Denmark! (it's a wrap)

Happy New Years! Hope 2011 is good to all of you guys and gals out there =] I just wanted to post a few pics of a tremendous opportunity I have to teach a character design workshop this week with the talented Florian Satzinger all the way in Viborg, Denmark. Hosting us is the super awesome, super duper dedicated Animation Workshop which has a beautiful campus where they work and play. Can't wait to start classes on Monday... wish me luck =]

country side

my temporary desktop

mmm... cant wait to hit the sack after a long 12hrs of travel!

near the teachers' building where i'm staying. It's an old military barracks

a cemetery on the way to town

i found a small door! =]



the viborg museum


i saw this little guy on campus and loved him =]

the animation workshop inhabits an old military facility

the sunrise at 9:20am



the students hard at work

head of the class

the desktop guardian...

... and her arch nemesis.

final dialies where the students showed their finished pieces =]

and that's a wrap

florian's guest book sketch

and mine

I had a wonderful experience teaching such talented and dedicated students at the Animation Workshop. The facilities there in Viborg are top notch! The town is very charming and the Danish people are very welcoming. Thanks to everyone for their hospitality and a special thanks to Florian Satzinger for the invite, to Anja and Lana for all their help and guidance =] I wish all the students good luck with their final projects!

Happy Holidays!

doodle-age

CTN was awesome and being home in San Fran was perfect. Thanks to my brother from another mother I was able to sit in on a clothed figure drawing workshop. I've rearranged and thrown in some cafe doodles in there too... and I love bikes =] Hope everyone's holidays are going smooth!

1-3 min poses . brush pen

fernando and an imaginary bud

hey guys, i'm soo excited for ctn... really looking forward to meeting up with old friends, colleagues and some fun in the california sun. i wanted to sneak in another post before the weekend... i'll be away for a while but here's a color study i did for a personal project called 'fernando and his imaginary friend'. not crazy about the title but it's still very early...

kitchen set- color study & rough scale

you might remember these guys from long ago... ralf & fernando.

brush pen

above are some drawings i did while waiting at grand central station. that place is amazing every time and it's such a good place to sketch. i meant to put them up a few posts ago. see ya soon!

a little color please

Hello! Sorry for the delay on responding or posting. I've been hibernating in my studio trying to get ready for CTN along with finishing up some freelance work. I've been developing personal work and trying to add some color to my portfolio...

left to right - Trot, Button Bright & Cap'n Bill

Above is my take on characters from Frank Baum's fantasy novel called 'Sky Island'. Like his Oz books the Sky Island world lends itself well to visual development. Doing characters in full color is a process I'm still developing and wanting to get better at... Below is a moment in the story where Button Bright is looking for his magical umbrella in the evil rulers treasure chamber, that of course is guarded by a blue wolf =] Hope you enjoy and please, any feedback is always welcome. Thanks.

the treasure chamber

Art Blocks for Ghana

Here's my contribution to the 'Art Blocks for Ghana' auction happening early next year. It's a wonderful event being put on by a dear friend for a great cause. You can check out their site for more info and you can check out all the 'art blocks' going up on their blog too. I'm very proud to be a part of this and very excited to see all the wonderful art work people are already submitting. Everyone should definitely stay tuned and participate when the time comes.

The theme was 'home' and my piece is based on a fond memory from my childhood. The block I grew up on had a small family owned deli where Joyce (the lady in the picture) made unbelievably delicious sandwiches. She always saved us the best part...

'salami ends' acrylic & pencil 10x10

the samurai's son

the samurai's son

here's my playful take on the topic over at the drawforce blog... 'the samurai'. what if a kid was messing around with his dad's samurai mask, boasting about how his dad can beat up anyone else's dad... spooking out all the kids in the village? =]

below is a rough pose, the line drawing and a detail of the mask. please enjoy and thanks for stopping by and leaving comments. you guys are dope.

rough variation & the inked drawing

detail of the mask. i messed up the inked version so i added the teeth in ps.

washington square park

The Wanderer

drawforce - the wanderer

warrior princess

warrior princess - willie (drawforce.blogspot.com)

Going for a picture book style on this one. Sorry for the delay in posts...I've been a busy bee. Hopefully you will all get a chance to see the fruits of my labor shortly =] Thanks for all the wonderful comments on here too... you guys and gals are all dope and inspirational. gracias.

