A Goy Named Jew:The Blog of Illustrator Anson Jew

High and Dry

2011-10-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Power point presentations can often be dull and dry and often put viewers to sleep. With this in mind, Big Block, a digital Production studio in Santa Monica, hired me to do some cartoons for their Oracle Configurator presentation that was shown at Oracle Open World in San Francisco. I drew the cartoons and they animated my assets in AfterEffects. Thanks to all the nice people at Big Block for the work!

* * *

Devin R. Bruce has started a new comics related podcast and blog called "Scotch and Comics". In the first episode of his podcast, he reviews several comics, including my own "Vice" Check it out!

* * *

For those who are wondering, I'm currently working on a project with The Third Floor, currently Hollywood's biggest digital previs company. Great company, great people!

Doodlers Unite!

2011-09-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

Getting into the Union Is An Uphill Battle

2011-07-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Super talented illustrator Mike Vosburg posted a little commentary on his blog about the current way the IATSE Local 800 (the union for storyboard artists, matte painters, and art directors) takes on new storyboard artists.

Currently, there is a convoluted system in which you must accumulate so many days of work within a 365 day period doing union commercials to get on a commercials experience roster (and a second number of days once you have been put on the roster) before you will be allowed to be put on another roster that allows you to work on feature films or TV. Another way to get into the union is to be hired on a non-union movie that later signs up with the union while you're on it. But this is a rare convergence of events that can't be predicted nor planned for.

Since union commercial production houses tend want to hire union artists before hiring non-union artists, and because non-union artists' days only count toward the roster if the company agrees to put their hours on a union timecard, it can be very difficult for a non-union artist to rack up enough days in a year to get on the commercial experience roster. Effectively, this makes it almost a matter of chance whether or not you can get into the union. I've been in LA doing storyboards since 2002, and only know of one artist who has gotten in by accumulating commercial hours. Most have gotten in by working on non-union films that went union while they were on it...essentially they were hired at the right place at the right time.

Before moving to LA, I worked on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow for 7-8 months doing storyboards. That was when the movie was a small indie production. The film eventually did go union, but only after nearly a year had gone by since my last day of work on that project. I have tried to get into the union in so many ways for years without success. Mike has been storyboarding for decades, and is even an Emmy winning director, yet by the union's reckoning, doesn't have enough experience to be in the union.

Both Mike and I support the union movement and what it stands for, yet the current roster based system makes it damn near impossible for us and many other experienced artists to get into that union. There are other unions (The Animation Union, for example) that operate just fine (far as I can tell) without a roster system.

It just seems to me as though something is very wrong in Tinseltown.

That Time of Year Again

2011-07-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

San Diego Comic Con is less than a week away. As usual, I will have a table at Artists Alley. You can find me at Table DD24 right next to my brother Benton, who will be at Table DD23. I will be selling all the usual comics, posters, sketchbooks and original art, plus my new mini-sketchbook, "Doo Dah". Please stop by and visit! I also plan to spend a bit of my non-Comic-Con evening time visiting Trickster, the new event for storytellers showcasing their creator-owned work running concurrent with the convention.

Selected Daily Sketches

2011-04-25T19:49:00.000-07:00

Some selected sketches from my daily sketch forum. Click image to view larger.

More Sketches

2011-03-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

A selection of some of my sketches from the sketch-a-day forum.

Click image to see larger.

Sketchy Characters

2011-03-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd share a few sketches I did for a book project I'm working on.

Anson

Click each image for a larger view.

A Sketch a Day....

2011-02-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

I'm a firm believer that you make your greatest progress in art (or any skill, for that matter) when you work on it on a regular basis. That is to say, one hour every day of the week beats seven hours on a Sunday. I know this works from experience. I've worked on sketchbooks on a daily basis for several months at a time and usually notice marked improvement. Unfortunately, I often fall off the wagon, and my sketching goes unattended to for long stretches of time.

I've recently started teaching a class in basic storyboarding at the Otis College of Design one day out of the week. This regularity concept is one thing I'd like to impress upon my students. To encourage this, I started an online forum for the class in which they can earn extra credit points by posting a new sketch to the forum every day. To make sure they're not raiding their old sketchbooks for class points, I give them a new assignment every day. I post a new assignment every morning (including holidays and weekends) with a description of a simple scenario for them to draw ("alphabet soup", "monster on a train", "businesspeople playing basketball"). They have 24 hours from the original post time to come up with a sketch (doesn't have to be fancy, even a napkin sketch will do). They get two class points for each sketch. If they do 20 consecutive sketches without missing a day, the point value of those 20 drawings doubles.

Now originally, I was looking for a forum that had a queued posting feature. This is a feature that would allow me to create all my assignments in advance and have them posted automatically at a predetermined date. I didn't like the prospect of getting up early in the morning and dreaded the prospect of posting a new assignment every single day.

Of course, the hypocrisy of this situation finally got to me. How could I expect my students to do a sketch every day when I'm not even willing to even simply post an assignment every day?

So I decided to forgo the queued posting and not only post an assignment every day, but do the assignment with the class as well (actually, I do the assignment a day later than everyone else, so that my art doesn't influence them or hamper their creativity). Here are the sketches I did for the first week. Enjoy!

Anson

Click each image for a larger view.

More.

Season's Greetings!

2010-12-23T09:44:00.001-08:00

‎"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

--Jacob Marley, from "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens

Happy Holidays!

Anson

Sketchbook Dump

2010-11-30T00:54:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. A lot has been going on, and I haven't had a lot of time to blog. But hopefully I can make up for it with a big art dump from my sketchbook. These life drawings are marker and Prismacolor with pencil and/or ballpoint pen.

Click on each image for a larger view.

Digging Up the Fun Guy

2010-09-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

In a much younger incarnation of myself, I had dreams of doing my own syndicated comic strip. In college, I did a weekly comic strip for the campus paper called "The Fun Guy". It was basically a ripoff of one of my cartoon heroes, Jules Feiffer. Doing this strip gave me a great appreciation for what a daily strip cartoonist does, since trying to come up with a funny strip every week just seemed like expecting a miracle to happen every 7 days. How strip artists were able to do this every day in the tiny 3 panel cartoon haiku format that was expected in strips at the time seemed like an impossible task.

Bad Joo Joo Gallery Remodeling

2010-08-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the opening of Garter Belts and Gasoline 3, I've done a bit of an update to my long neglected pinup site, "The Bad Joo Joo Gallery". I've added a few pieces and there will be more on the way. I had actually planned to do a lot more, like deal with some JavaScript problems that appear on some browsers as well as a page for ordering original art and prints, but I've had a lot on my plate lately, and probably won't get to any of that before the show. But check out the site anyways; art's good for ya.

