Boob Doodles

Stupid Fast

2012-01-29T14:30:00.003-06:00

Hey! I made a dumb running sonic for the dumb running sonic blog thing!

I didn't make it in time and the dude isn't taking any more submissions but ya still gotta check 'em all out:
dumb running sonic

Everyone of them is great in their own special way. Strangely the site's formatting squishes the GIFs so to see them correctly ya gotta click on the title of each.

Anyway, I posted a .SWF of mine on Deviant. Enjoy the nonsense.
stupid fast.SWF

SNES pixel-bit

2012-01-29T14:26:00.002-06:00

Embarrassingly, I slaved over this tiny SNES deck for an hour or so. Ha! Do NOT underestimate the raw POWER that a single pixel can possess!

I plucked some inspiration from my friend Marshall who created "An Abridged History of Game Controllers" out of pixels:
[link]

Brilliant! I think it's amazing how well everyone of them completely works. All those different controller shapes and button layouts all completely work within the confines of some tiny squares.

And so seeing these just made me want to build a deck for my favorite game system: the SNES.

There is something innately satisfying about creating pixel art: When pixels are your medium, the "right" and "wrong" decisions you make in art become a lot more clear. Say, compared to a drawing or a painting. ONE pixel can make or break it. The appeal is somewhat mechanical. And even if it ain't perfect, you know the artist had to at LEAST consider each pixel. Thought literally goes into every square. Compared again to a drawing or painting where stray lines and happy accidents can be part of the process and the overall look.

And of course, there's a whole lotta nostalgia that comes with anything made of pixels. * sigh * I miss the nearly-forgotten days when hard earned allowances were spent on $50 cartridges that held a few precious megs of homework-delaying wonderment XD

Day after Christmas...

2011-12-30T15:29:00.002-06:00

Here's a bizarre doodle I've had to draw 3 times over the life of my truck.

Ya see, somethin' broke in the drum brake assembly of my rear passenger wheel. My dad and I JUST replaced the brake shoes and hardware kits on both rear wheels over the summer. But somethin' broke, and miscellaneous pieces were rollin' around squealing in the brake drum for a couple days. The day after Christmas we fixed it, but brake drums are completely asinine in structure - they require a drawing so we know the order in which all the pieces and springs go together. It's a delicate house of cards with all the parts holding on to each other with springs and cables. The whole mechanism floats around and it hardly seems like a precision piece of equipment that's responsible for your brakes.

And so, I guess that's why they invented disc brakes.

Christmas card

2011-12-30T15:09:00.003-06:00

For Christmas I made a mini Santa card for the team at work. I had an original plan of printing the characters out on vellum with the BG printed on nice matte paper then layering the two. The BG had a white silhouette of the characters so the vellum print would be clearly visible on top. Just a neat separation I thought. Well after fighting with the printer to accept the vellum, it eventually worked, but all the detail was lost in the imperfect parchment. I had to bail on the idea and just went with a nice matte print.

Here are my doodles and the final.

Hope everyone had a Happy Festivus!

INSPIRATION

2011-12-01T21:53:00.009-06:00

Just a couple mutie bros max chillin'...

I have a lot to say...again... and so I'm gonna try really hard to explain the inspiration behind this image and hopefully not offend anyone.

I don't necessarily do a lot of superhero art, but one day I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna draw me some Colossus because he's one of my favorites." So I start with some searches on Deviant to get the juices flowing. "Maybe something inspiring will pop up." I say to myself.

I should let you know, I've only recently been lulled into Deviant Art's world. I dunno why, but I guess I never really gravitated to it before. Never even really browsed it. Maybe I figured I'd seen plenty of Pickachu fanart in "art school" already... But here's the thing: turns out, Deviant is a whole COSMOS of art. The GOOD, the BAD, and every UGLY fetish in between. Even .SWFs are postable on Deviant. And so you say to me, "...yeah no kiddin' ya rube." But here's the thing again: When you're presented with page after page of Colossus art, dozens of hundreds of thumbnails, something has GOT to get your attention somehow. A cool pose? Bright colors? Stellar inks? A great style? What image deserves your precious mouse click and several consecutive seconds of your attention???

Well for me, these did. Don't laugh. My eyes stuck to these from a mister "bitBEE" and I actually saved them down. Sure, ya might say Colossus has seen better days, and I'd be lying if I didn't say initial reaction was "wow...really???" but this is where my search ended. I kept starring. Which is more than I can say for some masterful Alex-Ross-ish render of Colossus in the thumbnail right next to these.

Certainly there are still many things to take into account like age, talent, tools, but it came down to decisions. What I like about art and animation, what engages me, is the decision making process. So every stroke and shape and color choice was something I was vastly more interested in here than with other images. How does this artist see things? How does his brain come to these conclusions? And then I think about my childhood and how much fun it was to draw. How completely decisionLESS drawing was back then. I could hold a number 2 in my fist and draw you a scene of warring robots while thinking about spaghettios.

I'm jealous of that. I'm jealous of what these "Colossi" represent here. I'll NEVER be able to return to those times - to that effortless decision making. ...well, I guess I COULD try mentally, but it might be hard to sustain being a commercial artist.

And this isn't to sound all depressed about "good ol' days" or whatever. I still enjoy drawing and making stuffs. I think as we all grow up (somewhat), we just embrace the decision making process. Certainly it's tough at times, and unfortunately ya just can't go back home.

So that's what motivated me. "Let's have fun making some DECISIONS!" I said to myself. And I started doodling.

For whatever reason, I wasn't content with ONLY Colossus so Wolverine seemed like a natural runner up. I'm not a big comic nerd any more so I had to look up the specifics of their "classic" costumes. In doing so, I came across some images of X-MEN cards!

Dude! Do you remember these!? I had the whole set! They were all drawn by Jim Lee who was a GOD in my eyes at the time. So I immediately knew I wanted to lift the same sorta card motif here.

Here's my rough layout.

