Mask Spider

So I was doing some further research on Anansi stories this last couple of weeks. Still not a huge amount of useful info, but I have come across a few stories that might be fun to work with. Promise to myself: go to manhattan Library sometime this week for further research. One thing I'm finding is that once you get past the more modern Kiddie adaptations, most African folktales are actually quite bloody and violent. Dunno if I really want to go in that direction. So far leaning more toward either "How Anansi Got His Stories" or "Anansi Flies With the Birds." We'll see where we go from there.

In my last post I was fooling around with the idea of puting a face on Anansi's thorax. Well it turns out nature beat me to it! There's actually a spider name "the African Mask Spider" that has a shape very like a mask on it's back. it looks kind of like a crude picture of an alien head, actually. When playing around with it, I stumbled upon the Golden Orb spider, which actually seems to present a slightly more fun design idea. See what you think:


On an unrelated note, saw How to Train Your Dragon, which I thought was a lot of fun, if a bit over-priced. Seems the only real complaint the reviewers really have is how it isn't different enough from anything else out there right now.

Last weekend saw the release in NYC of Waking Sleeping Beauty the special documentary with "never-before seen footage" inside Disney Studios back in the 90's. Really looking forward to seeing it, but couldn't what with the NY Art Expo & everything this week. Thinking of getting a bunch of Artist friends togeather to go check it out this weekend. Anyone interested?

Edit: Spider concept art doesn't seem to be posting for some reason. will try & fix from home computer. Jason Out.

Anansi Sketches

Starting concept work on the Anansi Project. I want a very stylized look, more like african art come to life rather than an ordinary disney-ish cartoon character. Maybe Thai shadow-puppet feel like in the Bendito Machine shorts.

http://www.benditomachine.com

Here I am trying to nail down Anansi's basic feel. Haven't settled on a specific story yet, still waiting for Amazon to send me my storybooks! Feeling encouraged so far, more as it develops.

Blog Facelift

Ta Da!! My Blog is now officially 75% more bad-ass! Last Sunday I attended Social Media SMArt CAMP boot camp, a gathering of online artists. you can find them at http://socialmediaartcamp.com There we broke into groups and learned how to better use our online-presence. It was pretty cool and really informative. The upshot of this is you can expect me to do alot more Blogging & Twittering. My Twitter Handle is "JasonDavidPrice" if you were wondering, by the way...

Inspiration struck in the shower the other day, as it often will. I'm seriously considering starting up a new short Animation on my own featuring Anansi the Spider. I'm not as familiar with African Folklore as I'd like, and figure it'll be fun to work with everyone's favorite trickster god. Problem is, I am finding it nigh-impossible to find a decent book that has stories of Anansi and isn't a kiddie picture book or something by Neil Gaiman. *shrug.* Amazon's my next stop, then perhaps (gasp!) a library? More on that as it develops.

My Website design is essentially done, just got a number of technical hiccups to overcome before I can put it up. Anyone know any AS3? Anyone? hmm. In the meantime, he's a quick sneak peak:

Lovecrafty

Been getting into a lot of work by H.P. Lovecraft lately. I had of course heard of C'thulhu, but never really went in depth with his writings before. It's really unlike anything I've come across more recently. Here's some recent sketches inspired by my newfound mania:

a baby Shoggoth

Deep One

This'll make a fun poster

It's surprisingly easy to imagine this song as a satanic chant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2F4EFYM_MA