Micro Loans

In our community a few of us have been talking about setting up a system to provide micro loans to people who might want to start a business. There are plenty of people in our neighborhood who have a craft or skill-set, but there aren't enough opportunities them to acquire or create jobs for themselves. We've also noticed an increasing number of pay-day loan establishments and department stores that essentially exploit their customer's lack of knowledge in how loans or credit works.
We thought it would be great to provide micro loans and also set up an accountability system with our clients that will not only educate them on loans, but will also invest in community. Each client could be assigned to meet with a small group of other clients each week, and everyone's approval of their next loan will depend on if they've all made their payments or not. This isn't a new idea. The Grameen Bank is not only a great model for this, but their founder, Professor Muhammad Yunus, won a Nobel Peace Prize for the success of this concept.
A few of us talked to a group of businessmen about our ideas, and one of them informed us of Kiva.org. We can pretty much set up the system that we need through this amazing website in the event that we become one of their field partners. Kiva.org allows you to create an account on their website and then find impoverished entrepreneurs across the globe. You can then lend small amounts towards their individual goals helping them start or continue their business. I'm pretty excited about this idea, and will be looking into it further. If anyone has any other ideas please leave comments.

BUMP Trip to NY

My church, First EV Free of Los Angeles, is organizing a missions trip to New York with our youth. The Evangelical Free Church has a program called BUMP where EV Free churches across America bring their youth to an urban EV Free church for service projects and ministry. In our case, we will be one urban church visiting another urban church on the opposite side of the country.
We will live in and serve in the Second EV Free Church of Brooklyn from July 27th to Aug 3rd. A big part of our mission is to organize a summer vacation Bible school (VBS) for the neighborhood kids in Brooklyn. It's our responsibility to perform a skit every day, and to lead the kids in worship. The theme for the VBS is "The Pirates of Pizazz" which I'm sure is a spin-off from the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean.
For the past few months we've been gathering our team of students together every Sunday to practice the songs and skits. You can view some pictures of last Sunday's meeting at the Nehemiah House below.

(Thank you John Freiberg for letting me steal these off of your Facebook without you knowing it)

Edberg translating for John Freiberg as he speaks to the parents


Making sure we're all on the same page


Nehemiah and I going over the script

Kool DJ Herc Tribute part 1

After completing my illustrated tribute to Gil Scott Heron I wanted to pay homage to another godfather of Hip Hop. I found the picture below on the net of Kool Herc messing around with an old record player. This picture is a great gem of Hip Hop history so I wanted to incorporate it into my piece.

I took the picture into Art Rage and started painting Herc. As I was painting, I decided that I wanted the graininess of the old picture to show through, so I put the picture behind my painting and finished the remainder on top of the photo. I was careful to leave some parts unpainted so the photo could show through. I also set my painted layer to multiply so the painting had some transparency.

I continued painting Herc in selective places over the photo until I was satisfied with the texture and the rendering. The piece was supposed to feel like a quick loose sketch/painting so I incorporated some over-lapping brush strokes, and some sketchy pencil work.
At this point I was looking for a sweeping design element to add in the background leading upward. I was thinking of the B-boys wearing Adidas and Puma track suits and shoes back in the day. I added three stripes, but I later abandoned this idea once I took the piece into Photoshop. I'll cover that process in the next posting.

The Shooting Of Dan McGrew

Another UPA animation that I love is called "The Shooting Of Dan McGrew." This is another UPA production based on a poem. Again, the bold designs are intriguing. An interesting element to this piece is the fact that their character design is so interesting that they can get away with painting some of the background characters one color and still focus on them for reaction shots.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Old UPA cartoons have been growing on me lately. I love their bold design, and quirky animation. Below is a UPA production of The Tell-Tale Heart by: Edgar Allen Poe. Note the composition throughout this animation. They did a beautiful job of incorporating shapes that will remind your subconscious of the old man's eye.

Don't Ever Call Me Stupid

This is one of the refining passes on my latest assignment. I'm really excited because this is my first dialog piece ever.

