DiMilo Sketches

Milwaukee Animation Group Poster

2012-01-25T08:13:00.000-08:00

Since the topic of this month's Milwaukee Animation group is post-PC animation, I thought it would make sense to design a mobile-friendly animated poster.

Magic Lantern Slides

2012-01-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

For Christmas my family surprised me with a working magic lantern from the late 19th century. It came with a set of glass slides illustrated with animals and scenery. I thought it would make sense to create a few slides of my own. Babs and Knuckles, Taddo Tales and Lincoln.

Hand Drawn Art Patterns with Adobe Illustrator

2011-09-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hand-inked line art can be converted to custom art brushes using Adobe Illustrator. These patterns were created by inking various graphic elements on paper and scanning the results. After applying Illustrator's live trace tool to convert the drawings to vector art, I then dropped the results into the custom art brushes palette.

Creating brushes instead of symbols allows you to "draw" with your pattern. It's a great way to build a personal library of unique, ownable motifs. This technique is ideal for designing seamless wallpaper patterns, tessellation or printed textiles.

Free Font: Babs and Knuckles

2011-08-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

It's about time this chunky display font was available to the general public and not just to Facebook Friends of Babs and Knuckles. Download Babs and Knuckles Black hand-crafted by yours truly. Great for posters, announcements or light correspondence. Available now.
Babs and Knucles Black (Macintosh) | Babs and Knuckles Black (PC)

Brady Street Days 2011

2011-08-04T12:35:00.001-07:00

Taddo Tales

2011-06-14T08:49:00.001-07:00

At long last, those squabbling, stuffed ragamuffins have a place on the internet to call home. Have a look at the 1 minute episodes and share with your frienemies. TaddoTales.com

Milwaukee Animation Group May Poster

2011-05-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

Chico the Bouncing Schnoodle

2011-04-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a little animation of my sister's dog, Chico. Isn't he darling?

Ollie Barks

2011-04-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Sketches from Madison: March 12, 2011

2011-03-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Babs and Knuckles Acknowledgements

2010-12-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Animation has always been part my Babs and Knuckles puppet series. The introduction is animated and some episodes feature short cartoon segues. For this installment I wanted to have the cartoon take over the whole episode.

Much of the look of Mike was influenced by the limited, television animation of Hanna Barbara cartoons. I am also hugely inspired by Amid Amidi's book Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 50's Animation. The book details how mid-century animators treated their work as an extension of what was going on in the visual arts at the time. Something I've always loved about cartoons and illustrations from that period is the warmth of color and simplicity of the painted designs. All the drawings for this short was done using gouache, acrylic and ink on paper which was then composited with Photoshop and After Effects. This technique gives the images a depth I have difficulty reproducing with digital brushes and effects. My hope was to capture a little of that hand-made goodness of those old TV cartoons.

The West Allis Cheese jingle is included because I really like their cheese. King Daddy who did the music had only the lyrics and a rough animatic to work with. My niece, Frankie Carter provided the vocals.

I also want to extend my sincere apologies for impersonating Daws Butler's impersonation of Ed Wynn.

Babs and Knuckles Episode 09: Mike

2010-12-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

For all those who have said they prefer the cartoon parts of Babs and Knuckles to the puppets here is an episode that is (almost) entirely animated. Thanks to Geoff Carter, David Bolyard, Paul Carter, Dennis Curley and Frankie Carter for providing the music.

Watch Mike

24 Hour Toons "Ghost Rabbit" Animation

2010-10-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

24 Hour Toons hosted another online video challenge this month with the theme "Ghost!" Visit their re-designed site to see my Ghost Rabbit animation and the many weird and wonderful films created over the weekend.

Small Compositions on Paper

2010-09-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

These little mixed-media compositions are made with brushed ink on coffee-dyed paper.

Five Steps to Inking Digital Animation with Adobe Illustrator

2010-09-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

Why use Illustrator to create Flash animation?

