Zoe Chevat

A New Year, Some Beastly Backgrounds

2012-01-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

A Happy New Year, and a post-chaotic holiday season to you all! I've been traveling and writing through much of the past month, but it's become time to sit down and crank. I've got a film to finish, after all!

Above, a background sample from Beastly Things. (It's a vertical pan, hence the format.) They're being done with Sumi brush and quill on Bristol, then scanned and colored in Photoshop. I want to keep color minimal, and retain some of the feeling of a drawing, even when it's digitally enhanced. This desire to keep things a little bit messy, but still legible, might as well be my mission statement, if I had the time or inclination to make any right now. It may not be the most modern way to work, but it's my way, and I'm going to keep at it.

Monstrous Updates

2011-11-21T00:29:00.000-08:00

A new school year, a new job, and a newfound addiction to Tumblr have all kept me satisfied in the delusion that I could put it off updating the ol' website for a little longer. And a little longer.
And then it was nearing the end of November.
Whoops!

Why so busy, Ms. Chevat? It's my thesis year of graduate school, the final countdown, as it were, and the pressure is only mounting. More on that in a bit because, as anyone can guess, I couldn't just take on making a film, could I? Oh no, there are portfolios to fill, and sculptures to makes, software to learn, and websites to write for.

Let's kick off the massively needed updates with some monsters, shall we? (C'mon...I'm still me.) One thing I've been doing a lot of is sculpting in WED and Super Sculpey. I've been soaking up as much advice as I can from my professor, and whatever unwitting sculptors happen to cross my path. Below, a thing (and I mean that with affection) I call a Crownhead that I finished in early October.

WIP shots (click for larger):

And the finished product, after many hours of X-acto texturing:

Since I like let the clay harden on pieces like this in order to get that texture, it means that I've been looking into rubber and other soft-molding processes in order to create copies of the bust.
When I was at CTN this weekend, I attended the sculptor's panel. One of the questions that was asked was if each of the six speakers had a single, pivotal piece that made them go "yeah, I'm a sculptor, this is what I want to do." Well, if I was to pick a piece, it would probably be this one. Yes, I can already see flaws in it. But, it marks the first time I felt so satisfied and in-tune with what I was doing that it made me think I wouldn't mind sculpting forever. In fact, I would love to. You only get better, right? And you only get better if you keep practicing, which is just what I've been doing.

More updates and a little bit of overhaul to come. The site needs a major re-design, but that's going to have to wait until I've gotten a spare moment, and called in a favor or two. For now, hang on, and enjoy the creature tech.

Oh look another cathedral.

2011-06-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Pencil, junky travel watercolor set, metallic gold Prismacolor marker
(Click for full size!)

Whew, what a month! I've been to Prague, slummed around ossuaries, drank in gay bars named after Sherlock Holmes, had dinner with childhood heroes, and saw enough Gothic architecture to give even me a symptom I am calling "cathedral fatigue". Still, adventures in the Atlanta airport notwithstanding ("Wait, where are we?"), I made it back. I've got stories to tell, sketches to scan, and a huge amount of Real Life crowding my doorstep. So, please forgive my slowness while I catch up digitally.

Out now; I'm continuing my stint as movie reviewer for TheMarySue.com, as well as frequent contributor to the much-Tweeted PowerGrids. Up now are my terribly sarcastic thoughts about Green Lantern, as well as the Worst Fathers in Science Fiction and Fantasy grid, that came out in tribute to Father's Day. Over at the California Institute of the Arts' blog, 24700, there's a cut-and-dry write-up of the drawing show I participated in last month. (If nothing else, treat it as proof that the thing happened at all, something I myself am unsure of as the weeks fly by.)

Upcoming; more Powergrids and movie reviews, as well as the (eventual) release of a new animated music video for an indie band that I'm currently assisting on. More on that as we get closer to the finish line. I'll also be putting up some scenes from my film, just as soon as I get my jerry-rigged home pencil test system set up.

Prague is full of snakes (mostly allegorical). Take that as you will.

Sucking Out the Dead Air

2011-05-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've encountered that happiest of ironies; that I'm involved in so many real-world projects that my private internet presence has taken something of a nosedive. So, I thought I'd take a moment this evening to list a little of what I've been up to, and give an idea of when some of it might be coming to a browser window near you.

Over at The Mary Sue, I've done a few more movie reviews, and have been a guest collaborator on their much-Tweeted weekly Powergrids. This week was something of a dead spot in terms of my output, since I was disinclined to review Priest. (Who wouldn't be, really?) ~~Susana~~ (EDIT) Jamie wrote a great review of Bridesmaids, which you should absolutely read, and I'll be back next week with a look at Pirates of the Caribbean 4. You'd think after four of these things I'd know how to spell Caribbean, but, alas, I have not. (Two "b"s, one "r", Chevat. Two "b"s, one "r".)

Last Thursday, the group drawing show I was a part of, The Cover Invites Exposure, had its official reception and opening night. Attendance was pretty steady, from what I saw, and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to everyone who came out! You'll be able to read more about it next week, when the CalArts Blog, 24700, posts their thoughts and photos on our little enterprise.

I'll also be scanning my contributions to the now-de-installed show, and looking into having them, and some additions, published in a real, live, hold-in-your-hands book format. That's right, you'll be able to give me rent money under the guise of a noble, art-supporting venture. Get excited, get your wallets.

Or, if you're a cheapskate like me, you can just listen to me ramble on the Internet. If you want to know what this much sarcasm sounds like coming out of so small a mouth, then you'll soon get your chance. I just wrapped a guest spot on the podcast "Girls on Anime", a revamp of the old ANN(that's Anime News Network) column about well...what it says on the tin. That should be cut together and live within the next week, so watch for it. I'll also be posting a link here, and on Tumblr, where I am AnimateHer. I had a blast, and would like to thank the hosts, Bamboo Dong and Sara Pocock, for being awesome girls on anime, and dealing with my nervous self. (Today I learned, once and for all, that I talk like I have an entire box of Kleenex stuffed up my nasal passages. Our engineer said it has...character. Damn right, it does.)

All in all, May has been very busy so far, and will likely continue in that vein. I'm going to Prague in two weeks for an animation seminar, but hope to put up some more animation from Beastly Things before I take off. Watch this space for more news of my dilly-dalliances, meddlesome deeds, and continent-hopping.

Buenos noches.

Color & Movement Test

2011-04-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

Thesis Color Test: Mr. Pidge from Zoe Chevat on Vimeo.

Here's a long-awaited movement, line, and color test for Beastly Things. It took me awhile to figure out that balance of elements I wanted, in other words, what I wanted the viewer to focus on. This character, who is a pigeon with a human face, was always the Pigeon in my notes. People seem to have become rather attached to him, however, and several classmates have started to call him Mr. Pidge. Far more dignified, non?

The texture in the background is a temporary stand-in. I do know that the backgrounds are going to be complex, so it is necessary to find a simple way of coloring the characters. Although I am coloring digitally, I also want to avoid many of the common mistakes of over-compositing, which leave work with a distinctly AfterEffects smell lingering about.

***

Some quick orders of business. For those of you who are wondering if I will ever post strange finds and dark fashion again, I will, but not here. This site is now being used as a portfolio site, and I can understand if you were here for McQueen, and not my inky little experiments. To house that, I started a Tumblr, AnimateHer, where you can get your multiple-times-daily dose of the weird and cinematic.

Speaking of cinema, if you're looking for the writing I was starting to do about current films, that has also found an extra-site home. I've been reviewing movies and writing the odd comedic tidbit for TheMarySue, run by proud female geek and pro-feminism badass Susana Polo. Among our Frankenstein creations are This Grid About Where Not to Take Your Daughter to Work, and a review of Hanna that got the site an officially sponsored sweepstakes. I'll post updates on Tumblr whenever another one goes up. Or, you could just follow the site because, frankly, you should be.

That's all for now. To the hyperlink!

Character Sheets

2011-04-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

Lo! an update at last. If anyone locates the last week, please let me know of its whereabouts. I believe it needs a stern talking-to.

Here are a couple of formalized character pages of Spook, the main character in my thesis film. These were made for my general portfolio, and also for practice on the character. I believe that my lack of inclination towards doing mainstream work should be showcased in crisp, high-definition images, don't you?

She's such a little weirdo.

If this sort of business has been to your liking, get excited; my very next post will be video. That's right, moving images. Though I admit to being a glorified manuscript illuminator, my CV frequently contains the title "Animator", so animate I shall. What can I say? I'm just a 16th century girl in a 21st century world.

Stay tuned!

"Comicsplash" design

2011-03-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

As you may have already noticed, I gave the navlinks and the banner a little cosmetic facelift to alleviate some of that...grayness. Stormclouds are a beautiful thing, but they don't encourage visitors to stay. I may tweak yet (because I always do), but I must say, I already feel lighter.

EDIT: The Illustration section has been extensively updated with (mostly) old and new work. As I go through my hard drive files to prepare for industry portfolio day, I find more work to put up.

Book Project: The Approximate Woman

2011-03-28T02:01:00.000-07:00

Recently, as part of a drawing course I'm in, I've found myself composing a story about several generations of sisters. It's something of a creation myth, and something of a cautionary tale, liberally dosed with elements of fable and old world fairy tale. We're talking "eating the flesh of your gods" old world here; this story, and the stories after it, aren't comfortable bedtime tales. Charles Perrault would certainly not approve. The fable demanded a lot of words out of me, and after that, a few pictures. I'm thinking that it will be a book. I would dearly love to do a letterpress edition, to give it the handmade feel it deserves, but, the project being in its infant stages, I've been etching my ink on thick watercolor paper. Below, a couple of images, and an appropriate excerpt from the text.

Once, sprung from the Queen of Meat, whose sister was the Queen of Needles, there were two sisters. They were born without enough limbs to share between them, having apiece one eye, one arm, and one leg. Most importantly, they each had a half of a heart.

One had black hair, the other white, and each thought the other had it better. They were both going to be terribly beautiful, that was easy to see, but they were not easy to look at.

Some technical notes: These drawings are on the large side (18" x 24" originally), and have had to be scanned in 4 pieces each, and stitched back together in Photoshop. The scanning murdered some of the subtler lines, but it's the best I can do for now.

Hole-ier Than Thou

2011-03-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

When plugs first began appearing in my pop culture periphery about 5 years ago, they were the sort of fad that sent anthropology students like myself (at the time) into either cries of cultural appropriation or head-scratching confusion. Like infamous "white dreads" before them, they were a strange steal from National Geographic worn by privileged, middle-class tribal punk kids. They didn't bother me, but I did think they looked silly on pretty much everyone, and figured they'd go away soon enough, thereby opening up a niche field of earlobe re-elasticizing plastic surgery.

I think, as with so many other trends like it, that I got used to seeing plugs around, in every size, material, and on everyone, of every gender and color. Eventually, they became as divorced from context for me as septum piercings or suspension fetishists. Probably due to getting to know many perfectly sane, unpretentious people who have them, I no longer find them as offensive to the eye as I once did. In fact, I am willing to concede that plugs do, in fact, look good on some people. (I am not willing to concede in part on the dreadlocks issue, particularly in the case of blondes.)

Plugs are quite beautiful on their own, as aesthetic objects. Being, at heart, an Aesthetic cushioned by my militant secular humanism, I have admired many pairs online and under the glass countertops of tattoo parlors. Swirled or marbled blown glass in psychedelic colors is passé; it reminds me of the pipes kids at my undergrad used to buy from the local head shop. If you're going to put big holes in your ears, then have a good time with it, I say.

For 00g wearers who are fans of classic horror films, classic art, or who just plain want to be classy with their plugs, Mystic Metals Jewelry has some beautiful designs. In addition, they cater to proud geeks with the Empire/Rebel Alliance logos, the Zelda TriForce, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Umbrella Corp, among other offerings. They also carry a line of dangling picture earrings for those less…hole-y. Below, some of my personal favorites:

BMA Mod(ified) on Etsy has plugs with more of a graphic design feel. Specialities include china patterns, mod looks, and even some Banksy. They have a wide range of sizes, and might be worth a look for people who are stretching.

Why let the modernists have all the fun, though? Ark's Endeavors plugs into the Steamworld with ladylike cameo plugs.

