Village Ghetto Land

Nintendo DS & 3DS
Cell & Picture
Animation

I wanted to build and do a full set animation but didn't know what to do. My friend Nathan and I were hangin' out talking and he said he was trying to put this little film fest togather and I should consider doing an animation for it. I was on it, he mentioned doing an animation for Stevie Wonders "Village Ghetto Land" so I listened to the song and started building a set. The stats came from Nathan, I don't have the same passions he does for the political asspect of it, but I love to animate and create worlds.

A lot of what was seen was made from cardboard, paint, construction paper and whatever else I could find laying around. The actors range from Dolls, to Homies, to Legos. I think there's a Gremlin in there some where too. This was done on a program called flipbook on my DS which was all the beginning cell animation, and then on my 3DS video tool frame by frame, which was all the main music video.Took about four 4 months ended up being like 1800 frames.

Commercial Work

Kids Menu for Icon Grill

2012

drawin' on paper with pen

 

So my boss askes me to design a new kids menu. I often draw on my guest check and he ask me to do something like you do on the checks. So this is what I came up with, with a little flair. The restaurants mascot is the lion with wings and they have a serious real looking one on their sign, but I wanted to "kid" it up a bit. So that's where he came from. I think he's a million dollar idea and shirts and beanies should be made so they can sell by the millions ;)

Enamal House Paint

Spray Paint on

4'by8' big metal sign

 I did this big sign for a buddies new business, lots of masking.
Free handed the patterning of course.
The big red circle was spray painted, lots of hours. You may
see it if you're driving around the Ballard area

GORIO

DS Flipbook

343 Frames

Music is me playing guitar

 and singing

DS cell animation, that means I drew it frame by frame. I'll take two lumps of patience with my animation please :) The story behind this one is obviously inspired and dedicated to one of my dearest friends in the world Greg. Through the many years I've known Greg also rarely known as Gorio I certainly gone over his house to hang out a million times. It was a house like apartment, with if I remember about 4 to 6 apts., so not real big. He had this big ol porch with big white pillars on either side of the steps going into the entrance, a bed of white rocks boarded the grass and porch. So now that you have the visual... Once in going over to his place when he was expecting me, he wasn't answering his buzzer. So I waited around, and waited (before cell phones) and waited, then I took some white rocks and started placing them down to form letters, in my waiting and to be cute I start writing "Greg Eats Ass" then I finish and sit back on the porch and continue to wait... ( I pretty patient, plus the public transportation and I lived far enough away, you get the point) so I'm waiting and I grab a rock and use it to carve some farmiliar words into his pillar. After writing "Greg Eats Ass"  into the pillar, I went home, but we joked about it  for years. So years and years later we both are living in SF in the same apt building and late one night he says come on up and hang out. ( he lived five floors above me) so I go upstairs and in the short amount of time it took me to get up there he has already passed out cold. So he's not answering his door, oh yea you got it. I went back down to my apartment, got a knife and in the corner of his door carved "Greg Eats Ass". So all that is where this is inspired from. I will say in knowing my dear friend Greg for so long, I've never known him to actually eat ass.

Orange

3DS

music by Violent Femmes

  

This is an animation I did using my 3DS. I started by building the set from some old cardboard and paint, added some popsicle stick shelves and some "room" details and blammo you have a mini room, (with an upstairs) Some fun details you may notice... The pictures on the wall were printed up super small, so they're real images, just hard to make out. They're mostly me and my girl. The octopus mini painting was done by my girl Sarah on a little canvas, so shout out to her!! There is no imparticular story or point just wanted to animate. Besides the obvious guitar playing between Edward Scissorhands and Floyd Pepper, I guess you could go with robot walks into a room with big scary spider monster in it and gets scared away. Robot returns with his friends and when the spider see's them all he takes off, the robots dance in a party of celebration and the spider returns to continue the dance party.

The music that fit so nicely is The Violent Femmes.

 Enjoy!! 

DEMI

Acrylic on Canvas
2ft by 3ft

This is a painting I did completely inspired by my dad. He'd been asking me to paint him something for years and when I'd say "what?", his responce was always "I don't know just something." So he finally comes to me with this idea where he wants a hand holding a bunch of leaves we'll go with;) Being he'd finally given me a specific after all these years I couldn't disappoint but wanted to do a little more. So I thought to column it out, right to left is the Ely water-tower over a classic Minnesota sunset. Dad moved around alot but spent much time here. He also lived in a few different houses that all happen to be on Harvey Street, plus I lived with him in one of those houses. Next he loved his poker games with his friends and online, his favorite card being Jack of spades, and a shout out to his "Trust Me" tattoo. Next  this was all inspired by his request of the hand holding, I wanted to put a little hippy days in here hence the Tye-Dye. Next are his kids initial's with a little of their flair on each. Gotta have a sports column of course, his teams, and his favorite sports. Leading all up to where he recently moved fishing with the Ozark Mountains in the backround in Arkansas.

 



Team Work (fun with Lego's)

This is doing some animation with my Lego's.

It's simply move the figure just a little bit and

click the picture....about 1200 times ; )

Team Work    music  Art of Noise   

The two lego men work hard

with each other to put the moon

rover togather. Again both peices

of music went perfectly. Enjoy

Team Work      music Cocktail Mix 



Why not paddle?

