the wubblog

Influence Police

One of our readers (Kristen) was sly enough to notice that the varied windows in some of the designs for Walden's house were similar to a building in Vienna called the Kunst Haus Wien.

I fell in love with this building and it's architect (Hundertwasser) while I was in Vienna about 8 years ago. He is a sort of an earthy crunchy version of Gaudi who has alot of wild ideas about architecture working in harmony with nature. He was a quirky visionary thinker, much like Walden.

I felt like Walden might have a home that had all sorts of different windows and doors because he is interested in everything.

As Hundertwasser said, "Some people say houses consist of walls. I say houses consist of windows."

You can check out more about Hundertwasser here:

http://www1.kunsthauswien.com/english/mainindex.htm

(Sorry about my inability to post actual links. I think need to make the switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla.)

Meet Sandra Equihua!

Today I would like to retro-actively introduce Sandra Equihua as one of our character designers. We actually hired Sandra way before I started doing these on-line intros.

She is a superbly talented designer and an unbelievebly sweet human being.
We are very fortunate to have someone of her caliber on the crew.

So, as is the new custom here at the Wubblog, in her own words, here is Sandra's "bio":

Where do I begin? I like chocolate (especially dark). I like things that are knit (although I don't master the craft- yet.) I like jazz. Amongst my favorites are Billy Holiday, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. I like happy music created by Pizzicato Five, King Benny Nawahi and Puffy Ami Yumi. My favorite colors are orangeish red and greenish blue. If you ask me tea or coffee, I would choose tea. Coffee gets me all antsy which is bad since I really like how it smells. I like my husband. He's a hoot which is good because I like to laugh... a lot. My family consists of 6 people. Mom, dad and four girls counting me. I was the only artist. As a child I ate grass and rose petals and was a bit of a tomboy. I was born and raised in the US/Mexican border city of Tijuana which basically means I got the best of both worlds. I digested a healthy dosage of Mexican culture with a good helping of American culture, which I feel totally helped me out as a designer. I originally received a BFA in Graphic Design, but somehow I always wound up drawing tons of characters. This brought me many problems with my teachers and freaked my dad out as well. Along the way I discovered illustration thanks to the great Rafael Lopez (at Art Center in San Diego). Eventually my love for illustration led me to character design for animation. My influences quickly became Mary Blair, Miguel Covarrubias, Jim Flora, Jorge Carreño, Lynne Naylor,Kirsten Ulve and J.Otto to name a few. Recently I've fallen in love with Miroslav Sasek, Tadahairo Uesugi, Camille Rose Garcia, and Kiraz. I've done freelance design for Warner Brothers (Mucha Lucha), Disney (The Buzz on Maggie) and I have been fortunate enough to have created and developed animated pilots (with my husband) at both Nickelodeon and Disney.

And now here I am about to embark on an adventure with the very talented and truly enviable, Bob Boyle! I am very excited that Bob has agreed to let me hop on board for his show. It is a great honor to be part of team Wubb and I promise not to let down the captain of our ship!
The End

Welcome aboard Sandra!
Thanks for sharing your great talent and wonderful energy with us!

Walden's Pad Pt.2

Here are some doodles exploring Walden's house.

At this point they seem a bit too much like museums or government buildings.

Meet Paige Pooler!

It's been a busy week here at Wubby Central.
First we get a Line Producer and now we are pleased to announce that the lovely and extremely talented Paige Pooler will be joining us as a Character Designer!

Please treat your eyes to a yummy visual feast at her website:

http://www.paigepooler.com/

(be sure to check out the really cool snapshot section!)

And as is now the custom here at the Wubblog, here is a bio that I guilted Paige into writing:

Paige Pooler loves tacos, chocolate, and bacon. A lot. She thinks Gardenias smell very pretty and they remind her of her beloved Grandmother. She loves long walks on the beach...Hey wait a minute! This was supposed to be for that OTHER bio.

