Mr. Late James Brown

sad day.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/25/D8M7UJT80.html

Out for the Holidays...

Just wanted to say i will be gone for a week. Going back to Texas to see the family. May all of you have a good one. and here is a Christmas card for you all....

(I shall be back Saturday @ 3:30pm December 30th - so mark your calendars!)
;)

high res: available here

a day in the life of a cowboy...

honestly... thats me in the back....

designers mixtape

a very interesting concept of interviewing a studio by their musical taste. also interesting is that mk12 was asked to do theirs :)

I WONDER if you could pick my song out.. (its so obvious)

so long and thanks for all the fish (part 2)

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2083841.ece

"For 20 million years, the white-fin dolphin, or baiji, swam China's longest river, the Yangtze. But a few years of breakneck development, overfishing and a massive increase in shipping have reduced sightings of this shy, graceful creature to zero."

well. what a way to start monday with the sad news of Mankind again being so uncontrollable that we have yet again wiped another animal from extinction. I guess i am just fond of animals and how beautiful nature is. It's what usual inspires me to make crazy crap.

[Part 1]

because whats vegas without strippers?

hehe...
i got to make the inside of a casino today, 1 floor being a stripclub... how fun is that ;)

stepping through the night..

thought i'd make something to post since i haven't posted in like.. awhile. enjoy. this was originally made for my friend val - one of those digital creations for a birthday gift... it was just modded to be a bit different.

cheers

new splash entrance

i took some time to do a doodle, then i decided the index page of friedpixels had to change so i put it there... here is a different more colorful verison.
cheers - enjoy the day/night

edit: apparently google wont let me upload the image.. so.. stare at the one on the front page and imagine it with more color until i can upload the other one tomorrow or something. night.

My bus went up this week with the second part of Blood, Sweat, & Tires. Ben & Tim's buses went up with the Part 1 - be sure to dig through both. Some awesome designs were done! :) this show as mentioned will be opening this friday in NYC, and will be traveling to LA and other places as well!

Mr.Ramirez + San Angelo + Mk12 + STF

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2006/dec/02/artists-work-comes-alive-movie/

The San Angelo Standard Times ,the local paper from my hometown, did a small write up on me for working at mk12, and working on Stranger ThanFiction - it's not too shabby, minus all my goofy quotes, it's fun stuff.

there's a hole in my bucket.. dear...

i remember having to sing that song painfully in elementary school.. but either way. there is indeed a hole... :)

making things animate

because putting capes on astronauts who are in an alley in las vegas is awesome....

oh buddy...

so i havent posted in a few days...
that is most likely due to owning a Wii. I cannot contain my happiness for it. I have been inviting people over since I got it, and perfecting my tennis and bowling game. I have yet to scratch the surface on any of the other games I got, but i am more then happy with my purchase. It is indeed soooo much fun, i cant wait to get four people over with four remote controllers ( i only have two at the moment) but yes.. it is fun, fun, and fun. Nothing has been overwhelmingly disappointing. At times when playing red steel, I do get frustrated with trying to turn around quickly when 18 baddie yakuza are busting caps in your ass - but other than that.. it's solid. Can't wait to take it home for the holidays and show the family.

So apart from not posting anything creative... i just wanted to tell you.. i'm playing my Wii
:)

pretty images of the day

i got to design our new trailer page - which you should go watch our new trailer for our upcoming short film - History of America. It will be grand, and you will love it. But indeed im actually very happy with the graphic, I spent way too long on it, but it came out decent.
secondly:

we work for AMC doing show packages for their Movie of the Month special they run like every sunday or something. but as i was working today, i took a screenshot of my bump. I think the little girl is creepy... it's Natalie Wood.
But either way... enjoy!

