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The next part of the evening is kind of a blur... I think the awards began as we were being served dinner... yes, because I remember waiting to eat. I got the vegetarian meal. I couldn't really tell what it was at first! I had to ask... and the waitress also had to ask! lol It looked interesting! Like a dark mush covered cauliflower? With some... stuff on the side? It was dark! I'm sure it looked amazing in the light. Turns out it was a Stuffed Portobello with a tomato based sauce, a side of beans, and quinoa! Right up my ally! I couldn't wait to eat it, but I did. I was in the 3rd group out of 16! I really didn't want to go up there with spinach in my teeth! So, I sat there and listened and watched. Which way are people walking off the stage after? When do I go up? How closely are people standing to the microphones? Fwewwf! What was I going to say!?! Thank you, oooobviously, but I have so many things I want to say! For now though, I would keep it short and sweet.

Then came the Emmys for Group #3... my name was announced!!!! I walked myself behind a big black curtain, and waited to be offered the stage along with my very own golden lady. Ok, I was a little more nervous now. I don't remember how I felt on stage... I just remember walking towards the Emmy, taking the Emmy from a couple of smiley ladies, walking up to the podium, and recalling what I wanted to say, saying it, and being REALLY happy that I didn't freeze up. Looking back at the video it was a little fast and not too inspiring, but genuine and candid, yes! I'll get it! There's always something to work on and I'm grateful to have a reason. :)

When I walked off stage there was a table with a bunch of boxes and someone asked to take my Emmy! but.. but... They smiled and told me oh, this is just a dummy Emmy. Yours is here! They handed me a big black bag with a big black box inside! Relief! I passed on the interview. I just wanted to go someplace and see within the big black box! I walked out into the lobby, opened it up, and got myself a few solo pictures in front of the step and repeat.

The rest of the night was a breeze for me! I got to sit back, enjoy my dinner which was SO DELICOUS, and watch my dear friends accept their golden ladies! Daisy Belle was awarded 5 out of 5 Emmys! Everyone on our team was awarded an Emmy in their category! William was awarded two!! The Emmys were  heavy and beautifully crafted. They came with a plate engraved with the winner's name, a screwdriver to attach the name plate, and a cleaning cloth. How thoughtful! We were like kids on Christmas morning, opening up our presents and putting the pieces together so we could play with, and admire our new toys.

Throwback time!

Back in the early 2000's I was obsessed with the idea of learning to animate. After 6 months of studying Autodesk Maya textbooks and learning how to create an animation from the ground up, I created an intro video for Solar Light Films that I would like to share with you today! I hope you enjoy the story of a butterfly that morphs into a bright light in the heavens. Watch the Butterfly Intro Video here.

#artobsession #anotherfirst #animation #throwback #solarlightfilms #creative #introvideo

A brief peek into the Production Design for Daisy Belle's Lavender Lady. I hope this will inspire ingenuity and determination in your creative process! Push the limits of your perceived abilities, have courage, and go make something great! 

I'd love to see what miniatures you have created! Feel free to post in the comments!

Practice makes perfect. Do with what you've got!

I’m on an animal illustration kick and having sooo much fun with it. It’s like being 7 again. Playing house, choosing who gets to be who or what.

When my sisters and I were little, like most kids, we played house. We used to create our character’s out loud to one another…you know, get the background on our supposed friends or enemies in the game so we knew who we were talking to. This was always my favorite part.

It wasn’t always sugarplums and lollipops though. We would argue over who got to be the singer or the figure skater. Sometimes one of us would choose to be a famous person, then the rest of use would struggle to think of our own famous person to be… it wouldn’t be long before we each had 3 different professions or a really hot boyfriend, a kickass job, and of course lots of money.

We had the most awesome collection of costumes. It makes my wardrobe today look tiny in comparison. There were 80’s prom and wedding dresses, cat and clown costumes, little house on the prairie clothes, and outfits from my old dance recitals.

Well, now I’m all grown up and I still get to dress up and play pretend, just in a slightly different way. Meet Mear the meerkat. He’s an explorer and thinker with a burning desire to get down to the bottom of things.

Today he is on an archaeological hunt with a messenger bag, his own design, specifically for these missions of discovery! The bag contains very important tools including a bucket, sifter, brush, hand pick, containers and pouches for organizing fossils and dirt samples, as well as a pouch for his colorful one of a kind glasses, made specifically for dating his findings in the field.

More characters like Mear are on their way, so keep on the look out.

I'm pretty much in love with terrariums and mini ecosystems! They are lush, self-sufficient, and potentially aware of the outside world. One day I was dreaming about starting a terrarium farm and the reoccurring thought that I wish I could shrink down, small enough to fit inside and explore these mini worlds crept into Brain's conversation. And then Brain said space... space... space?! Space... travel... ecosystems... traveling through space!  I'd love to float through the universe in space ecosystems! Why settle another planet when we could build our own!

Each pod is connected, by poly systems, to an inhabitable man-made sphere shaped. The hub acts as a core station that connects people to the pods... like an airport. The poly systems allow pods connected to the Hub to adjust distance from the Hub for climate control. The poly doubles as an elevator shaft as well. The Pod glass is very thick and polarized with an ability to reflect heat.

Tentacles on the underside of the pod are designed to collect minerals and gasses passing by or from nearby celestial bodies. They are also fitted with thrusters for smooth precision sailing through space. Most people live in community pods, but the wealthier people have their own custom pods that they like to take out into space as if they were sailing on the ocean. 

:D Somebody run with this idea for REAL please! I'd really like to stop worrying about our planet dying... and the fact that we'll die if it does.

I'd love to see your take on a space ecosystem! Please feel free to link to your ecosystem concept in the comments!

To lighten the mental overload a bit I try to focus less on the film as a whole, and more on each individual scene. Breaking the project up into small goals.
Once I have knocked out one or two scenes I feel better about the project.  Having that visual foundation can simultaneously inspire and block the flow of goodness. Sometimes all I want to do is visit the finished boards. This makes drawing new boards with any real potential near impossible because I’m focused on a different scene. Sometimes the best answer is to forbid myself from looking at the finished boards so I can focus on the scene at hand.

Questions I ask myself while creating my shots and storyboards.

​What do I want to say with this scene? Which characters are in the scene and how does their personality influence the mood of the scene? Who is most important in the shot and how can I position the less important characters so to draw more attention to the main character in the shot

This is the first project I have story-boarded without using pencil and paper. Instead I am using PS and my new Intuos4! I highly recommend using PS to storyboard with. The tools are a real time saver. Layers, ctr z, lasso, and scaling. Before I got the Wacom, I used a Genius tablet. It was a great starter tablet but very limited and I couldn’t get myself to storyboard using it. There wasn’t enough pressure variance. The Wacom is very close to drawing with pencil and paper. Getting over the initial weirdness of looking at the screen instead of at your hand when you draw is the hardest part, but taking the time to get over the weirdness is worth it.
I begin each board with a very rough sketch or organized scribble. When I like the sketched composition I either create a new layer and draw the finished version over the top or if I really like the sketch, I might clean it up a little and call it done. There are times when a perspective is difficult to achieve. In those cases I take and use reference photos of a willing model. The fine artist in me considers this cheating, but the digital artist in me says back off, it’s brilliant!