Fredland

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED!

2011-04-27T14:01:00.001-07:00

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO TUMBLR!

http://fredland.tumblr.com/

SEE YA THERE,

FRED

Jury Duty in January

2011-02-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome, Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-07T16:28:00.000-08:00

Sketches @ 4Barrel

2011-01-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

Quick Figs...

2011-01-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

Fistful of Dollars

2011-01-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

Cafe Sketches

2010-12-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

Samples from Latest Custom Children's Book

2010-09-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

"Breakfast" by Fred Chung

2010-09-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

Crouch

2010-04-21T11:23:00.001-07:00

Super Electricity Guy and Super Stinky Ring Guy

2010-04-01T19:47:00.001-07:00

Logan

2010-03-26T12:28:00.001-07:00

Looking to one side

2010-03-11T09:01:00.001-08:00

French maid outfit

2010-03-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Slightly hunched forward

2010-03-04T09:07:00.001-08:00

Cotton sweatshirt

2010-02-19T11:07:00.003-08:00

Valentine's

2010-02-17T12:28:00.001-08:00

Happy Year of Shere Khan

2010-02-16T11:05:00.001-08:00

Custom book continued...

2010-02-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

Beginning to lay in the text for each page...

Latest custom children's story project I've been working on...

2010-02-03T16:21:00.001-08:00

Generator 2

2010-02-01T15:36:00.001-08:00

Generator

2010-01-29T10:24:00.001-08:00

Sitting on bed

2010-01-28T10:57:00.001-08:00

Ben's "Bear Grylls" Birthday Invitation Drawing

2010-01-26T20:41:00.001-08:00

2010-01-25T11:02:00.001-08:00

2010-01-22T09:33:00.001-08:00

2010-01-21T09:32:00.001-08:00

2009 holiday drawing

2010-01-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

2010-01-19T10:57:00.001-08:00

2010-01-15T22:55:00.001-08:00

2010-01-14T21:02:00.001-08:00

"No Country for Homeless Man" art by Fred Chung

2010-01-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

This is a story I illustrated for my buddy, Beth.

riffing Rad Sechrist

2010-01-05T10:14:00.000-08:00

"Dad's Old Toys"

2009-09-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

"Crinkly-Nosed Smile"

2009-09-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

"Tracks"

2009-09-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

"Baaad Daddy"

2009-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

First Ballgame

2009-08-31T15:19:00.000-07:00

"Crowded"

2009-08-28T08:31:00.000-07:00

"Just Drew It"

2009-08-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

"Home Sweet Home"

2009-08-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

"To Each Their Own at Grandma's"

2009-08-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

"Plane Flight"

2009-08-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

"Idea"

2009-08-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

"Night Terrors"

2009-08-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

"Hypoglycemic"

2009-08-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

"Improv"

2009-08-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

"Popsicle"

2009-08-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

2009-07-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Catching Up with Now

2009-06-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

Face from a magazine

2009-02-03T09:51:00.001-08:00

Year of the Ox

2009-01-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

The Ugliest Icon in the World

2009-01-22T20:01:00.001-08:00

"Butterfly"

2009-01-16T09:19:00.001-08:00

Monster & Fairy

2009-01-14T21:32:00.001-08:00

Thank you card

2009-01-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

Drawing from Magazines

2009-01-09T15:22:00.001-08:00

These are from the Economist

"The Janitor" sketches pg 1

2009-01-07T21:39:00.001-08:00

"Coffee"

2009-01-05T20:40:00.001-08:00

"Jilted"

2009-01-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

"The Vegetarian" Character Designs

2009-01-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

Santa Cards

2009-01-02T08:44:00.000-08:00

2009 Resolution

2009-01-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

Post a drawing a day.

"My Dad in Georgia"

2008-12-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

My dad came to the United States in 1965 to be a medical intern in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My mom was also a medical intern living in Youngstown, Ohio. They met in the United States, two Korean immigrants who had come to America for a better education and started to date.

Then it was time to introduce my dad to the family. The only family my mom had in the States was her oldest sister and her husband who lived in Decatur, Georgia because he was a Professor of Engineering at Georgia Tech. So my dad made the drive down to Georgia.

He pulled over at a rest stop to go to the bathroom. He stopped short of the restroom doorway. There were two entrances, one marked "White" the other "Colored". He stood there for a long minute. Was he white or was he colored? He had to make a decision because he really had to go to the bathroom. So he went into the white bathroom. Without incident.

