Our Temporary Studio

I just wanted to show you guys a few pics of our temporary studio! This is Mabuya, the building where we're creating our short film, Kappa-Chan. It was originally built as a medical clinic for the community in the 1920's with a live in doctor so there's also living areas inside. 

From my understanding the clinic was closed and it had sat unoccupied for close to 20 years but a group of talented local people under the banner Kizuki-kai wanted to breathe new life into it and make it back into an important part of the community.

All volunteering their time and skills, they completely renovated the building, preserving the traditional methods in which it was originally built. 

It's incredibly inspiring to be working and creating something in this place. It's deceptively massive inside and the craftsmanship is mind bending. You could write books on just how they even selected the wood. I even stumbled upon an official secret room. (Don't leave me alone in a building with a secret room. I WILL FIND IT.)

We're the first group to live and work in the building post renovations but this place will go on to house offices, a cafe (which is up and running and has amazing apple pie), be a meeting place for the community, and to house other artists in the future. It's been an amazing experience living in working here and we're so grateful to all the amazing folks at Kizuki-kai and for this wonderful opportunity.

~D

I Drink my Water from a Wolf's Footprint.

I was listening to Misfits and this just happened. It's their power. They are the evil ones.

I should really get back to work...

Kappa-Chan!

Hey Folks! We're rocket-shipping towards the delivery date for the short so we're happy to finally share the film's title: "Kappa-Chan!" The film's first screening will happen here in Tottori Nov 30th and Dec 1st, 2013 (more details to follow) and we'll be releasing it online shortly after. For more news about the short, art, and a video series documenting the project, you can click HERE or on the banner above!

We first arrived in Tottori a few days before we were to begin production so I luckily had some time to wander around. Maki's from Japan but I've only been here twice before so there's still a ton of magic and mystery about this place. Shrines dedicated to Dragons, water you can drink right from the rivers, the largest hornets on the planet, and forests so dense you can't walk through. Scarily inspiring. Tottori was actually home to the legendary manga artist Shigeru Mizuki. His work is as amazing as it is unique and I can see how a place like this could help fuel his manga.

Alright I'll leave you with a few pics and shoot you some more soon. Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out our progress on the short over at Sing Along Pictures!

Talk to you soon!

Short(film) Update!

Hey folks! Just wanted to drop you a line and give you some updates on the short film. Our time in Japan has been a great experience so far. Really fun, very inspiring, and I only had to go to the hospital once! (Well 4 times but that story is for another time). There's also giant hornets here so I've done some jogging as well.

The short is going well! We're a crazy small team. Myself writing, directing, and storyboarding, 2 Designers, 1 Animator, 1 Editor, and 2 Musicians. We also have a pretty tight deadline, just over 5 weeks. If you know animation, you know that's... well, difficult. As challenging as it's been, it's been really great to try and figure out creative ways to finish in a way we enjoy.

If you're interested in watching our film develop, we've been posting art and video clips over at the Sing Along Pictures blog HERE

Alright, back to it! Enjoy your day and I'll update you guys again soon!

~D

Off to JAPAN...

I have some news on my end to share. Sing Along Pictures was invited to Daisen, Japan to create an animated short film in collaboration with Shiho Oshita!

So far we have a pretty amazing team. Maki Fujimoto and Shiho Oshita will be heading up Design, Kayoko Nagashima will be in charge of Animation, Oscar Mar will be our Editor, Azumi Akai will be Coordinating, and I'll be Writing/Directing. We of course are incredibly grateful for the invitation and all the effort and hard work of the terrific people from Konosaki and Kizuki-kai who have put this entire thing together. Literally everyone has been extremely generous and supportive so a huge thank you goes out to them.

I'm crazy excited. We'll be holding an Open Studio, Artist Workshops, and be presenting the final short film December 3rd, so if you're in the area, we'd love to see you! To find out more information you can click HERE. I'll also be posting updates as thing move along here on the blog.

Alright, I'll be talking to you fine folk again soon!

~D

Hot Toys/Enterbay's: Bruce Lee

Enterbay

Hot Toys

There have been many folk out there who have rightfully paid homage to one humanity's greatest representatives, the incredible Bruce Lee, and apart from the also great Samo Hung, two of my current favorites have managed to capture him amazingly: China's ENTERBAY and HOT TOYS.

These are just TWO examples of both companies multiple, eerily good, tributes to the legend. JUST TWO!

Oh gods, they are so goooooooooooooood... Check them out if you value happiness.

~D

JAY Z x MARK ROMANEK

Man...

This is just so exciting to me. Look at how these people are reacting during the performance: Laughing, dancing, singing, getting close, interacting with each other... beyond that, artists created this film and stuck it online, expanding it's reach, and creating these reactions in thousands of others.... all from one dude standing in a room and expressing himself.

