For the past few months a couple of my former students and I have been working on creating a pilot for an animated series. I can't say too much about it at this point because we're going to be pitching it to networks soon. What I can do is show you a couple shots from the pilot.

We completed the animatic back in January and it debuted at the ARTrepreneures Showcase hosted by the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis and the Cortex Innovation Community. The animatic was very well received so we decided to move forward with finishing the show. Because this is a passion project right now, we've mainly been doing this in our spare time, however, I'm happy to report that the pilot episode is in final editing at this point and we'll be scheduling a screening soon. More on that as things develop.

Credits:
Me: Animation, Camera, Clean-up & Color, Sound Design, Backgrounds
Pltnm06Ghost: Character Designs, Storyboards, Backgrounds
Tommy Benoist: Storyboards, Clean-up & Color, Backgrounds
Taylor Gooden: Character Designs, Backgrounds
Music: "Nontinde Vendor Theme" by RoccoW

Students from the Graphic Arts Association will be selling their work at Anime STL this weekend. The students have spent the past year working under the guidance of Neko Pilarcik-Tellez to produce original T-Shirts, Prints, Buttons, Stickers, and Video Game Controller skins. Anime STL is the region’s largest anime convention, drawing over 5000 attendees. Their Artists’ Alley is a juried space and the students beat out some stiff competition to be accepted in. Neko and her students will be there all weekend, so if you happen to be there, stop by and say hi.

The Graphic Arts Association, Fine Art Club, and Photography Club partnered up for a whirlwind tour of Kansas City last Friday. 26 students boarded the bus at 5:30 in the morning to spend the day visiting art museums, galleries, and film / animation studios.
 
In the morning, the students toured the campus of the Kansas City Art Institute and visited the Kemper Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. Many of my animation students were excited to see the animation and illustration spaces at KCAI. Julia Welles was kind enough to lead our tour group and spend time answering the many questions of my two students who will be transferring to KCAI in the fall.

That afternoon the groups split up to explore downtown Kansas City. Michael Quintero and Christine Giancola took students to the Crossroads Arts District to visit art galleries and photograph the city. Neko Pilarcik-Tellez arranged tours of two animation studios: Wide Awake Films and Intake Studio. At the studios, students got a behind-the-scenes look at how animation is produced for big-name clients like the National Geographic Channel and AMC Theaters. It was a fun day, packed with new experiences for all.

Last night, I received a Certificate of Alumni Accomplishment from the St. Louis Community College Board of Trustees. I'm so honored to have received not one, but two, of these awards in the past decade. I was given the award in recognition of all I've done as a teacher there, in particular, setting up a mentorship program for recent STLCC - Florissant Valley Animation graduates.

For this program, I selected a diverse group of very talented recent graduates. These artists work as my apprentices, helping me with the art and animation on an animated series, as well as other paid opportunities. I was awarded a grant from the RAC which I’m using to pay them for their work. My hope is that this will provide them with a stepping stone to continue to hone their skills and gain professional experience to keep their careers moving forward.

Animation is, by nature, a collaborative process. It's been a lot of fun getting to work with other animators on something we all enjoy.

It was the strangest thing, Alexis Nugent, the College's Marketing and Communications Coordinator emailed me with a bunch of questions about my time in the Regional Arts Commission's Fellowship at the Center for Emerging Technologies which I'd participated in. Turns out they decided to do an article about it and it's actually on the front page of the college's website!

I'm not sure how long it'll be there, but here's the permalink to the story stlcc.edu/Newsroom/2018/January/News4.html Needless to say, I'm very flattered! ^_^

On Friday, January 12th CIC St. Louis hosted ARTrepreneurs: Designing Bridges for Creative Innovation, a showcase featuring artwork created by the 2017 RAC Artists Cohort at CET.

I was one of 6 artists chosen from the St. Louis area, by the Regional Arts Commissions of St. Louis (RAC), to participate in this pilot program which helps partner artists with the local start-up and entrepreneur community at the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) and the Cortex Innovation Community (CIC). Each artist selected has plans to start or grow an art-related business in the St. Louis area.  This has given me the chance to meet with people that can help me better understand the business side of doing art.
 
For the past nine years, I’ve had a business doing animation and illustrations for clients in the entertainment industry however, that has always been working on other people’s projects. The RAC program gave me the opportunity to finally work on something all my own. My project has been the development of a new kind of animated series designed specifically for online viewing. I can’t get into too many specifics as this stage, but working on it has been a very exciting and rewarding experience.

At the ARTrepreneurs event my team and I debuted the animatic and concept art for the animated series. The event was extremely well attended, the room was packed! It was wonderful getting feedback from a live audience on the animatic, and a great way to celebrate everything I and my fellow artists have accomplished while working at the CET.

A big thanks goes out to Liz Pund - Program Manager at RAC, Christy Maxfield and Rikki Henry - Project Coordinators at the CET, and David Alexander - Cohort Leader for facilitating this wonderful opportunity. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my fellow Artists in the cohort:

- Bianca Fitzpatrick, Singer/Songwriter and Fashion Enthusiast
- Gina Grafos, Visual Artist
- Tim Hykes, User Experience Designer
- Lindsay Obermeyer, Artist and Creative Entrepreneur
- Kevin Street, Dancer and Musician

It's been so inspiring to work with such amazingly talented people. I'm so glad to have been a part of this. Okay... now it's time to get back to work on the animation!

I think I'm starting to get the hang of all the work-arounds I have to do with Maya on a Mac, so that's good. Still kinda wish I had a Windows or Linux machine though.

Time for a walk cycle!

My biggest challenge has been Maya's stark refusal to believe me when I tell it I'm using a three button mouse. I go into preferences, tell it "I have a three button mouse" and it says "no". I've looked online for a cheat sheet that tells me the keyboard buttons to press to simulate the mouse clicks but all I get are people yelling at other people to buy three button mice and/ or throw out their Macs. -_-0

The time has finally come for me to tackle the beast that is Maya animation! Here are some early exercises. I know, they're nothing special but a gal's gotta start somewhere, right?

* Please excuse the field guides, etc. using Maya on a Mac has been tricky, turning the field guides on was my work around to get these to render out.