Art, comedy, video, and things you like in general.
I had the unfortunate task of subjecting my fellow students to my painted toenails. I didn’t realize this until it was too late, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to take it off. At least I’m not cutting off my ear.
This item is available for purchase
18″ x 24″ Charcoal
realistic charcoal portrait of famous actress Veronica Lake
Whats weird is that is how her eyes are actually pointed.
Old man sketch
Posted on May 14, 2012
some charcoal sketching, hands and feet
Posted on May 14, 2012
Michelangelo back study, mucles of the ribcage masses
Posted on Mar 6, 2012
skull study
Posted on Feb 28, 2012
Click into image twice to see full resolution
18″ x 24″
This piece is available for purchase
Charcoal rendering of Salvador Dali
I thought I would try to make a animated swf file out of the process, and will do so again a little better next time.
And here is a picture of me smiling!
Old man sketch
Posted on May 14, 2012
some charcoal sketching, hands and feet
Posted on May 14, 2012
Michelangelo back study, mucles of the ribcage masses
Posted on Mar 6, 2012
skull study
Posted on Feb 28, 2012
(click into the photo to get to full size and resolution)
18″ x 24″ Charcoal rendering of Vincent Price
The original item is available for purchase
just so you have a real idea of what 18 x 24 looks like, here’s a pic with me in it!
A few things on this:
1. I’m still waiting on my instructors feedback but I am posting this prematurely. I guess that shows I’m gaining confidence in my work!
2. Taking a photograph of your work is always problematic. Lights pointed in different directions, all different colors, create glares and blown out levels. This was the best I got without spending my evening taking pics of the drawing.
3. One of the biggest challenges about this picture was his expression. It isn’t surprised, it isn’t scared. It isn’t smiling, it’s really a mixture of things. This I am realizing, is probably part of what makes Vincent Price so incredible. When drawing a face, that is surprised lets say, it is easy to place expressionism in the features because they are an extreme fixated position and you know not only that the eyelids go up, but it is a fixated emotion, whereas this is a multitude and a mystery of feeling. However, I realized that I haven’t really seen any of his real work other than the modern stuff he was nice enough to play a part in. Maybe because I considered most of his old work kinda hokey, but that is being unfair. It’s really weird realizing this, having not only been obsessed with all things horror, but also having spent a good amount of time studying genres of film including Hitchcock and even Jean Luc-Godard. But what is cool, is as I drew this, I realized how much he had influenced a whole genre, and inspired children by making appearances on the Muppets, and being what I realized as an amazing human being. By the time I reached the end stage, not only did I feel like I respected him a whole lot more, but I already was influenced and inspired by him and I haven’t even given him a chance yet.
I’m watching the Abominable Dr. Phibes tonight.
Old man sketch
Posted on May 14, 2012
some charcoal sketching, hands and feet
Posted on May 14, 2012
Michelangelo back study, mucles of the ribcage masses
Posted on Mar 6, 2012
skull study
Posted on Feb 28, 2012
New shirts for Comic Labs! Sign up to our newsletter at comiclabs.com and be entered for a chance to win one of our shirts. We will be giving one away every month, so your chances of winning at some point are very high.
My good friend and not to mention, THE BEST artist I have ever personally met, Justin Ison, took our company mascot and made up a fantastic version for the shirt.
Give aways come in the dark blue color seen in the pictures here, but you can also purchase a color of your choice by clicking here.
New shirt, “Life Coach”
Posted on Mar 21, 2011
Facebook shirt
Posted on Mar 9, 2011
New client website, Carly McMenoman
Posted on Feb 9, 2011
Kevin Nealon: Subliminal Man
Posted on Feb 7, 2011
I recently had to pull and re-upload this video due to copyright infringements with the music. But no matter, the first song in the new video is by my friend who goes by “Sofahr.” He inspired me to find and use my talents, and deserves massive recognition for his insanely good music. I hope you all like it and seek out his work. I hope to help him make it available to anyone who likes it.
Please share and comment. Thanks!
Final piece:
The creation of TUMOR BABY
Posted on Jun 25, 2011
Butcher
Posted on Jun 3, 2011
Post-rapture photo
Posted on May 20, 2011
Charcoal: Veronica Lake
Posted on May 13, 2011
Test the commitment of life coaches with this shirt!
click image to select style, color, and purchase
New Comic Labs t-shirts!
