Tour De Suit: Parte Three!

The suits amazing tour is coming to an end, and what better way to end it than with a climax!  NorthernFive the film production company had contacted me after seeing the original Gears of War suit video I had posted on You-Tube, and propositioned me to use the suit in their latest film Left 4 Dead - Impulse 76 Fan Film.  I agreed and the Suit's amazing journey began.

Here, below, is a picture of the actor who played Marcus Fenix of Delta Squad in the movie wearing the suit, and filling it out far better than I, I must add.



And here is the film in all its glory!  It's a non profit fan film of Left 4 Dead with cameos from other popular video games.   The production value on this is amazing, and I was really excited to see the suit featured in such high definition, high quality, video.



Be sure to check out NorthernFive's other works at their website.  They were very professional and returned the suit in great condition.  Overall this has been a fun and exciting experience with a wonderful product made at the end.  As for the suit, I plan to purchase a mannequin and set it up in the corner of my office here at Powerhouse Animation.

Until then, thank you for following me along the suits journey through film, comic cons, and Halloween parties.  I doubt this is the last you will see of it.

-Patrick Stannard-

Tour de Suit: Parte Two

So after the suit did it's film shoot it was promptly returned back to me in time for Austin's Comic Con. I wore the 60 lbs of fiberglass for 8 hours straight without rest or even putting the replica lancer down. It was a mixture of the total lack of seating and the fact that pictures were taken of me every second step I took. It was a real crowd pleaser and served well in directing people over to the Powerhouse Animation Booth.

These pictures were taken by a professional working for the Wizard World Comic Con. The Gears of War suit among other great Cosplay outfits can be viewed here!

And Here!


Here is some added video taken from my very own Camera, enjoy!

Updates on the Suits wild adventures in the world of cinema coming soon!

Poor hapless civilians feeling the brunt of the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG).

My favorite Star Wars character doing a little dance for us.

Tour de Suit: Parte One

And so it begins!

The suit has been mailed out today to Los Angeles California for its film shoot. But before I packaged it up I treated it, and my fellow Powerhouse employees, to a walk around the studio. Many other Powerhousians were dressed up. Nicole was Mario, Rachel Peach, and Mary Luigi in a fun little game combo. Others I had met at the party last Saturday (still adorned in my Cog Armor), many of them dressed as pirates, roman legionaries, and quite a few Batman costumes including a wonderful Joker/Harlequin combo by Stephanie McCrea and her boyfriend Tom.

At the studio I faced off against Aaron in his stunning home made Jedi Costume. I have to admit, even clad in several inches thick of COG armor, a lightsaber is still a threatening thing to have dangling inches from your helmet.

I took a few poses for the Powerhouse Blog, and will be linking them soon.

Now I know how all those stormtroopers felt.

Die locust!

"Lllllladies!"

Stay tuned for more updates. I will also be uploading new film updates once I get some scenes in from my Michigan pals.

Tour de Suit

Looks like this month is going to be a busy one! One of the main reasons is the recent popularity of my new Halloween costume. It arrived a week or so ago and has been promptly unpacked and tried one. This ....

...Custom fiberglass suit was made by Nightmare Armor Studios which was recently sold and became ExoMechs. As a result the suit, already heavily priced, is no longer for sale spare for Epic Games employees. A friend of mine was generous enough to send me this wearable piece of art and ever since I posted a Youtube of me trying it on I have been flooded with emails about it.

One such email was from Northern Five who are interested in featuring the suit in one of their projects. They will pay for shipping and insurance on the suit. Combine this with Halloween and Comic Con, and my suits going to have one hell of a ride.

From October 31st to November 11th my suit will be worn in downtown Austin, sent out to Los Angeles CA, featured in a Northern Five video, returned by the first week of November, showcased at Comic Con on Friday the 11th, and after all that I will be taking a trip up to see my parents for the following weekend.

It will be a busy few weeks to say the least, but an exciting few.

Hey, you know who you should check out?

Fan animation I did of one of her characters, click the image to view it in motion.

Kate Burk's Website! ===> http://kateburck.com/

I plan to do more postings soon, but for now here is some random pimping of one of my pals and fellow artists.

Custome T-shirts

So a mixture of Gears of War 3 hype and a bit of home sickness has spawned this rather odd but enjoyable creation. Putting my favorite Detroit-mates together as a band of Cog soldiers, on a series of T-shirts. Each one will feature the wearer's character, their custom Cog symbol on the back as well as the entire team banded across the back shoulders.

