light night rains

UN

2012-01-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

Last week I was invited by the United Nations Holocaust Outreach Programme to speak at the UN about my work on the animated portions of the upcoming documentary film The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. It's an amazing story of a young, brilliant Holocaust victim.

I'll be posting more about our trip on my regular M/W/F schedule.

* * *

Here is a new trailer for the documentary.

And here is a trailer specifically for the animated portion.

Through out the feature length documentary three different kinds of animation are interspersed. One, original animation (most notably the outer space sequences.) Two, Petr's painting and drawings. And finally, different moments in Petr's life.

For this project I took the script and story-boarded the animation sequences. I oversaw the art direction of this portion of the film as well as created all of the art for animation and prepared many of Petr Ginz's original works to be animated. Danny McNight then took the work and animated it with Adobe After Effects.

About the Film:

By 14 Petr Ginz had written ﬁve novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Spectrum

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Entries for Spectrum are due today! Did you get yours out in time?

Here's a look at what I entered.


The Hidden People.

Series entry. Unpublished. The five colored pieces from The Hidden People.

Prints available from my shop.

The UN Holocaust Outreach Programme

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

This evening is the special screening of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz at the United Nations.

The UN's Holocaust Programme will screen a new animated documentary film on the life and artwork of Petr Ginz, a Jewish boy from Prague who perished in the Holocaust at the age of 16, after spending two years in Terezin. He was a brilliant child who wrote a diary, four novels and created 200 illustrations and paintings during his short life.

The screening will be held in partnership with the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University and the Documentary Institute at the University of Florida. A panel discussion with the filmmakers and Mr. Leo Lowy, a Holocaust survivor, will follow.

Film Screening and Panel Discussion of “The Last Flight of Petr Ginz”
Venue: Conference Room 1, Temporary North Lawn Building (UNHQ)
Time: 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Contact: Holocaustremembrance@un.org or online registration

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... ...

Bleeding Cool: Labyrinth pages

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Well! It looks as if @Archaia has released a couple pages from my upcoming Free Comic Book Day Labyrinth story "Hoggle and the Worm" (written by Ted Naifeh & Adrianne Ambrose) through cool website Bleeding Cool.

Presented here for your enjoyment are those couple pages. I'm really pleased to finally be able to point you guys to something solid about the project. And you can get a little look at how I handled Hoggle. I love that poor guy.

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Also to note, I'm booked for a couple of local comic shops signings on May 5th (Free Comic Book Day).

I'll be splitting my time between Borderlands and Richard's Comics and Collectables.

More on those appearances when the time comes.

Jamie's Journey

2012-01-20T13:17:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of illustrating a picture book called Jamie's Journey.

I absolutely loved every part of this project. From talking with the author about her ideas, to laying out my rough thumbnails, to painting it, this book was a perfect gem.

The lyrical writing is lovely. And fans of my watercolor work will enjoy several spreads of star-strewn skies and storms over the Atlantic.

You can preview the first few pages of the book over at Rowe Publishing.

Enjoy!

Tumblr

2012-01-18T11:30:00.001-05:00

Behold! I have wrought for myself a Tumblr.

Another blog? Well, not quite. It's different and here's my reasoning. Basically a third of my traffic comes from random folks posting my work on Tumblr. Thankfully, it's most always credited back to me otherwise I'd have no idea. I wanted to give the good people of Tumblr a legitimate source for my work to re-blog, re-tumbl, or whatever it is that goes on in that wild, untamed land of .gifs and memes.

What will I use it for? Mostly I see it as bringing my work to a new audience. I'll be rolling through several of my personal projects over there and revisiting some of my favorite posts from here.

So, all that to say my main blog is going holding fast and you can now follow me on Tumblr to revisit past projects!

Enjoy.

The Hidden People: back in stock!

2012-01-16T14:30:00.000-05:00

Just about every six months I begin a new personal project. There's nothing at all like making up something for yourself and seeing it through to completion. You have to juggle your paying client jobs and make the time to fit in these personal projects but the payoff for doing so is invaluable.

My most recent personal project is comprised of several stages. (And going by my 6 month timetable I'm nearly ready to commence THP part II.) The first part of this multi-tier-ed project has been The Hidden People, my 40 page sketchbook of what I guess would describe like "natural world creature fantasy." I've done two modest print runs and have had the good fortune to sell out of both. I've now done a third and I'm pleased to say that The Hidden People is now back in stock!

Follow the link to my shop to purchase!

