The Art of Malcolm Thomas

Flight of Fancy

2011-06-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

My First "Completed" short film at College of the Canyons.

Sorry for being so abrupt with this. I've been keeping it hush hush for as long as I know. But, yeah here it is "Flight of Fancy" A.K.A. "Malco's Flight", A.K.A "Malco and Cyrus", A.K.A "Three Months of my life that I'll never get back".

In all serious, I really learned a lot from this little trip as well as gotten some knowledge from a few great artists, the likes of James Sugrue, Michael J. Ruocco, and Sandro Cluezo. Despite that, I've had to deal with a few personal hardships in order to get this done (I.E. Having to find a torrent for Flash CS5, My sister moving back in with me and my folks, just to name a few) But there was one thing that kept me from going completely insane and that was the support and encouragement from my instructor, Masha Vasilkovsky. Every time I would walk in the class room, talking in nothing but grunts, and my hands balled up into fists, she would always come up to me and give me a reason to continue. With all said and done, I feel like I've really accomplished something. Granted, it isn't exactly what I originally intended (Trust me, my original concept was MUCH longer), it was a great experience for me.

So, does this mean I won't do it again....

Time will tell....

Lifting a Burden.

2011-03-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm sure that most of you who have followed me have noticed that my DA account is long gone. Well, after some serious thought and self reflection, I decided to shut it down. I know it's a bit of a disappointment, but for me it's the best decision I've ever made.

I joined DA back when I was 12. During those early years, I didn't exactly make a good impression. I didn't have a scanner of my own, so I posted someone else's work and said it was my own. I constantly argued with people who didn't agree with me on certain subjects, pestered people into drawing things for me, and to add insult to injury, got mad at people who would call me out whenever I did something stupid. Needless, to say I was going nowhere fast.

Then, when I finally got a scanner and started posting my "real" work, I got so much of a swollen head from all the comments and faves that I thought I didn't need to improve. Of course, I was dead wrong. But, even when my artwork was improving, my social skills and my health were still at square one. I became to obsessed with trying to get more "street cred" on the site that I let my life pass me by.

This became even more of a problem considering that this was going on during high school. The only way I thought I could make friends in real life is by asking any body with a sketchbook if they had a DA account.

It didn't take me until late last year to realize that I've wasted my time on something that would grant me no beneficial joy in anyway shape or form. While, I admit that it did give me an opportunity to meet a lot of naturally talented artists, it didn't really assure that I would meet any of them personally (unless, it was at a convention) or that they would want to be affiliated with me in anyway. I tried to take a break from it, but I kept getting lured back with false hopes that people would actually listen to me as a person.

All said and done, I still feel that closing my account was a wise decision. It gives me a chance to catch up with my life and from the looks of it, it's going to be long way to go.

Delayed post and regained happines

2011-03-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hey folks.

I'm back and here to stay.

Here have some art on the house.

Going lineless in 2011

2011-01-21T04:20:00.000-08:00

Hey all. Happy (extremely) belated new year. As you might have guessed, I've been experimenting with Photoshop recently. Trying to test out a different style just for the sake of development. Tell me what you think.

Project: Seagull - Malco J. Hawkingfisher Bio

2011-01-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

Name: Malco. J. Hawkingfisher

Age: 20

Story: Malco is the grandson of the famous adventurer, Nathaniel Hawkingfisher. Ever since he was a child, He’s always admired his grandfather and would tell about the great things he did. The only downside is that those stories were already labeled as “lies” and “false propaganda" against the richest and most powerful man in the city, worsening the reputation of himself and his family. He stopped believing in his grandfather’s stories when he started getting older and noticed the way he was treated by the residents of hometown, secluding him from the public and keeping a low profile. It wasn’t until he discovers that one of his grandfather’s “presumably” extinct creatures is still alive, where he realizes his true calling and searches for more of his grandfathers discoveries to clear up the family name.

