Star Wars Taco-Nacho Baby Shower!

I was "commissioned" to make the decor and favors for my sister-in-law's baby shower. First things first, my other sisters-in-law and my brother helped come up with "punny" names for the taco/nacho bar. So we had a list going without even knowing what exactly was on the menu. It was fun to come up with, but as soon as we got a finalized list of the food, some proved to be hard to think of a pun.

Some names needed some visuals to help it, some just conjured up some funny images in my head that inspired me to break out the pencil and draw again.

Here are some lovely snapshots from Sandy Wu:

One of the crowd favorites and my favorite to draw was "Han Pollo."

My personal favorite because I layered in actual photo texture of tortillas...mmm...

Most names provided by Teri and Dano Garcia. Teri did the lettering and did a better job on creating the star background on the welcome banner.

There's a "Jedi Salsa" with a green lightsaber for the salsa verde and "Jar Jar Chips" in the back. "Chewbacca-mole" was a crowd favorite and "Leia of Lettuce" was my sister-in-law's favorite. "TaunTaun Guts" is actually a modified and cropped version of "Dead Tauntaun" by beackadoodles/DeviantArt. 

I thought it was cute when one of the little kids was asking his dad if he could have some "Berry BB-8", a real kid-pleaser.

I did the background as well, all done with regular scissors and a blade, which was harder to do than I thought. No cricut used here.

We used the Star Wars font provided by Boba Fonts. Some cutouts are from a font set provided by Tom Mouat.

In addition to the decor, I also did the party favors. They were chocolate Han Solos with black M&M's and gold candy-coated pearl chocolates.

Labels by Teri Garcia

Han Solo black chocolate

Star Wars and tacos into the night

What I'll be working on all night long...cutting, taping, and making chocolates

These are the finished product of my sketches.
Materials: blue highlighter, India ink, scanner, Photoshop

Dr. Urey of Miller-Urey

Tried sketching cartoony versions of scientists at work and ended up with Carl Fredricksen...

Here's a screenshot of the finished graphics for one of the UC Scout video lessons in AP Bio.

Working with UC Scout

Here's a clip of something I've been working on for the past few weeks (while filming a Holocaust lecture at the main UC Santa Cruz campus and helping record green screen footage for UC Scout's AP Biology online course)

AP-BIO-Polymerization from UC Scout on Vimeo.

Did I mention I love my job?!

Roto & Paint Fix Demo Reel 2014

Demo Reel Breakdown

Pretty Sweet Premiere

September and October, my work took on other jobs besides our usual client. To be honest, it was much more fun because the director was very creative and quirky. The project was a skate vid directed by Spike Jones and Ty Evans. As a nice reward for working hard, we got tickets to the premiere last night at the gorgeous, historic Orpheum Theater in downtown LA. The theater was packed, lots of skater dudes casually dressed, the atmosphere was energetic, Johnny Knoxville was there,met the actress from "40-year-old Virgin", had free pizza outside in "Pretty Sweet" boxes, and Snoop spinning at the after party. It was highly anticipated and our VFX added charm for each skater's intro.

ENJOY!

8-bit Derby hero

As you know....or don't know, roller derby has taken over my life. After a dull or overly stressful week at work, getting knocked around on skates somehow wakes me up and makes me feel so ALIVE! My obsession with derby combined with my new found talent in pixel art created these during my downtime at work....whenever possible.

8-bit pixel pixie

Last week was a slow week at work. I decided to help out a co-worker who was trying to promote our office move to our clients. One of the ideas thrown about was an 8-bit adventure animation ala Zelda or Dragon Warriors.

Pixel version of our old office, a cute yellow bungalow

Cabbage to fill in terrain

A slime monster to encounter on your way to the new office

iPad done for a request and something we work on  many times

The Home Depot in front of our new office building. Laborers wave at us every morning :)

camera usually used for our commercials

Banana Moon just for fun!

Pugicorn!

Pugicorn- a pug with a unicorn horn, inspired by a Youtube video and the pug in the Axe Cop comic.

Dog Fairy

Long time, no post. I was super busy with work. Now, it's slow.

First I drew a fairy since I was inspired by a coworker's costume idea.

Then I drew Lucy a dog owned by another coworker since she was whining all day.

Secret Garden

So after watching all the FXphd Nuke classes, I wanted to finish up a few shots I got from the course. I decided to finish this garden shot since it required paint fixes, 3D tracking, and rotoscoping.

Tea Sweetener

This is for a photo manipulation contest at EGL_comm_art. I thought this would be a great opportunity to exercise my photo manipulation and compositing skills. It took about 8 hours to finish; about two of those hours were done searching for images (I had other ideas and got sidetracked).
These are the original images used in the final piece:

High Tea set by  SalsolaStock. Tea cup stack from Valeriana Solaris. Girl photo from Miss Hermes.

The following shows my progress:


Final piece with accompanying icon:

Compositing Demo Reel

This is my demo reel for compositing.

Demo Reel Breakdown Sheet
It's available for download here.

Hitgirl: from start to finish

Final:



DONE! now just playing with the final image with background and text.