Lionel Lineman: Face Expression

Lionel: Hmm? .....WHAT??!!!............Oh PAHLease!!

Lionel Lineman: Sneaking

I'm upset that the one with music won't upload on this thing. Either way you are getting the full animation complete with Lionel interacting with the background. Here is some of the latest animation that I have done.

Lionel Lineman: Frisbee

Frisbee is one of my favorite recreation sports. For some reason I see it as a more dynamic form of a simple game of catch. Today Lionel is making a jumping catch and throwing it back to his partner.

Early Renzo

Found the first drawings of Renzo the Manta Ray. I always find it interesting how he started out as and what he finished up like.

Lionel Lineman: Horseshoe Throw

Everybody loves pitchin' some shoes, and Lionel is no different! Granted he has a totally different approach to the game, but thats what character animation is all about.

Lionel Lineman: Dancing

Oh my its been a while. I think I was too ambitious to animate Lionel dancing.

Mighty

Mighty the Armadillo is probably my favorite Sonic character. His design is really basic and his colors really seem to be his trademark look. I really wish he had a game of his own. He was also among one of the oldest Sonic characters to be created. He was around long before Tails and was able to come back and star as a team member for Knuckles' Chaotix.

Here's to an unappreciated Sonic character. Mighty, you rock.

Espio

Not my best rendition of Espio, but then again I wouldn't post this stuff if I didn't like it in someway. Keep in mind that I am drawing these Sonic characters in their old school designs. I'm not too thrilled of their 2000s revamp. This is how Espio looked in Knuckles' Chaotix in 1995, before Sega made him a ninja chameleon.

Knuckles

Don't seem too surprised. Sonic is always followed by a Knuckles when it comes to Fan Art.

Yes, of course Sonic

When I was growing up with his first Sega games, he was in his classic design. Simple black eyes, and a practical proportion of his trademark spines. I started collecting Sonic Comics from the very beginning in 1993 and was blown away by other Sonic renditions by artists like Scott Shaw!, Manny Galan, Sam Maxwell, Jon Gray, and my personal favorite Patrick Spaziante.

When Sega wanted to revamp him in 1998, Sonic took what I think was a turn for the worse. He looked meaner, stingy, and malicious with his new slicked spines, green eyes, and smirk. Here's to a classic video game character when he was in his prime (1990 - 1995).

Lionel Lineman: Running

Run Lionel Run!

Fairly OddParents

Butch Hartman's Fairly OddParents is a guilty pleasure of mine. I just love his retro character design and super quick humor that is showcased in every episode. Here's to you Butch!

Fairly Odd Parents are copyright Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon

Lionel Lineman: Fishing

Today Lionel gives fishing a whirl. I wanted to emphasize more on his posing in hopes that his body language was easily readable. I know I could have spent more time on his struggle reeling in and pulling on the line, but Lionel tests are purely experimental.

Lionel Lineman: Baseball

Well I was able to get Lionel to do another quick test for me today. He's doin a more dynamic animation this time: throwing a baseball.

Put some pepper on it Lionel!

Lionel Lineman: Scared

LOOKY HERE! It's my first animation since I finished my senior film in May! I still got it!!

Here is my new minor character that I'll be showcasing on here, Lionel Lineman.

I'm trying out a new animation program and I was just goofing around with it when I came up with this little animation test. I want to try and do at least a 3 second animation test once a week.

So without further ado, Lionel getting spooked in a typical character animation test.

Welcome to the MatTOONArt cast Lionel!

more Conroy character sketches

Still trying out Conroy's new 3 spiked hair cut. A while ago I got rid of his hat because he looked too much like other 40's-50s cartoon crows. I'm still sticking with Conroy in hopes that he will stand out as an original character.

Lost Art: Clash of the Elements

It took 9 years but I finally found it: One of my best cartoon drawings as a teenager.

I'm guessing I drew this in (probably) 2001. I had a huge idea to draw Globber-Man and the other Element Agents fight against the equally powerful Man Made Agents in a all out battle royal that would fill up an entire page of violent chaos!

I have begun to hate myself for my drawing skills in the past. This was all done in pencil, but was all drawn on the first try. Now days, I draft line all of my characters in action and it takes longer to finalize them. Back then I was so confident in my line work that it seemed that my pen or pencil was doing all the work! I am amazed at how much is really going on in this drawing and it was a nice little reminder of how passionate I was with this little character and that I would spend my whole afternoon to draw 20+ characters fighting and evading each others attacks.