As with any other body adornment, sometimes a cheat is necessary. I have not, and will not be stretching my ears. This was me today:

Determined to continue worrying my mother through optical trickery*, I have found a number of places that sell pin-style fake plugs for the unstretched among us. My reason for not stretching is not fear of social stigma; I already have several large and (somewhat) visible tattoos. For me, it's a health issue, since every piercing I've ever had (even the ones that I've kept) has gotten infected despite my meticulous care. It's not metals or cleanliness, just sensitivity, and a truth about plugs is that they are a large opening in your body, and highly susceptible to infection. If you're thinking about stretching your lobes, do it slowly, and do your research. Talk to friends that have them, ask around piercing places, and read some of the helpful guides out there on the internet. Or, go to TribalStyle http://www.etsy.com/shop/TribalStyle, and fake it until you make it.

*The story behind this comment is that I once got off a plane flight to see my parents, and promptly forgot I was wearing fake plugs. When my sister and father met me at baggage, they both immediately put on distressed expressions. "Those aren't real, are they???" my mother said later. It's nice to know I still have some way of rebellion left open to me.

Exploitation POW! : Why I Won't See "Sucker Punch", and You Shouldn't Either

2011-03-20T01:22:00.000-07:00

Author's Note: This post is now featured at TheMarySue.com, where it has proudly picked up supporters, speed-reading misanthropes, and, eventually, dust.

Don't get me wrong; I love an excuse to slaughter allegorical giant samurai as much as the next Terry Gilliam fan. I like a good mecha fight, I don't mind trading in my gothic fishnets for a bronze raygun every now and then, and I am certain that Jon Hamm's chin remains as chiseled as ever, no matter what size screen it's on.

But I remain, knowing very few details beyond what I've seen in the trailer, disinclined to fork over a wad of sweaty single bills to see Sucker Punch.

Indeed, I am disinclined to spend $11-$13 on any film whose trailer alone sends me into paroxysms of disgust. (Given the slim confines of a graduate student budget, this is probably a wise choice.) My disgust is squarely in the arena of feminist concern, the main problem of which seems to be how to communicate one's objections without ranting histrionics. I will try for everyone's sake to explain, without the customary verbal violence, exactly why I find Sucker Punch so objectionable. This is saying something, because, much like the sight of Ann Coulter on television, the trailer for Zack Snyder's latest CG-fest sends me for the rawhide sticks to avoid chewing into my couch in my rage.

So please, allow me to ruminate, while I illuminate the possibilities.

I have the same problem with Snyder's high-kicking girl-revenge festival of maim and bombast as I did with parts of the otherwise enjoyable Kill Bill; it's unbridled invocation of exploitation. I would argue that all of Snyder's movies are exploitive on both sides of the gender divide; 300 was riddled with enough Photoshopped beefcake and shiny nipples to put the Fagles translation of The Iliad to shame. But these things are, as we have seen, different for girls.

It's about power, ladies, and ladies, and gents. Power and the Gaze, that concept your high school feminist art history teacher liked to rattle on about while you were listening to music under your hoodie. The reason this brand of exploitation is different is that, when female characters rally and kick ass, it's through the prism of a biased gaze. Women in these movies only take revenge after abuse and humiliation by captors, often of an overtly sexual nature. These scenes of abuse are presented to the audience as another in a chain of action sequences, expected to command as much rapt attention as an exploding 747. Using rape or other forms of sexualized physical abuse to elicit audience outrage is a cheap trick . I didn't care for it when Battlestar Galatica did it, and I sure as hell don't care for it from the director of Watchmen (which also contained a near-rape scene that played out longer than necessary). This pattern establishes a world in which the 'powerful' female avatar is still an object without power, because she is still subject to the appraising gaze of the director and the viewers.

Moreover, the petite bloodthirsty girly-girls of Sucker Punch still bare their midriffs and cleavages even in what is supposedly their own fantasy scenarios. Maybe I'm alone here, but when I am imagining myself kicking some high-fantasy ass, it's sheathed in the sort of Kevlar weave, full-body armor that would put a Nolan-verse Batman to shame. Leather hot-pants, after all, have a tendency to ride up when one is jumping out of bomber jets into frenzied combat.

Moral of the story? I don't think there's anything particularly innovative about a panty-baring schoolgirl fighting robots. I don't think that it's healthy for young girls to see, especially young girls who are already having a difficult time competing for space in a male-dominated geek subculture. If I want that sort of entertainment, lads, I can turn the entertainment dial back about 20 years and watch some bad VHS dubs of anime.

I want the power to land some sucker punches fully clothed more than I want Emily Browning's flushed pink flesh on display for my edification.

Perhaps I am wrong about Sucker Punch.
Somehow, though, I doubt that I am.

Debauchery Starts at Home

2011-03-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

Vice Canisters for the kitchen from Jonathan Adler are a good entry in the column of honest-talking domestic chic. We all know that the kitchen is for many things. It's where the beer is stored. It's where you have late-night arguments with your roommates. And it has a floor for throwing your back out on when you make an ill-conceived attempt to spice things up with your significant other. But for many of us, there is little time for slow-cooked niceties. It's probably best to warn unsuspecting visitors to your heathen abode in a subtle way...like with the crockery.

Also available in Peroxide, Puppy Uppers, and Peyote. Compared to some of the housewares out there, this is not that much of a statement, really. You could always go for that vase covered in breasts. I don't know about you, but I only have two words: Bridal Registry.

Pardon My Dust

2011-03-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

A quick note for frequent visitors; there may be some sidebar disappearances, unannounced format shifts, and a bit of coding debris over the next couple of days. If you see something strange-looking on the blog, don't freak out, that's just me changing things up. I'm working behind the scenes to fold this blog and my personal web domain into one singular web monster. ~~Hopefully, it will be up by the weekend.~~

EDIT/UPDATE: SUCCESS! The basic structure is up and working! I'll be gradually adding images to the Comics, Illustration, and Sketchbook sections over the next few days, a relatively simple matter now that I have the code worked out. So there is a bit of hard-hatting left to do, but feel free to start poking around. People with mobile devices: let me know how this looks on your reader! I have a BlackBerry, but I'm curious as to how it appears on an iPhone or, heathens help us, an iPad.

Beastly Roll Call

2011-03-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

Cast roll call for my film (minus The Monster, who was posted previously, and The Pigeon, who is molting Photoshop layers). These sheets show the finalized look for rendering the characters, which is created through digitally painted flat colors under scanned ink linework, and dirtied up with textural overlays. It's similar in feel to my senior film from undergrad, but with some streamlining and important differences. Nothing wrong with getting back to your true nature, with improvements.

Spook, as a child

The Girl, one of the schoolchildren

Nasty brats from the local schoolyard

The Art Student, well-meaning adventurer

Spook as an adult, post Monstrous stage

I presented these to my thesis class yesterday, and received very positive feedback from my peers, with the sole doubting note being from our professor. As I have found her to be notoriously confused and/or dismissive of hand-drawn animation, or, indeed, any form of animation that is not her preferred medium (stop-motion and puppetry), I'm not taking her detractions to heart. Unfounded doubts about my ability to draw consistently like this are hardly appreciated. This style is a reflection of how my natural drawing inclinations are shifting, and I feel very comfortable repeatedly drawing these characters and working with them. I'm on a tight schedule, and I don't have time for people who are principally not on board, don't believe in me, and voice baseless discouragement.

Lesson here? I know myself and I know my limitations. Let me do the worrying, and sit back and watch the show.

Next up: animatic revisions, layout thumbnails for portfolio, and then? Animatin' time!

Monstrous feminine

2011-03-05T03:54:00.000-08:00

More recent work, this time a concept art scan-and-color dash for Beastly Things. I've been focusing on the linework with the new crop of design sketches, letting the ink do the heavy lifting and keeping color minimal. Since the post-production is looking too heavy on an already labor-intense project, all I can do at this point is pre-empt the cloud of headaches.

This is the monster that Spook morphs into after years of living in the cistern, dining on rats and carving into rocks with her hands. It does the trick; if I were a local kid, I'd stay the hell away from that place if I thought this was what lurked in the dark. I had earlier sketches, but this is a more advanced stage of the design. If you're unfamiliar with the process, don't let the number of lines concern you; concept work is more about nailing a feel. There will be a great deal of simplification when its's animated.

I can't wait to do movement tests with that construct!

Sketchdump I (NSFW)

2011-03-04T00:15:00.000-08:00

NSFW after the jump.

Read more »

The hand you're dealt

2011-02-28T22:27:00.000-08:00

Whether you're a recovering Goth, like yours truly, or simply a monochromantic style-savvy savant, consistency is important. This principle used to be clearly illustrated to me by an old friend who - while not a wannabe vampire - did dress exclusively in that purest of shades. His wardrobe included such clever gems as a matte-black and shine-black striped tie, though how he managed to sort his socks, I shall never know. A gentleman never reveals his secrets. Though we haven't had the opportunity to play Snatch or cards in quite some time, somehow I believe he would appreciate this all-black card deck from Mollaspace. (The people who also make the Zipper Cup, among other domestic oddities.)

For those of you who prefer the light side, they sell an all-white deck, too. Good luck playing in the sunshine.

Fresh Powder

2011-02-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

When harvesting images for inspiration, I tend to look at a lot of atypical dance images. Animation is movement (or it will be, eventually), so it makes sense that I naturally gravitate towards pictures of the body in genuine mid-motion. This series, entitled Dance in the Shutter, is a favorite of a recent crop of Tumblr and Google pulls. Captured by Turkish photographer Mehmet Turgut. Click for larger size.

I'm hard at work on completing design for my film, Beastly Things, as well as an animatic. Those sheets should go live on Wednesday, after in-class crit, so keep an eye to the blogroll.

Good Old-Fashioned Space Tourism

2011-02-16T15:30:00.000-08:00

These faux-Deco travel posters by the very talented Steve Thomas may be old news to some of you, but I found them for the first time this week the way I find most things; when conducting an unrelated search for work. Set in the Star Wars universe, they're that satisfying blend of sci-fi reference and vintage styling that epitomizes geek chic. (Or makes a great cigarette?)

On the Table

2011-02-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

Why write about the new stuff only? I enjoy a hacked iPad as much the next lil' cyberpunker, but a stroll around the Getty Center is more my style. It was on one such stroll last week in the South Pavilion, armed with a sketchbook, and friends with high-powered digital cameras, that this side table caught my eye. Ecstatic, I grabbed JAC's arm and gestured wildly. She blanched, declaring that the heads looked creepy and decapitated. "I know!" I crowed. "Isn't it great?"

Done in the 18th century's High Baroque style, this table is heavy with scrolling, swirling gilted leaves, gargoyles...and maidenheads. The pictures do little to convey how creepy those heads are sunk into the shadowy recesses of the table. Indeed, due to the placement of the heads, each on their own midair shelf, it does give the impression of removal, of decapitation. Because all of the eyes are looking up (the assumption is that one would look down at the carvings, instead of crouching in front of the legs, trying to get a better shot), the effect is of being watched from underneath dozens of lids, and makes those gaping black smiles that much uneasier to bear.

It's a piece from an Angela Carter story, come to life. I'd be greatly surprised if it does not make an appearance in my own writing. Guaranteed, I'd put this in the entryway of a house.

All photos taken by my friend JAC, who can be visited here.

Strung Along by the Thinnest of Threads

2011-02-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

The internet has been out in my house for the past 2 1/2 weeks making, among other things, posting to this blog a difficult task. It's finally back in something approaching working order, however. To celebrate, some recent sketches done for a drawing-based course for autobiographical/free-associative/unconscious narrative content. Needless to say, things are going to get weird.

These two ended up being something of a diptych. Though done in different styles, they share a subject and, perhaps, an intention. (Click the images for a larger size.)

First Watch - Commentary

2011-02-01T22:54:00.000-08:00

And that, e-readers, was that. Countless hours of backbreaking labor to make a product it takes others all of five minutes to read, turn over in their hands, and sneeze at. Ahh, the thankless task of artmaking!

I kid, I kid. For those that have read and let me know, I thank you. I also thank, in our continued ouroboros fashion, Randall Nichols for the lengthy, lovely plug he gave the comic over on his blog.

I wanted to take a post to talk about some of my page-by-page thoughts on First Watch, because some of you have told me that you care in docile, convincing tones, and because some of you need something to read on your commute.

General notes
Let's work backwards here.
As Ethan Clarke, fellow animator, put in the note he left on my desk "HOLY SHIT, ZOMBIES. RAD." That is, indeed, the ending, the big secret, the horrific, oozing, marauding metaphor. One of the reasons the comic is set in a contemporary Middle Eastern country was that I wanted to disguise the ending. Given current events, we are, unfortunately, more likely to assume realism when bearded men with Arabic names are involved.

