Antikewl Daily

Lou Romano and the Art of “Up”

Trevor May — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:23:26 +0000

I’ve just been browsing Lou Romano’s production artwork that he did for Pixar’s “Up” again — specifically the colour script work that he did — and wondered why I hadn’t mentioned it here before!

Lou was a production designer on the movie and he’s posted dozens and dozens of pieces of artwork as well as some After Effects tests and dioramas.

Up Color Script
Art of Up: “Here is some of the development & production work I did on UP (2005-2008).”

Be sure to check out the rest of his blog too for more superb artwork, including stuff for The Incredibles and The Powerpuff Girls.

Lou’s work also features in Pixar’s Art of Up (US) book.

Little Big Planet’s “Sacktue of Liberty”

Trevor May — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:41:46 +0000

To celebrate 4th July this year, Media Molecule are offering a free downloadable “Sacktue of Liberty” costume for your Sackboy or girl to wear. If the summer solstice is more your cup of tea then you’ll be after the druid costume from last week, also free to download.

If they’re not cool enough for you, then how about these lovely in-game stickers designed by illustrator Jon Burgerman? They’ll set you back a couple of Dollars/Pounds/currency of choice though.

You’ll need a copy of Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3 to grab any of these and the Liberty costume is available world-wide from July 2nd.

Life imitates Pixar: “Up” in Seattle

Trevor May — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:49:36 +0000

I thought this to be a delightful photo in its own right, but then I read the story behind the house. Long-time resident of Ballard, Seattle, Edith Macefield, refused to sell up as the land around her one hundred year-old property was radically developed — even when offered a million dollars.

Edith sadly passed away last year but, recently, dozens of coloured helium balloons were tied to her home to promote Pixar’s latest feature “Up”, a story of a man who refuses to give up his own home after his own wife passes away.

Brushes: The iPhone drawing app

Trevor May — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:59:46 +0000

Here’s a fantastic must-have little app for any illustrator, artist or designer… providing they have an iPhone, of course!

Brushes allows you to use your iPhone handset as a virtual canvas, with your finger as the “brush”. When I was originally told about this I was pretty sceptical… how could you achieve any kind of detail with a big fat finger on a tiny screen? I was happily proved wrong. While it doesn’t have any kind of pressure sensitivity it does allow you select brush sizes, types and zoom in for those trickier parts.

If that’s not enough to get you to grab it already, what if I told you that artist Jorge Colombo has already had his Brushes art featured in (and of the cover of) the New Yorker Magazine? Thought so. Brushes is available for £2.99/$4.99 from the iTunes App store.

Also check out these sketches produced by Disney Art Director, Stef Kardos. Anyone know of any other artists doing cool stuff with this thing? (thanks Steve)

On The Way: Photography by Samuel Hicks

Trevor May — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0000

This weekend we dropped into the Crane Kalman Gallery in Brighton’s North Laine to check out British photographer Samuel Hicks’ first solo exhibition, “On the Way”.

Here’s an introduction by the artist himself:

“The … images are from 3 trips to the States over 18 months, driving through Texas, New Mexico, California and Nevada.

These trips were essentially quite loose; sometimes we knew we had to be at a specific place in a week’s time, but how we got there and where we stopped was decided along the way, sometimes by looking at the map, or often asking someone what it was like there.

I wanted to have a look around, see for myself…”

Typically, the photo I loved (Mustang, above, shot in El Mirage, California) was the most expensive. If anyone has a spare £1100 lying around… donations gratefully received.

If you can’t make it to Brighton for the show, much of it is available to view online at FOTO8.

More images by Samuel Hicks are on his website, samuelhicks.com.

On The Way runs from 4th June to 19th July 2009 at Crane Kalman Brighton, 38 Kensington Gardens, North Laine, Brighton BN1 4AL.

Lost Charley Harper paintings found

Trevor May — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:51:41 +0000

The Charley Harper Museum have revealed on their blog that a number of lost paintings by Charley Harper produced for the Ford Times and Lincoln Mercury Times magazines in the 1960s have been discovered deep within their archives.