Personality: Malco is very self-cautious. He constantly looks back at moments of his life and how he could have changed them. But when he is searching for treasure or talking out plans with his crew he opens up and becomes more optimistic and carefree, while also showing signs of authority and leadership.

Bah Humbug

2010-12-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

In this economy, you'd be a Grinch too.

Let's do the Time Warp Again

2010-12-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

Since we're getting closer to the new year, I thought it would be great to do a little bit of a personal time line with a few old character designs I had laying around in my bins. Does all that time make a difference? You tell me.

Old Wizard

2005:

again in 2007:

2010 (present day)

Boss Man

2005 (Started it, but never finished it):

2010:

Stork and Frog

2005:

2010:

still has perspective problems, but much better in terms of structure

Tan Moori the Cow Swami:

2008:

2010:

Fairy:

2007:

2010:

Genie:

2006 (Don't ask about the cannon):

2010:

"The one thing that separates art from reality, is that when you get better you can redo mistakes you made in the past."- Malcolm Thomas, December 18, 2010.

Project: Seagull

2010-12-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I feel terrible about this. I'm working on a pitchbook for a show/webcomic/movie/ derpity-derpity-doo, that stars a character that I've had for years, Malco J. Hawkingfisher.

Here's the basic synopsis:

In the 1930’s, there lived a great adventurer by the name of Nathaniel Leonardo Hawkingfisher. He had traveled the world, making one new discovery after another. One of his most well known discoveries was the Sea Serpent colony of Scalar Island. After finding the creatures, he decided to keep them on preserve on a private island instead of selling them for display. His longtime companion and soon to be arch-rival, Artemis Falcon wanted to use the preserve as a way to sell the serpents as alternative means of seeking treasure. He made Nathaniel an offer of $300 million in exchange for the preserve. Fortunately, he willingly refused and the deal was cut off. Shortly after, he receives news that Artemis and his minions have infiltrated the preserve. He threatened to kill off the entire colony if he did not sell him the preserve as well as surrender his reputation as a treasure hunter. So, on the fifth of December 1965, he announced that everything he discovered was really made by Artemis and that he “lied” just for fame and glory. Decades later, we see his grandson, Malco, who is a resident of Casa Pajaro, California. Ever since he was a child, he would always talk about the adventures of his grandfather and all the great things he did. Unfortunately, during this time, all of those stories were labeled as “lies” and “false propaganda” and that any mentioning of them would be an act of heracy, giving both he and his family a bad reputation. He lives in an apartment under his landlady, Mellissa Swann. Things turn out for the worse bought out buy a conglomerate cooperation that's taken over the city, leaving himself and his neighbors homeless. So, he and Melissa decide to leave the drudgery of the city by taking a small boat trip. During their vacation, they crash on a distant island. After they argue about what to do, they separate and stay on two different halves of the island. While looking for a place to sleep, Malco sees a smaller island that looks like it's covered in grass. As he moves closer, he sees a giant, green, moss covered rock on the island. But when he steps on to the island, two eyes appear on the moss-covered rock and the island begins to rise. In complete and udder shock, Malco realizes that the island was actually the head of a Sea serpent. So Malco tries to convince Mellissa that they should take the serpent back home to prove that his grandfather's stories were all true. She eagerly agrees only to try to sell it as soon as they make it back to the city. Knowing that they can't go back to the city in the condition the boat is in; they decide to travel back using the Sea Serpent. While trying to find a way toward the city, they have to make a few stops to set up a contact station. With each stop, they run into another piece of his grandfather's adventures.

Yeah. It's pretty long and a tad vague, but I'm sure you got the gist of it. I've decided to place Malco in a much more dramatic and open setting, much like in the sense of Carl Bark's Scrooge McDuck comics as well as Jeff Smith's Bone. I'll be posting some character bios here and there once I've gotten some concrete work done. 'till then give me your thoughts on the story. Peace out.