As to the names, the places, and the unbridled amount of facial hair consuming every panel; it was important to me to give the story an actual geographic location. For those watching closely, First Watch takes place in Istanbul, Turkey. In both modern history, and in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Istanbul represents a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. The city straddles the Bosphorus, also known as the Istanbul Strait, with each side of the city claimed by different continents. Because of it's location, it's a great backdrop for a clash of cultures, trade, and ethical dilemmas.

To answer one of the only questions I keep getting; No, I have not read World War Z. I have not even seen, or read The Walking Dead, because it began to air while I was writing the script for the comic, and I was afraid of either conscious or unconscious plagiarism. I came up with this idea because I like classic zombie movies, a favorite being George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and (original) Dawn of the Dead. What I like best about his films, aside from a real taste for the grisly horrors of the uncanny valley, is that he uses a science fiction scenario to acutely address social topics, whether they be issues of race, consumerism, or class warfare.

I'm relatively young, but I do have friends a few years ahead of me who are starting to have kids. The anxieties and triumphs that they've related to me about parenting bounced around in my head with what my own parents have shared over the years. I latched onto a persistent tension that comes up in even the most progressive of houses holds, the tension between knowing that your children will eventually find out about the world, for good or ill, and your own protective instinct to shelter them for as long as possible. There's touches of other things in here, absolutely. But, at its core, I'd say First Watch is about the difficulties of being a single parent, albeit in extraordinary circumstances.

Asil, the father, is not perfect. He can't seem to decide whether he's a friend or disciplinarian to Selim. He's defensive to a fault, completely losing his temper when questioned about his authority over his son. He's not an action hero; he's just some guy, trying to raise his son, and at the end of the day, I like to think that he's trying his best.

Page-by-page notes

Page 1- You can't make me use Comic Sans. I'm stubborn and I refuse. I will, however, agree that legibility is essential, and that sans serif is your can't-miss friend. This font is called "Jean is Dead", and can be found on dafont.com.

This is one of the only pages I used a brush on, and it made me wish I'd gotten small enough brushes to do the whole comic. But I wasn't sure what I was doing yet about backgrounds, or how much texture I wanted to add with line (it ended up being a lot), so I was playing it safe.

This is all relationship set-up, and Selim being a kid. I never wanted to get out of bed. I still don't, but now there's no one to bribe me.

Page 2- A little more kidding around here. One thing I kept trying to do was keep Selim lower in frame than his dad. It works, for the most part.

He opens the door....to a lot of work. I suddenly realized, towards the end of this page, what the big outdoor set pieces were going to be like. I ended up drawing the rest of the comic, and coming back to them towards the end. To me, it shows horribly, but I don't know how noticeable it is to others.

Page 3- Went for an increase of tension and military presence. Those figures over on the right are praying, which is of interest to Selim, since he and his father are not. I didn't have time or space to go more into it than that, but, again, little things.

Timur (the armory guy) looks like another animator/compositor I work with.

Thanks to Jim and Randall for their weapons expertise. I did a lot of gun research. Can you see the result of it? Nope!

The canisters Selim almost touches are for a flamethrower. Nod to the genre.

That last panel is one of my favorites. I don't know why. Sometimes things just click.

Page 4- Here's where I figured out that you can hide a lot of hospital inside of hanging curtains.

Page 5- I don't know how well the pregnancy thing/Selim's anxiety reads. I erred on the side of subtlety, but it might have been too much.

This ended up being my favorite of the dialogue-heavy pages. I felt like I was finally hitting my stride drawing the characters, I'd figured out how much shadow I wanted to add in, and gotten the body language to read...

Page 6- Only to have it fall apart! Ahh well. Can't win 'em all.

When I was initially writing the story, I don't think that I consciously intended Batin to be the Big Jerk in the piece. He was some punk Asil didn't like, who never took responsibility for things going wrong. Every good zombie story has this type of character. But people's reactions to him have been stronger than I anticipated, with the most common exclamation being "Batin's such an ass!"

Page 7- Asil has to be a boss sometimes. I wanted a scene that dug into his insecurities, and I think Batin probably brings that defensive edge out in him.

My least favorite page. I was rushing to meet what I thought was my deadline, and didn't take my time. Just...I'll let it go.

Page 8- The climax of our little tale. I enjoy writing turn-around where a character who's been written off as helpless by the narrative turns out to know the score after all. Kids, or naive adolescents, are fun to pull this trick with.

Playing with height and space again.
Even though the previous page is my least favorite, if I were to re-do one page, it'd be this one. It's an important page, particularly given what follows, but there are little things about it that bother me. I don't think the detail is dense enough to match page 9. Also, a ladder? Really???

Page 9- Another page where I finally, finally broke out the brushpen. On this, and page 10, I did what I should have done all along, which was to take my time, stay loose, and do my homework.

Page 10- The Big Reveal. Jim told me it would have to be good to match up to the expected shock factor. I played hell with Istanbul city geography here, but I really wanted to draw a horde of undead in front of the Hagia Sophia Museum. Notably, this is the first time I've drawn zombies. Go figure.

Taken out of context, I became worried that it seemed like I was making a negative political statement about Islam. Probably just me fretting, there.

___

So concludes my vicious spam campaign upon flists and Facebook alike. I do hope people have enjoyed reading First Watch. I certainly learned a helluva lot from doing it. The learning curve on comics seems relatively steep, so I can only imagine how much better the next thing will be. You can bet I'll be posting it here.

First Watch, pg. 10 & Thank Yous

2011-01-31T16:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks for reading!

Next post: "DVD commentary" for each page, for those interested, and more news about Meltdown's MiniComic fest.

First Watch, pg. 8 & 9

2011-01-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

First Watch, pg. 6 & 7

2011-01-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

First Watch, pg. 4 & 5

2011-01-28T14:59:00.000-08:00

First Watch, pg. 2 & 3

2011-01-27T19:58:00.000-08:00

First Watch, title and pg. 1 (Ashcan edition)

2011-01-26T19:29:00.000-08:00

I'll be posting these straight for the next week, from page 1 to page 10, with a "DVD commentary" post at the end for anyone who's interested in the writing part of the process, or what the heck I was thinking with the art. They'll be going two at a time, because I want them paired the way they appear in the book, and because I know that some of you are impatient. Heeeere we go.

"First Watch" Ashcan, Title Page

2011-01-25T23:42:00.000-08:00

Naysayers beware; I did not, in fact, write a blog about perfume, of all things, and then shuffle off this mortal coil. Internet contacts should not feel left out of my week(s?) of neglect. I also neglected real-world social ties, inquiries from professors, and calls from my mother. (This last resulted in me walking out to call her in the middle of a shoot for work, after receiving one txt message, one e-mail, two voicemails, and what I swear was a mournful Facebook message in the course of one day. In what was possibly the most stereotypically Jewish thing I have ever done, I put the shooting crew on hold to tell my mother that I was fine, and had not actually expired or been kidnapped by Scientologists.)

A monstrous amount of work came down since January 1st, leaving me feeling like a marathon runner without a second wind. I have essentially not taken a break, a real, honest-to-your-pagan-gods break, since sometime last fall. However, the opportunity to take one may come soon. I have finally, after much whinging, e-mailing script drafts, late-night Skyping, and stabbing myself repeatedly with a quill (because I am a comic artist in the 1800s, apparently), finished my first comic, a 10-pager called First Watch.

Above, post-printer ashcan comic assembly

All credit for the multi-purpose title goes to supportive geekweb-queen, Susana Polo. Tremendous thanks to her, and to my other editor/cheerleader, Mr. MojoWire, Randall Nichols, for their encouragement, their sound advice, and their toleration of my many writerly quirks (I'm pretty sure Susana was yelling "simultaneous action" from the rooftops by the end). Also thanks to Joanna Leitch for kicking my ass until I tossed an early draft of layouts. (I forgot to credit her on the Thank Yous page, so she's getting a special mention here.) Last, but not least, a thank you to my graphic novel course teacher, former DC editor Jim Higgins, to whose precision cutting this thing owes its life, and for giving me extra time on this one. Hope it was worth the wait, Jim.

I have physical copies available, and will be mailing a few out. I will also (possibly, hopefully) be selling copies, along with some original art and other sundries at the CalArts MiniComic Festival at Meltdown Comics in L.A., on February 12th, from 12 noon until 6pm. If you're in the area, come support a bunch of animators as they forge ahead into the daring world of print media!

For the rest of you, though, I'll be putting First Watch up here, one page at a time, starting tomorrow. It's my first comic, and I feel it's more important to spread it around than get a penny. (Or $2.00 as the case may be.) Donations are accepted, and can be made in the form of coffee, back rubs, and lent books.

Enjoy the ink.

Smells Like Nerd Spirit

2011-01-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

As a woman in our culture, I was perhaps expected to begin, at a tender teen age, to douse my body in creams, spritzes, sprays, mousses, parfumes, and mists. Our cosmetic industry is indeed interested in assisting young ladies in smelling like a field of wildflowers, or a tropical drink, or freshly done laundry. Many women take this task on with a die-hard seriousness that lasts them into adulthood. There are full-grown women strutting around any city in the world, soaked in a chemical combination of exotic flower oils that would probably knock you senseless if you took too strong a whiff. I know. I have smelled them. (And, for the record, I have a notoriously weak sense of smell.)

The thing that's missing here (or that is cleverly disguised by the heady waves of passionfruit deodorant), is that making one's smell appealing is largely, and originally, about sexuality. I don't know about you, but I'm not hard-wired to respond to "cherry-flavored chapstick" (so no special bicuriosity points for you, Katy Perry). In fact, science tells us, there would be something seriously wrong with me if I was. Our natural smells are in large part derived from pheromones that we release to send signals about mating. That other reason you like the smell of your significant other's pillow? Because every person's scent is unique, and your post-coital brain mush is forming associations like it's going out of style.

Point is, smell should be unique, and it should not be overpowering. (This directed quite calmly at the back of several heads in a bar I was at not last weekend.) Doesn't mean you can't have a little fun, however. That's why I'm so intrigued by the thoughtful, delicate scents produced by CB/I Hate Perfume. Take 'In the Library', a scent engineered using "a warm blend of English Novel, Russian & Moroccan Leather Bindings, Worn Cloth, and a hint of Wood Polish". Now that sounds creative, intriguing, and worth a whiff. Treat yourselves, and leave the Herbal Essence scent-bombings to the teenage set.

End of Line

2010-12-31T17:50:00.000-08:00

2010 is (mostly) dead. Now let's give it the funeral service it deserves!

A lot happened this past 365 days, more than I could possibly remember or account for here. Some things happened that seemed small and insignificant at the time, but proved to be momentous turning points. Other plans appeared grand, yet, much like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, only collapsed slowly, like a flan in a cupboard.

To this little zoetrope, 2010 will be notable for more than "fuck all". So here I shall commemorate, with a brief list of the happenstances, sparkly lights, and strange discoveries that I encountered this year.

DAMN FINE VIEWING

Coming out of last year, I wasn't the most optimistic about the fate of American cinema. But 2010 sure showed me a thing or two, despite some big letdowns. My picks are nowhere near all-encompassing, as they skew heavily towards animation and what passes for art house these days. That's what I watch, and it was a pretty good year for selective viewing.

I (and most people I know) got our brains hijacked by Christopher Nolan's Inception. (Still not over it.) I was floored by the delicacy of Sylvain Chomet's stunning, delicate animated feature, L'Illusionniste. Darren Aronofsky's descent into a ballerina's madness in Black Swan proved one of my favorite contemporary directors still has a trick or two up his sleeve.

I was surprised, delightfully, by a lot of things I saw. Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon wasn't avant-garde, but it was solid and enjoyable, through and through. Despite my best efforts at being a cynic, the end of Toy Story 3 got me all misty-eyed. Movies we're the only thing that picked up for me; I watched (illicitly) more new television shows than I have in years, keeping up with The Walking Dead, a new season of The Venture Bros., and the BBC's Being Human. I even started to watch Mad Men, which brings me to another activity...

JUMPING ON SOME BANDWAGONS

In 2010, long after I should have, I found Tumblr. I can't remember how or why. Maybe a friend linked me to their account in the hope that the disease was contagious. Maybe I followed an image from another blog, trying to hunt down a source. It doesn't matter. All I know is, my internet experience will never be the same. I am yet to join that hive-minded photo-blog network, for fear of my free time evaporating. But I am grateful to the masses of people sharing images, making my own digital leavings that much more rich in visual nutrients.

