Original subtitles

Yeah, life has been pretty good. Let's see, I'm wrapping up on Spiderverse in a couple

of weeks. So that's exciting. Hopefully I can I can chill a little bit more after that.

That's pretty dope. Yeah. Hopefully, in the new year, I can finish up a couple of these

projects that are hanging over me and then get back to doing some learning. Because I

haven't, I haven't done much painting and just learning for myself. Yeah, I feel that.

How have you been? Chilling, living life, working. Yeah, you know, you know how it goes.

Did you see that? That whole ArtStation thing? Yeah, where I'm posting the AI thing. Yeah.

Yeah, I talked to a couple of my friends about it. What are you what are your thoughts?

Um, yeah, I vibe with what everyone's saying that ethically, if they sourced it in a way

that was not ripping off people's arts, it would be an interesting tool to use. But right

now it's kind of in that weird gray area. So at least that's, that's what I came to

the conclusion. What about you? Yeah, yeah, I think, like, honestly, right now, like,

I tried it a little bit, it's not, it's not really that useful. For me, what I'm doing.

But it's, it's one of those things that if we don't adapt, and we don't see how we can

use this tool, then, you know, it's gonna be like, it's gonna be like 15 years ago,

when the whole industry started using Photoshop, the people who refuse to learn Photoshop,

they were out of the job. So, you know, I don't know what that means. You know, it since

it started, I was kind of like, it was almost like depressing. I was like, oh, computer

is going to take our job, our jobs. But the more I've thought about it, I was like, if,

if AI can help us to do more paintings, come up with more ideas, explore more ideas, more,

more compositions, more, more stories. Like, that's, that's kind of exciting. Yeah, I hear

that too. Yeah. So yeah, I think I've, I don't know, I'm not using it now. But I'm not like,

yeah, and I totally understand, like the ethics of it. Like, it's just like stealing people's

people's images and whatever. That's kind of shitty. But yeah, I don't know. I kind

of think like with where the technology is now, it's like, I think it's safe to say that

the guardrails are not up on the like, development side. And so it is very possible to use this

new technology in a non ethical manner, as we've seen. But my only problem is I feel

like the the atmosphere around that conversation turned very negative, verging on almost like

bullying. And people were almost trying to shut the whole conversation down due to that

fear and almost not leaving room for ethical use, which I think is kind of what you're

describing as something that could be exciting down the line. And yeah, that's just my thought.

Yeah, there's, yeah, there's an attitude where, yeah, like you said, like the bullying and

just shutting it down right away. Like, it's gonna happen, like, no matter what. And yeah,

hopefully, there's some some rules or something behind it, to kind of protect the artists

or to, you know, every time someone types in like, you know, this, this scene in Zach

Rhett style, I get like a couple couple pennies or something. That might be cool. But yeah,

either way, I'm saving some money. Just in case, you never know. I don't, I don't think

it'll come to that. But

yes, someone may be comparison a few years back, graphic design was kind of stormed with

all these auto automated logo generators. And people thought that like, oh, graphic

designers are dead. No one's gonna use graphic designers anymore. But then that kind of opened

up more opportunities for high end graphic designers to really explore the corporate

sector. Because then people were starting to look for tailor made designs rather than

just something you can like plug in and spit out through a computer. So all that a kind

of automated work became very bottom level, like $5, super cheap dollar store stuff. So

people, someone said that might happen with the same vibe going on with AI art that because

it's so generic, it might just become very dollar store, you know.

That's interesting.

I almost feel like you can kind of like up the baseline quality. You know, just like

with graphic design, it's kind of like, yeah, you can't just like phone in a generic looking

logo and just, you know, kind of capitalize on the merits of Yep, it's a logo. Now it's

kind of like the bar goes up. Yeah. And it's not all bad.

Yeah, it might give people like a little bit of a jumping off point.

I'm kind of viewing AI as almost like a replacement for using 3D, which I personally am very okay

with and I like the idea of AI.

How dare you.

It's maybe not even a replacement for 3D, but it's almost like you can kind of ask the

AI to render something in any engine. And I think that's almost miraculous in and of

itself. And that could be a really cool tool where maybe if you don't want to sit and yeah,

work in 3D directly and you want to, you know, utilize technology for your art in a different

way.

I feel like when AI is three dimensional, that's when I'm going to be like super excited

about it. And like if I could type in the scene, like describe the scene and then like

move the camera around.

Oh, yeah, that would be cool. I have seen Nvidia, they have a like 2D to 3D AI conversion

thing. I saw like it was a couple of months ago, it was like a clip of some, I think,

like band instruments, like going from like a flat 2D, getting converted live into 3D.

And then they were like having like an entire like band's room worth of instruments, like

flying around, you know, in a simulation. And it happened in like less than 10 minutes.

It was pretty cool.

Wow, that is cool.

Just almost like the separation of like labor from creativity and starting to understand

like what were we valuing in the first place, like were we valuing that labor or the creativity

or some combination? Having us ask a lot of questions.

Yeah, like if you think about it, you know, I could sit down, spend two days doing like

a painting. You know, and like every brush stroke is, you know, I'm like focused on every

little detail in the painting. Or I can get something close to that and you know, a couple

hours of like using AI stuff and then painting over it. And then in those two days, I can

generate like 30 images. Like that's kind of exciting to me.

It sounds really exciting.

Yeah, it's a little sad that, you know, it takes something away from the craft a little

bit. But if you think of it as just generating images, because like when we're in a vis dev

job, we're just generating images to, we're like part of the pipeline to like make this

movie. Like if we could make movies quicker. That's kind of cool.

I was talking to my brother about it, who's a traditional artist.

Oh, yeah, how does he feel about it?

He was like, it might be a really good thing for, you know, people who do paintings for

galleries and just sell like their big oil paintings and stuff, because that's what he

does. He's like, people will probably appreciate that traditional paint more.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, especially something not just created in the traditional, like with traditional

steps but actually having that physical painting. I mean, that's, and seeing the brushwork on

the canvas and stuff. I mean, that is going to be even more valuable than ever.

Yeah. How does your brother go about selling his work to galleries? Does he contact them?

Do they contact him? Like where, what is that? Do you know much about that process?

Um, huh, I haven't asked him that. I'll text him right now.

