A brand new official trailer for the movie I'm currently helping to finish. PUSS IN BOOTS.
It comes out Thanksgiving this year. I can't wait to see it. Let me know what you guys think.
Enjoy.

NEW CHARACTER

One of my ideas changed for one of the sequences in the short so I needed to do this last minute model sheet before continuing animation.

Still Animatin'

Only 2 more shots to go in animation. Then I do a clean up pass. If I want to get the thing done in time for the last Harry Potter movie then I'd better speed up. After the clean up pass I'll fill the colour in and then comes the effects pass which I'm really looking forward to. I started my animation career as a 2D effects artist at Nelvana. Designing effects for numerous saturday morning cartoons. Should be fun.

FIRST PENCIL TEST

Some of you have been asking for an update on the progress of my short. So here's a small taste of what I've been up to.
This is just a pencil test of the first two shots. I'm leaving out all the jokes for now. You have to leave something as a surprise.
But here's a rough pencil test. ROUGH!!!. Still just plowing through this.

LAST BACKGROUND BEFORE ANIMATION

1. Rough thumbnail drawing

2. Colour key

3. Clean up drawing

4. Final painted background.

So here's my last background for my short. Next step is recording the dialogue and
then starting to animate. Keep checking back. Lots to come.

CELEBRITY DOODLES FOR CHARITY!!

This is a doodle I did for National Doodle Day. It's an auction of doodles by celebrities and celebrity artists to raise money for Neurofibromatosis research. Celebrities and artists such as Jeff Bridges, Martin Sheen, Simon Pegg, Julianne Moore, Seth Green just to name a few have contributed doodles. Take a look at the site, browse, bid on some art. Have fun, all while helping people.
Just click the link below.

WATER TEST

I was talking to my brother Paul (who works as a lighter/compositor) about my short. He asked me what water effect I was going to do for the sword shot. I told him that I was probably just going to animate some 2D bubbles to show that it's water. In a couple of minutes he sent me this and I instantly was grateful and inspired. Hopefully he can help me out with other little things like this.
Thanks Paul.

MOVING ON TO A NEW SCENE

Well here's a background from another scene in my short. Something a little a little warmer than a dark forest.


1. Rough layout

2. Colour key

3. Clean up line

4. Final colour background.

BACKGROUND NUMBER DEUX

As I promised I'm posting more often and it seems like people really favour how I'm posting my process while I work.
So here's another background for my Harry Potter spoof short.



1. This is my rough layout to get an idea of where everything will be placed in the shot. You can see that I drew the character in this as well. I have to draw him in to make sure I'll have enough room for him and still see everything else that's going on. I also drew the background a little wide as well because in this shot there will be a camera move. So I made sure to leave room
for that to happen.

2. The colour key: a rough representation of the mood and colour palette for the shot.

3. The cleanup drawing to make sure I have a nice clean guide to paint in.

4. And the final piece. For those of you Harry Potter fans out there. You can clearly see what scene I'm going to
be spoofing by this painting.

PAINTING THE BACKGROUNDS

Over the past two nights I painted the background for scene 1 of my Harry Potter Short.
For those of you that are at all interested in my process when I paint here it is.
From the bottom up.


1. Drew a rough thumbnail sketch of the shot to get the layout the way I wanted.
2. Painted a colour key which is a very rough, simple, low detail painting that describes the colour
palette and explore the mood of the shot.
3. I then drew a tighter, cleaner line drawing so I could have a better guide to paint. Think of it as a colouring book.
It's a guide so I'll stay in the lines and not go too far off the original idea.
4. Then layer by layer I painted all the different elements of the shot. This is the middle ground where the majority of the action
will take place.
5. And finally here's the final background as it will look in the short which I will animate on top of.

REDESIGNING.

On second thought after looking at the designs that I posted last night I decided that because my short is a comedy,
my designs were way too generic and not cartoony enough. So I went back today and redesigned Harry as well as
Hermione and Voldemort. Hopefully you like the changes.

YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE

So now that I've got all the equipment ready to go I'm finally starting to work on my own
animated shorts. I'm starting off with something simple and quick so I can learn all the software needed
to complete a short. I'd rather do it that way then jump right in and find out something doesnt work
on a really complicated piece. As my first short I'm doing a little parody/spoof on Harry Potter.
All the HP films are so inspiring to me and I can't get enough of them. So it'll be a fun way to familiarize myself
with the process again.
Here's my first pass at designing Harry for my piece.
Check back soon because I'm going to start posting more often.

STODOE STUDIOS is here

Well, I've finally gone out and started putting together the equipment and software that I need to do my own work. I've decided
that I'm tired of having ideas for films and shorts and not doing anything about it. So Now that I actually have a computer that can handle it, I'm proud to announce that I've started to create my own animated films, shorts and skits. So I bring you my production company, STODOE STUDIOS.

Stay tuned for my upcoming work.