2010 was additionally the year that I finally started listening to Dan Savage's sex-positive podcast, Savage Love. His no-bullshit, open-minded approach to advising his call-in listeners has been a big uplifter for someone like me, who feels that the distance between knowledge and oversexualization in America is one gap that keeps getting wider. Savage is also the big push that kick-started the It Gets Better YouTube blitz, which all by itself makes him one of my personal heroes of the last year. If you're not a listener, you should be.

I also, at the tail end of 2010, gave up, gave in, and strapped myself to a brand-new 'CrackBerry.' My old phone died, and it was time to enter the 21st century. Mixed feelings? Certainly. But life must continue, even for anachronistic Luddites who were fine with a dumb, old flip-phone.

+3 TO CHARISMA

Personally, I made some noteworthy additions to my fashion and health repertoire this year. Thanks, 2010, for introducing me to the addictive powers of undereye concealer, ginger kombucha, veganism, and the fake gauge earring. It doesn't matter that we still had to contend with skinny jeans, Lady Gaga, or flannel everywhere. A little sense and sensibility seems to have made its way back into the ranks, and I, for one, am ready to embrace the high boots and exaggerated lapels of our futuristic fantasies. This was the year I got off my ass and de-schlubbed. It felt damn good, and gave me back a lot of self-confidence. An important lesson to graduate students and filmmakers everywhere; just because you live in an editing cave doesn't mean you have to look that way.

TURNING THE PAGE

I buy a lot of books. But in 2010, I bought a new bookcase. Favorite devourings included Patti Smith's Just Kids, anything by Lynda Barry, and hefty amount of non-fiction, like Christopher Ryan's excellent Sex at Dawn. Comics had a great run, including the reboot of DEMO, new material from Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, and Sean Patrick Murphy's excellent inking on a truly decent run of Hellblazer.

SPEAKING OF...

But you didn't need me to tell you any of that. In a whole year of things that were said, done, reported, and published, made, explained, and discovered, only a dedicated, or insane blogger, could summarize the highs and lows of our shared cultural experience. Factually, most of the things I've mentioned probably happened in the last 5 or 6 months. Why? Because a year is a long, long time.

For me, 2010 was long, but it was worth every minute. I had a rough start to the beginning of the year, which is why it seems to me that things really began about halfway through. I moved to a great house in L.A. proper, where bamboo grows in front of our kitchen windows and my housemate makes furniture in our garage. This summer, I got to know L.A. a lot better, exploring new restaurants, new watering holes, and new bibliophilic haunts. I got another tattoo, and I stopped dyeing all of my hair blond, deciding that brunettes have more fun after all.

Work started to take off this year. I got my first real jobs as an animator and visual development artist in Hollywood, and, as we head into 2011, will continue to work with the same director on larger, and even more exciting projects (which I cannot currently discuss here). Begun in 2010, I will be self-publishing my first comic, a 10-page story I've put a lot of sweat and ink into, within the next month. Finally, I got approval on, and started production for, my thesis film, about which I have posted some, and will be posting more in the near future. I'm incredibly excited about beginning the actual animation for the film, as well as working with two exceedingly talented ladies, my sound designer and my composer, to realize the world of Beastly Things.

2010 will be remembered by me as a great career year, yes, and a year of discoveries, both about the world around me, and about myself. More than anything, however, I'll remember it as a year full of wonderful friendships, where I felt I found a place among a group of supportive, insane, quirky, alcoholic, 90% female, driven, talented, visionary artists. I am proud to know all of you, and to be counted in your number, or else. (As some of your would say.)

This is the AnachroLush, saying Happy New Year to your and yours, and that 2011 better watch out.

Lighter Cycles: Thoughts on "TRON"

2010-12-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

Before digging into a fine rant, I want to talk about what TRON:Legacy has to offer if you’re not thinking too hard.

The new TRON’s got stunning visuals, through and through. Up front, I’ll tell you that the film looks great. (It also sounds great, but there’s little argument to be had with a top-notch score from electronic masterminds Daft Punk.) The camera work within the CG environments is fluid, immersive and, in the earlier fight sequences, easy to follow. I give the design team their credit for finding new ways to mix up what could have been a visually monotonous film. I’m sensitive to these things, and glowing-neon fatigue only set in for me towards the end of the last act.

My fatigue could have had more to do with the film’s writing, however. Before you poo-poo and tell me I don’t know how to have fun in a movie theater, hear me out. (Or go write your own blog; I don’t know why my opinion should matter enough for anyone to want to fight me on it.)

First of all, making movies for the purpose of “pure entertainment” (whatever that means) does not mean that a screenwriter should have the license to be lazy. A string of Michael Bay blockbusters can make that case far better than anything I could say on the matter. TRON is a big sinner, featuring a mind-numbing trifecta of wide-eyed model robot girls, not one, but two, needlessly sissy bad guys, and fine Hollywood-flavored sprinkling of what might have been Buddhism’s hungover, alcoholic cousin. (At that point, I wasn’t paying much attention to the mouth-flapping of the flesh puppets, however, having gotten too caught up in whether I though Jeff Bridges’ costume was more like a Goth Jedi or one of the bad guys in Kingdom Hearts.)

Second? I am training to work in this world for a living, small scale or large scale. I write and do visual development professionally, and work with writers, designers, and other sundry world-creators. The acceptance of mediocrity out of either laziness or the fear of rejection means that the industry’s flagships are falling behind by degrees. As I related in frustration to a current professor of mine who works for the big Mouse House, these people are the culture makers. They are the high priests of the filmic temple. I cannot respect them, out of everyone, throwing up their hands and saying that they’re slaves to the audience. When you’re at the top of the creative food chain, part of your job is – not should be, is – to introduce that ever-autonomous mob we call Audience to their next round of tastes and trends. Relying on stale archetypes like the insulting, sexually ambiguous, flamboyant bad guy, is not only boring. It’s irresponsible. It makes the people who work in our industry of dreamweavers look bad.

“Story” is a word that gets tossed around a lot in the animation hallways at CalArts, and the mentality that nurses its misuse is at the core of TRON’s script problems. Story is not just the content of a tale, a literal summary of what happens therein. It is also how those contents are phrased - in dialogue or in visual, wordless narrative – and, then, how those careful phrasings are timed. TRON’s greatest story sin is its missed opportunities; there’s some great emotional nuggets that could have been drawn out and made relatable under more patient, or more intelligent care. Instead, they’ve been wrapped in lightcycle raver-tape and tied up with a stereotypical sequence ribbon. Not the happiest of holiday presents. Because it is all I can do, I urge and plead my colleagues, that hopeful next generation, to stand up to the line that the lowest common denominator controls your life and paycheck.

We can do better. We have to do better.

A host of Spooks

2010-12-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

2010 is finally winding up for me in respect to both school and outside work. I've been producing a ton of work, some of which (the freelance projects) I cannot show here because it involves images of actors, contracts I signed, so on.

Napkin sketch done at Brite Spot Diner on Sunset while out with other animators

However, what I can share are some of the development sketches of Spook (who used to be called Pallas, and was Izzi for awhile after), the main character in my thesis film, in her childhood stage. Several comments I received during review pointed out that the previous work was too neat, too nice for the tone of the project. Rightfully so. I've been experimenting a lot more, and have settled on what we'll call "legible messiness", using a combination of ink brushes, sticks, and a couple busted old nibs. Sayonara, ColErase pencils. We're heading into nastier territory.

The craziest thing about these, for anyone interested, is that none of the color was done by hand. All of the 'accidental' watercolor bleed is mere Photoshop trickery. It's a new technique I'm practicing that was originally presented by Lisa Keene at Siggraph, and that she's been kind enough to pass on to her Visual Development students. There's no great secret to it; it's mostly the brush pack, and tweaking opacity and blend modes as you go to achieve a realistic watercolor/ink appearance. It's immensely helpful if you have a lot of watercolor or ink experience, because history with the manual task will guide your instincts in faking the look.

I'm heading back to N.J. for the holiday break in a few days, so updates may continue to be on the spotty side. What's coming up at the beginning of 2011 for me is the online launch of the web TV series I've been working on (which I will link to from here), as well as the start of an exciting job I'm not allowed to talk about yet. Over the break, I'll be working to put together 'storyboards' for Beastly Things, and start doing movement tests, and will post those when they're done. It already looks like 2011 is going to be one busy, fruitful year, and I can't wait to get to work.

But first, a little break.

To my little group of readers, both Real Life friends, and kind internet folk, have a happy holiday season, and a great New Year! Seeya on the other side.

"Giger Gal" Sculpture (WIP)

2010-12-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

This blog may never be 100% Safe For Work again. I have lingering doubts that it ever was, or that I ever intended it to be. At the very least, I blame Dan Savage, a blame I am sure he would be happy to take on and call his own. (If you don't listen to his podcast, Savage Love, you should.)

Remember when I first tossed up that round of inky Aliens-inspired drawings? We started working in WED clay a few weeks after that, and I've been slowly, ever so slowly, bringing one of those same pinups to 3-dimensional life. Far from done, here are some work-in-progress shots of this, my first ever sculpture. Not even my first WED sculpture; I think the last time I touched clay may have been in elementary school, but I don't remember doing so. For all I know, I may have not made so much as a pinch-pot before attempting realistic human shapes. How like me.

Note: Thanks to my prof, John Mahoney, concept sculptor extraordinaire, for taking snapshots in class! It is due to him that this isn't even more NSFW. From another angle this sculpture has rather detailed female parts, and an asshole.

Snakes and Stones (mildly NSFW)

2010-12-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

A moment between classes, and I thought I'd post some recent life drawings. I'm wrapping up my semester and a massive freelance gig at the same time, so posts have been admittedly scarce. Hopefully, after next week, I'll be able to put up more of the finished work I've been doing, including some comic pages! Until then, have some mildly NSFW ink drawings.

I only had one size of Micron pen for these, so decided to see what I could do with limited tools. Click for larger sizes.

This last one was a strange pose, and it inspired me to go a little mythological. It's nowhere near finished (with a small Micron, those snakes take awhile), but I'm thinking of working it up into a fully colored piece once the linework's done.

Just Keep Swimming

2010-11-29T18:25:00.000-08:00

It's 'Art That Grows' month here at AnachroLush. Or so it would seem. First Daniele DelNero, and now sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor has caught my eye. Taylor's concrete-poured sculptures of crowds and single people are left on reef floors, where they become hosts to sea life, and a veritable part of the changing environment. As this article on Taylor points out;

The experience of being underwater is vastly different from that of being on land. There are physical and optical considerations that must be taken into account. Objects appear twenty five percent larger underwater, and as a consequence they also appear closer. Colours alter as light is absorbed and reflected at different rates, with the depth of the water affecting this further. The light source in water is from the surface, this produces kaleidoscopic effects governed by water movement, currents and turbulence. Water is a malleable medium in which to travel enabling the viewer to become active in their engagement with the work.

Intriguing to consider the possibilities, particularly as more and more contemporary artists exhibit in situations that subvert their control over their work. For Taylor, the ever-changing nature of the ocean adds plenty of atmosphere to the viewing experience. It also adds something to the meaning, showing, as with DelNero's pieces, the physical effect that time has on human structures. In this case, the structures are our bodies, and the actions that we undertake together, and apart.

Via Ms. Marvel at Red Heart Cult.

This Old House

2010-11-26T20:47:00.000-08:00

Artist Daniele DelNero is interested in economic debris, the structural leftovers from progress moving on, leaving what once seemed so important to decay. Both gross and enchanting, her miniature houses are created by covering architectural models with a layer of flour and mold, and letting nature take its course. Perhaps not best as post-Thanksgiving viewing, but a potent reminder for Black Friday of time's impartiality to us and our doorbuster sales.

To see more, and read about her process, visit her blog, DanieleDelNero.

Muse in Black and Black

2010-11-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

I find these portraits of Michele Lamay, wife of fashion auteur Rick Owens, to be absolutely stunning. By Steven Klein for this month's Vogue Paris. Via Twistedlamb.

It's Morning? Bite Me.

2010-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Film people drink a lot of coffee. Indeed, so does anyone in a deadline-crunched production medium. Some of us drink tea or dirty chai* when we're feeling adventurous, but the smell of cowboy-black bean juice can be found within studio walls 24/7.

As anyone who reads the blog semi-regularly (or is unfortunate enough to deal with me in Real Life) knows, I don't like any old out-and-out weird. I savor the subtle, the things that make you do a double-take and then shiver all over. If I can do both with a morning (or midnight) brew, I'll take it.