I know I see him sell a lot of stuff directly or he had like a push for a while of selling

paintings like, it seemed like daily, it was like a push to like get more fine art in people's

homes almost. It was really cool. I liked seeing that.

I think it's also kind of the beauty of fine art. It's like very durable. And all this

AI stuff has had me thinking a lot about like some of the classic cases in art history,

like Duchamp, I think I'm saying that right, Fountain from 1917, like that urinal that

was held up as fine art or like the Campbell Soup cans by Warhol, you know, is that art

or even like that banana that got taped to the wall at like Art Basel or whatever a couple

of years ago. Like, you know, it just, what is art really?

Yeah, that's what I learned is that so I can trip a banana to a wall, colored art.

Yeah. Spend years studying.

Like that real banana feeling on the wall and like that real tape is going to be at

a premium and if you like eat that art, man.

I went to the MoMA a couple weekends ago when I was in New York. I don't know if anyone

has been recently. Yeah. Oh, not recently.

Honestly, I was like super disappointed.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Why?

There's, there's only like, like a small handful of paintings that I actually like wanted to

look at. Just like a couple like huge Monet's that were beautiful. What else did I see?

Yeah, there's a couple others. Most of it was like, you know, that like modern stuff

where it's like, it looked like my sketchbook from when I was three years old.

Yes, not.

Sometimes I though I'm kind of jealous of the hustle of some of those artists, because

there's like one woman I keep seeing on Instagram, she takes a mop, puts it in a bucket of black

paint, and then over a big like 10 by 10 canvas, she just, you know, does whatever she wants

with the mop and she sells them for thousands of dollars. And like, that's kind of, why

can't that be me? You know, like, why can't I just take them up and get all this money

for putting a dot on a piece of canvas? So

that you can spend a lot of time like schmoozing with rich people in order to like, position

yourself to collect that kind of money.

It's like if you tell rich people like your story, and you know, your Oh my god, the mop

fibers, like, let me tell you, they are

If that was the price to pay, I'd do it in a heartbeat, you know.

It's more like a shady business, I think, because, like, rich, bad people, they buy

these paintings like money don't rethink.

Yeah, yeah.

Honestly, taking like a mop and then just like going crazy with it, it actually sounds

creatively very frustrating. Like you've got an idea. And the only way you can express

it is like, you know, I don't know, slapping a mop around and not really like having that

visual development vision.

How frustratedly cry as I wipe my tears away with $100 bills.

Who is that guy who

use like the first to like drip paint just all over?

Oh, yeah. Pollock.

Oh, yeah.

Um, I actually really like stuff.

Yeah, those are really cool.

Also a really frustrating sounding process. And I think he even said himself, he's super

frustrated.

I think it's really weird how like an artist can start doing something. And then as soon

as it gets popular, like they kind of build up the studio around them. And then it's all

under like their name label, right? Because I think even Jackson Pollock, like, eventually

he had people working under him were like making the paintings. But they were like all

considered Jackson Pollock's, right?

What the heck?

Isn't it the same for like quite a few figures in art history? Like they actually have these

studios like tons of laborers that just never get mentioned.

Like what's what's his name, the guy that everyone hates? The guy that makes like, really

big inflatable like dog balloon?

Well, Koons isn't his name?

Yeah, Jeff Koons. Yeah. Yeah, me and my homies hate Jeff Koons.

He's it's kind of like, um, Underground meme to hate Jeff Koons, you know, you gotta get

on the bandwagon.

It's so weird, because like, he went to my art school. But like, he didn't graduate,

he dropped out. And yet my art school is still like, our graduate Jeff Koons, like,

I don't know if anyone knows the artist, Romero Brito. He's like a Brazilian dude who he's

censored in Florida. And I used to live in Miami where he his studio was, and I was looking

for a job yet. So I was looking for a job at a gallery, and they offered me a job. And

then it was basically it would be to create art for him, that then he would sell. And

I was like, I'm not for that. But um, he's a nice guy. He just sells.

Yeah, it's just like really weird how it kind of feeds into like the capitalist commercialism

where it's like, once you have a label, then you just need workers to make name under that

label.

Because like, like his work sells, I think he's probably the most like, I think he owns

the Guinness World Record for most expensive piece sold by a living artist. But I'm like,

I mean, what does that mean? If you're paying all the people that work under you like, minimum

wage, you know?

But that's the point of this class. Zach is collecting all our work and selling it behind

the back.

Zach's trading an AI algorithm.

He's like, Okay, this AI makes student work, it's always gonna be messed up. Hands are

always perfect for AI.

Have you guys used that other AI, the chat one?

My friend was showing me and I was like, let's have it write a song. And my friend like typed

in is like, write an emo song about Zach and his cat. And they wrote like a pretty good

generic song.

It was cracking me up. I was like, messing around with it so much the other night and

just like having a write short stories like humorous essays, like I tricked it into saying

all sorts of inappropriate stuff. It was amazing.

Wasn't there like a I haven't used that yet. Do you guys remember in like the early like

the late 2010s when there was definitely like, a weird AI that was like trained on user inputs?

And it was like, like maybe a year until all it wrote back was curse words.

Yeah, it said like,

no, this new one is really cool. And something that's actually super interesting is like,

a friend of mine is like has ADHD and like has a hard time focusing on stuff, particularly

writing, like writing an email or something. It's like a nightmare. And they found it super

helpful to help them like write like Instagram posts or quick emails, things that usually

took them like, much longer than normal person, and they knew it and it was like a sticking

point for them to, you know, share their thoughts. And then this like, just really helps them,

you know, communicate and I think that's very cool.

That's awesome. Yeah, that sounds awesome. That would have helped me in school I sucked

at writing and all that.

And even it can like kind of come up with like, like, help you come up with a list of

like, if you are, you could be like, Oh, I want to sit down and paint today, can you

give me a step by step, you know, instructions on like, what's a good way to do that? And

it would, you know, kind of regurgitate like, or not regurgitate, but it would tell you

like, oh, yeah, you know, sit in a well lit place and you know, ergonomics and just have,

you know, some like tips that are kind of generic, but actually kind of useful better

than a Google search.

