I'm currently storyboarding a friend's thesis film. Its called "Sleep Fight." The film is about this guy who has this epic fight in his sleep and gets his butt kicked. Here is one of my favorite drawings from it thus far.

These all nighters are going to make me better, right?



Storyboarding for a friends Thesis Film. Its called "Sleep Fight." Sounds appropriate.....

So here is the finished piece! Its not really finished completely. There are a few things to tweak like the overlapping action in his hair. Also he could blink on "begin" and his eyebrows aren't very strong, but forget all that now! I did my first dialogue animation and I think it came out freakin sweet! Feeling very good I must say.

The character is the giant from that old Mickey and the Giant Disney cartoon.

So here is a VERY rough pass at the dialogue assignment. The previous video wasn't just to make me look stupid. I was going somewhere with it. Anyway ,as you can see, there are a few places where I can hold and quite a few more frames to add. Plus the mouth shapes. But I think its no too shabby for my first ever dialogue piece. More to come!

I also just wanted to say thanks to Sean Carrow. He sat with me and did a very basic but effective "crash course" type of demonstration for overall animation. The above result is essentially the result of his help. Check him out at www.seancarrow.com

Video reference is silly. Helpful but silly. For my first dialogue piece I decided to record myself to watch things like opposing action and overall movement. My buddy Sean filmed me, and suggested I record myself in the first place. I'll post the video of my animation to give you context once I finish it. In the meantime try not to laugh...

Here is the final illustration/doodle. I'm pretty happy with the final result. There are a few things I'm going to button, such as tighten up the triangle in the background. I think I'm also going to put playing cards somewhere in there. I think they would look cool flying out of his cuffs. Who knows. Eventually I will submit it to my schools magazine and hope for publication.

Hello All,

As six in the morning approaches, I have finally completed my cover letter, resume, and business card tweaks for the LAIKA submission here at SCAD. For those who don't know who LAIKA are, they're responsible for the stop-motion film "Coraline." Amazing stuff to say the least. Needless to say, however, its been a long and stressful week and I cannot wait for it to be over.

Here's to hoping for an interview!!

I finished the line art. Now it needs color. I wanted to do a retro-esque color scheme but I'm not sure. I'll have to go online and check out UPA cartoon color swatches. In the mean time, its 5:00 am and I'm beat.

Hi mom and dad!

So I have abandoned my previous magician doodle and replaced it with this one. I'm not even sure if he's a magician or a waiter. He doesn't have and defining characteristics thus far. I based the pose off of a storyboard drawing I did for an assignment at school. You can find the storyboard at www.zakshapiro.com under storyboards!

As an animation grad student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, we are required to create a thesis film. I came up with a story/idea last year and think I am going to pursue it. It would be traditionally hand drawn, no more than a minute and a half long. Short and sweet.

Here is a sneek peak look!

Here is a very rough look at an illustration I am currently working on. I'm honestly not even sure where I'm going with it. It's supposed to be, or going to be I should say, a magician and a rabbit. I'm attempting a different style in my character design. It's proven to be quite tricky. I suppose that's what happens when you leave your comfort zone though....more to come soon!

Hey All!

My website is currently online! It's a work in progress, but I am very happy with the current result. Many thanks to Doug Horak, (http://dougisprettycool.blogspot.com/) , for the help.

www.zakshapiro.com

check it out!!

here is the new version. as you can see, things like color and design have changed slightly, but its pretty close to the original. also, you can now see how i "shade" my characters. its very subtle but present. i think when you have simplified characters like these, less is more. i also threw shadows under where the ducks overlap each other which helps them pop off the page. i also darkened the ducks that appear to be behind the foreground ones. i think this gives the piece a sense of depth.

i'm glad i went back into this one. i think it helps sometimes to re-visit old work and apply new things that you've learned to make pieces stronger. this piece is called, "Duck, Duck, Goose!" by the way :)

so when it came time to re-do this illustration, I had to change a few things. one of which was the character design. the old duck is a bit boxy and squared off in the bill. some angles don't work either. they were minor changes but i feel that they greatly improved the overall aesthetic of the character.

you can see a few notes i wrote here. i also toyed with the idea of changing the color palette, but decided that the original colors worked fine. 

here is an old illustration i did back in undergrad. the assignment was called "break the pattern." i really enjoyed this assignment, mainly because i was able to go super cartoony with it.

there are a few things i don't like about it though. for one, the rendering on it is a bit weak. i was trying to render and shade the characters but it just didn't work. I usually simplify the shadows and highlights, but here i went a little too far. also there is no black "line art" outlining the characters. i think this makes it hard to see them and as a result they don't pop off the page.

