Richard Silvius

I’ve been working at Bento Box Animation Studio in Atlanta since April. We’ve been hard at work on The Awesomes, a show about a group of reject superheroes and their highly intelligent but loveably inept leader.

It’s a cool feeling seeing something I worked on broadcast for the entire world to see! It’s amazing how quickly some things go by.  The world will never know how many hours we spent on what are sometimes incredibly fleeting moments.

Here is a link to episode three, the first one  I worked on. I also did inbetweens and ink & paint on two of the character vignettes of the show’s musical intro sequence. Prock and Gadget Gal, specifically.

Enjoy!

I did this quick drawing of spring Dogwood leaves in Sketchbook Pro, using a photo I took earlier this year as reference. I was drawn to pattern — twin leaves sprouting from a single point, all oriented in the same direction, reaching towards the sky. From a distance they seemed to hover in mid-air against the dark colors of the woods after a rain.

Let’s just get it all out of the way at once — today marks the completion of my fourth week as an inbetween animator at Bento Box Entertainment in Atlanta!

I’d been angling to get in this place since last August, and with the good word of some friends I was not disappointed. We are hard at work on The Awesomes, an animated show made exclusively for Hulu. It’s one of an early vanguard of shows being produced by the online streaming services — so in that sense it’s  an experiment, and it will be very exciting to see how that new delivery model works out.

In the meantime, I’m working with a great crew, most of whom also worked on Out There, a new show on IFC that recently completed its first season.

I was recently honored to be included in Out to Launch, a trade show style reverse career fair in which the top students from each discipline are given a chance to be courted by well employers representing almost 200 companies!

I received the award for best booth in the Animation category — a feat which I do not know how I accomplished, given the outstanding quality of my colleagues’ presentations. Needless to say, it compounded the honor of being there in the first place.

Below is a picture of my booth and business card display, followed by a gallery of my colleagues.

I wouldn’t normally promote a product on my blog — however — this is a very special exception. I have found (for me) the PERFECT sketchbook.

If you are like me, every time you go to buy a new sketchbook, you’re looking for something better. Maybe the thing was too big, too small, bulky, or had that annoying spiral binding that gets all wonky and bent. Or, maybe the paper wasn’t quite right. I’ve experienced ALL of those — and going to buy a sketchbook is was an all day project.

Enter the Canson 180 Art Book. (5.5″ x 8.5″ version) It’s just the right size. Just the right weight. The paper (again, for me) is just the right texture. It’s not blindingly, dazzlingly white like some paper, nor is it overtly toned. It has a nifty magnetic latch.

That’s all fine — the real reason this sketchbook kicks so much ass is because of the way it is bound. It opens completely flat. As in, continue your line from one side to the other side flat. No more annoying dimple when you get to the inside edge of a page. No annoying spiral binding to bump your hand against.

And, the best feature of all — the 5.5″ x 8.5″ model fits PERFECTLY on virtually all flatbed scanner platen. And LAYS FLAT!! So — kiss that annoying blurry patch in the crease of your sketchbook GOODBYE! This is by far the easiest sketchbook to scan, EVER.

I like it so much I ordered 10 of ’em online, because they are so awesome to draw in that I’m filling it up faster than any sketchbook I’ve ever used.

One note — I have modified mine with a Pen Loop. I have used this thing on the last 5 sketchbooks or so. I just rip it off the old ones and attach it to new ones using double sided tape. It’s been handy, but when you have a pen in it, it obscures the magnetic latch.  Actually, I caused the material on the latch to tear by opening the book constantly with the pen still in the loop. The leverage against the pen caused a rip. I had to secure it with duct tape. I don’t think I will continue to use the loop.

I’ve been putting some finishing touches on my senior film, “Crow’s Nest” — getting it ready to start submitting to some festivals. Here are some stills from the film, which is not available for viewing anywhere on the web! (Yet.)

Some of the things I’ve been doing include adding and animating some clouds to give a greater sense of depth, and building out the sets in some scenes where I’d previously left things out for time’s sake. There have also been some animation errors to fix, among other things. All in all it’s looking pretty good, and I’m antsy to move on to my next project — more about that soon.

John Lindsey is an old friend and fellow troublemaker who’s been shaking up the Atlanta music scene lately with his band, Brain. I’ve been meaning to go to a show for literally YEARS, but due to school I never managed it. Last night I finally made it out to one, and was blown away. These guys are killer, and have written some really smart and catchy tunes. Of course, I am never without my camera, so I took a few shots of the performance.

I’ve had a few weeks hiatus from the ASIFA open model sessions, so it was great to attend again this past week. Still gotta push myself to take better advantage of the toned paper!