Watercolor monster painting

Collaboration with Jeff Stern.

Cat painting

Watercolor on paper 2010
Our majestic cat sir Ozzy.

Angry Deer painting

Oil on Canvas 2010

This is my reaction to watching the saddest Disney movie "Bambi". After watching it, I wondered how angry Bambi could be at humans killing his mom and destroying his home. If I was him, I would be angry enough to go burn their homes, I think.
It's very un-Christmas like, but I kind of like it.

anyways, Happy Holidays!!

Laundry day

Rain makes me sleepy...

Paper dragon

Out of chop stick cover @ little Tokyo

@ LA Zoo

This turtle was super close to the edge:)

Back on set

I worked today as a puppeteer for a 3D puppet shoot. Super cool new panasonic 3D camera:D

Fun with sketchbook

Painting on the cover of a sketchbook for fun:)

Animating...!

Working with animation cells in unconventional way:)

Color storyboards

I have been working on a freelance job as a storyboard artist for a starting feature film.
I completed six full-color storyboards in about one week. It was pretty labor intensive, but I fully enjoyed doing drawings that are not normally the style I do.

Storyboard, Drawing samples

Random doodle2

Some characters for something?

Scary monster drawing1

From my storyboard assignment.

Random doodle1

Working progress painting

Kitty's fashion

He can be in a cover of VogueCat

Tons of Videos are up!!

I decided to upload some of my old works at Vimeo...

Toy's war from saekoigarashi on Vimeo.

Potyy from saekoigarashi on Vimeo.

Man of Shadow from saekoigarashi on Vimeo.

Merman's lazy day from saekoigarashi on Vimeo.

Play with Film from saekoigarashi on Vimeo.

and this is an animatic I did for my class project.



Today was pretty cool day. I hanged out with many animators from school outside and played games. After that, I worked on my new project with cool people. It's great to be productive again!!

Saturday Morning Doodle

The school started last week and it has been pretty nice getting back to studying. I presented my first project in one of my classes and I have mixed feelings about it but I feel motivated and creative about going with my initial idea. It is great to meet new artists in and out of school and I hope to meet more of them as I keep studying.

When I woke up today, I started looking around for some animations that students have done in CalArts and I was blown away by their quality works! Damn, I need to learn a lot lot more to get to that level!

And with that inspiration, this is what I drew. How does my brain work???

Too hot!

My cat seems he gave up to do anything in this heat.

Dolls are finally getting colors!!

First coat. They are looking pretty funky.

Cassandra Animation

Japan Japan Japan

It has been a month since I uploaded last. It is almost August!

I have been back in my hometown Tokyo for about a month and I feel like I am finally adjusting to this now alien environment. This city is super high-tech and much cleaner than LA but so small and less relaxing it feels like. I feel that I had to get used to constant stress and less chilling. Maybe it is my unstable situation that is causing this kind of dismay. All I know is that I need to get used to it and do the best I can under the circumstances.

A couple of weeks ago, I had one of my best friends come to visit me here, so we took a short trip to Nara and Kyoto both of which are much less hyped traditional city with many many awesome historical buildings and culture remains there.

It is very interesting to see disconnection of our contemporary and traditional culture. It almost seems like everybody died all at once and then were born again with no education of previous civilization. Those historical sites we visited were mostly occupied by elders and foreign tourists. I wonder, where is my generation of Japanese going? Where do they acquire these valuable tradition and culture if I see none in here?

Anyways, I took some photos from there and in Tokyo as we walked around. It is very interesting to see them in such fresh eyes.

When he is bored...

My cat likes to bother me when I'm animating.

Figure Drawings again

I've been slacking a bit on figure drawing lately, but I had an urge to go there again this last Thursday. To my surprise, that day's model was a guy and it turned out to be a pretty fun session!

Here are some pictures from last week and this week. I'm still trying to decide what is the best tool for me...

-2min.

-5min.

-10min.

-20min.

New clay characters!

It's nice to do some hands on craft after working on computer all day
long.

Dumb alien and Easy kitty.

back to old new projects!

Since my work has pretty much ran out, I've been trying to get back to my undergraduate projects.

First of all, my dog movie is still on it's way. I finally took out the model and cleaned it up and did some additional shoot for added scenes. I've been slowly working on the background and walk cycles since then. Here are some visuals...

Dog Walking away (please repeat to see the cycles)

Background posters

It seems like there is still a long way to go, and it is hard to keep focused under no apparent deadline nor purpose. I've been slacking a lot and I do not like it so much. So. I'm hoping that updating progress in my blog would be a good motivation.

The other project I'v been working is also a long-due undergraduate animation for a senior film of a friend of mine. Some of the animation has been done a long time ago, but some are completely untouched, and they all need to be cleaned and composited. There is total of 6 very short drawn animation. Here is a test I did to show the full composited look.

Not so close yet, but this is a start.

I also have another project I'm working on with a talented animator which I haven't even started yet, but I'll keep that to a next post!

Watercolor

Candy monsters.