Busy Busy...

It's been a tremendously busy few months since my last post here. Along with working on a new campaign for the good folks here at DNS Made Easy, I've also been working on this. Little Lucy was born in the middle of August and just recently became 1 month old.

So yeah, no updating as frequently as I should be, but I did want to step away and post some new work while I was thinking about it. Here's an illustration I submitted for review over at TeeFury.com, a website that sells a different user-designed shirt every day. I call it "Cherry Pickin."

A few videos I produced for DNS Made Easy also went live finally. I was pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback we've received from customers, and potential customers alike.

That's all I've got time for for now. I'll post links to more work as it's completed.

Back in the Saddle

Sorry everyone. It has been entirely too long since I've updated this poor blog. I know I've said that in the past, but I'm not certain that I ever let it sit for quite this long.

I suppose an explanation is in order (even though you've most likely deduced it on your own). Last year, around the time of my last blog post, I was working upwards of 80-90 hours a week between 4 different companies both at home and onsite. It was a fairly insane schedule and I'm only too happy to be free of it. My work with the Teaching Company came to a close soon after and I accepted a full time position as Creative Director with Tiggee LLC, branding their company DNS Made Easy. I've been with the company for over a year now and have produced a medley of animated shorts. I still do some freelance work on the side, but Tiggee is the company I work for primarily. The position has challenged me both creatively and professionally, and forced me to work outside my normal workflow a little, but it's been some of the most fun I've had in the field since I started doing this back in 2004.

Below you'll find some examples of work I produced for the company accompanied by a brief description of each piece and cast notes.

The pieces were designed in Illustrator and animated in After Effects. I was responsible for writing and reworking the scripts with edits from the company's president: Casting, directing, recording and editing the voice over: Designing and animating all characters, sets and motion graphics pieces: Also edited the spots and added music and sound effects. The voice-over artists were David Coyne, Nicole Vaka, and myself.

Another Exciting Week!

Things got a bit hectic last week. Worked with The Teaching Company, BET and Castle Gate Media. Finished everything though and I've got some more work to nail out over the weekend.

Underwent a Maya trial by fire working on the logos for a new talk show (above), and a new reality show for BET. The P&G project wrapped, though most of the work I did wasn't used as there was a mix up in communication. *shrug, that's show business :p. Also finished some instructional animations for CFC on behalf of Castle Gate Media. Not to mention the cool map look I came up with for a course on the Dead Sea Scrolls for Teachco (below), and the sample lecture on Germ Theory I finished for them. Very interesting look at the history of disease and disease prevention.

Most exciting thing last week, I would have to give to my wife Stacy's Birthday on 08/22. I picked up a nice bottle of champagne and cooked a romantic dinner for two. I think she had a great time, and I managed to get things cleaned up a little. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday :). I might have gone a little bit overboard, but it's worth it to see her smile :D.

Next week holds new work, wonders and fun!

Now We Know...

Hi again!

I felt so bad for not updating more frequently that I've done a record two posts in one day!

I just realized that I completely forgot to mention this simple promo I threw together for BET two weeks ago. They wanted to do 3 spots for the new G.I. Joe movie that hit theaters a week ago and asked me to do a type of "Breaking News interruption," for them.

They wrote the script, shot the footage on green screen and I handled the compositing and news graphics look and feel in After Effects. This was the first draft of the video so there's still timecode and a watermark on some of the footage that Paramount provided us. The footage of the Eiffel Tower I ripped off from the HD trailer on the movie's website :D.

Sadly neither of the spots I produced will see the air waves as Paramount and the Ad Sales department of BET could not reach a compromise on the direction of the campaign. That's show business. Regardless, I got paid and I had fun, so I'm not really worried about it :p.

Please be gentle on my lens flare, I used one to give it even more of a cheesy, local news look.

Back in Action!

Hello readers! I'm back in action.

My apologies for the lack of updates throughout the remainder of June and the complete and utter lack of them in July, but I have been quite busy! For example; SHORTV IS FINISHED!!! Yay! Above is the call for entries video. I imagine they'll be needing more episodes shortly, but I've yet to hear anything yet so we'll see what happens.

As for everything else, I'm currently producing educational sample lectures with the Teaching Company and working on a project for P & G at BET. I also just wrapped a project with Castle Gate Media for the CFC and a Flash banner for a restaurant in Charlottesville, VA.

I turned 26 on the 5th as well!

Once more, my apologies for the complete lack of anything even remotely resembling an update as of late. If you don't already, follow me on Twitter to get more up to the minute updates if you're interested :D. http://www.twitter.com/nickdesigns

I'll get some of the BET stuff up once everything wraps. but in the mean time, thanks for bearing with me :).

What happened to May?

I want to begin by apologizing for my complete and utter lack of updates for the month of May (and the majority of June). Spent the majority of the month working on landing new gigs and doing a little traveling and babysitting my nephew. I have been keeping up with Twitter, but that doesn’t update here so again, my apologies.

On the business end I’m back working with The Teaching Company onsite in Chantilly as of May 26. I enjoy the gig because it’s interesting work, I learn a lot, and there’s always LOTS of it :D.

Biggest news is the completion of the rough-cut of the final episode of ShorTV. The new deadline for the end of July will not only be met, but met nearly a month early. YAY! Once the show airs (which should be some time in Autumn), I'm throwing a party to watch the premiere. It's not every day you can point at the TV and say "See that show there? I produced that. The whole thing." Needles to say, quite excited about the whole thing. I don't want to post any animated examples until the show airs, however I should be able to post the call for entries animation once I add some sound effects and music to it. More on that soon.

I also started work with a new company in May called hi road productions:

http://www.hiroadproductions.com/. It’s an interesting company; they do storyboards and animatics exclusively. I’ve seen some of the commercials they’ve done pre-production on and I’m familiar with all the brands they’ve worked with. I worked on some Petsmart spots and a few scenes for a Realize Waist Band spot for them. I hadn’t done too many animatics since college so it was a great opportunity to re-familiarize myself with the process.

I’m also getting ready to re-vamp my Café Press store after thumbing through some stuff on Threadless. Tremendous website if you’ve never been there: http://www.threadless.com. HIGHLY recommended for anyone looking for really dynamic and funny shirts.

On the personal front I was recently spotted traversing the wild south of Virginia exploring such sites as Foam Henge, Enchanted Dinosaur Kingdom, Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, Professor Cline’s Monster Museum, Natural Bridge, a parade float museum and TONS more! Went with Stacy and my good friend James who brought his new girlfriend along for the ride. We were both driving Honda Fits through the state in a pseudo-convoy. I folded the seats down in my fit to accommodate the 3 dogs riding in the back. 2 day road trip + 4 people + 3 dogs = tons of fun anecdotes that I don’t have time to get into, but will post about in a separate entry :D. You can consider the picture above this entry as a tease :p.

Again, sorry I haven’t been keeping up on the posts as often as I should. I’m getting ready to begin work on a personal project with a tight deadline. I know my post will most likely become infrequent again, but ideally I’m looking to post updates as I work such as sketches, notes about the plot, etc…

Enojoy June! It only comes about once a year after all :D.

Toddler Tales!

Finally! Toddler Tales makes it way to my blog; and only two months after completing the project. The characters were all created in Illustrator and animation was completed in After Effects. We scrapped the first voice we had and got an eight-year-old to lay down the final audio. It sounds good, but it took hours to cut it all together into something cohesive. The client was very happy with the end product and I believe it is still airing on BET.

On a side note, I’m going to try and upload more of my examples to this blog, perhaps link to YouTube so users will be able to watch a High-Quality version instead of the little Blogger version… Hmmm, more on that later.