This is the last of the pre-Christmas Shadow Boxes, but the first one I completed.  My friend’s sneaky wife ordered this one up as a Christmas surprise.  I’ll have some more to post about this one in my next post.

Here’s another shadow box commission that I did before Christmas.  A break from my Star Wars art and into another movie that I love “The Princess Bride.”  Here is Wesley and Buttercup leaving the Fire Swamp.

Now that the Christmas gift giving is over I can start to post some of the commissions that I’ve done.  Here’s the first duel between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader.

It’s only about 46 degrees here in Arizona, so it’s really not THAT frightful.  I did however have to put on a long sleeve shirt with my shorts.  To help get me in that wintery holiday spirit my friend Jeff pointed me to Gizmodo for some wonderful photographs taken by a guy from Helsinki, Finland who goes by Avanaut over on Flickr.  He has combined Lego, Star Wars, Hoth, and some wonderful photographic techniques to make this photo simply irresistible.

I believe that this image is created all in camera. No fixing it later, no adding the snow in photoshop, just point and click. Well, it’s not really that easy. From the explanation on the Flixr page, the photographer has taken an old transparent CD storage box, filled it with some water and added a lightbox for lighting. He then put a gray Lego baseplate in the bottom and glued it down so the Legos wouldn’t float.  With the Lego in the water, he used reacted plaster of Paris to simulate the snow falling. Check out this behind the scenes photo. Simply brilliant!

Long before I’d ever heard of Jake Parker I was a fan of the artwork created by Agent 44.  I felt like Lois Lane when I finally connected the dots and found that these two were the same person!

I feel a certain kinship to Jake.  You see, he’s doing the things that I wanted to do.  He got that job at the animation studio and used the opportunity to learn everything he could.  He realized early on that the only work that is going to be steady is the work that you make for yourself.  He’s taken all of this talent and all connections and has put it together in his very first solo graphic novel. The following video was put together by Darren Rawlings.

you can hear the podcast below or click on the image to visit the site.

You can also head over toAmazon and pre-order this book.  I’ve got mine!

On December 21st, 1937 my world changed.  Hmmm, well, now that I think of it, it wasn’t really my world yet!  This day marks the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full color, the first to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first in the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon.  I knew that it was I wanted to do.  I grew up watching these animated features and explaining to everyone that I knew that my life’s ambition was to be a Disney animator.  Well, I went to college for a semester, then spent 2 years as a missionary in Japan, returned home, finished another semester of college, changed majors, changed schools, changed majors, got married, and then graduated with a Fine Arts Degree from Arizona State University.

I interviewed and has a portfolio review at Disney but it didn’t go anywhere.  Fox Animation Studios set up shop in Phoenix and I met with people, toured and tested for positions, but I never made it there either.  I settled into a job working to create graphics and illustrations for online training courses, but it was NOT traditional animation.  I’ve worked to at this job for 10 years now, and I’m slowly starting to work my way into doing my original dream.  It’s not quite traditional animation, but I’m having a blast drawing Star Wars!

On a side note, after Snow White was released, Walt Disney saw a need to expand the studio and he used the profits from Snow White to build this studio in Burbank.  The success of Disney animation is built upon the Seven dwarfs so they are shown holding up the roof on the main administration building. Thanks Uncle Walt!

photo by Loren Javier

This wonderful 1949 recording is by Margaret Whiting And Johnny Mercer. It was released 3 months before the premiere of Neptune’s Daughter and the song reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6, 1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at number four.

In 2006, Capitol records released a 16-song expanded version of Dean Martin’s “Christmas With Dino” featuring a new duet with country music star Martina McBride. McBride recorded her part of the duet at the Capitol Recording studios where Dean Martin’s original version of the song was recorded in 1959. Tragically, Dean Martin died Christmas morning in 1995.

In another wonderful reversal of the role of the mouse and the wolf, Selma Blair & Rainn Wilson perform the song in a commercial for the Gap.

The duet was written by Frank Loesser Loesser in 1944 and premiered the song with his wife at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party. Then in 194 Loesser sold the song rights to MGM, which inserted the song into its 1949 motion picture, Neptune’s Daughter. The film featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. In the second version the roles of the mouse and the Wolf are reversed. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song.