Jake Kalsbeek

Sneeze

2012-01-19T10:59:00.000-08:00

The other day I was digging around my back up hard drive and I found this unfinished animation. I believe this project got put on the back burner when the second season of Abby started up. I started back at Speakeasy sooner than I expected and didn't get a chance to finish this one off. I still would like to finish this.

Missing

2012-01-04T16:21:00.001-08:00

Another illustration exercise. The theme for this one was missing.

Moon

2012-01-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

A couple months back I did a few of illustration exercises for fun. I took a theme and just ran with it. The theme for this on was moon. Searle was a big influence for these exercises.

2011-12-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

To meet my goal of drawing every day I've been working on some simple wordless comics. It's kind of a mix of Lewis Trondheim and Sergio Aragones. Here's a sneak peak at two panels.

Attitude

2011-11-30T20:44:00.001-08:00

Here's the shot I am currently working on.

I'm at the start of the polishing stage for the most part. I think the devil's acting needs some work. He feels a little stiff and unnatural to me right now. All in all I feel this is a big step forward from my last dialogue test. I'm making progress.

Jump Attack 4

2011-11-10T10:42:00.001-08:00

Here's the rendered version of my Jump Attack animation. I made a couple of changes after an animation buddy made a few suggestions. Nothing major. I polished the arc of the right hand in the air, I broke up some of the symmetry in the body at take off, and I added a couple of frames to the antic. For this last one I had to break a rule for the exercise. From what I see SF4 only allows a frame or two of antic. But Most people looking at this aren't going to know about the rules I set up so it's best to make the animation stand on it's own.

I also trucked in a bit so the character is larger in the screen.

Jump Attack Render from Jake Kalsbeek on Vimeo.

Gonzo Sketch

2011-11-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to the next Muppet movie.

Jump Attack 3

2011-11-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my first spline pass. Almost done with this one. I'm not too crazy about the blogger video. So I posted up to Vimeo and embedded the video this time. What do you think?

Jump Attack 2

2011-10-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

Here's my second blocking pass for my Street Fighter 4 style cycle. This is a pretty detailed blocking pass (its on ones in places). If I was animating on a game schedule I'd be close to done with this. Once I spline this I probably won't too much more work into it. I want it to feel like it belongs in SF4.

Jump Attack

2011-10-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to do a Street Fighter 4 style cycle. Here's my first blocking pass. There are some timing issues and I don't like how he translates back in the jump but over all I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

September 11 Second Club part 2

2011-10-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a polish pass to my September 11 Second Club entry. There is still more polishing I can do but I do have a deadline. I want to have this ready for the CTN expo. But are these shots ever really done?

The Temple of the Cursed Sphinx

2011-10-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

This mini comic project has been completed and waiting to be posted for some time, but recent events have kept me a little distracted. Here are the first two pages. You can read the rest on my website here. Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it.

September 11 Second Club

2011-10-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the animation I've been working on this month.

My blocking pass

A pre-polish pass

more to come . . .

Hulk Sad

2011-09-05T22:13:00.001-07:00

I finally saw the Captain America movie

2011-09-03T21:38:00.001-07:00

The Start of an Idea

2011-08-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm working on an idea starting these three guys.

sketch dump

2011-07-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

I don't do enough sketching from life.

Progress

2011-06-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter

2011-06-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

Can't wait for the last Harry Potter movie!

Cave Cannibal

2011-06-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here's another character from my upcoming mini comic. Also I'm going to try to post more of my work here at least once a week. Even if it is something simple like this.

Sphinx

2011-06-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Newish Demo Reel

2011-04-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well I guess it's ironic that after I make a post about 87 posts in one year 4 months goes by before I post again. It's not that I don't have my excuses. My wireless USB adapter broke and my dell in the office has been without internet access. I've been super busy keeping up with a higher quota at work on the second season of Abby. I'm developing my own cartoon at Speakeasy. Picking out the perfect baby name. I've been a busy guy.

Anyway, here's a link to my most up to date demo reel. I should have a new reel that has even more current in a couple of months but I thought I'd post this reel since it has been way too quiet here. Enjoy.

http://vimeo.com/12933755

I'm working on my next mini comic too. But with everything else going on if I get to work on it for a half an hour over a week I consider myself lucky. But honestly there are advantages to working so slowly on something like that. You get a lot of time to think about the whole process.

Post 87

2010-12-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

This is the 87th post of the year. Which is the most post for a year that I've ever had in the six years I've kept this blog. The numbers aren't that important to me but it is fun to see the numbers go up for some reason. Here's some paintings I did for sake of being creative one afternoon.