Honey! I'm home

2010-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys! It's been a while hasn't it?
I've got very little time to talk, so I'm just gonna go straight to the updates.

The fall semester is finally over and Winter break had already begun on Monday. I got my grades back on Tuesday. Oh and remember the last time I got my grades for fall...

Fall 2009:

Yeah.....

Fall 2010

Straight A's all around.

On a down side. I saw my doctor last week and he told me I was nearly a diabetic. So, I'm going to be busy trying to lose a couple of pounds. I have to get 30 minutes of exercise daily.

Making things more difficult, I have some personal projects that I really want to finish up on. But thanks to doctor's orders, I can't get back to them. However, I can give a little bit of progress with one project in particular, to keep you all in the loop.

That's about it for now, I'll be posting more stuff later on. 'till then Peace.

Project Seagull is on the way

2010-11-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are curious about Malco's whereabouts...

Malcolm goes Real

2010-10-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys. I just wanted to let you know that I have a new blog for my life studies/gesture sketches. I dub it: Malcolm Goes Real. Go check it out and tell me what you think.

Misterm Mishap

2010-10-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I hated that last post too. In lighter news,

I just turned in the midterm for my storyboard class yesterday. We basically had to pick three Disney characters (Movies, TV, etc.) and create a story about it. I originally intended to do three of Eric Goldberg's characters, but I couldn't really think of a story for them. Around that time, I remember having a conversation with Ben Anders on facebook. He recommended that I try making my problem become the characters problem. So, I nixed the "Goldberg Boys" concept and decided to do a comedy about Max Goof and Kim Possible as College students discussing a midterm assignment in a class taught by Donald Duck. The ending result...this. Off-model characters, generic story, and a HORRIBLY cliche' ending. Enjoy....please?

Old Meme, New (and more depressing) twist

2010-10-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

For those of you are curious about this, it's a play on an old drawing and extremely short lived meme on DA created by Niko Anesti back in 2006. It had that sort of "funny cause it's not true" humor to it. So, I decided to take a more realistic approach to it. Looking back at all my failed attempts at scoring a relationship and knowing the harsh fact that my career of choice will never let me.

Happy Birthday, Niko. :)

September Sketch Madness!

2010-10-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing Dump

2010-08-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Last Batch of Mickeys

2010-08-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Bird Studies July 2010

2010-08-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

Over Due Sketch Dump

2010-08-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

Mickey Redux

2010-06-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

These were done last month after I got feed back by Amir Avni regarding my last Mickey study sketches. He told me that the body was too big compared to the head. So, I thought I'd fix that problem by drawing different poses.

Life Drawing - May 2010

2010-06-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing 4/10

2010-04-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

Less Emo post

2010-04-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! I just want to say thank you to everybody who responded to the last post. Rest assured I'm feeling much better. I'm still drawing and I plan to continue for as long as I can. I think this pretty much sums up what I've learned from that little moment of self exploration:

I know we've all seen this before but it's a pretty accurate description of what I've been going through and a combination of what everybody has told me after my last post.
Thanks again, everybody. I'm gonna keep on truckin' from here on in.