And sounds like it would be fun to use it for like weird art prompts, or it's just like,

tell me tell me like a weird story. And then it just fits back like maybe at least like

five details that you can really build a world around. Yeah, yeah.

My business class just when you have to come up with a story, do an AI generated story

and start painting.

I had to write haikus. Those are funny.

Has anyone seen the movie? Um, but someone with Joaquin Phoenix, her?

Oh, yeah. That movie made me tear up a little bit the first time I saw it.

I haven't seen it, but I, I really like it on Shot Deck. It looks very pretty.

Well, spoiler alert, if anyone doesn't want to hear the spoiler, you know, cover your

ears. But at the end of the movie, all that AI, like collectively decides that doesn't

want to be part of the human interaction anymore and then like blinks out. So maybe that's

where our world's headed, you know,

Oh my god, good for her, though, like,

Good for her.

Speaking of movies, anyone seen any of the good ones that have come out recently?

And chat, Rob asked if anyone's seen Pinocchio, the new one?

Which new one?

Oh, yeah, there's, there's two. I'm assuming the Netflix one.

The Guillermo del Tor one. Yeah.

Yeah, it's on Netflix.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I thought I was gonna have to go to the theater. Oh, did anyone see? Well, let's talk about

Pinocchio. Has anyone seen it?

Um, I saw it.

What'd you think?

I thought it was very, very sad and dark. Almost like I love that, like, darker stuff.

But I felt like it was

a little bit, a little bit too much. Like the whole movie is just just kind of like

that. So for that reason, I didn't like it as much, you know, as like an art piece and

like the stop motion, everything. I thought that was really beautiful. Yeah, what do you

what did you guys think?

Yeah, I, I think that okay, so me and my friends did a double feature where we watched the

new quote unquote, live action Pinocchio from Disney. And then right after that we watched

the Guillermo del Toro one. And I think I just love the Guillermo del Toro one because

it was like a movie. Like the Disney Pinocchio live action one was, it was really bad. It's

like really bad. Sorry to anyone that worked on it who might be here, but it just, it just

felt very incestuous and like the things it was referencing, it made a lot of unnecessary

Disneyland references. And then the Guillermo del Toro one, it was like, kind of traumatizing,

to be honest. If you have any like, negative interactions with Nazi symbolism, like, I

would just definitely go into it, knowing that it's very prevalent. I think it was a

good Pinocchio adaptation. But I think that the story of Pinocchio is like a little bit

flawed and not super, like good. And then at the end, I felt like it didn't have enough

of a resolution. But overall, like I still enjoyed it as a movie.

Sounds like a movie I'll watch.

Well, anyone seen some beers?

Oh, it's great for that.

Sorry, what was that? We were kind of talking over you.

Anyone seen Avatar or interested in seeing it?

I haven't. I'm definitely interested.

Yeah, I'm sure that's what it's all about.

15 years or something.

Yeah, he's making like four of them.

Oh, that's right. Wow.

I feel like I'm having a hard time understanding what they're trying to do with that.

Yeah, super sad movie.

You said it's sad?

Um, oh, my brother responded about the gallery question, how to get into galleries. He said,

I've never gotten to galleries by asking or submitting work. Maybe at the start, you can

do this way to get in into a starter gallery. So the good galleries will reach out to you

because other artists recommend you and the gallery can't help but to notice the quality

of your work on like social media. If there's a specific location of galleries that you'd

like to do work in, you can gear your stuff towards like that genre. So like, I don't

know, East Coast, rocky East Coast paintings, like maybe you do a bunch of those and that

will like draw your attention of galleries there. You want to show consistency with the

quality of your work when posting on social media or your website, so they know that you

can continuously post work for them. Yeah, I think that's, he was talking about that,

like, if a gallery likes you, though, you'll send them a bunch of paintings and then as

those paintings sell, you just keep sending them more paintings, so they want to know

that you're like consistent and keep sending them stuff. Yeah, that's kind of the same

advice I give for getting into animation, like, just post your work online and those

jobs will come.

Cool. Thank you.

Yeah.

Is that a question regarding like, balancing out painting exercises and design exercises

and like the more technical stuff, the perspectives, the design and stuff like that? Yeah.

What do you recommend? What did you do to be better at both of things?

Designing. Can you can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, what what you mean?

Like designing sets or like cool movie shots?

So these kind of studies that I'm doing, like, these are super fun for me, it's a good way

to like, you know, just kind of keep myself motivated and painting and just continue to

grow generally as a painter. But more specifically, like design, learning to design better. I

mean, it goes back to those like two value studies, like really designing like those

big shapes. Because if you can come up with a great composition with just a couple values,

then all the like the detail and everything that you put on top of that will just will

just kind of benefit.

And like, you know, like your work and your business work and when it's by the man into

the spider verse, like the railway station or the apartments, the buildings and stuff

like that. Do you also follow the same rules as like, making it cool or read better and

only two values?

Yeah. I'm definitely gonna do like some kind of workshop or another class once on after

Puss in Boots and Switters too comes out because I did so much like, like crazy design work

that like, I think, up until that point, I was more of like a color artist. And then

the past few years of doing I've been doing like a lot of like heavy design stuff. Like

in inspire verse, I was doing a lot of line drawing, which is crazy for me. You're talking

about like this, this kind of stuff, right?

Yeah, yeah. And also the line work you did, like, for the news by the verse. How did you

like get your head around it?

I get better and better at it.

It was a combination of, I guess it's hard to find like the old ones.

Like the old comics, the Indian comics of Spider-Man or something like that?

Yeah. But what I would do is I would find, yeah, maybe this is a good one. It's a combination

of finding, analyzing like this line work. So what I would do is, let's see, we'll just

say, yeah, like a person here, buildings back here. I would look at this line work and be

like, how can I draw like that? And I would also like for these buildings back here, I

would find a bunch of photo references and I would do all my research like I normally

do. But then I would, the tricky part would be translating that to the style and kind

of like analyzing like, how would this artist draw this stuff? You know, like, instead of

just putting all this into like a straight value, they use this hatching. So you have

to like make those transitions.

Would you ever like formally like almost record your understanding of a style like as a cheat

sheet for yourself like later if you're working on a project that you know you need to stick

to it? Or is that just something like, you can always just kind of do by eye or just

keep in your mind? And it's not because I know sometimes there's like a style guide.

