Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Up, up and away...

So you've been wondering why there haven't been any posts lately? That's why!

Hopping from one crunch to another is a crazy business, but I'm loving the work I'm doing and am so stoked to be a part of this movie!

I'm going to be doing a painting here soon and I'll try to show some progress pictures of it. And this is a for reals painting... with real tangible paint and canvas. So... we'll see how that goes. So far I just have some blank canvas and paint that may or may not be dried out.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

No on Prop 8



I'm not usually one to talk politics or voting, but this one rings home for me... I think my family and friends deserve equal opportunities and I hope that same sex marriage becomes legal in all 50 states!!

So to all of my California voter peeps...
Do me a solid and vote NO on prop 8.  Don't we all deserve an equal opportunity to marry the ones we love?

Video made by my suuuuuper talented friend Adrian!  Check his blog out to the right over there ------->

Friday, September 26, 2008

Thursdays are back!!!

YES!

If you didn't watch... shame on you... BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION!!
Predictions for this season:

Angela is having Dwight's baby... hence the need to put on weight... and it's Dwight's because she has yet to see Andy nakie.

Toby will come back once he's healed... because his hospital bills probably depleted any savings he had.

Jan's baby... will be the deciding factor for Michael... and he will stick with Jan instead of Holly. (even though I love Holly and want her to stay forever). Who is the real father of Jan's baby? I'm skeptical about the sperm bank next to IHOP... Hunter?

Kelly will eventually get back with Ryan, but she's going to make him wait for a while. A while meaning until he proposes and wants to make babies.

Pam will finish out at Pratt... but the distance will put a strain on the relationship. Jealousy will ensue a-la Jim. Pam didn't seem to have many friends in Scranton and I don't think Jim will look forward to sharing. Maybe they will second guess the engagement... dun dun dun!

Jim will play more pranks... mostly on Dwight.

Dwight... well... I think he's going to become a father. The truth will come out and ruin Andy and Angela's "relationship"...

Angela is going to end up doing something to push Phyllis over th edge... cat's outta the bag!

And everyone else will be awesome too.

I guess we'll see in the Spring if I'm onto anything :)

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Best Kind of Fur Ball.

WARNING: This ended up being way longer than I thought. Mah bad.


So last night I had the great fortune of attending the rescue group I volunteer for (Kitten Rescue)'s fundraiser. It was called the Fur Ball at the Skirball. I'm pretty much going to just sum up the awesomeness of the day :)

So me and the boyfriend woke up early and headed out to Van Nuys to pack up all of the auction items and gift bags onto the moving truck so that it could all be taken to the Skirball center. It was there that I first set eyes on my prize... the prize I knew I needed to have... a signed script from The Office. There it was in all its glory I didn't get a chance to see which episode it was for, but I wanted it anyways. It was in a gift basket packaged with a Dunder Mifflin hat. There were other Office goodies to be had... including a signed photo of the entire cast, a signed Dwight bobble head, a signed piece of Dunder Mifflin luggage, a signed season 3 Dvd set, and a signed "World's Best Boss" mug packaged with an Office t-shirt (conveniently in my size). So anyhoo... we loaded up the truck and then went back to Kev's apartment for lunch. Side note... we watched the end of Season 3 of the Office an episode called The Job.

Then a dilemma... my cat Sqeaker had evidently decided this dress was pretty much his favorite to sleep on. Seeing that it was silk and he is rather portly... there was no ironing out these wrinkles. After some internet scouring we found a tip and resulted in a less-wrinkled dress. We finished getting ready and we were off.

We got to the Skirball an hour early just in case they needed any extra help setting things up.
When we got there they had it all under control so we moseyed around. As people started to line up we did too and were some of the first people in. The event started at 6pm with a nice cocktail hour complete with cat themed specialty drinks... I had the Tom Cat. There was a greatpianist named Jason Farnham who played for the first 45 minutes of the night. Also starting at 6pm was the silent auction. It was located on the upper level so we went up stairs to check it all out and put down our bids on the Office stuff. Since I forgot to earlier, I checked to see which script it was in the gift basket and lo and behold it was The Job which we had just watched before leaving. FATE I TELL YA!!!