What belongs in a gallery? This performance is showing it isn't just for priceless paintings and sculpture. The truth is, when you boil it all down, it all does, folks. Get out there. Join Jay. Join me. Join everybody out there whose doing it and and express yourself. Look what can happen.

Amazing performance from Jay Z and his team and a great film by Mark Romanek. Pretty wonderful stuff...

~D

JUNE!

As I write this June is turning to July. It's been a happily hectic month but I'll have some exciting news to share with you fine folk very soon!

Apart from that, I wanted to point out two incredible artists both had huge releases this past month: Genki Sudo and Kanye West. World Order released their single "Imperialism" and Kanye West released his latest album "Yeezus". Both World Order and Kanye West are pushing the limits of their medium and what their audience expects with, in my opinion, spectacular results. I'm a fan of a ton of artists but these guys I wait all year for. Check them out below.


World Order: "IMPERIALISM"

Kanye West: "NEW SLAVES"

7 with ALINA CHAU is UP!

Artwork by the wonderful Alina Chau!

Morning Folks! In case you haven't seen yet, our interview with Alina Chau is up and ready for your eyeballs over at CULTIV!

Updates Ahoy!

Hey Folks!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Not good yet? I have some news that will MAKE IT GOOD.

Cultiv continues going strong and along with it, our artist interview series, 7. In case you're unfamiliar with it, 7 is a series of interviews where we ask artists we love 7 questions about who they are, what they do, their thought process, and their craft. Going up this Monday is our interview with the wonderful, Alina Chau. I've been following her work for 6 years now so it was a complete pleasure to be able to interview Alina for the series. It's a great, great, interview and, as with our previous guests, we're incredibly grateful for her taking the time to do this with us and to be able to share it with all of you.

To check out our previous interviews with Shiho Oshita and Justin Coffee, head over to Cultiv or click HERE

On that note, if you enjoy the interviews or the work we do, we'd LOVE it you share it with your friends. We're an incredibly small operation and those simple shares go a long way.

In other news, you may have noticed a lack of bloggage on my part. My excuses are plentiful but my current one is that apart from Sing Along stuff, I've started working as a Story Artist on a new feature film: Ratchet & Clank. You can check out the teaser below:

It's been a blast so far and I'm honored to be working with such a talented team. You can expect to see Ratchet & Clank in a theatre near you in 2015.
Alright folks, that's enough news for now. Enjoy the weekend and we'll see you on all Monday! ~D

7 with JUSTIN COFFEE

Sorry for the lack of posts folks, but I return with something special. I'm so happy to announce that our second interview in Cultiv's interview series "7" is with the talented Justin Coffee! I fell in love with Justin and his work years ago when we were working together in animation so it's great to be able to interview him and get his voice out there so you can get a sense of who this guys is.  So to see more incredible artwork like the one you see above, and to get inside the head of an extremely talented and knowledgeable guy head over to CULTIV or click on the image below.

See you guys there!

~D

Marriage Equality

Hey Folks, I'll just let the image do the talking, today. Well, the writing in the image...

7 with Shiho Oshita at Cultiv!

Shiho Oshita's interview on CULTIV is up, folks! An incredible lady and wonderful artist. From animation school, to working with one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people (the only visual artist selected at the time), to breaking off on her own to follow her passions. We're very happy to be able to do these interviews and so glad to have Shiho start this thing off right.

Click HERE to check out 7's debut interview with the wonderful Shiho Oshita!
~D

More thing's with 7 in the title...

Hey Folks! We got some Cultiv news for you!

CULTIV is going strong and the response has been great! We're quickly approaching our 100th post, and to celebrate, we've launching a brand new segment called "7". 7 is a series of interviews where we ask artists we love, you guessed it, 7 questions about who they are, what they do, their thought process, and their craft.

To check out the announcement you can head over to Sing Along Pictures HERE and stay tuned! Our first interview is with the incredibly talented Shiho Oshita! We'll keep you posted with when you can see it.

Alright, folks - thanks so much for stopping by and we'll see you soon.


~D

Decisions

Monday again! You can find "Decisions", the new teaser for The Devil's 7 over at Sing Along Pictures illustrated by yours truly.

Starting to get into crunch time for this thing. The great part is a lot gets finished and you can really see things come together. Not such a huge fan of the sleep decrease but it's a crazy fair price to do stuff like this. I might be able to get more done if I wasn't pouring over episodes of Star Trek TNG. It's just sooo good even 26 years after the first episode... just so good.

What up, guys?

I loved it when I was young and spent a bunch of time watching it with my Dad before dinner but re-watching all the episodes now, my love has went from stun to kill...

