Thanks to my all time favorite client, I have a new Cintiq 13HD drawing tablet made by Wacom. It’s pressure sensitivity and accuracy are astounding! I can’t wait to start really using it and creating more eye popping visual candy with it!

See the final illustrations HERE.

It’s not that often when I’m working on a new project that I have a smile on my face, but during the filming for this one and subsequent post production work, I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself constantly. A special shout out to Brian Shumaker for an incredible job bringing Figaro’s voice to life.

This was unquestionably the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken. The amount of work and incredibly high learning curve proved to be extremely frustrating for me. After 3 months of work and countless weeks where I never saw sunlight (literally), 2 broken storage drives, 3 mental breakdowns, 30 miniature temper tantrums and 1 tremendously huge one; I give you my first fully animated CGI short designed for a client.

From concept, drawing, modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, animating, rendering, compositing, color grading and re-rendering. I learned the entire complicated process of bringing such a thing to life and let me be the first to tell you; it is not easy.

Thank you especially to my wife for her unending support.

A special thank you to Brett Junvik who was my second shooter on this video and managed to capture roughly half of all the footage you see in the final edit, as well as Bobby Klein, who shot all the Behind the Scenes footage and photographs. Also, Tim’s wife, Brooke, who managed to handle all the logistics, food, props and other necessaries (including makeup) that allowed Brett and I to concentrate on the story telling. Lastly, a special shout out to The American Barbershop who let us temporarily wreck their place and turn it into a movie studio for an afternoon.

You can check out more of Tim’s music and his new album at http://timreidjr.com

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One thing we learned is that California is astoundingly beautiful, vast, and diverse. Both the landscape and the people stretch across many differing world’s. If you can’t find something you like in Cali, you aren’t looking. While we will keep our decision of where and when we are moving to ourselves, I can say with great confidence that the west coast is a paradise to those of us born and raised in the midwest and we are looking forward to the day we can call California “home”.

A special thank you to our friends who made the trip so special: Tyrsa and Eric, Tim and Brooke, Jill and Erika, Leila and Ricardo and everyone else we met along our travels out there; you made our trip so much more special than just a tour and snapshot.

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I’ve been watching a lot of tutorials online with time-lapsed speed paintings and was inspired to make my own. This video shows my process of making a typical cartoon illustration. It is approximately 3 hours worth of work sped up to 2 minutes. Hope you enjoy watching it as much I enjoy doing it!

WATCH VIDEO 

In case you don’t know me, I was in a band called Ghettobillies. We played all over the midwest, east coast and did regular tours in the UK for quite a long time. One of the places we were very fond of and regularly welcomed, was The Aspinall Arms in Clitheroe, England. There, the owner Simon and his incredible family treated us like royalty, as well as donated an unbelievable amount of money to allow us to travel back to America for one night in order to compete in a nationwide battle of the bands.

This year our friend Simon announced that he was finally closing the doors of the Inn.

A party was organized and his sister, Sally, asked if there was anything we’d like to contribute to it (a card, a song, etc). After discussing it with the boys, I put together a music video in dedication to Simon, his family and the extended family of the Aspinall Arms. The result is a rare “reunion” of sorts for the old band (don’t miss the outtakes at the end).

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