Hiding from the sun.

A girl I noticed while waiting for the bus this mornig.

Why is he sitting on a bicycle-like seat in the air? Why is his hand and feet cut off? Who's he yelling at? Why is there a fly on his nose!? Too many questions!

This is what happens when you look away and let the pencil do the drawing.

Here's a sketch of some badass duo kickin' butt in some desert type country. There's no real rhyme or reason to the pic, just done spur of the moment and added some color because I have to start figuring color out!
Drew

Hi All,

My name is Drew and I thought I should start posting stuff on here. Here are a couple of sketch/drawings that I've done when I've had some time. Hope you like!
Drew

ING Commercial

As we expand as a company and venture into different fields of creative thinking, we have been lucky to work with some really talented people. Unfortunately most of our projects cannot be shown until they air but National Television was kind enough to allow us to show this commercial spot.

Here is an ING commercial we did with National Television. They did the live action and animation portion while we produced the designs and illustrations. Hope you enjoy.

Special thanks to: Brumby, Craig, LeUyen, Jake, Willie, Norm, and of course, Ricardo.

National Chris Cann's Day

House of Cool is fortunate to have the artists we have. Equally, we are also lucky to work with people outside our studio: The Freelancers. While we hope to grow and continue to hire new talents, from time to time we acquire freelance artists to help us meet our objectives.
Chris Cann, with his unique (and courageous) sense of fashion and charisma added great value to the HoC team... From the genius idea of Shawn Colbeck's National Chris Cann's Day, here are some pic's of the HoC peeps trying (however highly unsuccessful) to emulate Chris Cann's 2007 low V-neck ensemble.

Trip to South Mexico

Last week Kristen and I flew to Coatzacoalcos, Mexico for my friends wedding. After it was over, the family of the Bride took us through Chiapas, Tabasco, and Veracruz states. It was an amazing time and really beautiful country. I thought I should share some photos of some of places we visited. Hope you enjoy.

Pretending

It has been my experience in the animation industry that there are basically two types of studios. There are artists pretending to be businesses and businesses pretending to do art. In general, I do not have a problem with businesses pretending to do art because I have accepted that the animation industry is just that. An industry. It has it's own economics and rules that business people are well suited to take advantage of. My problem is when business people (executives and managers included) have the delusion that because their business is rooted in art, that they themselves become artists. This is usually manifested as using one's personal taste as the determining factor in making decision about the likes and dislikes of the audience. A business person is generally not suited for this kind of decision making because there are a plethora of other factors (budgets, timelines, corporate directions, wrangling talent, test scores) that they need to worry about that work against the clarity vision necessary to connect with an audience. For the artist, connecting to the audience is the only goal. This makes the artists the most qualified to make the most important artistic decisions. This sounds elementary but it is rarely the case in most studios.

The small studio is the realm of the artist pretending to be a business. Most artists start studios as an outlet for their passions. They see something in the industry that needs improving or they work under conditions that are not the most creative and they think that they could be more creative on their own. Wonderful intentions, but the artist that does this is stepping out of the comfy world of art into the shark infested ocean of business. Artists are good at collaboration, hiring like-minded friends and developing original concepts. They are not good at sacrificing ideas because it is better for the business, demanding proper business practices from employees and firing friends. Artists will also tend to hold on to the thing that they love about animation in the face of obvious change. An example of this are artists who refuse to accept that traditional 2D animation is no longer a dominant form. They believe that 3D is a trend that is spiking right now but 2D will recover. Do not kid yourself. 2D in feature animation will take its place right beside stop motion as just another niche player. If you are a 3D animator your are not safe from progress either. In not too many years key frame 3D will take its place right beside 2D, as motion capture becomes dominant and so on.

In the next post I will promise to say something nice about the industry.

Welcome Back!

2 planes a week for 73 weeks
146,000 kms travelled
1 crazy new hair cut
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The Man of the House is back!

After an exciting journey with Blue Sky Studios as Head of Story on the up coming feature Horton Hears A Who we welcome back the Prez of HoC. Look for us to run on all cylinders and create some really cool stuff.

Some pic's of our Welcome back Ricki-C Party

the old fashion way.

E-TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORIES: Tinkerbell

Where are they now? You don't want to know.
"Hey suga, care for some of my pixie dust? Tee hee!"

bears...

Mike's new coiffe is a hit!

BEAUTY and the BEAST

STORM!


THE THING!

She's a brick house, and he's a.....brick. Enjoy!

Sound is half the picture

Steve Strongman and Rob Szabo laying down the musical score for a House of Cool original project we're all pretty excited about.