an evening with don hertzfeldt

oooh golly, i am crushing big time on mister hertzfeldt! 

what an incredible guy. and i got to meet him tonight at the music box. ooh golly.
he's very soft-spoken, [he's the narrator of the "everything will be okay" trilogy, which is beautiful and makes me cry every time i watch it without fail], funny, and, if you don't mind me saying, he's a very good hugger. hahaha, of course i asked for a hug, of course i did!

see! honestly! i couldn't contain the excitement.

 

 

he told me that he doesn't actually use exposure sheets. awesome-possum, right? also, he says that he just... locks himself away for years and works on a project. apparently that's why all of his films're so good. 


bu-u-u-ut... speaking of animation and locking yourself away, i spent... uhm... an embarrassing amount of time working on... THIS:

it's part of the beginning of my 30-second animation "swamp-monster in love." it's not perfect, i will definitely have to go back and fix it, but... well, i'm proud. swamp-monster steve lives!


everything will be okay.
i'm so proud of you.
it's such a beautiful day.
-marissa

[three beautiful phrases.]

MICHAEL, GET IN THE TELEPORTER!

so.
my roommate got an Xbox.

next week, Dino Stamatopoulos is coming to my school, [apparently he's an alumnus? i had no clue!] but anyway, i'm pretty excited to hear him talk. i adore Moral Orel, so... big deal for me.

here's the "character walk" i worked on this morning. god, stop-motion walks are hard. i had no idea. suffered a minor breakdown in class yesterday while my saintly teacher was trying to show me how to do it properly.

things are piling up now... this semester's getting exciting!

-marissa

oogh

yep, that's the sound i make.
i've been having a weird time trying to sleep lately. i swear, i can't actually drift off until after 3am. for the past few days, i've occupied myself with "quirky indie films" and sketching. 
and i mean, that's all well and good on days when i have late classes, but nowadays i try to wake up early to get over to the lab and work on assignments and animation and the like. and now it's even more important that i get things in on time because the workload is slowly but surely getting more intense... oh well. at least i'm not bored.

ivan, my graphic novel teacher, chose one of my assignments for the Columbia "'zine." i'm just a bit thrilled about that, though to be honest i'd be a whole lot happier if my teachers would just get back to me about my letters of recommendation. i can't really blame them, though, i mean, it's nearly midterm season. *shudder*

anyway.

playing around with my tablet again. i hate wearing bras after 9pm.

i call him "simon the cyclops." just a new thing to freshen up the moldy ol' portfolio!

alex bohs: undoubtedly the most talented young man i will ever meet.

stay beautiful, 
-marissa

if i can't go to heaven, let me go to LA

or the far-west Texas desert or an Oregon summer day!

it's been a slightly overwhelming week. things are gettin' weirdly professional over here. i've got a website on the burner: all i have to do is buy a proper domain name; something that for some reason, i'm putting off doing. i'm volunteering for actual events at my school, including our "industry night," which is a day when all of the professionals and alumni from Columbia return to the school to exchange information with students. and then on friday i went to a dance and shimmied the night away. also, a handsome boy gave me his number. HAH.
and my work is getting noticed by teachers? joe said i had "potential." what? i do? and also thurop van orman. he said my sketches were "rad." my feet will never touch the ground again. 

but yeah, so, that's why i haven't been posting. but here's a few sketches i did between animating and running around.

i'm thinking of using this one for an experiment with photoshop. we'll see.

stay beautiful! i'll post my website soon, i swear.
 -marissa

ugh

nothing is going right today.

here's a snail i made.