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

My boss listens to National Public Radio (NPR) all the time and he told me about a show called "Talk of the Nation" that was going to be discussing Hip Hop artists and the image they portray to the world.
Listen to it here

The guest for the show was a film maker by the name of Byron Hurt who's documentary "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" will be debuting on PBS tonight. He went around and asked many prominent artists about their content and what they thought of the many ways "hip Hop" can be viewed as destructive. It sounds like Mr. Hurt was pretty much confronting these guys in front of a camera. I believe the film has interviews with Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes, Jada Kiss, and a host of other artists in the lime light.

I think Mr. Hurt is doing great work. I also think he's doing exactly what many of us in the underground have been doing- transforming Hip Hop in order to prayerfully transform individuals.

Check it out tonight on PBS, and support. Peace.

B. Hurt's Myspace

Ballie's Final Turn

I tweaked the splining on Ballie's turn around for what will most likely be the last time. This animation is nowhere near the polished stage that I want, but it'll have to do. I'm moving on to other animations and projects. Farewell Ballie.

Purple and Brown

Aardman studios has really gone back to their roots with a series of shorts called Purple and Brown. The animations are simple and very well done. Below are some of my favorites, but they've posted a lot more on this youtube channel.

This Is War Tour Videos

Enoch "Who" Live


Jupiter 7 with B.I.G.P, Heavensake, and J Werley on the turntables


B.I.G.P. "Something Must Be Done" Live


Chef "Get Down" Live


Insomniaddicts "Fear and Self Loathing In San Francisco" Live

Linear Pass For Ballie's Turn

SketchCrawl #12!!!

Time for another world wide SketchCrawl! If you're in the Northern California Bay Area, we'd love to have you sketch with us. If you're not in our area, go to SketchCrawl.com and search the forums for a Crawl near you. (Don't worry. We have groups all over the globe)

Creature Comforts

Aardman Animations Ltd (Wallace & Grommit, Chicken Run, and Flushed Away) sent AnimationMentor.com some previews to their series entitled "Creature Comforts." They gave us permission to share them with the public so I posted them on youtube.com here. Keep your eye open for these animations on CBS in 2007. Below is one of my favorites.

Scary Mary Trailer

I don't know about you, but I have a lot of fond memories of Disney's "Mary Poppins." As a child there was nothing more entertaining than watching a witch haunt little Brittish children in the London fog.

Week 10

Look. Ballie's fat and happy!

Week 9: My first successful walk cycle

AnimationMentor.com beats out any training that I've recieved from my other schools by far. But in regards to training in animating the dreaded walk cycle, AM has completly obliterated their competition.
At the Academy of Art in San Francisco they showed me the "skating technique" in my 3D classes. This included a 10 minute demo before they threw us to the wolves. Things like weight, hip movement, overlapping motion, and timing weren't even discussed. (with exception to my intro to 2D animation class at the Academy taugh by the Awesome Cora Craig)

Anyway, here's my first successful walk cycle. It's a little weak in the knees still, but I'll be polishing it up in the weeks to come.


This is the second assignment. We had to pose STU in a concerned gesture.

Week 8 Pose

They wanted STU to show some power this week, so this is what I came up with. I kind of added a bit of a feminine spin on this one because I realized I haven't really created any feminine poses. Hey, I'm an equal opportunity animator alright?

Week 7 Revision

This is an animation demonstrating overlapping motion with the tail. It might seem boring now, but just you wait till I incorporate all of these principles in a scene. Yeah, then you won't complain...

Week 5

So I turned in my week 5 assignments a few days ago. I thought I'd post them up in an attempt to stay consistant for once in my life.

The pose assignment was to make the STU character look devestated. So without further ado here's STU winning an emmy for best performance...
















The next part of the assignment was to bounce a ball through an obstacle course they gave us. (I cheated and modified the course a little) This assignment was exciting despite it's bland appearances because this marks the first time they allowed us to use squash and stretch on the ball. Check out the Path of Action sketch I used to plan the animation first. The animation will be below it.

I need a new video host

This photobucket video hosting thing isn't working. It won't play my videos on a loop, and it seems to be playing them slightly too fast. Maybe I'll break down and buy QuickTime Pro.