Yellow Datsun Music Video

This is a movie we worked on awhile back, but I just now uploaded it to Youtube. I am still having a hard time with uploading it in high quality so it ends up looking pretty scratchy and, well, low quality. But for now, it will have to do.

It's a music video we did for Neva Dinova's song "Yellow Datsun". More or less, it was our excuse to try out a few different camera techniques that we hadn't toyed with yet. It's not groundbreaking, but I think it came out pretty well. Matt Coffey stars as the runner, David Powell plays the old man and young man. I play the homeless guy, the evil monster, and Alf. Enjoy!

Not one of mine...

Below is a great music video. I don't know who sings it, but it's in Spanish...or Esperanto. Anyway, the main point is that it's a video of people getting punched in the face, bellies getting slapped, and bottles getting broken over people's heads...IN SLOW MOTION! I know. I know. Pretty great. Even if you don't want to watch the whole thing, at least make it to the 1:05 mark.



Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I should have some new "art" up soon.

Monday...

Here's my first post in a while. My friend Brad Carlson is putting together a website for me and I've been doing some art work for the backgrounds. This is probably going to be the home page. It'll have buttons to the left for navigation and I still need to do the site's title and put it above the characters. So it's still a work in progress and I'm toying with different colors and such, but you get the main idea.

Monsters Inc

Hey, it's been awhile, but I'm back. Gonna be a crazy few months ahead with school and studying, but I've had a good (if somewhat short) summer break and feel pretty refreshed and ready to go. Anyway, I drew this for Moe quite some time ago and just got around to coloring it with Illustrator. I ended up with two different versions: one with the normal black outlines and one with minimal outlines. I can't decide which one I like better. Also, the background leaves something to be desired. Hopefully in the future I can come up with something better for the backdrop.

Summer Vacation on Hoth

I've been studying my balls off for the National Board Dental Examination Part 1...quick nap...OK, but I've been daydreaming about what to do with my few weeks off afterward. This is mainly what it's looked like:

I'm sorry. I got nothin' today. My brain is fried. One thing (aside from my lovely girlfriend, who should continue to buy me ice cream and/or Bambino Burgers) is keeping me sane and it looks like this:





















...can't wait.

Stan Winston

I know I'm not related to this guy, wasn't a close friend of his, but for some reason felt compelled to post this. As a movie geek, I've always admired Stan Winston, who passed away Sunday. He's the man behind some of the biggest movie monsters (and aliens and creatures) in recent history. He made the T-rex in Jurassic Park, the aliens in Aliens, the Terminator, and more recently Iron Man. Pretty cool stuff. The following is a link to a video made by the guys at JoBlo.com that shows some of Winston's work.

http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=winstrontribute2

Andy and Yoriko

My cousin just got married this past weekend and this was their gift from me. Hope it's better than a toaster.

Two videos (not mine)

Here are two pretty great videos. The first I found on www.funnyordie.com and the second has apparently been around for a while (nearly 30 million views!) but it is fairly new to me. I like that Charlie looks a lot like Curly from the Three Stooges.

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... "

Well, I'm back after a long hiatus. It's not a great drawing and the coloring was done quickly in Photoshop so it's a bit sloppy. This had been on my to-do list for quite some time and I just wanted to get it done and get to some other drawings. Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try to keep up on the blog more consistently.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall video

I haven't posted in forever and I'm studying for a test tomorrow, but here is a video promoting the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Moe and I got to see a sneak preview and it's a pretty hilarious movie (and heartwarming to boot!). In the movie, the main character's girlfriend dumps him to go out with a famous jackass singer, lead singer for a band called Infant Sorrow. The following is one of the character's music videos.

"What are you lookin' at, butthead?"

This is the logo which will hopefully adorn the background of a drawing I am working on...on which I am working...whatever. I'm not done with the main drawing and, to be honest, this didn't come out as I'd hoped. It was fine on paper but went weird when I scanned it into Illustrator. Oh well, lesson learned. Anyway, not very timely (no pun intended), but it's one of my favorite movies, so back off! Final drawing soon!

Summer movie excitement!