Looking at this really inspired me to re-draw it with the new drawing skills that I have learned since then. Who knows, maybe soon there will be a "10th Anniversary" rendered print of this piece.

Gator Golfer

This was the first character sketches for Ajax. I didn't know what kind of style I was going for to show Ajax's playful yet competitive nature.

I thought about switching gears and making him retro and small, more of a rascal. That wasn't the case either. Most of the time I mix and match to create a final character design. For Ajax, I took one of the simple stout designs and fine tuned some of the tooth and scale details from another.

It didn't take long to come up with a jerk for Ajax to go up against. Brent Steele is the compilation of every tool, jock, and rich snob I have had the "pleasure" to meet.

The following are some sketches and gestures of gags for the story.

I was playing with the idea of Ajax having some sort of Florida Crane or something to be his caddy.

WAIT!

Have you ever felt like the world was just going too fast for you? It's like there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything that you plan to do. Lately I've felt like this drawing. I had time to doodle this one evening when I was able to get a small break in my day.

Camel Country: Senior Film

Camel Country was my senior film. It focuses around the adventure of a lost camel trying to survive the harsh elements of the Canadian north. For more info and art on my film, please visit the Camel Country blog! (also click the Camel Country banner on right hand side of this page!)

Emmitt's Revelation

My first lip sync.

"And the truth shall set you free!"

-Jim Carrey Liar Liar

Rockaway Tee Time

"Fooo!! That ball goes sailing up into the sky, holds there for a moment and then!!.........GLUNK!"

-Kramer: Seinfeild episode The Marine Biologist

Marine Biologist

"I dont know if it was devine intervention or the kingship of all living things, but I tell you Jerry at that moment.............I was a Marine Biologist."

-George Castanza: Seinfeld episode The Marine Biologist

Weight Lift

Ah the weight lift, a must in animation mechanics. If it was 2D I would be all over it, but this is the best I could do with BasicMan.

Key Animation thumbnails

Double Take

I'm not too thrilled about doing CG animation, but I am glad that I took these classes. Now I know what kind of tedious work goes into creating animation for Pixar, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, and Sony CG films.

This is just a Double Take exercise using BasicMan.

Key Animation thumbnails

Buffalo Music Box

Buffalo Gil stumbles across a music box and decides to give it a whirl.

I always hated these things when I was a kid. Jack in the Box always freaked me out, even when I knew it was going to pop out. This pencil test is a little interpretation of the adrenaline that ran through my head before the Weasel went "POP"!.

The layout and animation sketches for this test can be found here if you wish to look at how I came up with the idea.

Maanii's Mad at Emmitt

Emmitt (left) and Maanii (right) are two characters that I for one didn't create on my own. (Emmitt was but long story). Rachael wanted to see her characters move and interact so I jumped at the opportunity to test out character animation and comedic timing.

Dynamic Globber Man and Boomer-Randy

I did the layout animation for this while my classmate and friend Jeff Yandura did the in-betweens for this pencil test. I couldn't be happier with the result.

In this pencil test, I was to do the opposite. Here I animated the in-betweens from Jeff's Layout animation. You can tell what ones are his by the colored pencil key drawings, which is something that I should have done with mine. Again, I am quite pleased with the result, and so was Jeff!

Conroy Tennis Fault

I couldn't resist. Sometimes I think Conroy deserves it.

Xax Animation Test

I was experimenting more with effects animation, and this time I was leaning more toward explosion effects.

Xax here hears something around the corner, picks up an object and realizes that its a time bomb. He is able to throw it out of site in the nick of time.

Storyboard thumbnails

Sneak pencil test

and the heroic throw and leap

Horseshoe Crab Character

An attempt to do a fun Horseshoe Crab Hero guy. I'll keep experimenting with this one. I think I started something here. Horseshoe Crab have a really cool design.

Follow That Car

Follow That Car is the story of Lloyd, a simple-minded taxi driver in the big city. He's grown tired of driving the same dull people to their same dull places of work and begins to have second thoughts of his career choice......until one day. Lloyd is given the chance to show what he's really capable of.

I had always thought that a taxi driver's goal in life was to one day be that car that was chosen to "Follow That Car!" in a chase.

