Dec. 11th
Back in 1996/1997 I worked on Titanic at Digital Domain and made friends with an exchange artist from Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting Station named Sori. In 2001 at Sony Imageworks I made friends with another exchange artist named Tadao. I’ve kept in touch with them over the years and try to visit whenever I’m in Japan. It’s great to see that Sori is now a film director and Tadao works with Sori as his visual effects supervisor. They are a great team who work on great projects together.
Sori’s IMDB page
I went to luch with Tadao at a bento place owned by a famous theater actor, grabbed some coffee and went to OxyBot Studios to see what they are up to. I met the staff and saw some great work being done. Sori and Tadao have surrounded themselves with a friendly and talented group of artists. I’m looking forward to their future collaborations. Hopefully I’ll have another chance to catch up with them during this trip.
posted by Xray at 6:14 am
Here’s a couple of pictures of my Billy Mays 2009 Halloween costume taken by a co-worker. I especially like the one with Vince, the Shamwow guy. Bringing peace on earth to pitchmen everywhere. Enjoy!
posted by Xray at 9:52 am
posted by Xray at 10:08 am
Disney just released this trailer for Disney’s A Christmas Carol on Youtube. Check it out:
[youtube]VZ3lr3urgDU[/youtube]
posted by Xray at 11:19 pm
[youtube]zKH3iemEd-A[/youtube]
posted by Xray at 1:27 pm
Yesterday afternoon G. Scott Owen and myself gave presentations to the students and faculty at Shanghai Normal University. The talk was attended by a group of students as well as various Deans and Chairs of the univeristy such as Wan Qinghua and Lu Jianfei. We were inducted into the 2009 International Scholars Forum and presented with chops containing the Chinses characters for our names. Afterwards we went out with the faculty of the univerisy and publishers of Fantasy Art Magazine, Mr. Wang Wei and Ms. Ying Zhang for a wonderful dinner. Mr. Wang is an amazing artist in his own right and helps run an animation seminar for Chinese youth called the Asian Youth Animation and Comics Contest or AYACC.
posted by Xray at 3:22 pm
I didn’t realize that Chinese kids were just as in to Cosplay at their Japanese counterparts. It’s a little different than the Harajuku scene, maybe a little less punk rock and more anime but still cool to see.
(more…)
posted by Xray at 5:53 am
Ding Cong's portrait of Honoré de Balzac
This is Ding Cong’s portrait of Honoré de Balzac. I never realized how much he looks like American porn icon Ron Jeremy. I tried to download an image of Ron Jeremy to put side by side with this photo I took at the Ding Cong museum but I was thwarted in my search by the Great Firewall of China and I’m feeling too lazy to attempt to tunnel my way under just to  snag a headshot of Ron Jeremy looking surley. I will update this post later with that image.
Update: A concerned reader sent me ta snapshot of Mr. Ron Jeremy for inclusion in this article. Thanks Jeff!
posted by Xray at 2:50 am
View Larger Map
This is an embedded google map showing my trip through upstate South Carolina. I started in San Francisco, flew into Charlotte, drove to Winthrop in Rock Hill and spent the night at The Inn at Winthrop. The next day I gave presentations at Winthrop and Furman. I spent the night at the Westin in Greenville. The following day I gave presentations at Wofford and Clemson. Again, I spent the night in Greenville before making may way to Charlotte to catch a plane back to SFO. On the way back to the airport I stopped of at Cowpens and King’s Mountain to check out some American Revolutionary War history. It was a great trip!
posted by Xray at 9:02 am
CGTantra, the Indian computer graphics web portal, just published an interview I did with them while visiting Mumbai and Pune in September. You can check it out here:
http://tinyurl.com/xraytantra
You could also get to it from the main page at http://www.cgtantra.com
posted by Xray at 7:55 am
