Mike Milo's Journal

Three years ago I created a seven minute animated film called “Flavio” for Nickelodeon/Frederator Films, about an over-emotional goat who works as a dishwasher in a pizzeria and longs to be a famous inventor like his hero Leonardo DaVinci.

I have not been able to post it on my site because it had to air on telivision first to be eligible for Emmys and Annies and all that stuff that only animators care about. Anyway, I can finally show it. Please check it out and as always I love to here your thoughts!
You can see a production blog about the making of Flavio at Frederator.com and learn more about Flavio here.

“This should be pretty easy for someone who knows what they are doing…”

Translation:

“This shouldn’t cost much because it’s so easy a monkey can do it (even though I’m not capable myself)“

It amazes me how little respect artists get. The funneiest part about it is that if it’s so easy, then why can’t everyone do it?

Answer: Because it’s NOT easy.

A while back I was contacted by the Providence Phoenix; a newspaper in Rhode Island and they asked if they could use some artwork of mine that I had previously posted on this blog. Of course I said yes and got paid for it to boot!

Sweet!

Below is the original art…

In my never ending search to point out people who know nothing about pricing of art and projects, here is yet another clueless fella. Not my client by the way, but a post I found on one of the freelance websites for artists.

This is an awful lot of work to do for less than $200! My favorite part is how specific the guy is so he must know what goes into it, yet he wants to pay so little. Kinda sad that he would cheat his own fellow professionals. Then again maybe I think too much of the work I do. (more…)

Well, I’ve got the When Nature Calls outline pretty much sewn up now and I’m really happy with it. I’m planning on handing it in this week for sure.  It might just be the best thing I’ve written which of course might not mean much. Keep your fingers crossed for me? Below is hopefully the final design for "Boris" who is now "Woodrow." I like the stump design I came up with. Hopefully you do too. As always click the pic to see it full size.

Still messing with "Stephen" who’s name has changed to "Mr. Flint" which I’ll of course post when I’m done.

Okay, here is an excellent example of what I was talking about in a previous post about clueless people not understanding about the price of animation. there ‘professional’ musicians whant ot have someone make a 5 minute music video for them int he vien of the Gorrillaz and for that, they are willing to pay- wait for it-

£500!

I believe that’s like $1000 US.

Wooo. So six months worth of work for a thousand bucks.

Sheesh. That’s like 18 cents a day.

I find it even funnier that they would reference a video style like the Gorillaz and then say they want it to look like this which looks nothing like the Gorillaz.

Good luck with the album fellas!

Check it out below:

Title: 2D animation music video
Category: Illustration / Cartooning / Painting / Sculpting
Description:
The 5-6 minute music video should be in the style of "The Gorillaz" music videos. This animation will serve as a music video for a band who are currently touring the UK and are sure to be the next big UK band due to their genre crossing music and intelligent political lyrics. The Album  will be worldwide on all download platforms by Sept 2008. The creator(s) of the animation will have his name credited on the video, whioh will be heavily publicised on all promotional literature involving the band produced by Regen Records.

The animation style we’re looking for is exactly like this.
Where simple 2d characters of the 7 band members will be drawn up and animated (similar to the Gorillaz). The visuals must also closely follow the meaning of the lyrics throughout the song (its partly an enviromental message, but also aome anti establishment messages).
A sum of £500 will be paid on delivery of the final animation (+ working files) with all copyrights including character images assigned to Regen Records Ltd. Again, this work and the animator(s) will be heavily promoted.

If were happy with the animation then this will lead to more work and exposure. Please provide portfoliio.

As I’ve posted before… I am working on some freelance for a friend of mine, Dr. Ryan doing a coloring book for his foundation Bony Pony Ranch which I am hoping will be the first of many. My friend Harry, wrote the story from an idea I had and did the layouts and I am penciling and inking them.

The stickers from a previous post will be an insert for this coloring book and you’ll be able to buy it in stores from what I’ve heard. Anyway, this is the first half of the book.

Click on the image to see it bigger.

I just simply don’t know what it is about art that makes people think it’s so easy to do. Why do people think animation is cheap to produce? Is it the fact that we can all pick up a pencil? We all have ideas? We’ve seen so much of it we think we know what stuff should look like?

I don’t know… but I will tell you the average client puts no value on artwork.

None.

They can’t at the prices they expect artists to work for them.

I have had people ask me for an entire 22 minute television show and want to pay me $100 to make it. No I’m not kidding. That would take me a year to do by the way. I have had people want me to draw 300 panels of art for their children’s book for $300. That’s a dollar a drawing. I have had people want me to produce a full color 22 minute storyboard for less than $250 bucks.

I have also had people call me up and berate me when I won’t do work for these insane prices.

It takes the average artist about 2 hours to rough out a drawing of a cartoon character, and (more…)

I’m working on a series of coloring books for a client surrounding a horse named Bony. This is the first page. Layout and story was done by my friend Harry and I am doing the pencils and cleanup as well as vectorization. The drawing was roughed out in Sketchbook Pro on my Tablet PC and the cleanup was done on my new scratchy Cintiq (which I am going to exchange on Friday) and then vectorized in Corel Draw X3