A few weeks ago I got an email from someone notifying me that my short film Star Wars: Retold was accepted to the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. After having to remove some images and songs I didn't have the rights to, the video is now online and voting has begun! Spare a minute and vote for me if you can, this is an exciting opportunity to have my work viewed by even more people.



My film is about halfway down the page on the left. Sign up and CLICK IT!



So lately I've been working on a new comic that's a bit less autobiographical and much more self-containted as a narrative. In the interest of the having the story play out uninterrupted I'm going to try something different this time and not start publishing comics until I have most of the first story written and drawn. That said, here's a preview of the art:


Obviously it'll be black and white, the entire process has been made much easier by my cintiq. I'm very excited to continue my work on this.

-j

After a series of work-related delays, I was finally able to finish my cut of the Beef and Sage action collobration, Bulletstorm 4. I look forward to working with these guys more in the future, even if it means being in front of the camera for a change.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my tablet from an old intuos to a new Cintiq. The difference is just out of this world. I've never had a drawing interface that is easier and more fun to use than paper, and as a result I've been able to knock out a few sketches I'm happy with.

The interface for updated this fishrockit website is bulky and awkward, and as a result I don't find myself updating all to often. If you're intrested in what I'm up to on a more day-to-day project-by-project basis I suggest you check me out on twitter, which I update more frequently:

http://twitter.com/TehPwnShop

SXSW crept up fast this year. I wasn't able to finish all the personal stuff I wanted to wrap but I was able to work on some projects for the SXSW Film Department. For these videos I was just given a list of items that needed to be discussed and had full creative flexibility to convey the information anyway I wanted. As a freelancer gigs like this are few and far between, but boy are they fun.

This one is about venues/shuttle system:


and this is about FIlm Access:


The music and film lineup for the fest this year is as good as it's ever been. I'm psyched the fest is only a matter of hours away. You can keep up with me on twitter, my username callsign is 'tehpwnshop'

It has been brought to my attention that most of the videos on this site have stopped working. I checked with their hosting site and found out that apparently I'm not cool enough for Brightcove Media and such they removed my account. The short term solution is I went through and replaced what I could with the youtube versions. This only covers about half the videos, though. The rest will be fixed when I relaunch this site... maybe in a month?

So this music video is something I worked on. It's for a local austin band called the Black and White years. The video has a redneck-tron thing going on. I'm responsible for most the animation and effects. enjoy:




This was a collaboration with the talented guys over at Birds on Fire. I look forward to working with them again soon.

So i decided to take a break from the normal color and cell shading with this comic. My process for the previous 31 comics had grown increasingly complicated and time consuming, this was a way for me to get back to basics and (hopefully) start producing more.

Shooting's finished on my latest short film, Bulletstorm 4, and now I'm knee deep in editing this sucker together. It's pretty high budget as far as my films go, almost $30.

Here's a promotional poster I cooked up over the week to try and get people excited.


This poster is currently for sale over at the Beef and Sage Cafepress store, for anyone particularly crazy about it.

I also started a new blog this week. It's heavy on pie charts. Here's an example:



-joe

I've gotten a lot of nice emails and facebook messages about my Star Wars: Retold video. I never expected it to take off in the way it has and the speed at which it got popular was overwhelming. Of all the comments and fanmail I've gotten though, the following little gem is my favorite, taken from the bowels of College Humor:


Making someone laugh is easy. Making someone this mad... that takes sills. Mad Skills.

In other news, this afternoon the dudes from Beef & Sage and I went to Red's Indoor Gun Range to do a little research for a new sketch. I had never shot a gun before today. Now, I consider myself a gunslinger on par with Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Here's the proof:


For those of you having trouble counting, that's 8 dead zombies. As long as they're only four feet away. And not moving.

-joe

My friend Amanda had never seen a whole Star Wars film. When I asked her if she would watch the original trilogy with me she said that she would, but that she already knows what happens. So I took out my voice recorder and asked her to start from the top.

I then created some very basic animation in Final Cut to go along with her narration.

The end product is what you see below:

This latest comic takes place at one of my favorite Austin landmarks, Starseeds. This is also the first comic featuring my thick-framed glasses which I've worn for about a year but never included in comic form.


And here's the latest promo I made for the Alamo Drafthouse, co-directed by Will Elliott. This came out well, and I hope to work with Will more in the future.



Here's one of my non-art related projects. My awesome friends Amanda and Zach helped me reapulster some diner booths I picked up from the craigslist. Here's how they came out. Thanks again, guys.

eek! I didn't mean to neglect the site so much lately. It's been waaay too long since my last update. Basically the animated short that I've been developing has taking more time then I ever thought it would. Good news is that it's looking great. Bad news is that at my current rate it'll still take another month to get it all finished. In the meantime I'll be a bit better about adding comics every now and again.

I don't want to talk too much about the short, but here's a still:



And a new comic, featuring my 2nd favorite quantum physicist:



-j