Shady

Here's another round-up of some recent life drawing I've been persisting with. Some strides have been made as far as shading is concerned, though as you can see I'm still hesitant when it comes to faces. I think if I'm going to make any progress at all I may have to spend a couple of future sessions just focusing on heads alone and try to identify what it is precisely that's putting me off. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves some spookily faceless naked folks:

Corking

The Irish debut of "The Naughty List" will take place this November at the Corona Cork Film Festival, a fantastic looking event which goes from the 6th to the 13th. I don't quite get the connection between Corona and Irish filmmaking, especially as, to the best of my knowledge, it's a Mexican beer. But I'm not complaining, in fact in appreciation of their kindness in throwing my film in I have laid out my lucky Corona boxers for the 'morrow. You probably don't need photographic proof of that, but here you go anyway:A special edit of the film is presently viewable online as part of ShortsNonstop, an initiative of the CFC in the form of a web-based film contest. If you have the time and inclination please give it a watch and a vote once it's done (li'l voting balls will appear on the right after the vid plays to the end). You don't need to register and there are a bunch of other nice short films up too, including some nifty and well-made animation like this one.I probably shouldn't have waited this long to mention it as I think the voting ends in the next couple days, but it's great the have some Canuck exposure all the same. It'll hopefully be in my corner when I finally up sticks and get my ass back over there.

High Society

The first of what I hope will be several preview chapters from my forthcoming graphic novel "Throat" is now available to download. This is entirely gratis for not very selfless reasons, and sharing with everyone you know who likes this kind of thing is actively encouraged.It doesn't give away too much of the story, it more serves as a visual introduction to the style and tone of the book and the world it takes place in. You can download it by clicking the link below:

Launchy

I was at the launch party for this year's Encounters programme last night and it has to be said that it's looking to be a very strong year. The small handful of animated films they showed were pretty sophisticated and to be honest I'm not sure how well my li'l auteur venture will measure up, but it's great to know it's amongst some good company. The two that grabbed me in particular were "Hurdy-Gurdy" (D. Seideneder), an elaborate and intricate time-lapse style stop motion piece, and "Luminaris" (Juan Pablo Zaramella), one of very few films I've seen to use pixilation comedically (as opposed to, y'know, creepily).
There's some great events lined up including a Studio AKA showcase which I caught at ITFS and is definitely worth checking out, as well as Cartoon Saloon and special programs for Irish and Brazilian animation. The truly SPECTACULAR news is that John Kricfalusi will be doing an in-person Q&A which I booked the nanosecond I found out about it. To put it in perspective - without John K there'd be no "Ren & Stimpy", without "Ren & Stimpy" there'd be no preadolescent impulse for li'l Ben to fuck around drawing cartoons and without that I'd probably be working in telesales about now.My film "Ground Running" will be shown as part of the Arnolfini animation screening "The Human Condition" which will be at 10am on Thursday November 17th and then repeated at noon on the 19th. Other animators featured as part of the festival include Grant Orchard, Julia Pott, Richard Phelan, Francesca Adams, Sam Morrison, David O'Reilly, Louis Hudson and Mikey Please.

Jammin'...in a couple of respects...

It's been just over a year since Bill Plympton put out the call for animators all over the world to contribute to "Guard Dog Global Jam", and so in honour of the film's successful completion and subsequent glowing reception at a whole heap of international fests (recent inclusions being OIAF and LIAF) I did a feature on the project from the perspectives of Bill, Plymptoons producer Desiree Stavracos and a bunch of the film's very talented contributors. You can read it over at Skwigly now:

Guard Dog Global Jam - A look at Bill Plympton’s worldwide collaboration endeavour

