray vision. Only one of these things is untrue.

Aaaand...

Amelia Earhart! Bless that woman.
In this version of history, our supreme female aviator did in fact disappear amongst the clouds. However, she was snatched up by our friend the Japanese scientist who - to save the world like all good doers - fashioned her a jet pack to carry out her stealthy missions. She's mostly the leader of this clan.

Here's some silly doodles I did of Marie, she's just fun:

Whoah, Happy New Year!

2009-01-25T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hello 2009, I hope you're treating everyone kindly.

Hello Mister Robot.
He wants to present to you some shoes.
Shoes.
With legs in them.

A sculpture in collaboration with my good friend and fellow animator/designer Amanda Loka!

We combined different elements of our film ideas for the concept of this installation piece at the CalArts Character Animation show last week. Amanda designed the robot, I designed the tree legs, and we both designed the sun & cut out the entire sculpture with exacto knives. It hurt. It took longer than we expected. But we definitely had a ton of fun doing this and would totally do it again!

You can click on the photos to see larger versions.

After this project, I've realized how much I miss doing paper cut-outs and mixed media work inspired by cultures and fanciful ideas. And so, I am very much here and going about business.

Film 08-09 stuff!

2008-12-04T22:34:00.001-08:00

Here's some things I've been working on for my film that's gonna be finished in April'09:

The girl is the main character of my film. All characters will be puppets as paper cut-outs with hinged limbs and stuff, with replacement facial parts, heads, etc to be able to animate her face, hands, hair, etc. A challenge!

Bags o'fun - Doritos commercial

2008-12-04T22:30:00.000-08:00

Submitted for the Doritos Crash the Superbowl Contest 2008 - You can view the submission here.
I completed this at Buddy System Studios with the cooperation of 3 other interns, using replacement Doritos as stop motion puppets!

Bags o'Fun - Doritos contest submission from Marvelous Things on Vimeo.

Crunch time is over!

2008-05-13T01:49:00.000-07:00

And the stuff below to post (some went into my portfolio). But first, here's my film for this year, called 'Lilium'. It's still in progress - gonna keep working on it!

Lilium (2008) from Marvelous Things on Vimeo.

The best thing I love about being in college is that you can make mistakes and learn from them, and it's OKAY!

^ Marie Antoinette, Supah-style, as an assignment for my Super Heroes class this past semester. Best class ever!
About Marie: Given a second chance at life! Happy with her now fortunate circumstance, Marie still wanted to keep an extravagant way of life, but improved upon it by throwing parties for the underprivileged, giving fashion to the fashion senseless, and let’s everyone actually eat cake... including her opponents!

Oh hey look, I added a goat! Not quite so lacking, but still. Hmm..

Currently meditating on my next course of action. Summertime is awesome for focusing on what needs improvement!

Various things

2008-02-21T00:35:00.002-08:00

Here's some stuff I've been working on or had laying around for the past few months. Some are for my film this year, and others are not!

Inauguration!

2008-02-10T15:43:00.001-08:00

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I've had this thing for a while and never actually used it, so I might as well start sometime.

I already have a DeviantArt page where you can see some of my older work (and some newer stuff). I don't post there much either, but maybe this blog will start the habit of something new (especially after my 3rd year film is finished).

To start, here's my film from last year: "Under the Sky"

Under the Sky (2007) from Marvelous Things on Vimeo.

And some art for the little production:

Originally the whole thing was supposed to be stop-motion, but after having transferred from Experimental Animation into Character, I realized that I really just wanted the project done (as in "coherent") after having worked on it for so long already. Stop motion is an incredible medium, but it takes a lot of time, money, and effort that I wasn't prepared for with this project. All the same, I learned an incredible amount from this, and I had fun doing it too!

The best thing about having learned from your previous mistakes is applying that newfound knowledge to more projects, as well as continuing to grow as an artist & animator. I listened to an interview recently with Glen Keane, and something he said really stuck out to me: "It's not that you're 'not good enough', you've just hit the limit of your knowledge. So go out and learn some more!"

So with this year, I'm happy to be working with a new project and challenging myself in new ways, as well as drawing more. A LOT more. It's tough, but that's what makes it fun right? Variety is the spice of life. Let's see how it goes!

Here's to new beginnings - yeah!!