Lee's Toy Review #204, and the February 2010 Sci-Fi...
Friday, October 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
MySpace
After I shoo these kids off my lawn I'll get my Facebook page established. Meantime, I keep my MySpace site updated with the latest Cotswold Catalog covers, and so does the official Cotswold MySpace (which I started up for them)...
Magazine Ads
More for the Cotswold Collectibles section! Currently we consistently advertise in Lee's Toy Review and Sci Fi Magazine. And I created 1 ad for WWII History (the Twisting Toyz ad -- other Cots ads you might see in there aren't done by me).
As mentioned earlier in this blog, many ads are re-purposed catalog covers. Some, however, are originals, sometimes imagined as Generic ads that could be sent off, if time's crunchy, A.S.A.P. with little to no customization.
I've found Lee's at Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, and Sci Fi in most any shop/newsstand...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Miscellany
My DJ alter-ego DJ Boffo's album Beefy dropped today... into the Miscellaneous section of my résufolio. (I can't decide whether beefy droppings sound tasty or hideous, so I'm leaving it as worded for now. Please feel free to chime in!)It's 16-tracks of, some would say, predominantly J-Pop drag queen music, tho I insist there's a variety of sounds. It's all done with Apple's free Garageband software, using dozens of different musical loops and beats. For more insight, please see its Liner Notes.
(The burnt CD album cover artwork was an experiment of mine, involving a microwave and a fire extinguisher.)
Monday, February 9, 2009
CotColCat
Cotswold Collectibles catalogs! 32 pages each, lotsa cool stuff. My FREELANCE home has been updated with the new CC icon. Hasbro's pages are still online tho have not been updated, and Cartoonistry is still active, too. Cartoonistry might actually end up living in 2 areas, since some of my cartooning was published in the Southern Fried Comics comic book a couple years ago...
20 new images from the past year of catalogs -- most are covers and the bits that went into creating them. Then there's random sample pages. When putting the catalogs together I don't have much time to spend being artsy, but we do try to make them look nice. All 20 images have footnotes, so scroll down! I just finished the "Predator" catalog last week and should receive it in the mail later today, actually. Looking forward to it!
Still 2 sections to build for Cotswold... "Magazine Ads" and "Other". Those will follow close behind! (Magazine ads are, for the most part, adaptations of the catalog covers. You'll see. And part of "Other" is the TV spot pitch, which can already be seen on the QTQL page.) If all goes according to plan, "Package Design" will also be added, perhaps later this year... hmmm
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
More About Me
If you count the cartoons I drew for a local paper when in high school, I've been in/around the creative business for 20mumble years.
Experience is of course valuable, but it doesn't entitle me to much more than some extra consideration. Entitlement really should come with Good Work and Good Results. It's earned. A portfolio, or a degree, or both, shows persistence and discipline and passion, but good work and good results -- whatever impresses clients and employers -- is what should net you the steady job and moneymoneymoney. I've sung all my life, probably starting with Sunday school and cartoon or advertising themesongs (mmm, O-S-C-A-R and I made some tuneful and tasty sammiches together)... Does that 30mumble years of singing experience warrant me a record deal? God no. Hooo, god, no.
If one has a history of half-assery or jackassery, one shouldn't expect to gain more of an employer's consideration. (Of course if one were such a juvenile, they'd probably wail "Why me?" when chastised instead of gleaning anything from introspection.) Sure, lots of other variables figure into an employee review, some one can control, some beyond one's direct influence. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. But the bottom line is, well, the Bottom Line -- it's a business, and is Horatio benefitting the business? Is he earning this entitlement? Or is he wasting time(=money), poisoning morale, never chipping in on birthday cakes?
I have a brief cover letter on my resume page. Expanding:
I left UGA after 4 years and co-founded a production/post-production company in Middle Georgia. We began as convention videographers, eventually partnering with a Macon production company, Storey Communications, providing them with graphics and FX for their TV commercials and concerts. [clip here] My work was already getting on-air! From there I moved to Atlanta to continue freelance graphics, writing, and silly video bits that may yet land on YouTube...
To paraphrase Tim Miller's article "Variety Is The Spice of (Artistic) Life", Creativity thrives on variety. Each project has unique rewards -- and unique problems -- that keep it all interesting. Everything I did honed problem-solving skills. And taught me. Boredom is for the unimaginative.
I've worked for small companies and large... One had a basic office-y front, but behind was a great warehouse space with low cubicle walls, cables snaking all over the dark concrete floor, and a disco ball hanging from the girders. (When they were acquired they offered to move me to Virginia, but I decided to stay in Atlanta.) Another small-yet-international company began in a drafty trailer parked on Crawford Communications' property,
and ended (abruptly) in a nice high-rise in offices we designed. It even had its own breakroom!
The Weather Channel was still in its old tiny studio when I joined them, and I got to follow its move into huge, swank new digs, too. A couple years later I was hired at Endeavor just as it was angioplasty ballooning into WebMD.
Some jobs paid cash, some I filled out invoices or timesheets for checks. They've all supplied valuable experience, and instilled equally-valuable appreciation.
And helped keep me in belt-onions, which were the style at the time.
