friends we love.

so tonight there were some guest speakers at my school, one of which was a purchase grad, who came to talk about their web-based t.v. channel, friendswelove.com . they're essentially a two-person operation based out of china town and let me tell you, friends, 100% of their work they showed was way better than anything you see on regular t.v these days.

here's one of my favorite pieces they showed tonight, it's a short process doc on graffiti artist, doze green:

OFF THE WALL :: Doze Green - Studio Visit from friendswelove.com on Vimeo.

short and sweet

here's an animation test i did with a puppet i made a while back. he's gonna be featured in my upcoming film, "don't take this personally" premiering may 6, 2010!

Animation Test! from elliot lobell on Vimeo.

back by popular demand

so, my good friend and expert awesome person, chloe heintz, wanted me to update my blog. i promise i'll update more often as soon as i get a scanner to scan my random drawings and thoughts onto the computer.

as for chloe and i, it had been a couple years since we last saw each other. here is a video of our reunion.

144 frames of awesomeness!

hey. so i got my armature and i must say it's fucking awesome. here's my very first test with him. unfortunately i haven't set up any sort of tie-down system yet so he's kinda allover the place. but i think it's pretty good for a start.

that was quick...

i know usually people wait a couple days, at least, between posts but i have some more exciting news.

getting into stop motion animation recently - well...i've always loved it, but i'm finally doing it! (awesome!) - anyway... after doing tons and tons of research of how to build my own ball and joint armatures, i got in contact with the very awesome and talented armature artist, jeremy spake . you might recognize some of his more recent work in a little movie called Coraline.

Anyway, after a few emails back and forth, i sent him my drawings and he told me he'd love to make puppets for my next film. It's been a long anxious couple of months and i must say it's been quite an experience seeing my drawings coming to life little by little, especially with the help of such a talented artist, so if anyone out there ever finds themselves in portland, shake this guy's hand

here are some pictures to show the progress of the puppets

my original sketch

jeremy took my sketch and laid out how the armature's gonna look

here's the clay buildup of the monster...

he looks like he's ready to eat some kids

this is the armature for my other main character in the film,

he's gonna be a boy about half the size of the monster

also! check out shea bordo's blog. he's another stop-motion-related artist that's helping out on the completion of these puppets. i must say when i visited their studio in portland this past november i got to see the characters of a short film they're working on now and it looks pretty awesome.

more to come...

don't take this personally

so i've been working on my very first stop-motion animated film, (tentatively) entitled "don't take this personally." it's nearing completion and i must say there are a whole bunch of people whom this film wouldn't be possible without, so i'd like to thank everyone who was involved, even if only a little bit. the next step is sound design, by my good friend jon rick. then we'll see where we go from there...

here are a few stills from the movie...

i must mention this awesome bunny costume was

beautifully crafted by my friend mary page nance

so, that's my first real post. i look forward to keeping you updated.