RAMMELLZEE (1960-2010)

admin — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:02:05 +0000

I was a bookish art school kid in the 90’s. Although I had never written on a wall, I delved into the world of graffiti culture through art books, biographies, and magazine articles. You could say I was a nerd.

My favorite artist from graffiti’s heyday was Rammellzee. I would cut out and save images of his artwork from magazines. Then, in a search of a film title, I put his name in my college thesis film. I was young and naive enough to do this. No animators in my circle knew who he was, so I thought I was scott-free. This done at a time when there was no YouTube, and only a handful of video websites.

Rammellzee did eventually find out about my use of his name. Meeting this man was life changing. He was intense, scary, funny, and brilliant, all at the same time. I knew after spending time with Rammellzee, I would never meet another person like him.

I eventually made a film for Rammellzee; completely digital, using little else than a DV camera, photoshop, and After Effects 5.0. My goal was to make the film feel as much like Rammellzee as possible. It was a motion graphics piece, modeled after the digital production studios I admired at the time.

I regret not saying goodbye to Rammellzee. I was not aware he would leave so soon. He will be missed.

Here is an interview that I believe reveals a bit of Rammellzee’s brilliance:

Finally, Alpha’s Bet:

School Doodles

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:57:27 +0000

It’s May, which brings another school year to an end! I had a great time with both of my SVA classes.

Normally, I don’t have time to draw anything for myself during my workshops, but I can squeak one out every now and then. Here is a collage of a few doodles I collected over the spring semester.

Celia B Designs

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:59:05 +0000

I unveiled my new business over the weekend at Mocca. Celia B designs is the handle I use for my textile design ideas. Have a look at my store at ETSY.

Here is my most successful set: cat bird. I nearly sold out over the weekend!

Late Winter Figure drawing

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:15:07 +0000

I’m grateful to have had the chance to draw a model twice in one week, unlike my once a month regimen This time, I used a charcoal pencil.

Enfance Horreur

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:31:32 +0000

Childhood is pretty traumatic, not matter how good it is. It amazes me how afraid people are to make kid’s entertainment “scary”. Kids don’t need much help; they wrote the book on scary!

I dug up some drawings I did when I was about 5 or 6 years old, and a few captured some horrible stuff. Thanks go out to my mother who saved my drawings as a child.

Other kids drawings can be found here.

Ghosty, 1983, graphite on paper.

Fight, 1983, marker on post-it note

If you don’t have an older sibling, this pretty much sums it up

Pop, 1983, graphite on paper.

Figure Drawings

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:04:05 +0000

Starting off the year with some new figure drawings. This model rocked. She did great poses: standing for 5 minutes and flipping off the whole class! Sorry, I’m not posting that one.

More Walks

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:36:13 +0000

The more I make, the better they get. Here are some more walks: a child skipping, and and old lady walking.

Child Skip

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:18:42 +0000

This is another walk test for my film. I animated my main character as a little girl.

I was looking on youtube to find various kinds of skips, but most of the live action skips were of children playing jump rope. What’s worse, most of the animated videos were variations of Preston Blair skips. The most original animated skips were done by CG animators!

I thought she came out better than my first walk. I wonder how the next one will turn out!

Dogs, Part 1

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:43:47 +0000

No pug in particular. Here is a dog character I made based on Rob Dress’s class assignment.

Bobo Bunny Rabs Takes a Spill

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:47:20 +0000

I gave this assignment to my third year animation students. A fat character walks in, and sits in a chair. How this happens is up to the animator.

Bobo was just rough keys, to show my students how to approach this assignment. I decided to finish him off. He was a lot of fun to animate!