The discovery of these paintings came as a surprise even to Charley’s son Brett. “I felt like I was opening a buried treasure chest that had been locked up for more than 35 years.”

The Estate and Studio have already respectfully declined several immediate offers for portions of the priceless collection. Brett believes that as the market begins to understand what the collage originals of birds, fish, and travel series represent—the rarest of the rare—collectors will be stunned.

Some of the pieces will be exhibited at the Fabulous Frames & Art Gallery in Chicago from July 11th until August 8th 2009. I can only hope they make an appearance somewhere closer to me in the future! (via Grain Edit)

Update: You can see a whole load more of them here: Long Lost Charley Harper (thanks Ward!)

More Alice in Wonderland concept art

Trevor May — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:01:47 +0000

Back in March I posted some links to scans from Disney’s 23 magazine about Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie. USA Today has just published some more beautiful pieces of concept art from the film’s production.

Also making a first appearance today are images of the Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Queen of Hearts, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen and Matt Lucas as both Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.

Alice in Wonderland will be released on the 5th March, 2010 in the US and on the 12th in the UK.

Otaku magazine issue 5: Play

Trevor May — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:23:31 +0000

Just a quickie! Otaku magazine’s “Play” issue is now out.

“Serious play represents a feature of any otaku’s activity. Basically you play, but you do it with the greatest dedication, seriousness and interest. We don’t want to be the prisoners of the industries that bet on our ability as playful mammals, but we desire to know them and explore their limits. Otaku PLAY explores the universe of players and play of all kinds. How and when you play. What you learn while playing and where do you risk arriving when you remain blocked within the same play.”

Otaku is an independent magazine from Romania which promotes Japanese-inspired visual arts. This issue comes with an interactive DVD and a superb 60cm x 40cm New York EbOY poster.

Also check out their blog for much much more of the same! (via Sam)

Happy 25th Birthday, Lomo LC-A

Trevor May — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:44:34 +0000

Today the little Russian film camera with a big cult following, the Lomo LC-A, or Lomo Kompakt Automat, celebrates its 25th birthday!

Originally designed as a cheap, durable camera for the Russian market, it quickly gained popularity in the communist East. By the 1990s, however, its popularity had waned because of cheaper and smaller cameras coming in from Asia and production ceased.

Fortunately, at about the same time, a bunch of students from Vienna discovered the LC-A while in Prague and started bringing a load of them back. As popularity for the camera increased in the west The Lomographic Society was born and production started again at the original Lomo Optics factory in St. Petersburg.

In 2005 the Lomo Optics factory closed (for good this time) and the life of the original LC-A ended. The Lomographic Society re-launched the LC-A as the new Chinese-built LC-A+ (which included a few extra features like a multiple exposure switch, more ASA settings and a cable-release button) and later introduced the LC-A+ RL which re-introduced the original Russian-built Minitar lens instead of a Chinese one and the cult following continued… albeit at a higher price!

To celebrate the anniversary, Lomography.com have 25% off all Lomo LC-A+ cameras and 10% off everything else on the 17th June only.

The “10 Golden Rules of Lomography”:

Take your LOMO everywhere you go.

Use it anytime – day or night.

Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it.

Shoot from the hip.

Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible.

Don’t think.

Be fast.

You don’t have to know beforehand what you’ve captured on film.

You don’t have to know afterwards, either.

Don’t worry about the rules.

For thousands of great Lomo photos, check out the Lomo Flickr group pool or the lomography.com member gallery.

Alice and Kev: The Homeless Sims

Trevor May — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:28:41 +0000

What if The Sims were played as homeless people? Robin Burkinshaw, a games development student wanted to find out. He’s created Alice, a girl with no money, no home, no food… and the worst Dad in the world.

When you create a Sim in The Sims 3, you can give them personality traits that alter their behaviour. Kev is hot-headed, mean-spirited, and inappropriate. He also dislikes children, and he’s insane. He’s basically the worst Dad in the world. He is a horrible human being, but he’s also amusing to watch.

