A girl and her dog

Yesterday evening I attended the premiere party for the new animated series The Mighty B! at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank. It was great to see so many familiar faces especially the incredibly talented crew of the newest "NickToon".

The campfire themed party was a huge success and was capped with a private screening of two choice episodes from the show. It was a gratifying experience to be part of this amazing project and to work with some of the best people in the business.

My extreme gratitude to show creators Erik Weise, Cynthia True and Amy Poehler for being such cool people and for letting me indulge my ideas and have fun. This show is truly a rare synergy of writing, art direction and animation and goes down as one of the best shows I've worked on.

My personal thanks go to associate producer Monique Beatty and her amazing production crew and to Nick's VP and GM Mark Taylor for his tremendous encouragement and support. Thanks as well to the talented and hard-working storyboard crew including Chuck Klein, Sherm Cohen, Octavio Rodriguez, Fred Gonzales, Eddie Trigueros, Chris Graham, Lynne Naylor, Ken Boyer and Ian Graham.

The Mighty B! airs Saturday mornings on Nickelodeon. Check your local listings. The image above is a shot from the first episode. Below is a storyboard panel I drew from a future episode done on Sketchbook Pro.

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*** RELATED VIDEO***


AP review by Frazier Moore featuring clips from the first two episodes: So Happy Together and Sweet Sixteenth. Frazier gets a little cheesball here but worth the
watch.

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The next two videos are from last year's Comic-Con panel and features some rough pencil animation from two future episodes We got the Bee and Super Secret Weakness. That's Erik and Cynthia moderating.

Traveling Light

It's essential for any artist to always to find any excuse to sketch, (at least I do) so carrying a sketchbook should be standard operating procedure. It's a great way to stay sharp and expand the inner visual vocabulary.

For weekend jaunts to wherever I always lug a backpack filled with sketchbooks, a pouch for my drawing implements and my Windsor & Newton Cotman mini-watercolor set. Sometimes the opportunity won't be there but whenever I'm killing time somewhere I'll reach into my bag and sketch whatever catches my eye.

Recently I dug up these 2 x 4 inch newsprint pads that my brother Ron gave me as souvenirs from one of his trips to Japan. The great thing about them is they're small and compact and will fit easily in your pocket. Instead of a whole pouch of pens I'll bring a 0.9mm Automatic Pencil, one ink pen and a waterbrush. The Cotman is around 6 x 3 x 2 inches and fits in my pants pocket as well.

This is a great alternative to carrying a bag of stuff, and personally, it eliminates the "I'm too lazy to lug a backpack so I won't bring one" excuse as well.

These sketches are from Los Angeles' historic Farmers Market. All sketched quickly by pencil on the above mentioned newsprint pads. Coloring done digitally via Photoshop with faux watercolor brushes.

Private Dicks

They work cheap. Won't you hire them?

Au Naturel

I took a much needed break from all this digital hoopla i've been hyping for the past few months and went back to basics.

Though I still do a lot of drawing digitally, i've been balancing things out by sketching traditionally as well. There is nothing like the feel of real pencil, paper and watercolor. Drawing without the "undo" button also forces you to commit to a line. This keeps you sharp as well as economical and direct when laying down form.

The sketch is of the many quiet nooks around the grounds at the Dreamworks campus. I used a little Photoshop to correct levels and bring out shadows. Otherwise it's pencil and water color on sketch paper.