12.11.2010

White Ghost Shivers - Santa's Sack

He's got a special toy just for you!!

Animated music video for White Ghost Shivers song 'Santa's Sack'!
www.whiteghostshivers.com

10.28.2010

Jeremy Messersmith - A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard

Check out my animated music video for Jeremy Messersmith's song 'A Girl,  A Boy, and a Graveyard' off his latest full length album 'The Reluctant Graveyard'.  I shot the whole thing in the traditional shadow animation style.  After the video you can read my making of.
You can find more of Jeremy's fantastic music from his site here: www.jeremymessersmith.com
Now on to the show!
MAKING OF:
Ever since I saw Lotte Reineger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed, I knew I had to try my hand at shadow animation. Fortunately, Jeremy supported the idea right away. Shadow animation can be quite difficult, in the sense that you have very little idea what your scenes are going to look like until you put a light under them. I bought a large amount of various colored tissue papers and began experimenting.


I was super pleased with the results of the test and set to work on fleshing out the various environments and props I would be using in the video. I tried to force myself to limit my color palette to fit the song, rather than going completely color crazy. Working with the tissue paper proved to be a daunting task. It's a frustrating process trying to cut shapes from the tissue paper, since the scissors and xacto knife always tended to tear the paper in unwanted ways. I tackled this problem by gluing sheets of tissue paper to clear plastic vellum, which made the cut out process far less tedious.
My setup was incredibly minimal basically consisting of a little glass coffee table I have with some lamps shining underneath. On top of the table I placed my tissued backgrounds and put a piece of glass from a large frame over that to keep them in place. All the moveable elements went on top of this glass piece, which ended up working extremely well. In fact, I would say it was easier to animate this way than my usual paper on paper style.
In terms of the theme of the video itself, I chose to stick close to the narrative of the song, but wanted to add in a bit of a fairy tale flair to it. Originally I planned the have human characters in the story and go for a more realistic approach, but decided to use animals instead. For some reason I prefer animating creatures other than human. I saw the main characters as almost echoing the story of little red riding hood, but only in the most basic of senses. Shadow animation has traditionally been used in a ton of fairy tale animation, made famous by the pioneer of the technique, Lotte Reineger. I wish she was still around to critique my efforts.

10.11.2010

Toh Kay - I've Set Sail

Animated music video for Toh Kay's song 'I've Set Sail'
www.tohkay.com

Secrecy - Waterfall

Animated music video for Secrecy's 'Waterfall'
www.monofonuspress.com

10.04.2010

Jeremy Messersmith - Tatooine

The original Star Wars Trilogy given the paper treatment!!!

Jeremy Messersmith - Tatooine from Eric Power on Vimeo.


Jeremy Messersmith has 3 fantastic albums you should check out. He also has a very friendly set up to 'pay what you choose' for digital downloads of all his albums/songs including this one. Here's a link to his bandcamp page where you can find his stuff:
Bandcamp Page
Jeremy's Official Site

9.14.2010

Cloud Cult - Running with the Wolves

Animated music video for Cloud Cult's 'Running with the Wolves' off their full length album 'Light Chasers'

9.04.2010

Zelda on Paper

Check out the adventures of Link on... PAPER!!!!


Mortal Kombat Paperalities

Check out my Paperalities series!

The third set of paperalities was commissioned by Machinima! Thanks guys!!!! And for those of you interested in more paper action, take a look at my Zelda on Paper series.

8.17.2010

Zelda on Paper 2

Link continues his paper adventures!

8.14.2010

Jelly Bean Monster

I found this guy in my jelly bean box getting into trouble.  Must be related to my blue friend.

Special note: see in the upper left hand corner of the pic... looks like Reptile huh? Could it be? Get two flawless victories and a fatality to find out! (and you can't block...and something has to cross the moon... and that's it)
Also, Call me crazy but I like those buttered popcorn ones.

7.26.2010

My Desk at the moment

So here is what my workspace is looking like right now.  I'm working on a bunch of ideas and preparing stuff for a ton of new videos.  At the moment I am juggling my ericpowerup work with my music video work.  This is probably the busiest I've ever been.  I don't want to rush my videos though, so I will be approaching my work in a relatively methodical way and taking my time to make sure I'm happy with the results.  I am extremely excited about some of this new content though!
It's going to be a really busy fall I can tell you that!  Videos are already planned and queued up for around 2 months solid.  Now if I could just get that cloning machine to work... 

