Betrayed, Better Than A Thousand, Beyond, And Billy Bragg.
This piece started off in my fourth period digital photography class as an example of animated movement. The stick figure was intended to kick the ball, nothing more & nothing less. Some five hours and 413 frames later the little man had managed to kidnap my evening.
It seems the past few days haven’t yield the artistic results I’ve been hoping for. The images I intend to capture always seem to transform into some sub par conglomerates constructed from ideas floating around my head. I think the above animation demonstrates this perfectly. The “character” changes his mind every few moments as to what motion he wants to accomplish. If you watch carefully you can see him attempt to tap his foot but change his mind while being swallowed by the ball. These little moments happen in all of my animations but have never been this transparent. I’ll blame it on my ADD. No wonder my 30 grand offer hasn’t come through yet (that is still on the table for those of you with mass amounts disposable income).
I think this artistic lull is somehow determined by this time of year. Yesterday I took a look at the calender and realized that it had been exactly 12 years since I had my first snap back to reality. Starting my life as a sixth grader determined to focus on reaching goals hopefully will prevent me from having a mid-life crisis but hasn’t done much for my own happiness. I’m currently starring at a robot drawing I’ve been working on that looks like a cross between Wall-E and a minor villain from Mega Man and I’m a loss. What do regular people to keep themselves entertained and complacent with life?
I think I’m at a point in my life where happiness needs to finally outweigh “professionalism,” and that isn’t quite happening. If anyone out there has disposable income they’d be interested in diverting my way to write, draw, and animate while living in a secluded cabin for a year it’d be much appreciated. If that’s not possible, leads on a job that doesn’t involve coming out of the house would be rockin’.
When I went to the Baltimore Comic Convention a few weeks ago I flew from Portland Maine to Philadelphia Pennsylvania on a plane that experienced more turbulence than any of the flights in Die Hard 2: Die Harder. I clung to my complimentary barf bag and closed my eyes for the entire hour and a half flight hoping that my previously ingested breakfast bar and pop tart (kindly supplied by my Washington Academy cafeteria food stipend) wouldn’t decorate my Side By Side hoodie on its way back up.
Thankfully I wasn’t required to do an extra load of bile covered laundry or use the bag for its intended purpose. As I always do, I stole the bag from the airplane and used it as a book mark for about a week. A few days ago I plucked it from my “sketch stash” and started drawing on it. Since I’m home for my first ever sick day from work with some weird sore-throat-voice-crippling disease I figured today would be a good day to post it.
Part 1 (I should have been listening to Nsync when I drew it):
Part 2 (makes me feel like I should be a professional scrap booker):
Updates:
1)I was informed yesterday that some people have been having trouble registering for my site. I went through and switched things around so anyone and everyone should be able to create an account and post comments. Be warned that all comments should be appropriate for all ages and must be moderated through me first. If your posts contain vulgar language, inappropriate comments about other people, discriminatory remarks, or anything of the sort they will not make it onto my site. With that said please don’t hesitate to sign up and join the fun. The more the merrier.
2) Yesterday I created my first animation in a very long time. To be completely honest I don’t have much faith in it but none the less it will be posted in the near future.
Ryan Zlomek (That's Me!) is an independent filmmaker, unconscious animator, amateur illustrator, creative writer and professional educator from Chittenango, NY.
Ryan Zlomek (That's Me!) is an independent filmmaker, unconscious animator, amateur illustrator, creative writer and professional educator from Chittenango, NY.