And here's the start of my colors. The black inks I did in Flash and brought into PS. And right around this time I remember really liking the black lines and the flat colors. I kinda wanted to end it right there. Though I pushed on with self-color lines and some brush work knowing I could always go back to flats. I'm kinda bummed where Wolvie's head and elbow land on Colossus. Weird sorta tangents and his head is completely inside the arm silo. Eh, one of those things ya don't really think you'll notice once ya start working in the computer, "oh it'll be fine..." but in the end ya sorta do notice and so ya say, "oh well - there's always next year..."

That's about all for this episode. I gotta go thank bitBEE now!

UPDATE!

Over the holiday break I stole back a buncha my childhood drawings from my folks. For your enjoyment, and my embarrassment, I'm posting a couple notebook scribblings from '92. That woulda made me 13. That middle one of Colossus is straight from the Jim Lee cards again.

Oh those poor feet on Colossus. Like someone smashed them with a hammer...

Stay Classy.

2011-09-05T22:45:00.009-05:00

Here's somethin' new!

Let me start at the beginning...

A friend shared this color challenge meme from Deviant Art with me. The object was just to make an image in each of the squares using ONLY the 5 colors for each of those squares. An exercise in restriction in other words. Cool.

I've been on an "Anchorman" kick lately so I thought I'd draw busts of the characters, work that out of my system, and try to match up appropriate colors from the meme. 2 birds with one stone...so to speak. The milk carton (not that it's an actual character...) gravitated to the primary colors immediately. All other characters I kinda just had to make work as best I could. It was also about defining lines and shapes in their faces - defining lighting for me too. Then it was kind of a layout exercise as I tried to assemble the busts to read well...enough. Then I retrofit those busts into the meme. It was all sorts of exercises!

And here're some horrible, horrible, scribbles as I was trying to work out the characters. Also, I've listed the order in which I drew the characters and the number of times I drew them before I felt satisfied taking them digital:

Brick - 9 drawings
Ron - 15
Brian - 4
Champ - 3
Veronica - 1
milk - 1

Just kinda interesting to note that some drawings or characters can click better/faster than others.

SDCC 2011 wraps up

2011-07-26T21:24:00.005-05:00

Another year, another round of love! Thanks to all who stopped by, looked, pointed, laughed, scowled, bought, talked, and even frowned (I feel like a jackass for selling out of my Mega Man prints when there were still a couple interested folks!).

The show is always fun despite the rumors that always seem to float around about location changes, price increases, hostile TV take overs, etc. ;-) I hope to keep going and meeting new folks. And I always come back home with renewed ideas. New artistic hopes and goals. A new book? Themed prints? Animation??? Who knows?!!?

Here's my pal Dave manning the table. No new books, but we tried out a variety of prints this year. Every year is an experiment!

Thanks again! See ya next year!

SDCC 2011 print roll

2011-07-11T22:19:00.002-05:00

Another summer and another con is almost here...

Dave and I will be back behind the table (F5) fielding all sorts of questions, comments, requests, job offers, photo opportunities, portfolio critiques, awkward furry moments, etc. :-)

We'll have a VERY limited run of prints this year. Some old, some new, some old with new colors. Here's the lot I'm bringing, but we're aiming to wrap up Saturday night so like I say, I only gots a couple of each.

Should be a good time as always. I wanna see some friends, eat out every night, and soak up some nerdly inspiration!

Point and say "Hi" if you walk on by our way!

Mega Man on my wall

2011-07-11T21:57:00.004-05:00

...that last post reminds me:

It's done. No other game deserves to be immortalized on my wall in legos more than Mega Man 2 on the original NES. I broke my NES playing this game so much. When blowing in the cart wasn't doing the trick any more, my mom had to mail my NES to NOA (Nintendo of America) and they had to fix it. The wait was unbearable. I musta asked every day if it showed up yet when I was picked up from school. There was much rejoicing on the day when the mailman returned my NES and Mega Man 2 fully restored.

This is just a tribute…

2011-07-11T20:34:00.006-05:00

Mega Man Tribute Book! YES.

Udon just gave the official go ahead to post contributing artworks featured in their latest tribute book. I'm super looking' forward to some sweet-ass robo art at ComiCon in…just a few weeks! HOLY SHEEP.

The official low-down reads like this:

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE LIMITED EDITION HARDCOVER
- The book is premiering at the San Diego Comic-con at the UDON booth (#5037), July 20-24
- For fans not attending the show, you can preorder the book at UDONstore.com (click here!)

MEGA MAN TRIBUTE SOFTCOVER
- The standard softcover edition is also available for preorder on amazon.com (click here!)

And so here's my attempt at art:

For whatever reason, this composition plays tricks on me. It looks fine I suppose, then I flip it and it looks largely asymmetrical and weird. …then not. …then it settles in my brain and looks fine. Then I flip it back and it's asymmetrical and weird again. Bah, whatever ;-)

I set out to use traditional media exclusively here and draw/paint as much by hand. I drew MM's head with graphite on bristol board trying to eyeball a symmetrical head in the process. Next I "inked" it with some thick EBONY charcoal pencil. I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to add color with oil bars but it's like I was combining control with chaos. The pencil line was fairly tight but the thick bars are meant for spontaneous painting of sorts. I ended up masking off every "zone of color" within the line work using removable tape. Then went to town filling in blocks of warm colors with the oil bars. A convoluted process for sure. The white outline and the pixely squares at the top were masked off as well. Over a couple nights, as the different colors would "dry" I'd add highlights of lighter colors. When it was all done, I asked my sister to snap a high-rez photo of it since it was too big for my scanner and I wouldn't want oil residue all over the glass. Once in the computer I started fooling more and more with whiter highlights in Photoshop, a shadow pass, adjust a few things here and there, etc. It was definitely a moment of weakness having to fall back on the computer, but I did think all the adjustments were improvements. I'm happiest with the details of imperfection that the raw pencil and ink could only bring. Flecks of bare paper poking through, some blue col-erase in his eyes, a wobbly line, everything has real texture. I'm just sayin' - it feels good to do some REAL crappy art :-)

In the end, it's all about process - what I enjoy most about art and animation. I had no idea how to make pencil, and oil bars, tape, a photo, and photoshop, all work together and it wasn't my initial intention, but that's what happened. In fact...