Adobe Flash works well for producing animation but it's awkward paint tools make computer animation more challenging than it needs to be. With scanned drawings and Adobe Illustrator's tracing tool digital inking is a breeze.

What you'll Need

Paper

Pencil and eraser

Ink pen (or india ink and a brush)

Light box

Scanner (A sheet feeding scanner is a huge time saver)

Computer running Adobe Illustrator and Flash (CS3 or later)

1. Sketch your artwork

Rough pencils will serve as a guide for inking. Tighten your drawings as much as you like In this example I've created a simple 14 frame walk cycle based on a doodle of a Montauk monster. Registration marks will help lining up the drawings in the computer.

2. Ink the drawings on a light table.

India ink and a brush work well for getting a fluid line, but use whatever pen you like best.

3. Scan your inked drawings.

Grayscale JPGs or TIFFs are ideal. Adjust the contrast so that the background is blown out white and the blacks are saturated. Be sure to name the files sequentially for example: "monster_01.jpg, monster_02.jpg…"

4. Convert the drawing to vector art in Illustrator.

Create a new Illustrator document with the art board sized to the dimensions of your finished animation. Import your first image by dragging it from the finder onto the art board.

-With the artwork selected choose Live Trace from the floating palette. (Object > Live Trace)

Select the tracing options. (Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options…)

-Make adjustments to the Tracing Options until you get the results you like. You may need to blur the image slightly to soften the edges or remove stray artifacts. Be sure to check Ignore White in the Trace Settings. Instead of Trace, Save Preset… to save these settings for the rest of your images. Then Trace.

-Next choose Expand from the floating palette. Your drawing is now an Adobe Illustrator vector object. Now you can tweak any stray points in the line work just as you would any Illustrator object.

-Repeat the process above using your preset tracing options for the remainder of your inked drawings. Keep each drawing on it's own layer.

-With your art selected use the Live Paint paint bucket to color your inked artwork. (Command K, ) choosing colors with the CMYK color slider. Save out your color swatches to quickly color the subsequent frames.

5. Import to Flash

Open your project and Choose File > Import to Library.

-Flash recognizes the layered Illustrator files. Select Convert Layers to Keyframes and enter OK.

-The Illustrator file has been converted to a movie clip. Each layer is now on it's own keyframe. If you prefer using Flash's paint bucket tool to Illustrator's just import the line art from Illustrator. It's tracing turns out much better than Flash's Convert Bitmap tool. This same technique works great for limited animation where only isolated portions of the figure moves. Below is the finished walk cycle at 12 fps.

MIlwaukee Animation Group Poster

2010-08-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

Above is the black and white version of the poster I created for the September Milwaukee Animation Group meeting where I will be presenting on digital inking techniques.

Portrait Society Galleries exhibit: "The Intimate Page"

2009-11-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

Above: An art patron studies a collection of drawings at the opening of The Intimate Page.

Last week I was invited to display some drawings at the Portrait Society Galleries show, The Intimate Page. The exhibit features sketchbook drawings from over sixty artists whose work span a large range of styles and subjects. On display are delightful drawings by Adolph and Susanne Rosenblatt, Carri Skoczek, Fred Bell, Paul Caster and many more. While there, don't miss the wonderful exhibit Flock of Birds with paintings by Michael Kasun and Amy O'Neil.

The show runs through January 4th 2010, at the Portrait Society Galleries.

St. Vincent and Andrew Bird at the Pabst Theater

2009-10-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

St. Vincent and Andrew Bird put on a remarkable show at the Pabst Theater last night. Together they performed St. Vincent's Marry Me and the Bob Dylan classic, O Sister. Here are a couple of drawings of the view from the balcony.

Orville Wrong

2009-06-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

This little mixed-media animation features a funny walk cycle and glue print backgrounds. See it here.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Hungry Fledgeling

In honor of Mother's Day I spent the whole weekend working on this little watercolor animation while my lovely wife worked in the yard. Have a look.

