Goodbye From Ashleigh

This is picture drawn for me by Ashleigh Poprawski.
I have known her since before she was born.
It's called "P. Uncle Elliot, P. Logan & P. Me".
Unsure of what the P refers to.
I leave the state in 2 days.

Coaster

I have had this coaster in my pile of junk for years and years and have finally found just the right place to put it.
This is front and back with no enhancements.
I dread to think what these people are putting in our food.

I leave this apple isle in a few days...
I set out to the rest of the world on June 25th.

High Snoot

Quick Saturday Morning Stuff

Sitcom

I'm Still Here!!!!!

Hello Floorboards Once Again, How are You?

Nice Arse

Punch Drunk

Still Here

Hey all!
I'm still here.
Not only have I got a hold of a new copy of Painter, but it seems my Wacom table behaves perfectly well on this machine.
Perhaps I'll put off buying a new one.

Found a Scanner to Use

Everyman

I spent some time trying to think of something to put in the darkness but couldn't.

Also - I sold this one, which was nice.


And I don't recall if I've posted this before (which is probably what I said the last 3 times I posted it).
.

Charles Blackman

As I have not yet access to a computer with a scanner I cannot post anything of my own yet.
In the meantime, here are some images by Australian artist Charles Blackman.

Horror

Similarly to other nations, the Australian film industry is really good at producing a lot of shitty films that no-one goes to see.
Occasionally they'll produce a terrific film that lots of people go and see.
Last night I watched a film called Wolf Creek - an Australian film that is supposed to be a horror movie.
This film doesn't really fit into either category.
It's full of good film making and it's shot beautifully and was a great success, but it's the most repulsive film I can think of.
Anyone who reads this crappy blog regularly will be aware that I am no prude - hell, I love blood and guts horror films (anyone seen Peter Jacksons early zombie movies? They are among my favourites).
And I strongly believe that when you are creating images and you are commenting on something important then doing it in a violent visceral way can be entirely appropriate.
But the horror in this film is not the horror of blood and guts.
It's not the horror of the dark, or the unknown or monsters.
There's not even the thrill that I think is supposed to come from a horror movie.
It's the horror of torture and human suffering.
Now then - this film is about three kids who are picked up in outback Australia by a psychotic who then tortures them and does all sorts of dreadful things to them (I have no idea what happens in the end because we turned it off).
This is not a movie about civil war, or about white mans treatment of aborigines, or even a spy movie.
This is a film about torture and upset with no context beyond entertainment.
I'm sure the film makers think they are very clever - to be sure they play with some of the horror conventions but that hardly takes an expert.
And I'm sure they are pleased with the fact that they've made a film that has has such a strong reaction - you'd have to be pretty stoic to not be affected.
But again - that's all the film is about - a reaction.
And a reaction to not one single solitary important thing.
I felt sick afterwards and angry that talented people had made such repulsive stuff.
I watched it with 2 good friends and as mentioned we turned it off before the end.
And I am proud of us that we did.
We did not turn it off because we were so frightened that we couldn't cope anymore, we turned it off because we are good people who do not think the suffering of innocent people is something that should be trivialised in this way.

And after that I'll mention that today is my last day at work!

The Great Unaired

The star of this commercial is my little dog Ella (being whipped into a frenzy).
The client was very enthusiastic to begin with, then an element of timidity set it and this great little commercial never went to air.
I can't seem to nail the quality in these Youtube things....
Ella has starred in other commercials since.

Ice Fishin'

STOP

More Strange Machine

Tasmania in Two

Here's a nice thing.
We have some beautiful vision shot of this apple isle.
As I'll be leaving it in a few weeks, I though it nice to post some more pictures of it.
This is about 25 minutes worth of Tasmania crammed into 2 minutes.
Vision shot by the experts at WIN television and cut by the erotic Damon Goody.
Music by Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman.

New Email

Hey everyone.
As my time here at WIN ends, I'd like everyone who would like to correspond with me that my email address - cowane@wintas.com.au, will no longer be valid.
elliotcowanimation@yahoo.com is my new email address, and I'd be delighted to hear from anyone as long as they aren't selling viagra or breast implants (I already have both).

