Morris Lessmore Now on the Oscar Shortlist

So the short (which I referenced here) I was a scenic artist on has made it to the Oscar shortlist for nominations! A sea of about 300 shorts were eventually pared down to this list, and from this list, members of the Academy are going to pick what will actually be nominated.

It’s exciting! I’m friends with not just some of the people in the set fabrication stage but also most of the animators at the studio.

Click here for the trailer, if you haven’t seen it yet! It’s available for purchase on iTunes… alternately, if you have an iPad, purchasing the Morris Lessmore storybook app (which, again, my boyfriend was a creative director on), you’ll get the film as part of your purchase.

I wondered if I could needle felt a narwhal.



The answer is yes!

Etsy!

While I'm updating my actual website, I set up a redirect here, to my blog. I realized I needed to direct people to my respective Etsy shops though, so here we go:


TerribleFantastic, my needle-felting Etsy



7Seventeengallery, my illustration Etsy.

So, recently, I've gotten into needle felting.

I personally cannot sculpt, which is why I had to have someone else sculpt Binkus from my design when we were working on the resin toys. I'm somewhat clumsy and apply too much pressure and I have slight hand tremors when I try to apply gentle pressure, so needless to say, all my efforts with clay come out total messes. I'd seen pictures of people's felted sculptures on Etsy though, and it seemed like something I could try to pull off. Now, what it is, is you're taking wool and a barbed needle, and you are poking, poking, poking that wool and manipulating the fibers until you come up with a shape. It's essentially sculpting with wool. So here are a few things I did recently:

It's really kind of fun to zone out in front of the tv and just needle away at some wool and a few hours later, voila, you have a little soft creature in your hand. But, mind you don't zone out too much, or else you stab yourself with the needle. And those things hurt.

Here's my Etsy shop for my needle felted work: TerribleFantastic.etsy.com
Maybe check it out!

Behind the Scenes of the Morris Lessmore Shoot

'The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore' is the animated short my boyfriend's studio has released, and is the same short that has been snatching up awards left and right at film festivals across the country. It's 3D animation, paired with real sets, built in miniature at 1/12th scale. The sets were filmed first, in January of 2010, and the rest of the year the animation and tech departments were hard at work making the real life environments mesh seamlessly with the animation.

I was a scenic artist, on set for the shoot, and while I took a number of photos, I realized I hadn't posted them here.

So, here we go.




First, the books. The majority of the action takes place in a library. Each individual book was hand-painted. I never did find out how many hundreds we actually painted.

The set, early on.

This is the kind of detail that went into painting each individual buildings, most of which are on screen for mere seconds. I spent hours simulating water damage all over this building. I was just one of several artists tasked with painting these buildings; I can't speak for anyone else on how long they took, but generally one day of work seemed standard.


 A maquette of Morris stands in for his animated counterpart in the library for size reference.

And here is a 6'6 man in the library, for size reference.

The city of New Orleans is slowly coming together.

Filming.

Aftermath of the storm.

Me, wallowing on the filthy set after we finally wrapped.

Check out the trailer for the completed film. It's available on iTunes.

SUPER is out on DVD & blu-ray today!

There was a really good article/interview at Art of the Title with Puny Animation's Shad Petosky about the animated title credits. While I didn't animate on that part of the film, they did try to base some of the character designs on the crude and childlike style I'd adapted for Frank. It's an interesting article, and furthermore, an interesting site. Clicky here.

Little niche Tumblr I started based on some warm-up character designs-- Rad Chicks in Fancy Dresses


Just a doodle of a pretty fierce Halston dress from the 70s.

SXSW Premiere of SUPER

While it's true that I do have other things in my life going on, the one thing that I've been thinking the most about for awhile is, of course, SUPER.

We went to the SXSW premiere last weekend in Austin.


December 2009 is when I read the script, and did like, a zillion drawings for the film based on some very precise outlines given to us by the director. And I was impressed with the script then-- impressed in a way, because the sick sense of humor reminded me so much of my own. I put it down at the end and told my boyfriend that it was totally something I should be working on, because it was so gleefully twisted, with a big dose of pathos. Just like the inside of my brain!

The audience ate it up; this was exactly the type of crowd I wanted to see it with for the first time. They were eager to see it--the line had wrapped around the block--and the laughter was uproarious. It was the most fun I'd ever had at a movie, and having worked on it was just icing on the cake.

We went to the afterparty, and I got a photo with James Gunn... which I now realize is actually the third time I've posed with a director (Joel Schumacher and Joss Whedon being the others). Who's next?? Harmony Korine? Vincent Gallo? Man, who knows. I'm blowing up. I'm Hollywood now.


I've become quite a cheerleader of this movie, to a point verging on being a fangirl, but it's just I think that much of this movie, and the production. You gotta understand, it was made for next to nothing, and the level of interest in it thus far-- the longest line for ANY screening at SXSW they say-- is an entirely grassroots, internet-based thing. I mean, there wasn't a trailer until a few weeks ago. And I think that's a great thing, because it started off as such a personal project for its writer-director, and it in turn became very personal for the people who worked on it.

And I wanna be real here for a minute: another part I am so excited, is because sometimes, it's not that easy to be an artist. Sometimes it's not that easy to get work, and as a result, you find yourself doubting yourself or abilities, and you lose motivation. A lot of people's art blogs, I find, are just self-aggrandizing or blatant networking attempts and... I can't do that. I'm too self-deprecating. And while that may be a great tool for getting ahead, I find that stuff insincere, and I just can't do it. So that's why I care about this movie: I got validation. I felt incredibly proud, and you know, just grateful, because the thing an artist needs most in the world is just to be given a chance. And I got it on this! Sometimes chances are few and far between and I'm just glad to have gotten one on something that was so important to all of the people who worked on it.

So go see it when it comes out-- but... you know, only if you are awesome, because it's not for everyone (a dude explodes).

SUPER Trailer

It's finally here, the trailer for SUPER:



The animation you see in the trailer are clips from the credits, and was done by the neato Puny Entertainment. I will admit to a little bit of envy there; once upon a time I was going to be involved in that aspect of the film, and while I did contribute some animation elsewhere, I didn't have anything to do with the credits. You'll still see my gloriously bad artwork in the movie though.

This Saturday, March 12, SUPER will be screening at SXSW and I've been told we are going to be able to get in to see it. So that's... that's pretty cool.


Click the poster for release dates! It is a very small film, that's relying largely on word-of-mouth. The good news is, the word-of-mouth from early screenings has been rad.

More to come later this week!