One of the highlights of being personally involved with the film was learning about so many other great animation enthusiasts, professionals and independents out there. So a great deal of thanks go out to Fatima Yasrebi, John T. Quinn, James Sugrue, Ansar Sattar, Amy Sutton, Mike Schneider, Filip Grudziel, Rebecca Wallace, Jeremy Galante and Julius Liubertas for their feedback for the article, as well as Desiree and Mr. Plympton himself for putting the whole thing together in the first place.Occupying a completely separate position on the spectrum of my extracurricular activities, I have recently been going through a bunch of old music recordings of mine in anticipation of re-releasing all my CDs. This came from hearing the news that Lulu is rescinding their produce-to-demand service for music, alongside the realisation that Cafepress (my main alternative) had rather shittily done so already without mentioning it to anyone.
So, while I weigh up the remaining options, I'm remastering all my production work from 2003-2008 to bring it up to par with my most recent album, 2010's "The Book of Women". Some of the tracks I've been uploading to SoundCloud as they're done to serve as a free online sampler. Here are the first batch from this past week:

On A Limb by Struwwelpeter

Rabbit Hole by Struwwelpeter

Laughing At A Wall (Live) by Struwwelpeter

What I Predict (Amneurotic) by Struwwelpeter

Cold Turkey (Remix) by Struwwelpeter

More to come in the following weeks. In the meantime I may as well use the opportunity to remind y'all that the completely free EP "Digital Stimulation" is still available to stream or download in its entirety.So there ya go, free reading material and free music to distract you when you should be working. I spoil you all.

Oktoberfests

This month is turning out to be a positively cray-cray one for film screenings, starting today at the aforementioned Goden Kuker-Sofia festival where “The Naughty List” is screening at the Arena West Cinema as part of the 1pm Films For Kids competition program “Through The Eyes of a Child”. It’s also part of the Ukrainian touring festival KROK which wraps up on Monday and the German touring festival Film Sharing, which has its final stop on the 21st in Mainz at the Capitol & Palatin, starting at 8:30pm.I can also confirm that, as well as Berne, it will be part of the Cologne, Cape Town and Vienna editions of the Shnit International Shortfilmfestival as part of "Shnit Animates 1", showing at the following times/places/venues:
•Cologne, Germany
Friday 7th, 9pm Alte Feuerwache 1
Sunday 9th, 2pm Kölner Filmhaus 1
•Cape Town, South Africa
Friday 7th, 4pm Labia 2 (I’ve never been to that particular venue but it sure sounds like a lovely place)
•Vienna, Austria
Thursday 6th, 6pm Burg Kino 2At the 6th Vilnius Film Shorts, it goes under the mildly scary title “Nepaklusniųjų Sąrašas” in the "International Competition V" at 3:30pm on Friday 14th at the “Skalvijos” Kino Centras and 4pm on Saturday 15th at the Kino Pasaka.Also on the 15th it’ll be the closing film of the “Männer” section of Emmentaler Filmtage in Switzerland, showing at 2pm, 4:30pm and 9:30pm and the following day (16th, to condescendingly imply that you don’t know what fifteen plus one equals) at 12:30pm, 4pm and 6:45pm – full programme here.Then on Monday 17th it’s on in Romania at the Comedy Cluj International Film Festival during their 3:30pm Animation screening at the Cinema Florin Piersic, repeated 11am Friday 21st at the Cinema Arta.Following in the footsteps of “House Guest” back in ’09, it’s up for the Delta Film Award at Manchester’s Festival of Fantastic Films on Saturday 22nd.A particularly nice bit of news to round off the month is that it will screen alongside my previous film “Ground Running” at FLIP International Animation Festival in Wolverhampton on the morning of the 28th, which just happens to be my birthday. I know, you don’t have to say it: I’m adorable. FLIP was also the first festival (of, I’ll be honest, a lot) to turn down my work and help steel me against the concept of film rejection, so to have two shorts in at this point is quite validating in a cyclical sort of way.
Phew. Okay, that’s enough deplorable self-love for one post. All that’s left is for me to apologise for using the term ‘cray-cray’ in the first sentence: I’m sincerely, profusely sorry. It won’t happen again.