No Kangaroos in Canada - A Song

Hi Guys,
Got a new song up. Well it's an old song, I wrote it about 6 months ago, but I've only just gotten around to recording it.



I tried to write it with both Aussie and Canadian jokes in mind. Outside of those two demographics I'm not sure how much of it makes sense...

Eh.. I like it anyways!

Hope you're all having a great day,
-Daniel

...and then music happend?

Sooo... updates huh... Just not a thing that happens much these days. And I'm sorry for that. But I did write a song a little while back. It's about animation.
 
Inspired by @KtShy's tweet about working on a Friday night and suggested by @Fluxfoxphoto.

Think of this not as a polished song, but a sketch of one. A rough draft, mostly keys and breakdowns. A pencil test. Still needs to go through cleanup. Get some compositing done to it.

 ...except the sound version of all of that...


OH! OH OH OH!!!
I was featured in the Shanahanigans Travel Show: TCAF 2012!!!

I'm not sure if I ever got around to gushing about how totally amazing TCAF was. Got to spend the weekend with my good friend Laura (Who totally has an awesome FB page. You should check it out)
Met up with many of the Aussie folk, 'specially the Squishface Studio mob and Caravan of Comics.
And I met the Siblings Shanahan! Who are totally half the reason I wanted to ever come to Canada!
There were so many awesome artists and wonderful people and awesome and how freaking long does Younge Street need to be!? I mean seriously!?

 Hope everyone's having a great day and are sleeping at some point,
-Daniel

Dr Sketchy's

Hey howdey hey!

Something you may or may not know is I've never really done life drawing.
We had a short 4 week stint of it at uni, but seeing as the first class resulted in me running out of the studio and headlong into a wall I'ce been hesitant to go back.

I know it'll improve my drawing and the human body is nothing to be ashamed of, but my tiny little brain just wasn't ready for that.

So, for the first time ever I've been to life drawing!
...clothed life drawing, but life drawing none the less.

Sorry for the dodgy quality. My phone is currently serving as my scanner, video camera and photo machine.

Dr Sketchy's in Halifax have hosted it twice since I've been here and It's great fun.
I don't always draw exactly what I see, and sometimes outright just cartoonify the model, but it's fun and I'm drawing and that's the main thing.

Hope everyone's day is being splendid,
-Daniel

ANZACS: Catnip For Canadians

Heya!

So, I've discovered there is a limited number of things I can cook confidently and cook well.
As long as I follow the recipe I'll get most things right, but there's a couple of things I can go back to and know pretty much how it'll turn out.

Bolognese is one, and it seems ANZAC biscuits are another.

We hit a rough patch at work, meaning people were eating most of their meals at the studio, so I thought I'd whip up a batch of good ol' Aussie ANZACs.

I don't know if it was because we were all so tired or because they were something new and different but a Quadruple batch was successfully devoured in 15 minutes flat. And I felt quite proud about that :D

Hope you're all having a grand old day,
-Daniel

A weekend of Drinking: THE MUSICAL!

Hey howdey hey awesome guys and gals!
Sorry for a bit of a slow upload lately. Insert the regular excuses here.
But hey! You get a song! That's worth the wait, yeah?

There's a weekly drawing challenge going on at the studio, where every week we get a new theme and draw up a bunch of drawings to that theme.
So this is that, except instead of doing a drawing, I'm attempting to write a song to that theme...

Week one's theme was: John in a tree.

Head's up, This song Contains a swear word. The 'F' one...

The theme was inspired by a 'got drunk on the weekend' story one of the fine respectable fellows here told us. I then elaborated on this story.

Honestly, I'm quite proud of this song. It's a bit Piano Man and a bit Home for a Rest (a common bar song in Halifax it would seem)
I'll eventually do a nicer recording with stuff like drums and bass, but that'll be a long way off.

I'm going to spend tonight chucking a bunch of time delay posts up that should last a little while.
And I've already written a song for this weeks theme (Zombie Apocalypse) So there's that to look forward to. As well as a song titled "there's no Kangaroos in Canada". I just need to learn the 'French' bit.

So, till next time, hope you're all having a fantastic day,
-Daniel

You can't waste a perfectly good beard #5

Heya everyone!
Once again I have de-bearded.



Sorry for the low quality. I recorded this off my phone.
I've been hanging out for a decent slab of snow for sooooo long!
That morning we made a snowman and I did a snow angel and we had a snowball fight! SNOW!!!

Hope you're all having a terrific day,
-Daniel

Wildlife

Heya everyone,

At work here, a common topic of inter-continental discussion is animals. 

It's been fun bringing up Google images of Kangaroos, Cockatoos, Brush tailed possums, and the ever terrifying Cassowary.

In return I've been told about moose (which is apparently the plural for a single mosse. Like sheep) and beavers and racoons. And though I haven't seen so much as a squirrel yet, I decided to have a go at drawing them based off what I've been told.

Mosse are apparently grumpy. Like woke up on the wrong side of bed and stood on an entire lego set at five in the morning grumpy.

I drew the beaver and racoon to match. 

And I thought the beaver and platypus were a nice counterpart to each other.

...and this is Batman getting ready to take a dump...

 That's all for now. Still working on that song I mentioned. Needs about a verse and a half before it's finished. Also planning on filming another beard video today (fingers crossed)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play in the SNOW because it SNOWED and there hasn't been much SNOW but there's SNOW here right now and it's SNNNNOOOOOOWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you're SNOW all having a great day SNOW!

-Dan - SNOW!!! -iel

A taste of down under (NOT LIKE THAT!)

Heya everyone,
So I've recently discovered something. It's not the big differences that bug you when you move somewhere new. It's the little ones.

For example, Halifax doesn't seem to sell sausage rolls. Further than that, they don't seem to have savoury pastries of any kind. I never realised how much I craved savoury pastry.

So I decided to make a whole heap of sausage rolls!

They were sooo yummy.

I'd forgotten how awesome it is to have an oven. Back in my apartment in St Kilda I didn't have an oven. But the hostel I'm staying in here in Halifax does and it's HUGE! I almost didn't get them all done before midnight when the kitchen closes, but I totally did.
I took a whole heap of them to work too. Needed to ...educate? Canadian animators on the deliciousness of meat and pastry.

It all reminded me of growing up back home. Not necessarily what I was making, but the quantity.
So many Saturdays and Sundays of making huge quadruple batches of biscuits or  slices or bolognese and then freezing the lot of it for school lunches.
Ahhhh... good times.

Less baking and more sketching soon.

But then more baking again.

...and possibly a song.

Hope everyone's having a great day,

-Daniel

And then I went to Canada

Heya guys,
So just updating you on, well, stuff. I'm in Canada now.

I've been here a little over two weeks and am loving it!
I've been getting ready for this from before Christmas but didn't want to post it just in case it didn't happen.
BUT IT DID! And now I'm animating in an awesome studio with awesome people and it's awesome.

I'm still settling in but I have some blog posts planned so expect some stuff.

Hope you're all having a fantastic evening,
-Daniel