"That just happened."

Goldblum

2011-06-05T22:05:00.007-05:00

Some recent inspiration drove me to draw Jeff Goldblum this weekend. I started messing with "object drawing" in Flash when I did the FIGHT! animation a few posts back. Flash CS3 instated an "object drawing" button in Flash that makes every stroke you lay down an object. They're essentially "groups" but they call 'em objects because I think it relates to Illustrator and how everything you do in Illustrator is an "object". With this mode on and with a brush color of low opacity, you can effectively "build up" your line work like you would in Photoshop. Stroke after stroke will thicken the opacity and your line becomes more solid. Nothing new to artists, but it's sorta new to Flash and not something all that explored in Flash.

The downsides are plenty: tablet pressure doesn't control opacity in Flash, there is a selection box that always appears around each object, Flash's brushes are "loose" and the "ink" feels uncontrollable at times to put it nicely, there have been 8 brush sizes and 9 brush shapes since the dawn of time in Flash and there is NO way to make a short cut to adjust them. ...basically you should be using Photoshop or Painter.

The upside is that I think it can be handy for animation actually. Roughing in lines and building them up coupled with a timeline and onion skinning can help the traditional feel of animation in Flash. Far from perfect, but it's somethin' to rough in some keys.

Anyway, here's a time lapse of me and Goldblum using the object drawing method in Flash. I think it's worth pointing out that I drew him 5 times (the timeline sorta shows I'm on the fifth frame...) before I even felt warmed up. Then once I got close to done I questioned everything and felt I could push everything more. Never happy, but it was fun dammit!

2011-06-05T22:03:00.003-05:00

If you see me on a daily basis you might get this...

Pooh

2011-05-31T23:25:00.005-05:00

A friend at work had shared some Russian animation with me recently. Super interesting to see/compare to U.S. cartoons. Timing sensibilities, budgets, gags, styles, etc. There's a lot of stuff out there but animation is probably one of the least visible art forms I'd say. Music, dance, painting, sure - all very international. But outside of Japan, it's hard to identify an animation studio outside of the U.S. Perhaps animation wasn't as commercialized in other countries as it was in the U.S., but it makes me wonder how everyone learned and shared their knowledge. How did Tezuka learn? Who were his "nine old men"? The "Illusion of Life" wasn't a hot commodity in Soviet Russia, but there were still people doing animation. Did France, an art mecca, have their version of Disney Animation Studios? How did everyone even start to learn? And once it sorta caught on, how was the information shared? Animation is referred to as an "inbred industry" because it's so small and everyone knows each other and everyone worked with everyone else even if through osmosis. It had to be the same in other countries but even smaller! It's all pretty interesting to me.

Anyway, while watching Russia's "Winnie Pooh", I had to doodle some of the characters. Pretty loose and not really sticking to their model, these were just fun to spit out. I was completely challenged by Pooh's lumpy design. But Piglet stood out as my favorite. I could easily boil him down to something shapely and almost iconic. Fun stuff!

Then I did a simple little interactive (meaning you could click on him...) animation of Piglet but since I can't post .SWFs through blogger you only get two frames :P

Right...I guess you'd hafta watch it to have any sort of comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqdiEUp6s4E

Love the heavy crayon credits at the start!

Trapjaw!

2011-05-29T13:04:00.013-05:00

It's no secret TRAPJAW is one of my all time favorite characters. Something about his frankensteined, robo-body really clicked with me when I was 7 years old. And nowadays, I think there's just an interesting mix of characteristics (sharp teeth, bullet-shaped head, jolly roger belt buckle, bionic joints, green face, blue skin, etc.) and geometric shapes that are fun to play with design-wise.

Here's a half-hearted attempt at documenting process. Enjoy!

Here's a sketch! Ran out of paper for his foot! Cropped his hook hand for some reason! Written note of head size doubts!

I cleaned up and colored this image in Photoshop with it's vectors - which I love 10 times more than illustrator. I probably still like doing vector work in Flash the most, but Photoshop has so many other features. I started with his head here blocking in solid shapes for his noggin and jaw. I went as far as cleaning up some lines and defining his face because I wasn't sure where to go artistically. Once I felt good about the head, once I felt like I had a direction, I continued blocking.

Vectoring up his upper body. Scribbling in some muscles.

Lower body vectors! And some layers turned off!

Added a vector robo-arm and the big change here is lengthening his legs. Guess I liked that option over shrinking his head.

Details! Shadow passes and any sorta line work was done with a Wacom. And lookit that - more adorable splotches next to his head!

Adjust colors, some abstract sorta hilites, call it done.

BONUS image! Here's a another fatter, messier, Trapjaw!

2011-05-08T18:08:00.008-05:00

Dear Flash,

I need to come clean. I'm finding it harder and harder to be exclusive with you for character animation. I need to explore other options, and frankly, we're both growing in different directions. It's not you really, it's just that I haven't agreed with some of your animation “features” over the last couple years. Your bone system and spring algorithms and all your run-time enablers certainly are…interesting, but you didn't even ask me what I thought. *sigh* I'm sure you'll attract someone very technical and compile some beautiful code libraries someday. Please don't take this the wrong way - I still want to be friends. I just need some space. And please don't get upset if you see me hanging around After Effects. Sure, her shape tweens are completely stable and her parenting is an alternative to nesting symbols, but she’s still a tool. Your eases always did make more sense to me.

Friends for life,

-boob.

Ah, much better. She’ll be fine. So here's a project I was experimenting with in After Effects. I couldn’t get it to run smooth on my machine even when it was copied down locally so it might not run depending on your specs. My goal was to attempt some lip sync with animated masks at 60fps. To build a character head similar to how I might in Flash, and work out some of the set up exclusively in AE. Some things worked, some stuff didn't, 60 is harder than I thought. In fact, after the YouTube compression I don't think it's running at 60 any more. The ball bounce at 30 and 60 look the same to me.