Here's the press info on Garter Belts and Gasoline 3:

What: Artist Reception for show entitled Garter Belts & Gasoline 3 and Car show
Where: The Gallery at the Alternative Cafe. 1230 Fremont Blvd, Seaside
When: Friday, August 13th 7pm till 10pm
Why: Because you like art and hotrods, especially on the same night!
Who:
Joe Chiodo
Sam Gambino
April May
Glen McDowell
Randy Noborikawa
Robh Ruppel
Tanem
Jessica "Tink" Whiteside
Anson Jew
and more...

Grease up your hair, slide on your best garter and role on down to The Alternative Cafe on Friday the 13th! Garter Belts & Gasoline is our 3rd annual pin-up and hotrod art exhibit here at the Gallery at the Alternative Cafe,
guest curated by local pin-up artist Tanem.

Hotrods, gassers and ratrods will be on display in front of the gallery from 6 to 9.

Themed drink specials during the car show. Wine and snacks, as always, will be available. Guest disc jockey.

Joe Chiodo:
Born on January 22, 1958 (yep you do the math), the youngest of four boys and raised in San Jose CA. Joe has always been a pretty quiet individual, finding art to be his passion at an early age. Trying to find an outlet and realizing San Jose would not be the place where this would happen, he traveled to various places like, New York and Los Angeles. Where he worked for a diverse client base, from book covers, toy companies, gaming, and comics, eventually settling in San Diego.
Sam Gambino:
Sam grew up with kustom kulture art as the son of an original 1956 Detroit, Michigan pinstriper. He has a great love and appreciation for vintage ad art; so much so that much of his art is sometimes mistaken to be 40 or 50 years old. He has created comic panels for King Features Syndicate's New Breed comic strip and shown his work in gallery art shows inside and

outside of the United States. Working primarily in enamels, he also uses 23 carat gold leaf in much of his art. In addition, he creates digital and pen and ink art. His subject matter many times includes campy, vintage and kitschy cult characters - usually with a different spin than one would expect to see with these personalities. He designed the Sam's Shrunken Head and Sam's Dinky Noggin mugs by Tiki Farm; the 2007 tiki mug for the legendary Sam's Seafood Restaurant in Huntington Beach, California; and Mort, Maury and Merv - the Bowling Moai Brothers mugs and decanter by Tiki Farm. There is also a line of his vintage style tin and wooden pub signs which are sold in stores worldwide.
April May:
Hot rodding is an art form, and she's proving it, one photo at a time. April May has been photographing cars since long before she could even "legally" drive to a car show. In every picture she takes, she is attempting to show how the owner's creativity, focus, and dedication came together to produce something meaningful. There's no need to have some broad laying on the car to take away from it's details and individuality. They speak for themselves.
Glen McDowell:
Northern California photographer located on the central coast offering wedding, portrait and pin-up photography as well as advertising and commercial photography. To learn more about me and the quality of my work please visit mcdowellphoto.com.
Randy Noborikawa:
Born in Southern California, graduated from Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Randy currently lives in Costa Mesa, Ca while frequently making trips to SF for inspiration. His work often takes on one of three distinct styles: linticular paintings, painterly cityscapes or the suger skull avatar.
Robh Ruppel:
Robh has designed for film, television and print. He attended Art Center College of Design and has worked for a varied clientele including Walt Disney Animation Studios, TV Guide, Boss Films, Naughty Dog and TSR.
“I love inventing worlds and the things in them. The thrill of seeing appear before you is pretty hard to match. In inventing things that don’t exist you’re part architect, part painter and part camerman. It never gets boring.”
While at Disney Robh art directed Brother Bear and Meet the Robinsons. He’s currently working on conceptualizing a next-gen games in Santa Monica, California.
Tanem:
Tanem started in the film industry as a storyboard artist for the award winning films Cherish and Dopamine. Having attended art school in San Francisco, he concentrated his studies on illustration for film. He later worked as a video game artist before transitioning into film making. Tanem recently completed his first film, New Brow. Tanem currently lives and works in Monterey.
Jessica "Tink" Whiteside:
My name is Jessica Whiteside, but I go by the nickname Tink. I started out my life in the bayou's of Louisiana. My father is a successful Visual Effects and Gaming Artist who taught me to draw when I was just a small fry. Very early on I developed a love for painting and drawing which has been an all consuming obsession ever since. My family moved to Australia when I was ten and returned to the United States when I was eighteen years old. After returning to the US with a quirky southern/ Australian combo sort of accent I decided to follow my father's footsteps to become a professional artist. I received a scholarship to attend The Academy of Art University in San Francisco where I learned the importance of good drawing, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in Illustration in 2004. I have exhibited my work in galleries around California since 2001 and also work as a Professional Freelance Illustrator, Graphic Designer and Event Producer.
Anson Jew:
Anson Jew began his career as an animator at LucasArts Entertainment, where his credits include the computer games "Full Throttle" and "Curse of Monkey Island". In 1999,he won a Xeric Foundation Grant and self-published the comic book "Saturday Nite". He currently works as a freelance storyboard artist. His feature film credits include "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", "Prince Caspian" "TMNT" and "Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid". He has also worked on storyboards for commercials and the computer game industry, as well as concept art for corporate events and the toy industry. Anson has created work for companies including Acura, Nokia, Universal Music, Walgreens, Activision, Midway, The Learning Company, EA and Pacific Sun Wear. He lives in Los Angeles.

ZOINKS! It's Like, Some Storyboards, Man!

2010-08-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

Last week Cartoon Network aired episode 4 of Scooby Doo! Mystery Inc., "Revenge of the Man Crab". I did some storyboards for that episode (this scene is in the middle of the episode). Here's a look:

Comic-Con Time Again!

2010-07-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again! This year, Comic-Con will be laid out a little differently, with Artists' Alley moved to the left side of the floor. I will be at table DD24 next to my brother Benton, who will be at DD23. Come by and say hello!

This year I will be focusing a little more on digital mini-prints. I have a new image, "New Dog, Old Trick", that will be available at Comic-Con as a 11" x 17" mini-print. Which isn't so mini except that the image will later will be made available as a giclee in all it's full 13" x 22" glory at the 3rd Annual Garter Belts and Gasoline Show taking place at the Alternative Cafe in Seaside CA. The opening will be on Friday, August 13, from 7pm-9pm. The Alternative Cafe is at 1230 Fremont Blvd., Seaside CA 93955-5734.

Here's a detailed look at the art:

Email me at ansonj@sbcglobal for more information about my prints and other stuff I have for sale.

Robot Sketches

2010-07-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

I felt like sketching robots today....

Website Revamp

2010-07-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

My portfolio site was way overdue for a revamp. Check it out at http://ansonart.tripod.com

Let me know if you have any comments or bugs or dead links to report.

Thanks!

Anson

The Last Whitewasher

2010-07-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

In August of 2009, a story surfaced about a Microsoft advertisement in which a photo of businesspeople of various ethnicities and genders was altered. The head of a black man was replaced with that of a white man. Microsoft later apologized for the incident.