This was a little animation I did using my Nintendo DS.

It has a program called Flipbook that lets you draw 

each picture on it's screen and then it clips it all togather for you... like a flipbook. 

why not paddle?     music by MIA

why not paddle?         music by Rolling Stones

I thought both pieces of music fit nicely and wanted to share them both. The film itself

has no deep meaning just playing around.

              

Childhood Masterpiece
Acrylic on Canvas
2' by 3'

This is inspired by some of my absolute favorite children's books.

Where the Wild Things Are

The Giving Tree

                                                                                                                The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Point

                       Billy's Balloon Ride

Little Toot

Dr. Suess, The Sleep Book

Curious George

All hanging out in my little landscape.

Tomorrow's A New Day
Acrylic on Canvas
12" by 12"

 

  


                




there's some fun stuff going on in here
  
                                                                                               

  Half the picture is in a textured calming evening set over the city,

  and the moons just keeping an eye over it all.

  You can see the bottom part is separated by a guitar image,

   leading you up to the neck of the guitar, which had been

  edited into an abstract music bar.

  You can see my wrist tattoo design in the left boarder :)

   Half the picture is a little more simple, brighter,

  and of course a shout out to my often drawin' Needle.

   You'll see two Orchids, with one I wanted to just give a

   look at the full flower but felt I lost the detail in what's going on

   exactly in the middle of it. Orchids have some things going on,

    you should definitely take a close look, very alien like.

   Having said that as you can see, I got a little more imaginitive

    and creative on the close up orchids.

   Years ago I did this thing with turning a page, and this seemed

    like a perfect fit, with the added detail it's more of a book look.

    Everyday is a new one and can be made to be whatever

    you want it to be, if you have a bum day "tomorrow's a new day"

    Done in Seattle, 2011

      Hayley Inspired

                                                        

                                                          

The Pickle Man
9" by 12"
Acrylic on Canvas

Long ago I was a pickleman at the Minnesota

renaissance festival with my dear friend David. (best job ever by the way)

 He really imbraced the whole pickle thing and to this day really

loves pickles. Well for the last 15 years or so he's been asking me to draw him

up a tattoo, but wasn't sure what he wanted. Through the years he's

mentioned tribal pickle, and a couple other idea's all relating

somewhat to pickles.

 Finally a couple months ago he comes to me with this for sure

idea of what he wants. "I want a pickle mixed with the look as the

guy on the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy book."

Done in Seattle, 2011



A Fine Kitchen
Acrylic on Canvas (with some needlepoint)
2' by 3'

So my lovely girlfriend comes up to me with this picture saying

"baby my Dad really likes this depiction of Palm Spring picture and 

thought it was kinda your style. Wink, wink" Her father recently

got a house down there and moved from Seattle a few months prier.

 His timing was perfect, I was looking to start a big painting and

wasn't sure what I wanted to do. When I saw the Palm Springs picture

I thought instantly about how it was the exact opposite of the gray 

Seattle he was leaving and came up with the two windows idea.

I wanted to incorporate his dogs cause he's one of those

"I love my dogs a freakish amount" people and so I thought it

would be nice to do like a glamour shots look to them. The 

other picture I figured could equal his beloved dogs

 would be his daughter. I wanted to do a "bless this kitchen" style

thing in the middle but didn't want it to say that. So in trying to figure 

out how to paint a needlepoint looking sign, I found it better to just

needlepoint it and sew it to the canvas. I wanted some fun perspective 

so I went with the kitchen sink idea, it was fun to do orchid but 

a first for me. Oh and in the Seattle window it's a humming bird

feeder, his wife and him had one outside there Seattle 

window they very much enjoyed... or so Sarah tells me.

Done in Seattle 2011.   

Butterflies for Mom
Needle Point
6" by 6"

My mom was moving and gave me a box of a bunch

of old pictures, files, report cards other stuff she wanted me 

to check out before she just chucked it. In the bottom

of the box was a plastic bag filled with different 

colored yarn, needles, patterns, and needlepoint pallets.

It was my mom's from when she had 

more time to be crafty back in the 70's /80's 

So in a time in my life where I had ALOT of time, I grabbed

a blank pallet and some 25 year old yarn and went to 

town. I did this for my fantastic mother when I was in 

Minnesota in 2006.

Spit Balls and Coffee
Not really "spit balls" but rolled balls of napkin
It's a good size, there's a quarter their for scale. 

So at the art school there was a Denny's across the

street that you can imagine was often filled with brook ass, 

coffee drinking, stay for hours and not order or tip 

anything art students. Well I was certainly no exception,

I used to do these intricate patterns and designs as I tore

pieces from the napkin sitting and talking with friends.

This one took about two hours or so and although they

wouldn't generally let me sit there and do this that long, 

they made an exception. Did this in 1992.

Video Game Masterpiece 

Acrylic on Canvas

2' by 3'

I wanted to take famous paintings and modify them a bit, 

with the inspiration of my favorite video games.

And give viewers the feeling there hangin' out in sackboy's

studio.

The Rock Man with Oblio and Arrow

Acrylic on Canvas

2' by 2' and a half

This was inspired by a story that I loved growing up called 

The Point

The story and the fantastic music from one of my favorites

 Harry Nelson 

My brother and I grew up listening to this album, it had a

60's styled comic inside of the story... ahhh childhood.