It's the weekend of my birthday holy cow! March 11-13 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (right across the street from where Comicon was last year.) More information at the official website. The events that most directly tie into illustration are on Sunday morning (and, of course, I have a prior commitment that day. Wah.)
And now, since this would be a very short post otherwise, here are random interesting links for you.
First off, there is a review of a very weird Canadian children's film over at the Realm of Mad-Ness.
This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count! I'm not going to be able to do my usual live-blog of the event, but there is an excellent reason for that. Hopefully I'll have some great stories afterward.
I am a sucker for interesting (but still recognizable) variations on fantastic creatures, and Art Evolved guest artist Midhat Kapetanovic delivered with his unusual unicorns. If you love different takes on mythical beasts, check out the Alphabeastiary blog.
Everything is Terrible is a wonderful website that shares clips from the world of bizarre direct-to-video productions. (They were the ones who dug up that wondrous "Kids Inc." clip I shared during the Superbowl live-blog.) This week, they found something very special. At first I thought this was a straight random weird kids movie that decided, just because, to spend several lines of dialogue in the beginning explaining why their aliens happen to speak English. And then...
So how does one actor play a pair of twins? The answer is a heady combination of trick photography, animation, and lots of cooperation. I feel a little bad for Josh Pence here, but this clip is still fascinating.
Tipping Forties just finished their play through of "Super Mario Bros. Wii" and... it's something to see. (NSFW language.)
Over at Gurney Journey, a fan wrote in to ask why illustrators are so often ignored in art history courses, and prompted a much-needed list of good books on the history of illustration.
TetZoo has a brief but interesting article about avian display structures. Go forth and be inspired.
It is also the 150'th anniversary of the naming of Archaeopteryx. Those commemorative coins are amazing..
CHUD did a double-feature of "The Secret of N.I.M.H." and "The Plague Dogs", and expresses the confusion we all feel over a certain less-loved Pixar film.
Apparently there was a musical award show or something this weekend. Cee Lo Green did an awesome tribute to the well-loved Elton John episode of "The Muppet Show" (although, dear mainstream press, those were not Muppets. Stop being wrong.) Also, Lady Gaga finally turned into a giant bird. (Incidentally, her song doesn't sound like "Express Yourself" any more than "California Girls" [the Katy Perry one] sounds like "Tik Tok" sounds like "Just Dance" sounds like "Love at First Sight"...)
Toontown in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom has been shut down to make room for the great Fantasyland expansion, and Progress City has a fun look back at the strange little mini-park's history. I remember seeing that exact play once. It didn't get any less weird.
This is too cool not to share and it tells me that I need to get reacquainted with my friends who live in California. One of them works at Stargate Studios, which recently released a demonstration / promotional video that got some attention at The Best Week Ever. It's kind of mind-blowing.
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Feederwatch / Sketch of the Day Supercombo!
I looked out my window and saw this:
Argh, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. Encore is airing a documentary about the legendary effects studio Industrial Light and Magic tonight at 8:00 EST. It's by the same director as the wonderful "PIXAR Story", and should be pretty nifty.
If you miss the show tonight, it will air again Sunday after a marathon of films featuring ILM's animation! Timeless classics like... "Hook". Also "Jumangi". (To be fair, the marathon consists of the ILM-involving movies that the Encore channels have in their playlist, and it also includes "Starship Troopers". I usually keep politics way the heck away from my blog, but it needs to be said that "Troopers" is the kind of rare work of satire that played one way back when it was released, and a very, very different way now. If you have not seen it before, yes it is a terrible adaptation of the novel, but it is a good movie. Just be prepared to go, and I quote, 😨 at least once. Twice for Neil Patrick Harris fans.)
CHUD.com, a movie news website I enjoy, has been listing their choices for the worst instances of CGI animation in (usually) otherwise live-action films. They range from Wolverine's "Roger Rabbit" claws in "X-Men Origins" to the forty-two sauropod pileup in Peter Jackson's "King Kong". As a person who has blogged quite a lot about animation, I figured I should share it. Right now, they can all be found accumulating here, or you could start with part one and work your way through.
I have to say, I agree with most of the selections (Part One in particular, as it covers the Scorpion King sequence in "The Mummy Returns", which is easily one of the most downright embarrassing and Narm-tacular things ever put on a screen.) I have to nitpick, however, that many of the sequences were done with the best animation available at the time and simply have not aged well. That said, a fair number of them were... not. And I agree with their argument that we wouldn't be having this discussion at all if the sequences that could have been done practically were.
Take entry ten, the "Burly Brawl" in "Matrix Reloaded". Now, when I saw that at the theater I thought it was awesome. Then when I watched it again last summer it was still awesome... up until a point. There is a moment, and you can tell exactly where it is, when the film-makers eschewed practical effects and stuntwork for motion capture. This is about the only scene in the entire trilogy where they do so and... man, it just sticks out like you can't imagine. It looks like something out of "Happy Feet' and happens to be the only really badly animated scene in the trilogy.
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Speaking of absurdly bad-looking animation, I have a very strong feeling that this little slice of WTF that has recently made the animation fan website rounds is shaping up to be the next "Food Fight."
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DRAWGASMIC IS THIS WEEKEND!!! Actually, this may warrant it's own post later...
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Sketch of the Day!
Randimal anidoms!