Posted on May 2, 2011
Facebook shirt
Posted on Mar 9, 2011
Codecs are a nightmare at first, but once you get your hands dirty it becomes really simple (at least I’d like to think.) There are basic codecs that are generally used and some updated ones come out from time to time. If you know what your medium is or where your final project is going, you should be able to figure it out. But to a beginner, there are many questions that come to mind at first, or worse, there are many questions that are overlooked that can result in a lot of problems in the future. So how do you know what to shoot your project with, and what the final result should be?
KNOW YOUR FINAL MEDIUM and GOAL.
Most people I know who shoot, they do it for web purposes. But their actual final goal is to get it on TV or in a film festival, even if they don’t realize it for the time being. The problem with this is that they shoot their video, and then export it (through premiere, final cut, etc.) and compress the hell out of it to save disk space. They then delete their native files, and lose future access to them and they are stuck with a compressed video that is unacceptable for television and theater. This is why disk space isn’t worth saving to a professional. By sacrificing disk space, you then allow yourself access to the native footage and project. This is why having several INTERNAL hard drives are a good idea. If you use external drives, plan on using them for transferring files for backup ONLY, not for live editing. USB and the likes are going to cause you difficulties while in editing stages, since they are just not fast enough to be able to stream your video content to the computer while working on them. Just skip it! Another note: DO NOT DOWNCONVERT or COMPRESS while editing to save space! I learned this on my first project (a full length documentary) a long time ago the hard way.
CODECS FOR EXPORTING TO WEB
Web: Really up to you, since it will be on the likes of Youtube or Vimeo, but I have most luck using the .mov with the h.264 compression. It really can provide good quality without taking up massive space. In the past I used the MP4 codec (since apple promoted it as the latest and greatest) but I had a lot of issues with getting clients to be able to play the file, plus youtube seemed to have some conversion issues where the upload looked somewhat like a smeared oil painting.
DVD
MPEG-2 DVD compression settings when exporting work the best for me. Whatever software you use, there is generally a setting to export into DVD. You can then take that file and use software like Encore to create a playable disk with a simple menu (like a “press play” button and an image.)
Remember, it is always a good idea to plan on using your final product in a submission for TV of some sort. This will allow you to plan ahead and always have an uncompressed version of your product on hand
Here is me working on a Newtec Tricaster. Unfortunately, I was unaware it was pumping out video in MPEG-2 format, not .avi like I asked for. MPEG-2 is NOT the kind that works for editing and can provide a WORLD OF PROBLEMS. ALWAYS try to edit your footage in native format. If you are unable to get native, try the .avi format or closest you can get to native as possible.
When submitting to a production company for TV or Theater, they will ask for a MASTER COPY. I suggest the following rules of thumb:
1. Video Tape:
For standard definition (SD) productions, many prefer delivery on Digibeta Tape. It must be adjusted for use within NTSC color space, 4:3 frame size, non-square pixel aspect ratio (0.9) and 30 frames per second (60 interlaced fields). So get your settings right, and hook up your machine to your computer and use the hardware and software guidelines to create the recording.
There are also a million general rules here, like if you shoot widescreen 16×9, you need to keep in mind that it will be cut down to 4×3. That means all your titles and action need to be within that frame so you have to plan ahead during production. Also audio, color levels, and luminance are all within a general gamut you have to keep within. They also want a title slate, color bars and all this other crap that has to be pretty much perfectly laid out with the appropriate amount of seconds of black space. It’s much easier to submit a file instead, which most places are now doing to my knowledge. Here is an example of this for TV:
TIME CODE
Time code must be continuous DROP FRAME (NTSC 30fps – 29.97) throughout, beginning with color bars and
ending at least 20 seconds after last frame of video and audio.
COLOR LEVELS
Waveform & Vectorscope measurements should meet the following levels:
Luminance level should not exceed 100 IRE units
Chrominance level should not exceed 100 IRE units in bars and 110 IRE units in program
Black level should not exceed zero IRE units (digital) or 7.5ire (analog)
AUDIO
Audio acquisition and mixing should utilize 24 bit 48 kHz PCM audio files
NOC house reference Test Tone is –20Dbfs (+4dBM) @ 1 KHZ
In program, audio should average –15dBfs and not exceed –10dBfs
Program audio shall be delivered without static, dropouts, distortion, heavy dynamic compression or heavy limiting
Audio Channels
Channel 1: Program Left
Channel 2: Program Right
Channel 3: Music & Effects Left
Channel 4: Music & Effects Right
FOOTPRINT SEQUENCE
00:59:00 – 00:59:30 SMPTE color bars with Audio at 1000 Hertz tone, -20Dbfs
00:59:30 – 00:59:40 Black and silence
00:59:40 – 00:59:50 Title slate (see TITLE SLATE below for contents)
00:59:50 – 01:00:00 Black and silence
01:00:00 First program video and audio
Between Videos Thirty seconds (:30) of black and silence should separate episodes.