My dad once told me, "When I see a minority or a woman in a position of authority, I think that person must be really excellent at their job. Because it's twice as hard for a minority to make it that far than it is for a white person. That's just the way it is in this country. Maybe in your lifetime, there could be a black president. Maybe, but I doubt it. Definitely not in my lifetime. No way." I remember feeling disappointed when he said this to me.

Late at night on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 I called my dad and asked him if he remembered having that conversation with me.

He said, "You know what. I was listening to his acceptance speech and for some reason my eyes were wet. I reached up to my eyes and they were wet. And I realized I was crying. I can't believe. I can't believe it."

I said, "I'm so happy for you, Dad. That you're seeing this in your lifetime."

"Yeah, I know. Congratulations, Fred."

"Congratulations, Dad."

5th sentence

2008-11-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

"My understanding of twinning, as with my (still limited) understanding of everything else in animationland, has evolved over the years since, and has led me to the following irrefutable mathematical formula:"

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall.

Optimism

2008-11-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

It is the night before the election. I am excited and for the first time, I'm optimistic (I'm for Obama). Here is why.

Previously I had posted a thought on this election and what it would come down to. Basically, will the vast number of newly (democratic) registered voters (many of them young and therefore unreliable) actually show up to vote come Tuesday?

I say... yes.

Early voting lines for the past week have been absolutely inspiring for those who will vote for Obama. Obama voters are especially enthusiastic about their candidate and to see the long lines in Georgia, GEORGIA, a state that leans McCain but will symbolically give extra motivation for voters to become a part of history.

To vote tomorrow, is to become an indelible part of this country's history!

Become a part of history.

Vote.

Gift from Kenya...

2008-10-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Check out my new button!
This was sent from my sister-in-law in Kenya! (via tigereyedesign.com)

Happy Birthday, Seth!

2008-10-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Fredfolio updates...

2008-10-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Uploaded some new boards to Fredfolio.

Joe, Bob and Thomas

2008-10-16T11:19:00.001-07:00

My Birthday Present...

2008-10-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

What the wife got me for my birthday.

:-) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Honor of Columbo Day

2008-10-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Running Redux

2008-09-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I did a little fact-checking on my previous post on running and discovered that my times were wrong. Turns out I wasn't slowing down with every consecutive race. Below are the correct times and dates (all 5K races).

(Above are pics from my most recent race.)

Sept 16, 2007

Banana Chase Race
22:26 7:14/M

September 23, 2007

Komen Breast Cancer
22.03

November 18, 2007

Run for Hunger
21:50.70

February 2, 2008

Kaiser Permanente
22:54 7:23/M

September 14, 2008

Banana Chase Race
22:09 7:09/M

I'm a Dad

2008-09-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today, at breakfast in the kitchen, my oldest son (5 yrs), was looking out the window up at the roof.

He asked, "Dad, how does Santa get down the chimney?"

I said, "You mean, how does a big guy like that fit down the chimney and into the fireplace and into the house?"

He said, "Yeah."

I said, "That - is a very good question."

And then I walked out of the kitchen.

Web 2.0 Social Apps

2008-09-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

In socio-economics there's the upper class, the middle class and the lower class. In a wired society there's: the power users, the lay-user and the afraid-of-the-computer user. In a web 2.0 society: the update-every-days, the update-once-in-a-whiles and the why-bothers.

The people who use web 2.0 social web apps is a subset of a subset of a small set. They are all techies and are playing to the techie crowd. Question is: will these sites continue to only play to the techie crowd, or as time goes by, will the new (younger) generation become the update-ever-day kind and take these sites out of hobby-mode to actually-can-make-money status?

I check facebook and friendfeed all the time but what I find is that there's only a certain minority of my friends who use these web 2.0 apps, and an even smaller subset of them that update their status or other feed-worthy activity. It's a very small set of people who are avid users, the majority of all my friends (all of whom use email) don't use the web 2.0 app because there's little return on investment (of time).

Updating one's status, or one's blog or any 'feed-worthy' activity is an investment of time. Why would I want to write a review on a travel site or a movie review site or a restaurant review site? What do I get in return? If I feel like I'm party of a community then maybe it's stature. Most of the time, it's for people to broadcast their thoughts opinions. Most people don't care to broadcast.

