19 December 2007

ooo christmas...


mk12 sad christmas tree with random ornaments and toys...

my newest hottest toy - the super awesome hello kitty with a hole in her stomach with a bird.
and last buy not least, my new eboy vinyl toy.

may your holidays be good and merry and most of all safe. i think the holidays usually bring thoughts of shopping and craziness to mind, but i think its also a good time to be thankful for all those around us, sorry to be cheezy but hey happy holidays folks across the world.
cheers!

18 December 2007

newest edition....

to the desktop toy collection... is a sam flores figure from the getsmall series. i really enjoy his work, so it was a no-brainer to pickup this when i found it. if anyone finds me the others, i'll love you. until then.. back to work... got quite a plate full...

17 December 2007

line experiments..





test,play,and junk.

13 December 2007

back in effect


did a quick painter sketch while waiting on renders -- cheers!

12 December 2007

my weekend (in one photo)


The annual TEG christmas party happened and we went to Jamaica -- so in short, i'll be back to posting :) sorry for the lack thereof recently -- but i'll try to get back on top of things :)

05 December 2007

mk12 + History of America + Sundance

i believe in helping google search for things so i title my post with (+ signs)

History of America is an offical selection of the Sundance Film Festival.... which means we get to add the famous little logo on our movie, which honestly if i ever step into a movie rental place, i look at those titles only usually -- like OOohh this film has like 4 of those film awards and selections! let's read the back! -- but really we're excited. That gives us the Montreal Film Festival official selection and Sundance, we're slowly teaching the real stories of our American childhood.

http://www.historyofamerica.tv/

04 December 2007

(insert rant)

well no artwork to show here - i've sorta been unproductive the past few days outside of work -- but apart from that, i just wanted to sorta note how rich our lives are. I find it somehow daunting to know even if we tried to read everybook available it would be impossible, or even trying to read every news article -- we produce so much writing in various forms both physical and digital that it seems you can never possibly know everything. Not that we should know everything -- but at the same time that this blows my mind, it amazes me that we can go everyday in our lives learning. Of course by choice -- you could wake up, sit on your couch and do absolutely nothing, but even if you did that and turned on the tv, you could learn about recipes, wildlife, news stories, so on and so on -- or you can get on the internet and looking up anything your mind possible yearns for. But besides all of that being so overwhelming, i think the heart of my post is -- i love the fact that my work relies on me learning. Not only in a technical sense of learning new programs or techniques, but learning how to do my job, do it efficiently, and create beautiful imagery in both ideal and extreme cases.

Count the amount of things you learn in a day, you could impress yourself. Even if its things you don't want to learn -- like how many oreo's your best friend can stuff in their mouth --
either way -- over and out. gnight,
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.- Marie Curie

29 November 2007

photoshop extended play..


here is a link. just messing around.. (animated gif)

23 November 2007

drawing the day away...




i sat down infront of my desktop and wanted to draw so... here is the image and some of the layers?

21 November 2007

mk12 updates and i'm back


i just wanted to post that we finally got around to doing a small update to our website. Finally got up all of the Budweiser spots we have done, the mastercard spot, and some news items in the news section. Also on a side note, i'm back and starting to function on a normal schedule again so -- i'll be around again. Hope you have a good Thanksgiving, and give some thanks.

13 November 2007

new york magazine + history of america


there is a feature on web films: and history america is there with an interview for your viewing pleasure. excerpt.
"As you might imagine, The History of America is very, very funny, but the humor is secondary to the hypnotic pull of the film’s epic drive. It’s like someone got John Ford, Michael Bay, and Monty Python together to direct an animated version of War of the Worlds."

08 November 2007

up and away


im out in the UK so i wont be doing as regular of updates but i did a speed doodlicious for you all. as my internet time for today ends.. <3 you all be back on the regular on the 16th ish

04 November 2007

Raindrops and Pixels....



our new mastercard ad has been all over the place from television, to the movies, the web and now destroyed by youtube. If you haven't seen it, i wouldnt suggest this be your first viewing of it - but here is a youtube link. it's also up on priceless.com

cheers

30 October 2007

thinking of you.


rough sketch for a doodle. just base coats, no cleaning up, and the squiggles arent even doing anything constructive for that composition. but alas. doodles and sketches gotta get out of my head.

26 October 2007

HAPPY HALLOWEEN


from me to you. cheers.

25 October 2007

making still images..


in taking a miniature break from another bud animation while things render - i'ma making something in still image form.. it's just an element but.. i thought i'd share. nothing fancy here.

24 October 2007

23 October 2007

no skull sitting policy


how rude.

silly rabbit...


no match for my rabbitron beltinator!

