Holy smokes! It’s been four years since my last post.

Been meaning to post here on a regular basis again. Just one day a week to get back in the flow of things. I figure now would be a good time since I did some art and animation-related stuff last weekend.

The stuff in question was the Neon Nightmare art show at the Titmouse Burbank studio on the eve of Friday, October 6.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it since I’m in San Diego these days – I still have my condo in North Hollywood, but it’s a huge money saver living with my parents in San Diego while animation jobs, and acting and voiceover auditions are mostly remote. But then I remembered I was seeing Dethklok at the Pearl Theater in Las Vegas on Sunday, and LA is closer to Las Vegas than San Diego, soooo… yeah. It was decided my family and I would stay in LA on Friday night before heading to Vegas on Saturday.

The main feature of the show was a long, narrow hallway of blacklight art. My favorites were mostly ones by people I know, such as the Barbie-themed “Plastic is Fantastic” by my former roommate, Kalia Ramirez, and the action-packed “Cosmo” by my co-worker and Art Director on Royal Crackers, Jake Reeves, whose progress I followed with much excitement on X:

My favorite from an artist that I don’t know was the triptych, “Daybreak,” by Natalie James:

Besides the art, it was fun catching up with people I hadn’t seen in ages, like Van Partible, my teacher from LMU and creator of Johnny Bravo, and Ron Smith, my former co-worker and storyboard artist on Family Guy.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t see any of my co-workers from Royal Crackers, but that’s to be expected when I don’t know what 99% of the crew looks like. Remote work. It really do be like that sometimes.

I just hope that if there’s a wrap party for Season 2, I won’t be out of the country like I was for Season 1’s. It would be nice to finally meet the crew of the show that has been the most creatively fulfilling experience of my animation career so far.

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One year ago today, I signed with LB Talent Agency for commercial representation and I am so glad I did. Misty W.* has been the best agent I could possibly ask for, sending me out on auditions on a regular basis and responding to my emails quickly and thoroughly like a champ. Out of all the agents I met with during my search for representation, she was the one I truly felt I clicked with. Plus, I like that she shares my enthusiasm for the voice acting brilliance of Seth MacFarlane.

I’d also like to thank Jill Alexander for being a mentor and cheerleader to me during those agent hunting days. I honestly wouldn’t be celebrating today’s milestone if it hadn’t been for her guidance. She’s a powerhouse who deserves her own entry, so I’ll save the rest of my praises for when I get to writing it. In the meantime:

Happy one-year anniversary to me, Misty W. and LB Talent Agency!

* Name changed per the request of my agent. Hope she likes it as much as I do.

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Animator Jeremy Polgar has released his proof of concept trailer for his series pitch, ANALOG ON, and it looks sexy as hell! Created, directed, and animated by the self-proclaimed motion scientist himself, the breathtaking 1:30 clip takes us through a post-apocalyptic landscape where a mysterious masked man scans the remnants of a robotic human skull before gazing up at a massive bullet-like structure protruding from a mountain. Within this gargantuan vessel lies Horizon 1, a city populated by 37 million people plus one anomaly in the mix: titular character Analog, the last android in existence. After zeroing in on our heroine from the bowels of a futuristic hangar, we watch as she fires up a cybernetic remote that’s basically a walkman with some ultramodern upgrades, and launches into a spree of taking down various baddies before zooming away on sleek wheels resembling the Arwing from Star Fox. It’s quite a neon-saturated ride through Jeremy’s vision of a series that clearly reflects his love for frenetic, fast-paced animation within dystopian settings à la Dead Leaves.

The trailer for ANALOG ON was completed with the help of some of Jeremy’s talented industry peers, including Max Repka, the sound designer of the Oscar-nominated short Adam and Dog, and Motorcity alumnus and vehicle design virtuoso Brandon Cuellar. It also features music by Perturbator and Sung.

Congratulations to Jeremy, and happy pitching!

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The scene was Dynamic Circus, a figure drawing workshop with a trio of exceptionally skilled contortionists for models, at the Gnomon Hangar. I was chatting with Justin Chiang, my co-worker on American Dad!, and my friend Andrea Berg, each of us zombified after a full day of work and amazed at how we could possibly be functional enough to draw in spite of it all. A hand on my shoulder brought the conversation to a halt, and I turned to face an unfamiliar man in a baseball cap, who then greeted me with a “welcome” that was so diplomatic, I thought he was one of the organizers of the event. Something about the way he was looking at me told me that he knew who I was, but I wasn’t sure how, and all I could do was stare at him blankly with wide eyes, completely unprepared for this sort of encounter; I’d be damned if the exhaustion I was talking about earlier wasn’t a factor in this.

He must have sensed my confusion because he said his name to me as if to jog my memory. Tim, it was. I guess the proper thing to have done at that point was to reply with an “Oh, hi Tim, I’m Kristina!” coupled with a handshake, but no, I had to be so engrossed in trying to figure out whether I had met this person before that I completely forgot my manners! I just repeated his name back to him as if he had spoken Latin, and he walked away, obviously finished with my severe lapse in social graces.