Oh - this post almost turned into a Trek rant. Even a crew picture.. Alright I'll spare you for now. Check out the new Devil's 7 teaser and if you haven't got a copy of our first project OMO head on over to our shop and pick it up for as little as $5. You think I love you now, wait and see what happens when you grab a copy - from stun to kill, folks.

But I promise I won't kill you.


~D

Sing Along Pictures and ROCO

Hey Folks! Got some fanboy news for you - me being the fanboy unless you too are a fan of ROCO. Sing Along Pictures was featured on ROCO's official website at World Apart! As you may or may not know, ROCO not only created the music for our Title Card, but also makes an appearance in our debut project, OMO. Click HERE for a teaser and HERE for OMO!

So this weekend I had an epiphany about advertising. In the beginning I shied away from it. Maybe because it felt braggy or maybe because of years of other people's questionable advertising practices, I'm not sure. I just heard some guy in the back shout, "ALL YOU TALK ABOUT HERE IS SING ALONG - WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SHY AWAY?!" First off, no shouting from the back - this is a blog not some factory that makes shouts AND SECONDLY, these days, Sing Along is a big part of my life, sir, and you should be thankful I'm editing out other details like bowel movements and inner monologues about cleaning or not cleaning my desk (what if this exact messy arrangement is responsible for idea generation? What if THAT?!) Either way, I'm just telling you what I did or am doing at my personal blog. It's different, right guys?

But if you're running a business, advertising is extremely important. So important, people will literally try anything just to grab your attention. From dressing up in costumes on the street to studying a viewers brain pattern while exposed to certain video clips so they can then create movie trailers that actively trigger selected emotional responses from an audiences.

Not sure if it's necessary to go that far but just imagine if you didn't see that ad for the latest Star Wars installment? I seriously don't even want to consider it. So my (overly obvious) epiphany was this: No one can enjoy your work if they don't know it exists. And why not talk about something you're proud of or you loved doing? That's the craziest part. So I'm jumping in with both feet, folks and I suggest all you other artists do the same. Get your stuff out there and share what you love so I can enjoy it - and hopefully you'll enjoy ours.

On that note...

~D

Revealing?

It's Monday so we have a new update over at Sing Along Pictures!

The Devil's 7 production is moving along at a good pace but we've also begun early development into Sing Along's next NEXT release and the earliest scratches into the next next NEXT. If anyone would like to offer lessons in additional arm growing, just shoot me a line and we'll figure out an arrangement.


~D

Sing Along Pictures Title Card Animation

Hey Folks! Happy Monday and a happy President's Day to all the Americans out there!

Today, we updated the Sing Along site with this video, the Sing Along Pictures Title Card Animation!

You may have seen the title card before HERE but this is the first time you're hearing it with Roco's music! As I am with Maki Fujimoto and Kayoko Nagashima, I'm a HUGE fan of Roco. We have all of her albums and was lucky enough to meet her a few years ago in Tokyo. She's incredibly wonderful and amazingly creative so when she said yes to working with us I almost cried. Like big weepy tears, cried.

So check it out and I hope you guys like it as much as I do! Maki, Kayoko, and Roco all did an amazing job with special thanks to Kei Fujimoto for keeping everything working silky smooth. And keep an eye out for it, folks - if all goes well you'll see it in front of some animation sooner or later ;)


~D

Quit?

Will Eisner's The Dreamer

Sigh...

I just heard a famous writer (I won't mention who because it's not important) say that when he sees aspiring artist's work that isn't good enough to work professionally, he sometimes suggests that they quit and do something else.

I've been working in this business for 9 years. Skill, technique - this all becomes important when looking for and maintaining a job in the entertainment field. It's a tough business. But said skill and technique come with practice.

Practice doing what you love, folks.  Don't let anyone tell you to quit chasing a dream because they don't think you're good enough. I'm not a fan AT ALL of that writer's work - what if he came to me early in his career and I told him what he's told other artists? That writer wouldn't be enjoying the success his hard work has earned him. I had talent early on but wasn't anywhere NEAR a paid job somewhere. Trust me - many people reminded me and continued to remind me until I got my first gig. Man, good thing I didn't listen. Then how did I grab that first job? Just practice.

So, if you've been out to get your portfolio reviewed and somebody has told you what this writer has told others - nod your head politely, walk away, and ignore them. Yes, you may not be ready to work professionally yet, but if you practice and you're determined, you can absolutely get there. Don't pack up and quit what you love just because some dude tells you to. ALL working artists start out not ready to work for cash. Getting that job takes practice, learning, and determination.

Good thing it's something you love.


~D

The Devil's 7

It's Tuesday folks! We had a long weekend here in Canada so here I am, a day late to the rest of the world.

So what's the news for today? We released the title of Sing Along's upcoming project written and illustrated by yours truly: The Devil's 7. The current tag line is this:

“1941. New York City. Seven girls are just… gone. And out I go to find ‘em.”