Teeth Mug designed by Megawing. Available at the YankoDesign store for a highly reasonable $24. Love this site! Found via the blog of the inexhaustably talented Kirsten Lepore.

*A dirty chai is a spiced chai latte with a shot of espresso poured in.

Beetlejuice Couture

2010-11-13T15:43:00.000-08:00

Blog, I am sorely neglecting you for heaps of things that must be done in the real world. After my project pitch on the 17th, I will hopefully have plenty to show here. In the meantime, have a shoot by Matthew Shave for Karen Magazine, inspired by that great late-80s Goth heroine, Lydia Deets from Beetlejuice. Styled by Kate Ruth, whose whose gallery is worth a look. Coolest girl in New England, we salute you.

(Click for large versions.)

Coat of Arms

2010-11-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

Two, at any rate.

I know that no one believes this, but it does get cold in Southern California. Yes, my East Coast friends and family are entirely justified to their lack of sympathy. But even I was freezing my ass off today while taking a cell call in our studio's courtyard.

So I was extra excited to come home and find that the jacket I ordered from LuLu's had arrived! Better yet, it fits perfectly. I can't remember the last time I tried on a piece of outerwear and didn't have to have the sleeves taken up.

It was only after I had taken some snapshots that I realized that I'm a lady Harkness. What more could a quaintrelle ask for?

This post is only significant because finding a light coat that I liked took ages of searching. Too girly, too slouchy, too Mad Men retro...I've seen it all. I wanted tailored, but comfortable, and not too fussy. Sadly, rationality seems to have taken a backseat to unstructured collars, floral linings, and wool ruffles. Everywhere.

LuLu's is a recently discovered secret, because they carry cool things in Junior sizes (at Junior prices, no less). I'm finding that the model they're basing it off of is better cut to my body type than most Petite wear. Don't let the label fool you, short women. It'll fit you just fine.

Expression and color test

2010-11-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

First pass (secretly, third, thirteenth, thirtieth) at the basic colors on my main thesis character. This series of sketches was still far too "traditional animation" looking for my liking. In later mock-ups, like the ones I've been doing this week, the design is pushed far more. But it's a step in the process, so up it goes.

VroomVroom

2010-11-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

Want to watch a Subaru battle a giant robot spider, without the use of CG?
Animation, and film, are just a series of images played rapidly in front of our slow eyes and slower brains. Typically, a projector (or computer) moves the frames for us. In this ad for the 2011Subaru WRX ST, the director moves the viewer against a backdrop of stationary frames, until the car is moving at the kilo. equivalent of 24 frames per second. Pretty lo-tech, and pretty amazing.

Happy Goth Christmas!

2010-10-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

AnachroLush humbly offers you a selection of Tumblr and Internet-search fun in honor of this horrific holiday.

A little bit of decor, a little bit of style, and lot of mocking my childhood.

For Super Users

2010-10-30T01:18:00.000-07:00

It's true that Disney's high-tech TRON revision hasn't even been released in theaters yet. Yet, like most features from the mouse house, the real bank comes from outside the box office gross. Before the anticipated tidy opening weekend, Disney's pushing everything from gaming headphones to lightcycle cufflinks. Below, some of the high-end products from their TRON line, more details about which can be found here. It's one of those rare occasions where design and geek bragging rights meet with noteworthy result.

The final call on whether this is all consumerist tomfoolery or geek chic will be determined once we know if the damn film's any good. To be revisited.

Giger Gals (NSFW)

2010-10-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

Warning: Nudity, and Alien vagina ahead. (No, I can't believe I'm saying this either.)

Done in life drawing today, after John (our professor) gave me the prompt "do 'Aliens'". I'm a huge Giger fan, and I've always been respectful of the uncomfortable psycho-bio-sexual appeal of his work. These were the result. I probably didn't push the concept enough!

I was using a brush, so it took on a somewhat Japanese calligraphy feel that I'm rather fond of. John says he'd like to see a whole sketchbook of these. There would probably have to be a little more variety, but I'm all for doing some more!

Gets Not Safe For Work after the jump.

Read more »

DaNaNaNaNaNaNaNaaa-LO-GO

2010-10-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

The rule is, if a subject comes up twice in 24 hours, in independent contexts, then it gets blog consideration. Only yesterday I was talking to a graphic novel cohort about the lost importance of a carefully considered logo/title in modern serial comics. Sure, a primary-colored chest-patch may have gone the way of the Golden Age, but there's a lot to be said for branding recognition.

Then this handy chart pops up all over Tumblr:

That would be pretty much every rendition of the Batsign, Batman's famous logo/airtraffic obstruction, from Detective Comics, to Beyond. You can't get much better proof of a recognizable sign than that. No matter what the variation, the symbol remains distinctive, and defined. Food for graphic design thought.

Original article regarding this secret superpower can be found on Robot 6.

"Beastly Things"- A First Look

2010-10-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

What's "Beastly Things"? It's the working title for my MFA Thesis film.

Exactly one month from today, I'll be submitting my thesis concept, visual tests, and treatment to the scrutiny of my department's professors. As far as I know, I'm the first to go out of my MFA year. I had signed up for my review without asking around, and only found out after that I'd made an apparent run to the front of the queue. It's a bit like thinking you're in the comfortable, central mass of a race, only to look around and realize that you're all alone. And that there's a cliff in front of you.

The Thesis - deserving of a capital "T" as it is - is not a race (thank goodness!), but the sudden dropping sensation in my stomach is the same. What to do, what to do? Make like a busy little visual development factory. Choosing to go so "soon" in the process wasn't arbitrary. For one, I'm doing hand-drawn animaton. In case you were somehow not aware, it takes a bloody long time. The sooner I get committee approval, the sooner I can get started. The other reason I chose to go was that I've got my concept solidly down. I've got a specific idea about how the visual style of the film progresses. I've already done charting for the plot and tinkered with some preliminary colorscripting. If someone has to run off the cliff first, it may as well be yours truly.

I don't feel like detailing the specifics of the film yet, but I will give you my first model sheet for Pallas, my main character. Pallas' appearance goes through three distinct stages over the course of the film's 5-ish minutes, the first being this pre-teen form. I couldn't find my brushpen, so I inked with a Micron 2 pen to keep the lines loose. Since my colors aren't finalized yet, I did greyscale fills to show how the values will be distributed. Props, and eternal gratitude to Miyazaki, Loisel, and probably Hergé.

Click for a larger view.

Los Angeles Plays Itself

2010-10-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

Love movie trivia, post-modern takedowns, and have three hours to spare? Anyone who wants to know all about that stubbornly abbreviated home to the movies, L.A., should watch Los Angeles Plays Itself. In the documentary, CalArts faculty member Thom Anderson explores how Los Angeles is represented in the movies, from the multiple appearances and uses of certain now-famous locations, to the lies movies have perpetuated about the city's geography, class structure, and architecture. With nearly unbearable dry and wry narration, Anderson picks apart the myths the movies create about the most photographed, least photogenic city in the world - even when the city isn't supposed to be playing itself. Where can you find such an academic tease? The whole thing's available to view in 12 parts, in glorious YouTube lo-res splendor.

Life Goes On

2010-10-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

There are times when the events of Real Life (TM) can make this little corner of internet real estate seem awfully inconsequential. Some of the lack of posts has been due to the simple fact that I'm Damn Busy, or at least, busier than I was a month ago. With my preliminary thesis review coming up in a little over four weeks, I've been producing a lot of work, but haven't put much of it up yet.

But I'd say the main reason I haven't been posting is the recent run of gay teen suicides that's been peppering the news. Suicide among gay teens is not new news. In high school and immediately thereafter, I was head of our local Gay/Straight Alliance, and then worked for GLAAD. I knew the numbers, which are that LGBT-identified teenagers are four times as likely to commit suicide as their straight peers. So while it's great that there's been the equivalent of a massive wake-up call, it feels a long time coming.

These stories are more than tragic - they are evidence of an ongoing apathy by adults, friends, and fellow peers who could do something, but don't. I believe that what crimes you choose to ignore, whether they be small or large, do not absolve your responsibility. Your apathy makes you an accessory to hate.

I think about those kids, and about what might have been prevented had one person, just one, told them not to hate themselves so very much. I think about people I knew in high school, about how growing up in a self-professed 'liberal' town guaranteed nothing except false assumptions. Of course, because I can't help not, I think about myself. As a gay woman who's been out for more than a decade of my young life, I endured many years of physical and verbal abuse in school. I've run into plenty of nastiness outside of school, often from unexpected quarters. The message that I was always passed, and passed on, out of a sense of powerlessness, was "It gets better".

That statement used to fill me with outrage. When does it get better? How long do I have to wait? And what guarantee am I being given, except for hope?

The truth is, it doesn't magically get better. When you get out of high school, it's true that the projected hostility of frustrated young adults and much of the cliquishness dissipates. People start to grow up, and with a touch of maturity, comes less lashing out. There are more likely to be other, out queer people who are okay with themselves. But there are no guarantees. You'll still run into prejudice, pig-headed conservatives, God-fearing fear-mongers, and wussy straight liberal friends.

You can't control what the world will dump on your doorstep. If you're LGBT, and reading this, what you can do is demand that things be better, in every part of your life, no matter how much other people would rather you didn't make waves. You can seek out support, you can give it to others, and you can shuck anyone who isn't really on your side. Life's too short. You deserve love, and you deserve to feel safe.

If you are straight, take a stand for your friends, your loved ones, and yeah, your peers. To know that what you're witnessing is wrong does nothing. To act means everything.

My thoughts on this are numerous, and not particularly organized. To close, I leave you in the far more capable hands of Mr. Tim Gunn.

Gasbags and Buttonholes

2010-10-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Faux Semblants, by Willy Vanderperre for Vogue Hommes International. An approximation of what would have happened if Karl Ruprecht Kroenen had wandered into Saville Row and spent some Nazi gold. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's not as dramatically atmospheric as such shoots often are, but perhaps that's for the best. The lighting is a subtler approach to an easily dramatized editorial. Then again, you are pairing a loaded symbol - the gas mask - with tailored suits. Perhaps a touch more drama would have been appropriate to push this out of the middle ground. The clothes however, are impeccable.

Found via Haute Macabre, which, if you're not following, you should be.

Girl Bowie Makes Good

2010-09-30T23:34:00.000-07:00

This shoot by David Sims for October's Vogue Paris proves that, when it comes to Bowie, gender still doesn't matter, so long as you look this slick.

On a side note, I've been having a long and lazy week, sorry for all the tearsheets. I prefer to put in some actual writing, but, for now, I'll leave you pretty things instead.

Button, button, who's got the button?

2010-09-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

I found this through a friend earlier in the week, and I keep coming back to it. The work is by Akino Kondoh, a Japanese illustrator and animator currently living in New York, and has been shortlisted as a finalist for the “YouTube Play" contest.

There's something both vintage and slick about the movement and design. It's got the Ukiyo-e touches of manga artwork, but, to my eye, there's also some retro "rubber hose" in the mix. Whether it's traditional animation done on ones, or with computer assistance, it remains mesmerizing.

Another animation, "The Evening Traveling", can be found here. The tone is more upbeat, but still off-kilter, and you can see the recurring palette and theme of using multiples.

Somnambulism for Dummies

2010-09-27T23:33:00.000-07:00

Record highs in Los Angeles are melting away any useful commentary I might have. Moving through the air feels like sleepwalking. I turn to the storehouse of the classic Goth internet for something to distract the mind from thoughts of the landscape spontaneously combusting. Thanks yet again to the year 1994, which brought us, among many formative delights, this Interview magazine shoot by Karl Lagerfeld, inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Simply divine.

"Labyrinthine"- Color

2010-09-23T16:32:00.000-07:00

I'm done with this for now, though I don't feel like it's quite finished. Sometimes you gotta put down the tablet if you wanna play the saxophone...or finish other work.

Ink drawing, Photoshop, choices made late at night.

I Was Framed!

2010-09-19T01:25:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite yet.

Sad fact is, I make my bank (both measly present and, hopefully, more flush future) off a visual medium that requires looking at screens for hours on end, and I need glasses. This is hardly unusual. As I count it in my head, I've seen all but three of my MFA colleagues wearing specs. (My last set were lost sometime between finishing my first year of graduate school, and moving residencies, and have not re-appeared since.) Some people favor contacts, but I discount this option for two reasons: 1.) I don't need to wear glasses all the time, in fact, would like to be able to take them off with ease, and 2.) it takes away another style statement choice.

