Sunday, July 06, 2008

Looking for free time...

Free time.... It's something it seems I haven't had in about a decade or so. When I finally do get a moment or two, I have such a huge list of things I want to do, and rather than just pick one, I pace and fret indecisively until I'm weeping in a corner. A good rule of thumb when I'm heading toward that "weeping corner" is to just drink beer and watch a movie. Solid. But there's always so much to do.... huh, boredom? What's that?
Lately I've been living in a wonderful world of robots and monsters... and I think I'll stay awhile. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you haven't been paying attention to Hollywood minutiae. Here's the link to the official announcement anyway:
Here. Go. Read.
So Bob is keeping me extra busy with both words and pictures. He even asked me to help out with boards for another of his motion capture flicks, hence the lack of real free time.
And I really want to play Hellboy and God of War on my PSP.....
Anyway, I spent a month in New Orleans last January, working on film called Cirque du Freak. You should be seeing trailers for it soon enough... and I'll have boards up when it hits theaters. Most of my nights consisted of video games and dvd's, but, seriously, can you really fill a month of your life with that? Ok, so I know a few folks who could handle that. More than a few. Eep. Not me, though. I wanted to try out a new style that I'd been working in since City of Ember- doing concept boards- and wanted to see how it worked with comic characters. I suppose the goal is to one day attempt a comic that looks like these... or maybe do some covers... and I am trying to work out how to get some color into these without losing the nice, graphic, storybook feel.


The first is from a comic I worked on a while back- When Zombies Attack! A fun book that took just too much time for me to keep up with. I had this pinup idea back when I was working on issue 2, and decided it would make a good first attempt, and I could surprise the guys with it. The second I came up with in New Orleans. I hadn't read any of the BPRD: 1946 issues, since I missed the first and wanted to wait for the trade, but I've always loved the idea. (In fact I'm 85% sure I told Mike that the early adventures of Broom would make a great book way back when we were in Prague together) So I incorporated my love of giant robots and monsters into one of my favorite things I've ever put on paper. I'm still waiting to hear if Mike had any thoughts on it.... maybe he didn't get the email.... maybe I should have asked him about it at the Hellboy II screening.... oh well. I still love it.
That's it for Robot Operator updates. No new film work until something comes out. I'm not sure what's first... City of Ember, Trick 'r Treat, or Hotel for Dogs. I'm going to go paint robots now.

listening to: 16 Horsepower
watching: Kamen Rider Den-O