When I turned back to my friends, they were just as perplexed as I was.

“Does this happen to you all the time?” Andrea asked.

“Dude, I have no idea who that guy was!” I said. I am such a classy lady.

It was only when I saw the mysterious Tim talking to Nguyen Dong, who was sitting several seats away from me, during a subsequent break that I finally made the connection:

Oh, Tim Weber! Tim Weber that I met for the first time over a week prior for dinner and a drawing party at Nguyen’s house. That Tim! Oh, my Lord…

Of course, I did the proper thing by going over to him to apologize and explain my side of things. He had been wondering why I had acted so coldly towards him, and now he knew that none of it had anything to do with him; though he jokingly mentioned that his hat could have been the culprit in my befuddlement.

Needless to say, we had a good laugh over the whole thing, and we all sketched happily ever after, yada yada yada, the end!

Point is, whether we realize it or not, we all screw up in the etiquette department from time to time. So never take things personally when someone treats you less than favorably. You have only to look at yourself to realize that oftentimes, the actions of others have nothing to do with you. Maybe they’re having a bad day, or in my case, they have a tendency to freeze up like a deer in headlights when they have no idea what’s going on or who the heck they’re talking to. We’re all just doing the best we can. For realsies, yo.

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Went to Nelson Creative Spaces with the illustrator dream team Leen Isabel and Nguyen Dong for Tiki Girl, a themed costume life drawing event hosted by Pierre Bernard. The model of the evening was Jennifer Fabos Patton, who is practically Queen of the Gallery Girls, so a successful turnout was inevitable.

I was satisfied with the fruits of my labor, of ballpoint pen etchings over failed attempts with Palomino Blackwing pencils. It’s an example I’ve been following from Alex Wilson, a freelance visual development artist whom I recently discovered on Tumblr. I am in love with the economical approach she takes with each sketchbook page she touches, allowing images to overlap one another and sprawl across the surface until nary a dead space remains.

As wonderful as it was to have Jennifer as the pièce de résistance, I think the real highlight of the night was when Pierre gave each artist in attendance a pack of Cosplay Life Drawing markers, his personal brand. We were all so pleasantly surprised, one guy happily exclaimed, “Now I can draw just like Pierre!”

Writing that last bit makes me want to break open this pack of babies to see if I will be infused with the creative powers of my EXTREMELY Pissed Off! friend. I must be insane for not having done so yet.

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My boss Shannon Smith recently sent a mass email to the Family Guy crew with the wonderful news that our show made the Top 10 Highest-Rated Broadcast Series of 2014 list, and included the following excerpt from The Hollywood Reporter:

7. Family Guy
Thanks in no small part to that gargantuan season opener, a one-hour crossover episode with The Simpsons, Family Guy is one of the most-improved series of the 2014-15 season and continues to find much of its exceptionally young audience online. The Seth MacFarlane toon, and only animated entry in the top 10, is up 18 percent from last season in the key demo and jumps to 11.7 million viewers per episode with 30 days of multiplatform eyeballs.

The only animated series on the list? Wow, I am so proud to be a part of this amazing show. Congratulations to the Family Guy crew!

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Congratulations to Family Guy veterans Kara Vallow and Mike Elias on their Annie Award nominations!

Kara has been nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Production Design in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production for her work on Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
. She is responsible for developing and producing the unique animation style for the historical reenactments of the show. Best known as the executive producer/producer on Family Guy and American Dad!, and with a resume that includes shows such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Johnny Bravo, and Drawn Together, she is definitely the TV animation production aficionado. She is also an avid reader and writer, as is made evident in her blogs The Haunted Library and Teen Sleuth.

Mike has been nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Editorial in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production for his work on the one-hour Family Guy/Simpsons crossover spectacular, “The Simpsons Guy.” An editor on Family Guy since the show’s revival in 2004, Mike has been working in the film and television industry for over three decades, and has done work for such shows as The A-Team, Walker, Texas Ranger, and the brilliant, yet underrated, Clone High.

Winners will be announced on January 31, 2015. Let’s cross our fingers that these two plushie enthusiasts win!

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For this photo essay, we’re flashing back to 2013, back to my very first experience at CTN Expo, where I spent most of it working at my cubemate and co-worker David Boudreau’s booth.

Sitting next to us, was character designer and animator Craig Knowles, who hails from Manchester, England. When he wasn’t chatting with CTN attendees, he was sketching away on post-its.

Here’s a post-it sketch that he gave me.

And here’s a post-it sketch that I gave him in return.

The event served as a reunion for me and some animation folks that I hadn’t seen in ages, such as:

“The Simpsons” storyboard artist Mike Morris. Can you not see how thrilled I am to be blessed with his presence? Um, maybe I’m a little too thrilled…

My Story Development for Animation classmate and DreamWorks Animation production assistant Jessie Greenberg, a.k.a. Jessie Velociraptor, who was working at the Motivarti booth.

Background painter Ivan Aguirre, whom I randomly met back in 2009 at a Women in Animation event at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Check out his portfolio and prepare to have your mind blown!