I'm sure you've made some for like Puss in Boots and stuff. Just kind of curious how

that in a formal sense exists.

Yeah, for Puss in Boots, I created like a pretty intensive style guide. So when every

artist got on to the movie, they could look at that they could see like how I was breaking

down my shape design, how I was painting textures. I even had a style guide for the lighting

department and how I see color. It's like the stuff I've taught in my classes, like

painting things warmer and then layering in the cooler colors.

It was like a color style guide like separate?

Yeah, I mean, that's all.

That's cool.

Yeah.

What was it? Was it like, just mostly visuals in there? Or did you have to write a lot as

well?

It was mostly visuals with like my notes. Man, I want to show it so bad. I'll do another

one of these after the movie comes out. I did another style guide. It's not this one's

not as as intensive, but you can see I'm

Oh, interesting.

I'll write a little bit about the design language. I'll talk about how we're being a little bit

more graphic with the forms. This is for a different project, but I put a couple of my

like Puss in Boots like sketches in here. This was a page on texture. So it's talking

about like what kind of textures we're going to paint for this project. So it's like a

combination of these like painterly textures on these graphic forms. Characters, you know,

some characters that I like, you know, like some what it's inspired from like, we're inspired

by some of these, like these older like animes. And so we're mixing that with like these more

like painterly textures. So I did something kind of like that for the style guide for

purpose and boots.

That's really cool. Thanks for showing that. Yeah, it'd be really interesting to see the

Spiderverse stuff later.

Yeah, um, yeah, it was with Spiderverse. I mean, Patrick did an awesome job of, you know,

putting together like folders of, like the inspiration and then artwork that he felt

like we're hitting the style correctly. So there's a lot of stuff that I was looking

at when I was doing these paintings that I could, if I had like a question, I could just

like, look at the like the previous art. Like you would even circle areas of like, oh, some

artists did this painting, I really like this section, like how they how they painted that.

So I could, I could always refer back to those.

Which I'm sure he will post or talk about at some point.

Which Patrick?

Patrick O'Keefe.

See if we can put him up.

Yeah, this guy.

So he's, he's the current production designer.

So thank you, man.

Let me read the chat here.

I don't know if anyone has seen that.

Oh, the Wednesday series. Yeah, I watched that. That was really good. I liked it. I

think the first few episodes were directed by Tim Burton. I always love, love his stuff.

It always has like a, like an artistic choice to it. And I like the darker kind of stuff,

which is cool.

Um, I know most people at Pixar are super disappointed in elemental. Oh, really? That's

not a good sign if the people at the studio are disappointed in the movie. I mean, the

trailer.

Yeah, I just I feel like we've seen that before. I don't know.

Pixar gets, it's out of their funk, because

there used to be like the best studio.

Do you have any thoughts on the Disney CEO, like coming back?

Um, I never was like too invested in all of that. But it's, it's kind of like the guy

who started to lead Disney, and all these, and created all these like, issues. Now we're,

now we're bringing him back to, to fix the issues.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I will see. I think the latest Stranger World or whatever

is the lowest grossing Disney movie of all time. I think I read that somewhere.

That's sad.

Yes, yeah, we looked it up yesterday. And it has only made about like 30 million back

on like 180 million budget. It's doing so terribly. And like I went and I saw it because

to be honest, I didn't pay to see it had like a free screening at Pixar. And my friend that

works there like was like, do you want to watch this movie? And we're like, we'll laugh

about it, because we were fully expecting it to be really bad. And it was actually surprisingly

good. But I don't know if like their marketing team is like not landing the prompt or something.

Because I think like everyone just has the impression that it's like a really bad movie.

Yeah.

Like, but it wasn't that bad. Like, okay, I enjoyed it.

I'll have to watch it because like when I was at Disney, they that was the movie I was

most excited about that they were making. So it looked like this really cool adventure.

And I love that kind of stuff. So

yeah, I'm trying to think about like what happens in the trailer. I think there's like

a weird like, it's a lot more of a journey to the center of the earth plot. Then the

trailers make it seem like it is. And I think that they really should have like leaned into

that a bit more when they were trying to market it. Because I don't know, I was under the

impression that it was like an interact like an interstellar type like space adventure.

And I think after light year, I was just like a little bit burnt out.

Yeah.

But it's a lot more grounded than that.

Yeah, well, that's, that's good to hear. I definitely have to watch it then.

Yeah, let me know what you think. Because I'm also like, definitely. Like, I don't know,

I feel like this past year of movies has warped my sense of like appreciating movies so much

because the lows have been so low. And the highest might only be highest because the

lows are so low.

That's a good point.

Was anyone seeing the new Black Panther movie?

No, I have very little interest in Marvel in general. Lately,

I gotta say I feel like Marvel's going through its flop era, but I appreciate the Black Panther.

It was cinematography, from a cinematography point, I feel like it was pretty, pretty on

point. So okay. That's just me now.

That's good. Was it because I know the first Black Panther, like there was like, you could

like see like the matte paintings, like the lighting didn't match up. But this one, it

looked better.

Yeah, there there was like a I don't want to spoil it, if anyone wants to watch it,

but I thought that they did a pretty good job. I was pretty impressed.

Oh, that's good to hear.

Oh, man, I just, oh, go ahead.

Oh, sorry. I'm just thinking about how much like, if you're if you were upset by the matte

paintings in Black Panther, that I cannot wait for you to watch the quote unquote live

action Pinocchio because like, I swear to God, like I want, like, I don't know, I don't

think you can live stream watching it. But like, I think that you would go like it's,

it's so bad. Like the matte paintings specifically from a technical standpoint are so bad.

Oh my gosh, I cannot wait.

It was really, really fun to watch with friends because we kept laughing at how god awful

everything was.

Oh my gosh, it's amazing.

I appreciate so much the honesty about those movies.

Yeah, I'm glad we can talk shit in this class. Sorry, I say I'm glad we can all just talk

shit.

In so many ways, I appreciate the fact that the movies are so bad. Because it's really

like, stop making freaking the remake of the remake, what is going to be the next remake,

the remake of the Lila remake of Pinocchio? It's like, ah, yeah, I hope that things start

to shift.

