Marooned!

A few months back, a fellow co-worker had graciously asked me to contribute some art work to his book "MAROONED - A space opera in the wrong key!" It's a collection of comic strips about a cast of characters marooned in space. The 100+ page book comes complete with extras and chocked full of "behind the scenes" notes from the author/artist himself, Tom Dell'Aringa. I'm not an avid follower of comic strips, but I read this one cover to cover. It's a solid collection any artist should be proud to produce.

Check out it's home on the interwebs here:
WWW.MAROONEDCOMIC.COM

I guess Tom wasn't too embarrassed to include my take on his characters :)


If I could adjust one thing here, I'd remove the white offset line around John's nose. I wondered why I left it there because I feel it confuses his face/weakens his silhouette a bit. I remembered why though: Often times I feel I need to loosen up with how I work. Not everything needs to be perfect. I work a lot in Flash so vectors have an inherent ability to be very clean and crisp. I remember telling myself that not everything needs to be perfect (to my humble eye). "It's cool Bob - just roll with it." As it turns out, my gut instinct was probably smarter than my subconscious... A small irk overall I suppose.


And while this take on the character "Lian" reads a bit better color-wise...


...I did prefer the lighter colors here. Seeing it printed in the book, I really felt her hands get lost almost completely and all the blues in her body/hair run together, but I still liked it. I remember doing the darker version above just to justify my decision. Like I recognized the clarity in the darker image, but my artistic preference (who's to say art is "wrong?") was still the lighter colors. I gave Tom the choice and he liked the lighter colors too. With some more tweaking I could come to a better compromise, but again, this was one of those, "go with your gut, not everything is perfect" responses I had.

Hope I don't sound too critical. Just being my usual "worst critic". :) I always love projects like this and everything printed well. I dig the characters and Tom was happy with everything - Enjoyment was had by all!

Trapjaw for everyone!

Trapjaw was my favorite character from He-Man hands down. Probably the first cyborg my kindergarden brain ever laid eyes on. A half man, half robot? With an interchangeable arm, an indestructible jaw, and blue skin? Impossibly cool when you're 6...or 30. February 2010 marks Trapjaw's re-re-release from Mattel. Mark your calendars!

These were done up for Thought Faucet

Space Girl!

Truth be told, I can not draw on the spot. In San Diego it's rough because many con goers walk around collecting sketches from the artists. It's pretty cool to flip through these books and see all the great art and I always feel honored and awkward when I'm asked to contribute. My impromptu skills are less than stellar and I'm embarrassed such a horrible sketch represents me in someone else's book.

I envy those who can visualize an image in their mind and project it on paper - but I draw the only way I know how and it's the process I love most. I love to approach every drawing differently so I don't have a defined process. I don't even seem to have a "go to bag of tricks" - re-discovering how to draw with several horrible warm up doodles is the only way I can work. Sometimes a drawing comes out just fine the first time - just a sketch that captures what I was thinking - and it feels good, but when the pressure is on, I choke - big time. I can think back to high school and college when I drew a lot more and a picture of Batman was no problem. I think I just think more and thinking can be bad...

Well I had a painful situation where a girl named Carly asked for a Space Girl in her sketchbook at the con. I pooped out something so bad I asked her to e-mail and I'd draw up something to replace it that wouldn't scald human eyes. Here's the result:

I felt better, she liked it - mission accomplished.

Boxcutter Showdown!

Just before San Diego my buddy Sean sent a new script on me for his graphic novel project, Boxcutter Showdown. I did some concepts before so the new story got me to doodle a few characters I was...eh, drawn...to.

I couldn't choose between the subtle differences in the above image.

Post SDCC! Thanks!

SDCC was a blast! Thanks for everyone stoppin' out to say hi and for pickin' up our latest book! It's always great to see friends and it was extra cool to see some Chicago work pals coincidentally at the con too.

Here's what our booth looked like:

I've been slow recouping from the show. There's several people I need to write back, cool books I need to absorb, projects that need to start and others that need to linger longer...

I got a few more posts to put up today - stay tuned for a link to our CHOKE blog where you can order our book online!

Fresh out of the oven!

San Diego Comic Con - Here we come again!
I know I've been delinquent about posting, but I hope I can make up for it with this year's book, "CHOKE!"
Dave and I have cooked up a new collection of art over at table F5. Preview night is tomorrow so we hope to be all set up with a smattering of goodies!

First, the new book "CHOKE!" and our formerly sold out book from last year, Inner Workings, will be available again! Both titles weigh in around 100 color pages, hardcover, 6x9 format, for the low, low price of $20.

I'll have a handful of prints to sell and Dave will triple that. Our backdrop should be strung up with everything we have.

This last one is EXCLUSIVE! This is my Darkstalkers tribute image that will premiere in UDON's collected artbook at the con. I'm psyched to see all the work so many artists contributed to it! Hope there's some Victor and Raptor fans out there!

Lastly there will be a selection of buttons:

Big THANKS to Min, Mark, and Tracy for fueling the "Button Corp." assembly line. 1,000 buttons all punched and assembled by hand!

See you out there!

Just a coupla dudes

Just a couple of miscellaneous dude doodles. This top guy was "Employee of the Month" at work not too long ago. When someone's mug is featured in a company wide e-mail that includes game development, it practically warrants a drawing.  Looking forward to these monthly opportunities.

And the bottom doodle is nothin' in particular - he came together in one go which always feels good.  With a little refinement he could BE somebody!

Darkstalkers tribute book!

In other news, Udon studio is putting together another tribute book like they did for Street Fighter last year. A collection of artists from around the world and their interpretations of Capcom's characters. This time around, they're celebrating Capcom's Darkstalkers license. I felt like a heel for missing the Street Fighter deadline, so I couldn't let this one slip away.

Read up on their site and check out the list of winning aritsts:

http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/?p=838#more-838

I can't share much, but I am plenty excited to be accepted into the book! I believe it premieres at the various summer conventions, and goes on sale officially in the fall.

Here's a few doodles when I was trying to decide which character to draw. I coulda went with any of them - they all have their strong points visually. Maybe I drew Lord Raptor or Victor or Sasquatch, or ...maybe not... If I remember, I'll try to post the final image once it sees print. Seems someone's foot really gave me a problem :)

Boob who?

It's been a while folks. I'm speaking to the 2 loyal followers out there...

But I haven't been dawdling. San Diego is fast approaching and Dave and I will be doing another collaborative book. Table F5 I believe. More on that as it develops...

In the meantime, here's a recent post from me on Thought Faucet. Below are the idea scribbles leading up to the colored image:

Though Faucet - Link Redesign

Here's a string of sketches where ya can kinda see some of the thought process I was having with these Link redesigns.

I had the idea cookin' to draw up something in very limited 3D fashion - like Link stepped right out of the 1984 Dire Straits music video "Money for Nothing".  But as soon as I started drawing, the geometry, the facets, the horrible look - just wasn't any fun.




Then I turned to some rubber hose style animation of the 1930s. That could be cool for Link. Along the way, I came across a UPA-ish looking Dennis the Menace type character and thought that would be a neat contrast to the spaz I was dreaming up in the other style.




And here's where the two paths ended up