Wasted Accomplishments

2010-04-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get that feeling, where you do something right for yourself or somebody else and you think that people are going to be proud of you for what you did, but in reality nobody gives a shit? I'm starting to feel that way in both my school work and my artwork. I've known a lot of people who have told me that they draw because it makes them happy. There was a time when I used to think the same way. Back when I was 10, I drew pictures of my favorite cartoon characters all the time and I would have them be in situations with a little bird character that I saw as an extension of myself, making him able to do things that I want to do, but cant. I didn't really care about that fact at the time, I just drew it because I thought it was funny. As I grew older, I used this as a flashlight to guide me for what what would be my future career. Up until I decided to showcase my work over the internet at the age of 13. At that point I drew for selfish reasons. It would become apparent later that my artwork needed vast amounts of improvement and that I ignored the basics of art. It has been five years later, and I'm in a stage of regret. I've spent years doing something that would usually make me happy and turned it into a method of competition and narcissism. Now, every time I draw, I feel like I've wasted what could have been a life of eternal happiness and normality. I constantly try to suppress this feeling by being more socially active and try to communicate with other artists, but even that feels like a wasted effort. After looking back at all of the things that I've done in the past, I keep thinking to myself "Why do you even bother? They do not see you as an artist. They see you as a pretentious fan boy. They could care less about you. You would die tomorrow and nobody would show up at your funeral no matter what you did for them. They won. You lost." I don't know what to do with my career at this point but for now, I'm going to focus on what is really important and that is my school work and hopefully I'll find that one spark that would give my life meaning.

M-I-C...K-E-Y

2010-03-22T17:26:00.001-07:00

The Modifyers

2010-03-16T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! It's a Dead Horse! Let's beat it!

The Modifyers from Cartoon Funland Studios on Vimeo.

Seriously, they do not hire people who actually know anything about cartoons in Hollywood now a days. I love this pilot. It's a visual and audio treat for cartoonists and cartoonists in training. The background designs have a bit of a 60's flow to them and by that I don't mean like "Hannah-Barberra" I mean like that "shag-a-delic" Austin Powers design and I love it. While I don't really have that much connection with the main characters, I LOVED the villain,Baron Vane played by one of the many voices of my childhood, Paul Rugg. You know the "Jerry Lewis" guy from Animaniacs. I always love hearing him voice a villain because he goes so "over the top" and crazy that you can't help but laugh. But overall, I still loved the show. While the writing was "okay" I felt very relieved looking at a real cartoon again.

Preston Blair Studies

2010-02-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

As I still look for that little click in my mind, I thought I'd work on my constructional skills. These sketches were actually done about three weeks ago. They've certainly helped my observational skills greatly.

Artistic confession

2010-02-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

For years, I've been entertaining people with my artwork. I've had some good times and I've had some bad times. But, through out those times, I've always felt an emptiness whenever I would do my work. Earlier this week, I found out what it was. I never found my true "drive". I wasn't drawing through emotion or inspiration, I was just "drawing" and it made me feel a bit foolish when I kept thinking to myself that I was trying to stand out. I was curious to know what people thought of my gallery throughout the years. Last week, I've gotten feedback from artists who have stepped up since I've watched their work and have watched mine since I started putting up my art. Many of it was positive, yet constructive. But I have to say, the most constructive out of all of them was by Dirk Erik Schulz. He wasn't sure how I was going to react once he gave me his critique, but I told him I wasn't worried. The next day or so, I received a full crit of my gallery, and he pretty much hit every nail on the head, and I love it!

One of the main points he brought up was that most of my work was very reminiscent of Kyle Carrozza's, which is absolutely true. I've made this point clear time and time again, that Kyle was the main reason I started on Deviant Art. The reason I originally made an account to show off some of my artwork to him and him only. When I first started off, I was just copying his eyes, facial features, etc. and putting them on different faces. It's pretty "head-bludgeoningly" obvious in some of my earlier pieces. After that, it just stuck with me and looking back at it now, it felt like I wasn't putting that much effort into any of my work. One thing that Dirk suggested was to try and redraw all of Kyle's expressions.
But the strangest thing is, once I did, my creative insomnia was cured for life. My mind at that point just went blank and I stopped drawing in the way I would usually draw.