Thank you for supporting my work! By picking up The Hidden People you help to fund this and other personal projects like it. I can't thank you enough for that.

You can preview the entire book in the video below:

Petr Ginz + UN

2012-01-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

“The seed of a creative idea does not die in mud
and scum. Even there it will germinate and spread
its blossom like a star shining in darkness.”

- Petr Ginz

We've been invited to the UN for a special screening of a documentary film I had the opportunity work on called The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. It's an amazing story of a young, brilliant Holocaust victim.

The UN Holocaust Outreach Programme is showing the film later this month. Afterwards I'll be joining a panel with the other filmmakers to talk about it.

* * *

Here is a new, incredible trailer for the documentary.

And here is a trailer specifically for the animated portion.

Through out the feature length documentary three different kinds of animation are interspersed. One, original animation (most notably the outer space sequences.) Two, Petr's painting and drawings. And finally, different moments in Petr's life.

For this project I took the script and story-boarded the animation sequences. I oversaw the art direction of this portion of the film as well as created all of the art for animation and prepared many of Petr Ginz's original works to be animated. Danny McNight then took the work and animated it with Adobe After Effects.

About the Film:

By 14 Petr Ginz had written ﬁve novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

Eagle

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

The other day I found out that I've been nominated for an Eagle Award!

Introduced in 1976, the Eagles are the comics industry's longest established awards. Acknowledged as the pre-eminent international prizes, they have been featured on the covers of leading US and UK titles across the last 30 years. Unique in that they reflect the people's choices.

I've been nominated in "Favourite Artist: Fully-Painted Artwork."

Well I'm flattered and excited! I don't know for sure but I'm going to guess that it was for the Fraggle Rock work.

Here are some of the pages:

If you liked the Fraggle stuff you can head over to the site and vote!

New year

2012-01-09T16:23:00.000-05:00

It has been a wild last few months.

Between getting to work on Labyrinth and recently being invited to the UN, and getting to do a cover (about) one of my all time favorite books, 2012 is off to pretty great start. I'll cover more about those in upcoming posts but my goal here is to resume the M/W/F blog schedule. It's not easy, particularly when there's so much going on but still. I've abandoned my poor blog long enough.

* * *

I always enjoy doing book covers. I don't get to do them often enough for my liking. I love getting to do a one-off piece form time to time. This is a look at a cover for an upcoming book about The Hobbit. You'll have to wait to see the full cover when it's release but here's a peek:

FCBD / Labyrinth

2011-12-02T14:35:00.001-05:00

Here is a terribly exciting (and massive) announcement. Friends, I get to do Labyrinth. Indeed, Henson's Labyrinth.

I'll be talking more about it in the coming months but suffice it to say I get to work once again with the extraordinary publisher Archaia (you may remember my Fraggle Rock work for them a year or so back).

You can read the entire press release about the Free Comic Book Day.

For your convenience I took the liberty of highlighting this one part I really liked:

Ok! Well, I'm still floored by the news, glad I can finally mention it!

Can't wait.

FaerieCon 2011

2011-11-16T16:26:00.000-05:00

I really didn't know what to expect from FaerieCon. I was an invited guest at the convention and asked to speak about some of my experiences in animation. There were a lot of really awesome people going to be there (Charles Vess, Brian Froud) people that I look up to and admire their work immensely. So hey, why not!

Well, it was an absolute blast! We had a great time, everyone was so kind, and the whole thing was so much fun. From getting to hang out with some of my illustrative heroes to awesome concerts, FaerieCon delivered. A huge thanks to Robert Gould for inviting me.

Here's a little look at our time there.


My booth. Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures of anything else.

Nearly sold through The Hidden People! If you want one, act fast.

I brought several of my originals.

The costumes were pretty great.

And the nightly concerts were out of control fun.

Post-FaerieCon we visited family as well as traveled to the Brandywine Museum.

This is the path that N. C. Wyeth built and walked up every day.

The Brandywine itself.

I must be done with the river. Time to go.

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Here are a few pictures from Erin's blog post about our trip.You can read Erin's post here.

Erin got her face painted. Aw yeah!

My great uncle and I being hilarious.

I also sat on a giant chair at one point.

This concludes my FaerieCon, family visit, Wyeth trip post.

9/10ths

2011-10-31T14:37:00.001-04:00

Over the last year or so I've worked on a project for a couple of really great guys who work in the British film industry, one is a producer, the other is an editor.

It's been a great experience and I love that I've gotten the chance to help them bring it to life. They're starting to release some of the work. Here's a look at some of it.

