I dusted off an old illustration which seemed fitting for this week’s IF topic.

Here’s a cool comic blog from UK artist Mike Smith. He draws comics about his life on a weekly calendar. Love that idea. I also like his style and sense of humor. I can relate to this weeks comic (seen above).

Here’s the completed film, the theme this time was Carnival. I’m responsible for the beaver with the silly hat, eating a corn dog.

You can also check out photos of the event here.

I participated in the second Drinking and Drawing Boston event last night at Paddy O’s. Another successful event that brought a lot of  artists together to create an animated film.  This go around we had an added treat, Dave Schlafman, a talented and successful animation director presented his work and held a Q&A.

The film should be completed in a few days and once it is I’ll post it here. I can at least offer a little tease with a peak at the title image (seen above). I was glad to be asked to draw it. It was done on an index card with a sharpie which for me was a nice change from how I usual draw. I often sketch out my ideas with paper but quickly jump to the computer and my wacom tablet. So sadly I think this is my first post of work that wasn’t done digitally.

Click here to learn more about the event.

The good people over at Cold Hard Flash have put together a list of the top ten animated Flash films. They posted the animation along with great background info on the artists. Very inspirational stuff. Good to see some of the classics on there as well as some great films that were new to me.  Check it out.

These rough sketches are ideas I was sketching out for a university student computer services t-shirt design. The project was tabled before I got too far with it. But I thought I’d share these drawings anyway. I’m certainly due for a post here.

Also Drinking and Drawing – Boston II is coming up this Wednesday, June 18th. If you’re in the Boston area I suggest you check it out. I’ll have a full update here afterwards.

Here’s an illustration I created for part of a campaign letting college faculty know about the eSylabus web repository coming out this Fall.

Here’s a great stop-motion animated video by Rob Shaw at Bent Image Lab. It for the song “Dirty Laundry” by Bitter Sweet and showcased on Zune Arts which is a cool site featuring talented artist and musicians.

The nominees for the 2nd annual Channel Frederator Awards. The Freddie awards user submitted cartoons that have appeared on Channel Frederator through out the past year. Lots of great nominees this year including the classic Weird Al, ‘Trapped in the Drive-Thru’ video that I posted a while back. And another one called ‘Make Mine Shoebox’  from one of my favorite artists, Chris Harding of We the Robots fame (best comic on the web). So head on over and cast your vote.

The Drinking and Drawing Boston video is complete. I was able to get a couple cracks at the light table night, including the first 8 frames of the video, so don’t blink. It was fun event and I’m looking forward to the next one.

I had a chance to participate in the ‘Drinking and Drawing’ event on Monday night at Paddy O’s in Boston. It’s an event dreamed up by Dan Meth and Frederator and first kicked off in NY before hosting this one in beantown. That’s me working away with a pint of Guinness in by belly. It’s a fun event that brings animators together to collaborate to create a hand drawn animated film in one evening at a bar. Each artist has 10 minutes to draw 8 frames of animation. When the time is up the next person picks up where they left off. It’s not pictured there but there are six artists working together at one time on their own light boxes. The drawings are being digitized right now and will be up soon, I’ll be sure to post it here. There are some phots up on Flickr and boston.com snapped some too. The story should be printed in the globe next week.

Here’s a series of clever animations from Simon Tofield an animator at  Tandem Films. Enjoy.

Much like the one posted below, here’s the illustration I did for the Saint Patrick’s Day email going out to BC faculty.  

Pearce Sisters is a unique animated film from director Luis Cook at Aardman. I really like the style of this work. You can learn about the unique process here on the production notes page.

Here’s an illustration I whipped up this week for use in an html email going out to BC faculty reminding them about the CMS change next semester. There will be more of these holiday themed comics.  Next up; one for St. Patrick’s Day.

Designer/illustrator Frank Chimero has an ongoing series of illustrations inspired by the shapes of American states. So simple and yet so clever. Fantastic idea and nice style.