Hello

Wow, it's been a while.  More to come soon, but for now I just wanted to post up a sketch of a critter inspired by Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal".  I love the designs in this movie, and have always been horrified and entranced by the Skeksis, the antagonists of the film.  So with a bit of free time the other day I decided to try my hand at creating something similar.  I think it's too dinosaur-like and needs to resemble a bird a bit more, but overall I'm happy with the result.  He'll have a friend joining him up here shortly. 

Sneak Peak!

Cute Fairy update:  I got my first look at the Fairy animation being incorporated with the live action, and I think it looks great!  The glow they put on her gives it a nice kick.  I can't wait to seen the finished footage.

Dead Friends

I had the good fortune recently to work with Stephen Martin and Kate Mann on their short film Dead Friends.  It was one of the films featured in this year's Crazy 8s Film Festival, and I was excited to help them put together the opening credits for their piece.  Instead of building everything in Flash this time, I wanted to try something a bit different and decided to try creating builds and backgrounds in Photoshop instead.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but you don't know unless you try, right?  Overall I was pretty happy with the outcome.  Here are the layouts for the piece:

Nitobe Memorial Gardens

I am so lucky that I live in the Vancouver area.  Despite the fact that I will always love the Prairies, Van has one thing that they don't: Spring. I'm talking an actual, pronounced, April showers bring May flowers (and there are flowers.  Lots of them!), green, warm, beautiful, Spring.  I think that one of the best ways to enjoy the warm weather here is to visit the celebrated Nitobe Memorial Gardens at the University of British Columbia.

This is one of the best and most authentic Japanese gardens outside Japan.  I didn't have a chance to do many sketches this time, so I guess that means I'll have to go back and visit this wonderfully tranquil place again sometime soon.  Sigh, such a chore.  For now, here's just a small taste.

Critters

A few of the critters that haunt the pages of my sketchbook.  My take on an oviraptor, a little "bunny" that's cute on the outside, and a couple of fanged, flying, fluff balls.

More Cute Fairy info

Sample Art for Hothouse 7 Submission

The theme for the National Film Board's Hothouse 7 is "Here be dragons", or in other words, right up my alley.  As I've mentioned before, I have been in love with dragons since I was little.  Part of that adoration comes from being a huge dinosaur nut (up until grade 11 I was determined to go into paleontology after high school).  Most of my dragon designs are based on the physiology of real animals, and dinosaurs in particular.

The idea that I came up with for the theme was this: A boy accompanies his family on a trip to the Alberta Badlands, and via his imagination the landscape is transformed into a prehistoric world.  All the scenes set in the modern day would be very clean, while the scenes from the Paleozoic era would be very rough, with lots of boiling lines.  I'm hoping the folks making the decisions at the NFB will think it's a great idea too.   

Fairy-ly Cute, eh?

Cute Fairy from Jenn Jackson on Vimeo.


... And here she is animated.  Once I have an example of it placed in the live action sequence, then I'll make another post for her.