Puppies Tale

2009-03-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a little short created this weekend for 24 Hour Toons. This week's theme was Puppies! And what's not to love about that? Watch Puppies Tale.

Art Smart's Dart Mart

2009-01-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

Episode 8 of Babs and Knuckles: Art Smart's Dart Mart. The folks at Art Smart were extremely cool about letting us shoot this episode. There were customers milling around while I was wiggling puppets around in front of the merchandise. This was a really fun episode to work on.

Bubble Boy

2008-12-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

Another animation for 24hourtoons.com, Watch Bubble Boy.

Plato's Cave

2008-12-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a creepy little animation created for 24 Hour Toons. The truth is it took a little longer than 24 hours to put this together. The theme this time around was schizophrenia. Have a look.

Babs and Knuckles update

2008-12-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

After making that animated short for 24 Hour Toons, it seemed plausible to whip up a little something to update last year's episode of Babs and Knuckles. Be sure to check out the new intro to Deck the Halls.

Spot Holiday Illustrations

2008-11-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

One perk of working at Culver Advertising is getting to cook up a bunch of rude little illustrations for this year's Culver advent calendar. View an interactive version of the calendar here.

24 Hour Toons

2008-11-17T04:57:00.001-08:00

This weekend I made a little animation for 24 Hour Toons. It's a blog set up by two animation professionals that challenges animators to create a cartoon in 24 hours based on a theme. There are a whole bunch of really funny, ambitious submissions by professionals from Disney to indie animators like me. This little acrylic and ink animation took about 50 drawings and 16 hours from concept to upload.

Have a look.

Babs and Knuckles Posters

2008-11-12T23:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a collection of posters for Babs and Knuckles.

Untitled Mixed Media Collages

2008-11-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

This series was a study for the backgrounds of an upcoming episode of Babs and Knuckles. That puppet show is a great excuse to mess around with mixed media. The drawings were done quickly with pencil and changed to vector art in Adobe Illustrator. All the photos were of local Milwaukee-area scenes in the 3rd Ward and Brady street.

Babs and Knuckles Screen captures

2007-09-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I've posted. To celebrate my new puppet podcast, Babs and Knuckles here are a few images from the animated introduction to the show and the lounge sequence of Episode 2: London James. Check it out at BabsandKnuckles.com

Odds and ends

2007-09-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a funny little doodle made in Illustrator and playing around with a woodcut texture and an early Knuckles sketch.

Culver Posters

2007-07-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I get to work on some really cool stuff at work. Here are some posters for a trade show. To watch an animated version visit the Culver website.

Oliver the Book

2007-03-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here are some sketches of our dog Oliver that evolved into a little book.

King Daddy

2006-12-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a portrait of Milwaukee's coolest cocktail combo, King Daddy.

Seasonal illustrations

2006-10-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

From a small series of screen prints.

Margarita Monday

2005-07-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Jenn's annual birthday bash with margaritas on the Milwaukee River and Harbor.

Skipping stones

2005-07-10T18:00:00.000-07:00

Bay beach. Elliot invents a cool game.

Summerfest sketches

2005-07-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Summerfest including one of Lucinda Williams.

Backyard Birthday celebration

2005-07-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

With my sister Lois (left) Rae and schnoodle Lucy.

Alterra Coffee

2005-07-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some sketches at Alterra Coffee on Milwaukee's lakefront and at the beach.

Bacchus

2005-06-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

Rae and I enjoyed dinner at Bacchus for our 21st anniversary.

Sake Tume

2005-04-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Sampling the asian fusion sushi at Sake Tumi with Elliot and Rae.

Soup House

2005-03-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Renamed the T.L.C. Soup Co. on Michigan St.

Cards with Carol and Frank

2005-03-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

Carol kicks butt at Texas hold-em.