Tim Szabo

Natural History Museum

2011-12-19T00:36:00.001-08:00

Piece done at the Natural History Museum today. My first attempt at a digital painting on-site with a laptop and a tablet.

Forest

2011-12-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

New work- Finished the previous posted image and just because I liked a thumbnail, I started working with this image at around 2 am and finished painting at about 5. Grab crying boy from crib at about 5:30 and prop him up on the couch with a bottle and a Disney DVD in the living room. Went to bed by 5:45. Woken up by son @ 7 and again at 8. Son uses dad as playground equipment in bed at 8:30. Slither out of bed about 9am. Shower at 9:30. At work by 10:30. All in all a fun evening- but more sleep would have been nice.....

Ruins

2011-12-04T00:59:00.000-08:00

New piece- just finished tonight.

Southwest

2011-11-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

Necessity is the mother of invention- I did this piece in my class last night- trying to get something done for the critique. It helps to have a deadline to get me going..... I waste too much time noodling stuff if I have lots of time to work. Photoshop with an old wacom graphire tablet.

Obelisk

2011-11-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

This piece is about building new technology over old ruins.

Base

2011-11-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

Detroit concept

2011-11-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

Subterranean- recent concept design work

2011-10-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

Doing more concept work. I've got quite a few things that haven't been posted up yet. This one started as a small abstract thumbnail.

Steam generator plant

2011-06-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Concept for a geo-thermal steam generator plant.

The Last Home in Centralia

2010-09-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

This image is based on an article I read about the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. The coal mining town has been sitting on top of an ongoing fire that has been underground for over 40 years. It is impossible to put out, and has cause almost everyone in town to move away. Almost. What kind of person would choose to live for years in a near-ghost town that has been on fire for decades?

Arctic circle 2

2010-09-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

This image is mostly painted in Photoshop with the Cintiq tablet. Another one that started with a bunch of abstract shapes in a small thumbnail that slowly evolved into something much different. This tends to be my preferred method I guess..... let the abstraction move in its own direction until I start to get a mood or a feel for something and then go from there.

Arctic Circle 1

2010-09-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

Painted with a Cintiq tablet and Photoshop.

Crash Survivor

2010-09-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

These images are based on an urban myth I heard about a few months ago. A plane crash of high-ranking government officials in eastern Europe was supposed to have a limited number of survivors, but, in a bizarre incident supposedly caught on video, those individuals were shot by the first responders to the scene. All this was recorded by shaky video from some distance away... later posted on the internet. Painted with a Cintiq in Photoshop. Not sure what happened......

The old tree

2010-06-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Heres an experiment created a couple nights ago- experimenting with only brushes... no photos.

The Station Fire in La Crescenta

2009-09-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

I bought a new camera recently and a couple of nice Canon L lenses, so I went out to record the Station Fire last night.

Legend of the Chihuahua

2009-03-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

On March 3rd the Disney film Beverly Hills Chihuahua came out, and featured on the DVD was our new animated short, Legend of the Chihuahua. It's a multimedia collage of techniques and styles and was done primarily with Photoshop, Flash and After Effects, including both traditional and digital work. We used computers, scanners, digital cameras, stock photography, hell, even pencils. I say it was ours because we had a very small crew of about a dozen artists working on it.

Phil Pignotti was the Director and he also served as an animation supervisor, storyboard artist, additional bg designer, chief problem solver and the lead creative force behind the project. I served as Art Director, and I was lucky enough to be given the chance by Phil do quite a few of the backgrounds and much of the After Effects animation and compositing. My wife Suzannah Szabo was our Animation Producer. She rose to the near-impossible challenge of getting a crazy schedule and a complex project with a dozen busy artists all on the same page so we can get it all together, looking good, on time and on budget, without killing each other. (that last part is the tricky part.......)

