AVERT YOUR EYES on vimeo

I uploaded my AVERT YOUR EYES animation to Vimeo. It may not playback at the proper frame rate on your computer depending on your internet connection, many parts are frame by frame blinking but regardless you get the idea.

It was inspired by 8-bit and pixel art. Like old Nintendo and Atari games fused with my current body of work with sacre images and wrathful deities. Enjoy!

ANIMATED DELIGHT - TREX PROGRAM

Les dropped off the catalogue for the Alberta Society for Artist's (TREX) Arts Traveling Exhibition Program. I will be showing work as part of a traveling exhibit alongside; Leslie Bell, Stephanie Wong and Chris Melnychuck.

"4 artists, 3 crates, 12 framed presentation Units, 1 c of short films, 65 running feet."

Below is a scan of the catalogue page 7.

They wrote this about me and my work:

"Brian 'Bunny' Batista is an extraordinary advocate for the media arts. Batista's paintings and animation reveal a passion for Eastern mysticism, pop culture and a deep knowledge of historical character animation."

8-BIT ANIMATION LOCKDOWN

In order to get away from the studio to clear my mind a bit, I went 8-bit.

I spent the May long week-end locked down at Quickdraw Animation Society 5th annual Animation Lockdown -a 48 hour animation challenge.
This year the challenge was to make an 8 BIT animation!

Here is a preview, below are a few screenshots from my animated film:

I made a 2 min. film in about 20 hours, including music, editing and titles/credits.  My film is titled AVERT YOUR EYES and it includes animation of wrathful deities set to 8-bit dubstep. I was the first 'team' to be completed his film, but I was on a 'team' all by my lonesome.

I was still a bit under the weather with this nasty persistent dry cough, I could only do at most 12 hrs. straight. Once I was done, sick or not, I was in a a celebratory mood........ I left the competition a day early thus completely avoiding the stressful rush to the finish line, thats pacing!

See these images move.

I totally have a new found romance with the idea of pixel art. It is almost counter intuitive, with advancing technology to be subjecting yourself to this creative constraint. It's almost a nostalgia for the past days of crappy Atari and Nintendo graphics and sounds. I have a well filled with new ideas based on this inspiration of 8-bit.

The thing that was great about this animation lockdown week-end challenge, Focused time on only one task, we were fed an watered an had exceptional technical support from Michael Welchman, but that's not all.  For me to work solely as an artist is a rare opportunity. I'm usually either teaching or solving other's technical problems, it was cool to be 'the artist'.

The real bonus for me was that I stayed out of trouble and away from party distractions this long week-end. The big payoff is the overwhelming feeling of satisfaction and achievement. I really enjoyed making something under pressure in an environment filled with like minded, creative people.  It saved me money and time and possibly my health.........kind of......I didn't sleep much though, but wait there's more.......... now I have another animated film under my belt!

~No worse the wear!~

Come down and check out our 8-bit inspired animations:

Wednesday May 25th at 9pm at the PLAZA theatre, followed by a screening of The Last Starfighter!

FACEBOOK INVITE AND MORE INFO CLICK HERE|

__________

New Copic Colors

When it's Friday the 13th and I am having a bad day there is nothing that turns it completely around quite like buying new art Supplies. I got a bunch of stuff for the work I am currently doing in the studio and..... New Copic markers, a dozen of them, and colors. My collection is now getting flushed out, I'll be able to chase my imagination, but I didn't remember to pick up any yellow. Here are my new colors:

G14 - Apple Green

BG15 - Aqua

B05 - Process Blue

B02 - Lapis Lazuli

V17 - Amethyst

V04 - Lilac

RV29 - Crimson

RV04 - Shcok Pink

RV21 - Light Pink

E21 - Baby Skin Pink

YR04 - Chrome Orange

I skipped outta Inglewood Art Supply like a little kid on Halloween, with a full bag of candy=;)

Richard Halliday, RCA

A huge inspiration, Richard Halliday, and artist who creates lyrical paintings in black and white is finally represented online in Social Media.  Michael Markowsky created a page on facebook as a Tribute Page to one of the world's greatest LIVING artists. The biography alone is worth the read. I was lucky enough to study and befriend Richard while at ACAD. He is a legend!

You can also check out Richard's work at his website: www.richardhalliday.com. Do it!

Constellation Series: 2005, 66"H x 106"W (167.6 x 269.2 cm)
Titanium white oil stick on bone black acrylic ground on canvas
Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Flip it and reverse it

That is what the opposite machine does after all.   Well here is a video where it seems very applicable.  TOILLE YSSIM - TI KROW.  My room mate was wondering what she said so I thought I'd go a step further in the assignment and found out that this song is even more interesting.