Vintage frames from the 50s and 60s are making a big comeback, particularly since last year's round-shape tortoiseshell fad hit high-end menswear hard. This is one aspect of the Midcentury Revival we're now experiencing that I can get on board with. If the club kids would rather look like young Allen Ginsberg than a flock of Danish architects, it's more than fine by me. So long as they don't let Tom Ford direct their entire lives, because that usually ends poorly.

Image from Black Optical

Because of my upcoming optometry test next week, and in honor of Emily Brundige, friend and talented fellow animator, who recently broke her prized pair of frames, I give you ye olde new vintage glasses rundown. With designer frames now likely to run up your bill to two hundred or more, obtaining a cool set elsewhere and bringing them in might not only be stylish, but thrifty.

For the lads, Optometrist's Attic is a fine place to poke. They've got authentic selections divided into categories like wire-rim, combination (for that Malcolm X look), and full-plastic. For the ladies, I'd head to Etsy, where sites like Vintage 50s Eyewear have got your funky librarian needs covered. Just look at these gorgeous frames:

Also check out Collectible Spectacle, which has something of a mixed bag, but plenty of selection. Same goes for Vintage Kismet.

It is, indeed, hard to figure out whether a pair pictured online will look right on your face. My recommendation is to go to a shop in person and try on various shapes, until you're familiar with what works best. Locally, there's scores of specialty frame shops, like Old Focals in Pasadena, or Society of the Spectacle. For the earnestly paranoid, like myself, a little browser-window shopping can be an excellent start to brainstorming.

"Labyrinthine"- B&W preview

2010-09-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

Inks-only preview of a piece I've been working on, entitled "Labyrinthine". This is the base sketch, inked by nib, and scanned. The only digital manipulation that's been done so far is a Channel Mixer to remove the underlying 'non photo' blue pencil. After this stage, Photoshop coloring trickery abounds. (Next day or so.) You can click the image to bring up a larger view.

Wanderer in the Sea of Fog

2010-09-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

Some days you just want to wander away in the mist.
Ákos Rajnai for Endre Fazekas, via dirtyflaws.

Wedge Issue

2010-09-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

In which I talk about shoes. Again.

My unabashed frivolity emerges in patterns. Maybe it's a seasonal bout of trendwhoring. Maybe it's going back to school, and finding myself surrounded by the tall lads and ladies of my acquaintance. All I'm saying is; can a girl get a little height here? (I'm 5'3". My mom always stressed finding some kicks to support nature's handicap.) Trendy or no, the all-black wedge, which has been popping up in many a fashion blog, makes a damn fine argument with its elegant silhouette.

Wedges are ambiguous in dim lights or dark streets. When you dress in head-to-toe dark hues, the strange shapes you cut can take on a mysterious life of their own. You become a living sculpture, emerging from amorphous black. It's one reason I persist in having a monochromatic wardrobe. These haute hooves nudge that notion along.

The search is on to find a pair in mid-range pricing! Places like Forever 21 offer ghastly cheap-looking variations on the Jeffrey Campbell wedges I posted awhile back. The internet does tempt with a cornucopia of cheap shoes, but you want something that will last, and not give you too many blisters, and that entails spending a bit more cash than $32.50 + shipping.

The difficulty of my quest became apparent after a quick whip around usually fail-proof webs stops. (By the way, I cannot be the only one who dislikes that women's boots falling below hooker heights are now referred to as "booties". Makes me think I'm shopping for a particularly hip toddler.) It's difficult to find a simple pair of wedge boots that aren't festooned with enough chains to make Russell Brand snicker, or fixed with an ambitious heel even I wouldn't attempt to walk in. Not to mention that some enterprising soul seems to have cut peeptoes into many otherwise acceptable shoes.

The nearest I got to wedge perfection was this pair by Chinese Laundry, questionably skinned in suede. (I do occasionally leave the moisture-free basin that is Los Angeles, after all.) My search, it seems, will have to continue into the fall.

A Case for Cases

2010-09-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Ron Pippin could be called many things, including sculptor, craftsman, and prop-maker. His assemblies, cases, and mechanical creations are products of digging into a spiritual mythology of his own making. Yet, I feel they invite viewer's inventions and associations. One could easily imagine these art pieces in use in Jeff VanderMeer's grotesque city of Ambergris, or on display in an alternate universe's Worlds' Fair. If the visual sumptuousness alone is not enough cause of interest, the work's background proves just as intriguing.

Though Pippin belongs to no specific religious group or cult, his feelings about his work have an unmistakable theological cast. His art derives from an inner universe, delivered to the outside world as curiosity and, as his website's catalog puts it, spiritual emissary. His treatment of objects is archival, and what his is archiving are his journeys to a hidden realm. If this all sounds like postmodern bunk, remember that devotion to private mythology puts Pippin in company with the likes of William Blake. The Surrealists, I imagine, (in particular, animator Jan Švankmajer), would be quite comfortable having him in for tea.

This blurb from his website gives a visual approximation of his work, if vaguely.

"If the illuminated glass-walled boxes relate to the grotesque, the flat black wooden-walled boxes of the "Paradise Regained" series invite comparison with those of Joseph Cornell and the Fluxus artist George Brecht. But whereas their boxes might be seen as games whose pieces might be moved around in the boxes' empty space, Pippin's boxes are close packed and seem more like survival kits from some archaic civilization, with medicine vials, packets of powders or possibly needles, blowgun darts, feathers, discolored files, maps, sepia photos that may portray the original owner. Or perhaps these kits belonged to magicians or healers of some sort. Some slightly larger boxes from the "Homage to Unknown Ancestors" series seem to contain the distilled essence of the deceased persons in such a way that they could almost be reconstituted."

Unlike Michel Oren, the gallery director who is the author of the above quote, I am less inclined to ally Pippin's work with the Fluxus movement or assemblage artists such as Bruce Conner. The objects chosen have too much narrative specificity to them, even if their choice is only obvious to their collector. Pippin himself says that the boxes and devices are more like recreations of artifacts brought back from another world. Excavating the subconscious and displaying its workings in the light of the conscious world is the goal of many artists. What I admire about Pippin is his commitment to a sincerely literal personal archaeology.

Also, that he looks like the late George Carlin. If George Carlin was a mad steampunk inventor. (So, just George Carlin, then.)

So Very Neat

2010-09-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Like many artists, graphic designers, and animators, I've got my moments of obsessive-compulsive neatness. I like organized supplies, exactly laid out tools, and the perverse satisfaction of knowing everything is in its right place. When I need a clear head, I start by organizing my workspace. I don't freak out at a little mess, but once it reaches critical mass, I indulge my need for a sorting binge. If you're the same, you might appreciate ThingsOrganizedNeatly, on Tumblr, a crisp catalog of OCD-ness.

I've Got a (Color) Theory

2010-09-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

Blog, I have sorely neglected you this week while I visit the Homeland. For this I am sorry. Let us become re-acquainted via the gift of George Clooney.

It would seem that mainstream fascination with all things mid-century is leaking out of its Mad Men box and spilling over into the cinema. Normally, I would crow that it should stay in its rightful place, its rightful place being a strangely popular TV show and the windows of your local Banana Republic. Not all Midcentury carries the sting of AMC's hit, however. I welcome, if not smoking habits or casual misogyny, the return of retro poster design.

If countless science fiction productions have proved that blue is the color of the future, then orange, it seems, is the color of our collective silk-screened past. (This would fully explain what has been deemed the "Teal & Orange Problem" of action movies with contemporary settings. A simple equation; if the far future is digital blue, and the past is sepia/orange, then...Jerry Bruckheimer is still an asshole.)

Check out these equally citrus-y rollups of recent movies that were re-worked for the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow.

For the rest, go to Wired.

The Library at Night (2 pages)

2010-08-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Rounding out the middle drag of the week, here's a couple of pages I've been playing with. Recently, I've had a few great, supportive friends encourage me to try my hand at doing graphic novel work. This character, Lore, who's from a short story I've been fiddling with, seemed like a good opportunity to give it a shot. Comics - not the capes and tights variety - were an early source of inspiration for me. Sandman, later, some of the Hellblazer runs, and that old Drew Hayes stuff that got passed around at summer art school are as heavy of an influence on my work as the Surrealists, Ancient Egyptian painting, or Mannerist sculptors. This little one-off is sort of a midway between the heavy ink style of a lot of those guys, and the cel shading common in the animation that makes up the other side of my artistic genesis. I wanted to push myself with the style, but I also wanted to get away from traditional panels. Preserving the flow between panels and pages is damn hard, and don't let anyone tell you different! A great learning experience.

Done with india ink in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook, then scanned, and colored in Photoshop CS4. Click for larger size, or head to my DeviantArt account for more details.

Shades of Grey

2010-08-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

New York-based fashion designer Sally Lapointe's Fall 2010 collection showcases unfussy, but still composed, minimalism. Yes, it can be done. Applause for achieving polish without making it look too buttoned-up or strapped down: Lapointe's gear looks like something you could actually slip on, and feel at ease.

Twisted and 'Tangled'

2010-08-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Though they've wrung the joy from our childhoods and sold it for cash, there's plenty of lingering loyalty to the Disney name, particularly around these CalArtian parts. The people I have the greatest admiration for are the production design artists. Say what you want about the final products, from the confounding Hunchback to the dismal Princess and the Frog, but what doesn't make it onto the screen is worth a look. There are so many wonderful ideas in original concept art, before they get focus-grouped into oblivion, it makes you wish, not for the first time, that corporate monoliths would listen to the little people. Especially the ones with the ink brushes.

To writ, here are some sneaky snapshots taken by a contributor to the Disney Concept Art Tumblr. They are 2D renditions of the newly re-named - and newly Shrek-ified - Tangled, a movie that looks like such a misstep that all the animators I know who have seen the trailer have visibly winced. It wasn't always going to be this way. But after Frog bombed at the box office, a hasty retreat to tired CG and some modernized gags was perhaps inevitable. There's nothing new to either path, but at least the other one still had a shred of dignity.

Hair physics breakdown

The rest of the album can be found here.

Judge a Book By Its Cover

2010-08-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

When I peruse the shelves at a bookstore - an activity as regular as drinking coffee - I am often struck at how opaque the newer jacket designs are. If it weren't for the diligent summaries provided by critics or long-suffering academics, many modern covers would give you no clue as to a book's actual contents. That translation of The Master and Margarita that everyone is so fond of, for example, looks like it could just as easily be a familial memoir, or a non-fiction essay anthology. Unless you have read the book already it's going to look like a vague picture of a cat.

As one who is as interested in packaging design as in literature, I find the disconnect between subject and representation baffling. The entire job of a publishing house's art department is to ensure that the proper readers be ensnared by their lightening-quick judge of a book's outer shell. What actually goes on between them and marketing is anyone's guess. (My guess? Martini lunches and dicking around in Photoshop. Like everyone else.)

This explains why I'm so slyly fond of new(ish) blog Better Book Titles. If covers aren't doing their job, perhaps editors should help us get to the point of what, exactly, a book is about. Below, some fun examples to consider.

It'll have to do until someone down in Art & Design rallies, or has a Network moment.

Dark Days on the Sand

2010-08-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

It's too darn hot. Los Angeles' infamous end-of-summer heatwave has hit. That means wildfires springing up in the hills north of the city, coupled with the complete inability of anyone downwind to get anything done. Anyone whose brains haven't melted will be heading for the safety of an air-conditioned office or be hitting the beach. Alas, for some of us, the latter option makes for nice editorials, but bad sunburns.

Karl Lagerfeld's elegant version of Goths in Hot Weather, from the October 2007 issue of Vogue Germany.

Take A Shot

2010-08-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

Camera flask, source unknown

For yourself and all the other caffeine-fueled photo-fiends in your life, a number of thermoses and mugs are now bring turned out that look just like high-end lenses. A Canon one mimicking a 70-200mm L-series lens appeared (below) as a hand-out to athletes at the Olympics. They are (or were) available for order here, but can probably still be found on EBay.

Where Canon goes, Nikon must go too, and in June a AF-S 24-70mm f/2. coffee cup popped up. Not sure where you can get these from, but, again, EBay has the answer. (The $50 answer. Wow.)

My personal favorite of the lot has got to be this highly realistic mug over at Photojojo that mimics a 24-105mm lens with rubber-grip focus and zoom rings, and an auto/manual focus switch that actually switches. At $24, it's also the most reasonable of the lot. Not too bad, when a real zoom from one of these manufacturers can cost $400 or more!