While I was up there I caught a glimpse of Jenna Fischer doing some interviews along the red carpet. For those of you who don't know... she's pretty much my favorite EVER! But anyways... we continued along our tour of the auction items and eventually made our way back downstairs for a drink. As I was walking to get a drink Jenna happened to get thirsty at the same time... yep. I didn't say anything to her, just got my drink and went and walked around checking out the plans for the Shelter that Kitten Rescue was hoping to renovate with the night's donations. After that we went back up stairs because of my paranoia of losing the auction... from up there I watched Phoenix Projekt perform their fire dancing act.

Boyfriend got tired of hovering around the Office stuff and decided he would go get us seats for the dinner so that we would be at least facing the stage. Shortly there-after, it just so happened that Ms. Fischer was checking our her donations to the auction. She was worried that people didn't know that all of the stuff was signed... and it was true... I didn't know the season 3 Dvds were signed and I didn't know the Bobble Head was signed and I didn't know where the suitcase was signed. Well.. this would not do. So she opened up the bobble head and luggage and wrote on the Dvd's paper that it was in fact signed on the inside by the entire cast.

While Jenna was adjusting everything her friend Ryan stood next to me out of the way. He asked what I was bidding on a such and wished me luck. So I stand up there for a little longer. Finally I realize that the show is going to be starting in the next 15 minutes so I mustered up my courage and walked over to Jenna. She was talking with another office fan... Kristina... who had a whole book of awesomeness that they were looking through. I kinda just waited in the wings and again chatted it up with Ryan. I told him how much of a dork I felt like for asking for a picture... at this point he goes, "Oh no don't worry about it" and grabs the camera and calls Jenna over.

OMG. So this all is sort of a blur my apologies if I forget things.


So she introduces herself and I introduce myself and Ryan takes a couple of pictures (which was so awesome of him). I tell her I love the show etc. She says... well come along with us! (Um are you serious!?!!?) Yes she was serious. So me and Kristina join Jenna and Ryan as they finish walking the auction and head downstairs. I'm not sure how she got on the subject but she talked about the Creative Emmy's and how unfortunately The Office didn't win. She talked about how much fun it was to go and how it was better than the actual Emmy's and that she would definitely be going again. She talked about some of the people she met, one of them being Tom Hanks. She said he was so cool. He sat out in his seat in the audience the whole time, instead of waiting in the green room as some celebs often do. She seemed really stoked to have gotten to meet him. She said he just walked over and said 'Hi I'm Tom'... like no really? haha. She mentioned Kathy Griffin getting in trouble for dropping the F bomb again and mentioned a few other celebs Seth Green, Ashley Tisdale. Jenna made sure that we would tell you all the Ashley is SUPER nice. Like the nicest ever. (I beg to differ... Jenna is in fact the nicest ever... I mean come on... she let two fans tag along with her like it was no big deal).

So at this point its getting close to the time that Jenna has to go on so we're walking back into the auditorium when some ladies stopped her and asked her to ride in a race car. Evidently... its in her contract that they cannot ride in race cars or sky dive or do any other dangerous things. So Jenna chats with us for a little while longer. Kristina asked her what the 'gang sign-ish' thing she was doing in the promos was all about. (I secretly hoped she wouldn't tell us because I like to be surprised) She said she couldn't tell us, but that it did have to do with Pam trying to be 'hip'. About this time we all sort of concurred that she needed to get ready for her hosting gig. Jenna said she'd try to catch a us again towards the end of the night, but said she had to leave the event a little bit early as she had to get up at 5 to go to work. I mentioned that I too had to get up at 5am to get on a flight. She then asked me where I was flying and I told her I had come down from San Francisco. She was so sweet and thanked me so much for coming down for the event. And it was about that time that they said 5 minutes till the auction was closing, so we said our goodbyes and wished Jenna luck. Me and Kristina ventured back upstairs to the auction to... hover. Haha.
I was bidding on the mug/t-shirt and the script/hat and Kristina was bidding on the Dwight bobble head/signed photo. We chatted about how surreal the last 15 mins had been until one of the night's volunteers officially ended the bidding. Me and Kristina both got what we were bidding on! After totally having a geek out moment we composed ourselves and went back to our respective tables. At this time the Kodama Taiko Drummers performed. They were awesome! Okay so now its about 745 and Kim (who organized the event) came up on stage and said a few words and then introduced Jenna.