REALLY, Paige is a native Californian, boasting a Bay Area childhood and an authentic OC teen-hood before striking out for Los Angeles. Although she'd always been an incessant doodler, Paige never imagined she'd make a living doing just that. Some years into college, she stumbled onto the major, "BFA in Illustration," and she was saved! She tossed out all her French language books and embraced her pencils...the moment she was done with her study abroad, of course (she was enlightened, not crazy!).

When Paige arrived in LA to work on a feature film as an Art Department Production Assistant, she earned her keep by sharpening pencils and buying lattes for the seasoned artists. Later she hung out on set and got lunches for the actors. As fun as all THAT was, she knew she needed to get her feet wet with an artist job herself and landed a gig at Disney Interactive in the early days of 16-bit pixel clean-up. She subsequently joined Jim Henson Interactive as an art director before throwing caution to the wind and becoming a full-time freelancer. Even though freelance has, occasionally, been lean, Paige has randomly done everything from movie prop sketchbooks, newspaper ads, concept video-game art, animated series proposals, and character design. And although Court TV can be tempting to someone working at home, Paige never stopped doodling, knowing ONE DAY...she'd really get to put those skills to the test.

That time has come and Paige is VERY EXCITED to join the Wubteam!!!                                                                                             

*She normally does not refer to herself in 3rd person.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

We have turned in our first two scripts and are awaiting notes.

On the art side we are starting to explore what the other characters in this world might look like.

Here are a few of the rough designs.

Who is Andrea Romero?

She's our new Line Producer!

We are very excited to have Andrea come aboard the Wubboat.

There are so many people involved in the production of an animated series. And most of them don't get recognized for their hard work .
So, as we hire people I'd like to introduce them on the blog.

And in an effort to save time for me, I'm asking people to write their own bios.

So, in her own words, here is a little info on our new line producer, Andrea Romero:

"born and raised in LA - bilingual - (parents from argentina)  went to UC berkeley for college - moved to Europe for a year - decided i didn't want to live there - came back to LA and started working in live action first for a screenwriter (I was going to be a writer)  - then a director-  met my husband working on a movie in Atlanta  - spent 6 months travelling through central and south america with him - then came back and started in animation as a digital scanner- right place at the right time - got promoted to coordinator - then production manager and then associate producer - had kids (still working) and then ended up running a small digital compositing facility doing 2d work for everything/everyone under the sun - had a sex change (just kidding) took some time off with the young'uns and well, there you have it."

Welcome aboard Andrea!

And big thanks to Mike Moon for the recommending her!

Flashback Friday #3

What do an AMC Gremlin and Wubby have in common?
Nothing really. Except that when I was a kid I always wanted a yellow Gremlin.
Thirty something years later my automotive desires have surfaced in a character design.

Okay, maybe I'm reaching a bit, but I see the connection!

As far as the show goes, there are some VERY VERY exciting things happening that hopefully I'll be able to share with you very shortly!

Calling All Artists!

For those of you that are interested in working on the show, you can drop off your portfolio with Shelley Gillespie at Film Roman 12020Chandler Blvd. Suite 200 North Hollywood Ca. 91607 phone:818-761-2544

We are looking to fill all positions but, like everyone else in town, storyboard artists are at the top of the list.

Waldens Pad

Believe it or not the chicken scratch thumbnails above were part of the original book that was the start of this whole project.
I'm only showing them because we are in the process of creating background designs of were the characters live and I wanted to show what we are starting with.

These drawings are of Walden's house which I described in the book as "filled with interesting things". That's nice and vague!

My thought is that Walden is interested in everything and therefore his home would be very eclectic. He would have African masks next to a piece of classic sculpture. Dinosaur skeletons next to a strange musical instrument. He would live in a house that is a "cabinet of wonders" where there are an endless amount of rooms that all contain different things.

I am giving these roughs from the book and the thumbnails below to a real bg artist who will do some further development and really flush out the world.

airplane doodles

We are still trying to decide on a title for the show. So on the flight back to L.A. I started to doodle some really rough logo ideas to see if that might push things one way or another.

I totally felt like a high school kid trying to come up with a name for his band!