* * * *

In August of 2009, a story came to light about Larry Whitten, a hotel owner in Taos, New Mexico, who ordered his Hispanic employees to Anglicize their first names. The name Marcos, for example, had to be changed to Mark. The employees were also forbidden from speaking Spanish in his presence.

* * * *

In June of 2010, a Prescott, Arizona principal decided to lighten the skin of black and hispanic students depicted on a mural at Miller Valley Elementary School following prodding by Prescott city councilman Steve Blair. Blair stated on his radio show that showing people of color on a mural in Prescott constituted some kind of "agenda." Some of the residents of Prescott drove by and screamed racial slurs at the mural. Fortunately the decision was reversed following an outpouring of criticism from people across the country.

* * * *

Even before filming began of his live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan was informed of the racial insensitivity of casting Caucasian actors for all the lead roles, even though the source material--a popular American anime style cartoon-- clearly takes place in a fictional version of ancient Asia (everyone eats with chopsticks, the writing, costumes and architecture are authentically ancient Asian in style). Unfortunately, Shyamalan failed to rethink his his whitewashed casting (other than making one of the antagonists in the story an Indian when the originally cast white actor dropped out). On July 1, 2010, Shyamalan's The Last Airbender opened in theaters across the US. In Los Angeles and Seattle people of all ethnic backgrounds came out to protest Shyamalan's poor casting decisions.

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This type of thing follows a long tradition of whitewashed casting in Hollywood in which roles that were clearly most appropriate for actors of color are given to white actors or are changed to accommodate white actors. John Wayne played Genghis Khan in 1956. Brian Dennehy played Kublai Khan in 2007. Mickey Rourke will play Genghis Khan in John Millius' upcoming film. No live action film depiction of Charlie Chan has ever featured an Asian actor in the many incarnations of the role throughout it's history. The same is true of Fu Manchu. The list for this type of thing goes on throughout film history and lasts even to this day.

Ask any actor of color or his or her agent: go for a role written for a white actor in a substantial role and more often than not, the result will be "No, thanks" but there's a role for you--"third tourist from the left."

It is sad, that in Los Angeles, a town that is about 10.4% Asian, less than 2% of roles go to Asians. In fact, Hollywood's record with people of color is pretty dismal. Paramount, for example, the studio making Airbender, is giving 89% of it's lead roles in the next decade to white actors, 94% of which will be males.

Now it's not hard to find people who will sympathize with you about the lack of good roles in Hollywood for Asians and other people of color.

The problem is, it's not true. There are plenty of good roles for people of color in this town.

Hollywood has just given those roles to white people.

Please don't allow your money to support these kind of bigoted hiring practices.

More on this topic:

Racebending.com

My brother Benton makes some very solid arguments on this subject.

And if none of this is enough to stop you from seeing the movie, watch this.

What? You Haven't Seen My Comics Work?

2010-06-04T01:16:00.000-07:00

I've posted some examples of my comics work to my Flicker site. Check out a slideshow with more samples by cllicking here.

Buy my comics here.

New Storyboards on Flickr

2010-05-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Another update on Flickr. I've posted some new storyboard samples and now some of the boards are linked to the finished videos for comparison. Check it out here!

If you need a storyboard artist email me at ansonj@sbcglobal.net or call (323) 669-3946.

Pretty Sketchy

2010-03-04T00:43:00.001-08:00

February's output was a little thin, so I raided my sketchbook for some new work to post. One good way to fill up a sketchbook is to attend one of the many open figure drawing studios in Los Angeles. LA loves life drawing, and there are opportunities to render the figure most days of the week all over the LA area. Different studios offer many different things--some have long poses, others have short, some have costumed, others do nudes...there's something for every need and preference. I go to several different ones depending on my mood. Here are a few life drawing studios I go to. They support our arts community here in LA, so support them. Los Feliz Workshop, Dr. Sketchy's, The Drawing Club, Gallery Girls, Sketch Book Society, LAAFA

Some more sketches. Click for a larger view.

Say, speaking of supporting artists, check out the sidebar at the right. Now it's easier than ever to find all the books, comics and various items I have available for you to own all in one place! Check it out!

Flickr Update

2010-01-21T00:17:00.000-08:00

Big update to my Flickr account. Some newer artwork mixed in with older stuff.

I Painted a Couple of Caricatures in Photoshop.

2010-01-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

Season's Greetings!

2009-12-24T15:40:00.000-08:00

Go To Hell

2009-12-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

As part of the promotion for EA's new video game,
DANTE'S INFERNO, EA along with G2 created a free Facebook app called GO TO HELL. In it, you can condemn your friends (or enemies) to 72 or so various torments in hell -- whether being bathed in boiling oil, being melted into wax, or being chewed up by Lucifer. I was hired to create a ton of digital paintings depicting these torments, and while many are up right now, there are many more on the way (seven of the torments currently up were created by another artist). You can also propose to condemn various famous people to hell and other users can vote on whether they should be punished or absolved (Sarah Palin isn't doing too well right now).

Many thanks to my friend Nick Braccia at G2 for thinking of me for this job!

Input/Output

2009-11-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

Earlier this summer I did a little bit of freelance work for an indie film company called SP Pictures. I did the illustrations for a couple of concept film posters and helped them create the artwork for their new logo. This is one of the posters I created for them for their project called I/O. Find out about it on their website here.

A Couple of New Commercials

2009-10-21T08:54:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of commercials I did recently for a commercial production company called Bl:nd. The links go the the company's website where you can view the commercials and get a behind the scenes look, including my storyboards.

ASGROW DELIVERS

WALGREENS: SAVINGS IN SEASON

From the 'Ol Sketchbook

2009-10-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Belated Post Comic-Con Report

2009-08-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally managed to get a little free time to blog following the craziness that is the San Diego Comic Con! It turned out to be a fruitful convention, with me making some great new connections (leading directly to some new freelance work beginning mere days after the convention!) as well as catching up with some fellow geeks I haven't seen in a while. A few of those said geeks can be seen on Parkablogs, the blog of Teoh Yi Chie, who took the above photo. There is great coverage of Comic-Con as well as great reviews of art related stuff!

My new book "Show Me the Body" sold well for me, and if you weren't at Comic-Con, you can still order it through Stuart Ng Books, who any true connoisseur of illustration know is THE one stop place to shop for quality, hard to find books featuring eye-popping illustration. You can also order it through Amazon.com
or through my CreateSpace e-store.

I'm not used to doing a lot of public speaking, so I was a little nervous on Sunday morning when I did a little talk on storyboarding and illustration. But things turned out fine as I showed some of my storyboards from past jobs and the resulting footage. I also showed some of my animation from my LucasArts days and answered questions from the audience. Things went fairly smoothly and I was relieved when I was told it was well-received.