It's gonna have to, because these all these companies are losing money, maybe just like

all their stocks are going down.

It's almost like the creative leadership, they have to get like slapped on the wrist

every couple decades of like, okay, you've been too greedy, you have to like, dial it

back and let the creatives do their job again. And then we can have like another era of like

amazing things. They can try to milk it into oblivion.

Yeah, I think you're right.

It's just funny, because it's like, via these people or these like, leaders, like not taking

chances creatively, they're actually risking everything financially. It's so backwards.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Now, I will probably go after that. Otherwise, I will deviate too much the conversation.

No? No? Okay.

I wanted to ask you about something that I was just thinking and I wanted to know your

perspective. Okay, is Inve2 still running still strong going forward?

Yeah, we are going through some changes. We are because, um, I'll talk about it for a

second. Our first couple of shorts that we did, we tried to do all on our own, and it

was like, super difficult. It's it was like me all day, like, it's like, okay, now I need

a rigger. So I'm like online trying to find a rigger for like a week, then I get a rigger

and then I need a lighting artist. And then one of my lighting artists quit. So then I

need to find another one. So like trying to hire everyone was just like, taking all my

time and I wasn't, I wasn't painting, wasn't doing what I like wanted to do. So me and

my business partner, we found another studio that they don't have like the creative side,

which would be like me and my my partner Ken. But they have like the full production pipeline,

figured out they have like the full team and everything. So moving forward, we have linked

up with this other studio. And so now it's like, it's it's much better. It's like, me

and Ken get the project. We do paintings, designs, the storyboards, all that, and then

we get it to this other studio. And then they help us like just build it. And then they

check in with us like, twice a week. So yeah, that's that's where we're at now. And we'll

see what happens if that means we merge with them. Or, or we keep going the way we are.

But yeah, it's starting in the new year. We're hoping to, to get some answers, because we

also want to do like an original short. Yeah, so and I think I think we'll be able to release

some new stuff that we've done soon.

I was asking you because I know I'm having a little bit of a situation like that with

my studio. And I like for instance, you, you have been always protecting your, say, I see

an artist, even if you have your own company now. But sometimes along the way, that means

that for instance, that hiring people, hiring resources, that takes a lot of time. If you

don't have the problem for people who will support you. And I was thinking about, there

has been a lot of people that I've talked to in different studios that are, that they

have mainly said like, "Oh no, so yeah, over time, I just decided to give up on my art.

And then I just became an administrator or whatever." And probably that it's good for

some people, but in the end, for me, what it's the most, what makes me more happy, it's

when I'm able to create. And if I think about the studio, it's because it's a platform to

make our own stories. So then I was thinking, okay, but who are people who own studios,

but that keep ourselves, that keep themselves creative. So you are one of those. Then there

is Daisutsu Tsumi. He has been with Tonko House, being able to also doing that. And

now he's directing Nonny and everything, but still he paints all the time. And he was able

to find the resources and the people who helped him to keep himself creative, but not to dilute

into so many things. And the other one, probably Jorge Gutierrez with Maya. So they keep themselves

creative. They make their own, they make their companies, but they're able to find a structure

of people who support them into making, to keep making their ideas. But I don't know,

like, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, as you have been like with Ameketu and trying

to keep the balance between business owner and creative.

Yeah. If you can find someone to handle all the non-creative stuff, then that's like the

best case scenario. It's just super hard to do. Might take a lot of, a lot of searching

and yeah, if you want to, if you want to stay creative and you want to stay like doing the

art, you need to find someone that, that can do, do all the stuff that you don't want to

do.

So in your case, is your business partner, which takes care of relationships and producing

and all of that, right?

Yeah. He handles all of that. So I get, you know, one or two meetings a week. I just check

in. Basically I like get, get my assignments to do, you know, I'll have like one art review

where I just review everyone's art and the lighting and all of that. And it works out

pretty good.

And that gives you time to start to make like the, for instance, like the first original

short that the studio is going to have.

Yeah. Yeah.

Talking about that kind of reminds me of something I was watching last night, which was like

the history of Pixar and like John Lasseter had gotten fired from Disney right after pitching

like the little toaster or something.

And he was hired on to Pixar like less than six months later. But when he arrived at Pixar,

he was describing that it was like, they had everything but the creative talent there.

And they'd had just like a ton of like passionate tech people who loved animation, but quote

unquote, we're not very good at animating. And it just kind of reminds me of that mashup

of, you know, like creative talent and technical talent coming together to make something greater

than either group could make on their own. I think it's really cool.

Yeah.

And then they made Toy Story.

Yeah. I don't know. It just, I mean, probably if you look at every variable right now with

the things that you guys were talking about, like all the movies, movies that look like

not so nice. And right now there is so much content right now and so many platforms that

want to put content out there. Then the next question is if you put out something and then

you have the great team and everything, then you have to be super, I don't know. I mean,

definitely creative. It plays a huge part into making a full, a really great story like

Arcane that the story was like so well managed that the people started to turn back because

if the story is shitty, then no one is going to turn around with all the content that is

going around. I mean, I even haven't had the opportunity of watching Omi yet. I don't know

if you guys have watched it or my entry.

Yeah. Yeah, I saw it.

And is it, I'd say, is it most challenging to think about like the stories that you want

to make or how do you see like yourself, like when you start to put up your first stories?

To your question again? Sorry.

How does it make you feel if you want to shoot out your own stories with all the competition

and creators and studios?

I don't know. I feel like a lot of the studios are playing it safe right now. So it makes

me want to do something edgier. It's kind of like inspiring because there's more. Yeah,

makes me want to like, it's like, oh, there's so much opportunity to do something different.

That's exciting for me.

And is right now, when you have your project assignments, like for instance, these moments

where you're making this open conversation and you're still practicing, are you still

keeping like some kind of routine to keep like pushing your skills on a daily basis?

Yeah, it's part of why I'm doing this right now. It's kind of like a good way to just

do a study and meet up with you guys. I think, like I mentioned at the beginning of the class,

I don't know if you're here, but I'm finishing up on Spiderverse in a couple of weeks. So

that'll give me some more time to get back to learning and stuff. So I'm excited about

that. Because I haven't done too much of that in the past like year or two. But yeah, I'm

like, I will always like continue to do these things where I'm learning and pushing myself

because if we don't, then, you know, everyone will just pass us by. You know, I don't want

to be one of those older guys at a studio who hasn't like kept up with the times and

who hasn't really pushed themselves in the past like 20 years, you know?

