Happy New Year!

CJ and Buster and all of our friends wanted to wish every a VERY Happy New Year!

May 2008 bring health and properity to all!

Merry Christmas

CJ and Buster would like to wish you and yours a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

May all your hopes and dreams come true!

Step in to the new year with happiness and joy. Search out new things and meet new people.

Animation

Found another very well made stop motion animation on youtube. Check it out.

New Dunham Video

WOOT! New Jeff Dunham Video with Achmed.

Tribute to Ventriloquism

Bob Albano has spent years building a great resource for ventriloquists simply called, A Tribute to Ventriloquism. There is so much great information and history there waiting to be enjoyed. Have a look!

Harold Crocker Ventriloquist

Harold is such a nice guy was very cool to see this clip on Youtube. Met harold at the 2007 Ventriloquist conVention.

Funny Stopmotion Commercial

This is a fun very well made Stopmotion animation commercial out for the Holiday season.

If you have not yet had the oppertunity to see the latest Jeff Dunham DVD Spark of Insanity you can't go wrong for some of the BEST comedy out there! Jeff is a great commedian and Ventriloquist with his many characters to get you rolling in the aisles. Check it out.



I had the great oppertunity to meet him twice this year, once at the Vent Haven ConVention in July and again when he was performing locally in October. Do check out his DVD you won't regret it. You can check out Jeffs website here as well.

Must have book for animators!!

I recently purchased the book Animators Survival Kit and must say it is the BEST book for learning the basics of animation movement. I originally thought it was more for traditional drawn animation until i began reading it and had an epiphany..there really is nodifference between drawn animation and stopmotion when it comes to movements and capturing each frame. We pose each shot as an artist draws theirs. The explanations of movements is so clear it makes so much more sense to me now. If you animate with any medium you really should take a look at this book.

Funny Ventriloquist routine

Found this on Youtube. Paul Zerdin doing an act on the Jerry Springer talk show. I believe the first figure is a Kristen L Oddballs & Orphans Figure.

Enjoy! =)

CJ and Buster have been Elfed!!

well my wife Elfed us!

It's kinda funny really. I remember seeing this last year too and now..well we've been Elfmotized!

More movie magic

This segment is an interview with Legendary makeup artist Dick Smith. Also check out his website for more about his work and his excellent courses in makeup technique.



also just found this clip as well. :)

Movie Magic

Found this Awsome clip from an old Television show called Movie magic. The show was based on a behind the scenes look at how movies are made.



Enjoy :)

Cute Animation

Found this very cool commercial on Kathi Zungs Website. Her studio made the puppets. Not sure if they did the animation but still a very cute commercial non-the-less.

Snerd and Baker

This weekend(friday) we went to see a couple movies. The first was Enchanted, the new Disney movie. The movie was cute and had numerous referances to other Disney classics. In one scene they had a clip from "Fun and Fancy Free" which had Edgar Bergen and Mortimer Snerd talking.

Another great thing in this movie is the Hag Make-up created by Rick Baker on Susan Serandon. Fantastic! HE is such a talent!

The other movie was MR Magoriums Wonder Imporium. I like Dustin Hoffman but wasn't too enamoured with this film. I felt it didn't tell enough of his story and then ended fairly abruptly.

Vincent/ Tim Burton

Here is a Fantastic short film by Tim Burton. Worth going back and watching again. =)

Happy Thanksgiving! / First Snow of 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It snowed last night for the first time this year(that actually stuck to the ground) and so I wanted to show it to those who might not get snow and want some. LOL. Can't wait toplay in it with the Kids. :)

Site Changes

Spent a little bit of time re-working a little of the web site. I am trying to breakup the animation pages and sort them into a more sensible direction.


Also for Family and friends I have added Pics so go check them out as well. You know where to look :)

So take a look at the site and let me know what ya think about some of the changes. It's always good to hear from others and get suggestions and comments.

CJ

Ray Harryhausens The Pit and the Pendulum

The trailer/teaser for this stopmotion animated short looks fantastic. Still have not found out if it is available for sale or not. Would LOVEto see the whole film!

Ray Harryhausen Presents; The Pit and the Pendulum short film

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Harryhausen War of the Worlds footage

I just stumbled onto this and thought it was worth passing on. It is footage animated by Ray HArryhausen for War of the worlds. It said it was test footage. If I recall, in the movie it didn't show the whole alien but only the hand..the original movie that is.



It's amazing the things you find/stumble onto on the interenet.

Shop build coming along

Well I made a little progress this week witht he work shop. Yesterday I was able to get two coats of drywall primer on over 1/2 of the wall surfaces. Its harder to get things done when every area I need to work in I am moving the things in that area around. With a small area and not willing to move things into the cold area of the garage I just cope with it. But tonight I put up a shelf and made some progress finding my workbench. I will be excited to get it done and post some pics. Then I can get back to work on my stopmotion animation project. And the best part will be, I will be warm in my new workshop and can animate throughout the wintermonths unlike years past. WOOT! :D

Also if your a magian or like magic don't forget to go check out the magic cafe forums. Great resource! Steve Brooks does a stellar job witht he site.

