A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends

Mystery Cave

Fifteen Months in a Cubicle

Mysteries of the Human Body

Hey, everyone, I'm currently training to become a doctor, but instead of going to medical school, I've decided to figure everything out on my own. I created a series of animated diagrams illustrating the most critical bodily functions. These are the areas of the body I'll be working on every day in my clinic.

 

Blood

Blood is the fuel that powers the body and keeps all of the internal parts moist. The heart moves the blood around the body so that it doesn't slow down and stagnate. If blood sits in one spot for too long it turns blue.

If you lose blood, either through injury or blood donation, your body will eventually make more of it. I'm not exactly sure how that works.

Breath

After blood, breath is the most important bodily concern. The lungs create air, or "breath", and shoot it out into the atmosphere to collect oxygen molecules. You can think of breath like a swarm of bees that collect honey and bring it back to the hive. Your breath is always out there working hard, looking for oxygen. 

Guts

The guts of a human body are incredibly complicated. Guts encompass all of the internal functions not related to breathing, blood, or your brain. Put your hand on your belly and push in. Everything you feel under there is your guts. 

The most famous thing that guts do is turn food into waste. Your guts also alert you to throw up when you eat something rotten. 

Nerves

Nerves are the invisible pathways that send and receive signals from the brain. Very little is known about how this works. For example, you can think about moving your foot, and it moves, but sometimes if you sit cross-legged for too long, your foot won't move even if you want it to. Stranger yet, if you poke a sleeping person in the foot with a stick, they will kick. That wasn't even their thought. They were asleep!

Hair

Hair is the most aesthetically pleasing bodily system, but it also plays a critical role in our survival. The body uses hair to regulate temperature. If you live in a cold climate, you will grow a lot of hair in the winter and shed it in the summer. People living in hot climates are practically hairless.

I hope you learned some things about the body that will help you live a healthy life.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: While the information presented here is factually correct, I am not yet licensed to practice medicine and therefore cannot recommend the use of this information to diagnose or treat a medical condition. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call 911.

Things I Did in January

 

 

This past January I participated in the annual Fun-A-Day art show. The event takes place in cities across the country and the only requirement is that participants create one art piece per day for the entire month of January. For my project, I created a daily animation based on the most notable thing that happened each day. At the end of the month I had thirty-one very short films that I stitched together into a silent movie that was shown on a loop at the Rock Paper Scissors Gallery in Oakland.

For the web version of the video, I asked my friend Carl W to help with a soundtrack. I was basically asking for Carl's interpretation of my interpretation of my month. It could have been a huge mess, but Carl came through with a big song that gives the animation some emotional depth. Slam dunk.

UPDATE: Here are some pictures from the show on February 4. (Photos courtesy of Nick L, the show's curator):

 

Three Christmas Miracles

Animated GIFs, 500 x 500 pixels, 2010

A Quiet Moment Amongst Friends would like to wish you and your family the happiest of holidays. If, however, you don’t have a family, then we’d like to send all of our holiday wishes directly to you. Additionally, if your holidays are already going so poorly that they can't be turned around by well wishes, don’t worry. You can bookmark this page and come back next year.

UPDATE: What's this!?! A fourth Christmas miracle! Tiny Tim has come to visit and he is so much tinier than I expected.

 

He wants me to pass along his famous quote: "God bless us, every one!"  

Thanks, TIm!

Mirror Friends

Digital animation, 38 seconds, 2010

I made this short, abstract piece for an experimental animation course I'm taking. The music is excerpted from the track "Mirror Friends" by the group Lucky Dragons (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). The video doesn't work very well this small; it's intended to be shown on a continuous loop on a large screen (preferably in a room filled with beanbag chairs and people giving out free massages).

For the greatest effect, you should click through to YouTube and view it full-screen in 720p high definition. Namaste.

Dear Gif Diary, I Like You

Animated GIFs, blog, new media, 2010

David N, a friend of my friends in Portland, has created a special website that harnesses the full potential of animated GIFs and uses them to tell poignant stories about real life in America. I'm not lying at all when I say this is my new favorite website:

Dear Gif Diary

I've presented a few selections here to give you a sense of the artwork, but it doesn't do justice to the site. You should really go straight there and see the entire collection. You'll feel like you are viewing the world three-dimensionally from inside the eyeballs of another person. It's much more interesting than the office work you should be doing right now.

David is also the creator of the excellent and mysterious Dickbird.org website. I strongly encourage you to spend a lot of time there, too.

