Leslie Ortiz

http://montoyaortizsculpture.blogspot.com

Leslie and I went to Boston University together and have remained good friends.  She, along with Luis Montoya, creates of some fantastic images and sculpture.  Check it out.

Art takes a long walk off my short pier.

It is a remarkable moment in my life.  I have seen traditional 2d animation change into a form I hardly recognize.  It is no longer a film, cell, paint, and pencil that produces it, it is now designated to a tablet, computer and program.  The art form that I had become so in love was no longer, dead, swept away by a wave of technology.  I now am on several paths, still animating, but also studying feverishly for my Masters Degree in Painting.

What I have found is that while I was busy creating funny drawings in motion, inking, painting and filming the cells on a down shooter, the art world has changed enormously.  I have been studying History, Theory, Process, Concept, and  Critical thought and am about to take my overfilled brain and finally begin to paint in earnest again after 30 some years.  YIKES.

The Animation Game has to change.

I don't know if anyone has noticed but we as an animated society is shrinking fast.  Expertise is getting ignored and forgotten.  Quality hasn't seen the light of day for quite a while in the 2 dimensional realm of Cartoon making.  In most cases the lunatics are running the asylum.  Animation is getting faster and cheaper and not better.

I have worked with a lot of new young talent, and there is a lot of potential but you have to innovate.  You have to push the envelope not in terms of content and fart jokes but in terms of image and style.  Is the last true interesting development going to remain UPA design?  C'mon man.