layout posing starts

Well,

bit of a mad week, outside the weather is mighty, but we are going ninety, Sunday we tried cutting the animatic but kept hitting problems of a technical nature.
Anyway the guys in Hobsoft are cutting it now, and it should be here on Monday.

I felt a bit overwhelmed on Monday with all the new people and the pressure of still having so much to finish on the boards. But we got over the hump and all was good by the end of the week.
Nic Debray joined us for posing, he's getting into the style, as is Jean.

We are working reel by reel now, trying to get all the technical layout and the posing for the first reel done first and so on.
Barry is checking design stuff and designing any incidentals thats are not in the model pack.
Fabs is back from his time off in Cologne and taking care of the posing team . dividing the work and so on. Its good to have a few people who are well into the film to lead the new crew.

So the posing crew are - Nic Debray- Jean Morel- Jean Bap - Eve - Baz- Fabs- with Andrej and Tom Caulfield to join soon.

The Layout is coming together and they are hitting the style too, less retakes this week.
Raymond is motoring through the clean Bgs, and the studio seems really full as we also have some helper-interns - Lisa Marie, Rebecca and Ray. We also have two interns from France from the same college as Adrien and Lily, Sebestian and Laure, who are helping out too.


The colour models are looking well, and the boards are shaping up.

I thought I'd write a bit about the process of doing the boards - working over the now 12-18 month old first pass stuff with the final voices and doing the final timing. The pass we did last summer was like a rewrite pass where we ironed out a lot of things in teh script before the final draft with Fabrice last November, and cut and changed dialogue, but we had no final location designs and the models were in development as we went soits pretty scrappy...we are redrawing everything now for teh past 6 months or more, but as we've gotten busier and busier Remi has had no time to work on it, and its gotten down to me and Nora to finish the final pass. Mind you Nora and I are so busy looking after things its gotten slower and slower...anyway heres how I have been working...

I tend to have a "scary period" where I'm trying to pull it all together in thumbnails and scribbles, this is pretty scary and stressful when you are under pressure to check things and keep an eye on everything else.But also its the most creative part and you don;t want to lose too much just because you are under pressure like .. I try to use the weird time before waking up or going asleep to picture the scenes and play them out in my head, I always think theres more time than I really have and end up having too many ideas.
Its the same with my animation - I almost always intially do too many poses and end up having to pare it back.

Anyway once that bit is done I'm lucky that Stewie and Nora can read my absolutely scrawlly scribbles to see if they think its on the right track, and if it is, i usually head on in to tidying it up.
That second opinion is really important to me, I really don;t feel comfortabel going any further until I have gone thru' it with the lads to be sure its been double-checked.

then its "tidy up"
Which takes ages and usually has quite a few things crop up at that point.

We've been hitting quite few learning curves - for me its mainly been stage direction - having to flip a lot of shots I've been instinctivly putting in the wrong direction in the scribbly pass stage. Its usually okay with flipping it and stuff as we have a very flat style with very clear and simple rules about which directions the characters should be travelling in to various locations and so on.
The other main problem I encounter is bad cuts with "pop-ups" and so on.
This is something that just keeps slipping by me and I wonderw ill I ever get it into me to just avoid them - anyway they are usually quite easily fixed with abit of restaging help from Remi, but somehow its always a little painful... you just can't always show everything and still be clear. Usually once those type of things are ironed out, it all feels that much more solid and makes more sense , even when it seemed okay before! ...if you know what i mean... its just seems to click together better.

Anyway thats the process for the boards, we are going to quite a full finish, with fairly on model characters and clear Bgs and lots of poses. Its a good way to try and iron out problems early on.

Not that its that early on anymore!

At technical layout we've still encountered a few of these annoying "pop up" and "stage line" issues that keep creeping in, and Ross and I have been sitting with Remi and the layout guy at the beginning of each scene they take on- and trying to spot any issues before they get stuck in to all the technical work of preparing the scene.

Also Ross will spot any problems in the Scene illustrations that need to be checked and redone in continuity with the layouts and any props or locations that need a sketch for the layout man to follow. Lilly has been doing some great prop design lately.

A few of us bummed off early yesterday to Superman...The last Superman film I went to in the cinema in Kilkenny I was wearing my Superman outfit. It does'nt fit too well anymore so I left it behind this time.

What a great show. I really enjoyed it, a few things bugged me but overall I just loved it. I really love the whole mythos of Superman and this one is really lovingly done.
Put me in a good mood all night!

