So I took the plunge... I signed up for the 3 day CMS Expo coming to Chicago May 3,4 & 5! I am pretty excited to do a few days of concentrated learning and hope to come out on Cinco de Mayo knowing how to create my own Joomla! templates. Right now my schedule can't afford some classes at a community college - though it would probably give a lot more time for hands on experience.

If you develop web sites using any of the CMS available, I would recommend checking out the CMS Expo website and taking a look at the schedule and speakers. The Joomla! track is most interesting to me - along with hearing a talk about Gantry and ProjectFork. I am pretty excited to see how these could help me work more efficiently!

As a freelancer I think it is SO important to remember to continue investing in yourself. Whether that is a conference, class or a few days off :D. A favorite blog that I follow has great tips and discussions on how to survive as a freelancer - Freelance Folder. They have rotating contributors, many of them have been in the business for years and have great advice!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

-jp

The other day I looked at my site in response to a friend asking me about Joomla! and noticed that I hadn't updated since Thanksgiving! Yikes!

My new client is keeping me busy - which is a great thing in this economy. Still very thankful for that! I am continuing to learn so much about what it means to be healthy. Can't really help it when you work for a natural supplement company... Just last week I made vegetarian spaghetti + meatballs which, outside of the yogurt I used in the sauce, could have passed for a vegan dish. Makes me feel like such a health nerd :D

Currently I am creating animation to accompany a voice over. The style takes some qualities from traditional hand-drawn animation. I really couldn't accomplish the look without stumbling across this tip from Shadowplay studio:

[quoting a user from flickr]'...to make non-static titles, have you written them twice or more (the same name etc.)?'

Shadowplay Studio says:

We'd actually write them 4 times to get the non-static look. That's enough frames to make it not look like a loop. Then I believe they were interpreted in After Effects at 4 frames per second, so you end up with a one second loop. Hope this helps!

Found it while looking at their flickr set for the Juno title sequence. [ see it here ] I had never thought about accomplishing that look using that technique. It has been fun!

I will post some newer work within the next week or so from products that are now live. The hand drawn project will be up after its product goes live. Definitely check back :).

Oh- and I hope you aren't buried up to your eyeballs in snow!!! If you are, be safe and drink lots of hot chocolate :) Thankfully the days are starting to get longer! Spring isn't too far away! [I can only hope!!]

Thanks for stopping by!

-jp

The end of this year is coming up so fast! We already have our Christmas tree up and are looking forward to seeing family!

Right now I am working with a company that makes natural supplements. I am learning a lot about the business and am reminded of some of the work I did for an agency that worked only with pharmaceutical companies.

The products I am working on now have not launched yet, but I am excited to share more once they go to market. Here is a link to one of their products, Nutrim, that helps keep cholesterol levels down. Because they do all their product development in-house, I get the opportunity to work on anything from package design to video editing.

They have been keeping me quite busy and I am thankful for the work. Thanks for stopping by! Please don't hesitate to contact me with any design needs or just to get back in touch!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

-jp

I was finally able to recover some of my illustration work from a documentary [Discovering Deerpath] that I was a part of. The team that worked on the doc really pulled together and made something remarkable. The documentary has already received 5 Telly awards... "Best History/Biography" - "Best Copywriting" - "Best Editing" - "Best Sound/Sound Design" - "Best Videography/Cinematography". It won despite over 14,000 entries from over 30 countries! I worked alongside another very talented illustrator, Eric Herkert-Oakland, to complete the 50+ illustrations in a very short time span. Very talented team all-around, so please check them out!

I also created illustrations for another film that just released its official trailer. It looks great and I was floored when my sketches had some 'face' time! Please check it out --> Formosa Betrayed. The trailer does open with a man being shot, it is not graphic, but it may be violent for some people. It has already been accepted into three film festivals: 32nd annual Asian American International Film Festival, New York City, 2009 Montreal World Film Festival, and 2009 San Diego Asian Film Festival.

So very exciting stuff indeed :) I will be adding an additional illustration from the Discovering Deerpath documentary. I also added a self portrait study that I created using my mouse and a mirror. Thankfully I have a tablet now, I don't know that I will ever go back :P

Thank you for taking time to check out my site!

Please contact me if you have any illustration, animation or design needs!

-jp