Animations

I just finished up an animation project with Greg Minnaar. It was up on the main page of PB for a bit, but I thought I'd post it here along with a few extra notes and other animations.

I listened to the Pinkbike podcast with Greg a while ago while I was drawing some project or another and I kept seeing animations in my head. Something about his voice and the way he told stories seemed prime for cartooning to me. In the podcast he mentioned being chased by a giraffe, and that was too funny not to draw right away.


Somehow or another we started talking after that. I pitched the idea of interviewing him for an animated project, and he was into it. It was fun getting to meet him through our video chats. The common ground between us made talking easy. I think I managed to get through the whole conversation with only one or two attempts at comparing BMX to MTB and mentioning my BMX-background. I did catch myself trying to relate to his story about racing Val Di Sole. The track was truly rugged for the 2022 race, and he talked about how in situations like that "you really learn how much these bikes can roll over." I agreed, saying the same thing happens to me. Thinking back later that was a little embarrassing. I for sure have never pushed my hardtail mountain bike on the smooth flow trail behind my house to the same level that Greg has pushed his downhill race machine! Gotta' laugh at yourself sometimes.

Greg's project was just for fun. No one paid for it; it was just something I wanted to do. Animation is a LOT of work, but it was a real joy to work on something just because I felt like working on it. It also took a lot of pressure off since no one (aside from Greg) had any say over the final product.

I interviewed Greg via video, and he recorded his audio into a microphone connected to his laptop. Getting good audio is tough (since I don't know what I'm doing) and the first round was kind of rough. I had a pro sound friend try to save it, and I really didn't want to bother Greg with having to re-record everything. Also, there's a certain quality to a spontaneous conversation that I really wanted to keep. I had well over an hour of audio from him (and Sarah jumped on for a few minutes too) and I cut, and cut, and re-cut that down to 6 minutes. The story could easily have been a lot longer, but I had to keep reminding myself that I had to draw all of this. Once I had an audio track, I listened to it and drew quick pencil storyboards like these.


With the audio track on a timeline, I could start dropping in storyboard sketches. It starts to feel like something when this comes together. You can watch the still storyboard images change on screen in synch with the audio. I'm not sure how it looks to other people who watch my rough drafts, but I can visualize all the animation that I'm going to draw. I shared some rough cuts with a few friends, and they all told me the audio was bad though. I animated a few scenes and sent over a sample to Greg. He laughed at the animation (which was a relief) and also wasn't happy with the audio. He volunteered to re-record it. I was a bit nervous we'd lose some of the naturalness of the story, but he did a really good job with the retake. A few minor details changed of course but nothing major. Having a good-sounding take made a huge difference for the story. Oh yeah, at some point I did an interview with Gaspare too. He was a riot to talk to as he got so wrapped up telling the story it was like he was reliving it. Pounding his hand on his desk and becoming completely animated (which made cartooning him fun). I'm thankful for his storytelling as I think it added a lot to the story.

Anyhow, a month or so of drawing later, and we ended up with this. I certainly hope some of y'all found a laugh in it.


Below are a few other animation projects I've done...


This one of Mat Hoffman was the first thing I ever animated. I had NO idea how to do it and just drew everything on paper and made little animation chunks frame by frame inside Photoshop. The art isn't the best but the story is so bonkers. I rode for Hoffman Bikes back in the 90's and was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Mat. He is an absolute super hero of a person. Nothing surprises me when it comes to Mat. Such an amazing person!


We sadly lost Paul Buchanan a few years ago, and one day while thinking about him I felt compelled to tell this story. I think this kind of attention would have driven Paul nuts, but it ended up being therapeutic for the storyteller Sandy Carson and me. It was also a lot of fun to hear the full story from Sandy. Paul was such a mystery to a lot of us I'd never before heard the whole story until I dove into this. Paul was the kind of guy you'd see street riding alone at 3 am, and he'd vanish before you could catch up to him. And every so often when you actually did get to ride with him, he'd show you some new trick no one had ever done before. I don't know if many people know this, but a lot of street tricks that appeared in the early 2000s were actually adopted from Paul's riding.


This is some pretty low-rent animation on the Roscoe story (used photoshop again), but it always makes me laugh thinking about it. Roscoe was actually listed on the Etnies team roster for a while and my 3rd signature shoe was named "Roscoe" and had a photo of him inside the shoe.