Anyway thats all for now folks...

T

hello there

Well,

its getting so busy now its hrad to find time to think never mind post.
I hope it'll all settle down soon, its mainly just all teh new people, and a bit coming and going.
We have new a new layout guy - Marc .
The layouts are flying along, the hardest thing is feeding this crew while keeping an eye that nothing is being lost in the flurry of activity. Theres a huge amount of reuse in the layouts because of the style, somany objects are designed and then just moved around to crete different composistions in the same environment, especially in the interior scenes, so its allowing teh technical layout to go quite fast.
Its been a bit depressing in some ways seeing boards I was'nt completely finished noodling with going to layout - its much bigger deal to change things after that , so i guess I just have to let go most of the time when it gets to layout.
Cuts, composistions and so are pretty much locked from then on.
We have locked the first third of the film now animatic wise.
I am spending the day tommorow with the editor, Joe, just marking the scene lengths and stuff.
Cutting the wavs to get them onto the x-sheets.
Using Animo, we can have digital X-sheets from the word go, which is cool - very precise stuff.

Wea re installing an assest managment sodftware called "Hobsoft" that was used on Asterix and the Vikings, hopefully it will help us manage all the files that are being created between all 5 studios and it will allow us to communicate more easily too....at least thats the plan!

We have a new animator joinging us today, Jean Morel an ex-Disney guy who worked on The Lion King on Scar and on Hercules and stuff on Andreas Dejas team, thats quite exciting.
Jeans showreel is mighty impressive, so its great to have him joinging us .

Also in a few weeks in association with Barley films in Dublin, we are having a masterclass from Mike Nyugen , the director of "My Little World" and a supervisor on The Iron Giant.

Thats gonna be cool I'd say. I went to Gobelins during the week last week, amazing work there, the students all seemed to be in big demand. But hopefully one or two will join us here!

I was depressed to find I am now to old to begin training in Gobelins - I'm 29 and the cut-off is 26. So my new ambition is gonna have to be to make the Cartoon Saloon a place where I can learn as much as i might there!
So goodbye to any dreams of going to Gobelins, or being a Ballerina, or an astronaut.....sigh.

Emmmm...Bruno is starting to work on the temp track for the score this week, so thats exciting too, we have a tele-meeting set up for Thursday.
Unfortunatly we did'nt get together to go to Miltown Malbay this year for the Willie Clancy festival.

Last night i went sketching in the woods near my house with Adrien, Lili and Remi.
I'm boarding the final pass of the forest sequences now , and just to sit in a forest and sketch was very nice.
I think i'll try and do it again tommorow.

I am having to go super fast now on the boards as theres thsi trundling machine behind me that is catching up to me, and I have to keep it busy!
Its a lesson for next time - LOCK THE BOARDS BEFORE LAYOUT...ahh I always learn thehhard way I suppose.

Its been nice in some ways to say that certain thinsg are "locked" , finished and time to move on, like all the modelsheets and all - in a nice big thick package now, seems substantial.
I've uploaded a few ....

Next time....thats something on everyones minds now, thinking of what the next project will be already....

So thats a quick update after a long radio silence!

T

wottaweekend

well this weekend we moved house - five new layout artists arrived and I ALMOST finished the brendana nd aisling meeting scene.
wew.
welcome - Telman, Darren,Stephane and Raymond,and Niklas.

sebestian

http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/gen2006-4.htm

More Gobelins goodness - check out the dog and the beautiful bgs!
as I say ALL these students are amazing!

pyrats

http://www.pyrats.net/watch-movie.html

man this is so class. Students, wha'?
check out the happy little dance on the guy about to be hanged when he thinks they're there to save him. class.

Sure ALL the Gobelins stuff is always so classy. I swear its a good old kick in the bum.

The New World

watch it. its pure class.

Aisling meet Brendan, Brendan meet Aisling

well,

I've been fighting with the scene where aisling and brendan first meet all week.
I started with nearly the same staging as the first pass. But it was'nt really working with the final location designs and the final voices.
So I started changing stuff - with out thumbnailing on paper - just playing with stick figures.
Just could'nt get there. That stupid thing where I keep asking Nora what she thinks, thinking I'll like it if she says its okay.

Stupid, cos if I'm not happy with it I always have a nagging doubt even if others say its okay. So I showed it to her and Stewie, got good feedback and started to rethink it, again without thumbnailing on paper like I normally would. Just too eager for it to be done like.