Inverted and reversed and outputted in Final Cut.

Current Copic Marker collection

I organized and took inventory of my current Copic Marker collection today. Feeling sick today so I didn't make it down to the studio, so I am catching up on projects. More to come about my current studio practice leading up to my solo exhibit at the Untitled Arts Society in a month.

copic marker collection May 2011

Sharpie Sketches

Went out to Tubby Dog and did some quickie sketches with my new assortment of Sharpies (see previous blog entry for more info).  Today I added a few more elements from the view from the couch in my living room.  1 more pafge to go until I finish this sketchbook. Yeah!

 

This is definitely not my best work, but I'm still willing to put it out there. 

Not all the sketches in ones sketchbook are going to be good.

~

Keys to the VIP and new art supplies

I just got the keys to my new Studio. I was awarded a  3 month residency from the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation. I'm stoked!!! It was too snowy to move in this week-end and I injure my Achilles Tendon in Martial Arts on Wednesday. I opted to take it easy rather than force a move on myself. It is weighing heavily in the back of my mind.....STUDIO TIME!!!

Today, I went out for lunch with my mom. We had delicious Vietnamese food, followed by a trip to not one....... but two art stores.  Often when I am spending money on supplies, I get a last minute feeling of guilt, which is really strange because other than food there is nothing more important for me to be buying than art supplies.  Supplies make more art, which may eventually lead to more money, but more importantly making art leads to my happiness. So why do I  feel guilty? Maybe its a bit of shame. I get so much pleasure from spending $4o on stuff at Swinton's Art Supply. It's like being caugth masturbating. I don't feel guilty when I blow money on anything else. Anyone else have this issue?

I picked up a handful of Prismacolour, they were on sale for under $2.65 a piece. I took one of each color I didn't already have;  Scarlet Lake, Sienna Brown, Copenhagen Blue, Dark Green, Grass green and Aquamarine.  They also had colored sharpies for 50 cents a piece, I couldn't resist! I picked up; Lime, Turquoise, Peach, Aqua, Mint. I have an addiction to color, what can I say. I also picked up two gold paint pens for Katie Green to do a design on my motorcycle jacket as well as a $20 book on mastering sketching in 40 lessons. I feel that I've been needing a kick in the seat of the pants, I haven't had much time to sketch. I think the lessons in this book will help shake my laurels a bit, and give me a creative kick...... follow my blog in future posts and see.

Lovely, lovely colorful art supplies make me happy

Next stop: Inglewood Art Supply,  My favorite art store in town! Not only are they conveniently located close to my neighborhood, they have fantastic prices,  and give ACAD ALUMNI great deals. I especially like this store because of the people who work there, all the staff are courteous and friendly. (Hi Ola, sad I didn't see you there today, love the orange felt own magnet!) Inglewood Art Supply are having their annual Spring Canvas Sale. My mom paints Acrylic, she wanted to pick up a bunch of new deep profile pre-stretched canvasses. Canvas sale, hell yeah!!!! I have a new studio space, better fill it. The great thing is I can finally build and paint large canvases now that I have the space. So what can I say................

I picked up a whole roll, 50.3 yards of 15 oz. 72" wide unprimmed canvas. The roll weighed so much I had to get the owner Peter to help me carry it into the car, luckily it fit, but I had to squeeze in the back of my moms Matrix. Not only did I get 30% off, which really helps, that stuff ain't cheap you know.  There was a labeling misunderstanding and the staff felt bad and gave me a gift certificate for an additional $40 at the store. Yippee!! I will be back. In a way, it is like I got the stuff at Swinton's for free and I still get to go back and pick up some more supplies once I settle into my new studio, and realize what I need.

All I can say is today has been a great day!

More to come.....

Playing with Pencil Crayons

Funny how playing with my pencil crayons, I drew common things kids played with from the 80's. Transformers, My little Pony and Battle Cat from He-man.

These pencil crayons are nice, picked 'em up at my local art supply store, Inglewood Art Supply.  They are LYRA brand Rembrant Polycolor. They have really soft leads, strong hues and they appear to blend nicely.

Proud Teacher

As some of you may know, I am a man of many skills and talents, you may also know that I teach animation to put food on the table. I have been teaching animation full-time for the past 20 weeks to Aboriginal Youth at the Quickdraw Animation Society.  Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be screening the work at the PLAZA theatre in Kensington. The screening will take place at 5pm and there will be a celebration/reception at Quickdraw to follow. Please come own, it's free!