Although the start of the convention was disappointingly slow saleswise, it picked up considerably on the weekend. Vice, a reliable top seller within my oeuvre sold pretty well. The big surprise was the popularity of my original animal sketches, many of which I have posted on this blog, like here and here and here and here and here.

Keep your eyes peeled for news on buying your own animal sketch online in the future.
I'm sure an animal sketchbook won't be a long way off either.

By the way, if you like my animal art, you'll love it on a canvas bag or on a mug or shirt! Check out Anson's Artzoo!

Comic-Con, Baby!

2009-07-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

Well, San Diego Comic Con is coming up! If you plan on being there, come by and visit me at my Artists Alley table EE01. Where is that? Right here:

I'll be selling my new book Show Me the Body as well as my older titles, Saturday Nite #1 & #2, Diddly Squat, Vice, Hand of Fate and Babes In Space. And while you're there, make sure to say hello to my brother, who will be sitting next to me at his table EE02. He will be selling, among other things, his new sketchbook, Striking Work. I will also be selling some original sketches (a couple of samples are below). If you're not going, you can still pick up Show Me the Body by ordering here.

My New Book!

2009-07-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a little preview of what you will find in my new book, "Show Me the Body". This is a collection of my sketchbook art, life drawings, oil paintings, and creature designs featuring a 7-page comic story, drawing tips and how-to's, and an animated flip book! It's 72 pages, 8.25" x 8.25", square bound and features full color throughout.

Order it today!

Click on images for a larger view.

Robots on Parade

2009-06-10T01:20:00.000-07:00

More concept art. These are part of an upcoming project I'm working on that I will be announcing soon on an upcoming blog post.

Monsters on Parade

2009-06-10T01:03:00.000-07:00

My concept art portfolio was long overdue for an update. So here are a bunch of creatures I designed with one taken to completion.

Wolverine, Bub!

2009-05-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Well, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is out and doing strong box office. And on the Nicktoons network, the new X-Men cartoon series, "Wolverine and the X-Men" is well under way. I happened to storyboard on an episode of that series, the one premiering this Friday, called "Code of Conduct". My scenes are basically a warehouse fight involving Wolverine, Rogue, and a bunch of ninjas, with an appearance by the Silver Samurai. The scene required a lot of martial arts and swordplay, so I really had to bone up with a lot of research of old ninja movies, anime (particularly Samurai Champloo), some of my favorite Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, and Kill Bill. From what I understand, this episode was banned in the UK (the entire first season has already had it's run overseas) for it's use of swordplay.

Here's a taste of the episode with a few samples of my storyboards on my Flickr site.

EDIT: I got the airdate based on the episode number (17) and the episodes already aired. When I wrote this, I was unaware that the show had taken a two month hiatus. The episode will air at a later date.

Morning Sketch

2009-04-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Drawing is a lot like athletic ability; it's very much "use it or lose it". If you don't practice, you may experience a decline in your abilities. Regularity in practice is also important--practicing one hour a day, every day is superior to cramming in seven hours one day out of the week.

In order to maintain a certain level of proficiency, I recently started a new ritual for myself: my "morning sketch". Every morning when I wake up, before getting out of bed to brush my teeth or anything else, I draw in a little sketchbook I keep next to my bed. I choose to do it this way because if I just pledge to do drawings in the sketchbook at any other time during the day, it would be too easy to be deterred by the inevitable distractions of life, and not get it done. I do not put any restrictions on myself as to the quantity and quality of the drawings. That way, if I fall short of my own expectations, I won't beat myself up about it, because that can eventually lead to me just giving up.

The only restriction I put on myself is that I have to draw something. So if the drawings suck, thats okay. If I only come up with one tiny little doodle, that's okay too. This doesn't mean that I don't challenge myself, I just don't turn it into a pressure situation; you can see that over time, the number of drawings increases, that I experiment with the complexity of the poses and in the later drawings I write down the beginning and end time of my sessions to try to gauge progress on improving my speed. Click on the strips below to see the first month's worth of sketches. As you scroll across to more recent pages, you can see a gradual improvement in the drawings as time goes by.

Week 1:

Week 2:

Week 3:

Week 4:

Sketchbooks are a great way to get the rust out. But you gotta be regular about it.

Theo Jansen

2009-03-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most amazing, beautiful things I've ever seen. Theo Jansen is a Dutch kinetic artist. He creates mobile autonomous "animals" made from plastic tubing and water bottles. These creations are able to walk via a simple mechanism that is kind of an extension of a wheel. They are powered by wind energy that they are able to store. They can act in self-preservation via a simple "brain" that keeps them away from water and other dangers. Here is a talk he did for TED:

and here is his website:

http://www.strandbeest.com/

This is absolutely brilliant!

ADDITION:

Here's a simulation of Jansen's reengineering of the wheel that makes this locomotion possible.

Think of Lara

2009-03-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

Drawn in pencil, inked in Sketchbook Pro, colored in Photoshop.

Hey, Hey, We're the Monkeys!

2009-03-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

More simian fun!

Board Out of My Mind

2009-03-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, if you haven't already, check out Leif Peng's Storyboard Central blog. On it, several storyboard artists blog about their work. I just posted my first entry there. it will be an ongoing series showing my commercial storyboards along with the final spot for comparison.

Check it out:

http://storyboardcentral.blogspot.com

Open Letter to Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall

2009-01-29T17:49:00.001-08:00

To: Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall

I was very disappointed when I heard the news about the casting for the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It seems to be very clear that this story takes place in a stylized version of ancient Asia. The characters wear the costumes and practice the customs of ancient Asia, write in Chinese and eat with chopsticks. How did four Caucasians and their families end up there?

Whether the decision to cast this way was artistic or financial, the implicit message you send out with this type of casting is that 1) stories that feature Asian people are not as appealing as those featuring Caucasians 2) Caucasians can play Asians better than Asians can and 3) nobody wants to go into a theater and see movies with Asian faces in it. Even if this is NOT your intent, these are the implicit messages you send out.

And these messages make me feel bad.

I feel bad for every person of Asian descent, who will get the implicit message that even though Asian CULTURE is endlessly fascinating to audiences, Asian PEOPLE are not.

Additionally, I feel bad for a lot of white people and other non-Asian Americans. A majority of them voted a black man into the White House because they wanted change, but now they are being told in so many words that they are narrow-minded and intolerant, and that change is coming no time soon.

I feel bad for every Asian actor, who has surely spent much of his time knocking on doors in Hollywood only to hear, "Sorry, this role was written for a Caucasian, you aren't right for the role." Now, in 2009, he also gets to hear "Sorry, this role was written for an Asian, but we found a Caucasian who was better for the role."

