I Done Been Interviewed! (and made some unrelated fanart)

Hey everyone! 

Long time no blog! I can't say this year has been an especially prolific one for the Roost (although my main resolution for this year was to "be prolific," I've applied that more to my drawing than my writing.) But to fill the gap between this and the next post, I am happy to share that I did a recent interview for the Nashville Voyager which you can read here! - https://nashvillevoyager.com/interview/check-out-daniel-haycoxs-story/

It's a fun little summary of my journey in animation (familiar territory for this blog) but now that I'm almost a year out of college (wowie) I'm able to look back with some perspective on my time there and how it shaped me as an artist. The main thing I wanted to convey is that as long as you have a genuine love for the product AND the process I think it's really just a matter of time spent practicing before you gain proficiency, and maybe even a career making what you love. Talking about that did make me a little homesick for the days when my primary work was drawing - I now have to cram art in around the edges between working my job and sleeping. But I'm still trying to make it work, building momentum back on Bearpuncher (only 12 shots left to animate!) and even doing some fanart yesterday!

say cheese, 4townies!

I've been looking forward to Pixar's new movie, Turning Red, for a while - can't say I was initially wowed by the first announcement, but once I saw more trailers and learned that Domee Shi was directing I was totally on board. It also just happened to coincide VERY NICELY with a 2000s nostalgia phase I've been experiencing for the past couple months. Not that I actually remember a lot of the 2000s, but I do enjoy the music of the time and an era where the internet wasn't so invasive... In the movie the kids were taking pictures with the panda and I thought "how is that not going to end up on social media???" Then I realized they didn't HAVE social media. What a concept. 

Anyways, I think the movie nailed a lot of very specific niche interests of mine - animal movies, 2000s jams, hip-hop/asian fusion music, cartoony expressions in feature films, movies set in uncommon locales - and so I was never not gonna like it. And I haven't seen a movie really tackle puberty the way they did (usually movies stick to portraying "coming of age" as only a mental and emotional transition, something much more marketable...) But I'm glad they risked it here, as it reminded me of how confusing and even panic-inducing that age was for me, which I've never seen represented in a movie before. 

Turning Red is one of my first reviews on my new Letterboxd account - anybody else using that site? I was a begrudging convert at first, but my reviews have steadily been getting longer and longer... If you read this blog you probably can guess I like sharing my opinions, so it's no surprise that I have become an avid user of a site that lets you pretend to be a movie critic. Hah! 

Anyways, I hope all y'all are well. We got a freak snow here in Nashville a couple days ago but the cherry blossoms have been blooming nonetheless. I'm looking forward to watching some Ghibli movies and dreaming about summer! (Trying not to do that too much until Lent is over, but still...) 

You guys have any spring plans? Or thoughts on Turning Red? I've found people have a wide range of opinions on that movie so I'd be interested to hear 'em.

Your fellow wayfarer,

dh

Baby's First Storyboard Meeting - and Other Happenings

that's me in the red circle

Hello hello Bloggerfolk!

I'm back with some exciting news - I've just participated in my first story meeting ever :) After years of dreaming and reading about Cartoon Network story meetings where they pitch boards and hash out story details, it was fun to be in a similar kind of meeting - with my very own boards being screened in front of this handsome crowd! Still not totally sure if I'm allowed to say what I've been working on with this team, but I will say that's it's directed by Mike Nawrocki and based on his children's book series... so feel free to do more research if you just REALLY gotta know. I boarded about a third of it which is probably around 6 minutes of runtime altogether! This was my first time seeing my work alongside Naomi Bethel's and Tim Hodge's amazing boards, all with temp voices and music! And it's the first time many friends and classmates have seen my boards at all, and their kind comments have done much to reduce my imposter syndrome. (Even while the drawings remind me how much I still need to work on my draftsmanship... oh dear). I'm looking forward to seeing what my drawings look like when lovingly animated and paired with production backgrounds. Aside from GBR it will be my first time experiencing that too!

Oh and that character design that I was heavily hinting about in that last post is done! Here she is:

featuring the universal skating rink carpet

I've been listening to '80s music all summer so even though there were a few other concepts I almost chose, this one stuck! It was also a good chance to design a female animal character, which I don't often do. And honestly, I've been a little afraid to. There's such a wealth of offputting, uncanny, and flat-out-bad art of female animal characters and even icons of the genre still manage to mess it up (most notably the Blacksad comics). For this character I looked a lot at Shiyoon Kim's Gazelle designs from Zootopia - one of the few female characters that uses natural animal shapes and can still play the part of a stylish pop star. 

And even I messed up - there's a fully inked drawing of this character (that you will never see :) ) where she basically looked like an animal head on a human body. Gross. Somehow this alternate pose just worked better, and allowed me to show off her animal elements more - namely that long neck and hooves. And I would be remiss not to mention John Loren, who saved the rendering and color of this piece with a crazy good paintover(s). In a period where I've become increasingly frustrated with my rendering ability, I'm thankful for someone like John who can step in and make my life a little easier and my work a lot better. It's a big reason why I, now more than ever, recommend getting into a solid art-community, whether at a school or on Discord! 

