Starring Obi-Wan, C3P0, Han and Chewie

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 351 from Gregory Nemec on Vimeo.

I am bitten by the Sweding bug. I chose this scene because it wasn't really a scene, it's bits of three different threads of the story. Who wants to act that out? But animating it is no problem. Also, a chance to draw four of my favorite characters (see title of this post) AND Stormtroopers? Please.

The Death of Biggs

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 453 from Gregory Nemec on Vimeo.

Here is my contribution to the GREATEST IDEA EVER on the internet. The idea in a nutshell: chop up the first Star Wars* into fifteen second clips and let people shoot their own versions of those clips. Compile them all in one place and you have a remake of a beloved movie, in hundreds of different styles. Some are pretty much just like the "Sweded" scenes in "Be Kind Rewind", with various degrees of professionalism. Many use Lego and action figures, and at least one artist used hand-painted paper bag puppets. I did mine in cut paper stop-motion, with a few self-imposed limitations: no sketching with pencil first, no do-overs. If I had been too picky, I never would have finished all fourteen shots. Fourteen shots for fifteen seconds of film! I noticed a lot of animators gravitated to the action scenes, with lots of quick cuts.

I love all the creative solutions people came up with to re-create moments from the film. A narrow hallway for the garbage compactor scene. A computer keyboard as the surface of the Death Star. And, wow, a milk carton on its side DOES look just like a Jawa sandcrawler.

*okay, I have a beef with them using the "new and improved" version, not the original version. But whoever did scene 196 decided not to have Greedo shoot first. See, it's the GREATEST IDEA EVER on the internet.

It's not copying, it's an homage.

(click on my artwork to see it much bigger)

Autobiographical numbers describe themselves. For example, the subject of this art is 1210, and it has 1 zero, 2 ones, 1 two, and 0 threes. 1—2—1—0. Get it? It's the smallest autobiographical number. Fun for a geek like me, and fun to be able to add my name to the long list of people who have ripped off the famous Rockwell triple self-portrait. Of course he was the master of doing that:

Dime Bag show ending soon!

I had a great time at the opening of Dime Bag 3, featuring my little rabbit painting and lots of great art by lots of artists. Stop by Giant Robot and see all the work by Wednesday. Then it's coming down. Trust me, it's worth seeing. Tiny work that packs a big wallop. You can buy the individual pieces of art, ranging in price from $10 to $500, online if you can't make it to the show. Check out Giant Robot for details. There are lots of photos of the super-crowded opening courtesy of Giant Robot on Flickr, but here are the highlights from a Greg-centric point of view.



Illustrator and co-curator Jordin Isip. The look of a man who just hung up almost 300 works of art.



The red dot means someone bought my painting. I hope it gets a good home.




This was one of two walls full of art. I hear that additional work went up after the opening. Click images to see in more detail.



This is what happens when you invite several hundred artists to be in a show, and they each bring a friend or two...


So since my wife was sad that my painting might be sold, and she liked it, I created a companion piece for her. She likes it even better. Maybe because we have two bunnies of our own now.

Teeny tiny art

Done for an upcoming group show called "Dime Bag 3" at Giant Robot New York. Each piece of art has to fit inside a three-inch plastic baggie. Tiny paintings, drawings, sculptures, all displayed on the wall in their zip-lock bags.

This is the first piece I have done that I would consider multimedia scratchboard. Scratching, sandpaper, scratching, oil paint, more scratching, in a genuine wood frame. Scratchboard's not usually soft and warm so that was my motivation. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Portraits in Two Directions and Cartoons!

I just finished up a semester of teaching gradeschool and middle school artists, and whenever a kid had some downtime (either finishing a project early, or wishing they weren't doing the current project) I would ask them if they would draw or paint me, I could draw or paint them, and we could trade art. So here's a variety of simultaneous portraits.
Each grid has a corresponding portrait in the other, so the center portrait of me was painted by the artist who is shown in the center of the kids. (She also drew the bottom center portrait of me, as she is quite prolific. The bottom center portrait in the grid of kids shows what happens when I screw up—turn it into a pirate!)

The artist who opens our exhibit above did not want her portrait created, but watched and recorded the moment that Justin and I drew each other. Click on these to see them in much more detail.

One of my animation students and I made this movie by moving sand around on a light table. He was great at figuring out how to turn one shape into another.



Also, here is an animated film created by two first time animators with me this semester. It's a feminist masterpiece that's a little over two minutes long.

Back to, oh yeah, illustration

Lots of illustrator interviews on this site, but I am the freshesh one as of this moment. Get it now, hot out of the oven, before the fat lady sings.

http://www.whohub.com/nemec