The Trials of Life

Also.
I just read this on David Byrne's web journal.

Artists and Schizophrenia

Read in The Guardian that geneticists now see links between crazy artists and just plain crazies. Geneticists have long been puzzled why schizophrenia (bi-polar disorder) hasn’t been eliminated by natural selection. Acute sufferers have trouble functioning, so their chances of producing offspring are low — so why has the percentage of people with this disorder remained more or less consistent (1%)? If they don't reproduce they should dwindle and eventually disappear — with the occasional random mutation occurring now and then.
It seems it was those crazy artists who are to blame. They think that the gene for creativity is one of a pair — and the other one, when present, produces full-blown schizophrenia. It’s been long recognized that schizophrenics are — when functional — creative, inventive, and imaginative. So now scientists think that schizophrenics share this “creative gene” with arty creative types, but sadly, the crazies got the other gene, too.
So here’s where the 1% comes from. Creative types, so scientists claim, have active sex lives — and often produce a fair number of kids, legitimate or not. And I guess all it takes is for both of the parents to possess halves of the creative/schizo gene pair for the offspring to be prone to the disorder. Hence the continued existence of the disorder in the species. If one accepts that wild arty creativity is important for the species as a whole, then the evolutionary reasoning is clear — except why must we have the unfortunate side effect of a percentage of crazies just to have the needed arties?
Maybe it’s like Asperger’s, a matter of degree. A little bit autistic or schizo and you are extraordinarily focused in the former case, or possess surprising insights in the latter. But if it goes too far and you’ve got a full dose you’re dysfunctional in both cases. But both are needed for society and our species, so the percentage of loonies and autistic rockers is the price we pay.

A Very Charmy Christmas

Dear Charmaine.
I hope you don't mind making our friendship public knowledge.
This is a thank you for your lovely gift and even lovelier thoughts.
I love you very much also.
Your book is wonderful.
Perhaps the fact that Lear reminds you of myself is because he clearly lovely absolutely silly things, which I do also.
Rest assured we'll catch up before I head off around the world.
Love you heaps.
Shut up.
Love Elliot.
XXXX

Enough of the Christmas nonsense

Here are some more cute characters in peril, something I return to often.


Also.
For some reason (being a portly type I imagine) I have been roped into playing Santa on and off since I moved to Tasmania.
It is a common thing in suburbs and regional centres, for have Christmas carol nights - big affairs in parks with local celebrities, well know singers from local theatre groups and all that.
I have played Santa at the last 2 Carols nights and it's been an entertaining and unorthadox affair.
I am usually interviewed by the MC then have to sing a couple of carols with another singer.
Year one we talked about what Santa wanted for Christmas.
We had rehearsed me talking about wanting world peace, but I changed it on the night and told the MC I would like a salad for Christmas, because it was hard to grow vegetables.
Last night was this years carols and we talked about how Rudolph has contracted bird flu (from a bird).
All very silly but heaps of fun.
Singing carols has always been a interesting one for me - I'm certainly not an orthadox Jew by any means, but I didn't grow up singing them much.
I had to learn the words for Jingle Bells, and fortunately Santa has only one line to sing in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
These are low res pics taken with my phone before I went onstage.

Scarry Christmas

More Ugly Love

BUSY BUSY BUSY - Less busy now

I'm quite busy at the moment!
(With After Effects mostly, not with kidnapping maidens).
Also - I think I left this one out Smook.
It's kind of jolly and festive and I'd hate to leave it out...


Here are some new things I started playing with today...

Ugly Love

Unrelated - Updated for Smook - AGAIN

Righto then - but it has to be tea and cake - my family is from the UK...picky storyboard guys...

Friends!

Just Good Friends...
This is part of a pitch for a new sitcom.
It's about a gay couple who are killed in a boating accident.
They rise from the grave and in an effort to appear more "normal" pretend that they're not gay, but are in fact "Just Good Friends" - which will be the name of the sitcom.
I imagine that Jeremy Irons could play Frederick, the tall, thin, anally retentive gay zombie.
His portly friend (David) could be played by John Goodman who, thanks to the magic of special effects and crawling about on his knees, will appear to be shorter.
They both work for the same advertising company.
When Frederick and David try and eat everyone in the office, hiliarity ensues!

More than friends...
Singer/songwriter, noisemaker Tom Waits wrote a lovely song called Fish And Bird.
From the sound of it, it's probably based on an old folk tale.
It's about a bird and a whale who fall in love.
Because the bird can't swim and the whale can't fly, they can never be together until the moon is reflected in the sea.
With the moon reflected in the sea, it seems as though the whale is in the sky, and when the moon is shining, the bird is able to be reflected in the water.
It's a beautiful idea and a lovely song.


No-ones Friend...
If you head over to this blog of Oscar Grillos (one of several he maintains) and scroll just a little way down the page, you'll find a photgraph of this dog I've drawn.
It's the most horrible thing in the world.
It looks like it's been digested by something big and unpleasant.

Real Ink

Here is some real art!
I usually have something like this on the go but I don't often post them as they are large and difficult to take a quick snapshot of.
But it's real!
Real pen and real ink and real paper.


Later in the day.
I took a picture of myself with a digital camera today and I felt I somewhat resembled the French actor John-Claude Dreyfus, who most folks will know from the film Delicatessen.
He's got about 604 times more character in his mug than I do but I think there's a resemblance.


Also - here's a reworked song for all my friends out there who, like I, work in advertising.

To be sung to the tune of Jingle Bells.

Sitting at my desk.
Writing yule tide ads.
Pushing used car sales,
And things that help your abs.
Running out of time,
To finish all these bits,
The quickest way to sell this stuff,
Is use lots of perky tits.