Here is a link to the Facebook Event Page. 

 

 Tomorrow is the big day. Come check it out!

MORE GREAT NEWS!!!

My Aboriginal Youth Animation Project was covered in today's Herald newspaper.

Check out the story HERE



A picture from the Herald of one of my most promising classical animation students, Dre First Rider.

Rojankovsky Fairy Tales

I love the nostalgic almost naive style and stories from the books I read when I was a wee lad.  They are so simple and pure.  Here are a few inspired by a recent view of John K, the creator of Ren and Stimpy's blog, which I follow.  If you like what you see here, why not follow mine?

These were sketched quickly in photo blue pencil/ HB then outline with a 0.7 Copic Multiliner an colored in with Prismacolor. I think this drawing will look spiffy once the paper yellows and the color fades.

Lurk & Bang monkey

A friend showed me this video that really sums up the hilarity and level of disturbing of modern mankind.  I think it reminds us how close we can get in relation to our animal ancestors to the true grit of survival. 

Word of caution............. If you want to see it........... I will point you in the direction, but I'm not going to make it a link to my blog and I'll say It wasn't me who led you astray.  You sicko's will have to do the leg work for yourselves, it's almost too easy. Try these three simple words  chimp + rape + frog. That should be enough, it was for him. (he he he)

This is the first inspiration concept for some printing/silk screening I'd like to do for my fellow shambhalian crewmembers.

Yes, we have no bananas

As they were eaten one by one,
their population dwindled, 
those that were left .............
..........began to turn.............

I sketched the whole bunch of bananas a few days ago.
(see previous blog entry, click here)
This is the final one that remained.
Well at least until the sketch was completed.

Sketched using HB for the initial outline and prismacolor markers for the rest.

Help me name my little pony

Students of mine were actually arguing in class about whether or not unicorns have wings. No. Unicorns just have a horn,  isn't that enough? Pegasus had wings.

But my little pony can be whatever he wants............
and if that means exposed, spotted and a little gay, then I'm fine with that.

However, he does need a name, any suggestions?

My favorite colors together are pink and blue. The blue is 'cause this little unicron is a boy, just look down to his unicock. The outline was done in red sharpie, 'cause that is what I had in front of me at the time.  I waited until I got home from work to use some colors from my Copic collection. I just love my copic markers.

There was no question, I was intent on using pink, I just love pink, what can I say?   I used to have a bright pink mowhawk in high school and the color has stuck with me ever since. I always have something pink of, even my hankies are pink, showing my colors. (insert Lurk and Bang gang symbol in here) If you don't see any pink, don't ask, I have an extensive manties collection from Priape.

So what about my little unicrons name?

Here are some of the ideas I got from friends:

Doug
Flum
Moondoogle
Firesprint
Lurky
Twinkledick
Thistlespoke
Cinnibarbie
Flamerheart
Hawkencock
Bangy
Skeeter
Niel Patrick Harris
Puff
Jarome Iginla and
Blew me

Thanks guys an gals, these are brilliant. Now I've got to design more ponies!

Bananas

These were on my table. I had a sketchbook and a HB mechanical pencil in hand.

I have a good theory involving bananas right before you go out dancing.

Beard and the babe or beauty and the beard

I heard word my good friend is feeling a little under the weather. So I channeled my magickal energies to give him some strength, like conan the barbarian if he were a dwarf. I had this idea running in my head since Valentines and I think I will make another attempt on Canvas in the near future in a cheesy airbrush the side of a van meets Boris Vallejio style.  My wish is that he feels better and that the painting is epic!

 

Hb on paper. 

Here is the head cut out and quickly colored in Adobe Photoshop so said friend can use it as his facebook profile picture. 

 I then decided to tweak the design a bit more. I think he needs a bigger head so I enlarged it on a photocopier and pasted it in my sketchbook.

The aMAIZEing CORNhole

I did a CORNy drawing today....

 

I have been reading the Obnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It is very insightful regarding the importance that corn has had on the growth of western civilization. It  examines how the industrial food complex is based almost entirely on corn and products derived from corn.  It is similar in some sense with the documentary Food Inc. if you haven't seen that, check it out. If so...... Read the book!