Maybe future generations will be using these web 2.0 apps like we use the telephone. Blogging and broadcasting feed-worthy activity will be as routine as checking email. Maybe.

amazon's new subscribe and save

2008-09-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've signed up for something on amazon called subscribe and save (http://www.amazon.com/sands/)

Basically, you buy stuff like paper products, toiletries and stuff you would normally buy at Costco and have it shipped to you for free. And then they send the same bulk item to you 3 or 6 or 9 months later automatically. You can modify the frequency. The shipping is free and buying in bulk saves you some as well.

I hate making the trip to Costco so this was a no-brainer.

Amazon has a lot of 'green' brands as well, but not the wide selection that costco has to offer. Still, it's worth trying out for a few months and see if I like it.

Politics - Show up or Shut up

2008-09-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

I’m not going to rant or rave about the state of politics today. I’m just going to cut to the chase. It comes down to just one thing and one thing only:

Will the vast number of newly registered voters show up on Tuesday.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Period.

Many of them are Democrats registered by the well-organized Obama campaign and they’re in key states. So the numbers heavily favor Obama.

But, many of them are also young. And young voters are notorious for not showing up at the polls on election day. However, many of these young voters DID show up for the Democratic

primaries and caucases and were a major proponent of Obama’s victories against Hillary.

I don’t know the answer to my own question above.

I’m guessing that when the dust settles, the Palin effect will diminish and perhaps even backfire. But that’s just a guess.

There’s about 50 days left and depending on how you look at it, that’s very little time or a lot of time, for things to change.

Picture Meme

2008-09-19T08:39:00.001-07:00

Instructions:

Take a picture of yourself right now.

Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair - just take a picture.

Post that picture with NO editing.

Post these instructions with the picture.

Yahoo ID Odd-yssey

2008-09-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I tried to log into my Yahoo! Mail account and couldn’t get in. It said my password didn’t match. But I hadn’t changed my password. When I tried to reset my password online, it said it couldn’t do that either.

So I sent a help request form to Customer Care and a few days later they told me that I broke the Yahoo! Terms of Service Agreement and that’s why the shut my Yahoo ID down.

I had no idea what they were talking about, but deduced that it had something to do with Yahoo! Small Business and the two domains I had registered there, namely thetradesmen.com and fredland.com – sure enough, those sites weren’t working either.

Every time I asked for more information, I got the same form letter saying I had broken the Y! TOS blah blah blah. What I found completely ridiculous was that there was no warning or communication from Yahoo! that they were about to shut down my ID. This was an ID that I’d had for over 13 years. And I used to work there. The outrage!!!!

Normally I would’ve just said screw Yahoo! After all, I hardly used that email account and wasn’t even using My Yahoo anymore since they forced the “upgrade” to the new UI.

BUT, I was playing in a fantasy football league on Y! Sports. And this would’ve totally ruined the season for myself and everybody else in the league.

So, I called in the big guns. I contacted a former uberYahoo! who’s no longer there who passed my grievance to another uberYahoo! who is still there and before you know it – ZAP! I got my ID back with an email saying all was restored and we apologize for any inconvenience. My two domains were still gone and I had to re-register them and now they just point to my fredfolio blog.

If it weren’t for connections, I’d be screwed.

So while I still play fantasy football on Yahoo!, I’ve gone to every single site I’ve ever registered with my yahoo.com email address and changed it to my gmail account. Not out of anger, but fear that somehow they’ll screw me over again.

Pushup Club

2008-09-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

A group of people I used to work with started something called the Pushup Club. They woud pick a day of the week, Thursday in this case, and give themselves the entire day to do a set number of pushups. So on the first Thursday, they did 100 pushups in one day.

They could divvy up the 100 pushups any way they wanted to: in sets of 10, 20 or even 5 and they had 24 hours to complete those 100 pushups. Then the following Thursday the number was 200 pushups. The week after that, 300 pushups, and they would add 100 pushups to the total ever week.

This was very effective weight training because you were stressing/pushing your body beyond its previous limit in one day then giving it 6 days to recover and rebuild before distressing it again. Plus pushups are an excellent all-around exercise for the upper body.

I started doing this a few months ago as a substitute for the gym and because I got tired of running. I was already in pretty good shape so I started with 400 pushups on a Monday. I added a hundred every week and the highest I got up to was 1,200 pushups.

It sounds a lot more ridiculous than it really is. You can rest between sets as much as you like and 24 hours is lot of time. The hump for me was the week I had to do 700. Almost didn’t make that one. Once I got past that, the following week totals were fairly easy.

But then I got tired of doing the pushup club and went back to running.

Maybe now I’ll do just a little bit of running and a little bit of pushups instead of this all or nothing approach. ;-)

Running

2008-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

I started running about a year ago.