Basically got nowhere , but yesterday morning I did that thing where when you are half asleep and you can kind of watch it like on a tv in your head, got some good ideas, but of course I was imagining the voices at the timing that suited the ideas as apposed to the actual timing of the kids voices. So I put it all down fast in thumbnails. Felt good.

Then the whole afternoon was gone on an EFX meeting with Jeremy, which was good, got stuff sorted and Jer got back up to speed. Then getting on with movin' stuff from the house.
Went to a thirtyeth birthday party. Its all weddings, babies and thirtyeths these days. I still remember when it was all 21sts and graduations!!

Anyway did the playing it thru' in my head thing this morning again, came in and plowed all the ideas from the thumbs into Flash really rough.

Finally had the "aw yeh this'll be deadly in colour" buzz going on, and "I want to animate this scene myself" buzz - so was fairly chuffed.

Then I got THE FEAR - like, shit its no good, bloody hell layout is starting in a week , this scene is scheduled to go to layout in less than a month, aw crap its probably all wrong staging wise, , all THE FEAR.

But I showed it to Gav, and he laughed in the right places and said "deadly" even where its really rough and all, and he got it - it read, it played , he knew what was going on with stick man scribbles, so its working i think................

I hope.......

Now I'm going in to tidy it up.

Probably too many mid shots.

hmmmmmmmm

APB FOR 2D animators

We are still looking for experienced 2d animators. Being from the EU or qualified to work here a big help. We are testing people, as the style is quite tricky.
Thanks,

T

Pictures

I was thinking a bit about the whole posting pictures thing - I like posting them, just to show whats happening to the few people I know who I don't see too often who drop by, and also because it seems to have gotten a few people in the industry to notice what we are doing and stuff.

Although this started out as a fairly personal Blog to just document what was happening, it soon became obvious that everyone had a sort of misgiving or whathaveyou about the types of things that should or should not be said and put up here, so its sort of evolved into a mixture of personal log and newletter of some sort.
I guess we'll put out an art-of book or comic or something of the development art and preproduction stuff, so while I'm not gonna give stuff away quite as freely or often as before, theres piles and piles more stuff being generated everyday and its nice to give a peek into the production sometimes.

Also to illustrate points and so on.

I've decided to try this - small sized jpgs , with BIG watermarks- hopefully that'll protect the stuff enough and allow us to still make some cash out of an "art-of"-book later ! (evil capitialist cackle MWAHHAHWHAW)

Anyway these are some cool colour models that were put together recently.

Also , a small sample of the layout notes Ross Stewart has been working on, which I think are little mini-masterpieces of information delivery in and of themselves. I sure hope they help everyone stay "in the style".

cats laughin

yeh its beautiful weather out there , totally like a holiday , kilkenny is great in the good weather in the summer , the cat laughs comedy festival is in full swing and i'm here indoors in work.
well there you go.
Remi is off in Annecy and I'm taking the chance to catch up on the paper boards and models sheets to double check we are okay to start layout in a coupel of weeks.
Each time a new group of artists starts its a bit nerve wracking - hoping we'll be able to hit the style and quotas and all that.
also a whole new set of faces in the place.
anyway putting the voices into the animatic at the moment too.
Lots of hiccups getting the files in a form we could use but we are finally sorted .

enjoy the sunshine.

t

voice recording

wow - a week I'll not forget in a hurry.
We recorded all the voices in 3 days and then edited them and stuff in 2.
Just home now. Guts busted- must be the stress! But it was tremendous fun too as Father Ted would say.
Katia, Paul, Fabrice, Nora , Kairen and myself were there for the records.
Then just myself and Nora and Kairen did the editing with the engineer a "sound" guy called John (pun intended heh).
We were in Ardmore sound, Tom Caulfield and Barry O Donoghue called in for some of the sessions, it was good craic overall.

Liam Hourican was really cool as a lot of the extra brothers - particularly leonardo.
The voice he did for Friedrich was so funny I cryed my contact lens out!

Paul Tylac did some great stuff as Assoua as well, very big and booming stuff.

Brendan Gleeson did a great performance on Monday , he really got into the character and asked a lot of questions and found really interesting takes on the lines. He gave the character so much authority. Mick Lally and himself seemed to really get into the parts, acting them out physically as well and with their voices.
Brendan Gleeson is such a big guy it was cool seeing him acting opposite little Evan. He really made the character his own and really made him come alive.