I also got to meet new artists, including:

Animator and Herobear and the Kid creator Mike Kunkel. Such a nice guy. And he worked on “Cats Don’t Dance,” one of my favorite animated movies as you can tell from these pieces I did for the Villains of Animation Art Show.

Anthology 451 contributors John Hoffman, Craig Berry, and Kris Pearn. I was so impressed with the artwork in the book, I bought a copy for myself.

Fast forwarding to 2014 now, I was only able to attend this year’s CTN on Sunday, November 23, because I was playing with cheerleading for the Family Guy team in a softball game against the McCarthys the previous day – sad news: we were annihilated. Photo above is me and the Family Guy team with second assistant director M. Ryan Traylor after our game against Children’s Hospital, which, for those of you who know me as the least athletic person in existence, serves as proof that I actually played and that I’m not making this shit up. Now that game we actually won.

With only a few hours to wander the convention this time around, I was more concerned with talking to as many artists as I possibly could, which meant opting out of taking a lot of photos as that would have interrupted the flow of things. Artists that I spoke to, but aren’t pictured here, were Zach Bellissimo, Tara Billinger, Mingjue Helen Chen, Clio Chiang, David Colman, Alice Herring, Rad Sechrist, and Gabe Swarr. Check their stuff out. You won’t be sorry.

I did, however, get a snapshot with the lovely Megan Nicole Dong, whose comics are a huge inspiration to me. I bought a copy of her comic diary and sketchbook Shark Bites Vol. 2.

And through my friend Pierre Bernard, I was introduced to a lady with the coolest name ever, Satine Phoenix, who was working at the MAXON booth. She is the co-creator and illustrator of the graphic novel New Praetorians, and has a rather colorful resume. We hit it off right away with our love of comics and fashion (and probably made one of Pierre’s dreams come true in the process).

For more photos from CTN, check out the sets on Flickr:

CTN animation eXpo 2013
CTN animation eXpo 2014

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I arrived at the opening reception of When Good Toons Go Bad: Villains of Animation Art Show an hour into the event, only to wish I had gotten there sooner. For I had just missed the chance of meeting David Derks, the artist of my favorite piece, “Meowrice Makes his Move on Mewsette,” a Gay Purr-ee tribute. I was talking to Phillip Graffham, the organizer of the event, about how much I loved that piece, when he informed me that Mr. Derks might still possibly be floating somewhere among the sea of people. With wine in hand from the open bar, I then went on a mad hunt for him, hoping that he had not already left, so that I could sing my praises to him for his work.

Thankfully, the gallery provided name tags for the artists, so that the curious could spot the contributors from the general crowd. The downside to this, however, was that it made me an easily identifiable target of interest, thus beginning a series of interruptions to my search for the elusive Mr. Derks, as a few people wanted to know which piece was mine (two actually: Darla Dimple Cats Don’t Dance drawings “Big and Loud” and “Li’l Ark Angel”), or, in the case of mosaic artist Juliana Martinez, if I was some other Kristina that she knew.

The arrival of friends and co-workers was also a distraction, but pleasant ones indeed, especially that of show contributors Joe Vaux and Mark Covell, with wives in tow, and – surprise! – my comics friends that I hadn’t seen in ages, “Pole Dancing Adventures” artist Leen Isabel, and “Hiraku” artist Nguyen Dong. These run-ins pretty much defined my night at the gallery, which was basically about me trying to focus on the art/finding Mr. Derks but failing because I couldn’t resist being social.

By the time I bumped into Phillip again as he was conversing with another artist, I was undoubtedly feeling the effects of the alcohol, and melodramatically lamenting that I might have missed Mr. Derks, which sucked “because I just love Gay Purr-ee so much!” Phillip and his companion seemed quite charmed by this display of girlishness. With a glimmer of hope inside me, I asked Phillip what the man looked like – maybe he was still at the gallery and just not wearing a tag? – and Phillip started spinning some magical description about how insanely tall and good-looking Mr. Derks is, with intense amber eyes, tan skin, and a deep voice made irresistible with an Australian accent…

Of course, I knew he was joking, but, being a single woman and looking (HA! Yeah, right), that didn’t stop me from humoring him with an exclamation of “Damn it! Now I really wish I could have met this guy!”

In the end, I didn’t get my man- I mean, meet Mr. Derks, but at least I got to see some amazing artworks of animation’s most notorious villains. Joe Vaux’s “Black Wolf” was a definite standout in my book, especially since Wizards is my favorite Ralph Bakshi flick.

Show ends on November 29, which is coming up fast. Stop by Van Eaton Galleries today for some exquisite villainy.

For more photos of the event, check out the set on Flickr.

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I will have two pieces in the upcoming When Good Toons Go Bad: Villains of Animation Art Show at Van Eaton Galleries. Some of my co-workers and favorite artists will be participating, including: Mick Cassidy, Alina Chau, Mark Covell, Andreas Deja, Kaya Dzankich, Kali Fontecchio, Jeff Rebner, and Joe Vaux. Opening reception is this Saturday, November 15, from 6 PM – 10 PM. Hope to see you there!

For a teaser of my contributions to the show, go here to my Instagram.

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