Before I ran I used to go to the gym and lift weights. I would warm up on the treadmill and run about 2 miles at a 7.5 min/mile pace. I hated running, but it was probably the most healthy part of my workout.

I quit my gym one day because I would only go sporadically for a few weeks at a time. I’d get into a groove then inevitably catch a cold, be out for a week or two and then be out of my groove, making it harder to get back into the gym and start it all over again.

I liked how efficient and low maintenance running was. All you needed was a nice pair of running shoes; no gym membership, just go outside and start running. I used mapmyrun.com to keep track of my routes and how far I was running.

I discovered that running outside is a lot more of a workout than running on a treadmill and built more muscle than I expected. Duh. I registered for my first 5K race called the Banana Chase Race which is held close to my house.

I ran it in about 21:14 minutes which I was happy with since I had no notion of what a ‘good’ time for me was. I signed up for more 5K races determined to beat that time.

The next race was the Komen Breast Cancer race and my time wa something like 21:35. I decided to train harder for my next 5K race and looked up training regimens for 5K races online. The next race was an SF Dolphins Running club 5K and my time was something like 21:55. I resolved to run one more time and train my butt off for it. The Kaiser Permanente race… 22:10.

I gave up running a while and started doing pushups instead.

Then a few months ago, I saw that the Banana Chase Race was coming around again. The Banana Chase Race is interesting in that they have a children’s race after the adults race at Kezar Stadium. My two boys really wanted to run with their dad so I signed myself up for the 5K and signed them up for the kids race.

It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it and the kids had a blast. I still have no idea what time I ran because I forgot to look at the billboard as I was crossing the finish line.

I may run more 5K’s in the future but for now I’m going to just run 3-4 miles every other day. I’m getting used to it.

Announcing "Fredfolio" blog

2008-07-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

I've launched a new blog called "Fredfolio" which you can see here.

The purpose of Fredfolio is to present all my studio and animation work as an online portfolio.

This blog, "Fredland", will continue to be the thoughts in my head while 'folio will be the images and stories in my head.

I've been tagged for a "meme"....?

2008-03-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly sure what this is or how it works but my second cousin Beth tagged me so here it goes...

4 jobs I’ve had

1. Cigarette Captain at Philip Morris. [read all about it here]

2. Fire Extinguisher Checker for the PENN Safety Department. The title says it all.

3. Bellboy for The Avalon Inn (Warren, Ohio), where I got into my first car accident with the company van.

4. Grill worker for "The World's Most Magnificent McDonald's" in Niles, Ohio.

4 shows I’m watching

1. How It's Made on Discovery Channel my sons love this show.

2. ESPN PTI - my guilty pleasure, and I do mean guilty.

3. Avatar, the Last Airbender - honest to god, the best show on TV

4. Battlestar Galactica - it jumped the shark during during season 3 but I still dig it.

4 places I’ve been

1. India - beautiful and crowded

2. China - hot and crowded

3. New York City - fun and crowded

4. on the ferry from piraeus to san torini - barfy and crowded

4 CDs I’m listening to

don't listen to CD's, instead i use Rhapsody. I listen to tracks at random and I don't know the artist's names or even albums. So I'm completely useless here. Suffice it to say, I'm not the biggest musicophile in the world.

Audiobookery

2008-03-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

I love the Green Apple Bookstore in San Francisco. My wife and I sometimes go out on a date sans kiddos and one of our favorite things to do is eat at a nice little restaurant in the Inner Richmond then go browse the Green Apple. The problem is I keep buying books but not reading them.

The solution, I have found, is to not read them at all. But listen to them.

Years ago I tried out Audible (www.audible.com) and downloaded two free books ("On Writing" by Stephen King and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini) then dropped my subscription. But I recently re-subscribed and have promptly listened to 3 books ("The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho; "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy; and "The Golden Compass" by Phillip Pullman) and working on my fourth. The subscription allows me to download 2 books a month.

The aural experience vs. the visual in consuming a book - Listening to an audiobook is great in that you get a performance from the narrator, an actor or the author, and, like radio, you can do other things while you listen. When reading a book, you can't do anything else but read the book.

Reading a book is visual and you miss out on the 'design' of the sentence. Sometimes an author will deliberately use short sentences like Hemingway or McCarthy. Does that come across in the audiobook? Is it important?

Microsoft + Yahoo!