Found via fellow animator Kirsten Lepore's tumblr. Further examples pointed to by the ever-helpful E. Martin.

Lighten Up!

2010-08-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that things look a little different around here. Yes, after much gnashing of teeth and banging of heads, AnachroLush has emerged from the adolescent dark ages of the infinite hexidecimal, and slipped into something a little more comfortable. Who said growing up had to be awkward?

Get Yer Rocks Off

2010-08-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Normally, I can't wear rings, wrist adornments that aren't a tight strap (and that only on my left), or anything else that interferes with my work. Many people whose lives are, literally, in their hands, no doubt encounter a similar issue. It's no wonder so many of us favor tattoos. Still, my weakness for unusual, macabre, or simply eye-catching jewelry is undiminished. I even keep hooks or a small receptacle near my desk to hold unwieldy baubles. I've been going through a frugal stage, but my birthday's coming up on Monday (I'm a Leo, act surprised), and Tumblr is determined to start the ring itch.

A current jeweler (and reader!) whose creations have long held my heart is the thoughtful and talented BloodMilk, aka J.L. Schnabel. Sadly, I am yet to own any of her gorgeous pieces, though that may change soon enough. She is having a sale in her Etsy shop this weekend, Friday to Saturday, while she whisks around the country on mystic errands.

Practicality and good fashion rarely have to do with one another. That doesn't mean you can't have your rocks, and take them off, too.

Hairbrawl

2010-08-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

Boston hairstylist Michael Albor recently took the North American Hairstyling Awards (NAHA) honor of Master Hairstylist of the Year. Below, some of his fantastical creations. The styling is particularly apt, and a lot warmer than the robotic, infinite-horizon settings favored by many other NAHA finalists.

Hoofin'

2010-08-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

Always a fan of the shoe-as-art, I was fascinated, then horrified, to stumble upon Iris Schieferstein's series of horse hoof shoes. I should mention that I'm outright against most fur, and that I raise the question of whether Schieferstein's taxidermy hoofs are obtained from animals that are naturally deceased.

Macabre fashion can, and should, be created solely with cruelty-free materials. Look at taxidermy jewelry artist Julia DeVille, who only works with animals that have died of natural causes. Her work is proof that no amount of attention to your accessories is worth torturing and killing other creatures.

~~An answer would certainly put my mind at ease.~~ Whatever the ultimate verdict might be, they were too weird not to share.

(EDIT: Further internet prodding suggests that Schieferstein is working with taxidermy obtained by natural causes.)

Everything Old is New, Again

2010-08-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

Making the rounds on the blogrolls this week are these retro-fabulous ads for our everyday social networks/chat programs. According to several blogs and a cursory Google search, the ads were developed by Brazilian agency Moma for a seminar by MaxiMídia on how "Everything Ages Fast" (everything technological, that is). Hark back to a universe where cellphones were cancer free...just like cigarettes!

Our Powers Combined

2010-08-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Today, my guest appearance on Geekosystem takes effect in the form of their weekly PowerGrid, The 10 Most Popular Types of MacGuffins. What? You don't know what a MacGuffin is? Why, a MacGuffin is a thing that everyone needs...

Contributions authored by me have a little "Z" snugly strung onto the end, while the unsigned are the child of the usual master of that storied domain.

8-Bit Lush

2010-08-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of common ground, today's tip came from my old friend and houseguest for the week, Susana of Geekosystem. If you like drinking, and videogames, (or just like drinking while your friend curses their way through the last level of Portal) then you've either heard of The Drunken Moogle already, or need to get started. The Drunken Moogle is a blog devoted to the unforeseen creative potential behind the overlap of these two sordid arenas. Past concoctions include the 1Up (A Super Mario Bros. shot featuring Midori and rum), the Ocarina of Lime (basically a fancy mojito), and its namesake, the Moogle (of Final Fantasy), created by Mike Khamphoukeo of http://scrollbar.dk.

Portal Shots. "In layman's terms, speedy thing go in, speedy thing come out" indeed.

This hasty, and highly suggestive, post was brought to you by the need to go to the beach. Consider it your Wednesday-morning inception; can't stop thinking about a cold drink now, can you?

1st Anniversary

2010-08-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Due to actual work and general busy-ness, I completely blew by AnachroLush's 1st anniversary! July 31st of 2009 was the official first post in my new internet home, which seems like not so long, but may as well be infinite in the timescale of cyberspace.

A few unexpected things happened along the way, the main one being that the blog became more personal. I wouldn't take this to mean that I'm in danger of blogging about my dating history or pictures of my cat (I haven't got a cat, ah-ah, got you). What I do mean is that what started out more neutral (and, frankly, more boring) became more opinionated and more regularly host to artwork that I'm doing. Partially an accident, the frequency of posts with a clear narrative voice behind them was also encouraged by readers. It doesn't matter if many people comment, as the numbers speak clearly; I get more hits on posts with original content than I do on anything else. (The exception here being when I post pictures of Tilda Swinton.)

So thank you for stopping by, taking a moment, and sharing the same loves that I do. Here's to another year!

Musical Notes: TRON Legacy

2010-07-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

In a strangely in-tune move, the Disney reboot of TRON has a score done by Daft Punk. That great, electro-gritty noise you heard coming out of the trailer that got you pumped? You can hear six full-length songs off the score right here. Am I excited? At least for the mp3s.

A little fair warning to everyone my age who actually remembers the original; don't watch it again. It's not as badass as your memory has convinced you it was. You know how the technical spec discussions in Hackers are hilarious nowadays? Technology is one of those things that dates fast.

More Fearless Vampire Killers

2010-07-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

As the perfect antidote to all the Twilight screeching and the lukewarm slog that's been Season 3 of True Blood, I present another round of the ever-popular vampire killing kits. This lot are from the Ripley's Believe It or Not! archives, which boasts of the largest collection of authentic vampire-killing kits in the world. As explained in their newsroom article by curator Edward Meyer, VP of Exhibits and Archives, Ripley's currently houses the only publicly displayed authentic kits - the rest are in private collections.

Kits were typically purchased by wealthy Americans going overseas, particularly to Eastern European destinations. They include stakes, gunpowder, crucifixes, lead or silver bullets, garlic, and other such sundries. They would have been better off with a flask and some mud boots, but these artifacts make for interesting conversation pieces nonetheless.

Discovered via Propnomicon, your one-stop online spot for everything Lovecraftian.

Chills up my feminist spine

2010-07-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Is it just me? Or is anyone else floating in the Darker reaches of the 'net disturbed by the proliferation of still work and videos with imagery like this:

rules were made to be broken... from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

(This video isn't the only culprit, nor is it the strongest example.* My following comments using it as an example are not meant as an attack on Pascal Monaco, who seems a very talented man, and whose other work does not rely on the same subject matter found here.)

Again and again, on DeviantArt, the blogrolls, or photography sites, I'm treated to gruesome images of brutally murdered young women presented as aesthetically pleasing visual art. The work is usually, though not always, the product of male hands. It often has a sexual slant to it, manifesting as a sort of goth pin-up girl with heavy eye makeup and a neatly cut throat.

I'm wondering if anyone else sees what I'm seeing when I come across image after image like this. It's not disturbing because of the gore, or the subject of homicide, or the faint tinge of necrophilia hovering in the air like a whiff of embalming fluid. What's disturbing are the misogynistic connotations coded into the imagery.

What's misogynistic about it? You feminists, you think any image of a murdered woman is a sexist ploy. Well, no, I don't. I'm no stranger to grisly depictions of human taste. I've even sought them out for fun and journalistic profit. The problem here is the way the image is ususally presented, and the way the community who regularly interacts with these images interprets them. There's a severe disconnect happening, if the ladies and gents who favor the dark side are looking at such pictures and declaring only "how beautiful".

Why always a murdered woman, particularly an attractive woman? Why the neat arrangement of blood and limbs? Instead of thinking about the 'corpse' as a former person, we're meant to read her as an object, one arranged for our visceral pleasure.

That sends a chill up my spine, and not the good kind. We, as a viewing and creating collective, should think a little harder and with a more critical eye about this trend, and what it can mean.

*After some careful thought on how more examples would boost my statements, I decided not to include any of the images I'm talking about. Not aiding in their exposure is as important as discussing what's at stake, though the opposite could also be rightfully argued. This time, I decided against it.

Eva Nyíri, circa 2009

2010-07-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

Hungarian designer Eva Nyíri's samurai/mecha collection hit all over the web last year, and it's no surprise. The same pieces also popped up in Madame Peripetie's "Warriors in the Dark" shoot. The highly constructed pieces were evocative of Gareth Pugh, beetles, robots, and a step further in those directions than anything we'd seen before on a runway. If arming up for the future means dreams so glittering and dark, I'd be willing to surrender peripheral vision in the name of art.

Love at First Death

2010-07-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

In case you thought we were all serious gloom and doom over here, think again.

I'm having a post-mortem love affair with the late television series 'Pushing Daisies'. A candy-colored ball of quirk with theatrically snappy dialogue and a light-hearted morbid streak, 'Pushing Daisies' follows the murder-solving adventures of Ned The Piemaker and an equally odd band of misfits.

As the kindly narrator will tell us every episode, before providing exposition on the latest odd murder or telling flashback, "the facts were these":

Ned (played by the cheek-pinchingly adorable Lee Pace) has a special talent, or a special curse, depending on who's talking. With one touch, he can bring the dead back to life, and with another, lay a body to final rest. The ability extends to animals both small and large, and has no particular origin. But there are some harsh stipulations to his Lazarus powers: if a resurrected thing remains untouched again for more than a minute, something else equivalent will pass away, randomly chosen from its immediate vicinity.

With the stopwatch ticking, Ned and his P.I. friend, one Emerson Cod (the brilliantly sardonic Chi McBride), ask murder victims who killed them, and collect rewards.

Mr. McBride also makes amazing faces.

They are assisted by the enthusiastic 'Chuck' (née Charlotte, played by Anna Friel), Ned's childhood sweetheart, and the only person he's ever brought back and let stay. Tragically, they can never touch, or Chuck will die again for good. This leads to a lot of adorable creative solutions involving latex, plastic wrap, and gloves. (Rogue of the X-Men, take note.)

For fear of traumatizing them, Chuck cannot contact her wacky aunts, former synchronized-swimming duo Vivian and Lillian Charles. They like birds and rare cheese. They're also pretty handy with a shotgun.

Kristin Chenoweth, she of Wicked fame, is also there, as pie-waitress Olive Snook, to sing, dance, pine for Ned's affections, and wear amazingly tiny mod dresses.

There is also a lot of pie-eating...And that's not a euphemism.

Points for Bradbury Building use! (You guys know how I am about the Bradbury.)

Though the show got excellent critical reception, its unique nature made sure that it got lost in the network scheduling for its second season. Sadly, the plug got pulled. If you wished your Scooby-Doo had more dead bodies, sexual frustration, and the occasional musical number, then 'Pushing Daisies' might be just the ticket. Consider your serotonin levels hijacked and taken for a strange ride.

Banner and process

2010-07-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

For some time I'd been meaning to do a banner that was more reflective of what I actually do when I'm not expounding on the virtues of Ann Demeulemeester or analyzing anachronistic cinema for its latent homoerotic contents. Namely, dicking around with ink and Photoshop, writing stories, and calling it a career. Perhaps this blog is my secret identity. Or perhaps the non-binary me, of flesh, blood, and knotty muscles, is.

This illustration - half self-portrait, half symbolic expression, and almost entirely without reference - was sketched start-to-finish in Photoshop, a new technique for me. Yes, it took forever, but I'm enjoying the results. I'm always trying to find new ways to make software work for me, not the other way around. If I can create something digital, and still maintain the connection to the work that I have with a physical drawing, then that's something.

Here are some closer details, for those interested. Look! You can see my lazy coloring job.

Is it Fall Yet?: Adverts

2010-07-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Fabulous coats turning up in Burberry's corner, and a nighttime jaunt on the rooftops with Hermès makes me wish for fall weather more and more.

There's no drama in the swelter of a Western summer. You tumble out of bed every day to find just enough cloth to bake in. While I hardly envy the East its humidity, I do miss fall something fierce. After paying my dues in SoCal for two more years, I'm going to be aching to move up the coast to somewhere with a little less tube tops and a little more atmosphere.

