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Randall Kaplan

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Randall Kaplan. I’m a filmmaker, animator, freelance artist and designer.  I’m making an animated horror film called ‘Boxhead’.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
I bar backed for a heavy metal bar (cleaning up vomit) and worked at Starbuck’s (cleaning up vomit). I also edited wedding videos for many years (not exactly true to my sensibility.)

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, I’m very proud of my 5 original short films that were distributed in the anthology, ‘Beneath the Flesh’.  Aside from that, I worked as an editor on Beavis and Butt-head and also did some voices for the show. I’m very happy about that. I’m also very proud to have designed the creatures in an upcoming horror movie called ‘Crabs!’ Yes…that’s the title.  There was also this one wedding video I edited that was just gorgeous.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? 
I’m from Brooklyn back when nobody wanted to go there. I grew up around animation. My mother is in the business and for many years I did my best to avoid it.  One day Continue reading

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OLD BUT GOOD TECH THURSDAY: FUJITSU T901

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Old-But-Good-Tech-logo

Old But Good Tech Thursday
#oldbutgoodtechthursday
#tbt

Fujitsu t901
by Jason Kruse
www.jasontkruse.com

What can I say about the Fujitsu t901? It’s portable, durable and powerful enough for most of my needs. It’s got a zippy core i5 processor, 256gb SSD hard drive, 13.3″ screen that makes drawing a pleasure. And for someone who prefers to draw on the couch instead of at a desk, it’s pretty much perfect. Plus, it’s far cheaper than a Cintiq.

This is now my 2nd Fujitsu and let me tell you, it’s a great purchase. I bought this model refurbished 2.5 years ago off of a private seller on ebay after owning the Fujitsu t4220 (also bought on ebay) for over 3 years. I was so pleased with the quality on the t4220 that I decided to stay with Fujitsu. Refurbished, this thing was a steal. I got it for $579 (it didn’t hurt that my company at the time gave us money towards new tablets either). Since then, I’ve upgraded to an SSD hard drive and 8gbs of RAM. Because this is a convertible tablet, I’m constantly moving it around and the original hard drive got the dreaded BSOD. Not having any moving parts in the new hard drive gives me a little more piece of mind. Still, I highly recommend backing everything up with some kind of online service like Crashplan.
fire planet

 

I run quite a few programs on this little beauty and unless you’re working with a huge file, it really won’t have a problem. I mostly use Photoshop and Flash these days and I’ve run into very few issues (knock on wood). I’ve even used After Effects which is a notorious memory hog. To be fair, I’ve only done some editing  in that program but the Fujitsu didn’t have any problems. Illustrator, Manga Studio and Mischief also run smoothly on it. As for 3d, I haven’t tried it on here and frankly, something with a video card and 16gb will probably suit your needs a lot better. There are some tablets out there that do it but they’re few and far between. The Cintiq Companion, the t902 and a Lenovo x230 are the ones that spring to mind.

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There are really only a couple of cons I can give the t901. One is its weight. It certainly isn’t as portable as I would like. It weighs around 5lbs which doesn’t seem like much on paper but when you carry this around thru say, the airport, it gets annoying pretty quickly. On top of that, the battery doesn’t last long. I really can’t give you an estimate for how long a new battery might last since again, this machine is a refurb. It’s always plugged in and these days the battery seems to last at most, a half an hour. Maybe if I buy a new battery but I’m fine with the way it is.

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As for drawing on this computer, I give it a big thumbs up. The screen has some “tooth” to it and while it’s not at level of drawing on paper, it certainly doesn’t have that “drawing on water” feel that I experienced while playing with the Surface Pro 3 at the Microsoft Store. In fact, I’ve greatly cut down on my paper consumption in the last couple of years because of this computer. The pen is a good size for me and there’s a handy dock on the lower-front of the machine. It’s also got usb ports, hdmi, SD slot–pretty much all the good stuff. And again, the 13.3″ screen is big enough so you won’t be hurting too much for drawing space.

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All in all, you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with any Fujitsu. Lately, I’ve been toying with upgrading to the t904 but honestly, I think this one still has a lot of life left in it. You really can’t go wrong with a Fujitsu.

 

 

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20 free chalk, charcoal and graphite brushes By Dave Nagel

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art brushes for Photoshop

 

I was just alerted to some free Photoshop brushes for download online.
Download them here!
Thanks Casey Bug!

From the site:

This new library of brushes for Adobe Photoshop–Nagel Series 33–offers 20 custom brushes designed to emulate four different types of “natural” media. (By the way, if you’re wondering why I always put the “natural” in quotes, it’s owing to the fact that there’s nothing particularly natural about chemically produced media–at least no more so than anything else you might work with. It’s just a useful phrase to differentiate traditional media from digital media.) The types of media emulated in this series are chalk, charcoal (including charcoal pencil), dry brushes and that most sketchy of media, the good, ol’ graphite pencil.

There are seven chalk brushes in total, designed to produce a light, soft texture with ragged edges. The charcoals have a more pronounced texture and include two thinner charcoal pencils, which build up density and thickness with pressure and tilt. There are also four “dry brushes,” which are essentially meant to mimic paint brushes with drying pigment applied to them. These will produce light and sparse regions when you’re painting, which can be useful for working on background textures. And then there are the five pencils, which are designed to resemble various graphite implements, including one that allows you to mimic a pencil on its side. All of the brushes are fully dynamic and take advantage of features found in Wacom Intuos, Cintiq and Graphire tablets, including pressure and tilt. (Graphire and some Cintiq models don’t support pen tilt.) They’re also fully customizable, so you can adjust controls and brush characteristics to suit your needs.

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2D Wednesday- Die Young

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RnyPlRce64

For this week’s 2D Wednesday, we have a truly beautiful piece and it was even done as a personal project. Imagine THAT! I can’t even put into words how much I love this piece by Vivienne Medrano called Die Young set to Kesha’s song of the same name. It’s colorful, playful, well animated and well designed. If any of you know her we’d LOVE to do an interview with her!

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Johnny Ortiz

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Juan Ortiz, but sometimes I go as Johnny Ortiz because I share the same name with a well known comic book artist from the ’80s that isn’t me. Right now I am freelancing as a designer/illustrator. Most of the work is either for Disney or Warner Bros., but when I have the time I am also creating and publishing my own comic books. I recently created 80 Star Trek posters of the original series for CBS.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
My first job was working for Disney, so I really don’t have an answer for this question. Although at times we did get a little nuts.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In 1989, I was fortunate enough to illustrate covers for “Looney Tunes” and “Tiny Toons” magazines, published by DC Comics. The magazines were edited by Joey Cavaleiri and the late Joe Orlando. I did that for about four years before working for the WB Studio Store. The stores had just started up and WB was about to open their flagship store in NYC. That was an exciting and fun experience that I am proud to say I was a part of. At least during 1993 and 1994.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in Puerto Rico and raised in “Hell’s Kitchen” on the west side of NYC. I did take some animation courses and dabbled in story-boarding but I never Continue reading