Mostly I feel bad for every Asian child, someone who is surely within the demographic for this film, who will look at this movie and say, "Daddy, look at all the pagodas and Chinese writing and mountains! How come there aren't any Asian people there?"
Perhaps he might be told the "facts" of life: "The people who made this movie believe that if you put Asian people on the movie screen, not many people will want to come."
The kid may ask "why don't many people want to go to movies with Asian people in them?"
"Most of the people in the audience are white, and they only like to see white people, son. Not Asians."
"How come they don't like seeing Asians? I don't mind seeing white people."
"That's just the way it is, son."
"Even all my friends at school and neighbors on our block?"
"I suppose so."

You are successful filmmakers who have earned the right to lead rather than follow.

Do something.

Anson Jew

No Bull, It's the Year of the Ox

2009-01-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

2009. It's a brand new year with a brand new president (Yay!) Over 54% of Americans voted for change, and in 2009, the year of the ox, they will get it. The Ox in the Chinese zodiac symbolizes ambition, tenacity and hard work. A great symbol for change in difficult times.

There are some things, however that NEVER seem to change. One of them is Hollywood's casting practices. Throughout film history, most Asian roles that require any heavy lifting have gone to Caucasians. Background or sidekick roles, small comic relief roles and thug roles go to real Asians. Whether you're talking about Peter Lorre playing Mr. Moto in the 30's, John Wayne playing Ghengis Khan in the 60's, Peter Ustinov playing Charlie Chan in the 80's, or Brian Dennehy playing Kublai Khan in 2007, this is a tradition that seems outlast all of the other cultural advances that have been made in the last century.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a popular cartoon on the Nickelodeon network. It's setting is clearly a stylized version of ancient Asia. A live action adaptation by Paramount Pictures is set to go into production soon. It will be shot in Asia. Yet not one of the principle roles that have been announced so far have been given to actors of Asian descent. The roles were given to Caucasian actors.

By a large margin, Americans voted in it's first African American president. Yet somehow, the makers of The Last Airbender don't think they can bank on Americans spending their money to see Asian actors playing Asian roles. They still think America wants to see Caucasians playing Asian roles. Isn't it time Hollywood got up to speed?

Although the roles have been announced, they are not set in stone. Contact the producers of this film and let them know how your feel. Go to this website for more information:

http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com

It is especially important that non-Asian people get in on this. If the makers of this film see a bunch of letters from people with Asian names, they can easily just write it off, since Asians only represent 4.5% of the American population (and ticket sales). They need to see that their poor casting decisions could have a significant effect on their bottom line. This isn't just an Asian issue, it's a people issue.

Also check out this excellent blog entry by cartoonist Derek Kirk Kim on how he feels about the issue:

http://derekkirkkim.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-day-in-politics-same-old-racist.html

I'll be having Dim Sim with some friends at a restaurant near Alhambra in honor of the Chinese New Year. I'll be leaving behind this flyer. Feel free to copy and distribute it.

Wishing You All A Happy Holiday!

2008-12-23T02:20:00.000-08:00

Whole Latte Drawin' Goin' On

2008-11-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a little slow at the office lately, and I could feel the art muscles start to atrophe. To limber up, I've been spending a little extra time sketching at cafes around town. Here's a sampling of some of the sketches:

Dubyamation

2008-10-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic opens today. In honor of that, the film held a mashup contest in conjunction with YouTube, using clips supplied on the site (http://www.youtube.com/user/wthefilm). The prize package includes a Mac Pro, a video camera and a copy of FinalCut Express. I wanted to do something with animation, but unfortunately between doing my taxes and some freelance work, I was left with a little more than two days to put something together. Anyways, here's my entry, wish I could have done more, but I think it came out okay all things considered.

All There In Black and White

2008-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

Some more animal sketches.

Some Heavyweight Animal Sketching

2008-08-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

I did a couple of sketches today.

Hopeful Manifestations

2008-08-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

You've really only got two choices in November. Vote for the guy who has voted along with Bush more than 95% of the time. Or vote for something new. Shepard Fairey and MoveOn.org are sponsoring an art contest called Manifest Hope (at http://www.manifesthope.com). The idea is to create an image that encapsulates the themes of Barack Obama's campaign for President. I submitted four entries. I had an idea for a fifth, unsubmitted, that gave words of encouragement to McCain supporters.

Lions and Tigers and Orangutans! (Oh, My!)

2008-08-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

I did a little bit of sketching today. I've recently been discovering that I really enjoy drawing animals. I've also rediscovered Canson paper and Prismacolor pencils (my media of choice in school).

Geek Squad Interview

2008-07-29T23:55:00.000-07:00

While tabling at San Diego Comic-Con, I was interviewed by The Geek Squad. Egads, why is my voice so squeaky in this interview?!

Sketchin' at Comic-Con

2008-07-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

I spent a lot of my table time at Comic-Con sketching. Here are some of the sketches I did:

Stuff to Look Out for at Comic-Con '08

2008-07-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

There is going to be so much to see (and buy) at Comic-Con this year! Here's a sample of some of the stuff I'll be looking out for (and so should you!):

E-VILLE PRESS: Derek Thompson and Ted Mathot will be selling Derek's Derekmonster Annual 2008 and Ted's new book, Cora. They will also have Afterworks 3, a new collection of comics from Pixar artists. Also look for Derek's new instructional DVD! Booth 1534

LOUIE DEL CARMEN: Digital sketch wizard Louie Del Carmen will have his new collection Alternating Currents at Table G4

ABISMO/NERVE BOMB: Jamie Baker, Rhode Montijo, and Brian O'Connell will be dazzling you with their fantastic work at Booth 1329

BOSCO NG/SERGIO PAEZ: Bosco's Figs and Sergio's Matador will be popping some eyeballs at Tables G6-G7

SAM HITI/SHO MURASE: Sketchbooks and prints that are sure to dazzle you! Booth 1830

SCOTT MORSE/JEFF PIDGEON/BILL PRESING More talent here than you can shake a pencil at! Booth 4800

STEPHEN SILVER: Master of caricature and animation character design. Table H6

DEAN YEAGLE: The man behind Mandy's curves. Table 1035

SERGIO ARAGONES: The fastest pen in the west! Table I7

LYNDA BARRY (one of my favorite cartoonists) also has an instructional book out (on developing creativity) and will be making appearances at the DRAWN & QUARTERLY tables 1529 and 1628

Of course the table you should visit most of all is MY table at Artist Alley (EE01) right alongside my brother Benton (EE02) because if you don't buy stuff from me, how on earth am I gonna pay for any of the stuff listed above?!!

aj

Say, if you are a reader of my blog and want a plug for your Comic-Con table, just leave a comment and I'll update this post!

San Diego Comic-Con is almost here!