Above. Some of my work from the Prologue section of the book.

Below. Some of the actual pages and panels of the graphic novel.

* * *

You can find out more about them over on their Facebook page. Also, you can see a little more of the work I've done for them over there as well.

And you can also check out their main website, Reality in Dreams and see some of the other projects they have going on (and maybe find some more of my work hidden in there!)

* * *

Alex and Greg have been some of the best people I've ever gotten the chance to work with and I look forward to many more projects together!

sign & doodle

2011-10-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

I sign and doodle on the title page of each copy of The Hidden People. Each is unique though each is usually some variation of one of the tree people, some old tree man. He's quick to draw and I have fun.

I particularly enjoyed a couple with my last order and took some pictures.

Enjoy!

You can pick up The Hidden People from my shop.

Breath of Embers

2011-10-12T16:45:00.000-04:00

My humble dragons are in some mighty company at the new Gallery Nucleus (@gallerynucleus) group show, Breath of Embers: Art of Dragons.

How I wish I could get out there are see this show! Nucleus always puts together the best shows and I'm so pleased to have been able to join in again. (Huge thanks to Wade!)

Here are my three pieces in the show.

I regret that due to projects and scheduling I wasn't able to complete the new pieces I had planned for the show. At some point I'll bring them to life but there's just too much on plate at the moment.

Fraggle Rock giveaway!

2011-10-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

[Update] Ok! The giveaway is won, congratulations Ryan!

Above. The pen and colored pencil doodle I have made for one lucky winner.

Ok! Fraggle giveaway time!

To enter the contest to win this autographed, doodled hardcover edition of Fraggle Rock Vol. 2 simply comment on this post! For fun you can comment with your favorite Jim Henson character.

I'll only be counting the comments placed on this post (not Twitter or Facebook).

Commenting will be open all weekend so hopefully anyone that would want to will be able to enter. I'll cut off the comments Monday morning. I'll then randomly select and announce the winner.

Thanks everyone, have fun!

To see a collection of blog posts detailing my experience with Fraggle Rock click here.

* * *

Special thanks to Archaia, Tim Beedle, and Joe LeFavi!

Fraggle!

2011-10-05T14:20:00.001-04:00

Hey you guys remember when I got to do a Fraggle story? You can find the collection of posts detailing my experience here.

Well, I was recently sent some copies of the book, the very nice hard cover edition, and I decided to do a giveaway!

This FRIDAY (I'll do another post actually on Friday, early Friday morning.) I'll be giving away an autographed, Fraggle doodled hardcover edition of Fraggle Rock Vol 2.

Don't bother commenting now (unless you just can't help it) because I'll only be counting the comments actually placed on the giveaway post going up Friday.

Commenting will be open all weekend so hopefully anyone that would want to will be able to enter. I'll cut off the comments Monday morning and announce the winner!

Aw yeah, Fraggles!

One Quarter Ninja

2011-10-03T14:49:00.000-04:00

Recently I got the chance to work on a really cool iPad book called One Quarter Ninja (@1quarterninja)

I've gotten permission to post some of the art and I'll do that over the coming days. Most of the work I'll show however will be nearer to the app's release so you can be sure you'll be hearing about OQN again.

Here's a look at one of the more dynamic shots of the "one quarter ninja" himself.

Rough.

Final.

* * *

Since this is for an iPad book, most every element in the collection of work is layered. My experience with the animated projects I've gotten to do has been invaluable in learning how to work not only layered but quickly and not sacrifice any of the quality.

This was a super fun project to do since one of my biggest thrills as a draw-er is getting to do figure work. For the most part I'd rather draw people (or creatures) and organic things over industrial objects any day. I got to do many, many poses of the ninja who is simply a dark, knocked out figure on a white background so there's no hiding imperfections in the drawing or anatomy. The silhouette is what's most important.

I loved the chance to bring this book to life in this way and I can't wait for you to see the finished product.

Bit.Trip contest!

2011-09-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

Update! Here are my winnings! Thank you again, @tinycartridge, @aksysgames, @GaijinGames, and @BitTrip!

* * *

If you've read this blog for any length of time you know that I love Nintendo. I admire the company itself almost as much as the games they produce.

For the most part I really only stick with the major Nintendo developed and published titles (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon) for several reasons, one of which being I simply don't have that much time to enjoy video games and with a Nintendo game I'll have a solid experience that I'll love. Everyone once in a while though, I'll happen upon a game developed by another and fall in love with that as well.

