New Pencil Test

Here's a few seconds of the long 3 minute sequence from "MKT"

Ana's Story

So in late December 2009 I was asked volunteer some illustrations to go with a story written by a 12 year old girl from the area.

It was called Ana's Story

She wrote about how circumstances in her family situation had forced her mother, younger sister and herself out into the street.

She went on to write about the difficulties of moving around and trying to have a normal social life at school. What do you tell your friends when they want to have a sleepover at your house...

...When your house is a homeless shelter?

...or the street?

She also wrote about the things and people in her life that inspired her to persevere through the hard times.

Her family was fortunate enough to get into a transitional housing program and eventually move on to affordable housing.

In North Virginia, affordable housing has become a sad political issue. We have a very large population of people making less than 25K a year. These people need places to live, but the housing market in North Virginia is ridiculously expensive, what few plots of land that are left are generally turned into lots of high priced professional condos or "McMansions". This means employees in the service sector have to move farther and farther out of the area to find an affordable home adding to their transportation costs.

What's even more disturbing is local politicians and groups of local home owners have been working together to suppress development of affordable housing. They believe that a close proximity of affordable housing or rental properties near their wealthy neighborhoods will cause their own housing value to drop making it harder for them to sell off their properties for more than what they are physically worth when they decide to retire.

It's unfortunate that the greedy nature of these individuals creates such hardships for the lower income workers in the area. The lower income workers often work longer, harder hours in the foundation services that keep the higher end of the local economy afloat.

It is my hope that this book will bring awareness to the plight of the lower income workers and their families. These are the hands that truly built and maintain our communities and they have just as much right to live in the communities where they work as anyone else. If the current residents cannot comprehend this, then I hope their children can.

As Ana says about being homeless...

"It is not a choice
It can happen to Anyone
If we work Together, we can overcome Homelessness"

We are still working out how we will distribute this book, so I don't have a listing for where you can see the full story and set of illustrations at this time, however, I'll update this blog on that info when a decision is reached.

In the meantime if you are interested in Reston Interfaith and the critical and varied social services they do in the Herndon/ Reston areas of North Virginia please visit there website...

www.restoninterfaith.org

Sketchbook Update Feb, Mar, Whatever...

Yeah, I've been busy with stuff and have not had too much to add to the Sketch book in the last 2 months, I do still draw, but it's mostly when I'm cracking down on the animation which ain't gonna draw itself.

I worked on this slowly between February and March. I want to give it a real scan and color detail it when I get a chance.

Sendakesqe...

Alice In Wonderland

No this is not some movie review or fan art tribute, I have not even gone to see it yet...

nope, I got commissioned by a local ballet director to design a backdrop for an upcoming recital interpretation of Carrol's classic novel.

I've opted out of trying to paint the backdrop myself, it's about 30 feet long and 18 feet high and I just don't have the time or mindset to attempt something that large (let alone a studio big enough to handle it.

I also am interested to see how others will be able to render it out, I'll try to get pictures when it is done.

The Ax

In yet another delayed posting...

Following the rants of other artist who felt the cold betrayal of Mac in it's release of the iPad, I found a link to the Axiotron Modbook package and had to get one.

I got it last month.

Downsides: -Does not last very long on battery when running Photoshop

-Screen is not very that bright and has some polarization issues.

-Drawing surface is not the strongest, already got some scratches that I did not expect to get so soon (now I'm more careful with it)

Upside: It's a portable Cintiq dude... I can draw/color/ animate where ever I want (as long as there is electricity)

Definitely worth the money, but make sure you take care of the screen if you follow the same path. The revolution is not gentle and some things need to take a beating. The Ax is a very nice tool, but when compared to the pen and paper, it still has some evolution to go through. Climbing a mountain on foot and and hoping to fully render out a scene with the Ax, is just not that quite doable yet.

On Inner Inspiration (late snomagden observance)

Sometimes our minds are apt to imagine our souls in places..

Where our Earthly Body's do not currently reside.

ENOUGH!

Bring on the spring!

Siberia

So I got an e-mail from a good friend who just moved to Southern Thailand with lot's of pictures of tropical birds, decorative temples, exotic beaches...

Well I have all that too...

...Somewhere in a past life.

A frosty greeting to MF from sunny NOVA.