7.21.2010

New music vid still

Yo,
So I'm busy working on a new music video while I'm also working on some new ericpowerup content. I must say though I'm pretty excited about this new video so far, the stuff I've designed as of now is looking pretty neat in that spooky kind of way. We'll see how it works out. Here's a test still:

7.18.2010

Zelda on Paper episodes 1-5

All 5 episodes of Zelda on Paper plus a bonus METROID on PAPER!

Jeremy Messersmith - Organ Donor

Check out my latest animated music video for Jeremy Messersmith's song Organ Donor off his fantastic new album The Reluctant Graveyard!
www.jeremymessersmith.com

7.05.2010

Thoughts on Film: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

6.22.2010

Just something I like and wanna share

Hey there,

So the other day I went and saw Daniel Johnston in concert. It was fantastic. I am very glad I was able to go. So, I wanted to share this music video with you for one of my favorite songs of his. The video has animation too, so ... wooohoo! It is Directed by Ro Rao. He did a good job, take a look.

6.08.2010

Vimeo Festival and Awards

The folks at Vimeo.com are putting together a really neat sounding film festival this year.  I was asked to create a short animation announcing it and this is what I came up with.  Take a look:



check out the festival at vimeo.com/awards

6.03.2010

what's been going on

Hey everyone!

So a quick update as to my June happenings.
I am working on a new animated music video for a really awesome song. I'm looking to have it complete by the end of the month. It involves skeletons! Test still below.

I am also planning two new series for ericpowerup. One of em you already heard of: Voyages In Space. The second is more in line with what my past ericpowerup have been and concerns gaming. I'm still working on the details, but rest assured I will be kicking things up a notch. The first episode will probably appear in early July if all goes well.
So all this stuff is in the works all at the same time, and while we wait for the new content to come up I am slowly releasing my past work over at That Guy With the Glasses. I am also doing updates to some of these videos and adding special content into them to keep things fresh. The new versions will premiere on the site throughout the coming weeks, so you should head over there and check those out.
One thing I am excited to post up is my Zelda on Paper episodes. I am going to put them all together into one video for your viewing convenience and include some new content in there as well which means it's back to the ole paper cutting in a bit! Should be fun.
Ohhhh also I have two music videos complete as of right now, neither of which has aired yet. I'm not sure exactly when they will be released since the band has the ultimate decision, but am excited to show them off!
And here is a test still from my upcoming video.... it's basically a style test but it looks neat so far I think! :D
take care everyone, talk soon.

5.06.2010

goings on

Hello everyone!

So I figured I'd write a bit about the goings on around here. I finished a music video a while back, but it will unfortunately not be released for some time (in order to line up with the band's album release), and I am in mid production on another right now!
Also, after a good amount of time away from my ericpowerup activities, due to a heavy work schedule, I am preparing a lot of new concepts for some interesting future shows.

It's going to be a good year! Exciting news is also just around the corner...

now for a picture of a very small sail boat.
~STAY TUNED~

4.11.2010

work in progress

I am wrapping up a new music video which is going to be complete next week! exciting stuff. It should be officially released soon afterward. Then it is on to the next one!

4.01.2010

new poster design

I've been busy lately working on some new music videos (and a few top secret projects), but I always have a bit of time to do a little design work. Today I made this poster for one of my side projects, Destroy All Monsters, a blog I run with a friend where we review films and do music interviews and whatnot.
I decided to do a series of posters based on monsters from the Godzilla series. First up is MechaGodzilla! Behold!!!
mechagodzillasmall

3.02.2010

Fictionist - Blue Eyed Universe

Hey everyone!

I'm please to share with you the results of the last month and a half of my secretive work. It's a space age music video for Fictionist's song "Blue Eyed Universe"! The band just released a new album (Today even) called "Lasting Echo". You can find out more about them through their site: www.fictionist.com

And without further ado... on with the show!

2.23.2010

Another snow day! WOOOHOO

Snow day! Really odd too... two days ago I was in a t-shirt flying a kite.
Austin weather for ya.
snowman

1.26.2010

Planets!

I'm up to something.
planettest

1.12.2010

new artwork

Here are two new pieces I recently completed. I've been working on a bit of a series. It seems to be shaping up.
ghosttree
yetigirl

Found a face

I saw this little guy on my porch this morning. He was originally frowning but I changed it... guess I'm a bit of an optimist these days.
happy
later that day...
bonopark

1.02.2010

more sculpture fun

Here's a new sculpture made today using Sculpey oven bake clay.
migosculpture