Another point that Dirk brought up was that most of my stuff doesn't have a lot of construction put into it. Now, this is something that has been brought to my attention before by both Neil Ando and Ben Anders. Neil brought this up in my Walk Cycle animation that in both life drawing and art in general, that when you copy something, you have to get as close as humanly possible and not close with a splash of "you". Ben, made it very clear that construction was something that I have been lacking ever since I started off. He suggested that I do a few exercises that were on John K's blog, most of which I've done before hand. If I may go on a tangent here. For a while, I didn't want to touch anything involving John K because of something that happened a few years back that I don't wish to talk about. But after reading his blog and doing some of his exercises, I can see that he's only trying to help out people like me, rants aside. So, I give him a little bit of my respect for that. Anyway, back to the feedback. After doing some of the construction exercises, I noticed that whenever I would copy something it would always be either wonky or disproportionate (which Dirk had also pointed out) and you can see it here:

and here's what I wrote down for Lines of action:

and proportions:

The third thing that Dirk had pointed out, was that I've been putting to much on my plate at once i.e. Life drawings, creature drawings, animation, etc. and he's right. While I have to admit it was fun trying out different mediums, it was far too much to put on my plate especially with school clinging on to my back. Dirk made it clear that I have to get the basics right if were ever to move on to anything else.

Which brings me to the strong point of Dirk's critique. I have not been challenging myself. Looking back at everything I've done, I was really just posting drawings for other people, but I didn't draw them for myself. So, from here on in I'm going to challenge myself to draw more frequently. One thing that Dirk suggested was that I try to draw 100 different heads and expressions in one week to understand the hierarchy and construction. And once I've learned everything about head construction, I'll move on to the body, and once I've sucked everything in and that one "click" in my mind goes off, I'll finally have my true drive.

Which is why I'm having a hard time deciding what I should do now. One part of me says that I should start a new account, while the other half is telling me take a long hiatus from DA and come back when I REALLY have my stuff together. Till, then I'm going to continue my challenge and wait for that one "click" to go off. Thanks for listening and Peace out.

Malco and the Sea Serpent

2010-01-25T13:28:00.000-08:00

I've finally over come my fear of Art Rage.
At first I didn't want to touch the thing because, I wasn't pleased with the line quality. But now, I have defeated the Art Rage Monster and made this...

Animation

2010-01-22T22:08:00.000-08:00

Yeah, apparently I've also been doing some animations last year.

First, one is a "pose to pose" dialogue of Leroy with vocals by the magnificent Joshua Tomar.

Leroy Dialouge Animation-Roughs from Malcolm Thomas on Vimeo.

another is a walk cycle of an Alien for my flash animation final.

Alien Walk Cycle from Malcolm Thomas on Vimeo.

more animations coming your way so stay tuned.

2010, coming back to an abused and forgotten blog

2010-01-21T18:45:00.000-08:00

GIVE ME A P!
P!
GIVE ME A "RO"!
"RO"!
GIVE ME A "CRAST"!
"CRAST"
GIVE ME A NATION!
NATION!

WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?
MALCOLM THOMAS!

Okay, this is why I haven't updated in a while...

INTUOS4 GET!

Waco: Hi, Malcolm. I'm here to compensate for your lack of Wacom Technology.
Malcolm: Great! Now I can do those old memes that everybody did on DA three years ago!
and speaking of...

Fella's little whore
But the best one of all was...
WINTER FINALS!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!

Now that I've practically weaseled my way out of forgetful posting, I now get back to what I was supposed to do. After days and days of meditation, shock therapy, and acupuncture just to get 2009 completely out of my system. Till then, Peace y'all.

A guessing game

2009-12-16T22:00:00.001-08:00

Guess which artist I'm trying to imitate and win a prize...
subtle hint: If it weren't for him, Shannon Tindle, and Dan Krall, Coraline wouldn't look the way she does now.

A banner

2009-11-25T11:41:00.000-08:00

Just look up and or just look at the screen and tell me what you think.

A Moment of Truth

2009-10-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

There aren't going to be any pictures on this post.