Mick Lally WAS Bro.Aidan, even his mannerisms between takes were very inspiring for the character. He really loosened up the dialogue and was very interested in the character. He even said he did'nt think Bro.Aidan would refer to St.Colmcille as "saint" because he probably knew him! It was a cool little insight that will be bring a subtle depth to the character.
Mick had a bit of a head cold, but we thought it will be a neat thing to bring into the character animation, making him more grounded and "in" the world, I started sketching Bro.Aidan sniffing and sneezing and stuff as Mick did his performance.

As all the actors were roughly the age of their characters and also roughly the same build and so on, it was kinda like seeing a real-life representation of them in front of us.
Fabrice shot soem reference footage which will be fun to use in the animation.

Evan McGuire our 11 year star was really great , and the scenes where he played against Brendan Gleeson and with Mick Lally had me shivering, it was so cool to hear so much life put into the lines we've picked at for so long.

Christen Mooney was really fantastic as Aisling, she was really brilliant, had all her lines off by heart and considering she's only been on the planet since 1998 its amazing the understanding she brought to her character! Nora helped get to some of the trickier lines, and listening to them back today it was really exciting.

It was cool to hear it back like a radio play, but strange too, because characters like Pangur and the vikings and stuff were conspicous in their absense! Its gonna all come together only with the pictures and thats as it should be in animation. Their are parts in the film that the actors really liked, and which i guess could be done in live action but I'm really hoping that overall its gonna be something ONLY acheivable in handdrawn animation.

But with the voice performances in the bag it feels like we are off to a great start.

Tús maith leath na oibre as the man says.

T

voices

So Belgium was Oefti. Seems like a lot of good solutions can be found with the software of the Freres Ume and they have a beautiful studio in Liege. It was good to see Eric, Vivanne, Toon and Benoit.
The kids were down yesterday for a workshop day, they are lovely kids and we had fun showing them all the stuff. It was great to see their reactions to the animatic, them being the target audience age and all. They did a little read through together and they are both very professional and easy to get along with. It was good to have them meet each other and see the studio and stuff ahead of the records next week.

I'm a bit nervous now, but we are as prepared as we can be I guess and I'm hoping it'll go well.
I'll be heading off to Bray now in a few minutes, theres a whole big gang of us going to be there so we'll have some fun too I hope.

Well, fingers crossed , next time I write a post we'll have the final voices in the can!

T

Faster and faster

Faster faster take me to your master!
(ZigZag from the Thief talking to the crocs)

Yeh things are going really fast now.

Didier , Fabrice, Ivan and Bruno Coulais came over on Tuesday.
Bruno seemed really into the artwork we showed and felt the story was working in the animatic.
He is a really nice guy and we feel lucky that he'll be working on the music.
Katia's fella organised a great night of trad music in the Pumphouse on Wednesday night and everyone had a blast. The craic was mighty and Bruno seemed really into the Irish music.

We hope he will be back for the Willie Clancy festival.
He's gonna do a temp track based on the rough stuff Nora put down on the animatic and thats really exciting - to have feeling for the score up front. Hopefully it will be inspiring for the animation and all too.


We had a party for both productions here in the studio while the guys were here and it was quite overwhelming to see all the crew - or most of it anyway in one room. 40+ people, thats some amount after years of never really being much more than 10. Cuilin seemed like a big crew for us last year!

Anyway the records are soon and we need to cast the final voices for the additional monks.
We will have the kids down on Saturday for a workshop day. Then we are meeting Brendan Gleeson and Mick Lally on the Sunday and on Monday we begin recording!
It'll be hectic , but Fabrice is gonna come over again to help with the voice directing as he's doen that before. He had some good notes on the animatic too - just tightening up lines and so on.

Tommorow I'm off to Belgium with Nora, Martin and Remi to meet the Belgian crew and work on the ink and paint tests. Its gonna be a busy few days and then we're back just in time for the records.

Layout is baring down on us with the crew starting in June, I'm gonna be boarding at least until end of July so its getting like spinning plates on sticks kinda thing.
Its a bit stressful alright but we're getting there.

I think things are still looking pretty good and if the voices are good it'll be a huge leap forward.

Didier was really cool about the blog - I was a bit worried he would'nt agree with it, but he thinks its cool. He's into linking it with the marketing site that we'll launch in September.
Adrien and Lilly have a cool idea for a Brendan game that'll be on the site so that should be cool.