Th-th-tha-tha..thats all folkssss!

18yr old Alien Project

I unearthed an old project while trying to get my Garage in order and building my workshop. I have posted pics and some descriptions on my site.

Meeting Jefefef Dun-Ham

After thinking I had not properly saved this picture I was very happy to find it was indeed still in my phone. October 20th my wife, son and I had the oppertunity to see Jeff Dunham perform locally. The show was great! After the show we had made arrangements for a moment to visit with jeff. He was very gracious and signed a poster for my son which is now framed and hanging on his wall in his room :) The venue did not allow cameras so we left ours in the car, I took this picture with my phone. And as I mentioned earlier I thought it was not saved properly when I went looking for it the day after the show to print it. Now imagine how excited I was to find it was indeed there and now I can share it with you. So without further delay here is one VERY excited young man surprised to be meeting Jefefef DunHam(dotcom)gotta watch the DVD to get that one LOL





As a side note he is now wanting to go to next years Vent ConVention with me :)

Halloween 2007

I have added some pictures of the process we used to make my sons Halloween Costume this year. He wanted to be Micheal Myers from the new Rob Zombie Halloween movie. THe Little one with him is Eeyore and what an adorable Eeyore she is! :P

can read more about it here just scroll to the bottom to see.
:)

Shaun The Sheep

alot of new video clips at the Shaun the sheep website. check em out. :)

Tims Mask progress.

Happy Monday!!!

Just a quick note to say we finally made a lifecast of Tim for his halloween mask. Spent a few hours last night cleaning and correcting it. We cast it in the morning and made the positive with Ultra-cal 30 and then had to go out for the aftrnoon..soo..when we arrived home and I wanted to finish it it had set to a cement hardness, as it should, and made cleaning it a bit harder. I will post pictures of it soon if not sooner. Was able to get a few during the process too. :)

Hope all your Halloween costume ideas are coming together and will be the best ever! :) Above all..have fun and enjoy the season.

**edit*

attaching some pictures of the mask before and after correcting. We also began applying the paper mache for the mask. Thats about all I will say about it for now though until its done. :)

Harvie Krumpet

This is an excellent short stop motion animated film which won the academy award in 2004. It's about 22 minutes long and WELL worth watching all the way through.

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

Hammer time!

Well I finally did it..I began construction on the walls in the garage to enclose my workshop. It will take a few weeks of time in between life to get the walls up and the drywall hung but as long as its done before winter I will be working in warmth this winter :)

I will post some pictures once it's done.

Hope everyone is having a great fall and is beginning to get ready for Halloween. THE best time of year. (well ok in my opinion anyway)

The family is getting very excited about going to see Jeff Dunham in October for his Spark of insanity" tour. if you haven't gotten the new DVD you need to drop what your doing and go get a copy..it is FANTASTIC! You can't go wrong! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll tell your friends about it! =)

Till next time.

Jeff Dunham

Jeff will be coming to Dearborn Michigan in October and I just ordered my seats...looks pretty much like front row...will be a great show ! =)

Check his website for tour dates http://www.onastick.com/

site changes

Still working on making changes to the look of the web site..made a few tonight with the links bar on the left of the main page. Using pictures instead of the generic link bar..will keep playing. Also trying to get the workshop better organized so i can work on my Buster animation again in between projects. meanwhile be sure to look at the great blogs of animators listed in my links sites..Shelley and Justin are making GREAT strides on their animations.

CJ and the Gang

Name Ideas?

I am looking for suggestions for a name for the new kid in the crew. Take a look at his pics at http://www.cjandbuster.com/New_Kid.html and send me your thoughts for a fitting name.

I look forward to hearing from you with your creative naming ideas.

chris@cjandbuster.com

CJ and the Gang

Check out the New Kid

Just wanted to share some pics I have posted on my website of the New Kid in the family. More information on my site. http://www.cjandbuster.com/New_Kid.html

here is just one of the pictures from my Ventriloquist convention experience. the rest can be seen on my website at http://www.cjandbuster.com/buster_Venthaven_2007.html

Buster meets Jeff Dunham

Maiden Voyage

OK well maybe not a voyage..well yes of a sort it is..this is the first post in this new attempt at a blog. I tried a seperate blog I created with the web site account but I just don't care for it. Soooo gonna try this and see where it takes us. Keep your eyes peeled..well maybe not peeled but open anyway as I hope to post regularly..I am currently writing a post for the website about my recent trip to the 31st Annual Ventriloquist ConVention in Kentucky. It was a great time to meet new friends who share the same interests and have that same passion to play with dolls ..Oh My God did I say that>??? well toplay with Dummys..hmm..thats taboo too..to use Ventriloquial figures in an entertaining way..yeah yeah thats the ticket. :P

Check back soon for more

CJ & Buster