I just realized we're less than two months from May 2nd, the opening date for Iron Man. So that got me all excited for summer movies and I thought I'd throw down the top five movies I'm looking forward to this summer. Most are a part of franchises (i.e. Batman) or solid name brands (i.e. PIXAR), but I'm not ashamed. After seeing the trailers for these five movies, I can say that I think they're all going to be pretty great. I usually build these movies up too much and then get let down big time when they suck (see Spider-man 3), but I can't help it. This summer looks like it's gonna be great. Below are my top five and their trailers.

5) Wall-E (June 27): It was a toss up between this and The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton. Hulk loses points because the last one with Eric Bana was so horrendous. Wall-E lost some points for looking too much like Johnny 5, but it's PIXAR and that's a good guarantee this'll be good.



4) Iron Man (May 2): I was never big into any comic heroes other than Batman or the X-Men, but Jon Favreau's adaptation of this fringe Marvel character looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. Also, the Dude himself plays the villain, which is super.



3) Pineapple Express (August 8): After 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad, I'd follow Judd Apatow and his gang pretty much anywhere (I don't know about You Don't Mess with the Zohan though...). This one, starring Seth Rogen, looks really funny and boasts a title song by Huey Lewis ala Back to the Future. The following trailer is red band, which means it has some foul language, so this one is not for young-uns.



AND IT'S A TIE FOR THE TOP TWO SPOTS! I couldn't decide between Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22) and The Dark Knight (July 18). Everything about Batman seems wonderful and director Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing. Still, even though Indy has the potential to go south (mainly due to George Lucas's involvement), it IS Indy. The first three movies are still my all time favorite movies. I'll be really let down if it's no good.





That's it! I have been considering drawing something up for each of these movies. I might do that over spring break in a few weeks, so look for that.

An unlikely trio...

I have been told I haven't put any drawings up in a while and that I need to get my rear in gear, so to speak. I simply haven't had time to color anything in and make it look pretty. However, I've been toying around with a very weird idea to draw some of my favorite directors/movie makers, at least some of the more recognizable. So I sketched up these three (just the faces obviously) recently, just to see if I could make them recognizable. It didn't scan well and I lost some of the shading and you can still see a lot of the "sketchiness" to it (i.e. facial guidelines and such). I think I did an okay job, especially with the top center one, but again, these were just quick practice ones and I don't know if I'll end up doing it in the end, anyway. See if you can figure out who they are. The bottom two are a bit more mainstream than the top middle. I'll put the answers are in the comments section. Hint: the top center is a comedic writer/director with a lot of recent hits. The bottom two have worked together on several projects.

Star Wars: A New Hope as told by a three year old

Just found this and it's adorable/nerdy/amazing.

After a long week of tests, I took a little time to hunt down some materials to make a storyboard wall in my room. It'll help in the pre-production stage of our movie-making process, which up until now usually consists of just making sure we have a camera with us before we start. The first picture shows the whole wall. It was pretty simple to make using black foam boards, duct tape (a favorite of mine), plastic hooks, and, oddly enough, tooth picks. The second picture shows a close up of two mock storyboards. It's me punching Chris right the mouth.

"Where's the rent?!?!"

This here's my first post in a long, long time. It's not perfect, but it was my first time using Photoshop to color a whole drawing. I should be able to more easily add shading and stuff from this point, but this is basically it. The subject is, of course, "The Landlord" and features Will Ferrell talking with his landlord, Pearl (Adam McKay's tiny daughter). You can check out the video that inspired the drawing in the post below. Click the image for a closer look. Hope ya love it!

The Landlord Video

I know I haven't posted anything in forever, but I'm working on a drawing of Will and Pearl from the short movie "The Landlord". If you haven't seen it, I've posted it here. If you have, you might as well watch it again because it's close to the funniest thing ever made. Never gets old. My favorite line? "I'm gonna...smack you!" Anyway, look for my version in a day or two. I'm using Photoshop to color the whole thing, which I've never done before, so it's taking a little longer.

The Atlas LP

Andrew Reid, a friend of mine from SLU, has had various music projects going on in the last few years. A while back he asked me to come up with an album cover for one of these. While they are still working to get what they want out of a full album, they have a demo out and have used my artwork for it. So without further ado, I shall pimp a friend, as the kids say. You can check out their music (and the space penguin-heavy cover) HERE. There is some good stuff to peruse and some good music to listen to. For more of Andrew's music you can check out another site of theirs HERE.