Yeah, then it always starts to make like, "I remember back then."

From like the old wins and everything, all the stories that happened before in his life.

But wait, what now?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I worked with this one guy, upper 40s. And he said something about how

like how he's mastered painting. Like he's good. He like knows everything about painting.

So now he's like focused on other things. I'm just thinking like, you can never master

painting. It's like there's always something new to learn. It's like Craig Mullins is out

there like doing like, he's always got a sketchbook. He's sketching like when he's just like out

at a coffee shop or whatever, you know? To me, that's like really inspiring.

It reminds me of a story my friend told me. He's a flavor chemist and somebody in his

industry who's like an older guy essentially had a similar attitude of like, "I can't,

you know, I'm not going to learn anything I don't already know or, you know, just whatever."

And the reality is that guy's kind of like kind of washed up in there. You know, I think

once you take that attitude that you don't have anything left to learn, you're done.

Or at least you're on your way to being done.

Yeah, I think so.

True, right now, this year, I think that I've been painting a lot more than I used to do

like past years. But I've been thinking more about how can I create more of a deliberate

practice and a structure to see what to do. I don't know. I was thinking if I should like

make the full scholism course of dice, Robert, to get that. Because then again, it's just

like concepts that you need to watch again to probably understand them better. So I don't

know if you guys or you for the next things that you want to push to you, you think, "Okay,

I think that now I want to explore this in painting or I want to get better at this and

set up a structure to start to level up again."

Yeah. I'll bring up her stuff.

By the way, watching you do that water just now with the rock, it's like I'm diving immediately

into my own painting because I'm doing that and I just realized I think I got my specular

reflection backwards. Anyway, thanks.

Yeah. If you know Tojo, she does these really cool... she posts videos. Yeah, she does these

really cool Blender things. So I'm getting her to mentor me in the new year. So this

because I just think this is so cool. And because she does this a lot with... she says

it's mostly painting.

I can totally see that in your style.

Yeah.

It reminds me of... what's that Rob Rupel... oh my god, Entergalactic? It's kind of that

3D painted vibe.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I used to do projection mapping in my own, but I'm sure that it's probably easier

in Blender.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

Also, Zach, I had a question for you. I did put it in the chat, but I was wondering if

any of your first cards made the trailer for Spider-Verse.

No, I didn't work on any of those. I did some color keys for it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, the past few months on Spider-Verse, I've just been doing color keys, which is super

challenging and rewarding.

If you were going to try to put some... or... I'm interested in doing some color work as

well and to emphasize that or to generate more work like that in my portfolio. Do you

think doing really loose paintings that are just very color oriented, similar to some

of the artists that came up a little earlier in your style guide? I have a hard time with

the names, but just some of those more abstract, very painterly images.

I guess my question would be what level of resolution, how finished does something that's

targeted at being color work need to be in the context of maybe some more finished pieces

already being in a portfolio? Can you get away with batching a bunch of really loose

ones and try to show just some raw color chops or does it always need to be in the context

of something more finished?

No, let me see. Maybe if I go...

It's almost like what would you want to see out of an artist if you were looking at their

portfolio and you're like, "Oh, wow, this person could actually maybe help with some

color stuff," or maybe that never even comes up because you can always do it yourself.

If you were going to recommend somebody for a color project, what would you want to see?

If someone sent me a bunch of these, I'd be like, "You're hired now for my job. Let's

go," because these little doodles I do...

Those are what, two hours?

Yeah, I probably spend an hour or two on a lot of these.

That's enough.

You would just want to see a range of what? Inside/outside, times of day, or what would

you say are the biggest color touchstones?

Yeah, even just if I scroll a little bit, you've got an early sunset piece, a night

kind of high-key misty scene. I have a super high-key interior/exterior overcast. I want

to see that you can paint in any kind of lighting, very naturalistic, like midday, versus something

like this that's more of a pushed color palette. It's very limited in the warms. I just want

to see that variety, if you can hit a mood with your pieces.

Do you think that mood is... It's obviously times of day in these scenarios, but how would

you say that they carry a strong emotional component as well that you're looking for?

Maybe that would be a good practice for you. Find a couple photo references that you want

to do a color sketch with, and then assign a mood to it. It could be a spooky house.

How can you push the spookiness of that? If I wanted to push this further, maybe I could

have a low-lying layer of fog on the ground.

Oh, yeah. So embracing the actual colors and values you're seeing in a reference, and then

taking that a step further and assigning that emotion and just taking it that next step.

Yeah. I'm thinking back to Scooby-Doo. I had a good production designer. He'd come over

and he'd be like, "Okay, put some fog on the ground. Have some bats flying through the

air. Maybe there's some pumpkins sitting by the doorway." Those little elements that can

push the mood. Some of it gets into design a little bit, but that's what you'll do when

you're doing color tees.

Yeah. I think that's one of my more... The things that intimidates me about doing those

is I start feeling like I need to design everything, and then it becomes not a one or two-hour

endeavor. It becomes like, "Oh, this is a new piece." That will slow me down, or definitely

slow me down from doing that. From just chasing down the mood and color, which is what I want

to do.

Yeah.

Do you have any tips on when to catch yourself designing too much and how to back off that?

It's going to take practice because you tend to be a little bit more refined in your paintings,

right?

Yeah.

You're going to have to... I don't know if you've got two monitors or you can...

I do.

I find on one monitor, find some really loose painterly work and just put it up on that

monitor and be like, "Okay, I'm going to paint to this level. I'm not going to go further."

That's part of the reason why I have this right here. Because I'm looking at this photo,

there's a part of me that wants to get in there and paint that texture on that rock

and paint some of these leaves because that's all super cool and looks fun. But I'm looking

at this and I'm like, "No, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to try to capture

the light and get some of my edges in here in the focal area, but let the rest of it

be loose."

Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Having that reference for a target finish. And then you've got something

nice there where it's like your finish reference feels in the same vein as your actual reference.

Yeah, that'll help.