Mega Man tribute!

2011-05-08T11:35:00.004-05:00

I made it into Udon's Mega Man Tribute book this year! They posted a list of all the accepted artists on Deviant Art:

http://udoncrew.deviantart.com/blog/40007376/

I recognize a couple names in here and I don't doubt this is gonna be another great collection of work. Lookin' forward to gorging my eyeballs on 300 full-color pages of MEGA art.

I'm pretty stoked for two reasons:

1) Mega Man 2 is probably my all time favorite game

2) I went out on a limb and actually tried to paint something with oil bars. Real traditional media that I had to walk into an art store and buy. I still had to fall back on Photoshop for some touch ups, but it was a new process.

They asked the artists not to post their work until the book launches at San Diego ComiCon this summer BUT...

Here's a second image I submitted that was rejected. I might have posted this up here before, but this is an image of a 5ft x 5ft Mega Man mural, made out of legos, that I'm soon to mount on my living room wall. A reproduction of the level select screen from Mega Man 2. I sure woulda liked it if this one got chosen for the book, but I was skeptical from the start. A picture of a mural just doesn't have the same effect as seeing it in person. And I had no idea how to present it for a book, so I didn't take the rejection too hard. Enjoy!

Fight!

2011-02-04T02:59:00.004-06:00

New post!

Below is a bit of animation I did for fun over Christmas break. It took a solid week for me to do in Flash and I'm gonna try to recall a bit of my process here.

I always have ideas for animation projects, but I never feel I have the span of time I need to dedicate to something. I was looking forward to a good couple weeks off over Christmas and figured I'd make it a goal start and finish something rather quickly. Give myself a project with an end goal. Exercise some of those animation bugs. I just wanted to think "animation" and I don't always get that opportunity even when I'm actually doing animation at work. Just too many things going on to focus.

So to start, there was a weekend where I doodled these stick poses in between some house work. This is all the "pre-viz" I did. The girl with the sickle I had in mind from some character concepts I did for my buddy Sean a while back. But basically this was "straight ahead". No story or real idea here - put her in a pose, now make guys attack. Like a kid playing with toys. I made a list of possible creatures/characters for her to fight but I didn't consult the list too closely. Once I got into drawing, it became more important to just get a body in there to take up the space and do an action in order to advance everything. Ha - a "whale". Reviewing the list, anything is possible I guess.

Then into Flash to start with roughs. Inking straight onto dedicated layers, onion skinning - nothing too special. I did start using Flash's "object drawing" which I never really paid attention to before. Basically Flash creates a "drawing object" for every shape or stroke you make. Since objects don't intersect, I could be quick and scribbly and later grab a line or a group of lines and adjust them individually. Still doesn't seem so completely useful to me in everyday use, but it came in handy here. The rough pass took the majority of the week to do requiring the most brainpower. I say that because everything was a "problem" that needed solving. Poses, timing, composition, etc. How will she get from A to B? How fast should X happen? Rough some poses, feel it out, scrub, no? try again. Like doing a tight animatic right away. I enjoyed the process because I was forcing myself into situations that I would have to work out of. Really pretty fun. Not smart for real production though.

At some point I arbitrarily determined that I have to stop HERE if I want to clean it up and "finish" it in some form. In the working version you can see some sorta vampire character standing in the background. And when she snaps around at the end I had her elbowing a pirate in the face. So I was planning to keep going until I exercised some discretion.

I was feeling pretty good about the rough and - here's where I fell off the deep end just briefly - decided to kick out tighter drawings on actual paper. There's still part of me that feels like it's still faster to doodle with pencils and throw down page after page on a light table. After a trip to my folks house, I used their printer to spit out some low-rez "keys" from my rough Flash pass. Brought 'em back home, figured out registration, made a template, started drawing over and about 15 drawings in I came to my senses. I enjoy drawing, the almost completely separate process of drawing, so almost immediately things were taking way too long. Here are some of those. I feel like a dope for even considering paper and pencil for the purposes of a quick exercise...

Well at least I had a few tight drawings for the start of the animation even if I did waste time. I got 'em in Flash and then just started doing the bulk of the inbetweening and timing adjustments. I went little by little with each character and element getting their own layer. Moving the whole process along instead of concentrating on one character at a time. After every day I could see progress and felt like if I could do a couple seconds a day comfortably, I could finish up after the weekend. This is pretty important to me. If I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's worth continuing. Here's a screen shot I thought looked kinda neat. With onion skinning on, these are the frames for the pathetic ninja:

When the "inks" were all done, there was some time for experiments. Hi contrast colors, pink hair, graphic treatments, etc. I tried several color combos on a still frame. I really wanted white lines (white lines?? That's the opposite! That's crazy!) at first but it just wasn't working. With the sickle as a weapon I was pretty much thinking Russian red from the beginning and possibly trying to incorporate text somewhere. A lot of people comment that they like the curved shape the frame takes on when she jumps off the robot. Honestly though, I was blacking out the left side of the frame because I didn't want to animate the cowboys before we see them. She carves out a curved shape, but only because there's noting to the left until the robot smashes the ground. Then pow - the cowboys appear.

...well I think that's all. Another doozy for those that like process. Hope ya dig!

Home-built IG-88

2010-11-15T22:04:00.007-06:00

For Dave's birthday I made him an IG-88. Now he has his very own robo IG paperweight!

I've been drained creatively lately so I took this opportunity to spend some time making something. Dave's a big Star Wars fan and I had a few key parts lying around the house that reminded me specifically of IG-88. Toggle bolt feet and a tapered wire nut for his head sprang to mind first. I had a small box of random screws and bits and a trip to the hardware store bridged the gaps. Kind of ridiculous aimlessly walking up and down the isles of Home Depot with a print out of IG-88 looking for something that could work as his pelvis... It was either this or a macaroni portrait of Bossk which crossed my mind after a trip to Whole Foods. I figured an IG statue was slightly less embarrassing.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I made a second smaller gun and included two extra arms in the package as accessories. His arms are bent wire positioned to hold his long-barrel rifle across his chest, but since they're wire, they can technically be re-positioned. The extra pair of arms are straight and fresh for bending.

