THE RUINING OF MO WILLEMSESES TABLE

Mo Willems used to be dumb.

He used to invite lots of artsy fartsy people over for dinner

and then they'd draw all over his nice dining room table.

So he'd throw it out and get a new one.

And then it'd happen again.

And again.

But then one day,

his wife suggested putting paper over 

the table whenever art freaks came over.

And that's exactly what we did

LAST WEEKEND

when I flew out to do some 

top secret book stuff with Mr. Willems.

We had a delicious meal prepared 

by Mrs. Willems

and then commenced to drawing.

Here's the morning aftermath:

This was my mess:

And this is the boy with the dumpling for a brain.

He later transformed into this:

Mrs. Willems specializes in 

cool, colorful patterns:

Rebecca Leveille Guay

drew both Mo's daughter Trixie

and her own daughter, Vivianne.

Her husband Matt is a killer painter

and did some really amazing sketches.

Vivianne's got skills, too!

We spent a lot of time experimenting with writing 

and/or drawing with our opposite hands and/or our eyes closed.

Marquetry master and part time 

Model T driving Santa Claus

Silas Kopf

proved that every finger has a personality

as well as a story.

You should meet him.

He's a riot:

Trixie's art gets better and better

every time I see it:

Oh...

and whatshisface Mo did this:

And this:

It's always fun ruining Mo's furniture!

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MY CREATIVA FEST FAMILY

One of the things I love most about

 attending an animation festival is the

bonding that happens with the people you hang out with.

You become this sort of mini-family,

flitting from event to event,

eating and drinking and talking and drinking and eating

(and drinking)

and really getting to know people you might 

never have had the chance to meet before.

And I'm not sure which celestial bodies were in alignment over

Creativa Fest this year,

but somehow this was perhaps the most

sooper talented

sooper nice

sooper fun

group of people I've ever got to 

hang out at a festival with.

Conversely,

there was Maxwell Atoms,

who tried his best to ruin everything

but failed horribly and was forced to have fun.

On the first night in town I was

 introduced to a guy named Nik.

He told me how he used to work at 

Disney Feature animation for a long time

and was now working on a video game.

Being dim,

I didn't put two and two together until I 

saw him start drawing and then realized.

"Oh crap-- that's Nik Ranieri!"

Like legendary 

Disney animator

who animated

Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast

Kuzco in emperor's New Groove

Hades in Hercules

etc etc etc

Nik Ranieri!

We spent a lot of time drawing alongside 

each other for eager fans,

but when we got a break I

got him to draw me this:

On that first night I also got introduced to 

Alex Lee,

an animator at 

Industrial Light and Magic.

And Trevor Walker,

a recruiter from ILM.

They were a blast to hang out with

although I'm still really mad at Alex for not showing us 

ANYTHING

from 

Rogue One,

the latest project he's working on.

There were also some amazingly talented folks from

Disney Feature Animation

including

Zootopia,

Frozen

Big Hero 6

etc

animator

Andrew Chesworth:

He also got tricked into drawing in my sketchbook:

Keeping it in the Disney family was 

Pixar animator Carolina Lopez Dau

who packed a crowd to listen to her 

talk about her work on Cars 2, Inside Out, Brave,

and Monster University.

Personally, 

I thought her talk was

confusing and completely unintelligible.

Mainly because I don't speak Spanish.

But those who do

speak the language thought she was 

riveting.

She's also hilarious to hang out with

and incredibly helpful when you're

 trying to buy a coffee in Spanish.

Former Simpons and Rick and Morty director

and current Future Worm 

supervising director

Pete Michels 

was a joy to meet and full of laughs:

Karen Kirkland, executive director of the 

Nickelodeon writing program,

was there to talk shop with the students 

and to share an uber with:

Ben Levin,

writer on

Cartoon Network's

Stephen Universe

was an absolutely delightful guy to meet 

and talk shop with:

Efflam Mercier

is an impossibly young,

terrifyingly techno-savvy,

hyper-talented

and effusive

concept artist for

Riot Games

(League of Legends)

He is also never allowed to touch Mescal never ever again:

David Luong,

Senior Cinematic Artist at 

Blizzard

(World of Warcraft)

was a riot and someone 

who I didn't get to talk to enough:

And there were many more like  

Grazia Como and Jessie Carbonara from Dreamworks recruiting

who were awesome to share tacos and volcanos with.

What an amazing and inspiring group of people.

And while finding your festival family is always such a joy,

it's also heartbreaking when everyone packs up to 

go back to their regular lives.

But the industry isn't that big.

We'll see each other again.

But probably not as a handsome looking group like this:

Next up,

ima show you some of the awesome

stuff some of the awesome

KND sooper fans 

made for me.

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SOMETHING WILLEMS THIS WAY CAME

It takes a special kind of person to run

TOWARDS 

Mo Willems

when he's in town.

I always do.

But I'm a glutton for punishment.

I don't know what's wrong with the

 rest of these guys, though:

From left to right there's

Mo 

New Yorker cartoonist Matt Diffee

Cartoonist and Seinfeld/Simpsons writer

Tom Gammill

The handsomest man in the world

Mad Magazine art director

Sam Viviano

And 

writer/illustrator

"I Want My Hat Back"

Jon Klassen

With this many sooper talented people

in attendance

(and me)

I just HAD to start passing around the pen and paper:

And I gotta tell you...

