Elliot Cowan's Sandwichbag: February 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Here's some ancient stuff (remember this Lee?).
About a billion years ago I was playing with this character called Onionhead.
The film Edward Scissorhands was very popular a few years previous.
It's about a sweet, innocent character who was built by a kindly inventor who dies before he can finish building him.
I stole from that and created this character who'd lived a similar existence, but instead of living a life of sweetness and innocence, he's a naughty, violent, unpredictable wild child.
I did a follow up to this one with much, MUCH better drawings called Onionhead on Holidays but they're all in a shed in Australia which makes them hard to scan.
Anyone who's familiar with my work can glance at this and see that I've been redoing the same stuff over and over and over again since high school.
I photocopied a couple of hundred of these little books and as far as I know this is the only one left.

From Brigham Young U - UPDATED

Well this is the first time in a long time that I'm doing some writing on the blog.
Some months ago Kelly T. Loosli of Brigham Young University in Utah emailed me asking for my Boxhead & Roundhead compilation DVD.
In return he promised to send me some of the work his students have been working on.
A quick Google reveals that the work from Brigham Young is getting attention from the big boys studios in the west, and it's easy to see why.
Although they all suffer from the kind of things all student films are prone to, almost all of them were of a very high technical standard.
Mostly they were the kind of cute, punchline cartoon that Pixar has been making for years.
This is what I watched:
Las Pinatas - a gag filled film about two "alive" piniatas. The rendering was great and the bull pinata was a lovely goofy design.
Faux Paw - A public service thing about being safe on the internet that combined 2D and 3D.
Der Ostwind - A black and white film about Germany during the war that combined live action and 3D to create a kind of nice, stylised "Sky Captain" variation.
Noggin - A film with a great idea but not such great execution. It was about a collection of characters who have their faces in their chests who harass a fellow built like a normal human with the head on top.
Turtles - Very Pixaresque film about battling turtles. Fun enough stuff.
Petshop - A chinchilla vies for attention. This film had the most interesting design.
Pajama Gladiator - This is Brigham Young most successful short, I think. It's won a bunch of awards and whatnot but I have to admit it's not the kind of thing I much like.
Kites - a reasonably sweet story about a kid dealing with the passing of his father.

Lots of fine, crowd pleasing stuff.
These kids, if they hustle, should have long careers in commercial 3D animation, although it would be great to see some more sophisticated storytelling and less obvious design and animation fostered in these talented students.
I'm sure they have it in them.

UPDATE
Shortly after reading this, Kelly send me some links to prove that his students most definitely have an independent streak.
http://sketchadventure.blogspot.com/
http://jake-paperlife.blogspot.com/
http://gardenturtle.blogspot.com/
All these blogs are full of terrific illustrations, conceptual work, doodles etc further bolstering these students ultimate employability.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Plonking Along

Thursday, February 18, 2010

A Present From Lisa

My pal Lisa really is a terrifically talented woman and has been for the 15 odd years I've known her.
She's beautiful and amazing and we thank her for this lovely present.

An Alice Repost

These are ancient, and unfortunately only very small old jpgs of very large images.
With Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland being released soon, I thought it worth posting them again.
Sigh...I wish they were bigger and better quality.

Anyway.
These are college illustrations.
I set the story in a hospital.
The Cheshire Cat was a vast obese thing.

The March Hare and the Mad Hatter were in the looney bin.

the Caterpillar was based on an interview I saw with the dying writer, Dennis Potter.