I also included a tiny dog-tag. I stamped "IG-88" with a punch set on some thin sheet metal and wired it around his neck. It's not really part of IG, but I figured it would help identify him.

And here's my bibliography:

Observing thoughts on observation...

2010-09-05T11:13:00.005-05:00

So here are some sketches from to the last post. What I really want to blab too much about is the first image. Throughout my process I took note of visual things that popped into my head. Things that I remembered, observations of style or draftsmanship that I wanted to incorporate. And I jotted them down. It might seem completely unoriginal, but this is how the mind works whether you're aware of it or not. Someone once said "there's no such thing as original art" because our minds are constantly evaluating and being inspired to combine and create. Absorbing like the parasites we are...

When I was done with the illustration, I turned to Google and tried to find the EXACT images I was thinking of. It literally took hours just to find some pictures for comparison because these were so specific and I just had to hope some nerds had these pictures on their geocitites fan site or whatever. Plus my memory wasn't always correct and I went off on goose chases.

Notes are color coded with the image below:

"cute lines" - In my mind I was recalling an Adam Warren image on the cover of PSM. Back when PlayStation Magazine existed and had artists draw their original covers every month. Warren draws a lot of smiley "western anime" girls and often they'll have these little lines on their cheeks. Just little flecks that kinda imply cuteness. Combing through all the Adam Warren images, more often than not his lines were more of a horizontal slash across the bridge of the nose and/or cheeks. But my searches lead me to one of my favorite anime artists, Masamune Shirow (colored faces) who I was probably emulating and didn't even know it. I'd guess these "cute lines" derived from black and white manga where the artist is suggesting a redness/blush in the cheeks. WIth no color or gray scale, a few quick tick lines imply a little color. And in many cases those habits are carried over even when the work gets colored.

angular elbow line thing - Elbows and knees always seem like an area of character to me. A swirly Q, a nobby nipple, an "X", a dimple or two, etc. I couldn't quite find the image I was thinking of but the Neon Genesis plug suits is where I started. Again I found myself looking up Shirow's work on Ghost in the Shell though. To show the cyborg nature of his characters he often drew lines and seams suggesting separating plates or hidden panels of sorts. I think this is probably what I was drawing on mentally for these few little lines. This particular character isn't a cyborg nor is her suit anything special, but the way those lines/seams are drawn on Shirow's characters found it's way into my own illo.

curvy hips/legs - When drawing her hips/legs I was thinking of an OLD sketch from and OLD sketch book I did an OLD time ago. Some sorta anime girl (yes, I had an anime phase in college...) with curves and skin tight pants. In my mind this looked...different. I was recalling a body that flowed right into the hips and thighs. Simple curved lines. When I actually dug the image up, I see back in the day I emphasized the hip bones and the amount of space between her thighs so it wasn't exactly what I was trying to capture but it is what I was thinking about. You'll also notice the lines on her cheeks are here as well by complete coincidence. Or is it? Isn't that how inspiration works?

raygun - I didn't have anything specific in mind for her gun other than I wanted it to feel real - like it was made of pieces. Not a spacey, curvey, George Jetson, future gun. I've see prop guys at conventions that make real retro-styled raygun so that's what I looked up and used almost directly.

Savage Dragon hand - Her far hand gave me some issues as I tried several poses trying to decide which I liked best. This Savage Dragon hand by Erik Larsen is the exact hand I was thinking about. This specific hand I couldn't get to work with my image, but the idea of cascading fingers rolling over one another is what I set out for at first. You can probably pick a couple that match more closely in the sketches. Larsen (and surely other comic artists) have a great way of separating out fingers and putting them in reusable, dynamic poses. I'm not sure if it's a smart way of working, or a weakness, but I find myself "calling up" my own mental library of hands to complete a pose on a character. Instead of thinking about the correct had to put on the end of an arm, my mind cycles through pose 1, 2, 3, 4, until I find the hand that looks like it could fit. I generally think that's how comic book artists work in order to make their deadlines. And repetition just stokes the fire of this process. Combing through a ton of Savage dragon art made me want dust off the back issues - fun stuff.

side boob - This was an easy one. Jim Lee all the way here. I was thinking of the Psylocke pose (in purple/blue) more than anything, but the Polaris image (green haired girl) was dead on too. Kinda like I was saying about Erik Larsen's hands - every artist has their go-to poses. This is Jim Lee's 3/4 boob pose. I was remembering how Scott Williams would ink these mammaries with the shading/underlighting underneath suggesting roundness. Also, Lee had a tendency to draw his boobs with a subtle point instead of completely round. Which could be the costume or could be more natural. I wouldn't know... When Williams ink 'em he often starts and end his lines at the "nipple" - intentionally being vague with the form. Does the line complete? Is it round or pointed? I think it's just a matter of when to commit to the line if you're an inker. You pick and choose where those hard shapes/corners are. Jim Lee and image comics in general was a BIG influence on me in high school.

nose knob - In my drawing I was trying to emphasize little nose bump at the end of the bridge. An anime-ish type thing I suppose. The eyebrow flows right into the nose at what seems like a decreasing angle, pretty flat, and then any semblance of nose pops out at the end. I was specifically thinking of how the designers treated many of the characters on Venture Bros. There's a lot flat nose bridges and then an upturned nose knob at the end. And the girls are no exception. So while my nose doesn't completely reflect this style, it is what was rolling around in my head as I was laying down the lines.

That's all I got. Man I love this stuff.

-bob.

Marooned 2!