The Obnivore's Dilemma delves into big business agriculture and the historical use of corn as the tool against those who first cultivated in order to eradicate them from existence.  Corn is a high yielder. It produces far more 'product' than wheat with a  300:1 ratio for intensive seed production (it can flourish in the crappiest of soils) and it's ability to transform carbon from the air as no other grass can. We can't live without it, but then again corn cant live without us either. I find it interesting that corn's biology won't allow it to survive if not for it's symbiotic relationship with mankind.....and maybe a few corporate patents.

Digestive problems?

Corn reorganizes itself back into it's original form after you eat it - weird.

Inspired Facebook Grafitti

Here is posts made by Ola Birch based on my earlier Facebook Grafitti  Blog.
It's awesome!

If you would like to see more of her works visit her blog  FAY MOOSE ART!!!

 

She was at the last market collective an has really amazing stuff available. 

Check it out on her ETSY site just Click HERE !!!

Early Animation Characters

Here is the scan of my early animation character sketches inked.  I cant wait to see how they appear in print for the Quickdraw Animation Society.

Pre-code B/W animation characters

KT @ Quickdraw asked me to whip up some early style animation characters for their upcoming course pamphlet. Here are the preliminary sketches done on animation paper and the back of a photo copy in HB pencil.  There is Oswald the lucky rabbit, a few versions of Felix, Bosko, Dinky doodles, some proto mickeys (mice)etc. 

This is my favorite era of animation. The character designs are stunning using simple shapes and bold contrast, having only black and white to work with.

Inking comes next!

Shaolin fighters

I have been super busy and equally sick.  But if you say I'm not holding up my end of life's bargain then I'm gonna sick my two Shaolin bodyguards on you. Here they are, taken from a scrap I ripped from a National Geographic, I think.  All I have left is these HB and slightly tinted with Prismacolor representations.

 

"Mastery comes in finding perfect balance"

Revenge of the Nerds!

F*ck with your friends!

I'm sorry if this is getting outta hand, it's just way too much fun!

Facebook is going to have to change this for sure. Once this info gets out everybody will be screwing with each others profiles. I had a little fun with this Hack. If I got you it's cause I love you!

 Who's asking for it?

Awesomeness of facebook

I just put up a little razmataz awesomeness on my Facebook page and invented a new form of FB graffiti. Already many peeps have been asking how I did it. Well here's how!

~REVENGE OF THE NERD!!!~

There is a new feature as part of the FB layout, 5 of your latest images across the top.  I decided to take one of my bunny parade pictures and cut it up across the top.

1) I took a screen shot of my facebook profile page first, to get an idea of the size the images would be.

 

Really easy to do with Mac (Command + Shift + 3) 

On a PC you may have to use Grab or another program.

2) I opened this image in Photoshop(any photo alteration program should work). I created another layer, cut and copied the entire layer and out each of the squares I wanted to fill.  I threw out the original layer, so what I had left was this image with squares cut out over a transparent background.

Simply cut out with the marquee. 
The checkered background shows the transparency.

3) I selected an image I wanted to fill the squares with. I added a layer and inserted my image below the cut out Facebook template I just designed. It needed to be moved around and re-sized but in the end, I had basically what I would see on FB.

Here is the example with the layers shown at left so you get a basic idea of how it is stacked.

4) I took the Marquee tool and cut out and copied each of the 5 images and saved them as separate PNG files. No now I had 5 separate files named "Bunny- 1 - 5".

5) I went into my  Facebook account and opened a new photo album, I called it "Number 5 is Alive" so I would remember the 5 photos across the top go in  there.  Once the photos are uploaded to Facebook, comes the tricky part..... 

6) Put them in order in the new FB Album. Tag them with your name,  from the LAST image to the FIRST.  Go to the end and tag using the 'previous' button, its quicker.   I found out, if you tag them in the regular order, the pictures will be in the reverse order. The funny thing is they should replace the ones that were there. 5 across the top. 

Trouble shooting:

If someone else tags a photo of you more recently it will pop into the left most square. Now this is not really a problem actually, just un-tag them all in your album and redo the process. Hmm, this can be a mess, but it also has the potential for other things..............

Causing trouble: 

The same is true if you decide to put this up on other peoples, tag them in reverse too. He he. Geurilla  FB advertising.

MAYBE I'VE GIVEN YOU TOO MUCH INFO, HERE IS HOW TO CREATE A FB MONSTER!

I take no responsibility for how you decide to use this information, even if it annoys your friends, it is all in good fun! Who knows, enough of this an FB may change how tagging works!


To remove: All they have to do to get rid of them is un-tag themselves in my photos.

Here is bunny having some fun my poking his head into his closest friends FB pages today =;)

"I see you!" 

=;)