His daughter Alice is a kind-hearted clumsy loser. With those traits, that Dad, and no money, she’s going to have a hard life.

I have attempted to tell my experiences with the minimum of embellishment. Everything I describe in here is something that happened in the game. What’s more, a surprising amount of the interesting things in this story were generated by just letting go and watching the Sims’ free will and personality traits take over.

The story that unfolds is at times funny, often sad and incredibly moving. (via Simon)

Busted Up Pokémon by Justin White

Trevor May — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:23:18 +0000

Californian illustrator and designer Justin White has been creating a series of Pokémon portrait illustrations.

The idea was to capture each character after a long battle
recuperating inside their pokeball. Or maybe I just wanted to imagine pokemon in a lot of pain. This was really just a fun way to keep active and creative.

You can find all of them on his Flickr stream or in his portfolio. While you’re there, also check out his other great projects including the Mario Brothers portraits and the Alphabet vector illustrations.

Wondering if I can fit the word “illustration” into this article one more time. Done. Enjoy!

Oliver Jeffers’ Lost and Found, Animated

Trevor May — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:37:13 +0000

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog you’ll probably already be aware of my respect for illustrator and childrens’ book artist Oliver Jeffers. This, however, managed to totally slip under my radar.

A 25-minute CG-animated adaptation of his second picture book Lost and Found won the TV Special Award at Annecy a couple of days ago. Apparently it was shown over here in the UK over Christmas but this is the first I’d heard of it!

I was rather concerned when I discovered that it was CG and not traditional 2D animation because of Oliver’s incredibly stylised art style but it appears London’s Studio AKA and director Philip Hunt have done a wonderful job of adapting it to 3D.

Here’s the trailer, and it appears that it’s already available on DVD in the UK!

2009 Annecy Award Winners

Trevor May — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:17:51 +0000

The Annecy International Animated Film Festival is an annual event in Annecy, France and a big part of it are their highly regarded awards.

The Crystal Award winners this year were:
In the short film category, “Slavar”, an animated documentary about child slavery. In the feature film category, “Coraline” and “Mary and Max”. Finally, in the TV production category, “Log Jam” which Aardman have recently secured the distribution rights to.

Here’s a full list of 2009 winners at the Annecy site.

I can’t find any of the shorts online yet, but here’s a interview with stop-motion animator Adam Elliot, whose feature Mary and Max went on to win the Crystal Feature award.

And here’s a charming moment with Adam and Coraline’s Henry Selick.

I’ll update this article as I find more shorts and clips. Drop me a line or leave a comment if you discover any!

Terrible Yellow Eyes, illustration inspired by Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are

Trevor May — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:11:11 +0000

With the Spike Jonze-directed movie forthcoming, illustrator Cory Godbey has started an awesome project, Terrible Yellow Eyes, to celebrate Maurice Sendak’s illustrated children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are. He’s invited numerous talented artists to contribute their own works, inspired by the book itself.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll display a growing collection of works created by invited contributing artists and myself. We share a love and admiration for Sendak’s work and the pieces we present here are done as a tribute to his life and legacy.

Simply put, like a visual love letter to the book, with Terrible Yellow Eyes I am seeking to celebrate and promote the original masterwork by Maurice Sendak in the best way I know how — with pictures.

I was going to write a list of my personal favourites from the collection but there are simply too many to mention!

Maurice Sendak celebrated his 81st birthday on Wednesday. Happy birthday Maurice!

(discovered via Ward, who’s contributed this lovely illustration to the project)

Update: Lindsey just drew my attention to the We Love You So blog. It’s a diary of multitude of stuff that has inspired the making of the film adaptation by the film crew themselves.

Shane Acker’s 9: Tim Burton’s latest animated project

Trevor May — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:35:01 +0000

In 2005 an architecture student at UCLA by the name of Shane Acker released an 11-minute silent CG animated short film called “9″ that had been produced in his spare time over four and a half years. Another four years later and it’s been developed into a Tim Burton-backed feature length film (here, like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton is the executive producer, not the director).