Ventilate

So in an interesting turn of events.... i get an email from michael who runs ventilate.ca - turns out he bumped into my site and asked me to contribute to his project. What a great honor to go to a website all the time, and then get asked to contribute to that website... today i made my first post, i hardly feel like im at the top of the food chain, i always feel like i am in second or third because i get my news from all the other blogs / websites when it comes to new art / animations. but either way.. its fun to share your inspirations.

heres a screen of my first post.. hot isnt it? :) go check out the piece i linked by the way, its a very good 3d piece.

dope hotel room...

this is an actual picture from a hotel room, yes... it is amazing.....
so this place had different artist design each room, this is something that i've never seen done before... which makes it incredibly awesome. someone fly me to Germany so i can go stay at this place..

http://www.kuenstlerheim-luise.de/en/rooms/306.htm

oohhh man... ready for the Wii-kend

yep i said it... Wii-kend.. i've joined the cult of people who attach Wii to every word related to the system. Wii-mote, Wii-view, such and but anyways... as im excited about this weekend, i got 2 of my 3 games so far, zelda isnt for sale yet, but here are the goods!!! more later..

in all things of history and of america...

i love my job.
it's always a hard conversation to have when someone is complaining about work and then they are like.. 'ughh how about you? hows your work' - maybe it's refreshing to hear there is actual jobs that people like, and this world although you may have to work to live in it, might not be so bad as it all seems.

either way - recently my job gave me the task of trying to mimic some beautiful boards that were mocked up with a ink wash and splattering effect. now while this is in a 2 1/2 D form pretty simple to pull off, having to do this in a 3-D world that then is composited into a 2 1/2 D world, is another thing. after many, many, failed experiments and testing. i finally came up with something. i don't think it's as efficient as it could get... but its fun. so I thought instead of just linking links, today i'd share some top-secret images from the emkay hq. here is some images from the raw, and some with just alpha, and some random other images like making helmets blowup and some WIP slot machines..

(warning: these images may cause your screen to self destruct shortly after viewing.)

this week in links...

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?threadid=426903

lets see here..
i'll write about it later.. but 'zmen' an artist take on the xmen.. really really reallllyy nice work. some of the best takes on these characters i've seen in awhile.

IM IN UR INTERNTS STEALING ALL UR LINKZ

I have to say back in the day, i was quite good at bumping into untapped resources and having links upon links upon links of crap to dig through. Lately? I've been stuck on checking other peoples blogs, emails, messages on myspace & facebook, and reading every piece of gaming news i can pretaining to the nintendo wii. But it only makes it oh so sweet, when i rub against a fresh new piece of internets!
Today while browsing CGtalk (a website i view daily) I bumped into a post, which bumped into another thread, which bumped into a website, which bumped me into like 5 more. I can't say how excited i was as i clicked away and brought up images that i was inspired by! Like the DJ digging in boxes in a small-hole-in-the-wall music store and finding that one piece of vinyl to take the perfect sample, I found some gems, and i am proud of them! Why would i even take this long breathed, long typed, stupid explanation of these things? Because my friends, i think we sometimes forget the internets is more then porn, news, and porn. It is a place where one can go about themselves randomly and make art, document art, and create art. Then people will link, blog, write about it, not care about it, and it will die eventually.
Everything on the internets is like us. It is born, it passes away, it is remembered, it is forgotten, and it is left only alive by all the people who found it and kept it. Whether you downloaded the images to your computer, or google caches the page, or web-archive created a backup of that website. But somewhere, someday.... a server will go away, people will pass away, files will be deleted, hosting will go away, domains will not renew, or whatever cause it may have, and that file will no longer exist...

how does that make you feel?


ps.
i wanted to be like a true blogger and link for no reason at all... its what they do!! i promise!

pss.
i never knew i had problems with comments, are they fixed now?

psssss
i thought i should give background to my title:
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/booze.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/server.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/inuraccountkd2.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/270916529_3f7b783e6c.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/couch.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/pc.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/drive.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/sink.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/fridge.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/sammich.jpg
http://www.knitemare.org/cats/wheels.jpg