In other recent news I've fallen hard for Lackadaisy, and binge-read the entire thing last weekend. Like many of my other tastes and interests I've stumbled upon it perhaps a decade too late, but I'm here for the party (which in this case means bootlegging cats in an alternate 1920s St. Louis). With all the buzz about a recent animated film coming up I figured it was finally time to test out the source material, and it did not disappoint. In particular, the dialogue is so smartly written - I don't know if it's due to jargon of the period or just the writer/artist's impressive command of vocabulary, but these cats talk GOOD. They also have great acting and expressions, especially for animal characters. And did I mention it's a story starring animal characters? So it's probably no surprise that I like it so much ;)

And this weekend I got to go on a little trip to Burgess Falls, actually my second time going there, but I don't think I've talked about it here before. Some friends and I had a lot of fun relaxing in the creek and small waterfalls, all while trying to avoid the rangers who were very much against that idea. We also explored Cookeville, which I've driven past dozens of times yet never bothered to visit. And who knew it contained this amazing neon sign!

so retro in the best way possible

As my friends Parker and Olivia can attest to, I stared at this mesmerizing sign for probably much too long on multiple occasions. And we were even blessed by a nighttime thunderstorm which when combined with this sign made me feel like I was in a noir movie. All that was missing was a trenchcoat, a haunted backstory, and a dozen egg creams... 

What else have I been up to? I went to church in person for the first time since quarantine started. We had a (very small) welcome back party for a friend who got out of quarantine/isolation. And I've been going to the farmer's market every Tuesday night! Lots of nice little things amongst these lingering tides of quarantine. 

I've also been catching little bits of Lightbox Online when they've fallen through the cracks of my otherwise packed schedule - Nicholas Kole's been doing some great talks and I plan on listening to the recordings over the next few weeks as I draw. And speaking of drawing... that's probably what I should be doing right now. I've got a pile of color thumbnails and the ever looming work of thesis still to tackle. But thanks for letting me share my decidedly niche interests in animal character design and tales of feline bootlegger-y with you today! 

Hope you're continuing to weather these times with grace, courage, and creativity!

-dh

Music Reccomendation: Aedan recently showed me Josh Ritter's "Be of Good Heart" and it's so good I cry almost every time I hear it. Vintage, autumnal, with well placed... oboes?? anyways it's real good

Little Mandalorian GIF - and Molly!

Hi all - 
This post is preeeetty much just an excuse to post this gif full size since Instagram is not quite ready to handle my somewhat wide cinematic stylings at this current moment. So without further ado-

BAM. The Mandalorian. I've been watching the show off and on throughout the past few months and just finished it last night. Despite the baby yoda flood it induced I really like it (and therefore find it strange that I was able to wait so long between watching episodes... hmmmm...) It honestly feels like the most Star Wars-y Star Wars that's come out since Disney bought the franchise. Proof that you don't need 100,000 star destroyers that are also death stars to have compelling stakes and powerful heroes. I honestly really liked the relatively small scale of the project - the show kinda stuck to it's own corner and then made that corner super fun. And I really respect that. And the Mandalorian himself was so well handled - you could tell what he was feeling even though the helmet stayed on. (Ever notice how in Marvel movies they always have to take the helmets off? IN FIGHTS???) I was so afraid that the were gonna take Mando's off too early - glad they saved that reveal until the right moment. And with Taika Waititi working his signature charm on the final episodes it just really made me want to draw something. Which is always a little dangerous since that kind of inspiration typically fades when I actually have to draw the armor and perspective and character and what have you. So I took a page out of GGDG's work and just tried to simplify everything as much as possible like she does in this Samus/Metroid comic. I always feel a little bit more unsure when I do this - since there's less paint on the page it's harder to judge if it's actually good or not. But after some eye-blasting pinks that definitely weren't in the actual show I think I made something that channeled that inspiration without getting discouraged. So yeah! 

I also made this art of Molly from Animal Crossing recently - she moved into my village a few days ago and is Just the Cutest Little Duck Ever Wow.

I've been in a big simple+cute kick cause I really don't want to draw details right now :P And I've also been digesting 100% cute due to the amount of Animal Crossing I've been playing. (I'm building a little North Carolina barrier island town - come visit!) And while we're talking cute art here's a caricature of Sam Abner I did for our department's annual show (now online due to covid)

I didn't have a whole lot of time for caricatures this year since I was busy drawing caricatures for the Good Boy Richard credits (ironic) but I wanted to make sure I got one in for Sam since he's been a big part of my college experience and is also GRADUATING (wow). This year's senior class includes many of my closest friends at Lipscomb and I wish I could draw them all. But the truth is I did Sam's on the day of the show which was ALSO Good Boy Richard's premiere and I didn't have much time for anybody else. :( Both Sam and Molly were styled after ieafy's work - I love how slick and unapologetically digital her pieces are and it's a fun style to cycle back to now and again. 

Now with summer so close on the horizon I'm excitedly looking forward to the potential it holds - most of my internship offers have been getting cancelled, but hey a blank canvas technically has the most potential (and also a paralyzing multitude of options but we'll ignore that part). I'm planning on doing some more personal work and taking some online art classes. Hopefully I'll follow through and actually do those - the doing is the hard part :P Maybe I'll even open up commissions! I've never officially opened for that kind of thing cause no one's asked and I've always had a general "contact+pay me and I'll draw for you" policy going so I never thought it was necessary. 

I'm also excited to go to the movies - the experience of actually going to a theater with lots of strangers just feels so foreign right now and almost mystical. I am ready. And waiting. Hopefully not for too long, but who knows at this point. In the meantime I've also been wanting to make a bit more video content while my Adobe Subscription (Quarantine Edition) is still active. Maybe a process video of a past piece with commentary? What say you, bloggerfolk? Just let me know --

May you continue to weather these times with grace, courage, and creativity.

It is the way.

-dh