GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS - FRI...

George Barris' office

We started our day with a trip to see George Barris' workshop. The shop was closed but Andrew snuck us in the back door to check out some of George's sweet custom cars.

Later we met up with Steve Lambe and Gabe Swarr for lunch and talked about the state of the industry over pad thai and beer. Basically we just tried to teach them a little bit about how animation works - you can tell from this picture that they were very impressed with our knowledge.

Steve brought us back to Nickelodeon and gave us a tour of the joint. Man they sure are doing it right over there. We got to see where they're making El Tigre and met some of the talented crew putting it all together.

Although we really enjoyed the tour, we still had to show Steve who was boss.

Mark, Paul and I met up with Eric Homan at the Frederator Studios for a little business meeting. There is so much about this studios that we at Neptoon appreciate and we're looking for ways that we can work together.

Eric gave us a great tour and we ran into Melissa Wolfe who we had met at last years OIAF.

Wally Wingert and his dog Sassy

We ended our day at Wally Wingert's and he gave us a tour of his totally rad pad (AKA - WALLY WORLD). Wally is a very interesting guy but wow, can you believe this dude actually lives here!

3 ANIMATORS 2 BEDS - THURS...

We walked down to San Fernando Blvd and had some killer bagels and coffee at this place called Noah's - this became a morning ritual.

The one thing about coming in so late is that you can't see a damn thing on the drive up to Burbank. All we could make out were the street signs, very cool street signs mind you - Sunset blvd, Santa Monica blvd, Mulholland Dr. - and for 3 guys who'd never been to LA, I gotta say, it was still the shit.

When you're down in Burbank all the studios are on Olive St. (where we were staying) so we couldn't pass up the chance to go check in on Cartoon Network. It was strange though cuz the doors were locked and we couldn't get in. Guess they didn't recongnize us - weird????

We met up with Bob Boyle for lunch over at the Disney Studio and he gave us a wicked tour of the whole place. We worked with Bob on his series Yin Yang Yo and did some animation for his other series Wow Wow Wubzy... it's always nice to hang with Bob and to see our work hanging on the wall of the Disney Studio.

We met up with Tracy and Andrew at McCormick & Schmick's. They had gone to the Tonight Show taping earlier that day and although we had to bail we still got a chance to have some drinks with John Melendez (AKA Stuttering John) and some of the Tonight Show crew.

We payed a visit to Ruben Procopio, who was kind enough to have us in his home and even kinder to show us around his amazing studio. Ruben may be the nicest person I've met to date and it was very cool to get a chance to meet up with him in person - oh, and we walked away with some stunning sculpts he did - I'll post those later. - Thanks Ruben!!!

We ended the night with some directorial notes for the boys back home - please take note that I'm the one in the single bed ;)

NEPTOON HITS CALI - WED...

Mark, Paul and I arrived late at LAX, drove to Burbank and checked into the Safari Inn - a great little drive up motel that was featured in the very cool movie True Romance.

We hooked up with my sister Tracy and her husband Andrew who were kind enough to have cold beer waiting for us...NICE!

Stayed up late watching some wacky show called The Punany Poets - gotta love American TV.

I'VE BEEN TUBED...

Here's another one. I think this one is my favorite. Looking back now I can see how slow my timing was - yikes!

Here's a little short I done did a way back when - I still find it pretty silly. There were 5 shorts in all and we hoped it would go to series but alas.

Neptoon's Habbosode...

Well, whatdya know - you can finally see our full short (along with 9 others) over at the Habbo site. ~CLICK~

We had finacial backing from Elliott Animation and even though we created, designed, boarded, casted, animated, directed and produced it, our studio didn't get credit...hmmmm.

Anyway, it's not the best thing in the world but it was a fun gig. I think you can vote on them...you may need to be a member - don't know for sure.

Rumnut Rhymes...

LOOP...

Haven't had a lot of time to draw lately - it's amazing how uncreative the directing process in Canada has become. I still find a nugget of free time here and there but not as much as I'd like - or need.

Here's some development for a concept I've been working on for the last million years. I think I prefer the rough line on the middle one over the clean version.

The title of this post is very fitting to my mood lately.....please save me.

Hello? Is there anybody out there....?

Anyone looking to work on this STOP-MOTION film

-- in Toronto --

is encouraged, nay, ordered to send their resumés, portfolios or reels to irishballadeer@gmail.com.

Rumnut Rhymes...

Here's a little Rumnut I wrote.

We have about 15 of these little suckers so far and we hope to publish the collection when we're finished. The idea of them being animated interstitials has crossed our minds as well.

Not settled on the illo style, layout or font yet but we do know we'll be using the pseudonyms Merv Koffin and Markus Thorne.

KatAtomic...

Concept BG by PQ

Concept bg's by Paul Watling

I've been developing this idea for awhile now. I finally have some rough designs I'm happy with. I would imagine these will still go through some changes as the show evolves. I will post some concept bg's shortly.

In case you're wondering, the little guy is Chet...the angry cat poo.

Now all I can pray for is that no one draws any comparisons to Teenage Robot.

I'm Famous...

Hey folks! Steve Levinson was kind enough to do an interview with me over at FREDERATOR. Check it out - here.

Prof. Inkbottom...

Another Monstrocity High rough.

Prof. Inkbottom teaches, you guessed it, penmanship.