I want to take a moment to give everybody a rundown of what's been going on lately. Aside from school and the fact that I am now officially an adult, I've been having some trouble focusing on my artwork. And I already know the reason why. Before my dad and I went to Comic Con, I thought I'd bring my portfolio. I added some new artwork in it, including my storyboards for Squiggly. I showed it to a few of my favorite artists, and they thought some of the stuff was pretty good. The storyboards were the only thing I had problems on. Even Mark Walton (storyboard artist of Bolt, Home on the Range and Chicken Little) told me that I need to tweak them up to make them readable for the audience. At first I thought he meant by just adding the actions below some of the boxes, after taking my Storyboard and Development class I see that there's more to it than that. I was pretty happy with some of the responses I got on my first two days. Then, came that dreaded Saturday. I thought it would be cool if I bought a few books before I left. Looking back at this now, I realize that I should have brought an extra bag for my swag. Instead, I chose to put everything in one bag including my portfolio. Soon, one thing lead to another and my portfolio was missing. I don't know how it happened, I don't know where it is now, all I know is that it's gone and there's nothing I can do about it. Sadly, ever since that day I've been feeling a bit down when it came to my artwork. So much so that I practically neglected most of the projects that I've been working on. I tried redoing the Squiggly storyboards, but it only made me want to redo the entire short. To make matters worse, I tried to convince people at the Con that I have been working on said projects, thus making an ass of myself. Even though, I'm learning a lot from my Flash Animation and Storyboard classes I feel like I'm letting a lot of people down. Especially, my mentors.

Screwing with styles - Leroy

2009-08-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

I usually don't really decide on styles when it comes to my projects. But in the case of Leroy and Skillet it's mandatory. I tried to do the same exercise with Buford. Take one character and draw him in multiple styles. So for Leroy, I've decided to do two styles based on two time periods. Angular, fully detailed, 1940's and flat, shape based, 1950's.

Tell me what you think.

Screwing with different styles

2009-08-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

During my trip to Comic Con, I had the pleasure to meet one of my favorite character designers, Ben Balistreri. He gave me a good little hint of advice after I showed him my (recently M.I.A) portfolio and that was "If you're looking into becoming a character designer, try taking your own characters and draw them in different styles." So, I decided to test it out on an old character of mine named "Bueford the Bullfrog" I chose to do the styles of Butch Hartman, Rob Renzetti (which looks more like Erik Weise's Migty B!), and C.H. Greenblat.As mentioned, I really like the Renzetti style a lot. But tell me what you think.

Long Time, No Post

2009-08-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I haven't been posting for a while. I've been a bit occupied with a certain convention. But I won't bore anybody with details. At least, not now. My good friend, Mike Ruocco gave me a lot of good advice. One of them was to bring your own food. Seriously. The food court and stand prices make Disneyland seem cheap. Another one and this maybe a paraphrase but, be sure you know somebody who's going to be there as well. DON'T RELY ON INSTINCT! RELY ON INTELLIGENT SOURCES! Thanks a mess, Mike. That is all. I'll get more in depth about it later, but for now my blog is a hurtin'. So, I'm gonna give it the love it needs.

"That's All for now Folks!"

Female study sketches

2009-07-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

After a month of working with posemaniacs, I still wasn't pleased with any of my anatomy life drawings. The models were the same height and weight, which didn't give me a lot of variety with the human body. Once I explained that to Kyle, He gave me a funny piece of advice "There are so many naked people on Devinatart, USE THEM." So, I did some searching and found a plethora of models and poses to draw. Most of the poses were from DA model Belen.

Blue period

2009-06-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Every artist goes through a Blue (depression) stage. I go for a more direct approach, meaning I express my emotions toward current events.

My take on the recent and constant right-wing bashing on our current president.
My response to all of the recent deaths this year...

R.I.P Dom DeLuise
R.I.P Wayne Allwine
R.I.P Ed McMahon
and last but certainly far from least...
R.I.P Michael Jackson

Faces

2009-06-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've decided to take a small vacation from poses and went back to faces. While I have no problems drawing cartoony expressions, I still need a human canvas to work with. Surprisingly, the best place for me to get one was DA. So, a majority of some of my face sketches were basically stolen from this plethora of photos of Samantha Erdini better known as SamyCat.