2008-07-17T22:49:00.001-07:00

I will have an Artist Alley table this year at Comic-Con. I'll be doing sketches, and selling the usual titles (Saturday Nite 1 & 2, Diddly Squat, Vice, and Babes in Space). My new mini "The Hand of Fate" will be on sale as well. Although a finished version of this exists, some distance tells me I really need to punch up the story a little bit, so I'm using these last few days to work on it a little. Here's what the cover looks like:

I'll be sitting next to my brother, who will be selling his work as well.

Stop by and say hello!

Eve, Dawn and Bazooka Daysie

2008-06-29T22:47:00.000-07:00

Kickin' ass 24 hours a day!

What a Difference a Day Makes (24 Little Hours)

2008-06-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my brother Benton and I held a little 24 hour comics session at my place. For those who don't know, the 24 Hour Comics Challenge involves creating a 24-page comic in 24 consecutive hours. No scripts or preplanning, just plowing ahead with lots of coffee and take-out food. Personally, I'm not really one to like to jump ahead without a game-plan (at least in as much as story is concerned) so I had a back up card up my sleeve: the adaptation card--if something didn't start appearing storywise after a reasonable amount of pages had been done, I would push the story toward an adaptation of a story I already knew.

As it happened, the retro-future detective scenario I started was going nowhere, so I played the card and the story became a retro-future adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex--a sort of pseudo detective tale about fate with a twist ending that has been used a lot in cinema--from films like Angel Heart to Fight Club. While the finished story didn't have anywhere near the elegance or complexity of the original, and while subsequent looks at Oedipus Rex's plot summary showed that I was way off the mark in a lot of ways, I think I came up with a good, action packed story nonetheless. Here are a couple of pages from the comic, which will be made available in one form or another at the San Diego Comic-Con this year, where both my brother and I will have Artist Alley tables.

Prince Caspian

2008-05-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Well, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is finally out, and it's breaking all kinds of box office records. I haven't seen it myself yet, but as a member of the visual development team, I know first hand that it promises to be quite a visual spectacle. Here is a little peek at some of the artwork I produced for the film: a montage sequence of the Telmarines marshalling up the troops for battle and a light little scene featuring Wimbleweather and Glenstorm.

Political Observations from The Dark Knight

2008-05-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Shane Acker's 9

2008-05-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

The feature length version of Shane Acker's short film "9" is scheduled for a December release. I'm over the moon that someone would make a feature like this. The voice cast will include Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer and Crispin Glover. Here's the original award-winning short:

Nocturna and Mr. Collieu

2008-05-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I first heard about Nocturna many years ago on the Drawing Board, and eagerly awaited it's release. Apparently, the English language version was released in Europe last year, but I never heard anything about a US release. Anybody out there in animation land have any of the inside dope on this film? Will there be a US theatrical and/or DVD release?

Apparently, there is another film on the way by the same makers with a similar style called Mr. Collieu. Anyone know anything about it?

Monkey See, Monkey 'Do

2008-04-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Que, Zira, Zira...

This is Colossal!

2008-04-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a little piece I drew for the CAPS submission in the 2008 ComicCon Souvenir Program Book. The theme this year is The Legion of Super-Heroes. I submitted this black and white drawing of Colossal Boy for the program book and added color and the Lichtenstein treatment for the blog. Happy, well-scrubbed, old-school super-hero. By the way, you HAVE noticed the new feature to this blog, haven't you? Check out the little slideshow to the right of this entry and click on it. You can see my cartoon portfolio as single images or as a full sized slideshow. You can even leave comments for each of the individual portfolio pages (hint, hint). Check it out!

Anson

It's Not Easy Being Green

2008-04-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

Damn! I should have posted this for St. Patrick's Day! What a FOOL I am this April 1st!

Everybody Must Get Stoned

2008-03-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

My brother Benton found this short film posted on YouTube. It used to get shown a lot when I was in high school, and I always thought it was probably one of the best examples of capturing the spirit of a short story on celluloid.

There was also this one, which also got a lot of play in high school, and brings back a lot of memories. Here's the first part. You can find the rest on YouTube:

Hitting the Canvas

2008-03-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a little oil painting I did a week or so ago at an open studio figure painting session. It was a 3-hour pose.

Anson

'Po Poe, Pitiful Me

2008-03-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Just doing a little doodling. I figured I'd scan and post this one before I spill coffee on it--like I usually do with my sketches.

Anson

Femme Fatale

2008-03-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

Was digging through some of my old work, and found this piece I did a couple of years ago for the Aphrodisia Showcase. It didn't get chosen, but I had forgotten how much I liked this one.

Anson

Coming To A Computer Near You

2008-03-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest trailer for Insecticide, the new game from Crackpot Entertainment, to which yours truly contributed a bunch of concept art and storyboards.

And here's another...

More info is on the website: http://www.insecticidethegame.com

Anson

CAPS Interview

2008-02-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

Here's an interview with me that was published in the Cartoon Art Professional Society's Newsletter a couple of months ago.

1. Where are you from, and where do you live/work now?
I am originally from Sacramento, CA, and after a stint working as an animator in Marin County, moved to Los Angeles to pursue freelance illustration in 2002. I work primarily from my home.

2. Do you have a spouse and kids? Their names?
No spouse, no kids.

3. How long have you been a CAPS member?
I think I joined a little bit after I moved to LA. Since 2003 probably.

4. Please list some highlights from your resume.
-"What's Your Claim to Fame?" published in National Lampoon.

-Animator at LucasArts on "Full Throttle", "The Curse of Monkey Island" and "Herc's Adventures" among others.

-Won a Xeric Foundation grant and self-published two issues of my comic book, Saturday Nite, followed by various sketchbooks and minis.

-Asked to do a comic story for WritersCorps book, Smart Mouth (alongside Nina Paley, Spain, Derek Kirk Kim, Gabrielle Gamboa)

-Art Directed flash animated short "Clockwork Rocker", was background artist for web cartoon "Rip Van Nelly" for rapper Nelly.

-Storyboards for film and TV including Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, TMNT, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid, "Growing Up Creepie" and "Wolverine and the X-Men".

-Contributor to Komikwerks Anthology "Thrills and Chills" with my story "Reality TV"

-Contributed to "Babes in Space" anthology with "Fly Me to the Moon", featuring my character, Nora Drenalin: Teen Space Ranger

-Self-published minicomic "Vice" gets 9 out of 10 stars from Sequential Tart

-Interviewed in "24 Hours Later" a documentary about 24-hour comics.

-Won spot in Aphrodisia: Art of the Female Form in '05 and '06

5. When did you know you wanted to be a cartoonist/writer?
I wrote and drew my own comics and cartoons ever since I was a kid. It's always been a part of my life.

6. Did you go to school for art/writing? Where?
I graduated from Chico State with a major in illustration and a minor in art history. I continue to take classes occasionally at places like the L.A. Academy of Figurative Art.

7. Who was the first cartoonist/writer you ever met?
Probably Steve Leialoha, at a comic convention in Sacramento in the 70's.