i post this because i re-drew it lately. i changed a few things on it however that really make the piece stronger

I was looking through some old artwork and found a whole bunch of work from my undergrad days. needless to say it was most entertaining! (I got my B.F.A. in illustration at the University of Hartford in Hartford Connecticut.) here is a piece I had done for our thesis illustration showcase before graduation. I'll post some more older work here and there....

more thumbnails.

in my character animation class, we're diving into our first,(and my first ever), dialogue piece. We're using the giant from the old Disney short where Mickey stars in a "jack and the beanstalk" paradoy. It's just a face-on view of the character, concentrating more on mouth shapes than him bouncing all over the screen. here are a few sketchbook thumbnails i did relating to it.

more inspiration. (All images belong to those who own them. duh.)

like every artist, and every creative mind for that matter, I have several influences and styles that have shaped and molded me into the animator/cartoonist I am today. I grew up watching The Looney Tunes and all the Disney animated features. With Looney Tunes, I fell in love with the "Roadrunner and Coyote" shorts. "Aladdin" for Disney features. I also grew up with Nickelodeon and shows like "Rocko's Modern Life" and "Ren and Stimpy," are two that really made an impression. As I got older, "South Park," "Family Guy," and "The Simpsons" played a part as well. There are also many more, too many to name.

I made these inspiration sheets as a quick visual guide to show individuals how I became what I am today.

I was looking at some old work I did back in my undergrad days and stumbled across this old aquatint etching piece.I vaguely remember the process. What I do remember was that you'd have to burn certain parts for so long to create value. You can see an early first appearance of my vampire character on the couch!

here's another drawing relating to the previous posts. after the quick doodle,(the drawing with the kid holding the ice cream cone), I redrew it and liked this version better. the rest is as follows...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WApcUBcVMos&noredirect=1

my good friend Sean Carrow, to see his work visit www.seancarrow.blogspot.com, sent this to me and I have been passing it along ever since. Its a video of legendary cartoonist and animator Ralph Bakshi explaining current animation issues, how to overcome them, the repetitive Hollywood trend of pumping out sequels and how easy it is for a few friends to sit down and make a short film of their own. Needless to say he hits the nail on the head more than once and it's worth watching.

I'm hoping the video will appear, but if not, please copy/paste the url!

...and here is the finished piece!

here is the finished line art....

here is a quick doodle i made two years ago

here is the finished drawing of the clown. I drew and inked him in Flash. I had said before that I really like flash and the line quality you can get in your work. most people i know don't like it because it auto corrects your lines and often times can leave tiny blobs where lines intersect, etc. It can get annoying but I click the pressure setting button to on and I feel like I still have control over my lines even if its getting cleaned up here and there. I've always been pleased with the overall look of flash though, and will continue to use it.

now i just need to animate him!

with the recent post of my clown spot doodle, i wanted to show off the entire drawing featuring the same character. In fact, this picture came first and i just used his head for the spot.

the above drawing is a neat "behind the scenes" as to how i work. I wanted to make a dynamic drawing of this clown character. I started off with the light blue and as you can see, its not a very exciting pose. Very stiff, visually boring, and flat. No sense of depth. I ended up taking his top half and pushed it back into space. I wanted to play with the fact that he is a very tall and skinny character, so getting the proper perspective was essential. By doing so I was reminded of the comic artist "R.Crumb" in particular his popular "keep on truckin'" drawing. I think its a good example of a flat character looking quite dimensional. In any event, I borrowed that same pose and it was exactly how I saw the drawing in my head.

I had done a storyboard based off of a Shel Silverstein poem called "Cloony the Clown." If you haven't read the poem I suggest you take a look. In fact, just check out his poetry and artwork. Great stuff. In any event, I was drawing this clown character for a while and made this quick spot illustration. I inked and colored it in Flash. I really like Flash's line quality (a remark that always gets me disgusted looks from my fellow animator friends).

I intentionally offset the coloring. I really like the pastel colors too. Just a fun overall aesthetic I"ve been experimenting with in my latest work. 

this is my favorite one. I ended up using this key but I pushed the gesture even further.

in my excitement, (perhaps dorkery), of my blog I had to make a new post. Here are a few key frames from an animation exercise I am currently working on. Unfortunately I had to abandon them (they were either slowing the piece or just unnecessary drawings) but I liked em' and wanted to share them.

It begins...

well, I've done it. I have finally created a blog. Although I have hesitated, I have finally taken that necessary step. I made a quick cartoon illustrating the point of no return....