22 October 2007

Unite for children on FEED.


sorry i'm still geeked that i have work in a book.. [link to feed]

mk12 invades times square...



ok there isn't any invading that already over polluted and noisy place, BUT you can add to it ;) - either way, some of the comcast stuff we worked on was transformed into what i'll call an installation of some sort where a few animations that were put together for air are complied into. here's pictures to describe this mobojumbo. thanks to martin murphy for the photos :)

21 October 2007

Meet Herman


I think through the years of drawing characters, everyone always ask me if I have names for any of them... well I don't honestly.. but I was driving the other day and was like wow.. herman is an awesome name for one of my guys, thus he was born. I'll say to distinguish herman from the rest of the guys and gals is how he dresses. Herman likes to always look sharp, with his hair clean, with his shirt tucked in, and he likes to rock clip on bow ties, or just clip on ties... ;)

ps - the surrounding doodles, the continuous stupid is from a conference call, and the top letters are from another conference call... when i'm drawing I always just pick up random words that are being said around me usually.. so thats why I usually have the most random word fragments in my sketchbooks. ;)

17 October 2007

UNCIEF + MK12 + 60uniteforchildren




Well i posted the sketch awhile back on here, and talked about the APAG making a book for UNICEF - and now here it is. They shipped us one copy for our office and I have to say the book looks fantastic. All of the artwork is beautiful, and the printing is great, and and and.. it's just great. The only downside being that for my piece I didn't get credit :(, well they credited Ben since he emailed both mine and his submissions, but oh well right? This is for a greater cause, and those who know me, know I did it anyways! :)

Onwards - You can view their website [here] buy the book [here] and check them out on facebook [here] All proceeds from the book go to UNICEF

A little about the project if you don't know:

12 October 2007

the artist has fingerprints (continuation) ..





awhile back i started posting some stuff about my process in making things.. in particular how i try to keep my fingerprints in my art.. whether that means keeping things from not being 100% vector, or adding textures to bring back some organic feeling into images...
either way - here is a little of the process of making the history of america swag bags. from making the graphic in illustrator, printing it out in reverse, transferring that to something to cut out, exacto-fy the image, tape up the back so it last longer, and spray paint 500 bags.

references: [one] [part a] [UNICEF process]

08 October 2007

the last bottle for now...


as promised here is photos of the other bottle from the diptych i mentioned. busy as ever, and hopefully will get around to some more art sooner than later.. but this week is surely going to be the busiest i've had in awhile.... oh and i've included a really bad composite of both the bottles together.. the girl isn't lined up quite right, but you get the picture.. right?

04 October 2007

when you are far away...



i did this bottle diptych for my lady while shes at grad school. she took the great photos for me to collage together like the other bottle i showed. I need to shoot the other bottle in this set, but for now here is the bottle and sketch. cheers

03 October 2007

splittery splattery...


here's a doodle. i'm so tied up with work I havent had much time to do some solo stuff, but i do have some stuff i want to post, once i get my sketchbook near a scanner that works, and once i take some time im photoshop to put some photos together of another bottle. until then.. cheers.

27 September 2007

may this day be one to remember...


not that it is the upmost important, not because i'm president today, but because today is the day that the MK12 History of America is now on the internets.... not only is it on the internets, but you can download it.. what are you still doing here? Go tell your grandma too... she needs to know what really happened...
http://www.historyofamerica.tv

Thanks to our good friend micheal over at ventilate for hosting it! Also check out the other great work that is included in this update, there is lots of fantastic work up there as well in issue 19!
cheers!

(edit / update)
here is some more links for those that are having trouble viewing the movie..
http://www.historyofamerica.tv/_hoaDownload.html - ventilate & mk12 download links
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32vpt_history-of-america - flash streaming
http://www.historyofamerica.tv/mk12_hoa_full.torrent - bittorrent

sorry for all the congestion, traffic has been crazy across our website and ventilate, it happens when you release a 30 minute movie on the internet as small and compressed as you can make it without compromising quality.

25 September 2007

my weekend projects...

amongst doing work related projects, i was able to squeeze in some quality time on two new pieces. One is on a Red Stripe bottle, and one is one a piece of plexi (acrylic) glass. both were taken with my future phone.. so not the bestest of quality. cheers and love - james

20 September 2007

september goes to you...


Grandpa - i met this guy out in brasil... and his work preceded him before i met him. But let me say, if you dig cool illustrations, and beautiful imagery.. either way, here go look at his work and tell me what you think, pretty darn amazing eh?

http://furrywater.wordpress.com/

edit:
uh oh! i must say i've made a mistake about the above illustration! It is a friend of his that he posted, due to my lack of Portuguese i failed to read that.. my apologies.. but still his work is still amazing hah! The illustation is Walter Pax, check his stuff out here.

19 September 2007

a brief history of...















my characters... not a full history by any means, and there is lots of years and variations missing, but digging through one folder i found some good examples of the evolution, maybe one day i'll make a pdf of it from start to finish as far as i can track it. would be interesting to see.