Instrumental artists on the crew: Michael D'ambrosio editor and tech wizard. Rafael Hurtado character setup work, bg design and Photoshop Supagenious. Jason Brubaker and Todd Jacobsen on After Effects. Joel Reid, JC Chen, Rob Lilly, Jeff Zikry, Doug Gray and Steven Theis doing Flash animation. Rozalina Tchouchev and Ed Ghertner doing additional background designs. Scott Lowe helping out on the rendering of the final files. Michael Hurwitz, Chris Bonno, Laura Gerow, Peter Michail, Denny Siegel, Jeffrey Plamenig and Joe Whyte all doing voices for either the scratch track or the final short. (If I forgot anybody here, please accept my apologies)

Thanks also go to Sam Hurwitz, Pixel Plantation, and Renegade. This list certainly isn't meant to be an official, all-inclusive list, but being that we were unable to get credited on the end of the short, the talented crew deserves to be mentioned SOMEWHERE.

Thanks to all our crew! All these folks have day jobs at places like Dreamworks, Disney, Film Roman, Cartoon Network and Renegade that leave them dead tired at the end of the day, but everyone still managed to kick ass working on this stuff on their free time and everybody brought their A-game to the project. We couldn't have done it without you guys!!!!

I'm Alive!!!

2009-01-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

So heres something different, a quick Photoshop poster for a group event.

Ok, so its been a while since I have posted much of anything. That usually means either the blogger hasn't been busy or they've been so slammed they haven't had time to update anything. In my case, it has been the latter. I've been busy with plenty of freelance for multiple studios and individuals. Its actually been kind of a blur. Now I actually have some breathing time from a crazy summer and fall, so in the next couple weeks I'm gonna try to give an update on a little of what I've been up to. Some things I'm not sure I can show images for as they are not released yet, but at least I can mention what I've been up to.

Most recent project of note has been Art Directing a creative short film to be featured on the Beverly Hills Chihuahua DVD which is coming out in March. More on that soon.

So the moral of the story is to stay tuned as I'll try to update with some recent projects......

American Primitive

2008-06-03T15:39:00.001-07:00

I've been working on background designs for the title sequence of a feature film entitled "American Primitive" for the last couple months or so. Here's a sample. (Cintiq and Photoshop)

Headlight

2008-05-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Messing around with Photoshop and the Cintiq again...... no particular destination in mind.

(The title is an afterthought.)

Chantry Flats

2008-05-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

A simple poster created in an hour or so for a hike.

Flash FX design

2007-12-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Car chase abstract concepts

2007-09-28T01:04:00.000-07:00

As the name implies, these are still-frame abstract concepts for an animated car chase sequence from a short film project.... I wanted to try a style of animation with some experiments.... think fast, blurry action with quick cuts, sparks flying, grinding, skidding, teeth gnashing, violent spitting flames and the like. You get the idea.

Flash Op Art

2007-09-26T01:00:00.000-07:00

An experiment created in Flash.

Warehouse interior concept

2007-08-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a concept for a warehouse interior for the project formerly known as "Fairfield". Photoshop painting.

Invitation

2007-08-22T04:16:00.000-07:00

Well, OK, hello, everybody, I'm back Blogging again... after some minor distractions like getting married and buying a house and honeymooning overseas, class reunions, receptions, etc etc. Now that those little distractions are out of the way, I'm back on it again... hopefully at a slightly more relaxed pace.

This image, which was our wedding invitation, was initially based on a WWII vintage movie poster. This image first started as a sketch on paper, then the final artwork was created entirely in Photoshop with probably 40-45 layers. Painted with a Cintiq tablet. I found it best to not think about how to get the old lithograph style in the painting.... I had thought about it for quite a while when I was researching old posters and eventually I just started one night (because our deadline was fast approaching) and never really thought about the litho element of the look. It helps me to be in a rush because I don't waste time overthinking or second guessing anything. It was a fun project because it came together pretty fast once I started painting.

Cornwell Study

2006-11-28T00:39:00.000-08:00

Heres an oil value study after Dean Cornwell.

