Jason Williams' Halloween Party.

While I am posting Halloween pics, Jason and Krit Williams had a Halloween party which several Powerhouse folks crashed:

Here is the hosts, as Richard Simmons and disciple.

The wife and I came as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

Cindy Crowell and her beau, Sitoshi.
Krishna Jain, another Powerhouser came with his friend Kaleem (hopefully I a m spelling that correctly), and the came dressed as "two guys who did not feel like dressing up"

Powerhouse team member, Jennifer Anderson (center), came as the undead Nancy Drew, and brought her brother-in-law. She took a moment to pose with fellow Powerhouser, Sam Deats, who came as Mario.

Louis Granada came as "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski" and brought some friends.

Jason and Krit threw a great party and a good time was had by all.

For the last several posts that I have made, you can no longer click on the photos and get a larger version...does anybody out there know why?

My niece's Halloween costume

Now I know this is way off-topic...but my niece had a really cute Halloween costume that her mom, and my mom made, and I am too proud an uncle not to share:

Printgocco!

Another thing that I have been doing lately, instead of working on Captain Capitalism, is some do-it-yourself screen printing.

Our friend Brandon bought a Printgocco machine. Which is a Japanese silk screen maker. It uses flash bulbs to silk screens from laser printed images. It is actually a lot of fun to play with, and I would recommend getting one to any artist our their who would like a simple way to create silk-screens.

I made some kois, buddhas, and dragons in Flash. Then the four of us made a slew of baby clothes, jackets, t-shirts, and other pieces to sell at local markets, on-line, and at craft-type-fairs. I will keep you updated as we do more.

Telluride Films Festival

Mandy and I went to The Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Labor Day weekend. It was so long ago, that I don't spend too much to writing about it, but in here is a synopsis in brief.

First of all, I like Colorado again. I am not really a scenery kind of guy. I prefer urban sprawl to mountain's majesty and spacious skies. And I had a bit of a bad time with the fine folks in Colorado on my last visit. But Mandy and I had a really good time on some jogs through the mountains, and it really is beautiful. I am sure the good folks of the Centennial State are very glad to hear this, but all is forgiven now.

Second, rich people assembled together to watch hours and hours of pretentious films can be annoying when standing in line with them for hours. We saw some great movies; Babel and Last King of Scotland. We saw some crappy movies too.

Third, Penelope Cruz is really frickin short.

Fourth, Mandy's family (Glenn and Nancy) are a lot of fun to hang out with. We had a great time talking with them, and I am really glad they were there to keep us sane after hours and hours of mind-numbing fictitous assaults.

Five; Comedy is essential. On some days during the festival we would watch four films in one day. Telluride is known for drama works, there was nary a comedy in the bunch. I have to say, after 8+ hours of high-brow drama, you are ready to jump from the side of the mountain to the kind, warm, and loving concrete below.

Couple of cool things, I got to meet John Canemaker and there is a Chuck Jones theater in Telluride.

All in all, we had a really good time in Colorado. For the most part though, it was because of the company, the scenery and just a few of the films at the festival.

An interesting side note, on the way into Telluride we had to stop to take care of some last minute legal business for Glen and Mandy before we could start the weekend. They needed a fax machine, so we stopped in a small town and I asked the first person I saw on the street and asked if we could use a fax machine. The gentleman said sure, and I went into the office, which happened to be called Billings Artwork.

It just happened to be where they make the Grammy Awards and many other awards (including the Annie Awards for Animation). This is a picture of Tim Burton's Ub Iwerk's award, which was in the shop for repairs.

We had a great time talking to the father and son that run the shop, learned a little about bronze-smithing, and posing with awards.

IFL game and other excuses

Ok, so it has been well over a month since I posted. So to all my imaginary readers, I apologize. So, just what in the hell has kept me from dutifully documenting the daily deeds of my drab days, you ask? Well first of all it was the IFL game.

Check it, bleed.

For years, I have been dying to do a StreetFighter based in Flash. I have designed many StreetFighter and Punchout based games...with many different characters and different names. Unfortunately, there is too much work in creating one of these games from scratch, on your own, without any budget.

It has been a hard idea to push. There are not too many companies that you can convince to make a fighting based game either. Not really something that your standard corporation would want to sell their services or products. But then I met up with Gareb Shamus and Pat Miletich at the New York licensing fair and finally found a company that could actually use a fighting game, the International Fight League.

Special thanks need to be given to Mr. Phillipe, Jason Yandell, and Sam Deats for working with me on this project. A majority of the work was done at night, most night we worked till at least 1am together. I think the final product turned great though.

Play the game and let me know what you think. Hopefully we will get a chance to keep updating the game with more functionality and characters as the IFL grows.

After the IFL game, I took a break from late nights for a few weeks to get back in shape. I have a black-belt test coming up in 3 months or so, and started a conditioning regimen.

A couple weeks back, I went to a fellow student's (Ronald's) black-belt test to check it out first hand. The first part of the test is a timed, two-mile run. I was allowed to make the run with Ronald, and we made it in about 12 minutes. I was pretty proud, but luckily I got to stop. Poor Ronald had to immediately do about another hour of endurance tests (including sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, toe-jumps, 5 minute long stance holds and more). That was followed with many form demonstrations, and then culminated with 30 minutes of fighting. Every 5 minutes a fresh opponent would get introduced.

I'm not really ready for the test, but I am trying to get a few hours of excercise in 6 times a week to get ready.

But, I am also working on Captain Capitalism again. I really missed the big lug, and after finally getting past some other issues with character, I have re-dedicated myself to cartoons.

The plan is to have the Christmas piece, (Nightmare of a Red Christmas), I wrote last year done by the end of November. I have the new voice work in an animatic, and have done a good amount of work on the cartoon.

So, to get back on track, I am going to update the good ole' blog in order to get back in the habit of keeping track of things...but I gotta do a little bit of catching up before I get caught up to the present day.