I've been animating Miley Cyrus all day, and am just too fried to do a sketch, so I will post a cel from one of my all time, favorite animated movies, " Heavy Metal ".
The film came out in the late summer, early fall fall of 1981, which also happened to be my first year at the Kubert School. Seeing this movie while going to the Kubert school was an incredible rush.
It was one of those rare instances in my life where everything was in sharp focus, and I knew that I had made the right decision to leave Minnesota to study cartooning and animation in New Jersey.
I love this klunky film! If I only I had a time machine, I would go back and edit the Tarna sequences to make the action scenes faster. There are some scenes, like when she cuts off a guy's head, that move so slow you would swear you were watching " Raggedy Ann and Andy".
( I kid, I kid...I admire Richard Williams).
This is a cel depicting that famous Berni Wrightson character, Captain Stern. It's a two piece set-up, where the body is on one layer, and the eyes are on another. That way they could animate the eyes blinking, etc., without having to redraw the body.
Hanna Barbera developed this technique to be a cost effective way to create animated content fast.
This cel is from a portfolio of " Heavy Metal " cels that I bought at a comic book show for....
FIVE BUCKS!I gave the girl my money and ran for it, in case she was on medication and was supposed to be supervised while she was working the register.
The portfolio contains cels from almost every vignette , except for the ending with the little girl and the bird.
Some memorable quotes from the Captain Stern sequence:
" He never did... anything that was... illegal... unless you count all the times he sold dope disguised as a nun. "
'' He's nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm! Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him! He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive! "
" Take it easy Charlie. I've got an angle."
I received the finished skateboard deck today, and it looks great! The colors are nice and bright, it really pops.
I took this picture from Ellis Island on 08/07/1992. The copper panels in the foreground, they form a low wall surrounding the plaza outside of the Statue of Liberty, are stamped with the last names of those huddled masses who had come to America looking for a better life. Please take a moment out of your busy day to reflect on the ideals that make America such a great country, and to remember those that lost their lives in these towers, just doing their daily routines.
This is the skateboard deck design I created for the art auction benefitting the Make A Wish foundation.
USA Testprep wanted me to create a new series of illustrations for another version of their on-line quiz game.