Kentucky Woman

2006-10-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

Kentucky woman
She shines with her own kind of light
She looks at you once
And a day thats all wrong looks all right
And I love her
God knows I love her
Kentucky woman

I've discovered an intelligent woman with a beautiful smile, a wonderful heart and a radiant soul. She brightens your day with her special smile and she brings genuine warmth to everyone she meets. Truly special people are very rare, but your soulmate is unique. Her name is Suzannah, she's my best friend, and I'm very happy to announce we're engaged!!!!

Hershey's concept

2006-09-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

This is an older concept for a Hershey's commercial.

Trees

2006-09-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of pix taken with the digital camera.

Spitfire sketch

2006-09-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

An experiment done tonight....

Valley Carwash

2006-09-06T01:05:00.000-07:00

Fairfield street concept

2006-08-29T02:01:00.000-07:00

Maybe its a Jeff Koons...

2006-08-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

A group of balloons just sitting there, out of context, in a center foyer of an art museum. Intended for a high school graduation party later that night... struck me as visually interesting, for some bizarre reason..

The luxury SUV craze in LA is getting out of hand...

2006-08-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

Photo Impressionism

2006-07-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

An unaltered photo taken of an undulating reflection on a metal surface...

Back in the Saddle

2006-07-12T01:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, back at it... courtesy of friends urging me to get back on the blog... you know who you are... an abstract piece created tonight with nothing particular in mind, just exploring stuff. Photocollage and cintiq painting.

Fairfield Mood...

2006-04-11T01:10:00.000-07:00

A new sketch tonight for Fairfield... messin' around trying to establish a mood and a technique for BGs.

My standard blog apology posting....

2006-04-09T03:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as is apparently a new tradition in the Blog world, this is the post where I say I'm sorry for not posting for so long and I'm back at it again! Wooo-hooo! Anyway, it's great to be back at it again! Here's a Photoshop painting.

Ok, so I've been distracted....

2006-03-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

I bought a new toy recently and I'm tweaking a few things.... changing some hoses, exhaust upgrades, urethane bushings, etc..... so Ive been a bit distracted.......... I'll keep bloggin'.... I promise......

Pirate

2006-02-07T01:07:00.000-08:00

Fairfield concept.. apartment living.

2006-01-21T01:56:00.000-08:00

Fairfield city concept

2006-01-18T01:20:00.000-08:00

New concept design for the "Fairfield" short. The city of Fairfield is an old industrial town like Gary, Indiana or maybe Milwaukee, and the work force and the city itself has been decimated by outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries and robotic automation. Unemployment is very high and the town is extremely poor. Some of the industrial buildings have been retrofitted with apartments to save the city money. We are still in preproduction for the project....

Guernica (?)

2006-01-12T01:48:00.000-08:00

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
-Picasso

Found this item digging through my first and second grade papers..... funny, there's quite a lot of drawings mixed in with the boring school work. Little bright sparks mixed in with all the dull uniformity of page after page of math papers and simple sentences on white sheets of paper. Strange that I can actually remember doing a couple of them. My favorite used to be those big 11 x 17 manila paper sheets- a great big empty canvas stretched out before me on my desk.... with infinite possibilities.

Looking at drawings that kids do, I sometimes wonder why kids are so creative and freespirited, and what happens to them to lose that spark of creativity. How is it possible to sit in a grey cubicle all day and look at a computer screen?

I seem to remember getting in trouble for drawing in class quite often. Looking back, I guess I dont understand what I was doing that was so wrong.....

(Dont remember what was going thru my brain when I did this one but it may have been in my early Fauvist phase. Ha ha .....)

Offworld

2006-01-02T14:33:00.000-08:00

Im back from a visit home to visit relatives. I had a good time and accomplished nothing. Perfect vacation. Anyway, I hope everyone had a good holiday season!!

Heres another experiment- started with a tiny tree root scanned in and cut out and layered on a ground texture, together with a bunch of jellyfish photos for the skies and a sugar snap pea scanned in for the moon.