One of my favorite new series like this is Bit.Trip. The games play like love letters to the classic video games of the past. Each game in the series is almost elemental, they abstract and distill the building blocks of classic games into a fresh, new experience.

My favorite one in the series is Bit.Trip Runner. It's a terrifyingly challenging game. It also has some great music. See below.

* * *

Recently a game site, Tiny Cartridge, had an art contest to win the new collection of Bit.Trip games for the Wii and 3DS. I thought, man, I got to do something if for no other reason than to show my love for the series. Well, hey, I'm happy to report I won one of the grand prizes!

Here's a better look at the piece I did for it:

* * *

And here's the moment from the game that inspired the piece. I wanted to do a more "realized" version of the blocky, pixelated scene. (Not to try an improve it in any way, mind you, there's not really anything to improve with pixels, they're perfect. I love them.)

Though actually I did another version of the piece too, one where CommanderVideo (that's the little fellow) was developed kind of along the same lines as the skull-monster. I made him more of an astronaut, or something. See below.

In the end I couldn't decide and sent in both to let the judges figure it out.

* * *

Well, thanks again to Tiny Cartridge and Gaijin Games for picking my piece! It's an honor and I'm really looking forward to another Bit.Trip!

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PS If you're interested here's my original thumbnail for the piece.

The booth

2011-09-19T23:42:00.001-04:00

Here are some shots of my booth at Indie Craft Parade.

It was such a fun show; I'm sad it's over. Probably why I keep posting pictures of it.

If you're not sick of hearing about it yet check these out.

Photos by Peter Crane.

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Photos by Eternal Image Photography.

The Hidden People - prints!

2011-09-16T11:13:00.000-04:00

The Golden Apple

The Elf Mother

The Troll Father

The Resting Hill

The Walking Hill

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And of course there are copies available of The Hidden People!

40 pages, 6" x 9" color printing, soft cover.

Thank you for supporting my work!

ICP

2011-09-14T14:37:00.001-04:00

Photo by Peter Crane.

Indie Craft Parade, (@craftparade) my wife's pet project went off this past weekend. It was another massive success and a lot of fun to boot.

I debuted several new prints at the show. I'll be posting those this Friday.

I had several of my Grimm and Alice prints as well as several originals but the work I was most excited about was The Hidden People. The book did very well at the show and I want to thank everyone who came by and supported it!

Prints of five pieces from The Hidden People will be available this Friday.

Thanks again!

Thanks and schedule resumed

2011-09-01T20:07:00.002-04:00

Thank you!

The Hidden People has sold through the first print run and is well into the second printing.

I've been thrilled by the response and just wanted to thank you all for your support!

I wanted to take the month of August off from blogging and let the initial THP post sit at the top for the month. At the same time you might have noticed a fresh coat of paint over this old blog. Actually birthday number six slipped past last week. My dear old blog, six years old.

Anyway, I'm still messing with things and updating.

I'll resume my regular M/W/F posting schedule next week but for this (incredibly, how is the end of summer) first day of September just wanted to check in and say hey.

Also, look at this! Look at this dancing guy!

I'll see you on Monday.

The Hidden People

2011-08-01T09:00:00.004-04:00

I'm pleased to be able to show you the personal project I've been working on for the last 4 or 5 months, my new sketchbook, The Hidden People.

Here's a video tour of the work, every spread of the book.

* * *

Thank you for supporting my work! By picking up The Hidden People you help to fund this and other personal projects like it. I can't thank you enough for that.

$10, color printing, 40 pages, soft cover, perfect bound. 6" x 9"

You can find it on my shop, here.

* * *

Thank you for supporting my work! By picking up The Hidden People you help to fund this and other personal projects like it. I can't thank you enough for that.

* * *

The Hidden People book is the first stage in a much larger personal project than I have previously attempted. This a year or more long project with multiple stages and I look forward to be able to bring you more.

pre-SDCC blog abandonment

2011-07-18T15:02:00.004-04:00

As usual the final weeks running up to the San Diego Comic-Con are always among the busiest times of the year for me. Between juggling my client work and personal, getting new work ready for the show, everything, it's always a perfect storm of pre-SDCC blog abandonment.

I will finish the series of posts on my Flight 8 story, The Clockmaker's Daughter when I get back from the show.

In other news, my 2011 sketchbook, "The Hidden People" have arrived! They look perfect. Absolutely perfect.

The Hidden People will debut at SDCC. The 40 page, color printed book will be available at the Flight booth #2235. I'll have them on my shop August 1.

* * *

My goal of creating a yearly sketchbook remains on track.

2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.