Work at powerhouse has been exhilarating and challenging. My first project with them is nearly done and I can only hope that it goes public. I have now also been officially added to the powerhouse website in the profiles section. The theme was 1930s-1950s studio setting, so I picked the role of a recent immigrant Irishman who's slightly insane and massively drunk.

My film is in production again and my good friend Mel Miller just finished up the "My Dad the Giant" promotional poster. Check out the phenomenal work she did on her blog: http://melmillerart.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!
-Patrick-

PowerHouse Animation!

Yippee Ki Yay!
Made it to Austin TX where I now live and work. The move was brutal, but also exciting. I got to meet my cousins in Kentucky, from which I enjoyed quite the feast. There I listened to bad singing, guitar playing, and the goings on of my extended family over a thick pot-roast and fresh corn on the cob. The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, I set out to drive all the way to Wichita Kansas, a grueling 12-13 hour drive. I was amazed at how much the environment changes the further you go out west, and Kansas was stupidly flat! It's no wonder tornadoes last so long there, there is nothing to stop them!

In Kansas I met up with my uncle Kent, his wife, and his many pets. Two birds, a cat, and three dogs. It was amusing to play with the doxins whilst listening to the parakeet whistle Yankee Doodle Dandy. Kent also made a living as a chef as a young man, and we enjoyed freshly smoked and grilled chicken for dinner, the bits chopped up onto scrambled eggs for my breakfast the next day. It was great meeting up with Kent again, I hadn't seen him in so long. Touring his ranch was an adventure in nick-knacks and building projects. I hope to stay in better contact with him from now on.

Then I journeyed to Texas where I was met with amazing food, it's a pattern I know, great culture, and a big room all to my self. My roomies have a cat and two ferrets, and my neighbor owns positively the largest dog I have ever seen in my life. He says it is a wolf mix, and I can agree, I see plenty wolf in there, as well as Labrador, which makes him a big lovable Teddie bear.



This last week I started my job at Power-House-Animation. My first day was met with lots and lots of beer, of which I endured admirably, huge Texas portions of red meat, and a cast of characters that could only be made up of artists. There are lots of small jobs going in and out, and I've become a sort of 'every job' man. Whatever job is lagging behind or needs an extra hand I work on. There's lots of little flash games, tv spots, and the like to keep me invigorated, and everyone has been extremely helpful as well as great company.

There will always be a place for Michigan in my heart, and I miss my old roomates and friends dearly. I often boast about our wild antics and strange encounters to the captivated eyes of my new Texas coworkers. I'm doing my best to keep CCS's name proud, and I have plans of Skyping with my Michigan pals on the horizon.

That's all for now, thanks for taking the time to read this!

Doodling along

Medieval Samus

Because the only thing that could make Samus more bad-ass would be to make her a celtic warrior queen.

Richard Re-Design

An old character of mine that I regularly revisit to test my skills at cartoon design.

A project worth backing!

My good friend Akin Bilgic is doing a project to help promote happiness in his local community. He is looking to raise $3000 in under 60 days! Donate if you can, promote this to your friends, and help him reach his goal so that he can give some joy to those in San Fransisco!

Here, taken from the site is a description of the project.

PROJECT OVERVIEW: The SF Mirrors Project is a public art project with one simple purpose at it’s core - to spread a bit of random happiness. The idea is to create a public art installation overnight throughout the city of San Francisco (my home) spreading messages of inspiration, encouragement, and hope.

To do this, the plan is to purchase as many mirrors as possible through your support here on Kickstarter. These mirrors will be roughly 3 feet tall by 1.5 feet wide, and made from acrylic for safety reasons. At the top of each mirror in bold lettering, we’ll inscribe a one-sentence inspiring message (some of which will be supplied by the Kickstarter community). Then once all of the mirrors have been prepared, a team of friends and I will choose a late Sunday night to place the mirrors throughout the entire city - onto bare walls, sides of buildings, and other public spaces. It’s my hope that the people who walk past these mirrors in the following days will stop, take a moment to look at themselves, read the messages, and walk away feeling inspired, confident, and happier, which in-turn hopefully gets spread to others they interact with.

And for now it’s just San Francisco, but depending on how well this goes, in the future it could be the multiple cites throughout the US, or even international.

