My wife and I have been wildly busy! Back in March, I was about 6 months in as the Animation Director for a large project- Marvel's new show called M.O.D.O.K., and that's when the studio had to shut down due to COVID. During the hiatus, my wife and I started creating our own claymation series called Magical Cat to scratch that creative itch while we were out of work. It was also part of a larger project that my wife started called Animation Wild Card (explained in an earlier post). Animation Wild Card became a great little community and it picked up some traction, so it's still going today, even after everyone has resumed working at the larger studios. We really enjoy collaborating with our friends and meeting new artists! We also LOVE working on our own personal projects. In the meantime, the Marvel project end-date was getting farther and farther away as we had brief shutdowns and had to work a lot slower and more carefully than usual. In fact, the show is still shooting as I'm typing this. 
As a result of COVID, the Marvel project going a lot longer than expected, and Animation Wild Card and Magical Cat picking up steam, I decided to step down as Animation Director so that we could move to the Northeast and focus on our own work/business and be closer to our families. It was a painful decision and I miss working with my friends at Stoopid Buddy. I was there for about 8 years and I can't say enough about what that studio and my coworkers did for me. I cried like a baby driving home from my last day! Shortly after drying my eyes, my wife and I packed everything into a couple of UHaul pods and drove an RV to our new home here in the Catskills where we have the space to expand our freelance animation business.
​
​Here's a sneak peak of M.O.D.O.K., the show I was working on before leaving Los Angeles. It was incredibly challenging to figure out how to rig and animate a large, heavy, floating head while keeping up with the always crazy production schedule. This show also has a hand-held style (motion controlled) which was on a different frame rate from the animation. Lots of challenges, but I worked with a great group and we figured it out... the VFX department definitely has their work cut out for them on this project.

This is one of the last Robot Chicken sketches I animated at Stoopid Buddy. I feel like I really nailed the disturbing vibe I was aiming for at the end there. 

A while back I got to do a bunch of stop-motion for the Star Wars Mandalorian TV show. It was tricky to make this puppet feel like a real, heavy, alien thing!

My wife Alexis helped organize Animation Wild Card- a group of quarantined animators creating shorts from home and releasing them in batches as episodes. It's meant to feel like that show KaBlam! from the 90s. We've released two episodes so far, for which my wife and I have created two clay-animated shorts in a series we're calling Magical Cat. Take a look!

I haven't created many finished illustrations in a while, but I still find time to sketch my favorite subject- faces. I added a section on my Illustration page where I'll be posting these drawings. 

I was nominated for an Annie Award for Character Animation! This was my second time being nominated, and although I didn't win, it's an absolute honor to be recognized. I animated a sketch on season 10 of Robot Chicken featuring the character Bitch Pudding in the world of the Handmaid's Tale.

My wife Alexis and I created this short animation for the SyFy channel. We split responsibilities and got it finished in about a month. Our goal was to make it feel a bit like the 90s with bold colors and corny humor. Animating the mystery meat was difficult because it had a lot of chunks that didn't want to cooperate. 

I helped animate this Fortnite trailer at Screen Novelties. My favorite part was the fire in the fireplace which was painted plexiglass replacements lit with a blacklight and animated on 4s! Other fun facts: The little dog was held together with magnets and wax, and the Christmas tree was made from green feathers.