Fabs will be helping out with the voice breakdown and we are gonna be up to our eyes for a few weeks after the voice records.
He's been doing soem gorgeous scenes as testers - just little chunks that are silent and don't need the final dialogue.
I've been thinking its a little less stylised animation wise than we first envisaged but looking very well.
He's flying through it so thats a good sign I hope .
Just hard to get my head around the fact that by Christmas all our animation will be done and the layout will be finished.
All the remaining work will be overseas by then.

As Katia says - once you enter the layout phase its like entering another dimension....yikes!


Anyway Ben is beside me here getting fed up so I better go!!

T

hey and ho and hi

so - another week or so whizzes past faster than you can say something that does'nt take very long to say

Got thru' very little boards , its getting slower and slower as we get busier and busier.
Anyway its still going forward and the current system with remi doing a layout pass on the boards Nora and I do is working really well.

Finally got some closure on the main part of the Irish finance which is nice, its a drip by drip process but we are in a much sturdier place now.
So that was nice.

Emm,deadlyBgs by Stewie , Adrien and Lily this week - starting to see the more creative Bgs that are part of the more lyrical parts of the film that I'd been looking forward to and now I'm on the forest part of the boards its fun to be opening up outside of the confines of super tight continuity issues that we had to respect "inside" Kells itself as a location.
Its funny, at this point I almost feel like I could walk around that space, and although theres loads of artistic license in the style we picked, it feels consistant when I scroll through the 100 or so Bgs or "scene illustrations" that we've done so far.

Eve, an intern from France, has done a beautiful job on a layout test Remi set for her and we are hopeful she will be able to join our team for a while this summer.

Raining cats and dogs these days you'd swear it was'nt summer at all.

We are probably recording the voices the last week of this month now - trying to get Mick and Brendan Gleeson into the studio at the same time is tricky as they are both busy. We hope to bring the kids who will play Brendan and Aisling down for a workshop one of the weekends between now and then.

Martin has been cleaning up the modelsheets for Cellach recently -looks classy. But Barrys drawings are so tight that its kind of easier than normal he says. Theres no redrawing going on between the rough and the clean its just all about the line. He's a bit of an illuminator is our Martin!
The thing with good crew, I can't say it enough, is it makes it seem almost easy somedays!
Remi often spots important stuff on the boards too or suggests really cool alternatives that I did'nt think of when I was plowing thru' a second pass of a scene.

Theres a lovely frisson of jealousy and awe and a bit of gratitude and probably loads of other stuff when you see people taking your stuff and going further and making it better than you would have on your own. I know Disney DVDs are full of this kind of praise and it usually makes me cringe but there you go, its just a fact.

I was at a "artists day" today in the Castle in Kilkenny- just a networking kind of day with workshops and all. I did a writing workshop, one of the speakers was a novelist that used to write for tv, He wrote on that great puppet show from years ago that I loved as a kid - "Spitting Image". Its mad the heads there are around Kilkenny. Liselott and Nora and Mike were there too. |The castle is a class space, big old beams and stone walls. Maybe in a year or so we'll have a preview screening there or something! Teddy Newton from Pixar gave a talk there last summer as part of Feile Beochán - the Irish animation festival that Ross John of the Murrays ran with Kairen Wailloch.

Didier Brunner the French Producer, Fabrice Ziolkowski (all round cool cat and screen writer) , Bruno Coulais (the composer from France) are visiting this week. Sure it'll be great craic.
Probably won't get much boards done.

We recieved some ink and paint tests from Belgium yesterday , looks great to see some coloured animation. Nora, Martin and myself will head over there week after next to see the crew there and work thru' some smaller issues that are easier sorted face to face.

Sin é muintir le Dhia,

Tá alán obair agam inniu , bhfeidir go scriobhfaidh mé cúpla rudaí eile amarach,

Slán anois,

T

An Tain

http://www.leabhar.com/tain.htm

Just a quick link to the newly published version of An Tain.
It was a long time in the making, with Barry Reynolds whos one of the main designers here on the film (and long-time Saloon collabrator) drawing it and Adrien Merigeau one of our Bg artists colouring it. Its really putting the two I did to shame! Check it out on the link above.
Hey why don't you buy one!!!

Thief that never gave up

Hey there,

just posting to say boy howdy.
Weathers good and I can feel summer comin' so its all good.
Spent the day toolin around in the car and walking in the forest in Jenkinstown with Ben and teh madra dana Cu-dog.
The forest sequence is next on the agenda for a final pass so it was inspiring - bluebells are sproutin and stuff.
Li and I found a great new house last weekend with a pottery attached for her to do her ceramics so its all good.