WHERE THE MONEY GOES: Every dollar raised here goes directly into covering the cost of the mirrors. So bottom line: the more money, the more mirrors, and the bigger the project becomes. I’m anticipating a cost of around $25-35 per mirror... hopefully a nice big bulk order will help keep the price as low as possible. If you know someone that might be able to get me a killer deal on the mirrors - please let me know.

SAFETY / LOGISTICS: The mirrors will not be glass based - but will be shatter-proof plastic based. This is for safety reasons as the last thing I want is for one of the mirrors to fall, shatter, or otherwise hurt anyone. The mirrors will be stuck to walls with a strong but NON-PERMANENT adhesive foam tape, so if the owner of a building doesn't want the mirror there - they have the right and WILL be able to take it down without any damage.

SUPPORT THE PROJECT: Check out the rewards section to see what we can give back if you want to help fund the project. Even if you cant afford to contribute, I encourage anyone to leave their comments and feedback about the project. Please spread the word online through sites like Facebook and Twitter or any blogs you like. Thanks for checking out the project - Let’s do something genuinely amazing.

You can help this project by going to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akinbilgic/the-sf-mirrors-project

Freelance Gig

In order to feed myself and pay off loans I have been doing freelance work here and there. The latest job required me to interpret and illustrate various statues from a miniature line called "Krystonia" and make them look 'animatable'. The job was a blast and I got to get my hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, doing some digital painting again. It served as a nice distraction from my film, put food in my belly, and let me create some nice portfolio pieces. Overall I found it to be a success.

Myzer, a hording, gloating, large bellied man.

There isn't much I can say about the project accept that it is for a possible pitch idea for something larger. That is about all I can divulge.

Kazahk, a broad shouldered, happy faced, adventurer

Help "My Dad the Giant"

"My Dad the Giant" is a work in progress, and has recently been accepted to the Mitten Movie Project. I am looking for funding to help me finish the film for its debut in September 2011. The film is 90% animated, with the rest of the time spent on rendering, doing backgrounds, sound, and composting. I am an independent animator, and a recent graduate of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit Michigan. As you may imagine I don't have a lot of money for a film of this scope, and funding from people like yourself can help me purchase materials, paper, and ways of distributing my film to festivals.

"My Dad the Giant", is a personal film of mine, based on my relationship with my sister, and with my father. The story follows a young boy named Emilio, and son of the great fictional painter Brianelli. All Emilio wants is his fathers acknowledgment, and all Brianelli wants is to be left to his work. What follows is a series of miss-communications until both characters explode out of frustration. I've worked hard on this narrative for about a year. It has been on hiatus for a few months, until I got word that the Mitten Movie Project had seen a WIP of my film and was interested in showing it. I was overjoyed of course, but also realized that now I was faced with the challenge of finishing my film.

The film requires, due partly to my ambition and on how I want to tell the story, a lot of rendering and layers for each scene. Light for one plays a large role in how the story is told, and each animation has been an experimentation in combining illustrative techniques with fluid and believable character acting. The Mitten Movie Project is the first festival I will be premiering my film at, and I hope that will kick-start my films festival run. Other festivals I plan on submitting my film to are KAFI, and Ottawa. So I'm asking you for support in this goal, and I've put together some gift ideas in exchange for donations. From signed animation frames, concept art, and movie credits, to even a production booklet in which I can describe the unique experience it's been trying to create an independent animated film here in Michigan.

It's odd to ask for money like this, but if you feel like you want to help a recent grad get his first film to festivals, then I thank you for your donations and I hope to see you at the Mitten Movie Project in September of 2011.

Proof of concept is below in my first fully colored render!



Check out my pitch trailer here!



I was lucky enough to receive the Stratton Scholarship my senior year of college 2010, and to be interviewed about my project by Doug Stratton himself. Below is the description listed along with the interview which can be found at theStrattonfoundation.org.

This video will act as a way to help possible donors gain incite into the film and its production.



Taken from the Stratton Foundation website

WHAT CAN FILM TEACH US ABOUT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS? "My Dad the Giant" is an animated film that poignantly shows the audience how sometimes we become too absorbed with our own concerns and overlook those in our family who may be reaching out for acknowledgment and support. Meet Patrick Stannard, a recent College For Creative Studies Entertaninment Arts graduate, and watch his film's trailer. Lean more at MyDadtheGiant.blogspot.com.

To Become a Part of "My Dad the Giant" Check out These Links!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/308950851/my-dad-the-giant

http://mydadthegiant.blogspot.com/