2008-02-19T21:24:00.001-08:00

The rationale for this deal has been a conglomeration of both companies' audience which would mean more eyeballs for more ads for more dollars. Nothing has been said about how the branding would work, or how the products would work amongst one another, or what the user experience would be like. Because it would probably be a nightmare. Yahoo and Microsoft have enough problems getting their own products to make cohesive sense I can't imagine what it would be like to combine them.

There was some mention over company culture clash. Silicon Valley companies HATE Microsoft. It's not just a culture clash, it's an all out hatred/oil and water situation.

I hate to say it because I loved working there but for Yahoo, this was a long time in coming. You could see the decline begin 5 years ago, and it's caught up to them. So to turn 5 years of lethargic momentum around in 6 months - don't think so.

And the kicker is, even if the merger worked they'd still be chasing Google, they'd still be very far behind. Google is wicked shrewd and continues to run with the ball.

In the short term, wall street might like the accumulation of eyeballs and reward the stock price(s) but in the long run there's going to be severe confusion.

Why I voted for Obama...

2008-02-05T09:27:00.001-08:00

In one word: Electability.

I think Hillary would be a great president. I think Obama would be a great president. She definitely has more experience. But she would also bring out the Hillary-haters.

If Romney were the Rebulican nominee then Obama or even Hillary would be a shoe-in. But b/c it's likely to be McCain, it makes the race that much tighter.

While I still think it's the Democrats' general election to lose, I want someone with the best chance of winning and that's Obama.

Don't see much difference in policy and philosophy really, just electability.

Upload Galore

2008-01-22T10:53:00.000-08:00

Goodbye, Y! Mail. Hello, GMail...

2007-10-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

The title really says it all. But the long of it is...

I liked Yahoo! Mail. It was fairly fast and straightforward and suited my lite email needs perfectly. Plus I started out with a Y! Mail account, so there was a lot of history and inertia.

When the new beta launched recently I tried it out and immediately disliked it. Not because of any UI issues - Outlook interface is perfectly fine. But I nixed it due to performance. It was sloooow. Whatever happened to Yahoo!'s committment to performance?

Which brings me to Gmail. I'm not in love with the way it does threading/conversations, it's no big whoop either way to me, but it is fast. Really fast.

Over the past few months I've slowly started to use my Gmail account more (fredland@gmail.com) but lately I've been having issues logging into my Y! Mail account, so I've made the complete switch this week.

So long Y! Mail. (But My Yahoo! is still my homepage.)

drawings

2007-09-17T08:18:00.001-07:00

nudes

2007-09-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Wkshop

2007-09-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

Aptos / Santa Cruz / Capitola / Monterey , CA

2007-09-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful vacation just an hour and a half’s drive south of the city. We rented a house in Aptos, CA. It was spacious and clean, in a quiet neighborhood and located right next to the beautiful, tree-lined, path down to the beach.

It was a beautiful beach. It had a single pier off of which sat a half submerged ship, the Palo Alto. The Palo Alto was a ship of war made of cement. The war ended before it was finished so they brought it down to Aptos and let it sink off the pier into what must be a lively reef of sealife acivity.

The ocean was fairly tame but by the second week I was able to surf some decent sized waves on a boogie board. The water was still pretty cold, but I found it refreshing. The boys didn’t ever get in the water, more than happy to just play in the sand.

We would often see dolphins swimming by, pelicans diving for fish, and the odd sea lion or two just off the beach. On another trip, Merritt and I saw what we’re pretty sure was an orca. It’s dorsal fin was way too big to be a dolphin’s but it was also quite close to the shoreline.

One of our first trips was a 45 minute leisurely drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is always a big hit with the boys.

Only a few minutes drive away was Capitola Beach which is even more calm for the kids. We met our friends Esther and her daughter Lotus there for a playdate. Esther had grown up in Capitola which is a very cute little beach town.

We also went to Santa Cruz and hung out on the boardwalk, caught some rides and ate some food. The boys liked the spectacle and it was a lot of fun.

We hiked a few trails, and visited some tidepools, almost every day started with an adventure in the morning, followed by some downtime at the beach near our house. Or a dip in the hot tub at our house, or should we say luke-warm-kid-friendly tub. Seth, Mia and their son, Strider, joined us one Saturday afternoon.

Merritt planned the vacation close to home knowing that I dislike to travel. She really wanted sun, sand and water. This area of Santa Cruz fit the bill perfectly. It was a great vacation.

BKNY

2007-08-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

In 1988, I went to Andover Summer School. (Yeah, so what if I did? Huh? HUH?) In my English class I met a girl named Alysia. She was cool. We were buds.

