Movie Inspiration - Masaaki Yuasa's "Mind Game"

I can't believe I forgot to post screen shots for the movie that probably inspires me most. This might be my FAVORITE MOVIE. "Mind Game" written and directed by Masaaki Yuasa and animated by Studio 4°C, which is my favorite animation studio. Check out their other offerings like "Tekkon Kinkreet" and Genius Party which i have posted before on this blog. They have an awesome line up of talent at their studio. This is not like other Japanese animation you have seen. This is fresh, crazy, and funny. they use famous japanese comedians as voice actors. They switch styles up a lot of times. I have never been in love with background paintings more in my life. When i saw this a few years back it just smacked me in the face with inspiration. Don't sleep on this movie, get it somehow and watch it! this movie is not only inspirational for artists, but its theme is also inspiration for your life. I cannot recommend this movie enough.

rotoscoping galore, but im ok with it in this movie.

i love the sloppy in the right places backgrounds with lines on top

love the sloppy/exaggerated animation and drawing, its like they maintained the fun loose experimental feel but still made and awesome looking product.

clever color shifts means super eye candy. violent red vs. calm green

crazy styles get thrown in.

Posted byJason Raish at 1:34 PM 1 comments  

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

This christmas is a special one for me, and not for good reasons. I was hit by a taxi last week when i was jogging somewhere in the streets of tokyo. I don't remember the accident or even the day prior. I had a deadline for a magazine and was worried that i wouldn't be able to make it only to look on my computer and see that it was done already. I escaped with only 4 days in the hospital, a black eye, and a tiny skull fracture that will heal in 2-3 months on its own they say. I didnt even have any bruises on my body. of course my neck still kills, It feels like how your neck feels the next day after getting punched in the face by a big guy in sparring class, only this time i got punched in the face by a 2 ton vehicle. When i look at that windsheild though i just cringe. So this holiday make sure you love your family, love your friends, and make sure you are doing things your way, because you never know when you're could leave this earth. I almost did.



In Japan its traditional to send a new years card. It usually features the asian zodiac animal for that year. 2010 is the year of the Tiger. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! Acrylic, colored pencil, chinese ink, brush pen. This was my original idea, the crow representing the bad, with the tiger vanquishing the bad and leaping into the new year ready for 2010. I edited it out for the final holiday/new years card. You are supposed to mail these to your friends and fam and the post office in japan delivers it ONLY on January 1st cuz its bad luck or something if its before or after.


Posted byJason Raish at 8:45 AM 4 comments  

LImited Edition stuff with my stuff on it

These were both done via Kult, an agency out of Singapore.



cool getting mail from Singapore


this limited edition book with my japan themed artwork on one of the pages. I did this for Yahoo! Philippines. It was used on a lot of other products and limited edition PS3's.


I did this tiger translate artist series project last year for Tiger beer so they sent me this limited edition view master. I haven't used one of these since i was 6 looking at he man discs.
My piece with the little tigers flying out the window over the kid is on one of these discs

Posted byJason Raish at 10:03 AM 1 comments  

Movie Inspiration - Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo"

as almost everyone knows and cannont deny, Hayao Miyazaki is the man and his latest movie Ponyo was amazing and made me feel as giddy as a little school girl. The Japanese creative mind often leaves me in awe, amazement, and whatever the word would be to describe how i wish i had the creative faculty and mind of a Japanese person that is capable of creating things so different from my western mind. There are a lot of "what the heck is going on this is awesome moments". I don't know how the guys comes up with this stuff but living in Japan everyday i am seeing slowly how its possible if you grew up in Japan. Anyway Joe Hisaishi's music is awesome as always and very fitting. I saw lots of people complaining on IMDB about how the animation was crappy. It wasn't crappy, its stylized. the animation was great and had a fluidity very different from western stuff or even eastern stuff. very imaginative stuff and of course top notch inspiration for artists. Miyazaki's visual style is simple, rounded, soft, but the combination of music, animation, and most of all imaginative elements and story create a universe that is truly inspiring

all hand drawn, no computer animation used in this movie. probably digital cell painting though.

who the heck would think of turning the little mermaid into a goldfish with a face and hair and a quasi dress/body? animated so you can feel it with your eyes no less. what a weird and great character design.

amazing whimsical opening titles.

pastely background work.

i love how miyazaki has tons of gross creatures run away at the switch of a light or like they are here. Just another thing that i guess japanese kids get exposed to and western kids dont because it might scare them.

i like how the animation would get "crappy" at some points. not crappy, just less detailed but still fluid.

the way the water was animated in this movie was great, like it was inbtwn gel and water.

favorite scene in the whole movie, truly magical and imagination capturing.

look at that water in the pot! nice way to stylize water, if only you could see it move. which you should you need to watch this movie!

simplified animation in the back

awesome end credits.

end credits panned over various very long artwork (which i saw in person at the Ghibli museum!). anyway you need to see this movie and you need to see it with subtitles and the Japanese voice track, the actors are always better.

Posted byJason Raish at 8:14 AM 1 comments  

Karasu Kimono

Time to start thinking about a "Japan Project" now that i'm in Japan. I have decided on a Crow theme since they are everywhere in Tokyo. This is a quick 3 hr experiment i did last night. I went to the biggest art store in tokyo the other day and got this tube of lilac paint and was really feelin' the color so I couldn't resist and put everything off and finally painted like i have been saying i would. I am trying to do some work totally analog, no computer, all traditional mediums. If you didn't know i have done all of my work with pencil on paper, acrylic paint texture backgrounds and then photoshop color. I did this with no photoshop yay! it feels so good to paint again. except this isn't fully painting, its kind of cheating, i'm letting the black ink lines do a lot of the talking for me instead of meticulous hrs of exact painting. I am messing around with the chinese ink still. I will comment on what i was thinking and the concept behind this and more crow themed pieces once i get my concept fully cemented. Acrylic, chinese ink, brush pens, colored pencil on paper.

Posted byJason Raish at 12:30 PM 3 comments  

Bernie Fuchs

Bernie Fuchs was the guy that I saw slides of in illustration school and didn't like because all i saw were sports illustrations for sports illustrated. I stumbled across these illos on Leif Peng's Flickr account and have now been slapped silly by his work. For tons more inspiration check out Leif's flickr account and his today's inspiration site to get your daily illustration education. The sites specialize in 40's and 50's illustration. Bernie died in september. He painted a few presidents including JFK. What a guy. If all you know is his sports illos try to find his other stuff!


such an amazing spread, such an amazing shape made

reminds me of robert mcguinnis a little.

awesome yellow graphic shape


always been a fan of fadeaways.


and blue, my favorite color
subtle texture sets this apart from the computer crap that i turn out. oh it makes me want get paint out.

Posted byJason Raish at 12:21 PM 0 comments