-willie

shape test 001

a doodle turned drawing in my sketchbook. i've been playing around in my studio lately with brush pens, and shapes, and old stuff and will soon post the fruits of my labor. but first i'm off to italy for a week for a friends wedding and some time off... arrivederci!

Starfighter

hey guys and gals! sorry for the lag in posts...stuff is kind of busy right now and I'm trying to work on more personal work outside of everything. i'll post some of it soon. till then the topic over at drawforce this month is 'starfighter'. not sure if i hit the mark but i kept picturing this little guy going around trying to capture all the stars... in the universe! he's kind of a punk.

Beautiful Grim Wave 2

the second wave of the beautiful grim art auction is up on ebay! check the link and support this wonderful cause (and wonderful person). here's your chance at one of my original ink drawings...so go, go, go!

beautiful grim art auction

beautiful grim - willie real- pen & ink 8x11

The Conductor

drawforce.blogspot.com

Ed Catmull interview

There's this really good interview with Ed Catmull (co-founder of pixar) that I found very interesting, inspiring, and wonderfully honest. There are a ton of great points he makes about the film process and the success of his company, but there was one that really stuck with me. He was answering a question referring to children being 'consumers' and changing with time and technology and here's what he said...

" ...In terms of the way we think about our stories though, we don't segment them in that sense. We do make films that children can enjoy but we also make films WE can enjoy and we believe very strongly that children live in an adult world. We want things in the films they don't understand, not that were trying to do that. What makes things interesting for children is they are figuring out their world and if you make something that is all easy for them to figure out your actually having a distortion of the world they operate in and the world they like to be in."

He has a really good point when it comes to censorship and 'thought control'...something I personally juggle when making decisions about what's acceptable when I work in film or in picture books. Anyways, my apologies for the personal post...I was really inspired when I listened to it and I'm posting it hoping you all will be too. Thanks for all the comments lately! Stay tuned, more to come =]

-willie

'beatdown'

a moment/color piece i'm testing out...originally it was for a charity show called 'beautiful grim'. I was nowhere near where I wanted to be so decided to hold onto it and work on it a bit more.

'beatdown' - digital

Mural

digital

Above is an image I was commissioned to do for a mural in NYC. An awesome couple are having their first new born and decided they wanted to give their little guy a safari in his room. I jumped at the opportunity and tried a picture book style, which in this case worked well (i thought) for the wall... I also tried tying all the characters together in a 'moment' under a tree in the safari somewhere...

1. projecting the design and tracing it onto the wall

2. prepping... i have to thank bobby and vinnie for suggesting pre-mixed paints. you guys saved my life.

3. filling in...

and more filling in (thanks for the help babes!)

4. the line and detail came next. this took a while. if you look closely i re-drew most of it a second time, with white chalk...just to make sure my scale and relationships weren't gettin' crazy.

fin!

one of my favorite details.

Dragon Emperor

Dragon Emperor was the topic over at DrawForce this month (how to train your dragon was awesome! congrats to the folks who worked on it!) Anywho, I wanted to take this one a bit further with color. It's new for me to finish something to this level but I had fun and I'm trying to balance flats and form to create something that you might see in a picture book...or in an animated short. Please drop knowledge or crits here...

meet woodrow...

Blog-land, this is Woodrow. Woodrow, this is blog-land. hi. hello.


I have this old wooden toy that's been sitting around for a while and I finally gathered the courage to draw on it. I've been testing brush pens on all kinds of wood recently and It feels really nice...natural if you will. Lines flow very nicely and wood welcomes the ink. I have a few other things in the works that I don't think are quite ready to show, but stay tuned! In the meantime here's Woodrow (last name?)

Woodrow loves chucks

sorry about that... Woodrow tends to go pee every two hours
and strongly feels that 'when you gotta go, you gotta go'
-willie real copyright 2010

fake book cover

i'd love to illustrate book covers and things of that sort, so here's a mock cover i did for fun...

copyright willie real 2010