Nightmare Dog

Animated GIF, adapted from ink on paper, 250 x 250 pixels, 2010

 

 
I'm back in the GIF game! 

Last week I spent a few moments every night making sketches of a Rottweiler photo that I saw in the New Yorker. On their own, each of the sketches were terrible, but I was able to salvage them as an animation.

If you stare at it long enough, it becomes three dimensional and you'll feel very relaxed. Try it. Your coworkers might be curious and ask why you haven't been talking all day. Don't worry. Let them look at it, too. You are feeling sleepy now. Don't fight it. There is nothing to worry about. You will do as I say.

The Buddy System V: Sunday Funnies

For the fifth installment of The Buddy System, I sent out the bare bones of a panel comic and asked a handful of friends to personalize it with their own story.

Interestingly, the responses came back broken out into three general themes: Exploration, Existentialism, and Celebrity.

Exploration

I realize now that putting a little person on a deserted island was an invitation for comics about sadness and loneliness. The explorers, however, are unique in their refusal to succumb to the malaise. 

The first explorer comes from Maz D, an Australian artist and blogger. Maz took the assignment as an opportunity to educate this blog's audience about the history of Oceania. Maz writes: 

I decided to go with a mash-up of the voyage of French explorer La Perouse and the TV show Lost. La Perouse disappeared not long after witnessing the English settlement of Australia. Mindful of the fact that I'm writing for a predominantly US audience, I've given La Perouse the outfit worn by Christopher Columbus on his Wikipedia page. "Any News of La Perouse?" was the question asked by Louis XVI as he was being led to execution, displaying the marvelous set of priorities that made him so popular with the common folk.

 

(click here to see a larger version)

The next comic comes from Jake C. Jake, as you may already know, played the part of Druid King in the B-movie Halloween classic, Astronaut Versus Druids. With his contribution, Jake continues the saga of the dim-witted astronaut marooned in a strange land: 

 

(click here to see a larger version)

While the first two explorer stories take place on land and boats, my contribution involves an undersea exploration. In this tale, a deep sea diver finds himself in over his head: 

 

Existentialism

Unlike the explorers, the existentialists can be found ruminating, and often obsessing, over their abilities and the cosmic purpose of life.

Edith Z, the famous food sculptor, sends in the story of a woman coming to terms with her special hands. 

(Editor's note: I encourage everyone to check out Edith's recent miniature mysteries.)

Kevin G's comic tells the tale of a lonely solar flare. This comic is a lot like the movie Firestarter where Drew Barrymore wants to have a normal life but she sets everything on fire and people get super mad. 

Laura P's comic features the protagonist engaged in a mental battle with himself/herself. 

 

In Nico C's comic, an aging stick-man grapples with the meaning of life. 

 

Celebrity

These aren't normal celebrities, they are outcast celebrities. 

Ryan A spins a yarn about Britney Spears and the winds of change. 

Angela B's blobby little man takes an exciting adventure to the Riverside Resort in Laughlin, Nevada. 

(click here to see a larger version)

Ellen O's comic comments on the popular resurgence of Mike Tyson.

 

And finally, Ben C, my eldest cousin, sends in a comic that pulls together elements of all three categories: exploration; existentialism; and celebrity. Ben describes his piece as "an alternate imagining of the life of Howard Hughes, like if he had no money, his only possession a little lump of earth."

 

I was so impressed by Ben's Howard Hughes comic that I turned it into an animated short film:

Many thanks to everyone who contributed. If I didn't reach out to you to participate and you are interested in future collaborative assignments, drop me a line at aquietmoment@gmail.com and I will be sure to include you next time. 

UPDATE: Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Mexico for a week. Ironically, I'm going to be just like the little dude in the comic, sitting on the beach thinking about life and growing my hair long.  

Shark: An Animated Motion Picture

Video, stop-motion animation, photoshop, 45 seconds, original score, 2009

I adapted my drawing of the fist and the shark into a stop-motion movie. Carl W created an original score using a computer program with beats.

I also created an Animated GIF from the movie's climax that you can share on MySpace or your personal website. 

Making your own cartoons is fun! This is going to put Pokémon out of business.   

UPDATE: Here is the video in a new and exciting format. Thanks to Ben D for the hot tip. 

UPDATE 2: I apologize if it seems like the fist is bullying the cute baby shark. That was not the intent! It was supposed to be about the triumph of good over evil. Like this movie.  [found at this site]