End of Sequence Black and silence (:20) after last program video and audio (i.e. end credits)
TITLE SLATE
The slate should contain the following information: show title, episode title, episode number, the Production
Company, date and master or edited master.
VIDEO TAPE BOX
Labels or stickers should contain the following information: show title, episode number, episode title, total run time,
audio version, record date, revision number (if any), and revision date (if any).
2. Standard definition (or downcoverting HD)
Optimally the delivered file will conform to the following specs
Codec: QuickTime, Uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2
Dimension: 720×486, 0.9 pixel aspect ratio
Frame Rate: NTSC 30fps (29.97 drop frame)
Audio: Uncompressed Linear PCM, 16-bit @ 48 kHz, stereo
Using a simple DVX-100B for the absurd sketch, "Blake Lewis Is Shitting In My Bathroom"
3. HD and HDV:
Again, Recording on widescreen (16:9) formats require the use of a 4:3 frame
reference in production and use of action and title safe guides.
Codec: Keep native to your project. ProRes HQ, DVCPRO HD, h.264 conversion is typically acceptable
Dimension: Keep native to your project
Frame Rate: Keep native to your project (many can handle pulldown)
Audio: Uncompressed stereo audio
notes: Native frame-rate – should be kept consistent, pulldown and other frame rate re-sampling techniques are strongly discouraged – if you shoot 24p, edit and deliver 24p unless they ask for 29.97 for TV. Then you have to do the conversion.
4. Vector Based Animation – Digital File
Media created with vector-based animation software (Flash, Toon Boom Studio, Maya, etc.), is resolution
independent.
ONE EXAMPLE OF REQUIRED SPECS FOR BROADCAST
Again this isn’t necessarily universal, but this is required for a few TV production companies I know:
Deliver Flash movie (.swf – NOT an .flv flash video) & the Flash source file (.fla)
Publish as a Flash 9 or 10 .swf file
Keep your Flash .swf files under 10 Mbytes
Put a pre-loader on your Flash file
Please provide only self-contained Flash .swf files. Please don’t call another .swf movie or assets from
another site
Place a rectangle with your background color in a layer as many companies default all Flash movie
backgrounds to white
Do not insert actions or auto-redirects that call URLS or pop-ups
When I am done with a project (video) I ALWAYS keep a NATIVE UNCOMPRESSED VERSION on my hard drive, or at least a backup. You never know when you will need it. Someone may ask for it and if you can’t provide it, you will be very mad at yourself. It takes up a lot of space, but you can at least put it in a .zip or .rar file for safekeeping. Get it on a backup as well. It’s very valuable and you may need or want access to it some day to make changes or submit or whatever. It is especially good to have on hand for film festivals. I even try to keep all my raw footage so I can make edits and blur out products later. This is another reason to do this. I have had to get access to many projects and make changes for legal reasons that were unexpected.
Also remember, ALL HARD DRIVES EVENTUALLY CRASH AND BURN. So keeping 2 copies of your hard work is a good idea. Once it’s gone, its gone forever.
If you have any questions, fell free to ask as I can get even more specific with this. These are general guides I have had to adhere to in the past, some may ask for something else so you just have to give them what they ask for. It will help to know this though, and keep you from not only going through ABSOLUTE HELL (I remember staying up nights at a time trying to get a documentary to conform due to not planning while in editing stages) but you will look more professional and knowledgeable. In any case, you will learn. I believe the term is “baptism by fire!”
Cheating
Posted on Jan 29, 2011
Where are my trousers? Widescreen version
Posted on Feb 9, 2009
Tea Party: interviews with crazy people
Posted on Jan 17, 2009
Coffee and Roofies
Posted on Jan 1, 2009
I’ve been making t-shirts and selling them online for some reason.
I think this is the best so far.
They come in a variety of colors and styles.
Buy it and help put the facebook obsession to shame.
click image to select style, color, and purchase
New Comic Labs t-shirts!
Posted on May 2, 2011
New shirt, “Life Coach”
Posted on Mar 21, 2011
New client website, Carly McMenoman
Posted on Feb 9, 2011
My best tweets of 2010 (and a little of 2009, plus I think one amazing one by PFTompkins is buried in there somewhere by accident)
Posted on Jan 24, 2011
I am a creator of art and digital media. I am currently enrolled in The Academy of Art University studying for a BA in 3D animation and VFX. I also created ComicLabs.com, a website design company catered to comedians.
Find Me online!