Re-up

2010-07-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Things look a little different. After a brief flirtation with the Web 2.0 boxy-boxiness offered by Blogger's new design templates, I ended up switching back to the all-black motif. I did switch the layout, and the color theme, but it's essentially the same as it was (as you can see). If I'm to re-do the blog (and I would like to), I'm going to have spend a little more time on it than a quicky with pre-made CSS. (That pre-made CSS, I might add, I had to make copious adjustments to so that the spacing wasn't overly crowded.)

In essence, though, less is a lot more. The focus should always be what I'm posting, not a myriad of colorful quadrilaterals housing hyperlink and text packets. I do want to get away from black, eventually, but I'll need something more visually fluid and not distracting, and that takes a little more work. One day, one day...

Maybe those are /rabbits/ in the walls?

2010-07-14T00:49:00.000-07:00

Keep telling yourself that, sugah. Sigh. It's all fun and games until someone gets eaten by an Elder God from the Nameless Beyond.

Ink, ink, ink, ink, so much ink.

Somebody get me to illustrate some Lovecraft already. My quill, tis sharp.

Emperor Zombie

2010-07-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

My warm-up sketch from earlier today, cleaned up a little in Photoshop. (I added 'Red Right Hand' font text, both as homage, and to make it more legible.) A take on Emperor Zombie from the eternally quotable "Adventures of the Amazing Screw-On Head". Quill and ink, Prismacolor, and way more time than I should have spent on it.

For those interested, 'Red Right Hand', AKA the 'Hellboy' font, can be found here at dafont.com

All the World's a Stage

2010-07-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

...and some of us have cameras. From Julia Solis, a series of photographs depicting abandoned theaters, hospitals, prisons, asylums, and other civic ruins. The settings are haunting, surreal, and beautiful, and somehow just right for the droopy humidity of July back East, where everything feels like it's sagging and rotting. For full details of each project, visit her at her site, Stages of Decay. Or visit her companion blog, here, frequently updated with further visions of our civilization's lovely wreckage.

Shhh.

2010-07-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

All I've been doing this week is reading, reading, reading.

Real updates soon.

(EDIT: Because someone asked me, yes, I did this illustration. If it was ripped from somewhere I would have put in a reference, like I usually do.)

Girl Meets Boy in Vogue Paris

2010-07-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

This one's been sitting on my desktop for a spell. Raquel Zimmerman does girl rocker with a dash of Nick Cave in a shoot by David Sims for Vogue Paris' June/July 2010 issue. It's easy to scoff at the old menswear-on-women concept, since it's usually carried off in a tasteless, over-feminized style. When it's done with a nod to the equality of androgyny, however, it's worth a note.

Via Fashion Gone Rogue.

Maggie Gyllenhaal by Ruven Afanador

2010-07-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Maggie Gyllenhaal shot by Ruven Afanador for Marie Claire, September 2006, darkly attired and looking fantastic. None of these features - the subject, art direction, photographer - match the magazine's usual persona. It's an odd duck, to be sure, and I'm happy to take it up.

Color Me Curiously

2010-06-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

This unusual satorial suit shoot was done by Alexei Hay for Details magazine. The contrasts of setting and subject, and the imitation hand-coloring elevated the editorial from the ordinary, and fixed it in my mind. I think I was reading The Thief's Journal when I first happened upon the set, and they reminded me of Genet's description of pimps and hustlers in the gutters of Barcelona.

Brigitte Lacombe Shoots the Movies

2010-06-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

Ever heard of Brigitte Lacombe? Unless you're an avid follower of photography - or an obsessive contemporary film fan - you probably haven't. But I'll bet her work looks mighty familiar to you.

Lacombe has earned the trust of notable film directors such as Scorsese and Mendes to be allowed the privilege of photographing on-set. Her work is both candid and dignified, humanizing a mysterious, magical, and just plain insane industry. Doesn't hurt that the pictures themselves are beautiful (or that the subjects aren't too hard on the eyes).

"Ain't No Cowboys Here" - Ghost Dancer

2010-06-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

A couple things happened since I last posted art here. More than a couple, but I'll summarize and save you the grief.

FIRST!
I became disenchanted with the method of coloring I was using on these portraits, and decided that I wanted to pursue a different style for the characters. Because of how much time freelance work and generally mucking about had taken up recently, in the space between doing the parts of a single personal project my mind changed completely. I think of it as healthy self-editorializing.

SECOND!
I was a git and committed the ultimate in Photoshop faux pas. I saved the only colored version of this portrait...without layers.
It's the sort of mistake that has caused many an illustrator to scream to the rafters, for cries of "fuck" in every language imaginable to be sounded loud and strong so that dogs in the distance feel the need to respond. Though I had read many horror stories, I don't think I've ever done it before. Coming hard on the heels of my dissatisfaction with the way these were going, and it smarted even more.

I'm posting it anyway, because, hey lessons learned. Move on. Be careful about saving. And for Gods'sake, if you don't like digital painting on your tiny, old Wacom, (I have nightmares about carpal tunnel at the tender age of 23) then stick to your inks, your watercolors, and your digital flats, you silly thing. Sheesh.

Good God, y'all.

The Secret History of The Amazing Screw-On Head

2010-06-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's a sad fact that for every 3 pieces of cartoon trash that get ground out, there's a deserving television series out there that we've been denied for reasons financial, political, or just from mainstream oversight. After all, despite what we, as artists, tell ourselves about the nobility of our craft, most producers want to make sure that their baby makes money. That means taking the easy way out, and not taking too many gambles on content. True, but sad, because there are plenty of series pilots - animated and not - floating out there in the ether that I would trade every Jonas Brothers special and Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode in existence for.

One of these is the Mike Mignola-based "The Amazing Screw-On Head".

Mignola, the creator of Hellboy, dreamt up this idea a few years ago, and managed, probably from the momentum of other projects, to get a pilot made. Drawn in his signature black-block style, the show was about a secret agent who was all Head - a Screw-On Head - engaged to fight elements of the occult to keep America safe by his retainer...Abraham Lincoln. There were also murderous monkeys, werewolves, some Lovecraftian goodness, and the talented voices of Paul Giamatti, Patton Oswalt, and David Hyde Pierce, as nemesis/former butler Emperor Zombie.

The pilot is easy to find from your local torrent engine (not that I am advocating piracy, gosh no), and worth the download.

I have a deep affection for both the creator and the result, but it's easy to see why it didn't get picked up. The tone is dark, the humor is off-beat, and the references are numerous, obscure, and destined for the cult section. Not all fun is Saturday-morning ready, but in the internet age, why should it be? Frankly, I'm delighted but surprised that Mignola manged to get not one but two Hellboy movies out of the gate, and decent ones at that. A friend suggested, "he's always been able to squeeze artistic work out of rigid production machines. I sometimes think it's his other skill."

Choice quotes include:

"It's as I always say...all really intelligent people should be cremated for reasons of public safety."

"Crack a window, Mr. Groin. Let's not have the Oval Office smelling like burnt hair."

No, it probably wouldn't have made a lot of money. You probably couldn't have wrangled action-figure deals out of it, or managed to keep it in primetime. But there's a lot of us that would have been glad to see it in the mix, and appreciate the effort.

A Dark Knight

2010-06-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

We take a break from our in-house artistic programme to bring you this sumptuous shoot of Don Cheadle in various states of chivalry. Photographed by Diego Uchitel, though I don't know for what publication.

Gentlemen, take note.

"Ain't No Cowboys Here"(1/3) - Wild Card

2010-06-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

First up of three portraits I've been working on of the ladies of Deuces Wild! is Lina Alekseeva AKA Wild Card.Wild Card's dad was a Russian Jewish immigrant turned famous gunslinger known only as the Marksman. He died some years ago, leaving a lot of friends, a lot of enemies, and a pair of beautiful guns that are making life difficult for their inheritor. Why? Well, they don't always work. And when they do? Lina doesn't feel like she's the one controlling them.

Lina's got a lot on her plate besides possessed firearms, though. Opium smoker, gambler, and card shark, Lina's got a nasty ex to get revenge on, some debt collectors to avoid, and a Crow medium named Ghost Dancer who's determined to get the help of those guns, whether Lina likes it or not. It's enough to make anyone drink.

Drawn in pencil on Bristol board, scanned in pieces and re-assembled, colored in Photoshop. No photo reference used. (The fact that she looks like Gina Gershon is purely accidental. I think I was watching Prey for Rock and Roll the other day...)

Next up, Ghost Dancer...

"Ain't No Cowboys Here" - preview

2010-06-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

Preview of the piece(s) I'm hard at work on. If I'm not postin' too much, it's probably cause I'm groovin' over on the drafting table.

I tip on alligators,
And little rattlesnakers,
But I'm another flavor,
Somethin' like a Terminator.

Thanks, Ms. Monae. I'll watch you tip up on it any time.

Public Service Announcement

2010-06-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Pride, courtesy Sir Ian.

Deuces Wild! longsheet

2010-06-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

A large color piece from a back-burnered graphic novel project called Deuces Wild! Some time last summer, I started nurturing the idea of a steam Wild West absent of sepia tones, airships, and stilted dialect, and infused instead with color, the occult, violence, and not a bit of traitorous, gold-digging ex-girlfriends. Add in a liberal helping of actual politics, and DW! went from being a little project to being a very expansive world very fast.

Basic questions, answered. Wild Card, on the left, does indeed have a Star of David on her belt-buckle, as well as symbolic tattoos peeking their way out. The woman on the right, Ghost Dancer, is leaking green mist, but not for fun or profit; it's a manifestation of her powers. Ghost can communicate with, sense, and call up the ancestral dead - not just hers, anyone's.

Interested? I hope so. Because I've got portraits of these gals, plus the lead villain, currently waiting to be inked on my drawing board. (This one was not inked, however. I tried turning up the contrast on the original pencil sketch. It's alright-looking, but I like inking. The logo was done in Photoshop some months ago.)

For a higher-res version, visit the image on DeviantArt.

"Winkle-what?": Cultural Disconnection and the Mod-ern Shoe Fetishist

2010-06-08T00:23:00.000-07:00

Some things make me miss NY: T&V as I remember it

This post originates from a conversation I had in a shoe shop today. I was on the West end of Melrose, where vintage fashion and a bit of old-fashioned rock and roll still preside in storefronts between the overpriced shoe boutiques and stands slinging frozen yogurt like it was going out of style. In the upper floor of an otherwise anonymous storefront, I found my 16-year-old self's idea of a shoe heaven. The place reminded me of Trash & Vaudeville (or what T&V looked like when I was in high school); wall-to-wall unisex creepers of every shade and suede, clunky New Rock stompers stacked up high, a rainbow of Doc Martens, and more Cuban-heeled Beatle boots than you can shake RockBand at.

Once I had recovered from a momentary nostalgic swoon, I found myself chatting with the owner, himself something of an aged rocker. I said:

" I'm so glad to see that someone around here carries winklepickers!"

To which this venerable silver-haired and tattooed gentleman responded:

"Winker....what?"

Huh. Apparently I've spent too much time entrenched in the British side of rock, because, it turns out, when you say "winklepicker" (like calling a rubber rain boot a Wellie, short for 'Wellington'), some people in the American Goth and Punk scenes will have no idea what you're referring to.

I take it upon myself to educate the masses.

AHEM. A winkle picker is a type of boot that is low-heeled with a long, exaggerated pointed toe, much like a medieval shoe. Often, but not exclusively, black, and often buckled, Winkle pickers originated in the late 1950s British rock and roll crowd, as a sort of alternative to the American Teddy Boy look. It evolved into a less exaggerated version with a 1 1/2-2" heel (a 'Cuban heel'), which was worn famously by the Beatles, hence the name 'Beatle boot'. Winkle pickers saw a drop in popularity in the 70s, only to return by the 80s, adopted by the Goths. Most youngins of my generation probably first saw winkle pickers in the pages of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, where they were worn by the character Death. (Most adorable anthropomorphic personification of ultimate mortality ever.)

This highly recognizable shoe is called a winklepicker due to its pointed toe, after the fancy-dinner apparatus used to separate a snail from its shell. (A fact I did not know until I went and looked it up on ye Olde Wikipedia. Learn something new every day.)

They are currently sold by brands like Underground UK and T*U*K, both of which have annoying navigational interfaces. I suggest consulting your local Goth retailer.

Atalanta Weller

2010-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

London-based designer Atalanta Weller is breaking out of collaboration with House of Holland and going solo. Black carved wedges that are, allegedly, surprisingly comfortable? Yes, please, thank you, good night.