The project is very much inspired from the crime pulp magazines and novelettes from the 1930's - 1940's and film noir. I love that era so diving into the research material for the story has been incredible. It seems to always end up with me looking at pocket watches from that time period and rubbing the paint off my credit card while battling the urge to use it. So far so good, folks. But enough about disruptive fascinations. As with all things Sing Along, to find out more info head over to the blog HERE

Speaking of which! Have you guys checked out CULTIV yet? The response has been amazing and it's already FILLED with great stuff. I was nervous to cut the Inspiration Wednesday posts but seeing how it's doing makes it super worth while. Check out Cultiv HERE

~D

  

Cultiv

Today, I'm pleased to announce Sing Along Pictures' latest endeavor, CULTIV.

I love talking about movies, paintings, design, animation... pretty much anything creative, to a debilitating degree. I'd like to use this time to apologize to my friends and family (doesn't mean I'll stop though.) Part of that resulted in Inspiration Wednesday (IW), a segment of this blog where I posted about stuff that inspires me. It quickly became one of my favorite things to post about.

IW was limited though, by my time and tastes. Enter Cultiv! Cultiv is very similar to IW except that it's maintained by multiple authors with ranging tastes! So what you get is more frequent updates from a wider range of preferences. Like a certain Singalonger's point of view? You can just click on their name and limit the posts to match your particular tastes.

So this is the conclusion of IW. Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to check it out each week, it was a blast to do. But in it's place is Cultiv, what I feel is a much better way to enjoy everything you loved about IW.

And, as overlord of this mighty blog, what I feel - GOES.


Love Dave

To check out Cultiv click HERE

STUFF!

Very excited this fine morning - We released our first design ‘OMO One’, an original design created specifically for this limited set of products, through the good folks at Red Bubble! To check them out, click on the image above or right HERE

I'm super picky about the quality of things. Whenever I get something and it doesn't meet my unrealistic standards, I go on a 45 minute, old man rant to my poor wife. It's unhealthy. BUT, it does mean I was on the look out, scouring the web, look through company about pages and endless customer reviews, checking for the best possible product we can put out there.

The world is polluted with a ton of stuff just made to get out there and turn around a buck. People are entitled to do that free from old man judgement ( I tell myself in the reflection in my spoon ) but I don't want to contribute to that with my own company. So this design was made just for these products and is not available on anything that takes print. That is, unless you want it ;)

So we're happy to go through Red Bubble. Great quality, organic options, Apple approved gear, and most importantly - happy customers. If you're looking for a new iPhone/iPod/iPad case, tshirt, etc - check it out!


~D

PS: Introduced my wife to Star Trek: The Next Generation at last. I've fulfilled my geek duty to create an additional Trekker. My 2 year old is next.

Almost Forgot!

Holy geez! I almost forgot! I did a new teaser for Sing Along Pictures' next project! Coming this spring, folks! For more clues and to stay up to the minute on what's happening check out the site HERE

Something New...

A little late to post today - how many times can "busy" be an excuse? This isn't the usual Inspiration Wednesday post you might be used to. Instead it's a teaser for something I'm very excited for that's coming at you next week. IW is one of my favorite parts of this blog so I'm a little sad to announce that, after next week, it'll be wrapping up - but making room for something new!

If you're a fan of IW, you're going to really love it.


~D

IW: Katarzyna Kijek and Przemysław Adamski

Check out this great stop motion music video Katarzyna Kijek and Przemysław Adamski created for Shugo Tokumaru's song "Katachi". Anyone who knows how to acquire the patience needed to create things like this please let me know. I would prefer it in elixir form but will accept ritual.

 


 

Listening In...

A new teaser for Sing Along Pictures' Spring 2013 project is up! You can check out more clues to what we're up to by clicking HERE. I'm also extremely pleased to announce this project will be directly translated into Japanese. For teasers in Japanese click HERE

This project is being written and illustrated by yours truly so you can now see my own art on my art blog - a crazy concept, I know.

Talk to you good folks soon and hope you all had a good weekend.

~D

IW: Geert Goiris

Photographer Geert Goiris' beautiful series "Whiteout" attempts to capture the feelings he had when suffering from snow blindness in the Arctic. Really beautiful stuff - check out the rest HERE

Clues to the Future

Hey folks! We started dropping hints about Sing Along Pictures next project coming Spring 2013!

Things have been hectic on our end and I've been being forced to neglect my blogs. Especially my poor, poor, watch blog. I'll be back, darling. Wait for me...

~D

IW: HAROSHI

Oh man. Another great sculpture by Haroshi who has got a show over at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York January 12th - February 9th, 2013! Haroshi has been sculpting these days using skateboard decks. No paint or pigments used. Super cool.