30 Days of Nintendo 30

2010-12-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

"I'm Bad!" Yep I'm finishing of this 30 Days of Nintendo sketches with one of the characters from Bad Dudes. What a terrible story, but it still warms my heart just thinking about it.

30 Days of Nintendo 29

2010-12-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

I hate to admit it but that Dog from Duck Hunt laughed at me a lot. Man's best friend. HA!

30 Days of Nintendo 28

2010-12-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

Does the lizard creature from Rampage have a name? Does he need a name? I say no.

30 Days of Nintendo 27

2010-12-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

I know Simon's main weapon is the whip. So why would I draw him with a boomerang that doesn't even look like his boomerang? I was away from my computer and couldn't look up the boomerang and I wanted to keep to the same portrait format and didn't want to mess with the whip. There I said it. I'm lazy.

30 Days of Nintendo 26

2010-12-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Another game that I liked a lot but either never passed or just don't remember. Maybe I did beat the final boss. I don't know.

30 Days of Nintendo 25

2010-12-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

The Amazon! Anyone who has the word "the" in their name has got to be dangerous.

30 Days of Nintendo 24

2010-12-02T17:54:00.000-08:00

Starman from Pro Wrestling. I think this has been my favorite redesign so far. Anyone who disagrees with me will have to deal with Starman.

30 Days of Nintendo 23

2010-12-01T17:50:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I like Mega Man and all but I bet he has a hard time going to the bathroom with a gun for a hand. All I'm saying is unzipping his pants has gotta be tricky. One false move and . . .

30 Days of Nintendo 22

2010-11-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

I think I might be running out of things to say about these characters.

30 Days of Nintendo 21

2010-11-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

Go E Honda go!

30 Days of Nintendo 20

2010-11-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

Bullet Bill.

30 Days of Nintendo 19

2010-11-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm in a groove the last couple of characters have turned out much better than the first several.

30 Days of Nintendo 18

2010-11-26T17:38:00.000-08:00

I didn't plan on painting the piranha plant that color of muddy red. That's what happens when you are watching The Walking Dead and painting at the same time. The zombies got me.

30 Days of Nintendo 17

2010-11-25T17:37:00.000-08:00

I'm really happy how Luigi turned out.

30 Days of Nintendo 16

2010-11-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

Battle Toads is a hard game. I'm not ashamed to say I couldn't pass that stupid hover board level.

30 Days of Nintendo 15

2010-11-23T17:34:00.000-08:00

Of all the Super Mario Brother's games I think Mario 2 was the weirdest.

30 Days of Nintendo 14

2010-11-22T17:32:00.000-08:00

A Goomba with wings! Not the best of the series but hey, it's a Goomba with wings.

30 Days of Nintendo 13

2010-11-21T17:26:00.000-08:00

Here is Jimmy from Double Dragon. Double Dragon is an awesome game. I remember that my brothers and I rented the game when I was in the fifth grade for the weekend. That Friday my brother was "sick" and stayed home. The jerk got to play Double Dragon while my other brother and I had to go to school. Yeah I had it pretty rough as a kid.

30 Days of Nintendo 10 - 12

2010-11-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

Playing catch up here. I haven't had access to my scanner so I've fallen a little bit behind. To make up my lack of Nintendo posting here's Bowser, Ryu, from Ninja Gaiden, and Billy from Double Dragon.

30 Days of Nintendo 9

2010-11-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

Blanka was my favorite from street fighter because I couldn't master the Ryu's dragon punch. With Blanka all you had to do is mash the buttons.

30 Days of Nintendo 8

2010-11-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

I admit that I didn't play Bomberman back on the NES. I've only played it on the Wii. But that doesn't mean it isn't a really fun game.

30 Days of Nintendo 7

2010-11-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

Don Flamenco, what more can I say!

30 Days of Nintendo 6

2010-11-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I wanted to draw Von Kaiser from Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Maybe it's the mustache.

30 Days of Nintendo 5

2010-11-13T16:49:00.001-08:00

King Hippo is awesome. I still remember the first time I beat him rather vividly. I wish I could spend a little more time on each one of these characters. They're a lot of fun to do.

30 Days of Nintendo 4

2010-11-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

Of the four choices in Super Mario Bros 2 my favorite was Mario, but Toad was a close second. I mean look at that hat!

30 Days of Nintendo 3

2010-11-11T06:59:00.001-08:00

My brothers and I never owned Ghosts 'n Goblins but we must have rented or borrowed the game from friends. I remember it being really hard and Sir Arthur the funny little main character always stuck in my head.