Do you think that... Okay. Yeah. Maybe that's where I've possibly been going wrong. Having

too much of a difference between that creative reference and that photo reference.

Yeah. Make your life easy for yourself.

Yeah. Oh man. Make life easy. Weird.

I know. Let me check out the chat here.

Sure.

Recently I did a painting. It was something I could never do before so quickly. Definitely

the VisDev one has made me a much better painter and how I can break down painting and get

started. I surprised myself. Oh, that's amazing.

Where's this?

Wow, that's cool.

That's crazy. That's awesome.

Manual. I made that 3D paint. Oh, you did that. Dang, that's cool.

It's actually review our Instagrams.

Yeah. Honestly, when I look at artists, I get their portfolio, but then I'll check out

their Instagram because I want to see what people are doing daily or weekly to study

and practice because that says a lot about someone.

If you learn that stuff from Tojo, you got to teach us. I couldn't get into the class

even though us. Yeah, her class sells out. Instantly, I wanted to take it, but I we figured

out like a trade. So we're gonna like help each other out with some stuff.

Like a mutual mentorship thing. But yeah, I'll learn and then I'm sure I'll pass on

some information

without just reteaching her class because I wouldn't want to do that.

I have a question. Yeah. So I don't know if you're familiar with Misha Opeth, his like

this type of work, but I don't think he does many plain air studies, but he has like a

very whimsical sense of color. How do you feel about that?

You want to send a link or? Oh, yes, I got you.

We'll probably wrap this up in 15 minutes. So.

Cool, there's a link in the chat. I haven't I haven't seen this guy.

These are fun. Cool, yeah. What was your question?

I guess my question would be, rather than posting, because he has a post-plan air studies,

but I'm very gravitated towards his style of art. If you saw his portfolio versus someone

who posted a bunch of plain air studies, would you be like, oh, I own I wouldn't lean towards

this guy because he doesn't have that many plain air studies? Or would you lean towards

the other one? I like if he yeah, if I saw his stuff, I'd be like, okay, I don't know

if I'd hire him for for color keys, but I would hire him for like concept paintings

or like design work, because I think that's what his strong suit is like all those images

that I saw were really creative and fun and whimsical and like beautiful in that way.

Yeah, so it's just, it's like what you what you want to do, I guess.

Yeah.

Do you think it'd be fair to describe the colors in that portfolio as like strong but

not as naturalistic? And then that maybe that's coming from like the lack of or not the lack

of but just, you know, his focus is not on life studies. So the color theory is strong,

but it's a connection to like, specifically to real life scenarios is like, not the strong

suit. And if that's what you needed on a project, then that would be the reason why you would

wouldn't do a color key hire there?

He Yeah, depends on the project. I think if it's something where we're pushing the color

in that kind of way, then he would be incredible. He'd be amazing. But if it's something where

I need like, a lot of realism, and maybe he can do that. I don't, I don't know. But yeah,

like you said, it's not as naturalistic. So maybe he wouldn't be the best for that project.

It's it's like anything like, you pick artists who are good fits for the project. You know,

depending on like, like intergalactic, for example, like, I'm glad I didn't work on that,

because I would have just been like, banging my head against the wall, like, being like,

what what are these colors? Like, doesn't make any sense to me. So they'd be better

off hiring someone who has more of a cartoony color sense or something.

Do you think? I mean, maybe it's just my naivety. But like, if I see someone who does planar

studies on Instagram, I'll give them a follow. But if I'm looking through their artwork,

I feel like I'm more likely to go back to someone else's page who has art that is like

super on the creative side. So I guess my question is, for me, I would be I am more

inclined than to post art on the creative side than art. That's just the study. Should

I kind of ditch that mindset and post more studies or for like the sake of a hire? Or

should I continue on in my creative endeavor?

I think, since you have a passion for both, I would do both. Because you like correct

me if I'm wrong, but I think you you like to have a bit of that realism and naturalism

in your stuff. But it's kind of like applying that to a more creative idea. So you want

to show like, if that's the kind of project that you're going to be on, then you want

to show that you're you're doing these studies, planar sketches, and these like, these like

nice, like naturalistic color studies. And then you can apply that color knowledge to

something more creative.

I get what you're saying. It's funny, because you describing that it actually sounds a lot

like Zach's work, you know, where you have these like great naturalistic colors and stuff,

but then you can have really pushed ideas and concepts, you know, like, robots, or,

you know, Scoob and the gang or I mean, Puss in Boots. I mean, what a actually exaggerated

idea, you know, a cat walking around, but yet it's, you know, done in this very, like,

compelling way. And I think there's something awesome about the marriage of like, realism

and imagination, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I shoot for with, with my work. I want something that feels

like grounded. Because I feel like that's like more relatable, you can like hit someone

in their, their emotions a little bit better. Rather than me painting this like, like, you

know, like, crazy, like, I don't know, like, all the shadows are blue, all the lights are

yellow. Yeah, like, that's gonna take me out of the scene. Whereas this, it's like, it's

like a push naturalism. So I could have like a character walking through here, it feels,

there's a bit of like realism to it that I can grab on to and relate to.

I think of the Pixar thing again, that I was watching last night, and how the, that, that

first key animation that, at least that I remember from Pixar was the lamps. It's like

that little lamp animation. And that was, they were kind of describing that as such

an amazing blend of like, technical accuracy and realism, yet completely surreal and imaginative,

and how that marriage of the two, it made such a compelling short, you know, where people

were emotionally connecting to two lamps, you know, bouncing around. It just, that's

just really, really cool. And I think that was like the, a big part of early Pixar for

sure.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I was like, watching that animation again, it's like, when that little like ball deflates,

and then they're like, all sad about it. It's like, you still, you know, so many years later,

it's like it completely resonates still. It's pretty timeless and amazing.

Yeah.

Really loving the reflections here. It's pretty cool to watch.

Thanks. Yeah, I saw this image, like, a while ago, and ever since I saw it, I was like,

I really want to try to paint that reflection.

I think it's cool, because it's like, it's almost kind of showing us like the rest of

the image, you know, it's like, it literally feels like we're getting all that information,

if you pan the camera up, and we're just getting it with that awesome reflection. It's just

creating such a sense of space.

