Tis the Season!

This weekend, we had a dialogue recording session for our upcoming Watchcat Holiday short "Tis the Season". We recorded actors Andrew James Jones and Rick Almada. Andrew is our new voice of Watchcat, while Rick will be doing several voices including an old lady, a young guy and the big bad guy. 

Had some unforeseen technical difficulties while I was working on this in 2017. I will be ahead for Christmas 2018.

Xmas2017_Sc02_Sc08ROUGH from Toondini on Vimeo.

Vampire Makeup

My Linked In work anniversary states; 2 years working at Watchcat Films, funny it feels more like 3. Thanks for all the congratulations.

The day after our annual Halloween party, I had to do some makeup to turn unsupecting actor Michael Hatch into a Vampire character for a friend's feature film project called Noir.

We wanted a Nosferatu type of vampire which was suppose to look more like this.

However, when we saw the actual makeup package only included foam pieces of a forehead brow, cheeks and a nose; no bald cap, no pointy ears and no fangs, we had to make a change. We ended up using a foam ape face instead, with a separate bald cap and larger pointy ears.

After attaching the bald cap, I glued on the ears. I had to add tissue paper and liquid latex to reinforce the ears to the bald cap and cover several holes. I was considering adding some wire to secure the ears so they wouldn't wiggle as much. Luckily, the vampire is shown very briefly in this black and white sequence, so the ear motion wouldn't be seen.

The day before, I painted the mouth area, gums, teeth and added the long fangs to save time before the makeup session. Those are plastic fangs are from a pumpkin carving kit, which I glued into where the foam fangs were. The ape mask was then glued into place, blended to the face and bald cap. I used tissue paper and liquid latex to create skin all around his neck and hands.

Once the head was done, I had to makeup Michael's hands and apply sharp false nails to his fingers. The entire makeup process took about 3 or 4 hours to complete. 

Michael was very patient throughout the whole process and in the end, gave a great performance. Here's a clip.

Vampire King from Toondini on Vimeo.

Michael was so good as a vampire, we had to use him in another part of the film as a Nazi Demon after slipping him into a German uniform and helmet.

One more pose before returning to the world of the humans.

 
Need some makeup in your next film project?

Happy Holidays from Watchcat Films

Watchcat Episode 2

Here's something I finally finished, Watchcat Episode 2.

Sonic Boom!

Animated Sonic Boom in this spot with animation direction from Michael Foran.

Honeynut bee by me!

Here's the latest Trix commercial, where 3 famous animated General Mills cereal mascots react to a real talking rabbit. Calabash Animation in Chicago hired me to animate Buzz the Honeynut Cheerio bee using Maya. It was a great opportunity and a fun spot to work on!

 

Watchcat Clip

Here is a clip of final scenes from Watchcat Episode 2.

Final22_25 from Toondini on Vimeo.

Hand Drawn and scanned into Toon Boom, imported into After Effect, 1/4 cup of nutmeg,

1 tea spoon of butter, and baked at 370 for 4 1/2 minutes in Premiere.

Meet the Patels Animation Design

I did the Character Designs, storyboarding and created animatics for the animated segments in "Meet the Patels". Here is the official trailer, which begins with some of myanimation, don't blink...

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, gives me animation credit in his article. Here's a link to the film's website and where you can see the film too.

Happy Holidays from Watchcat Films!

Paper Dragon

Here's a recent stop motion origami I made using DragonFrame software, a piece of paper and two hands.

Paper Dragon from Toondini on Vimeo.

For all you Origami Gurus out there, I did a little cheating, but that will be our little secret...

Poster Design and PSA

 Here's a PSA updated for the Burbank Recycle Center...

First Selfie

Here's actual proof of how the first selfie was invented!

First Selfie from Toondini on Vimeo.

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