Cheer Up Murray

So I haven't posted in a while and I'm studying at the moment, but I had to watch this video to take a break. It's from Flight of the Conchords.

"Navin R Johnson...Sounds like a typical bastard." -The Jerk

Certainly not my best work, but this comes from a quick sketch I did of the main character from one of my favorite movies.

Conan O'Brien saves Abraham Lincoln!

When the writers strike, Conan is forced to tap the inner core of his imagination for jewels like this. I love it.

Critical Mass: Part 2

Here's part 2 to the future hit, Critical Mass!

Critical Mass: Part I

This is the first half of a short film written and co-directed by my brother Chris (I serve as the other co-director). It stars the two of us, our brother-in-law Matt Johnson, our cousin Andy, and older brother PJ. Make it happen...

CJ7, the new Stephen Chow movie

This is a trailer for a movie called CJ7. It's made by the guy who did Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, so my guess is that this will be pretty great, despite the trailer guy's goofy voice.

The Junk Mascot

More junk! If you can believe it, that is! Who's got me? Huh? Huh? Alright, I'll take it down a notch. As with the post below, I have been commissioned by the ever-charming Marshall Johnson to do some art work for his upcoming website, The Junk. The Junk, though I'm not entirely sure of its purpose, will essentially serve as an outlet to...well...again, I don't really know. But here is a possible addition to the site's artistic entourage. I have not finalized the design in terms of color, though I have settled on a foot-person. So, you know...

The Junk Logo

The Junk is a forthcoming website masterminded by good friend and frequent dunce Marshall Johnson. Marshall has asked that I come up with a logo for the site and I have posted some possibilities here. It's fairly simplistic, but that is the sort of toned down look we're going for. Any suggestions on which one is best?

Trip to the Market

I decided my two month old eggs just weren't gonna cut it for dinner tonight. I also felt it was wise to stop blowing $8 picking something (i.e. a massively obese burrito) up from the local Chipotle. A trip to King Soopers was in store. As usual, I encountered all walks of life. Homeless people, a guy and his girlfriend in their pajamas, the short woman in front of me in line who must have tried paying in Yen considering the fact that I was able to grow a beard and retire by the time she was checked out, etc. I bypassed my usual twelve-pack of hamburger patties, deciding that I needed to start eating healthier. Instead, I picked up a pack of processed Hostess donuts (minis!) and three different types of cheese chunks. Finally, I stumbled upon, and I am not making this up, Disney's 'Old Yeller' Chunk Style Dog Food (see picture). Has it really come to this? Has the once all powerful, family-friendly juggernaut actually reduced itself to selling dog food? And why not Pluto brand, or 101 Dalmatians, or Lady and the Tramp Spaghetti Flavored Kibbles? Instead, slobbering away on the front of the bag is the ill-fated, rabid Yeller himself, possibly moments from his tragic end. Yeah! Buy me some of them bits! Also, "Chunk Style"?

THE END!

This long, crazy journey...

Well, as you may know, I had a treacherous journey to Omaha over New Years. Here's a shot of the roads from my journey. At this point, I believe I was picked up by a very kind family who drove me into town so I didn't have to tromp through the snow. So, I got the opportunity to snap this shot.
My car was a bit of a wreck and I had to stop at a gas station to try to rig up the lower engine shield so it wouldn't scrape on the ground. As I knelt down to tie is up with bungee cords, I realized I had just knelt on a dead bird. Poor little guy...
On New Years Eve, we went out to a bar that had a large dance floor. This is Moe along with our friend Mike. I couldn't find a picture of Moe and I where I'm not pulling a stupid face.
I got this shot of a giant ice cream cone atop an old diner from a gas station I stopped at on my way back to Denver. It's not the world's biggest prairie dog, but it was quite something if you ask this guy.
Finally, I learned from my drive TO Omaha that I need to be very attentive while I'm driving. However, the roads were clear and my camera handy, so I snapped a quick shot because I thought the mountains looked really superb.

'Critical Mass' Teaser Clip

A scene to whet your appetite from the forthcoming Fish Taco Production, 'Critical Mass'. The movie was written and co-directed by Chris Gartland and co-directed by Rob Gartland. It stars Chris, Rob, Andy Kobel, Matt Johnson, and PJ Gartland. Stay tuned for the final movie in the coming weeks!