The Green Bin Share Project

This year, I had been working on a personal project called The Green Bin Share Project with a small grant from the Small Grant Neighbourhood Project which is funded by the Vancouver Foundation.

Here's the animation I made to promote my sharing initiative:

The Green Bin Share Project encourages neighbours to share their city green bins, by letting others know with a green ribbon tied to the lid of their bins.

 

Simply put, in Vancouver multi-unit buildings like apartments, condos and townhouses do not yet have green bin service like those in houses and duplexes. So, to bridge this gap, The Green Bin Share Project encourages neighbours to share their city green bins by tying a green ribbon to the lid of their green bins to let others know they have room to spare. Eventually, multi-unit dwellers will get private green bin services but until then, the Green Bin Share Project allows everyone to start diverting their food scraps out of the landfill now, so that this lifestyle change can be practiced long before Vancouver's organic waste ban in 2015.

 

I also designed the print material that was to be distributed in the participating neighbourhoods. We had green ribbons, postcards, stickers and posters (poster designed by my friend Celia).

I created the project with scalability in mind, so that anyone who wanted to do this project in their neighbourhood could easily start by requesting a free DIY toolkit from our website, or by getting their own green ribbons or green fabric from a craft store.

This toolkit was mailed out by request to the Marpole area.

These are the Bin Buddies. I drew them half rotten, after hearing a complaint (from my Zero Waste workshops I attended at SPEC BC) that many composting advertisements show perfectly good, whole fruits and vegetables being thrown away which is misleading and wasteful.

It's been very rewarding to see some green ribbons in the participating neighbourhoods. Now, I don't have to drive to the farmer's market every weekend to compost my food scraps!

Please visit www.greenbinshareproject.com for much more info and updates! There, you can watch the animation, read the blog and request a free DIY toolkit.

Google Animation

Last spring I had the opportunity to do all the character animation for Google's policy video on Adult Content / AdSense, through Seth Kearsley's DOJO Productions.

This is most likely one of my proudest pieces of animation for a client, as I had a lot of creative freedom and it showcases my character animation abilities and my sense of timing. Enjoy!

Paper Dance Cat

Here's another wedding gift I did last week with the paper cutout style. I tried to get a sort of 60s/70s feel with the curry yellow paper and the repeating pattern, but the negative space of the pattern serendipitously changed into flowers. My partner and I spent most of the evening filling their guest notecards with bad puns. It was a happy day to see my longtime friend as the happy bride :)

Paper Pirate Bride

Two of my animation friends got married this year and because they are better artists than me, I was setting myself up for failure if I were to do my usual illustration-as-wedding-gift strategy. So, I tried my hand at paper cutout illustration which was really fun. The only thing I neglected to do was take a good photo of the finished piece, as I was literally gluing the last pieces together while the taxi waited for me outside. We tried to get one photo of it at the reception though. Haaaa.

The bride loves all things pirate and the pattern on the tail is supposed to be a tattoo the groom got recently. The dragon is wall-eyed and herpdederp and probably drunk.

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*edit: I found a few more process photos that I forgot I took:

Here's a bunch of animation I did that I found on the interwebs. Good for kids! Enjoy!
 I still dunno why the renders are so saturated... :S 

Yoga Pretzels Trailer

I animated this trailer at Global Mechanic in the summer of 2010.

Barefoot Books wanted to bring to life the characters from their Yoga Pretzels card series to encourage children and their parents to do yoga together. I did most of the character animation and with the AE team, we tried our best to retain the painterly feel and charm found in the illustrations.

Kendo & Cake

This was a gift I drew for my friend's wedding last weekend. He loves kendo and cheesecake and his wife loves to cook. It's pretty special to see a longtime friend get married.

On another note, I've started drawing on paper again and have completely neglected to unpack my Cintiq from it's box since I've moved. Paper, you are swell, you can never be replaced!

Famigros

A few months ago, I helped Spin Animation with this commercial for Migros in Switzerland. I animated the amusement park in the background, some of the characters in the concert scene and inbetweened the main character's flip in the air. Due to the language barrier, I have no idea what the commercial is about. I guessed that Migros was a bank, and then an insurance company, but the Google machine says it's a supermarket. Neats.

Shank 2 Game

Shank 2 is a beat 'em up, side scroller game I helped out with last year at Klei Entertainment.

For the most part, I animated game objects and background elements. So if you see a barrel, boat or box smash into pieces, I might have animated it. Maybe a structure crumbles or an organ flies out of a corpse. I might have done that too. Water, broken jeep, killing contraptions, doors, cocaine, squid - I might have drawn and animated it. It was a big change from doing character animation, but it worked out well considering I broke my non-drawing wrist a week into the contract. I had to get pretty inventive to animate with one hand.

I did get to do one tiny bit of character animation for Corina, where she is shooting an uzi gun while perched on a side of a wall. That was the most fun.

If you like blood and guts and blood, you'll probably like Shank 2. Check it out on Steam, XBOX or P3: http://www.shankgame.com/ Shank is one angry dude.

Ten in the Bed

Here's another one for you kids. I did this some time in February for Franfou Studios and Super Simple Learning. I don't know why the colours are so incredibly saturated...!

Elephant Balloon

2011 Sketch Journal

One of my favourite personal projects of 2011 was my 2011 sketch journal. Each day, I tried to draw something meaningful that happened to me. Now that I can look back on the entire year of sketches, I'm surprised how eventful and noteworthy it was!

