Peter Chung

Trainwreck Interview

I welcome your comments.

Ms. Steele

As long as we're referencing Mario Bava, here's what happens when I add the words 'starring Barbara Steele" to the prompt.

AF by Stable Diffusion 2

As a child of the 60s, the vintage Mario Bava vibe of these posters is thoroughly delightful. Swapping out a few words in the prompt pushed the style in a number of unexpected directions, like 1970s Metal Hurlant cover art to a black coiffed Charlize.

There's a relief in not bearing responsibility for the AI's output, and I can foresee that having both good and bad consequences. It's already hard enough to get professional artists to own up to their failures. The most common excuse is ...

AF by Stable Diffusion

A.I. art generation has been making me a bit crazy. It's exciting, scary and addictive.

Some fanmade models of Aeon exist. For myself, using AI to generate images that look like my own drawings is pretty pointless, so I didn't use them. The pleasure of AI art is in the novelty of the unexpected. I seek out the work of artists always with the hope of surprise, which of course I can never get from my own work. It's a different medium entirely from traditional drawing. It's ego-free. I fee...

Podcast 40 - Diego Molano

Diego created Victor and Valentino, which ran for three seasons on Cartoon Network. I started working on the show when he asked me to design the opening title sequence. I stayed on as the timing supervisor, then wrote and directed an episode for the third season. We talk about his experience developing, pitching and show running an original series.

https://www.diegomolanoartist.com/

I voice my usua...

Podcast 39 - Robert Valley - Part 2

The second part of my dialogue with Robert Valley. He was busy finishing his third Love Death and Robots episode for the upcoming season. He couldn't say much about it, and we turn to talking about our approaches to directing. I end up relating a lot of what you've heard me say in my teaching talks. This is a good example of the kind of conversation I have with fellow directors when I try to explain some of the principles of filmmaking I teach. The ideas are mostly never identif...

Podcast 38 - Aesthetic Bliss - Student Work

Apologies for the low frequency of posts. I am trying to schedule interviews with new guests to cover a wider range of topics going forward. For now, I am sharing the recording of week 11 of my directing course. The topic is aesthetic bliss, a principle strangely neglected in a lot of the work of beginning filmmakers. Too many animated shorts, both in festival or student screenings are a chore to sit through, usually because the director has staked everything on making some political statemen...

Too Late - Unwarranted Speculation

A short clip from week 4's class where I follow up on the previous discussion on the problem of knowing the difference between justified and unjustified readings of an image. It turns out to be a very common problem among students that they often expect viewers to read the artist's mind without making the effort to put their intentions on the screen. The audience only knows or cares about what you show them. 

Too Late by William Lindsay Windus (1859)

Supplement to Podcast 37

Podcast 37 - 2023 Directing Masterclass - Film Form

Sorry about the delay. Robert Valley and I have been unable to find time again to record this week. I'm posting week 3's discussion from the 2023 Projectcity Directing Masterclass. Each edition of the course covers the same material, but due to the make up of the students and my own need to keep things fresh, I try out different clips and ways of framing the lessons. The lesson begins with an exercise in decoding a favorite painting I've often used in class, Too Late by William Linds...

Podcast 36 - Storyboards

While I'm looking for a chance to talk to Robert again, I am sharing a portion of week 8 of the Pilot class. I show examples of my storyboarding process to the class using examples from two projects, Battlemaster Sparkletime for Nickelodeon and the unused sequence from Kung Fu Panda 3 for Dreamworks. I apologize for the quality of the raw audio.

Vesper - Concept Art by Tom McClure

Tom McClure is a brilliant designer and illustrator with whom I've had the pleasure to work on many projects over the years, beginning with his contributions to the second LTV series of Æon Flux shorts. Other projects we've collaborated on include the Diablo 3: Wrath short for Blizzard and Firebreather for Cartoon Network.

Vesper - visual development

Concept art for the new original series for which this Patreon was started. Art is from 2021. Since then, a number of changes have been made, including the title. It's a work in progress. 

My strategy at present is to let this wait while I focus on launching another new series that's more modest in scope. I believe the means to produce animation with high production values will soon be possible at lower cost due to technological advancements and this project will benefit. 

Terrapins - Layouts and Storyboards

More concept art, storyboards, layouts and roughs for the unfinished short Terrapins. This post includes previously shared drawings plus layouts and storyboards for patrons with an interest in the  creative and technical process.  

Earlier post:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/terrapins-65364858

Levi's Edward (self portrait) posters

I have a small supply of these in-store color posters which accompanied the Levi's commercial campaign. I will include one poster with your art packages (500 credits +) while the supply lasts.

A small additional shipping charge will apply.

Originals for Patrons

Based on response to my posts, I am offering items from my archives such as studies, sketches, various thumbnail roughs and a few final cleaned up pencils. Once digital delivery became standard, I've been scanning my clean pencils into photoshop to do the final color and compositing. 

The items are arranged in folders according to their value. When there are folders within the priced folders, all the items are being offered as a set. For example, within the "400_AF" folder, all the...

Podcast 35 - Robert Valley Part 1

Robert Valley and I go back a long way, but don't have many opportunities to talk at length. This time too, was cut short unfortunately, but it got a dialogue started which will be the first of a series. It's recommended to view his two episodes of Love, Death and Robots, Zima Blue and Ice before listening.

Directors referenced in the talk:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Mi...

AF production rough keys and sketches

Scans - MTV Loaded, Misono, Underground, Tomb Raider Revisioned, Velvet Assassin

Alexander - Reign the Conqueror - scans

On paid jobs, before digital delivery became standard, the original final work was always given over to the client. The only originals I get to keep are the preliminaries and unused drawings. I never considered myself an illustrator, as I don't have the temperament to spend time on finishing clean art. Most animators prefer to produce a lot of rough poses and hand off the time consuming cleaning up to assistants.

These are some more original pencils available to top tier patrons.

Original pencils

More scans from my archives. These are items I will offer in the next catalog. Some of these are the first sketches for illustrations, a few layouts used in production, costume concept drawings and various sketches and studies. Let me know if the rough pencil sketches are of interest. I have many I have yet to scan. I can price some of the quick sketches at 50 each. The preliminaries, layouts, and model sheets will be 200 and up.

Original Art scans

A preview of items being added to the catalog of available pieces for top tier patrons.

The catalog will be sent out later this month. If there are multiple requests on certain items, let me know if you would like the chance to bid.

Starzinger - Aurora character concepts

After finishing Firebreather at SamG animation in Seoul, the studio head Kim Suhoon hoped to pitch an updated CG version of the 1970s Toei series Starzinger (currently on Prime Video).  He asked me to present character designs of Princess Aurora, to take to Japan to acquire the rights. I got enamored of the chance to load up textures and details in a way that hand drawn 2D could not. Maybe my version did not feel Japanese enough in the traditional "anime" style and the ...

Podcast 34 - Chris Prynoski & Titmouse Animation

Fellow MTV Animation veteran Chris Prynoski has had a remarkable career that continues to inspire a new generation of animation artists. The debut of the beautiful and surreal series Scavengers Reign on Max was a good pretext for interviewing Chris and catching up with what's happening in the psychotronic land of Titmouse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titmouse,_Inc.

The original Scav...