Jenna came up and shared her story about how she got involved with Kitten Rescue. She joked that it was actually the 11th anniversary, but that rescuers always round down. For instance your 2 year old foster is just a little over a year old at adoptions. She talked about how she had wanted to volunteer with animals so she typed into google 'animal rescue Los Angeles' and Kitten Rescue popped up. She thought that sounded good so she called the number and went through the application process and home check and was approved to be a suitable foster parent. At this point she adds that she thought maybe within the next two weeks she thought maybe she'd get a call... no... 4 hours later she had her first foster kitten. She continued in saying that she had that kitten for 2 weeks before it was adopted and said... "oh this is easy". Then she was convinced to take Honeybear... a 27lb. cat who hid under her couch for 7 months. Eventually Honeybear was adopted by a woman who didn't care if she never saw him. She talked about her efforts to do the Trap Neuter Release program for feral cats... where they said under no circumstances let the cat out... well she saw the kitty in the trap and decided it would be better in a carrier. Which ended with the cat inside her husband's car engine.

She continued to talk about all of the great volunteers for the organization and gave everyone a run down of what would be going on during the evening. Then she introduced the President of Kitten Rescue. He talked about all the volunteers in the organization and had us all stand up and then they presented an award. Jenna then came back on stage and introduced the woman who started Kitten Rescue. She talked about how it all started, thanked the committee, and another award was given out. Jenna came back out and introduced the woman in charge of Kitten Rescue's Shelter. Another award was given out and then Jenna introduced the video.

At this point I get nervous because they had interviewed me for this video and I thought I sounded stupid. The video starts and gives some history. In the video Jenna told a heart breaking story of when she used to answer phone calls for the group. A woman had called and told her that her cat had just been diagnosed with kidney failure and she was going to have to give it sub-q fluids and she wasn't really into that and wanted to give Kitten Rescue her sickly 13 year old cat. Jenna happened to mention this phone call to another rescuer who said, 'oh my God, a woman I know just lost her cat of 22 years and she had been giving him sub-q fluids for years. Let me go talk to her'. And could you believe it that woman took that 13 year old cat. She called up the 'horrible' owner and they got the cat. (Jenna choked up at this part of the video... for those of you who don't know a 13 year old cat is not highly adoptable and when you add on top of that the cat had kidney failure and needed constant care... its incredible that this worked out). At this point I'm blinking away tears because I have adopted 2 hard to place cats... a feral kitten with a severely broken leg and an older black and white kitty (both of which turned out to be the best cats in the whole world). The video continued to touch on how amazing the organization is and cute kitty video ensues... tears... and... thankfully none of my interview! Which I thought was great because I mostly talked about a certain section of Kitten Rescue called the Hope Fund, which is set up for kitties that come in with catastrophic injuries. They did put one clip of me and Squeaker cuddling on the couch towards the end which was cute.

The president came up again after the video and talked about the future of the organization. Then someone read something that they had written about animal rescuers called "Not on my watch" which was followed by a fund drive. After he was finished Wendy McLendon-Covey (from Reno 911) came up and gave out the raffle prizes. And then at about 930 Jenna came up and thanked everyone for coming and introduced the final performer Rossana. At this point I was so tired and knowing that I had to get up at 5 we decided to head out. I didn't get to chat with Jenna again, but I saw she left about the same time I did. We waited in line for my auction winnings and grabbed our gift bags.

To any of you out there who might want to give a donation please go to www.KittenRescue.org

They are an amazing organization that I am proud to be a part of. In the year I've been with them they have helped me save 5 kitties. Just think... you could help too.

Little Man - Jack

Squeaker

Dunder and Mifflin

The end.

Oh, and for those who care I did make it back to work this morning by 9am to show the director my shots in dailies and I did get my cable installed... which did not go as awesome as planned... they seem to want to cut a hole in the wall... me thinks... not so much.

Friday, September 5, 2008

You say goodbye and I say hello

I'm sorry for the lack of updates. It has been a crazy past few weeks for me. I finished up working on Bolt at Disney, packed up all of my things, moved 300 miles north, and started my new/old job at Pixar!

So here I sit in my temporary office awaiting the return of my supervisor to get into gear for Up!!!

I'm so excited to be back and I'm raring to go!

Friday, August 8, 2008

And... I think I'm done.




Welp... I think these might be as final as I get. I tried to get more of a richer contrast in the image overall. Or basically... add more darks. So yeah. Who shall I do next... Ryan? Dwight? Angela? Toby? Michael Scott? We shall see who I'm inspired by :)

In other news... I'm in the process of foiling my office mate's side of the office. She's on vacation, so I decided to continue the tradition and foil her like I foiled Nick. MUAHAHAHA.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Pam.