-marissa

happy valentimes!

yep, somehow i always manage to be single on valentine's day, but... ah, it's cool. i have awesome people and a movie to go to tonight, so it's all good.

i spent last night workin' on a valentines picture to post on my social networking sites, and according to my sibling it's "too flat." heavens above, i liked it that way, but i guess i'll have to spend this weekend messing with photoshop. 

here's, ah, here's the pencil sketch...

and he-e-ere is the final bedecked version!

all-in-all the whole thing took me nearly five hours to do. lots of layers. 
 
now get out there and fall in love,
-marissa

two bad walters

mornin' blog!

tomorrow's valentines day. oogh. 
i've got classes today, and then a galentines day party later tonight. i'm excited to sip wine with some ladies and watch bad television. i imagine that's what we'll be doing, but... well, i'm not exactly sure. 

anyway, last night i had an adventure. i used my tablet! so yeah, i was going to do another watercolor, but, well, i was just a bit too lazy for that.

i did some sketches of one of my heroes-[walt disney]- and picked one that i liked. 

a-a-a-and the-e-e-en, i colored it. haha. not too terribly exciting, i'm sorry.


anyway, hopefully you're all having wonderful weeks of love. or whatever you call valentines week. [i call it the valentimes.]

stay beautiful
-marissa

bleep bloop blop

what even is a "mood piece"? 

i'm working on drafting and inking my graphic novel page for this week, and it's so... difficult. i don't normally do really artsy things, i mean... well, last time i tried to create a real, ahem, "emotional" piece, i actually ended up freaking out before i could present it. 

anyway, this isn't an "emotional" project i'm working on right now. it's just an artistic represetation of what i do when i'm up late at night. and that's why it's titled "what i do when i'm awake at night." i always was a fan of self-explanatory titles. 

uhm, but, yeah. so, here's draft one. i was pretty late last night writing out what it is that i do and then sketching the things i'd written. it's gonna change completely by the time i finish, but like, you know. might as well post the first draft for like, idunno, posterity. 

---------------------

UGH! what? WHAT. we had a fire drill before i could actually post my image. WHAT? here's the score:
college dorm: 1
marissa: 0.3


anyway, here's the friggin' image.

have a wonderful rest of wednesday!
-marissa

sketchy as fa-a-a-ah...

hey hey hey,

i'm starting to feel a little drained. spent all weekend doing college things, including spending time with a wonderful boy, going to midnight diners, and watching the puppy bowl. and then this morning, after being up late last night doing... what was i doing? i don't even remember. probably reading. anyway. i woke up early this morning. what the hell? i'm officially running at like, 32% efficiency. tomorrow i gotta get my butt up at like 8 so that i can go and animate, [which i love, but still. c'mon.]


anyway, so, here's some things i made over the weekend. there's a fella and a monster and a slightly phallic eew-y deschanel. bluh.

i've got a party this weekend, but dammit, i am also going to get some sleepy time!


stay beautiful,
-marissa

every day is self-portrait day

... in my heart.

yep. that's what i did last night. in honor of crushes and february-ness in general, i spent last night lovingly crafting this beautiful little blue watercolor rendering of what i look like when i see something wonderful. [like... cartoons, boys, french bulldogs, cute clothes, food, comic books...]

i wish i had that outfit like you wouldn't believe. also: yes. i am blue. constantly.

i love love, man. it just doesn't love me. but, you know, there's eleven days til valentimes. let's see if anything happens! 

so, yeah! uhm, i'm happy with this. the little heart-guys were drawn on with pen, and i like the look a lot. i was considering watercoloring them in, but... you know. whatever. cartoon me would obviously still want to be surrounded by cartoony-looking things. 


uhm... have a fabulous friday!
love,
-marissa

my work is a tattoo

he-ey.

yep, it's true! my friend loved my work enough to get it embedded in her skin. i think it's awfully flattering. it looks fantastic. so here, for my own selfish reasons, i will post all of the evolutions of this tattoo from start to finish. enjoy.

yep. it's on her thigh-butt. and, as i said before, i think it's fantastic. 
a lot of things happened today.

anyway, today was a gold-star day. 
i felt like Edward Bloom!

blah blah blah.

stay beautiful, 
-marissa