Experience is of course valuable, but it doesn't entitle me to much more than some extra consideration. Entitlement really should come with Good Work and Good Results. It's earned. A portfolio, or a degree, or both, shows persistence and discipline and passion, but good work and good results -- whatever impresses clients and employers -- is what should net you the steady job and moneymoneymoney. I've sung all my life, probably starting with Sunday school and cartoon or advertising themesongs (mmm, O-S-C-A-R and I made some tuneful and tasty sammiches together)... Does that 30mumble years of singing experience warrant me a record deal? God no. Hooo, god, no.
If one has a history of half-assery or jackassery, one shouldn't expect to gain more of an employer's consideration. (Of course if one were such a juvenile, they'd probably wail "Why me?" when chastised instead of gleaning anything from introspection.) Sure, lots of other variables figure into an employee review, some one can control, some beyond one's direct influence. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. But the bottom line is, well, the Bottom Line -- it's a business, and is Horatio benefitting the business? Is he earning this entitlement? Or is he wasting time(=money), poisoning morale, never chipping in on birthday cakes?
I have a brief cover letter on my resume page. Expanding:
I left UGA after 4 years and co-founded a production/post-production company in Middle Georgia. We began as convention videographers, eventually partnering with a Macon production company, Storey Communications, providing them with graphics and FX for their TV commercials and concerts. [clip here] My work was already getting on-air! From there I moved to Atlanta to continue freelance graphics, writing, and silly video bits that may yet land on YouTube...
To paraphrase Tim Miller's article "Variety Is The Spice of (Artistic) Life", Creativity thrives on variety. Each project has unique rewards -- and unique problems -- that keep it all interesting. Everything I did honed problem-solving skills. And taught me. Boredom is for the unimaginative.
I've worked for small companies and large... One had a basic office-y front, but behind was a great warehouse space with low cubicle walls, cables snaking all over the dark concrete floor, and a disco ball hanging from the girders. (When they were acquired they offered to move me to Virginia, but I decided to stay in Atlanta.) Another small-yet-international company began in a drafty trailer parked on Crawford Communications' property,
and ended (abruptly) in a nice high-rise in offices we designed. It even had its own breakroom!
The Weather Channel was still in its old tiny studio when I joined them, and I got to follow its move into huge, swank new digs, too. A couple years later I was hired at Endeavor just as it was angioplasty ballooning into WebMD.
Some jobs paid cash, some I filled out invoices or timesheets for checks. They've all supplied valuable experience, and instilled equally-valuable appreciation.
And helped keep me in belt-onions, which were the style at the time.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Capsules
Got the résufolio homepage's 4 "capsule" rollovers edited together! Tricky balancing their filesizes as I bounced between Photoshop, AfterEffects and ImageReady... But they're not over-large and still look good.
The capsules are a glimpse at what'll be on display in each of those 4 sections -- in Corporate, f'rinstance, the huge and detailed SuperImage maps for The Weather Channel, homepage designs for WebMD, and some of my animated weather event segments for WeatherPlus.
Placeholder samples are already online in each section, and I'll gradually be fleshing them out. ("Comic Books" and "Miscellaneous" are already pretty fleshed out, tho like I mentioned earlier in this blog there's more to add to them, too!)
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Cotswold TV
While I'm constructing the Cotswold Collectibles section of my résufolio, one Cotswold-related update I can make is to my QuickTime Quicklinks page: A sort of animated 30-second TV commercial pitch featuring their 1:6 scale action figures.
Whether they nibbled or not [at this moment, "or not"], I always see these sorts of projects as two-fold -- the obvious intent, plus it's good practice.* This one is lots of 3-D, Photoshoppery and After Effects compositing tricks, and features another DJ Boffo original tune!
Attached to this blog post are images from the ad, Befores & Afters. (I'll include bigger samples in the résufolio.) F'rinstance, I created a matte for the pilot figure and placed a 2-D "card" inside the cockpit of the plane model to map him onto. There's lots of stuff going on in front of and behind objects and figures... explosions stock footage, lasers, etc. The Star Wars Republic Gunship was a test to see how quickly/effectively I could garbage matte over video and doctor it up for the Utapau trooper's scene... It's just me picking up my toy like it's taking off!
*I've heard plenty of jokes about doctors and lawyers calling their business a "practice", but they do that because they [ideally] never stop learning craft, technique, method... Same thing for artists! Should be the case whoever you are, really.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
My Résufolio Website
This blog will be where I mention the latest additions to my "résufolio" website, halfmoth.com. Today I have updated my homepage with this and other buttons, and over the course of 2009 I'll be adding more. I'm scrubbing it clean as I go, so some links may be temporarily broken... The center animations on my homepage, f'rinstance -- those are next!
Upcoming: I've been working with Cotswold Collectibles for over a year now, and 2008 saw a lot of print (catalogs & magazine ads). I also noticed my old STARMAN webpages vanished, and I need to bring all that content back online! (They were hosted on AOL back before I had halfmoth.com, and I'd left them there, silly me.) Especially with the STARMAN Omnibus vol.1 out last June, and vol.2 due this March! And another related project soon after that, I hear...
And while the 2007 box art for the G.I.Joe action figure collection "Tanks for the Memories" appears in my related 2008 presentation clip on my QuickTime Quicklinks page, I need to add its basic page to my Freelance section...
Lots to do! Read about it here!
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