30 Days of Nintendo 2

2010-11-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Day number 2 of 30 days of Nintendo. I was a little disappointed how Little Mac turned out. The boxing gloves are the wrong color for example. The nice thing about these 30 days projects is that there is always tomorrow. That helps me be a little less precious with things and that's a good thing in the long run.

30 Days of Nintendo

2010-11-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

So I've started my 30 days of Nintendo project. The idea is to draw a different Nintendo character every day for 30 days. I plan to stick to NES characters but I may cheat a little and draw some Super Nintendo characters. We will see.

I had to start off with Mario. As a kid I loved Mario in all his incarnations.

A Very Happy Unbirthday To You

2010-11-08T11:50:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the silence for the last couple of weeks. I've been working away on personal and work related projects and haven't gotten around to posting anything up here. The plus side to all this blog laziness is now I have a nice back log of stuff to post. To start things off I thought I'd post some birthday cards that I made for some family members. Enjoy!

Painting

2010-10-18T09:56:00.001-07:00

I just watched Herb & Dorothy on Netflix's watch instantly feature. I love watching documentaries. And any documentaries that has anything to do about art get me excited about being creative. I've loved watching Art of the Steal, Art & Copy, I.M. Pei: First Person Singular, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?, and many more.

After watching Herb & Dorothy I had the urge to get out my acrylic paints and do some painting. This is what I came up with. I don't know if you'd call it a successful painting, but I think it was a personal success in that I'm starting to think about value. I have a ways to go before I understand it, but I'm making progress.

It's good for me to just be creative and not worry about the results. I don't think you can grow as an artist if you are too worried about the results.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-10-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

Theme: Firefly

Kevin Days A Week

2010-10-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

The quest strip I did for Kevin Burkhalter's Kevin Days A Week is up on his blog. Go check it out right now! Kevin's journal comic is a really great read and gushes personality and fun. Plus this guy is a comic making machine. Go check it out now!

Queue Lessons

2010-10-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Now that I've printed up and put together the first Queue mini-comic, I've had some time to think about the whole process. This being the first mini-comic I've ever made I knew there was going to be a learning curve to the process. I'm really happy with how everything turned out, but I've learned somethings and I don't plan to do everything the same next time. I've already got a story outline for my next mini and I'm looking forward to starting. I thought I'd take some time and write out some of the lessons I've learned to help remind me for next time.

-Stapling is a chore with a typical stapler, so I've order an inexpensive long arm stapler to make the whole process smoother.
-The text needs to be bigger than you think. The text in Queue is legible in the mini but I had to post the images larger than planned online so you can read some of the text in that version.
-Work on a size closer to final format. I'm not totally sure about this lesson. I wasn't totally happy with what shrinking the art did to the line work. The line work lost some of the spontaneity when I shrunk it down 35% in Photoshop.
-Include more backgrounds. I think some more backgrounds and atmosphere would help draw the reader into the story more. I ended up redrawing page three for compositional reasons but when I redrew the last panel I included more of the background and I think it really made the page better.
-Don't skimp on paper. Cheap computer paper or copy paper just doesn't look or feel right.
-Make your layouts as clear as possible. If your editors/first readers are using too much of their imagination and are guessing what's going on that's NOT a good thing.

Like I said I'm really happy with how things turned out but every time you tell a story you should learn from the process and be a better storyteller because of it.

Jobs: The Baker

2010-10-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Found this fun short on Keith Lango's blog. Enjoy!

JOBS : THE BAKER / LES METIERS : LE BOULANGER from lam le thanh on Vimeo.

Queue

2010-10-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the first few pages of my freshly completed mini comic Queue. You can read the whole thing on my web page. The comic wasn't originally intended for the web but I feel it works pretty well online. A big thanks goes out to my wife, Mike, and Kevin for help with the editing/story process. I Hope you enjoy it.

Mini Comic Update

2010-09-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post some of my mini comic I'm working on so you all know I'm not being lazy. It's been a crazy summer. I planned to have this mini done for SPX but because of my grandpa's funeral I wasn't able to attend and I didn't finish this mini. My plan is to finish the mini in the next two weeks.

You might notice that I'm still playing with my inking style and that the level of cartoonyness is still evolving. Ronald Searle's work has been a big influence lately. And I've been digging the blog/work of Stacy Curtis and the mini comics/blog of John Martz. Also my next 30 days project theme is going to be Nintendo. I'm looking forward to starting that once I've got this mini done.

Yum Yum Short

2010-09-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

I hate it when this happens to me.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-08-31T17:38:00.001-07:00

Theme: Stick Figure

Duel

2010-08-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Animation awesomeness. By Birdbox Studio.

Animation Test

2010-08-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Another animation test done in Flash.