Industrial Photos

2005-12-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

Pix from a trip down to Long Beach looking for nothing in particular....

Unmanned Explorer

2005-12-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

An unmanned all-terrain space exploration vehicle designed to operate like a tank tread.

Robe Sketch

2005-12-16T00:30:00.000-08:00

Graphite on newsprint 16" by 20"

Hungary Photos 3

2005-12-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

First pic is my dad and his brother, second is a field near the Austrian border, third is a label on the front gate, fourth is my uncle's strong hands after a lifetime of hard work as a farmer, and last is a time exposure of a bicycle left outside a sugar factory late at night.

Sketchbook: Sad Man

2005-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Snowman

2005-12-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

Acrylic study on paper @14" tall.

Los Angeles Entry-Level Housing

2005-12-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

This is about the only thing you can afford to buy in Los Angeles as a first time homebuyer. Saw this charming "cozy" place in Van Nuys.

Sketchbook: Sean

2005-12-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

Because Beauty is the Best Revenge

2005-12-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

Photo collage with additional acrylic overpainting for the Mall Images series. 32" by 40".

Fairfield concept: Time Machine

2005-12-04T00:24:00.000-08:00

Photoshop painting of a possible time machine for the Fairfield short. Having some fun with this stuff- trying to establish a lighting style and a mood for the backgrounds....

Comicon

2005-12-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

I saw this guy (?) walking out in the middle of nowhere far, far away from the comicon just as he walked by this mural. Ahh, yes, the priceless moments like these... thats what cameras are for.

Figure

2005-12-02T09:18:00.000-08:00

Bone Tissue

2005-12-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

Another Photoshop creation.... started with a transparent garment bag scanned into the computer a long time ago kind of as a joke... It seemed like just about anything you could think of could be scanned in for use in a collage and it could work... even a stupid garment bag. I liked the results and it gave me some ideas so it became a starting point for all sorts of stuff. This one I did tonight from that old raw scan and it was heavily worked over with the Cintiq tablet and some exploratory layering stuff.

Not Too Wrapped Up in her Principles to Have a Good Time

2005-11-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

This is an oil I did quite a while back for the Mall Images series. Another fabricated environment ... inspired by but not really based on a real environment.... I collaged about 15 photos together to get the 3 by 5 thumbnail that I then based the painting on.... once upon a time, I used to use tinted plastic report covers to alter the contrast and color tint in the photo cutouts. The final painting is about 20 by 36. I miss painting in oil.... acrylic somehow doesnt have the same appeal for me- its just not as fun.

Sketchbook: race car driver

2005-11-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

Kentucky Thanksgiving

2005-11-30T23:02:00.000-08:00

Back after a few days away from it all.... Heres a couple of random pix from my recent trip to Kentucky to visit my girlfriend's family. First one is her family walking out of a mall. Second is the back of a glass display case in an antique store, third is an old farm near Tennessee, and last is Suzannah in the Detroit airport. Interesting things to note about Kentucky: no traffic, no garbage, no graffiti, no smog and no half million dollar entry-level fixer-upper homes. Boy, do I miss LA.

Synthetic landscape- found object art

2005-11-24T02:01:00.000-08:00

A photoshop fabrication from scratch.... no photos, only scanned objects... this one was a complicated experiment. Grass blades were individually scanned on the scanner surface and layered upon one another, altered and blurred to create depth... I painted the sky with a brush same goes for the rainshower off in the distance and the dirt in the grass.... The water was a layered collage with a bunch of scanned maple leaves, a piece of dupont corian scanned in and used as a underneath layer, and I scanned a transparent plastic bag and layered it on to give a reflective surface. These things arent specifically planned out this way, they just evolved..... I like the organic feel of experimental collaging and just trying stuff.... looks less "planned" that way.

This thing was originally just an experiment to see if I could build depth with layering techniques in photoshop.