2010-09-05T10:41:00.005-05:00

I was pretty happy to find some time this weekend to finish up these illustrations for Tom Dell'Aringa's latest MAROONED book project. It might not see print until the spring, but I figured it can't hurt to post 'em since my blog isn't exactly swarmed with gawkers :) Check out proficiency in motion over at www.maroonedcomic.com. He updates twice a week with a new strip! Which I still think is impossible since I know how his day job can be. Thanks again for including me Tom!

I basically just wanted to stick with a few character that inspired me to "re-imagine" them in some way. Tried to vary the styles and challenge myself in some ways.

In my apparently ever-lasting analysis of art process, I'm going to post some sketches and insights next!

Thanks!

2010-07-29T08:46:00.003-05:00

Thanks to everyone that stopped by the table this year! San Diego is always a lot of busy fun :) It was great talking to all the He-Fans out there and sharing the same fondness for plastic muscles. Dave and I will be at it again next year with something largely new.

Here's a doodle I did for a friend's sketchbook at work. He's a fan of Smurfs and missed out on a big Papa Smurf roaming around the con. This'll hafta do...

He-Fans in SDCC anyone?

2010-06-21T00:48:00.003-05:00

"Pipe down fur-face."

So I've been gearing up to have some He-Related prints in time for San Diego this year. I was gonna be all coy and not reveal anything til just before the show but here's the thing - I don't know how many days I'll be behind the table at the con. I kinda want to enjoy walking the floor as much as I can this year. Soooo, if you're gonna be at the con, and you like Skeletor's minions, try to stop by early or drop me message if you want one of these sets.

As long as the prints come back from the printer lookin' good, I'll probably sell them only as a set and price them to move.

Each character print is 13"x19" (or 19"x13") and they're meant to be arranged in a large square. The 6"x6" square in the middle will be a mug shot of Skeletor cut to fit. It'll be a hefty sized slab of evil to display in this arrangement and I didn't want to force anyone to HAVE to display it this way so they'll be separate so you'll still have the flexibility of arrange 'em however ya like. Hopefully I picked some classic favorites. Trapjaw takes the cake for me, but Skeletor's original henchmen (and woman) are still a great goonsquad.

Hope to nerd it up with some He-Fans this summer!

America vs Russia!

2010-06-21T00:33:00.011-05:00

A couple guys at work let me know let me know of a Captain America redesign contest and I happened to have a hankerin' to draw CapAm so this is what I came up with. My idea was to match up Cap with a Russian nemesis I conjured up. Anyone who knows me knows I can't stay away from an opportunity to draw anything involving the most iconic communist dictatorship around. With that, I figured I'd try to date the style back to something WWII-ish. Muted colors. Visible dot pitch in the print. I looked at some Darwyn Cooke and Rex Steele Art to emulate some of that classic look. A little Bruce Timm in there too. The Russian guy falls more on the Rissetto side I suppose...

Without further adoo... on with the bad drawings and embarassing process!

This was drawing No. 1 for Captain America. I basically knew I wanted that chiseled, iconic profile and a chest-heavy body. The very first thing I drew was that oval for his skull. You can just feel my hand going in circles trying to visualize this mess. So often times I like to fool myself and think, "volume, volume - yep, I'm supposed to draw circles and cylinders and divide them in half and stuff..." And that's exactly what Captain's skull circle represents. After I got that out of my system, I think I just did whatever I wanted. Nose kinda should stick out, chin should be sharp, squinty eyes I think, etc. After I finish this first initial sketch I either feel like this is moldable, this is workable, or I should start over with a different thought, a different pose, a different direction. It's always ugly and I always feel like I have no idea how to draw, but I've done this "art thing" enough that I either I feel I can whip this into some sorta shape or not.

Doodle No.2. The face is the most important thing for me to get right in order to achieve what I want so while the body looks like a pile of nothing for these early drawings, I'm really just focusing on his head. I lost that bulbous skull in favor of some defined brow, nose, and chin lines. I still like this drawing for the Greek mythology feeling that's sorta instilled in it. I'm trying to flatten his face and pick out a few features to accent - a thick eyebrow and that profile. With that left arm I could point out the curve, straight, curve, balance within his shoulder, bicep, and forearm respectively. There's some solid design principles floating around there, but I lose such an example when the shield eventually covers his arm.

No. 3. I should note, all these drawings are light-tabled as I'm crankin' 'em out. Keep what I like, and start fresh with what I don't think is working right on top of the previous doodle. Still concentrating on his head here, but I feel enough confidence in his facial direction that I start roughing in the body some more. I tried bringing the round skull back because maybe I could manage some balance with curved and straight lines in his noggin. Dropped the back of his skull with a straight line to help it too. Plopped an "A" on his head which doesn't read so well in profile but Cap's actual costume design took a back seat to that actual lines and shapes I was puttin' down. Started thinking about his chest and abs and rib cage - not really how he's built or his proportions, but more about how to "mention" the important parts of a figure without being a surgeon. I'm a big fake really. I probably should be thinking about his costume, his figure, his volume, the big picture, but I have a day job where I have things I HAVE to think about. This is what I do for fun. Maybe I'll get good at doing what I want to do some day.

No. 4. A little more experiment/refinement. I like some of the lines in the head - just trying to feel out the ear, nose, mouth, brow still. It became more important to me to push the eye and brow up, give him a shallow forehead, than to keep that "A" up there. Just trying to clear up the chest and upper body a bit. Nice simple fist there. Big meaty forearm. The abs I was visualizing as a toy that might be notched/jointed right under the ribs/chest. Like this piece of plastic that comes up from the belt that the chest connects to. Ah, whatever - it just needs to look alright. Which is probably exactly what I said to myself.

Sketches 05 and 06 here on the same page. Something about that round skull still needed to get worked out of my system. Sometimes I'll still want to make sure I'm making the better of a couple options so I'll do a little doodle and not really care so much about it and it'll look awful and I'll feel like, "yep, I knew the round skull was still a bad idea" -almost on purpose so I can move forward. In No. 6 the head is less round, but I'm trying out the whole Roman nose/forehead combo. That "lightning bolt profile" is definitely simplified and strong. The quick trace-back lines on the body are just the important curves and straights that define his shape. If there is something wrong with these lines no amount of cross hatching or texture, or detail work is gonna save you...in my opinion. That's not to say these lines are gold, but I'm still hoping to ride it through to the end making minor adjustments here and there.