You know what...I was wrong. Life Drawing is fun.

2009-06-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

First off, sorry for neglecting the blog for awhile. Second, sorry for giving Life Drawing such a harsh time. I've been occupied with other things including seeing that m ovie about the old man and his flying house. But, that didn't stop me from doing any more life drawing.

Nightmare Clown

2009-06-10T16:24:00.000-07:00

Where do I start?
The Nightmare clown actually came from an old sketch I did in 2007. It was originally intended to be the main focal point of a surreal nightmare setting.

Oooh...it's sooo scary.

After that I never went back to fixing this drawing. Until now. While I was still doing some of my life drawings, I thought to myself "Hey, let's see if I've learned anything from these." So I decided to do some redraws of some drawings I did from a few years back, including this one. The original sketch was intended to be scary, so I tried to make it more scary and less cartoony.

But certainly, I can't make this guy frightening in any way...

.....

To be honest, I wasn't sure how this would turn out. I wasn't hoping for a big response. But, apparently people seem to like it and want me to do more. Which I'm currently having difficulties trying to do.

Graduated...

2009-05-30T06:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I guess I'd better get back to those animations and life drawings I promised myself.

Malcolm's Cartoon Corner: Panchito

2009-05-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is portion I dub, Malcolm's Cartoon Corner. Where I show some of my favorite pieces of an animation. This week is an old forgotten classic, Panchito.

Panchito was made in 1955 by the vaguely remembered Mel-O-Toons.
It tells a story about a burro that can't bray. I'd tell you the rest, but that would spoil it.
In the beginning they mention a book called a "Tele-talkie". Which I suppose is something the theaters would give the audience if they wanted to read out the story or maybe it's something else. I used to watch this back when I was a an infant and looking back at this now, I realize that this wasn't intended for children. I thought it would be great to share this little piece of my childhood on the 'ol blog.

Enjoy!

Life Drawing still sucks

2009-05-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

This was done in the mall.

I've been working on my life drawings for so long, that my hands are bla...dirtier than they usually are. The pose sketches on the bottom are from a site called Posemainacs.

Leroy & Skillet-Introduction

2009-05-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Probably my first "Character-driven" show idea. I originally intended to have it take place in the 1940's as a "tribute" to classic cartoons. While not a bad idea, it may not cut it with the studio execs if I were to pitch it in the future. Here's the story, Leroy Crow has dreams of becoming "Top Bird" So he conjures up a plethora of schemes and scams in order to get some cash. But, most of his plans can't be done alone. So he requires the assistance of Skillet, an extremely paranoid crow with a skillet on his head, who reluctantly takes part in any of Leroy's plans. So let's get down to the two main characters...

Leroy is a quick thinker with a big dream. His goal in life is to be the world's richest crow, and he plans to achieve said goal by using his wit and intellect. Leroy is pretty shrewd when it comes to his plans , so he'll never give up on one, no matter how bad it is. Unfortunately, with Skillet he practically has no alternative.

Skillet is the exact opposite of Leroy. He is extremely paranoid and a bit pessimistic. Leroy actually found Skillet in an alley. Like everybody who has ever come in contact with Skillet, the first question Leroy asked him, was "Why do you have a skillet on your head?" to which he would respond with an insane non sequitur that would involve random objects raining from the sky and eventually leading up to the apocalypse. This would happen every time Leroy has a plan that he doesn't want to be part of. He would start off with a reasonable excuse and then end with an insane excuse.

I will be posting more of the story as well as the other characters as soon as I'm done redrawing them...