8.What artists/writers of all time influenced you in your formative years?
I had access to a lot of old Silver Age and early 70's comics from a very early age and had a lot of influences come and go. Some of the most memorable and influential included Jim Aparo's Phantom Stranger and Paul Gulacy's Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. I think what appealed to me most about those comics were their cinematic sense of atmosphere and storytelling. Aparo frequently used Dutched angles and often threw characters into full or partial silhouette. Gulacy would slow down time by breaking an action down into small parts, often focusing on inserts or peripheral information (following a beer bottle as it rolls across the floor, for example). My very favorite comics, however, were the short horror story anthologies like The Unexpected, Creepie, Eerie, House of Secrets, etc. I appreciated how much story they were able to pack into just a few pages. I felt the same way about Mad magazine, which I read a lot. I usually didn't follow serialized comics over a long period of time; I had no patience for that...I liked complete, self-contained stories. In college I had a weekly comic strip in the campus paper, which was a blatant Jules Feiffer rip off.

9. What current artists/writers inspire you today?
Mitch O'Connell, Dan Clowes, Crumb, Serge Clerc, Dave Cooper, Ben Caldwell, Shane Glines, Bruce Timm, Derek Kirk Kim, Kyle Baker, Alex Toth. The list goes on and on...

10. What was the first cartooning/writing gig for which you were paid?
I was hired as an intern illustrator / graphic designer at The Modesto Bee out of college.

11. What was your first big break and who gave it to you?
Sam Gross bought a cartoon I did called "What's Your Claim to Fame?" which appeared in National Lampoon in 1989. A few years later Gary Winick hired me to work at LucasArts as an animator, where I stayed for 9 years. The Xeric Foundation Grant for my comic book Saturday Nite helped my comics work reach a wider audience. As a storyboard artist, Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was my first substantial gig, lasting about eight months and subsequently opening a few doors.

12. What was the worst job you ever had (not necessarily in the cartooning field)?
I worked at a car wash in Sacramento one summer. People can be very picky and protective when it comes to their cars, and that would often create some tension. Plus, any outdoor job in Sacramento during the summer will be a sucky job.

13. Cartoonistically speaking, what was your favorite project/job?
I did a comic book a few years ago for the 24-hour Comics Challenge. It was a Twilight Zone type of story called "VICE" about magic fortune cookies. What I liked most was how the story, even though I had no idea where it was going when I started, fell together perfectly (with all it's thematic complexities and twist ending) in less than 24 hours. I didn't actually finish the artwork within the 24-hour timeframe, but I felt it deserved to be finished, so I gave it a second 24 (nonconsecutive) hours to finish the inking and lettering. I self published it as a minicomic and it got 9 out of 10 stars from Sequential Tart! It also sold well at APE and Comic-Con.

14. What is your medium of choice?
Pencil and paper. I also like to add tone or color in the computer.

15. Specific tools you like to use (type/brand of paper, specific brushes, paint, ink, etc.)?
Col-erase Indigo Blue pencil on white bond paper. Regular black graphite pencils smear too much for my taste. When I ink, I use a Sharpie, or sometimes a Pigma brush pen. I generally do color in Photoshop.

16. What are your work habits/routine?
Actually, I'm kind of an artistic chameleon when it comes to my comics; I experiment a lot. I work in the manner that the particular comic story is asking me to work. Look at my comics over the years and it looks like I have multiple personalities; each project different from the other, but internally consistent.

17. What is your philosophy regarding your work - for instance, what are you trying to achieve?
As an artist, I just try to do the type of work I would enjoy as an audience.

18. What is the greatest lesson you have learned in your profession?
The work will be easier, and the final product better if you can make the work fun for yourself.

19. If something could be invented to make your job easier, what would it be?
On my computer, a "fix" button.

20. Any interesting people you've worked with?
My first full-time art job was at LucasArts, and I was floored to find Ken Macklin (Dr. Watchstop), and Brent Anderson (Astro City) working there; its a shock when someone who you were a geeky fan of as a kid is suddenly one of your professional peers.

21. Any side interests? "When I'm not drawing/writing, I like to...
I've been trying to learn to play piano and oil paint. I cuddle my DVD collection daily.

22. If you have any fans, what is your best fan story?
No specific stories, and its been a while since I've gotten fan mail for my comics, but it was neat to get fan mail from places as far away as Glasgow, or Paris. People have also sent me stuff like their own comics work and drawings, which was fun. I get the occasional email from people wanting advice on storyboarding as a career. Actually, after working on some LucasArts games, I have gotten a couple of strange emails and phone calls from Star Wars fans who somehow tracked me down at home thinking I could answer their game tech support question or somehow give them some inside information about the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi.

23. What are you working on right now?
I'm not working on anything at the moment, which is a good opportunity to revisit the multitudes of personal projects I've put on the back burner. I've also been working on a couple of screenplays, since that's something I've always wanted to do. If nobody wants to buy my screenplays, they'll probably end up as comic books instead. I'm also trying to learn an animation/paint program called Bauhaus Mirage and a 3D animation program called Animation: Master. I have an idea for a themed sketchbook project which I hope to have done for Comic-Con next year.

24. What is your dream project to work on?
What I really want to work on is just something that I can feel proud to have worked on; where the creator clearly personally cares about the work and isn't bending his vision to appeal to a certain demographic to sell the maximum number of units. That said, I really like old film noir movies and old sci-fi and horror movies like Metropolis, Things to Come, T-Men, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, The Brain That Wouldn't Die. I wouldn't mind doing something that embraces some kind of retro aesthetic.

25. Any additional tales to tell regarding your career?
Once upon a time there was a cartoonist who created three websites. Their names were
http://www.satnitesite.8k.com, http://ansonart.tripod.com and http://www.badjoojoo.8m.com. They chased down Goldilocks, ate her up, and they all lived happily ever after. The End.

Ah, The Olden Days...

2008-01-14T13:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some samples of my animation work for LucasArts Entertainment. These sample reels were originally assembled for an old, old version of my portfolio website. There are shots here from Full Throttle, Herc's Adventures, unused versions of The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, an aborted Indiana Jones project, Sam and Max Hit the Road and Mortimer and Riddles of the Medallion.

Anson

Christmas Greetings from the White House

2007-12-24T07:54:00.001-08:00

Here's a classic bit of Christmas cheer from Laura "Pickles" Bush as featured a couple of years ago on the Mike Malloy Show.