No. 7. Face is shapin' up well while I'm trying to make the best decisions for all those internal lines. The eye is just a squinty wedge shape, crows feet, the mask working around everything, etc. He looks like he belongs on a box of Arm and Hammer from the 50s. I'll take that. And apparently I had some sorta offshoot idea of an "A" that was also a star.

No. 8. Flipflopped back to the forehead, brow, nose instead of the Roman look. I guess I felt like it still woulda been drawn like comic book instead of something too stylized. Eh, I still like the look of No. 7. You can sorta see the mouth and eyebrow have some dark, hard pressed lines - lines I knew I wanted for sure. The cowl was still going through a few tweaks. The legs are of note though: They're red and faded out because I drew them on the reverse side of the paper. The ol' look-at-something-flipped-and-you'll-see-mistakes trick. I know I have a tendency to skew things when I'm left to a single side of paper, so flipping it was probably my way of making sure the legs didn't lean too much or look weird.

No. 9. There - all done pretty much. Trace back those important upper body lines, streamline those legs even more, carry over the head, add a few details (buckle, ab lines, boot cuffs, etc.). I had a couple doodles for the head wings, I knew I wanted the radiating lines in the background between the two, I knew I was gonna do the shield in the computer with more precision. But with that, I had a solid sketch I felt comfortable building on in the computer with line weights and blocks of color.

The whole process is terribly enjoyable for me, but I realize it's a pretty mechanical way of drawing. I envy the guys that can fill pages of poses and layouts and really feel like they're "directing" the drawing instead of directing lines and shapes.

Rinse and repeat for the Russian Czar. He came more easily to me in 4 drawings. I should say too that it takes a lot more time to try to explain what my brain is doing compared to actually doing it. It's a rapid fire decision making process which is what I love. It's more about the process than the actual product in the end. Internally, if it was only about the art I was making in the end, I would have surrendered a long time ago to the people that can actually draw. Fortunately for me, art is subjective (Bah ha ha ha! You've been had!) and the intangible part is what I like most.

Mantis!

2010-06-20T20:17:00.003-05:00

This was a logo I did real quick for a friend a while back. He was making an experimental, techno music-generating application and wanted a graphic Mantis head for the mascot. The precise direction was "cute, but violent" and he referenced a Dunny toy that had sharp teeth and a bit of blood. I like the top one here best, but I left the vector files with him to do what he wanted.

Nothin' really worth going into detail about. This was a night I came home from work and still had a little creativity left in me but didn't want to start in on a more elaborate project. I checked me e-mail and there was this project I could knock out in the few hours I had before beddy bye. I rarely take on freelance work (especially for free) but this was just the thing to satisfy me at the time.

Marooned!

2009-12-18T15:51:00.005-06:00

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!

2009-10-07T04:19:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-08-29T11:02:00.006-05:00

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!

2009-08-29T10:01:00.005-05:00

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!

2009-08-28T18:34:00.004-05:00

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!

2009-07-22T04:36:00.009-05:00

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

2009-04-10T14:52:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-04-07T10:01:00.005-05:00

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?

2009-04-07T09:48:00.003-05:00

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

2008-09-08T08:38:00.005-05:00

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

Thought Faucet!

2008-08-19T22:09:00.005-05:00

Marshall and I have launched a new group blog called:

THOUGHT FAUCET

Check it out! Basically it will be a steady stream of topics at daily, weekly, and monthly intervals. Contribute as much or as little as you like! The idea is to foster inspiration. It's chocked full of ideas for a full year of autonomous topic delivery!

Marshall has a done a bang up job doing some initial set up work and really tweaking some features and organization. Thanks a ton. For an idea that I was tossing around before ComiCon to it's scheduled launch on August 1st, it has all come together better than I had hoped. I already consider it a success.

post SDCC '08

2008-07-30T21:52:00.008-05:00

A big THANKS to all for leaving comments last post and for stopping by at the table this year! It was a blast. Met a lotta great artists and people. I'll be updating my links soon. We sold out of our supply of books and prints and the buttons were nearly gone too. We shut down Saturday night and took the day Sunday to walk the con ourselves. I get the most enjoyment talking to the people buying our book so it's hard to leave the table even for a few minutes. I always feel flattered when someone buys my art and I want to know where it's going and who will see it. Some are gifts, others are students soaking it all up, collectors, other professinals, scouts looking for new talent, all types of folks. The first woman who bought our book was a real friendly teacher who plans on sharing our work with her students. It was the best way to start the convention with the hopes of directly inspiring some future artists perhaps. I think Dave snapped her picture. Maybe he'll post it. But overall it was a great time. We got to meet up with Steve and Sue, Robin, and a slew of awesome artists I only get to see at this annual gathering of nerds. You know who you are... :)

Here's the panel of button sets we rigged up. 5 different sets of 8 buttons each based off our art from the book. A deal if you ask me. I lost feeling in one of my fingers cutting out these buttons!

And here's a clean image of the Deathproof prints I was selling. Some of the best compliments I got were that they didn't even know the movie, they just thought the art was sharp. And people who did know of the movie were fans and so it felt good just to share similar interests.

Thanks again to all our visitors and surrounding table-mates. It's always been a positive experience that I hope we can continue next year!

In closing, I'll leave you with this menagerie of costumed Jokers:

San Diego '08!

2008-07-21T03:13:00.009-05:00

...and this is what it looks like just days before the con:

You guessed it - it's that time of year again! Look for Dave and myself at table F-5 this year with a few goodies in store.

Inner Workings should be in full swing this year. Hope you like orange and green.

And we'll be in good company as usual. From the Chicago scene in no particular order:

Bruno Werneck
Javier Guzman
Tae Young Choi

Should be another fun year. Lookin' forward to sayin' "hi" to my annual west coast chums and soakin' up all the neat-o art stuffs with my eyeball sponges.

