Anyhow, it was fun being interviewed by Bobby Chu.
A great artist Charles Santoso ended up winning my piece. I did not know it was his. But he was nice enough to offer me his in exchange! YAY! Original Santoso!
I’m going to try to participate his contests too! What an amazing idea he’s doing!

This is a freelance job I just finished. You can buy this 2011 calendar in Japan later this year.

A talented friend of mine Bobby Chiu is interviewing me LIVE on his Sketchoholic.
I’m actually not really sure what he wants me talk about during the interview but it’ll at least be about painting I suppose.(unless he wants me to talk about baseball)

There is a little contest where I came up with the theme, “your favorite childhood anime in your own style” and you can submit your entry to win this original oil painting of mine. (it’s a neat concept Bobby is doing. He’s done this thing with some great artists such as Pete DeSeve and Mike Mignola.)

Hope you can submit your work! It can be as simple as the one I did!
Check this out!

私が描いたこの小さな油絵が欲しい方は、是非、小さい頃好きだったアニメをあなたなりにアレンジして、このサイトにアップしてくださいね。コンテストの一位の人に、私の絵が贈られます。

You may have seen this one a while ago on my blog. I originally did this digitally during lunch hour for fun. Now I’m painting this in oil. This one is still work in progress. It’s a simple silly painting but I will make this much nicer.(i hope…)

Also, there has been so much going on with my family and also Toy Story PR.
Lots of amazing artists from all over the world will be present and I am bummed out that I cannot hang out with them!

I DO have very slight presence there though.
Graphic Collectible who is exhibiting and selling original art work of illustrators, is carrying a few of my original paintings. If you are at Con, check them out.

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In the meantime, I have been painting in the morning, “early bird style” with Robert Kondo and Shelly Wan. It’s been awesome to get back into painting outside!

あまりの数の為、皆様のお便りにお返事するのに時間がかかると思いますので、とりあえずブログで挨拶させて頂きます。
ブログコメントでは日本語サポートがオフになってて、文字化けしてしまうケースがありましたが、修正しましたので、日本語でのコメントも可能になりました。

数点、多かった質問にあらかじめ答えさせて頂きます。

＊私の出版物で日本で購入できる物がないかと言う質問が多かったのですが、私が詩人の母と合作した絵本がありますので、是非ご覧下さい。（売れてないようなので、絶版になる前に！）

＊今後日本で個展や、仕事をしないかと言う質問ですが、やはり日本人ですので、是非チャンスがあれば、と思っております！日本でもちゃんと通用するように勉強し続けたいと思います。

＊私がピクサーで唯一の日本人と言う報道している所もありましたが、それは間違いで、私の他に、ピクサーの初期からいらっしゃる小西そのこさんと言う素晴らしい先輩がいらっしゃいます。
彼女はCGモデラーで、こちらのアニメ業界ではなかなか有名な方です。洋風な社食に飽きた私たちは、よく二人で日本食のお昼に出かけます。：）

＊今後ともよろしくお願い申し上げます！

For a change of a pace, a few of us from Pixar went to Cal Berkeley to paint on campus this week. We painted early in the morning and then went to work.

Critics across America rated it extremely high and the box office figure was outstanding in its debut.
Is Toy Story 3 a good movie? I think I leave that judgment up to the audience.
As makers tend to be self critical, I probably will be the worst person to ask whether the film is as good as everyone says.

But it goes without saying that I’m proud of the film I got to be a part of.
This 3 year experience at Pixar was the best production experience I have ever had in my 12 year career.
TS3 director Lee Unkrich is one of those directors who everyone will dream to have worked with in the future and I am privileged to say I worked with him.
And not to mention that so many talented people’s great efforts turned into blood of life of this film.
That includes PR people working tirelessly all around the world. I witnessed that in Japan when I went there for a week long PR tour last week.
It humbled me to realize how the success of a film couldn’t be realized only by those behind production.

Regardless of my mumbling, I would love all of you to see it because I worked on it.
I personally prefer people see it in 2D. 3D tends to kill the color of the film and I was the color and lighting art director on the film.
Disney may not like me saying it since 3D will bring more bucks!

Cheers!
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I had to do a bunch of these Toy Story drawings in Japan…