In an interview with Shane in Frames Per Second magazine (check out the whole thing, it’s a good read), he names some of his favourite movies as Brazil, The Thing, Aliens and Delicatessen and you can certainly see the influence of those films come across, both in his original short and in the trailer for the new film.

Talking of the short, here it is:

9 Nine Shane Acker Short Animation
Uploaded by FrFKmeron – Arts and animation videos.

It’s interesting to note that the forthcoming film is a talkie — and an all-star voiced one at that. I’m always a bit wary when I see an animated film with so many A-list actors on-board, as if they’re being used as the pull to see it rather than the merits of the movie itself… we’ll have to wait and see.

More vintage Disneyland Hotel stuff

Trevor May — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:03:43 +0000

I recently had an email from Donald W. Ballard who corrected a few details in my previous article on the Disneyland Hotel. Don’s written a book on the subject so should know his stuff!

His blog is a treasure trove of things about the hotel; early photographs both private and promotional, concept art, newspaper and magazine clippings and advertisements, brochures, passes, memos… even a mini golf scorecard! You name it, it’s probably in there.

The Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years is available direct from the author for $47.50 plus shipping.

Illustrator Joey Ellis

Trevor May — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:23:10 +0000

I originally discovered Joey’s work through The Disney Blog who highlighted the superb Disney-themed avatars that he uses as his Twitter profile pics. From there I discovered the fantastic Mickey Mouse mural he designed and painted onto his son’s room.

He’s also used his talents for some incredibly good deeds too. He’s set up Cory Fights Giants to help raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Check out his latest work on his blog and on his Flickr stream.

A five minute roundup of the cool stuff at E3 2009

Trevor May — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:42:25 +0000

Here’s an super-condensed round-up of the cool stuff from E3 this year.

First up, the presentation that’s undeniably caused the biggest buzz: Microsoft’s Project Natal, a motion sensing device that allows you to interact with your Xbox 360 using gestures and voice without the need for a controller. Peter Moyneux presented a scripted prototype of an interaction between an on-screen boy, Milo, and a real-life player. It’ll be interesting to see how and if this will actually work in the real world with real games. It has no announced release date but is expected to be released in late 2010.

Nintendo presented their Wii MotionPlus which plugs into the Wii Remote to add greater motion sensitivity which will be used in games such as Wii Sports Resort, as well as their Vitality Sensor. Sony, too, demonstrated their version of a motion controller which tracks the location of two “wands” — this will be available in Spring 2010.

E3 certainly wasn’t short on cool games either. LucasArts showed an impressive first cinematic teaser trailer for the forthcoming Star Wars PC MMO, The Old Republic. They also announced the return of Monkey Island on both Xbox and PC in the form of an enhanced Special Edition version of the classic Secret of Monkey Island as well as reveal that Telltale Games, the guys behind the new Sam & Max games, are working Tales of Monkey Island, a brand new episodic game.

Nintendo didn’t announce, as many were expecting, a new Wii-based Zelda game but did reveal that Mario would be back in New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Valve announced a sequel to the co-operative zombie shooter Left for Dead for Xbox 360 and PC and presented an hilariously over the top gameplay trailer. Also delightfully over the top was the opening cinematic for Harmonix’ The Beatles Rock Band, directed by Pete Candeland.

BioWare showed their new trailer for Mass Effect 2, the eagerly awaited space RPG for Xbox 360 and PC.

Sony showed new trailers for Final Fantasy XIII and Heavy Rain and announced that God of War III would be released in March next year. They also announced Agent, a new “espionage action game” from Rockstar North, the team who brought us Grand Theft Auto.

We also got a more polished look at The Last Guardian, the fortcoming game from Team Ico who brought us Ico and Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2. You may remember the leaked Project Trico trailer a few months go — this is the same game.

Finally, a superb looking little game for the DS caught my attention called Scribblenauts. It’s a side-scrolling platform-ish puzzle game where the player summons objects to solve problems by writing the name of the object you want on the screen with the stylus. Scribblenauts will be released late this year but here’s a video of the folks from nintendorks.com having a play with it.

