I'm trying to think bigger with different programs,
different dimensions.
In college, a professor talked about how illustration
is a reflection of society and it helps people processes things.
That legitimized it for me.
Like, this is important, I can do this.
One of the things I do is make .gifs,
which are little moving images for the web.
I think people really respond to .gifs in a way they don't
to still images, because there is this infinite
perpetual motion to them.
Rebecca has a real sense of how to capture a
quiet moment, so it still has that tension and excitement.
So the part that animates in this is the leg moving.
I think that .gifs are perceived as a low art form
and Rebecca was one of the early artists
who were pushing the form to a higher level.
Today we're going to be using a new computer with
Optane Memory and we're going to be showing how
that works with some of my more complicated files.
I tend to make all of my .gifs by hand, entirely in Photoshop.
I like to work, pixel by pixel,
to make everything very deliberate.
Each of these is the same layer,
but very slight movements.
The advantage of doing things the way I like to work,
is that I have this hyper-control over every detail of the piece.
But, every time you reload that huge file,
that's more time where you're sitting there
waiting for it to load.
I feel proud of The Aftershocks,
because it's definitely the most complicated
illustrated .gif I've ever done.
I commissioned Rebecca to create the animation
for The Aftershocks.
Which was about this earthquake in Italy.
He said: "I want to see the interior of a house,
with the tremors of an earthquake, right before
everything starts going crazy and breaking."
I said: "sure, I can do that," and I really did not know
how I was going to do that.
It draws them in, because it kind of fascinates
and terrifies at the same time.
Something that a photograph couldn't do,
an infographic couldn't do,
but her animation could.
It's really a masterpiece.
The more times you watch it, the more
you really realize how intricate it is.
There were so many layers and so many moving parts,
that my computer just couldn't handle the file.
It would freeze or just lag to a point where I
couldn't actually do anything.
I had to break certain parts into their own files.
It needed to be smoother, so I added more frames
and more wiggle.
I'd like to be able to open that file a little faster
and actually see the animation
as it's supposed to play in Photoshop.
What I like about Optane Memory is that
it's so fast to boot up and put me right back where
I was when I left it.
That was pretty fast.
Compared to my old computer.
The vase itself is just like a little outline.
Oh there's like a little highlight that goes back and forth.
Looks like water was spinning around.
One of my favorite details is, like there's a
mid-ground room with a lamp hanging in it.
It looks like it's swinging back and forth
towards you and away from you,
but it's a bunch of different layers
moving pixel by pixel
and me turning layers on and off.
Now I just have to render it out.
That was quite fast.
I've worked with a hundred illustrators in my career
and Rebecca is really one of the top people
I would go to for an assignment.
I would be excited to see what Rebecca could do
with a really powerful computer.
I'm feeling way more inspired than I've been in years.
I feel really excited about new technology that's helping me
tackle bigger and more ambitious projects
and as I learn new techniques and new programs,
I keep coming up with crazier and crazier ideas.