Birthdays, animation, posters...and Ted Bundy.

Yesterday marked my 48th spin around the sun, and I sincerely want to thank everyone who reached out with birthday wishes. It meant a lot to me. It was also nice to reunite with friends over dinner, especially since we’ve hardly seen each other face to face in the last year and a half.

I’ve been making some recent updates to the art gallery of my website, www.adammcdaniel.art. This includes a new section dedicated to my hand-drawn animation, design and storyboard work under the tutelage of Don Bluth. While I love animating characters, my favorite activity is doing backgrounds/layouts. You get to work as an artist, set designer, and cinematographer all at once!

Another art gallery update includes a new KEY ART/POSTER page. These range from fan art pieces, to unused comps, and official posters, and include both traditionally illustrated and digital work.

This summer I’ve been doing a remote internship with a key art design company, and I’ve enjoyed it very much. It’s been a great experience in learning the kind of work clients are looking for, and, most importantly, the essential need to be flexible and work FAST. While I could easily spend weeks doing a traditional painted poster, the current nature of the business demands one do several designs IN ONE DAY. This is still really challenging for me, but it’s helping me polish my Photoshop skills.

My first exercise was doing a number of comps for a film that opens today, TED BUNDY: AMERICAN BOOGEYMAN. (I specifically held off making these public until now, out of the obvious concern for professional discretion.) The initial designs, which I slaved over, weren’t particularly good, while oddly enough, the subsequent designs -- requiring substantially less effort -- were much more effective. The favorite was actually just a modified still that I rotated 90 degrees.

Above: Two of the comp exercises I did for TED BUNDY: AMERICAN BOOGEYMAN.

COVID has wreaked havoc on my sanity, and has temporarily delayed further interviews for my documentary, but I’m glad I’ve at least used the past year to get more experience in other things that I truly enjoy. After all, for as much as I love the movies, I adore movie posters and animation.