The Beatles Rock Band intro by Pete Candeland

Trevor May — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:11:58 +0000

Harmonix have just released this superb animated game intro video / trailer for the The Beatles Rock Band game due to be released in September. It’s directed by Pete Candeland who’s most well known for the numerous videos produced with Jamie Hewlett for Gorillaz. Have a look at his portfolio over at the Passion Pictures website.

A new gameplay video was also released and is available to view and download from the game’s website.

Monkey Island: Special Edition plus brand new episodic game announced

Trevor May — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:28:03 +0000

Lucasarts have just released further details on the forthcoming Monkey Island remake for Xbox Live Arcade, along with the news that it’ll also be available for Windows. Sadly no news on whether it’ll make the Playstation 3, Wii or Nintendo DS. The latter would be especially interesting as the stylus-based interface would be ideal for this kind of game.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition stays faithful to the original but with new brand new 2D artwork and audio. It also has its own website. Well, a widget, anyway, with a tiny video stuck in it. If you want to view it in full HD you’ll need to head over to their Facebook fan page and check it out it there.

But that’s not all! It’s also been announced that Telltale Games, the team who produced the new Sam & Max series, are producing a brand new episodic Monkey Island adventure for PC: Tales of Monkey Island. Like Sam & Max Season One and Two, the new games will be 3D-rendered and split into five downloadable episodes, released monthly.

Here’s the trailer to whet your appetite:

Remote controlled DeLorean built with LEGO

Trevor May — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:15:22 +0000

Back to the Future fans should check out this fantastic remote controlled DeLorean car built entirely out of LEGO by Legohaulic. Makes me want to have a play with LEGO Technics and Power Functions again — I’m sure the components are way more advanced than when I was a kid!

Here’s a video of it in action and a gallery of photos.

First Toy Story 3 Teaser Trailer

Trevor May — Sat, 30 May 2009 06:33:08 +0000

Pixar’s latest feature Up was released to cinemas yesterday and, with it, a teaser trailer for next year’s Toy Story 3.

Toy Story 3 will be released in June 2010.

Coming soon: Antikewl Daily 2.0

Trevor May — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:49:09 +0000

If you have noticed that things have been rather slow around here again it is because I am struggling to do two things at once: build a new Antikewl Daily whilst keeping this old one populated with fresh content.

Yes, you did hear me correctly; this site is getting its very first design! Since becoming a blog in 2003, antikewl.com has worn numerous off-the-shelf themes on both MovableType and Wordpress before settling on an increasingly cobbled hack of the PlainTxtBlog theme in 2006, now it is just too big (and wobbly) for its boots.

You might have noticed a few extra features that I have added already like the ability to subscribe to comment replies, links to related posts on every article and short urls… but these are just the beginning!

Keep your eyes peeled for the new Antikewl Daily soon but, in the mean time, I apologise for the lack up updates. Bear with me!

Also, there is a little peek at the top of the mockup of the new homepage above — what do you think?

Antikewl gets SWFTed

Trevor May — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:03:07 +0000

I mentioned Sam Bradley, the guy who’s been doing the illustrated social experiment on Twitter, a week or so ago. Since then he’s put all the illustrations he’s produced up on their own website, SWFT.ca, and added me to the ranks alongside such glitterati as Douglas Coupland and Drawn’s Robot Johnny.

Might need to lighten up the tone of my tweets though — I appear to have been depicted as a miserable tiny balding man!

John Hanna, Illustrator (1919 – )

Trevor May — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:08:27 +0000

Browsing through my backlog of blog feeds this morning a post by Nick Asbury caught my eye. He was looking for more information about the illustrator who created these beautiful covers for Country Fair magazine, signed “Hanna”, in the 1950s.

By the time I had found the post he had already managed to discover that it was an Australian artist by the name of John Hanna who lived in England from 1948 to 1962.

Surprisingly there’s very little the web about him, but I have managed to dig up a few additional scans of his work for Country Fair. (via Ace Jet 170)