Sketchy Women

2007-12-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

After several months of neglect, I finally decided to acquaint myself with my recently purchased Motion Computing Tablet PC. Although I had doodled a few minutes at a time on a few of the drawing and painting programs I have loaded on my machine, I hadn't really sat down and got down to the business of doing some serious digital drawing. So I opened up Sketchbook Pro and started playing around with some of the tools. Oh how I love the custom brush tool! Being able to create a brush that responds and acts exactly the way you want it to was a revelation! And having the ability to have multiple undos and several saved versions of a drawing was an added bonus! My first drawings here are of Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past...probably one of the most bad-ass femme fatales to walk all over a man in film noir history. I didn't capture much of a likeness, but I was happy that the versatility of drawing digitally had the effect of helping me loosen up a little. I took my tablet to a life drawing session at Los Feliz Life Drawing Workshop last night (http://myspace.com/losfelizlifedrawing ) and started doing gesture sketches with it, but by the time we got to the longer poses, my battery was wearing down, and I had to switch to my backup, a sketchpad and a ball point pen. Here are a couple of those sketches.

-Anson

Beyond Our Borders (Part 1)

2007-12-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I've managed to collect a lot of really excellent comic art and illustration from all over the world. While a good number of these foreign publications make it your local US retailer, there are quite a few that don't. I thought I'd share with you a few samples from my own collection that I think are some of the best around.

I visited China a few years ago, and while browsing in a bookstore, I stumbled across this book, which is a full-color, beautifully illustrated collection of 120 Chinese maidens. Luckily, I got the last one. There were so many incredible images in this book, I had trouble picking which ones to include in the blog.

L'Association consistently publishes some of the best comics being made today. Francois Ayroles' "Notes Mesopotamiennes" is no exception. This comic caught my eye at a party that took place in the Last Gasp warehouse in San Francisco during APE a few years back. There was only one copy, but one look and I knew I had to buy this. Francois Ayroles artwork is spare and each panel is brilliantly composed. A great inspiration for any comic artist.

By the way, if any of you out there can read French or Chinese and would care to translate, please feel free!

-Anson

What's Been Bugging Me Lately

2007-12-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

Here are a few examples of some concept and storyboard work I created for a computer game called Insecticide, by Crackpot Entertainment. The game is scheduled to be released on PC and Nintendo DS in January of 2008. Check out the website at http://www.insecticidethegame.com.

-Anson

Where's Anson?

2007-11-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

In the last blog, I wrote about how I appeared as an extra in the CBS series NUMB3RS. Since you were up to something SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than witnessing my NETWORK TV DEBUT, I'll clue you in on what you missed.

I was in this shot for the original take. Apparently, they reshot the scene while Michael Aushenker and I took a lunch break. Notice our empty "booth" on the right. This is an outrage! Where is my union representative!

In this shot, as you can see, I'm explaining it all (far left). Even in this minor scene, you can see how I project an air of wisdom...a man of the world...the go-to guy...the man with the plan. Now that's talent. AND YOU MISSED IT!

In this scene, comic creator Seth Marlowe (guest star Ben Feldman) stares me (far right) down before the final confrontation. We then duke it out in a gritty fistfight of good versus evil where I ultimately end up triumphant. AND YOU MISSED IT!

In the next scene Megan Reeves (series regular Diane Farr) turns around and locks eyes with me across the crowded auditorium. She then runs over, kisses me passionately, and thanks me for my heroism. AND YOU MISSED IT!

Actually, so did I.

Anson

I'm Ready for My Close Up!

2007-11-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna be on TV! Okay, I'm just an extra, but I'm still excited! My big TV debut will be on the CBS show "NUMB3RS" on an episode that will air this Friday, November 23rd at 10 pm. The episode takes place at a fictional comic book convention called ALTCON and involves a murder and the theft of a very rare comic book. Wil Wheaton (Star Trek TNG) and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) guest star in this episode (Judd Hirsch is a series regular, so it's a bit of a reunion for Lloyd and Hirsch). I'm going to be playing one of those colorful blurry figures in the background

The way this came about was that Katherine LeBlond, the art director of the show needed to put together a comic book convention really quickly. She talked to Steve Wyatt about contacting some comics creators who could lend their convention materials to the show to be used on the set as though it were a real convention. Steve gave us the pitch at a meeting of the Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS). We could also come in as extras and pretend to hawk our wares for the show if we were so inclined. So Steve Wyatt, Tone Rodriguez, Russ Heath, Dean Yeagle, Michael Aushenker and I came in and did some long hours as extras (7:30 am to 10:00 pm!). Dan Brereton and his son drove in all the way from the SF Bay area to participate in this.

Michael Aushenker and I shared a booth where I hawked copies of Saturday Nite and Vice and he, his own book, El Gato.
I must say, the show did a really good job at capturing the feel of a real convention; sitting behind the booth, it didn't feel that much different from the real thing -- from the way the set looked to the way the "conventioneers" acted.
In between takes, I got to hang out with all the other comics guys and watch the filmmaking process. The show fed us well, and the cast and crew were about as nice as could be. Despite the long hours, it was actually a lot of fun.

Anson

A Goy Named Who?

2007-11-20T17:36:00.001-08:00

Yes, Jew is my real last name; the one I was born with. Don't bother with all the Hannukah jokes, I've heard them all. The first name is Anson with an "A", not to be confused with my twin brother Benton (with a "B"), who also has a blog and works in the same profession. His blog is located at http://bentonjewart.blogspot.com.

I am an illustrator based in the Los Angeles area (in the hipster neighborhood of Los Feliz) and primarily work on storyboards and concept art for the entertainment industry. Some of my credits include the movies The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid, Inheritance, The Cat in the Hat, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I also do stuff for TV: commercials, music videos, series and such. I did a little work on a kids' cartoon called Growing Up Creepie and an upcoming X-Men cartoon called Wolverine and the X-Men. Some of you may have seen a series of music videos I worked on for the Black Eyed Peas called Instant Def.
My storyboard portfolio can be found at http://ansonart.tripod.com.

I also do a bit of comics work, primarily self published, although I've worked for other publishers before. Some time back I received a Xeric Foundation Grant for my comic book Saturday Nite. I published two issues with distribution in the US and abroad to a reasonable amount of acclaim from the comic book press, but more recently, most of my comic book activities have been in self-distributed minicomics and anthology titles. I have a website for my comics you can visit: http://www.satnitesite.8k.com.

Hardcore fans of PC adventure games may recognize my name from the nine years I worked as an animator at LucasArts. Some of the titles I worked on there include Full Throttle, Curse of Monkey Island, Herc's Adventures, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and Force Commander. I continue to work in the gaming industry with recent titles like Midway's Gauntlet:Seven Sorrows and did a little work on the upcoming A Vampyre Story by Autumn Moon Entertainment (http://www.vampyrestory-game.com) and Insecticide by Crackpot Entertainment (http://www.insecticidethegame.com).

I have lots of personal projects in the works at any given time and plan on posting sketches and reports here at least once a week. Feel free to stop on by and check in every once in a while. To start, here's a drawing of Nora Drenalin: Teen Space Ranger, a character I created a while back for the anthology Babes in Space. The plan is to have a new Nora publication ready for the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 2008.

-Anson