OHHH
Jingle Bells,
Christmas sells,
Prices slashed right now.
We've dropped out pants,
Here's your last chance,
To save on puppy chow,
OOOHHH.
Clearance sale.
Prices pale.
Everything must go.
Forget Jesus,
Saving pleases,
Every one we know!

Another Post for Boris and some animation comments

I have just been called a "cock monkey" by the beautiful, yet unshaven Boris Hiestand.
I have been amused greatly.
To commemorate this important insult I''ve created an image of the cock monkey.
Some kind of baboon/mandrill hybrid, with a prehensile willy tail.

Anyway.
Animation.
I rewatched the Blue Sky movie Robots last night (I was babysitting).
What a missed opportunity that was.
For those who haven't seen it, it's chock full of terrific design, great ideas, wonderful art direction, forgettable characters, average writing, awful voice acting (although some is great) and a horrible sound track.
The first 15 minutes are terrific - where the baby robot is "delivered" and all that.
Really sweet and funny.
And throughout there are some lovely moments.
Greg Kinnear and Jim Broadbent give great vocal performances.
There's a funny sequence in which the main hero is magnetised.
A lovely sequence involving a crazed mode of public transport.
Almost all the character design is delightful and in some instances inspired.
But on the whole it's dissapointing.
There's dreadful music throughout, especially over the end sequence (which not only has dreadful music but is also weird).
And the climax of the film is awful too.
And any fan of Futurama (one of my favorite shows ever) will have seen many of the incidental gags before.
And the animation is strange.
It's a 3D film that looks like it was animated like a 2D film.
A stylistic choice maybe?
I think it just looks manic and spiky all the time.
And here's a thing - this is the second animated film in recent years to ape Pixars, A Bugs Life in several ways.
The other is Chicken Run, although I think that's about 317 times better than Robots.
Each film has an inventor of some sorts for a lead character.
The lead character longs for something more - a bigger dream.
In ABL and Robots both lead characters head to the big city on a quest (very similar arrival sequences).
In ABL and CR both characters construct a giant bird to achieve their goals.
In ABL and Robots both "armies" are defeated by a band of misfits.
Anyway - now I'm just blabbering on.
So then. Robots. Perhaps I'd recommend you watch it with the sound turned off, which is a shame, because a lot of talented folks seemed to have had a hand in it.

Llaammaa

Everyone loves a llama.
It's because of the double "L".
It's not because they are friendly,
They're rude and bad tempered and smell.
It's not because they're helpful,
Happy to stroll hand in hand.
And it's not because they would come along,
And cheer when you played in your band.
It's not because they are tasty,
And when stewed, in your mouth they may melt.
No - Everyone loves a llama,
But only for the way it is spelt.

Update.
Speaking of animals and rhyming verse, if you don't know the work of Bill Peet go visit his site - there's a link on the right of the page.
On the site there is a page of excerpts from kids letters to Bill.
Some of them are hilarious.
Here are my favorites -

"I like the expressions you have in your books. You are a very good artist. Thank you for the letter. Please don’t write back. Your friend, Ronnie S."

"I like your books. My whole family likes them. My cat does not know we have them"

I especially like the conspiritorial tone of the last one.
I find it very amusing that the cat must be excluded from storytime.
Perhaps it has some kind of addiction, or some kind of mental imbalance.
A jealous streak.

More Battage

Some of you good folks may be familiar with the Batman stuff I've been working on.
I mostly post it over on drawingboard for the comic book experts to ponder.
It was requested I tackle a character called Two Face.
Here are my results.
I liked the idea of keeping him a normal man (with a big long head) but is fuelled by whatever madness is pressing him to violence.
I thought that the madness might be represented by a kind of crazy shadow.



In this last one I really want to show Batman getting whipped.
Why is it that he can only sustain punches? (in the movies at least).
I wanted to see him taken out properly.
Those are supposed to be scalpels poking out of his head....
Francesco F described it as Batman meets Twoface meets Taratino, which is very appealing to me.

Before I go home...pay heed...

I've sheep my pants!

Another intellectual sketch.
It's a little busy for my liking at the moment, and I've not got so much time to post.
Christmas is always a horrible time in production.
Same slop year after year.
The only difference is that it starts in August now instead of early November.
This picture is based pretty much on what I would do if I were menaced by a large, hungry dog.

This was done 15 minutes later.
The leaky pen tool in Painter was too much of a likeness for me to leave it at one single image.

Touchy Feely

There's a scene in the film Topsy Turvy where one of the characters (Gilbert or Sullivan I can't recall) is having a jolly time in a French brothel.
There are two young ladies performing a cheeky act on stage that involves nipple pinching and crotch flashing.
It's a great scene (not just because of the naked girls).
There's an authentic quality to it.
The film as I mentioned is called Topsy Turvy is directed by Mike Leigh and is a film about Gilbert and Sullivan.
I imagine it's painted in fairly broad strokes, but it's a great film and I encourage anyone who's interested in theatre to hire it.
The fellow I've included in the image is from a much earlier age than Gilbert and Sullivan, but I like those baroque wigs, and there's something nice and pervy about vintage porn, so he went in there.

Hello Everyone

more spirit guide advice...

This one here is for the preposterously talented and I'll have to assume excessively good looking Smook (I say assume because I have no idea what he looks like)
For details as to what it's about you'll have to explore the comments of the last post on his blog.

Beware...BEWARE!!!

To come - the Elephantom of the Opera.

Get that Spirit in You

I had two absolutely delightful women over for dinner last night.
I made a lovely summery cous-cous salad.
And bought a bottle of Absolut.
It was easy to find inspiration for todays sketch.
It was a lot hard to muster the inspiration to actually do it.