My Top 50 Marvel Comics Characters: (#'s 50-26)

Growing up I always dreamed of being a Marvel Comics artist. Mark Gruenwald, (one time editor in chief of Marvel) was a student of my Dad's at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and that gave me extra inspiration that I could make it there one day. Eventually my interests steered towards animation, but I still would like to illustrate a comic for Marvel one day if I got the opportunity. Here are the first 25 characters in my top 50 list. (#'s 25-#1 will get posted some other day, but it might take awhile). Once I finish all 50 my plan is to auction the original art on ebay and donate the proceeds to MS research. More on that whenever I finish the rest.

Gobber meets Thor

Here's a sequence I wrote, (along with John Puglisi) and boarded for the "Legend of the Boneknapper" DVD. Gobber is telling a tall tale to the kids about one of his encounters with the Boneknapper. He starts the scene being trapped under the Dragon's foot. It stayed pretty close to what I did but we had to cut the Hammerhead Yak spraying milk. :(

Wild Kratts!

A few years ago I got an amazing opportunity to work for a couple of amazing guys, Chris and Martin Kratt, The Kratt Brothers! Famous world wide for their hit Zoboomafoo, as well as Kratt's Creatures, these guys hired me to help design the characters for their new animated show, "Wild Kratts". The show airs now on PBS and you can check out lots of clips and cool things on their website:

WILD KRATTS

"Me and My Shadow" Announced!

The film I've been storyboarding on this past year at DreamWorks got it's first official press release! "Me and My Shadow" is one of the most exciting projects I've ever been a part of. The show is going to be a mix of CG and Hand Drawn animation. They did a test of the look that freaking blew my mind!!! Only 2 more years before you get to see it! Here's a link to the press release on Slashfilm:

ME and MY Shadow PRESS RELEASE

Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special Boards

Rex Red Coat

Here's an one-of-a-kind action figure, (although he doesn't actually move), I sculpted along with a hand painted card for the "Super Big Micro Show" at Gallery Nucleus. The idea for the show started with a bunch of Disney artists who created small pieces of art for a tiny gallery in the animation building. The exihibit at Nucleus will feature art from over 75 artists from Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar. All pieces are hand crafted, (no computer print outs) and each is restricted to being no bigger than 6 by 6 inches. (Mine ended up being 6 by 5 inches). The show runs December 11th through January 4th with an opening reception on Dec 11th from 7 to 11pm. You can find out more about the show by clicking on these links:

Micro Gallery Blog

Nucleus

Legend of the Boneknapper on DVD Today!

How to Train Your Dragon is out on DVD today!!! Along with the movie you can get a second short called "The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon". It was directed and written by my good friend John Puglisi, and features some amazing hand drawn animation by Ken Duncan's studio. I got to design the characters for the 2D sequences and story board on a couple scenes as well.

When John asked for me to design a shark for Gobber to take on I pleaded with him to let it be a HammerHead. The Great White seemed overdone and I always thought HammerHeads were cooler. It was fun to try and make him as fierce looking as the dragons in the film.



I made this model sheet of the HammerHead shark based from boards done by Dave Pimentel.



These were some concepts for different appendages that Gobber could use for his arm. I was sad the "sheep on a leash" didn't make it but I'm glad the guitar got in.



I had to create Gobber as 4 different ages. Originally he was going to loose an appendage each time we went back to him, but due to the short running time of the film that story line got scrapped. I guess he must loose his leg sometime after the last encounter with the Boneknapper.



These were based from some of John's boards.



Based off of Dave's boards.



Once again based off of Dave's boards.



Based off of John's boards



There wasn't much time to create a style for this short, but I tried to push elements wherever I could. There's some really cool hand animation in the last flashback sequence of Gobber playing his guitar. Sorry I don't know who animated it.



These were some Frozen Vikings trapped in a glacier from the first flashback. I referenced some of Nico Marlet's original designs from the feature to come up with these guys.



The guy on the right is Gobber's dad. I was thinking of James Hetfield of Metallica when I designed him. The other guys didn't make it in the final cut but the middle one was going to be a young Stoic.



UPDATE: You can check out some of Matt Williames amazing pencil tests for the 2d sequences at his blog:

Hand Drawn Nomad