Adobe Design Achievement Awards Agains

Just when I thought I was done talking about the Adobe Design Achievement Awards, they posted this piece that I happen to pop up in, puffy-eyed and mildly coherent:

"Superman's Best Friend" production art

I sent "Superman's Best Friend" onto the internet back at the end of July, 2012, but I though I would post some of the art and ideas leading up to it.

The idea was completely inspired by watching my dog Lakota take a massive, steamy crap in the snow, which sunk straight down into the drift. At the time (Winter 2011), I was trying to come up with ideas for my thesis, and the basic outline of the short came together pretty quickly. However, since this was going to be a thesis, I needed to create something I could own outright, and I doubt if DC Comics or Warner Brothers would have made the rights available to me. Plus, I kind of wanted to take a brief break from poo jokes, so I ended up making the incredibly uplifting Threadbare instead. Probably a smart move.

But that didn't stop me from putting together a few character sketches. Not that I really needed to, I have doodled Superman a ton over the years (case in point).

There really isn't much to the story, so the idea was pretty simple and not much changed from the start. Here are some rough storyboards that I would later expand upon.

I did a quick style frame, to get the essence of Superman taking his dog out for a poop.

I moved on to character sketches that I would later expand upon to figure out how Superman and Krypto would look and move. Superman designs were heavily a combination of Max Fleischer and Bruce Timm era Superman.

Krypto designs were easy since he was based on my dog, a white boxer named Lakota, whom I had illustrated before.

Back in August 2011, I did a quick hand drawn animation test in Flash and After Effects.


Superman's Best Friend from Brett Underhill on Vimeo.

It was months later (Spring 2012), when I finally had some down time and was looking for a project to work on that I decided to put it into production. Since this was just a silly poo project for myself and the idea was pretty simple and concrete, my production art is pretty simple and rough.

Those simple sketches were rendered in more detail, creating expression sheets and pose studies.

The story was always pretty clear in my head, but the rough sotryboards were rendered more clearly.

A couple of months of production, and it was all done.

Superman's Best Friend: The Short Animated Movie from Brett Underhill on Vimeo.

More Scrapomatic!

After debuting in a feature on the Huffington Post, Scrapomatic's "Rat Trap" music video has also been featured as a staff pick on the Daily Motion, as well as several Vimeo channels, including the Animated Review. Also, Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew included it in his year-end round up of music videos. Be sure to watch it again and check out Scrapomatic when they tour near you.

Scrapomatic - Rat Trap from ScrapomaticOfficial on Vimeo.

Adobe Design Achievement Awards, 2012

I recently traveled to Toronto, Canada for a few days at Icograda's Design Thinkers conference as a Finalist for the Adobe Design Achievement Awards in Animation category for my graduate thesis, Threadbare. It was a pretty amazing experience, and I am quite proud to have been a part of it all.

Here are a few highlights:

Even though I didn't win the final prize, just being selected from the large pool of applicants is pretty special.

Judging Video from ADAA Gallery on Vimeo.


There was some stiff competition for everyone, and Ainslie Henderson's wonderful stop motion piece "I Am Tom Moody" was a quick favorite of mine to win my own category.
I Am Tom Moody Trailer from ainslie henderson on Vimeo.

But the other nomination in the Animation category, the 3D animation "Ramus", was just as solid in its own right.

Ramus from ADAA Gallery on Vimeo.

The amount of talent featured was pretty astounding, and I was able to meet Matan Yaniv, whose "Grind Identities" made it into the Motion Graphics category. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was the creator of the fantastic "Retirment Plan" short, which I had previously screened in some of my courses.

GRIND Identity from Matan Yaniv on Vimeo.

Retirement Plan (director's cut) from Matan Yaniv on Vimeo.

There was a ton of other amazing work, to see more it is worth check out the ADAA Gallery and Adobe's own Yearbook documenting the events. The Adobe Awards was a wonderful time, and I recommend anyone eligible (both students and faculty) to apply to their Awards the next chance you get.

Scrapomatic Animated Music Video, "Rat Trap"

One of my favorite bands, Scrapomatic, asked me to create an animated music video for their latest album, I'm A Stranger & I Love the Night. Of course I couldn't say no.

"Threadbare" is an ADAA Finalist!

It's a year this month that I started animating "Threadbare" and I am still talking about it. I was recently screened at the Coney Island Film Festival and in November it will be at the Adobe Design Achievement Awards as a Finalist in the Animation category which I was pretty floored to hear. It's posted along with the rest of the entries on their site.

Threadbare from ADAA Gallery on Vimeo.

Superman's Best Friend's Star, Lakota

For those who want to find out more about Lakota the drooly boxer dog who stars as Krypto in my latest animation, here is a behind the scenes look at his days.

LAKOTA from Brett Underhill on Vimeo.