Lloyd, my protagonist, wishes for just that. He shows that he has what it takes to pursue a getaway car in the busy city. After all, as a taxi driver he knows the neighborhood inside out and upside down. Lloyd turns out to be the perfect man for the job as he showcases his superior driving abilities.

Robot character

ld

I was fooling around with this robot character a few months ago, and I never really went anywhere with it. I found this old sketch of in in my files so I decided that maybe it could use it again.

FORE!

Here's my first stop motion animation using paper cut outs. It star's my alligator character Ajax, and how he retaliates against a rude golfer.

This is a rough paper cut out of the shapes I needed for the body.

Glober Mite Animation

Just a fun little pencil test of GlobberMite I did at school.

Student Show Exhibition

Well I found some time to post some pictures from the College for Creative Studies Student Show Exo. It was a little stressful at first. I didn't know the exact measurements of my section and I didn't want to overlap into Rachael's wall. We also didn't know what artwork could stay up due to "quality". However, Rach and I seemed to pick our strongest stuff and it all stayed!

Rachael's half of our wall.

All of her artwork can be seen at her site: RavenInkArtwork.com

We were able to wrangle up a table to put her two awesome maquettes and the dolls she made of my characters.

And here's my half of the wall. I matted character sheets from my Snordo Dragon cast. In the middle is some screenshots from my film Camel Country, and we finish off with assorted character designs and concept art. (found among the sketches and character concepts on this blog!)

Here's the box that the dolls will be living in for the month. Perfect sized box that was whipped together in about an hour and a half.

Here's the sign on the door as you walk into this particular gallery. I was excited to see that the faculty took a shot from my Camel Country film to put on the sign.

Ajax Character Art

I found some character concept from a story I came up with a few years back.

Gator Golfer told the tale of a rude and rich golf pro who decides to construct his own private 18 hole golf course in the Florida Everglades. Ajax, the head alligator of the area, decides to retaliate in order to save his home, as well as the environment for his fellow swamp neighbors. The two characters agree to a contest to see who owns the right to be in the everglades, and whoever wins at 18 holes of golf wins the swamp. As it turns out Ajax knows nothing about golfing and cheats in order to win, while the pro golfer turns out to be a dirty rotten cheat himself, hence why he is such a "pro golfer"! The story from there chronicles whose the better cheat.

Vince Fly-trap

I wanted to take a break from creating characters from animals, so I took a stab at creating a character out of a plant. Low and behold, Vince the Venus Fly-trap. Above, you can spot where I have some different head designs.

Conroy and Rosco character studies

Lucky you! I found some old Conroy and Rosco sketches, some of when Conroy had a hat, and the first designs of Rosco's newest hat.

more Hover Heeler

One of my favorite dynamic sketches of Xax in a classic speed skating pose.

Murray Monster

Meet Murray, a rejected design of a monster for a class assignment. Here I am trying to design a character that boasts the best in retro style, and alas, he doesn't make the cut. He was criticized for looking too much like a werewolf and too dog like. I personally think he was kinda hip and cute for a monster. Hang in there buddy, I'll use you at some point!

Renzo Manta

How do you make a cartoon character out of a Manta Ray? Well I tried this test, and I came up with Renzo!

Renzo Manta is my newest character I have had the pleasure to create. There's something about semi exotic animals that I like to characterize. They are familiar enough to recognize, and yet still able to stand out as a new cartoon character.

This is just some character studies to get the design right for him. I decided to have him with kite like arms and the head fins just over his eyes. Now real Mantas don't have legs obviously, so I created fin like limbs to make him able to stand. The tail is a simple line, similar to a common mouse tail.

Renzo, I figure, would be a very curious character, questing to know more about the ways surface dwellers live. A bit naive about things, but that's what would make him such an engaging character. He has a natural instinct to learn about new things and look at them in a new light. Due to lack of knowledge, he would be brave enough to front anything all for the sake of interest.

I'm still cycling through colors with Renzo. The blue version I think makes him a bit friendlier, while the traditional black makes him look more realistic. He's a fun character to draw, so there will definitely be more drawings of this new creation in the future!

Fun facts about Mantas:

-They are quite friendly and curious about human nature. They will often swim with scuba divers and approach stopped boats.

-Mantas are able to breach the surface like dolphins and whales.

-They have a "wing span" of about 25 feet, and can weigh about 5,000 pounds.

-They hang out in the tropical waters of the world.