The production is having trouble finding layout crew but we have several solutions and several leads too so hopefully it'll all come together.
We had a very productive production meeting on Friday the first one in our swanky new meeting room with big swingy chairs !
Narrowing down the voices now - its a tough decision between so many talented kids but we need to decide now.
We had call-backs on Thursday for Brendan and auduitioned for Aisling too.
Its a giid problem when they are all so talented and its a tough choice!
Kairen Wailoch helped out a lot and Nora , of course, was brilliant with the kids, I'm learning a lot about actinga nd stuff at the moment too.
Finished the Robert McKee book "Story" and now I'm mad to write a new script!
Gonna start with some comics ideas that have been bumping around in my noggin for a while and post those here too.
The lads in Barley films in Dublin gave us some good note son the animatic and thats good to keep us focused and to have an outside opinion.
Didier and Fabrice will have notes for us soon too I guess....

Just gettin used to my new contacts too - its mad having peripheral vision again! Nice one.

Anyway I found this guy Garret Gilchrist who is restoring one of the unsung masterpieces of animation - the Thief and the Cobbler.
Dick Williams has always been such a huge inspiration to myselfa nd all of us here.
I met him in 2002 at his master class in Denmark, showed him some old stuff from the film, and he was very encouraging.
The documentary "The animator who never gave up" that i saw in college was a big inspiration too over the years, the passion he had for animation is so infectious.
I LOVE the design style of the Theif too ...
I'll post some pics that were on this forum about the restoration -http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum/
I even had a picture of Dick williams stuck up at my desk to symbolically kick my ass when I was slackin! Fabian has my old desk now and he's got Dicks severe gaze staring him down now!
BTW Fabs is doing some magic stuff with the kids playing hurling at the moments some nice 2d doing what 2d does best kinda stuff.

Anyway check out the gorgeous artwork from the thief over on that forum.
25 years in the making - all on ones, ah ye all know the legend I'm sure!
But thats a heck of a cartoon - some of the detail seems insane especially as its from the days of handpainted cels and so on. I can't wait to see a good quality version of the scratchy old workprint that everyone copies in animation school!
Someday I hope the powers that be will release an official classy restoration.
Until then its mighty that Garret is doin' this important work.


anyway back to work...

T

easter

well, finally moved studio yesterday - quite emotional in some ways.
still fresh start, spring clean, easter time rebirth , all that stuff.
so tuesday morning I'll be going to work in the new place and it'll be the first time in 6 years not to
go into st.josephs.
meemmoorieeees

anyway, good week, we had auditions in dublin at the magnificent offices of barley films and then also in Galway, found quite a few talented potential youngsters for the roles.
Its reassuring when the choice is so difficult .
amazing kids really.

okay just postin a short one,

happy easter.
t

Skunk Fu Crooo

Hey there,

I'm just posting this to put out an APB for experienced Flash crew for Skunk Fu.
We are looking for experienced crew who know Flash ASAP, and I noticed a some of the nice folks who left comments here are classy Flash-guys and stuff, so if ye know of anyone contact -

info@cartoonsaloon.ie - Jordan Gaucher is the line producer and he's the man to talk to.

Thanks!!!

T

all the pretty pictures

http://www.woutertulp.nl/

This guy is my new hero.
So many styles , all so well conceived and executed.
When I grow up I wanna be like that, except hes younger than me!

This is nothing to do with the production of the film - except that I'm thinking of it now when I should be working on the boards for tommorow before Jeremy comes down.
Anyway I was recently thinking of how the amount of available artwork and info about artists for artists has exploded in the last few years.
I remember in school, the best artists I knew were Stewie and Aidan (in fact they are STILL two of the best artists I know but thats another story), then in college there was all these new artists and my head went into a spin seeing all their stuff and trying to measure up. Then I kinda found my place or whatever, and so on... but now with the proliferation of blogs and websites like www.drawingboard.org and www.drawn.ca, its just mind blowing the amount of brilliant artwork thats so accessible. In fact it can be quite distracting and overwhelming!
Anyway its just a phenonomenon (mehnawmanaw) that I've been really aware of lately since I started the blog and starting going to others blogs.

Overall its great - inspiring , interesting, informative, but it requires real discipline not to get sucked in to just surfing and drooling at all the work!


right back to work!

clean up

just to give you an idea of how we are communicating with the guys in Belgium about the computerised line thickening system.
we are still testing it.
Martin did up this sheet as well as a number of others to clearly explain what we were talking about.
ahhh international co-pros!