Stranger Than Fiction

To start my long lengthy post which will reveal itself throughout tonight and tomorrow.. i'd like to add the Kansas City Star's article on
MK12 + STF.
Tonight is our screening which many friends and family will attend. I shall document this occasion and also supply pictures here when i get them off my camera! Also here are some other random pictures for you to dwell on until then....



ps.
we updated our site!

http://www.mk12.com

because people matter

in addition to adding a friend as a new link on the side.. i figured i'd first like to introduce you all to summer! (say hi summer) and go visit her work here:


http://www.summerbreault.com/

"so long and thanks for all the fish.."

in the vein of eerie and odd science news we shall have no fish by 2050 - and of course you should not only be ashamed but... sad.
http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/no-fishing-2050-stocks/

perhaps all the fish should just be like the dolphins and just leave us - it would be safer
extra brain matter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/games/dolphins.swf

dont be scurred

the world is flat

while looking for generic imagery of a flat world for reference, i happened to bump into Thomas L. Friedman's lecture at MIT. Now... this is about a book he wrote a little over a year ago.. and I'm just reading about it. Before I ramble... let's link to this site:


http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/
click at the top -> play now -> play it high speed... low speed. crappy, high quality whatever you feel is necessary! But indeed interesting find, amazing information, it is an hour long so.. turn off itunes for an hour and work to his voice.

To finish my ramble later, i'll start with a few sentences... The problem that we have these days, maybe its my problem, there is so much information available to us through so many formats and mediums that we often don't even touch the touch of the pile. Whether its books in a library, the hundreds of magazines produced monthly, or films that are coming out. They all inform us of history both present, past, and future. Either way... I feel at times looking around at all the books we have on our shelves at MK.. and i'm like dang. so much information! :)

either way, nice day, ramble later
james

Buses arrive safely...

Our bus project for http://www.servicio-ejecutivo.com/ has been completed, shipped, and the show opens in December. The show will then tour around to different cities. i'll post more about that as it gets closer to happening and dates popup. for now enjoy the work of Ben Radatz, Timmy Fisher, and myself.

James Ramirez - 2006



Tim Fisher - 2006

Ben Radatz - 2006

emkay twelve vinyl toy

update to and update:
there is pictures out in the wild
http://www.vinylpulse.com/2006/10/graphic_content_2.html

me and ben worked on a toy for a show out in L.A. tomorrow,

http://mixi-bang.com/gc.html

i'll link more info in a bit for now here is pics.

scrapbook of bytes!

as i had to reinstall OSX on my work machine and watch gbs of files transfer over, i watched my documents folder take about as long as my applications and user prefs too to copy. It then hit me that like with everything else that i pack rat away, i am also a pact rat on the computer with quicktime movies. It's like a scrapbook of animation ooh's, awe's, and wow's mixed in with video game footage, and movie trailers. I've always found myself archiving on the computer, because the web is merely a blink of time when thinking about how long a files life span may be... interesting enough... let the stacks of megabyte videos stack, and let's dig till i find that song on that reel that is stuck in my head once again because of Lupe Fiasco... and i also blame van sneed.

Work computer:


Home laptop computer:


?

" "

outline pass - layer 4


highlight pass - layer 3


shadow pass - layer 2

flat out base color - layer 1

finally image with other color layers


if i had it might way, i'd do a quote and image a day, but for now i'm just going to post this, and have best intentions of posting an image for it later. Let's see how this goes!

"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory."
- Rita Mae Brown

----> Edit!!
I acutally did get to draw and upload a sequence of some of the layers.

the paint on the bus goes...

fresh start, this is what built looks like.


disected back to flat form

base coat of spray paint

paint pen applied, one side down.. another one coming..



i think i was happier with it pre-building..

i might have to figure out how to bring back some of the bus lines for this to look right again, im not really sure 100% at this moment what to do. but i know i need to paint the bottom, i thought none of it would show up because of the flaps but its all visible and you can see where i was jabbing the paint pens to get the paint flowing... oh well.. on ward..

working on a bus for an art show, i should finish
it by this weekend!!

:)