It could be egocentric, or I could actually be that great.

Wow, have I been lazy lately. Tonight is New Years Eve (and also the big bro's b-day), and I've made up my mind to finish this sketch book and start the new year with a fresh one. Normally I finish one every season, but this one was started waaaaay back in August. What a disappointment!

Here's a few noodle doodles from the current "Ghosts inna Drawer":

Surfin the Sofa: aka "Crazy from Sickness"

Right now I'm in preproduction for a non-school related short animation. The project name is "Sokoke", and I plan on it being a mixed media. It will involve scratch and paper animation on a multiplane. The whole idea is based around characters having the heads of endangered species. The main character herself has the head of a Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew. I'm also still working on a project I started in my Alternative Strategies in Animation class, but didn't complete by semester's end. Oh well, it's still a really fun project. Titled "Wakeup!", it's another mixed media with paper cutouts, charcoal, scratch, live action, and a background animated in Photoshop. There's something about animating a character dancing that's incredibly stream of conscious. I'll post what I have done soon.

Other than that, I've been playing around with editing short clips of music and dialog to use for character animation. I'm trying to practice animating mannerisms and subtlety. Well, as subtle as animation allows. A friend of mine created a stop motion short in my apartment and gave me a whole load of leftover Sculpey clay, and I've been playing around with that too.

Peace Sells

ARGH! Animation Production Studio is stealing all my time! Winter break is coming up though, so more updates soon!

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW.

Man, it's always so hard to stay on task when you can't even work up the motivation. I've such a demanding schedule that procrastination isn't easy anymore. Oh well. Wednesday night I did manage the time to wander over to Bill Plympton's secret screening of the unfinished Angels and Idiots. Not that my opinion amounts to much, but I liked it. What was shown was a Leica reel with quite a few shots replaced with finished animation. Certain parts needed to be edited, but it was fun and definitely something I can learn from. And Bill is such a freakin cool guy. He didn't even mind that I gaped at him for some time cause everything I wanted to say vanished. Enough about my impending stalkerdom, here's some build up:

Quick sketch of a happy lil dumbass turtle. If Becky ever sees this, it's not Omelette.

Like most people, I listen to depressing music to make my life better by comparison.

Nothing beats a noon-time gyro. Unless it's a breakfast, brunch, linner, or dinner gyro.

Since I've such a big wad of comics stockpiled, I'm posting them in a random order.

One of my procrastination doodles. Once every blue moon I work on it.

I getcher five-finger discount.

Ugh. Today was a total waste. I animated a couple seconds of a charcoal drawing, but the rest of the day was a bust. I sat down to revise some storyboards and couldn't bear to do anything. I'm gonna go to bed and make up for it tomorrow. Hopefully this trend doesn't continue, I've a tight deadline on those boards, plus another animation project I'm working on. Boooooo. On the plus side, I've discovered a fondness for charcoal animation. It's kind of a relief, since I didn't have the patience for stop-motion, sand, or paint animation. Scratch animations are fun as long as I have music to drown out that horrible squeak noise the acetate makes as the ink is scratched off.

Oh yeah, and one more thing...

Maybe, just maybe, you're looking at the future.

Ka Dumpa Dump

Here's an assorted backlog of stuff!



I really do love Lynda Barry. I want to go to one of her workshops, but I never have the dough.



From a sketch jam in L.A.... My buddy Graham and I didn't want to run dry on ideas (and embarrass ourselves!) in front of the other animators, so we challenged each other with theme drawings. This one is "Punk".



I'm most relaxed when I'm drawing heads.

I have tons of stuff but I don't want to load it all at once and have it all start tastin' like beans. More later!

Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Not that it matters anyway. What can I say? I've been 21 for a few months now, still so freshly into it that I never remember I can legally buy liquor. I'm paranoid, too. Sometimes charmingly so. If I had a sound effect it would be "Grouch, grouch, grouch." Not that I'm really that crabby, but try saying it really fast. It's fun!

I'm a Senior level animation student in Chicago, and despite passing all my classes very well so far, I still have this deep ache within, a sort of terrible foreboding, that I'm only deluding myself and that I'm never, ever going to get a job in this field. So, as a sort of therapy, I'm gonna post doodles and whatnot in order to soothe myself and provide good opportunities to procrastinate. OH BOY!

I've been drawing since I was a wee one, somewhere in my ma's house is a bin containing art awards from way back when I was in Kindergarten. My favorite is an award from Fire Safety Week, I drew a burning house with an infant poking out from under a staircase holding matches. I think that alone implies my comics background, my eldest brother Jose taught my how to make 'zines at a really young age. As I got older I drifted from the comics scene and really admired animation. I admit I was a Japanese Animation freak for years, but when I entered college I realized just how much was out there. Right now Indie animation and student films are my greatest interests. I've also learned to appreciate good ol' American animation, but I have to admit after taking so many film and media analysis classes as part of my education, I'm extremely critical of anything I watch. Sigh- Movies and television are pretty much ruined to me forever.

Within the past two years I've started getting back into drawing comics (never stopped reading those loveable lil' bastards), but with so much schoolwork and life stuff going on, I've pretty much stuck to journal comics. It's so convenient and relaxing to draw daily events and thoughts, sort of like a picture diary. Speaking of which, I've never been able to keep a diary because I ended up drawing on all the pages.

So, due to the fact I haven't time to build/launch/maintain an actual website, I'm going to post them on this blog. Which is why it's called Garibaldiology, because it's my world view and thoughts (doy).

I should probably take the time now to explain the two reoccurring characters. I've a passing interest in Freudian Psychology, and have made caricatures of my Id and Ego/Super-ego. My Id is called The Assface (A. Face to the kids). It resembles its name. and I'm proud to say I have a tattoo of that unfortunate creature. My Ego and Super-ego are housed within the same appearance, which is a caricature of what I actually look like. I call it P. Ginger (which is a play on my nickname, you figure it out). Here's a drawing of them together:

Now, I have to point out that The Assface doesn't always stay inside P. Ginger's head. When it's something really childish, A. Face usually appears alone. Sometimes it's in P. Ginger's empty head. And sometimes it appears as graffiti on random public walls. But that I won't take credit for. Assface has also appeared on cookies. That's another story entirely.

P. Ginger is really just an observational voice that I use to describe events. Kind of a stand-in body because I don't like drawing myself realistically, and I hate writing without being able to illustrate. I like the fact that the words and images play off each other. That way I don't have to say as much. LOL.

But I'm tired, so further posts (and lots of words, which is unlike me) will soon follow. And comics. Lots comics. And animations too, if I can figure it out how to post them.