FOOSBALL COUPONS

I know this is a wierd entry to start with after not blogging for quite a while.
But I thought I drew it, I might as well post it. At work my friends and I have little
foosball tournaments and we've started betting drinks. The loser has to get any drink
for them at any time of day. And to make it easier to keep track of who owes who we
agreed to all make drink coupons.
The actual coupon that I'm giving is the one that reads "DAVID IS A FOOSBALL GOD. EVEN IF HE DOES OWE ME A DRINK.
Why did I feel the need to post this? Simply because I havent posted anything in a while.

PO DOING SOME KUNG FU:a little animation I did

Kung Fu Panda 2 - Short Clip #1 - Happy Year Of Awesomeness
Uploaded by cinemakervideo. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

Here's a little kung fu sequence I animated of Po for the Dreamworks Marketing team.
I can't release anything else yet obviously because the movie isn't out but hopefully I'll get more
of my animation from Dragons and Panda up here soon.
I promise to start posting more everyone. Keep checking back.

DRAGONS GETS OSCAR NOD!

Well the Oscar nominees are finally out for 2011 and I'm very proud to annouce that HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON was nominated for best animated feature. We have a lot riding against us knowing that TOY STORY 3 won the Golden Globe but I still firmly believe that our film was original and something new that the world hadnt seen in animation and I'm really hoping the academy sees that.
I'm so proud to have worked on this movie with such an amazingly talented crew.
Congratulations to everyone who helped make this movie such a success.

THE GROOM'S LIFE SO FAR: ANIMATED BEST MAN SPEECH

Years ago my twin brother Paul and I agreed we'd be eachother's best men when the time came to get married. And whenever we decided that I always knew I wanted to do something special for him when it came to my speech. This is the result.
Congratulations Paul and Cheyenne.

(for those of you that don't know me. Dont judge me based on the drawings. I had only a couple of months to do a 6 minute short in the evenings. So I couldnt spend as much time as I would have liked.)
(why do I always apologize for everything I do?)

TEACHING MYSELF TOON BOOM

I've been animating in 3D for so long now that I've really begun to miss 2D.
I thought I'd pick up Toon Boom and try and learn the new software so I can start making my own little cartoons. Here's my first attempt at doing a full shot.
It's really rushed and stupid. But it was just a way to get to know the tools.
Dont judge me too hard.

WALKIN IN A WINTER ZOMBIELAND

The TB1z are back with their second installation of their WINTER ZOMBIE series. Still as zany as they were in the first video while at a cottage for New Years, they create their newest sensation WALKIN IN A WINTER ZOMBIELAND. A music video about being a zombie in the frozen North. Filmed on location in Canada by the most stupid bunch of idiots in a way that only the TB1z could bring. Enjoy WALKIN IN A WINTER ZOMBIELAND.

David's CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS REEL

For those of you that havent seen it yet, I thought I would post my shots from CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS on my blog. I couldnt get all the shots that I did but this is a pretty good
representation of my contribution to the movie.
I hope you enjoy it. And more importantly I hope you've seen the movie. If not get out there and
see it. You do NOT want to miss this one.

JUST DOODLIN'

I haven't drawn anything in a really long time. So I decided to just pull out my tablet and start drawin. I really gotta get back into it. My proportions are completely off but the idea came through okay I guess.

WINTER ZOMBIELAND

Have you ever wondered what happens when a bunch of actors, animators, directors, producers and musicians do when they go away on vacation for New Years? Well watch this video and see. Besides just hanging around the cottage and drinking the whole week we decided it would be fun to make a silly zombie movie (while drinking and and hanging out)
Winter Zombieland is a LOW BUDGET parody of those "B movie" zombie films that make no sense and make people roll their eyes at with a little cheesy love story in there as well. Enjoy.

p.s. When I say low budget, I mean this movie cost about 10 dollars to make.........10 CANADIAN dollars.

SKETCHING NOTRE DAME

Ever since I was a kid one of the things I wanted to do in my life is sit in front of Notre Dame and sketch it. Well on my recent trip to Europe I did that. I spend an afternoon just walking around drawing.

CARTOONS FOR CHARITY

There is a book being put together called "THE PICTURE BOOK PROJECT" by 50 artists in the animation industry for charity. I was asked to submit a couple of monster drawings for the book. I was honoured to be asked to join such a great group of artists on such a great project. Here are two of the drawings I came up with.

Eric's and Kim's Wedding Cover

This was a drawing I did for two of my good friends who got married in Vegas. They wanted a cover for their CD that they gave out to all the guests. I had a lot of fun doing this one.

Caricature

This is a caricature that I did for a contest at work this week. I thought I would go overboard and make it as corny as humanly possible.

Cowboys, Pirates and other things.

Some coloured stuff.

The Surf's up image was a little humour around Oscar time when we were all REALLY REALLY hoping for the win against Ratatouille. They took it though. DOH!!!!

MORE STUFF FOR YA