Thank You, Robert Blalack

More PIXEL Conference "family album" awesomeness, VFX Academy Award winner (first/original Star Wars film) Robert Blalack posing for souvenir photos (surrounded by the cheerful Pixel cameramen), right after the interview he was giving me fanboy extraordinaire; plus a snapshot from his talk at the main hall of the Academy of Sciences and a TV screen grab from the 50th Academy Awards ceremony, back in 1978. Thanks Robert, you're cool as hell!

Visual Development Roughs

Here're some other vis-dev roughs and character designs I did, last year. I blueprinted some really wacko things back then...

In this connection my compliments to my fellow co-heads of development, Robert and Andy. They're versatile wizzkids to the core. The same goes for our long distance trouper from Atlanta, Michael. 'Hope we'll set up another one of sorts in the near future...

I for one have now moved on to "StarDucks" and "Toby Skybuckle", my first "French connection" projects in fact... caused by Crisse :)

Layout

As I do not have any new stuff to show on this very day, I put this oldie on the blog. A rough animation layout test I did for a cartoon series pitch, some years ago. I posted this piece here once before. Sorry for the re-run.

BTW: BG/layout work is quite important to my character designs. It is fair to say that I draw the place before I draw the characters. Or more philosophical: I form the characters from within the scene.

Update: Talking of old things, here's another rough one. Two racing pilots of sorts. If I remember rightly, the Chinese ideograph means "path" or "route".

Drawn Rope Course

"Don't touch the floor!" (That reminds me of one of the funniest sports-games in PE/school sport: The Piratenspiel, a risky tag game of sorts)

Yum-Yum

Talking of inspiration and influence, here's a sort of short list of some of my dearest wondergirls and wonderboys. Enjoy:

Clio Chiang (Clio acts on the brain, she's amazing)
Shannon Tidle (His works are drop-dead superb)
Jake Parker (I'm satisfied that he's a Toby Skybuckle incarnate)
Ryan Wood (He's work/blog keeps me from work)
Shane Lewis (Well, he never ceases to amaze me)
Matt Williames (Simply brilliant)
John Nevarez (Well, it's John - he always puts us to shame)
Martin Wittig (You hinder me from work, too!!)
Oliver Kurth (The drinks are on me)
Ivan Oviedo (He's a brilliant animator)
Mel Milton (Well, it's Mel!)
David Coleman (A front two artist)
Francisco Herrera and Humberto Ramos (Hey men!)
Stephen Silver (Silver Surfer!)
Thierry Martin (Just naturally ueber-talented)
Uli Meyer (Sir!)
Bobby Chiu (Sir!)
Lou Romano (Doctor!)
Rob Dunlavey (Ahead of the pack)
Kurtz And Friends (Style!)
Alex Madrigal (Strong)

To be continued. This is certainly not the end of the list. By the by: Many of "my others" you can find in my links to the right. As Chad, Matt, Will, Jason ... and Flaviano and Federico and Sebastien ... oh boy, I shouldn't have started this...

Tangled Swords; Frog

"Rats!"

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Update (Nov 29, 2007): Hello frog. I didn't any research on you. Your're just a 4 minute egg.

"Chirp!"

And Now for Something Completely Different: The B-Hero And His Pet

Update: "Florian, are you positive that this is B-Hero's pet?"

No. In fact quite the reverse is true. (In this connection I want to apologise to my wise writers and co-designers who are working on this project with me for tolerating all those abstruse input of mine.)

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Well, he's not that kind of girl...

Socks

Boy, it's cold weather out there.

Scrapyard Stormy Feather

"Excuse me, may I get through?"

The Scared Ogre

This poor wretch was scared by Andrew. I'll show how Andrew looks after my vacation. By the by, I uploaded a short and, unfortunately, unsharp pre-sketch movie onto YouTube:

So, that will do now! Happy Holidays!

Rifle Marksbird

Another retro futurism blade.

I'm heading for vacation next week. I wish you all a happy Summertime and many thanks for your wonderful comments on my work. I appreciate that very, very much.

Phineas Cat & Cat Porter

*UPDATED

It is incontestable that he is a wonderful Hammond organ player, but he has a problem with authority figures.

Update: This is (below) Phineas' co-cat, the wondrous conductor, Cat Porter. In his hometown, his name is a byword for surreal incompetence.

Background Samples

Some layout/background pieces I did for a test animation.