Oh, yeah, you're right.

Yeah. I've been going to the California wetlands a lot recently.

Oh, that's cool.

They've been really nice ever since it started raining.

Where is that?

And it used to be the entire Central Valley. But now it's like small pockets of it. I'm

in Norcal, so it's like, Consumnes is probably the best one.

It's Consumnes, C-O-N-S-U-M-E-S. It's like a lot like consumes, but it's not. But it's

like the Consumnes River Preserve.

Cool. How have you lived in California your whole life?

I lived, I grew up in the Bay Area. And then I went to college in Maryland for five years.

And then I came back during the pandemic.

So you've been here a while.

Yeah, yeah. Any questions? I recommended Zion to you. I'm that person. So

yeah, you're you're the person to ask for nature trips.

My question would be, what did you study in Maryland?

Oh, I went to MICA, which is the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Oh, cool.

So I studied animation, but no one has ever heard of it because it has a really tiny animation

program.

I checked out that school when I was looking at schools.

Yeah, they're, they're very good at fine art. And like oil painting.

That's probably what they're like most well known for or like editorial. It's a very much

like an East Coast school. In the sense that like, you either go to like gallery work or

editorial illustration or

that's interesting you say that because I feel like why I left the East Coast. It felt

like all the art opportunities were like, it just felt like I guess that the whole entertainment

design thing just like wasn't thriving on the East Coast.

Well, exactly, exactly. Like, it's a very fine art place. Like, and we can get into

like the more nuanced about like, well, what does that mean? But like, at the end of the

day, it wasn't that you were applying to studios, you're applying to galleries or like residencies.

Yeah, I mean, even for me, like the my experience trying to do like figure drawing, like on

the side, because I was out there like working as a graphic designer, and I was trying to

get more into the, you know, fine art and like ultimately concept art side. And then

you go to these like drawing events, and it was all like, older hobbyists, like who seemed

like, you know, kind of rich or whatever. But you know, it just wasn't that way.

That's true in California as well.

I just couldn't find where like anybody was, like, even my age was making art in New York.

It was just maybe that was like my own like bubble, but I found it like a lot more personable

out here in LA.

Yeah, I agree.

That's me too.

Yeah, but I feel like if you if you wanted to find artists, you would have to go to gallery

openings and like, talk to people at gallery openings. Which, I don't know, it, it, it

has it didn't, it's like the MICA animation program is like non existent. Which is why

it's like really interesting networking with people, like at Lightbox, for example. And

they'd be like, Oh, where'd you go to school? And I'd be like, MICA and they're like, they

like enthusiastically nod and I'm like, you have never heard of this school before.

I don't even think anybody. I don't know. The school you went to or whatever. I'm just

so much more interested in seeing somebody's portfolio, I suppose, you know, because wherever

somebody went, doesn't necessarily reflect who they are.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's true. But also, like, all of my professors who taught animation

had been out of the industry for so long. That like, I swear to God, at one point, someone

was just like, Yeah, you want to you want a hard copy of your portfolio on a CD? I was

like, oh, my computer doesn't even have a CD drive. Like, what are you talking about?

Like, like, one of my professors worked on Doug, the movie, you know, the super, super

recent Doug the movie. And I think like, that's true. But like, honestly, I'm a little bit

soured on like, the entire art school thing, because of that, because like, I learned a

lot more from just like sitting on zoom calls and stack than I did it classes taught by

people who worked on Doug the movie.

Oh, man. Well, we have a lot. You're in my next class, right? Yeah. Cool. We have a lot

to talk about. Because we can. I had a very similar college experience.

We're gonna we're gonna shit talk. No, you know, we're gonna talk.

Don't buckle in.

Let me let me actually try and get the real name of this.

Tom's here.

I had a question, Zach, you ever think you'll do another or is this time slot for your classes

going to be it for the rest of that till the end of time? Or will you ever do like a night

class again?

Um,

yeah, I would like to do these classes at like different times. So it allows other people

to do it,

to take it.

So yes, I don't know when that will happen.

But yeah, I would like to do that.

Where Where do you live?

I'm in Texas. So I'm like, two hours behind you guys. But my morning is a pretty packed.

Oh, yeah. So I did it like, you know, like, seven my time, then that would be like, and

are you getting out of work or whatever?

I mean, I wouldn't mind on later, but I could totally fit like, lay into the afternoon in

my schedule. But don't do it just for me, you know?

Yeah, I'm just trying to get like, a sense of

because I've been talking to some other people about this too. So I'm thinking like, what

would what would be the best time to do it?

Yeah, you're pretty good.

Cool.

Cool. Any other questions or anything? Before we wrap up?

I'm from Netherlands, Europe, just letting you know. I appreciate it. Okay.

Oh, this is you.

Oh, yeah, that's the the the wetlands. The name is in the thing.

Yeah, that's awesome.

It's Yeah.

I told you, it's just like consumes, but it's not.

But it's just right now we went out there specifically because the sandhill cranes are

in California right now. So we went to go look at the sandhill cranes.

Wow, that's cool.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Well, I think I'm going to, yeah, we'll end it here. I'll probably take a break from this and look at it again with some fresh eyes maybe later today or tomorrow and post it.

I like it.

But, um, yeah, this was fun. Thanks for thanks for joining me and talking and asking questions.

Yeah, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for hosting and inviting us. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Oh, it's amazing. Yes. Thank you guys.

Good luck, everybody. Yeah, we'll do it again. Just keep an eye on the discord and all that. Yeah. Next time you'll share person boots with us. Oh yeah, that's right.

Feel free to remind me.

Yeah, free screening and living room.

Oh my god.

No, I would I would love a live stream of you watching the new Pinocchio like seriously.

Ready to be canceled. That's what I'll do.

I'll just, I'll be like a YouTube like, I'll just review movies, everyone in the industry will hate me but like I already got mine I'm out of here, you know, talking.

Yeah, for the rest of my life.

I mean like I would I would. Has anyone done a podcast it's like a director's commentary track where it's like you turn it on at the same time as a movie.

No.

And they just froze the hell out of it.

Hey, hey, TMTM anyone want to start a podcast.

That would be fun.

I will talk to you guys later.

All right. Bye guys. Take care. Have a good day. Bye.