Looking Up

You may recall I mentioned some miners that had been trapped underground for a fortnight.
Well they finally got them out.
I had expected them to emerge all pale and shrunken and Gollum like, but in fact as they emerged it was hard to tell them from the rest of the rabble waiting to greet them.
I should probably be pleased that they escaped healthy and well but it was a bit dissapointing that they didn't crawl out on hands and knees clawing for food.

Join The Queue

Frank Blogs!

Here are some more pencil sketches to distract you from the more important things in life.

I noted today that surrealist Jim Woodring has started blogging.
Jim Woodring has done all kinds of crazy wonderful things - you may know of his comic "Frank". If not - go look for it.

Corporate Cowan

Fuck.
I fixed a spelling error and lost all the witty remarks I had made earlier about being all corporate and shit...
Will revise some other time.

Also - David Byrne talks about some interesting issues of photography and copywrite if anyone is curious.
Very interesting stuff.

Pencil Sketches

Hey look!
Drawings!
I don't believe I've posted any pencil sketches yet.
I haven't done any in quite some time which is a shame because I enjoy it very much.
I'll comment on only 2
1) Top left is a brief sketch of Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Capote. I saw it last night and I liked most of it very much. Not a great caricature but the flavour is there for a quickie.
2) Bottom left. Resident superficialist and new girl Nadia asked me to draw a picture of a pretty girl. When I gave it to her her first comment was "She has a gut".
I confiscated it immediately.

And some Photoshop silliness.

Ancient Stuff

Here's a funny one.
This commercial won an award.
An award for animation - best animated commercial in a mid level awards thingy (that has made such an impact on me that I don't recall what was called).
In all, there are about 9 actual drawings here - a walk cycle.
And it won.
Now then, what is very silly about this, is that I entered another commercial in the same category, one I have posted here before, that is fully animated from beginning to end.
The judges were all representatives from the advertising industry, so that should say just about everything there is to say about the business.
TV people may recognise the work of a VERY old graphics tool called an ADO, which was used when commercials were cut in a linear fashion.
No-one knew what it stood for, but I think the O was for "oscilator".

Another Old One

Not only is my Wacom still fucked (the boffins suggest I get a new one), and my version of Painter won't run on this system (suggesting that I may need to get a new one), but I really don't like drawing in Photoshop.
so as mentioned, for a while at least, you're stuck with television commercials.
Some time ago I posted something that I said was the first ad I ever made by myself.
I was wrong - this is.
I'd forgotten all about it.
It was animated frame by frame in Illustrator and composited in a now defunct piece of software called AXA (defunct seems to be the name of the game here).

Has anyone seen Tasmania on the news recently?
We have a couple of miners trapped almost a kilometre underground.
They survived an underground rock fall and have been trapped in a for over a week now - a computer generated graphic shows the two lads in a cage this pinned down by what looks like a giant piece of ginger.
They are close to hauling them out.
I'll paraphrase a joke from a newspaper: They are using a large boring machine to drill them out, one would have thought the people of Beaconsfield have had enough of large boring machines when David Koch and Melissa Doyle of the Today show turned up to do live crosses.

Also - Tasmania is a rural community. Farming, vinyards, mining that kind of thing mostly.
As the world gets smaller, so do regional communities, and as such small towns do their best to drum up business.
In the north east there is a town called Sheffield, Town of Murals.
Every year talentless goons turn up with paint and brushes and paint the walls with horrible pictures.
Railton, a town just down the road, have proclaimed themselves "Railton, Town of Topiary".
This bunch of shit can be seen here.
I'm not sure if either the general Tasmanian public or visiting tourists are going to be lured to Railton with the promise of topiary delights, but good on them for trying.
Topiary, for those not in the know, is the art of pruning a shrub into an interesting shape - usually something stupid.

Actually - I've just a had a brief glance at the meager website and if you go here you'll find some nice historical photos of the town showing Australia in a time that was wild and wooly. Anyone who's seen the film The Proposition will be interested.

More Student Film

Well I have access to an editing suite but not a computer that'll run my elderly copy of Painter. I fear I shall have to buy a new one. Anyway - here's another clip from my student film. I think it shows that I'm a much better designer than I am an animator. I've also found some old commercials that I'll post over the next few days, including one that I won an award for (amusing story to come).