Hungary photos 2

2005-11-24T01:51:00.000-08:00

More pictures from Hungary. First one is a random storefront display with a svelte Santa Clause with a bad beard. When I drove by this on the road I practically skidded off into the ditch I was laughing so hard..... Second image is a train yard in Mosonmagyarovar. Third is my dad, Louis in the Budapest subway system. Fourth is my cousin's workshop in the machinery shed, and last image is a milking machine in the barn.

Hungary photos 1

2005-11-24T01:15:00.000-08:00

A few random photos from a trip to visit my father's birthplace in Hungary. First one was taken out in my cousin's barn, with dust from a corn pulverizing machine covering everything. Second image was taken in my uncle's attic. Third taken in my aunt's pantry. Fourth was taken through a closed door.

Woman standing

2005-11-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna be out of town for Thanksgiving, so I'm gonna upload a variety of stuff to give everybody something to chew on for a few days. Happy Thanksgiving!!

She Was Beautiful and Had Everything to Live For

2005-11-22T04:34:00.000-08:00

"She Was Beautiful and Had Everything to Live For"

An old multimedia paper and acrylic collage done a few years ago. About 22" by 36". This piece was based on a small photocollage taken from cut-apart photos taken in shopping malls. This piece is part of "Mall Images" an ongoing series of collages and paintings that I sometimes work on.... Havent done one in a while. Some pieces took on a level of realism, others go very abstract.... ultimately all are a fabricated imaginary space that does not exist in reality. I could go on into lengthy, agonizing detail about the meaning and implications of the series, you know, writing the type of artists statement that only critics seem to like, but I dont like writing bullshit... Id prefer to let you decide what you want it to be.

Kmann

2005-11-21T23:35:00.000-08:00

An informal portrait taken of a friend, Kelsey Mann. Taken last year high up in the Sequoia National Forest. You can check out his blog thru my links section over on the right. He's got some great stuff posted up already....

Construction decontruction

2005-11-13T22:17:00.000-08:00

While talking on the phone I was goofing around with a collage.... it started out as a photograph of a piece of construction equipment and was broken down and fractured into......something else, I guess.

Billboard afterimage

2005-11-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

Photograph of a Billboard "in between postings" on Ventura Blvd.

Natural History Museum

2005-11-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

Tension

2005-11-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

Photoshop collage not created with anything specific in mind, but may be usable as an inspirational concept for the Fairfield short (?). Image evolved from a collage of telephone lines.

Carwash collage

2005-11-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

Abstract photoshop collage of a Burbank carwash, worked into with a cintiq. I guess its mostly a color experiment.

Fairfield interior concept

2005-11-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Possible interior concept for the Fairfield short animated film. (See the link posted to the right.) I know this is more realistic than we are going for on the project, but Im going for a mood and lighting style for interiors- just experimenting.

Farmer's tan

2005-11-03T11:54:00.001-08:00

This image is an oil sketch on masonite.

Storefront: sewing machine shop

2005-11-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

Digital photos from the storefront of a closed sewing machine repair shop here in LA.

Playing with my food

2005-10-28T00:27:00.000-07:00

For some bizarre reason I liked the look of a bunch of raw peas floating in a bowl of water so I scanned them directly on the scanner and started to mess around..... dont know what I am aiming for when I start stuff like this... thats the fun. Often this sort of thing ends up going in a completely new direction. Texture is a digital photo of a concrete wall and the streaks are digital pix from autos going by on Mulholland. What does all this mean? I have no idea, but it felt right when I decided it was "done".

Flash-generated abstractions

2005-10-27T01:52:00.000-07:00

This image started as a frame exported from an experimental animation clip in Flash. I sometimes use Flash to create an abstract starting point for a collage. I then worked into it with a cintiq tablet in Photoshop. Im one of those people who doesnt like to work with a blank sheet of paper. Hey, I gotta say, I like that new 21 cintiq! Almost like real painting...... almost.

One small step in the right direction....

2005-10-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog! I think Ill start off this first step into the void with a china marker sketch from a while back.