It retold me of old friends moving back into town, so many babies being born, getting to be a hand model (ha!), learning the ukulele, getting stuck at the border, Japan's earthquake/tsunami, milestone birthday, a Canadian shift in politics, first time freelancing full time for the whole year, working on my first commercial(s), Vancouver Island's little earthquake, deaths of major leaders, Canuck's Stanley Cup run, the devastating riot, the Wall of Hope, a handful of meaningful vacations, revisiting the past, 2 major colds, breaking my wrist(!!!) and a milestone anniversary. There are SO many stories in this tiny 2.5 x 4 inch sketchbook.

I'm not one who has warmed up to being too personal online, but here I share with you some random pages from my sketch journal:

(If Blogger opens the image too small, just right click and "open link in new tab".)

I hope you enjoyed some of that. I'd love to hear from you all who frequent my blog and show up on my blog stats ;) Please say hello and I wish all of you a very happy and meaningful 2012!!!

Here's my new 2012 sketch journal.

A rush job for the children. Too bad they didn't post the HD version. Merry Christmas!

I Make Children Cry

Here are a couple of animations I did for Super Simple Learning with Franfou Studios.

From reading the Youtube comments, I've apparently I've made a bunch of children cry with the animation of the elephant and the clock. With over 2.5 million views, that's a lot of children crying.

I love some of the comments though: "My son cried too, and I had to laugh and tell him its ok...he still yells everytime we watch it when the elephant comes out. He says, "No elephant, you too heavy!"" ~trethoma

"My daughter starts screaming as soon as the elephant shows up, I think it's the way he's announced, "AN ELEPHANT?? OH NO!!!!" with that menacing change in the music, lol!" ~FRANKYMOOK

"My 16-month-old signs "help" when the elephant gets on the clock. So cute!" ~pir4te4lyfe

Kids are very cute indeed.

I found some doodles on my desk.

I sculpted a pair of earrings this summer and I totally forgot to wear them until now.

I usually try to avoid medication but after taking a flight home with a fever, cough and sinus infection, my body was pretty much done for. Here's hoping the antibiotics do their thing.

Design for Social Change

A few weeks ago, I finished up a short course I had been eyeing for quite some time, called Design for Social Change with Kara Pecknold. Although it was pretty intense and fast paced, which left me feeling frustrated at times, (Kara adamantly forewarned us we would! We only had 6 classes.) it was definitely a good challenge and it took me out of my comfort zone and made me broaden my design thinking.

Our mini version of Dinner with a Side of Design

photo courtesy of Kara Pecknold at Olivelife

Springboarding from IDEO's Human Centered Design Toolkit, we began digging through the concepts and methods for designing with social aspects in mind. I learned that social change is not the same as raising awareness - social change has to be measurable, with units in social metrics (like job creation, training, improved health) as opposed to just dollars.

One team's concept and research shown with candy!

By the third class, we were split into groups that chose three different sectors. From there we learned and executed multiple design research methods. My group, which focused on the sector of health, tried a unique text prompting method where we texted participants the same question twice a day, for two days to get an immediate, in-the-moment-type of response.

Research Method: Text Prompting

photo courtesy of Kara Pecknold at Olivelife

My group ended up concentrating on health within the workplace, while another group

researched systems for socially responsible procurement methods with businesses in the DTES. Another group chose to rethink the transient space at Georgia Street and Granville.

Rethinking the space at Georgia and Granville

photo courtesy of Kara Pecknold at Olivelife

Our last class ended with a mini version of Dinner with a Side of Design, where we ate and brainstormed about a city of the future amongst fellow classmates and guest designers. During this last class, we also pitched our final prototypes to the guest panel.

Hunchback Bob before the wonderful posture improving product, SitFit

photo courtesy of Kara Pecknold at Olivelife

My group (we had a student industrial designer, Ben, in our group, yay!) prototyped a product that encouraged better health in the workplace, by creating a Wii-like device that could monitor posture and prompt one to drink water or take a break. It was pretty silly but thankfully it was the idea, the journey and the execution that mattered. We presented a story of Hunchback Bob who demonstrated the benefits of this product. I wrote and illustrated the story while Sue super powerpointed the research to bring it all together.

Not all designs for social change is a physical product. One group came up with a procurement system, executed on a website.

Another group conceptualized a community space and structure.

I think I would have enjoyed having more time to read case studies and examples of design that worked for social change, and learned more about the execution methods, funding options or where one goes after the pitch, but alas that's a lot to cover.

All in all, it was a very challenging course, but it gave me something to think about in regards to how my animation can incorporate aspects of social change. I'm not exactly sure how just yet, but it's always refreshing when animation can be more than mere entertainment.

I took a lot away from this one quote, which I like very much:

"Fail often to succeed sooner." - IDEO

*edit*

Here's how the giraffe on SitFit topples over if your posture is next to dismal

photo courtesy of Kara Pecknold at Olivelife

Here's a TV commercial for Smirnoff Rocket that I helped design and animate a couple of months ago. We were told to reference the styles of Roy Lichtenstein and Shepard Fairey. I animated the liquid pour, some characters and designed the last group of people in the party scene.

I've updated all the videos on my blog to be sourced from my Vimeo and be in HD. So embed codes and links in past posts have changed and they are now supposedly iPad, iPhone, and Flash friendly. Huzzah!