Getting to sit and talk with these hyper creative people is

truly one of the best parts of knowing such hyper creative people.

I'm a lucky guy.

I GOT ART AND I AIN'T AFRAID TO TRAVEL WITH IT!

Hmmmmmmm...

Some pretty nice people

gave me some pretty swell artwork.

Like this original marker sketch by

Mo Willems:

Or this original

comic by 

Fran Krause

And what about this

original production cel

from

Animaniacs

signed by creator

(and 7D executive producer)

Tom Ruegger:

I wonder what ima

do with them

when I'm in NYC

this weekend?

LUNCH WITH VINCENT X. KIRSCH

Last week I got to have lunch with

author/illustrator/craftsman

Vincent X. Kirsch!

I first met him in NYC

where he showed me one of his amazing 

papercraft toy theaters:

He's done lots of really fun books:

Vincent recently moved to LA 

so we got together so he could show me 

some of his latest characters:

He carries a big box

with lots of compartments

that house his little friends.

Here are a couple:

And I totally scored a bunch of signed books:

Thanks, Mr. Kirsch!

Head on over to his website

to see more of his work!

He makes wonderful stuff!

THE ALL POWERFUL DAVID O'REILLY

Last week I was telling you about  how I got to hang with independent animation  rock star David O'Reilly at the 2014 Ottawa International Animation Festival. If you're not familiar with his work you should have checked out  the David O'Reilly retrospective,  GOLD STAR FOR ROBOT BOY, at Ottawa this year. If you missed it, I'll try to explain. But his style is hard to pin down, so ima just steal this from his wikipedia page:
O'Reilly's work is often characterized by the use of  intentionally stripped down 3d graphics.  He is known for popularizing the use of low-poly 3d  and the use of 3d software as a personal and artistic tool,  as outlined in his 2009 essay "Basic Animation Aesthetics".  He was an early adopter of glitch effects and uses elements of the software used inside his work. "[David] has been the man to lead animation through a conceptual blockage— 3D animation was being dominated by commercial aesthetics.... he deconstructed 3D to the point of absurdity."
Truth.
The first film I saw by Mr. O'Reilly was PLEASE SAY SOMETHING which went on to win the grand prize at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival: OCTOCAT ADVENTURES  started out as a series of youtube videos by some  12 year old kid named Randy Peters. As the pieces got crazier and crazier it was  revealed to actually be done by Mr. O'Reilly. On the slicker side of his work is this video for U2. But you've gotta go to youtube to see it: Recently, Mr. O'Reilly has taken to making, and tearing down, video games. Case in point, MOUNTAIN, which has no controls, levels, or goals. He even made an entire episode of Cartoon Network's Adventure Time:
For someone who's spent his entire career on the more commercial side of things, David's work makes me feel  boring and stoopid. Yet  INSPIRED. And that's why you go and meet other artists. To take what you can from their work and hopefully improve your own. Or just hang out and have a root beer with then, That's good, too.

OLD SCHOOL JJSP PICTURES

BEHOLD!

Here's a collection of

poorly scanned

photos

from my years at 

J.J. Sedelmaier Productions.

It's hard to believe everyone has 

only become

more beautiful 

as the years have gone by.

Well, except for

animator

David Wachtenheim:

Here he is in shock 

at one of our commercial project's

impossible deadlines:

Here's designer

Gideon Kendall 

drawin'

Pycho Trainer

shoes:

Assistant animator

Mike Wetterhahn

getting his

fiber on 

for a

Fiber One

commercial:

Animator

Dean Lennert 

haunts

one of my earliest mentors

Bryon Moore:

JJSP

Production Queen

Irene

"don't do that, do this"

Cerdas

Animator/Designer

Ben Price

designing some 

Beavis and Butthead:

We helped 

intern

Athena Fliakos

realize that animation is a job

reserved for

dummy heads.

Robert Marianetti's

talent for growing facial hair

was trumped only by his 

talent for getting done whatever needed to get done:

Animation

production workhorse

Masako Kanayama.

 lived down the street from me

and I spent many nights 

running stacks of drawings over to her 

for coloring.

Mr. Sedelmaier with

Barry Vodos on the left

Ray Kosarin on the right

Nate Kaunfer in the back.

And Dean's head.

(i'm not sure why i don't have more pictures of Dean,

he was an integral part of the studio!)

Me doing exposure sheets for

Schoolhouse Rock

(or penning a letter of protest)

I think someone died in this picture.

But Dave photobombed it

so we'll never know who.

Irene and

Schoolhouse Rock

designer

Bill Peckman:

This was,

I dunno...

maybe my 

25th birthday

celebrating

25 years 

(and counting)

of ridiculous hair:

And here's a sooper triple bonus

ASIFA-EAST Executive Board 

picture taken at our annual end of year party:

First row L to R:

Dean Lennert and John R. Dilworth

Second row:

John Gati, Candy Kugel, Tissa David, Bruce Knapp

Third row:

Dick Rauh, Dorky McDorkenstein, Janet Benn, Bill Lorenzo

Those were fun days

back in NY!