Malco and Beak'd

2009-04-24T11:43:00.001-07:00

8 years ago, I created my own Bugs Bunny/Mickey Mouse character named "Malco J. Hawkingfisher". After that, I didn't know what to do with him. I would usually just doodle him with copyrighted characters and non-copyrighted characters created by other artists on Deviantart. Which is probably why I haven't found his personality yet.

In 2005, I decided to give him a group of "friends". Looking back at it now, I realize that doing that would only expand on the fact that he had no personality. The show was going to be called unsurprisingly, "Malco and friends" Yeah, I know, I hated it too. Anyway I tried to give him some supporting characters to see how he would carry out as a series. The only problem was coming up with a basic plot.

One plot involved him being an orphan and the last of his kind. Yeah, like WE NEVER HEARD THAT PLOT BEFORE!
Another idea was to put him in high school and see it would go from there. Hey! It worked for these guys. Right?
The only original idea I had was that he was raised by genies...Genies...I was fourteen, what did you expect from me!?

After that two year long mental breakdown, I decided to go with the standard "life in the big city" plot, territory that had not been penetrated in the animation community for a long time. While, in the process, renaming the show. The new title was called "Beak'd" and still revolved around Malco. Only difference is, I had to cut a few characters and replaced them with two new characters for the sake of storyline or in this case lack there of.

Beak'd cast (l to r): Malco, Melissa Swann, Roberto Lequack, Randall Goosewell, Chelsea Duckwood, Darko

To add a little bit of "breaking the fourth wall" I based the two new characters on people I knew from high school. They broke up after that and stopped talking to me. Here's the main plot of this story: Malco has to try to stop a lab experiment gone horribly wrong (Darko) from destroying the earth because it was really his responsibility. Gee..does THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?

Eventually, I gave up on the whole idea of making a series and focused my attention on Malco's design. Apparently, the notion broke through that Malco looked too much like Woody Woodpecker. So, I thought I'd do some fiddilin' and the final concept was "eeeh.."

Wow! How delightfully generic.

It wasn't too long before my 'ol pal, Kyle Carrozza a.k.a Captain Awesome, gave me his own view on the Malco redesign. Unfortunately, I don't have his original drawing. Here's my version of it, just to give you an idea.

This is crap compared to the original.

Kyle was also kind enough to do a redesign of Malco's love interest turned land lady, Melissa Swann.

After getting some help from Kyle, I thought I had the series all figured out. I did not. While the designs were nice, I still had problems finding an original personality for Malco. So, ever since then I decided to take a break from Beak'd and tried creating and revamping other show ideas.

I'm not sure if I'm ever going to use Malco for anything again, but I'm still hoping to find a way to make him stand out.

Life Drawing sucks

2009-04-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've been on a hunt for critiques recently. So somebody suggested that I see the Folks over at Sketch Tavern. Apparently, they want me to do some life drawing to understand anatomy. So, here's compilation of sketches I did this month. I know. they suck.

Super Freaking Parody Rangers!

2009-04-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

I was original planning on doing a lineup of Chris Niosi's Parody Rangers just for fun. But as it turns out, It ended up as a permanent "to be continued". So here are a couple of sketches as well as completes of the Rangers.

Redd Meat-Red Ranger...Duh

Jerome "Mace" Jacksum- Black Ranger...no comment

Billiam Williamson-Blue Ranger

Now, we have the sketches....

Billy Williamson-Green Ranger

Doodle "Pinky" Yankit-Pink Ranger

This was the reason why I stopped. I was hoping to exaggerate her pose to the nth degree but the art block took it away from me. That and the body needed more work.

Chan Young- Yellow Ranger...yeah I know.

Hiyas

2009-04-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the blog. This will be my little retreat from Devinantart for the time being. This is an Artwork/Animation blog for most of you who don't know who I am. On occasion, I'll also be posting rants about life, politics, and whatever I feel like writing about. Isn't that the main reason to have a blog in the first place? Anyway feel free to post comments and critique some of my final artwork if you want. That's all for now. So here are some sketches to fill the tide.