Merry Christmas

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Puppetry Final

I built my favorite puppet of the semester for my final. He was made out of some foam rubber (in the same basic design as the Sesame St. muppets) and covered in denim from some old jeans. I used the zipper on the mouth.

I didn't intend to do a performance on the day of the final because I just ran out of time to write one. The class made me do one anyway. So what you are about to see is all improvised. Had this been rehearsed it may have been much funnier, but the world will never know.

Follow the link here and find my name (3rd column.) Click my name. Enjoy.

Web Happenings

Hey folks, I've got a couple of websites running now beyond just the blogoshpere. You can find the links to them just on the right side of this very blog you are looking at right now.

The first one is my personal website. It's pretty much just an online portfolio and if you frequent this website then it won't really be new stuff to you. It's fairly utilitarian but it works for now.

The other website is a personal project of mine: Creative Central. It's the beginnings (still very early) of a website that will be dedicated to the teaching of creativity to children.

Both these sites were made using Weebly. Don't know Weebly? Check it out, it's free.

Office Pig

Still trying to figure this out. Getting there.

A Special Card From Some Special Friends

I visited my wife's classroom yesterday to help out a bit and teach an art lesson. (I do that a lot; it's muy mucho fun.)

Before the art lesson started and suffering from severe sleepy-ness (due to a late night's work) I curled up on the floor underneath a table in the back of the classroom and took a short power nap. 20 minutes tops.

The 6th-graders thought this was pretty amusing and they made me a special little card to let me know. When I woke up I found this.

And on the inside.

I especially like the bit reminding me to not wet the bed.

I've got to be more careful about where I take a nap. Next time I might wake up with a mustache drawn on my face.

Really Cheap Sketch Book

This might just be one of my favorite sketchbooks ever. It was made primarily from things I found in my home. Just corrugated cardboard, copy paper, glue, string and creative juices (sticky and yellow.)

The string wasn't found; I purchased it... and the hole punch. I found the rest.

This is the beginning.

This is the middle.

This is the end.

This is me actually holding the book in my very own hand (I'm in the print lab at school.) See the extra pieces of cardboard glued onto the cover? They are actually helping with the structural integrity of the book (and they look cool.)

Don't ask what this is about or who that guy is because I just don't know.

even more vocab comics

another multi-pager

more vocab comics

This one has multiple panels and I didn't want to mix it up with the others.

6th Grade Vocabulary Comics

Last week I visited my wife's 6th grade class to teach them about how comics work.  We talked about juxtaposition and the power of closure and audience participation.  They understood it all pretty well.  Then each kid made their own short comic using their vocabulary words.  (You might notice a lot of repeating words like chameleon and dehydrated.)

I think they did a pretty good job.

Spots

But not on dalmatians.

These are some quick spot illos I did this week. I think I'm getting close to understanding this process. Now I just need to do another 40 or 50 of these so that I can get good at it.

Moo.

A recent sketchbook page.  What, doesn't everybody draw cows with delusions of grandeur in their spare bits of time?  I can't be the only one.

A Kid

A character design for a storyboarding project I'm working on. The story is about the mishaps of potty training.

More Puppet Shenanigans

I've really been enjoying my puppetry class this semester. I recently did another solo puppet performance in class. This one had to be musical. Go figure.

If you want to see it click here. Under 2nd Presentation find my name (Will) and click it. Wait for video to load and enjoy. It may take a while to load. It's a big file.

By the way, I made that dinosaur puppet out of a stuffed animal I bought at SAVERS for $4. Pretty cool right? I'll post detailed photos later.

A New Blog Banner

Now 100% less generic.

(Update: I hated the banner I posted yesterday, so it's gone forever. The new new banner is up. I think it's a keeper.)

Leafs (!)

Fall/Autumn is great.  My favorite time of year in fact.  Fall/Autumn is so great that it is the only season that holds the honor of being named twice.  I know right?  Blows my mind too.  Step back Winter; you can't handle the grandeur.

I was messing around with some paint on Sunday and I came up with this.  (gouache and ink)

Korean Hamsters in Various Costumes

A couple of days ago I visited my wife's 6th grade class to help out a bit and listen to a really cool lecture on space by Dr. Ed Gholdston of NASA (but that's another story.)  After the lecture I was sitting in the back of the class drawing zombies as I sometimes do.  While drawing I was being watched by a student named Skyler.  He told me that he likes to draw hamsters.  I asked him to draw one for me.  So he did.  

I give you "Hamster in a Santa Suit."

Skyler first saw this hamster on some Korean stationary that his brother (currently residing in Korea) sent to him.  Skyler likes to dress up the hamster in all kinds of costumes.

Add a sombrero and a maraca and you have "Hamster South of the Border, Down Portugal Way."

I love it.

Image Search Telephone #2

Following up on the last image I entered "pile of dentures" into Google. It only took 3 pages to find this.

I'm not sure why I find this so fascinating.

Image Search Telephone #1

Did you ever play that "Telephone" game when you were a kid? You know, the one where you whisper some normal phrase into someone's ear and they pass it down the line in whispers so that on the other end you end up with a phrase like "purple monkey dishwasher."

Today I played Image Search Telephone. I typed the phrase "out of control rhino on a unicycle" into the Google Image Search and this is what it brought back (10 pages down the results.)

It's just amazing what gets lost in translation. I think I'll follow this one and see where it goes.

Animals Doing Silly Things

Just something quick I did for fun a few days ago.

Puppets!

I'm taking a class on puppetry at BYU.  It's unlike any class I've ever taken before.  We build puppets, write puppet scripts and do puppet performances.  It's a blast (yeah, I know I'm a bit odd.)

You can check out my first puppet performance here:  FUN TIMES.  (scroll to the bottom and click "Will")

No dialogue was allowed in this one.

Monster Comics

A rough comic I've been working on. I'm going to pretty-fy it up more over the weekend.

Mail Monster

Not "Male Monster." Though it doesn't look very feminine to me.

Mail

Just a color study for an Illo I'm working on.

This is fun.  No, seriously.  I've been doing so much boring digital color that I can't even describe to you the joy of pushing real paint around on a real piece of paper.

So.  Much.  Fun.

These are pretty small by the way.  Just a couple of inches on each side.  I glue them into my sketch book so I don't lose them.

Rust Study Number Two*

*bonus adorable-toy-robot inside

Rusty Rust Rust

Just a study I did today of some rusty metal.  I'm doing an illustration with a big robot in it and I want to get it right.

Little White Dog

Some more images for work.  This book is about places in the neighborhood.