So yeah... here's the latest in my Office paintings: Jenna Fischer aka Pam Beesley

I'm not done yet, so there may be an update later with a more polished version. I'd like to get some more darks on her face as a whole. I dunno... Recent developments indicate I may have the slightest of chances of meeting her! And she is pretty much my fave so... as you can imagine I'm pretty stoked! Anyhoo... I should probably do some work here.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

This weekend was bananas B-A-N-A-N-A-S


So this past weekend was one of my most favorite weekends of the year: COMIC CON!

I did well this year, paying more for parking than I did for anything I bought at the convention. Me and Kevin decided to venture down to San Diego for the day on Wednesday to check out preview night and enjoy some time puttering around San Diego. My thinking was... this would be a day where there wouldn't be many people there and we'd be able to walk freely and get what we wanted before the hoards of people got there. I was proven wrong when we returned to get inside. We had to wait a half an hour just waiting in a line for an escalator to get onto the floor. I had no idea there were so many professionals and 4 day pass holders. WOOH. It was almost as busy as Saturday. So we just walked isles and stopped by to see friends who had booths and such. My main goal for the buying side of the con was to get Pascal Campion's book... and I'm proud to say this was my only purchase! I had never met Pascal, but I've admired his work on various blogs and websites. What a nice guy! I have high hopes on attending the Totoro auction and (if my wallet allows) bidding on his piece. After that we pretty much headed out to drive back to L.A.

Saturday we woke up really early to get back to San Diego. We got there a little before it opened in hopes of getting a seat in the room for The Office panel. We got around like 12th row seats and sat through some talk about a cartoon called Ben 10. After that we hopped forward a few rows for the Sarah Connor Chronicles or whatever its called. And when that was over I was able to run forward and score us some seats about 4 rows back from exactly where Rainn Wilson would be emceeing.
This is how they did their introductions:
It was AWESOME!! That's all I can say. At the end of the panel the writers signed a few autographs and I got B.J. Novak to sign my Dwight poster!

After The Office panel we did another walk through of the floor and saw some more friends and then headed home.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Office arts.



So... I love The Office, and while I am being starved for new episodes I'm going to be doing some new paintings. I'll start off with Jim Halpert. Go easy on me... I didn't have any pressure sensitivity on the wacom I used.

I'm hoping to at least get a Pam painting done, I actually have a preliminary sketch for her, but who knows... maybe a good Dwight and of course Kelly Kapur. Who knows... it all depends on overtimes at work, boredom, and the need to actually be artistic.

Oh speaking of The Office... THE WRITERS AND RAINN WILSON WILL BE AT COMIC CON!!! I'm so there!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Let it BEGIN!!!



Here it is... It'll be in front of WALL-E for all of you who get out to the theaters.

OH... and by the way... I did the shot of them rolling on top of the train at 1:53 and Mittens saying "BOLT" at 2:09....

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Just a little taste...

Well... it looks like the Disney Channel beat out the trailer. Here's a little sneak preview into Bolt.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I dont know what to say...

Tuesday March 18th I lost a friend and former coworker, Justin Wright. Justin was a story intern the same summer that I was an animation intern. All of my room mates were story interns so I spent a bit of time over in their room. After we got hired Justin was the first former intern to start so I would go up and see what he was up to and we would geek out about how cool our dreams jobs were. I kept that up usually going up to chat once a week or so to see what he was working on and he'd show me how things worked up there since I had a big interest in story. He spent an hour once showing me how their software worked and showing me how he was doing his stuff for WALL.E. And every so often he'd accompany me and Valerie to Starbucks as the coffee at work was not up to our likings. I just can't believe that I'll never get to run up those stairs and check out what he's working on again...


Rest In Peace Justin.

Friday, February 29, 2008

tilly-willy


You can hate on her tiny head all you want, but she's been up on Stuffonmycat twice!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Introducing...

So here they are. The three main character's in Bolt. I promise the dog and hamster don't really have levitation powers... and the cat is not wet... nor does her fur still look like that. And... the movie has some really cool action scenes... they're not just walking to L.A. :)

Anyways... exciting to see images get released!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

False.


So I've been watching a lot of The Office lately.  This is just a quick sketch/work in progress...

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

A little more permanent than originally planned.


So after much soul searching and deliberation... Jack and Squeaker are going to become permanent fixtures in the VanderGalien/Andrus abode.  They're our boys... no question about it.