Jump to two years later and I’m at Penn (Yeah, so? So?!) And I bump into Alysia on campus. Except it’s not Alysia, it’s her twin sister Beth. She was cool. We were buds.

Jump to two years later and I learn that my cousins, Eugene and Stephanie are her cousins too. So we’re related by marriage, I think that’s called first cousins once removed? Anyway, we sort of keep in touch. It’s cool, we’re buds. She’s a writer in NYC, I was in NYC but moved to SF.

A few years ago, we get back in touch and she sends me her personal newsletter titled, “BKNY”.

It’s hella funny. She writes real good.

But get this, it’s printed on PAPER. And distributed via the United States Postal Service. How quaint! How 20th century! How often do I receive said newsletter? Not very frickin often.

So I says to Beth, I say, “Yo cous’, there’s this thing called the Internet. And something called a Blog.” And she says, “Yeah I know but privacy concerns, yadda yadda yadda, I’m a luddite yadda yadda yadda, I’m afraid of the boogeyman yadda yadda yadda.”

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I get an email from Beth announcing that she now has a blog. I read it. She still funny.

And now she puts up like 200 posts an hour.

Duck, Water. Water, Duck. Finally. Sheesh!

workshop cont...

2007-08-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Wiki Wiki

2007-08-25T14:41:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wish there was a cliffnotes version of a popular book that I just don’t have the time or motivation to read.

For example, I read the first Harry Potter book and thought it was ok but didn’t feel motivated to keep reading the series. But I still am interested enough to know how things turned out.

Wish there was a cliffnotes for it… but wait! There is! It’s called Wikipedia.

Thank you, Wikipedia, you just saved me countless hours of wading through mediocre writing and giving me the story in a nutshell. Wikipedia – cliffnotes for the world.

Today...

2007-08-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

Today I was eating something in the kitchen in my usual manner - filling my mouth until my cheeks are abundant with surplus.

It's efficient.

The wife took one look at me and said, "You are just barely housebroken."

Ouch.

Facebook

2007-08-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Previously I had sung the praises of Google Calendar’s UI Design. Well there’s a new prodigy in town, one that impresses me even more and its name is Facebook. Its UI is clean, consisten, simple and powerful.

Often times the best UI is the one you don’t even present to the user, where the app does it for the user. Facebook is all about automatically presenting information in useful way that doesn’t force the user to hunt or search. I have wasted oodles of time on that site. Great site.

AAU Fall '07 (Semester 4 of 7)

2007-08-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote about my ongoing schooling at the Academy of Art (AAU) in San Francisco. I'm studying to be a Story Artist in the Animation Program. Below my take on the courses I took in the Fall of last year...

Advanced Storyboarding
This class was a little frustrating in that the instructor didn’t have much structure to the semester as I would have liked. Most classes were spent listening to him talk about his experiences and opinions. Some days we didn’t have any homework assignments or exercises. It was useful but could have been better.

Every storyboarding class is completely dependent on the instructor and there’s no higher or lower level of instruction to a course. Next semester’s Storyboarding class would prove to be entirely different than the previous two.

Clothed Figure 1
This was an interesting class. The illustration courses have on the whole been stronger than the animation courses if just for the structure and curriculum of the semester.

Learned to recognize and draw different kinds of folds that wrap around and define the body underneath it. Very difficult to do. It’s like learning to have x-ray vision, to see through the clothing in order to know how to draw body and the clothing’s reaction to it.

Acting for Animators
In feature film animation, the real actors are not the people who give voice to the characters but those who make the characters PHYSICALLY MOVE to those voices – the animators. Animators study acting and take acting classes, like this one.

There were days when I thought we could have done more and the instructor was distracte. But it was a lot fo fun, and there were a few very valuable things I took away from the class.

The first thing was make it physical: touch, punch, shove, pull. Once you do that it’s easier for your acting partner (or other character in the scene you’re working on) to react. The second was reading the book “Impro” by Keith Johnstone – the entire book is a must for any storyteller. The book "Acting for Animators" by Ed Hooks is also highly recommended.

Figure Drawing Workshop

2007-08-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

The Vegetarian Redux

2007-08-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm rethinking a storyboard I'd created a while ago called "The Vegetarian" where a little girl is a heroine of the title name, who saves livestock from being eaten.

The bad guy in the first version was a chef about to cook a crab, but now I've made it a butcher about to chop up a chicken. He also loves his lone decoration in his butcher shop, a leafy green plant.