Comic work in progress

2010-08-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

I got the first draft of my new mini comic done. I still have some more characters to design and I'm sure I'll continue to play with the layout and panel flow but the first story obstacle has been crossed.

Vacation Sketches

2010-08-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

While vacationing in California I set the goal to draw at least one quick sketch of my surrounds a day as a way of recording my trip and work on my skills. Some where successful and some weren't such a success. I've posted some of the success and failures below and left out the ones I deemed a waste of your time. Enjoy!

Back From Vacation

2010-08-17T08:26:00.001-07:00

I'm back from vacation in California so things should start to pick up again here. I did a lot of drawing while on the west coast so I thought I post a couple of my sketch book pages.

My brother and his wife are expecting next month and asked me to do some art for the kids room. The theme was monkeys and gorillas. We kicked around a couple of ideas and formats and ended up with a couple of water colors. Here's some of my planning sketches. I decided to do my previous post in acrylics as a warm up exercise for this project, but they liked the water color sketch I did so much we went with that.

We I achieve my life's long ambition and become the ultimate dictator and emperor supreme of Mars his his how I will enter the capital city.

I'm also working out a new style for a short personal comic project I'm working on. Here are two test that show the direction I'm leaning.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-07-21T15:43:00.001-07:00

Theme: Dame Vermios ont' Cavli (The Great Red Knight), and her trusted squire Verte

Sorry for poor quality of the image. I'm away from my computer so I couldn't scan this in all nice and pretty.

Animation Test

2010-07-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

Just playing around in Flash.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-06-30T08:26:00.001-07:00

Theme: "Oh Crap" Moments

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-06-21T08:51:00.001-07:00

Theme: Dragons

1 minute sketches

2010-06-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

I've been doing this warm up exercise lately where I do a "complete" sketch in 1 minute. This helps me stop worrying about what it looks like, loosen up and just get an idea down on paper. It's been fun.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-06-16T05:50:00.001-07:00

Theme: Road Trip

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-06-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Daytime Emmy

2010-06-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Abby's Flying Fairy School and Pete de Seve won a Daytime Emmy for character design. Pretty cool.

--update--

Our art director David Michael Friend also deserves a big congratulations too. A project like this is a team effort and David really did an amazing job of translating Pete's work into the 3D realm. He just posted some of his thoughts on his blog. Check it out.

Comic work in progress

2010-06-01T08:04:00.001-07:00

I finished the pencils and just got them scanned. Next up colors!

Quick Sketching From Harriman State Park

2010-05-30T17:01:00.001-07:00

Comic work in progress

2010-05-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

I know it might seem like I was drawing a lot in April and then just stopped in May. That's not true I just have had less to post. My current project is a little more involved.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-05-24T08:29:00.001-07:00

The topic for this weeks Swordfish Sketch Club was FABLES.

Swordfish Sketch Club

2010-05-03T07:05:00.001-07:00

A group of us at Speakeasy started up a weekly sketch club about a month ago called Swordfish. Here's the sketches I've drawn so far.

30 Monsters 30 Days: 30

2010-04-30T07:16:00.001-07:00

Mission completed! My goal for the month of April was to pencil, ink, and paint a new monster every day. And I did it. I wanted to learn more about watercolor and explore some different inking styles and pens. I think it was a really successful experiment. I only had one close call where I almost didn't get the drawing posted in time.

As an animator who works in 3D it easy to ignore my drawing skills and this was a really fun way to keep stretching those drawing/design muscles. I've got some other drawing projects coming up so I won't continue the daily drawing challenge for now. I've been participating in Speakeasy's weekly Swordfish sketch club and will continue to do that. I'll post my previous Swordfish sketches soon. I've been asked to participate in Kevin Burkhalter's Friends of February and I'm super stoked to start that. My drawing had a slow start to 2010 but I feel I'm back on track here and that the rest of the year is going to be a great year for growth.

30 Monsters 30 Days: 29

2010-04-29T08:13:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 28

2010-04-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 27

2010-04-27T11:00:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 26

2010-04-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 25

2010-04-25T13:03:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 24

2010-04-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 23

2010-04-23T11:05:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 22

2010-04-22T08:26:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 21

2010-04-21T12:48:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 20

2010-04-20T17:47:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 19

2010-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 18

2010-04-18T17:50:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 17

2010-04-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 16

2010-04-16T07:35:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 15

2010-04-15T07:19:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 14

2010-04-14T16:57:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 13

2010-04-13T17:47:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 12

2010-04-12T18:10:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 11

2010-04-11T19:30:00.001-07:00

30 Monsters 30 Days: 10

2010-04-10T17:25:00.001-07:00