I hope you're happy Kevin Barber

Another post!?

2008-06-09T22:02:00.007-05:00

Over the weekend I was able to sink some time into some concepts for my buddy Sean. He's working on an indie film project and he asked me to draw up some of the characters. I love his whole concept and I was drawn to these 4 out of a list of characters he sent me. But what I really enjoyed is that the visuals inspired him. Sometimes the best gigs are free ones.

It's Sean's story so I won't ramble on about the premise. Besides, it's more fun trying to figure out how all these goons might relate!

Somethin' about the colors in these Gas Masked Ninjas really works for me. They're dark and still colorful but not anyone I'd particularly like to meet.

And here's the development of "Lizard Man Sam" in a handful of horrible doodles.

The lizard head I circled in blue was inspiration from Justin Parpan. He used to have an avatar of a talking dino head like this. Got me thinking about openin' Sam's mouth here.

Decisions, decisions

2008-06-09T03:13:00.003-05:00

Alright - so here's a "6-sheet" of all the color combinations I was messing with. My favorites are the first one and last one. This page is the order in which I created them which is a bit odd: my gut instinct for the first one is one I like, and the last one after several attempts, I'm keeping as well. The blue one (second to last) is pretty close to my original colors and one of my least favorites now.

Lemme know whatchya think, but I'm pretty set on these two as prints for ComiCon!

Sorry they're on the small side - you'll just hafta see 'em full size in San Diego!

Print!

2008-05-28T21:49:00.005-05:00

Thanks for the nice comments everyone! My posting has been very sporadic so I appreciate anyone taking the time to stop by and say a few words - thanks!

I have a good excuse though - a little game called GTA came out not too long ago and basically jammed up my whole creative flow. It's a welcome jam up though. And by "jam up" I do mean "jam up". Like cars turned into 2 ton coffins-on-wheels type jam ups :)

But I found some time over a long weekend to tighten up my Deathproof image and test out the printer. Maybe a little later I'll break down and post a few of the color choices I'm trying to decide on.

Here's a little "evolution" of Lee's mug:

She was the second hardest for me with Zoe taking the crown. I'll tell ya, putting this little image together didn't actually make me feel good. I'm happy with the final version, but looking back I feel like I can't draw at all. It takes a lot of re-working and decision making. My brain almost thinks exclusively in 2D. I'm not thinking about the form or volume of her head, I'm thinking about lines and how a farther eye should look like this and slide the mouth around on her face til it feels right. It's all just pieces and lines and weird shapes I hum and haw about until I'm happy. Ah, I guess I can't be too hard on myself - Abernathy came out great on the first go. It's all about process baby. Just weird to see horrible drawings lined up that don't seem to get any better. I wonder if I rely on the computer to a fault...

In general, I wanted something clean with some style and as I got closer I started to second guess myself. I just felt like it's too simple. There's not enough shading or texture or I should rough it up some how. Would anyone besides me appreciate the colors? Interesting mental conflict. Then I printed it out at 13" x 19" and wow it was clean and sharp. Kinda neat to see it bigger and bold. Makes more of a statement in some way. Like "I ain't afraid that this is completely flat fool!"

Jeez I talk a lot... I know, I know - shut up and make with the art right? :)

DEATHPROOF

2008-04-20T12:03:00.007-05:00

I'm taking a little detour from the short for a bit. Allow me to explain: I've wanted to draw some sorta print for one of my favorite movies in recent times, "DEATH PROOF", which was part of the GRINDHOUSE double feature. I got a fancy new printer for my sis for Christmas last year and I can't wait to use it!

Death Proof has some interesting characters in it (and plenty of girls) and I could go on about why I like it so much but the important thing is that is sparked a bit of fanboy motivation in me to draw something. Plus, there's a lot of inherent style with the whole Grindhouse feel that I initially thought would be fun to replicate. The thumbs above I remember doodling at the kitchen table of my parents house around Christmas time (already thinking of putting the printer to use). General layout ideas. At the top you can see I scrawled some stuff I wanted to watch and listen too for inspiration: "Escape" referred to "Escape from New York", "Matchpoint" was just in there because I like Scarlett Johansson, and "Vanishing Point" was a 70s car chase flick that was part of the inspiration behind Death Proof. So you can see a couple early ideas I had for dividing up the page with characters and imagery. I was thinking of dominant reds and black and dirty beat up edges and scribbly handwriting in typical Grindhouse fashion. In red col-erase are some very complicated math equations about dimensions and alloys and stuff I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand...

Trying to dial it in a bit more, I found an image of Kurt Russell (Stuntman Mike) and decided to make him nice 'n' big in the background mostly because he would be the funnest to draw and is the best character in the flick. Kept the car with the girls around it, and it's hard to tell but there are some squares along the right side that I'm planning to put the girls' faces in. Title at the bottom in some sort of "Detroit car font" with kerning maxed out. Starting to think about colors a bit more too.

This ain't much tighter, but it's digital and basically allowed me to make sure I had the space for everything. And somewhere around this step I started getting excited about different possibilities. I think it was because the girl doodles were kinda stylized - at least in my mind. Triangle torsos, some hips, and a dot for a head. So instead of this gritty comic bookish, beat up Grindhouse look, I started thinking about somethin' kinda slick, kinda flat, kinda vector, kinda graphic, but not too graphic, that I could draw... So I guess I opted to stay within my own comfort zone/style but the contrast to the look that is already associated with Death Proof is what interested me even more.

And here's where I'm at as I type this. I drew all the pieces individually. Mike, the car, the silhouettes, then the girls' faces. And I re-drew everything multiple times just to get something I liked better. Mike was still more realistic in the beginning. With each drawing I had to push him a bit more. Same with the car. It was difficult to force some purposeful wonkiness and streamlined lines where appropriate. I just wanted to draw what I kept seeing in the reference image. Like a mentioned one other time in a post: I feel like I have to re-learn how to draw every time I start a project but that's part of the fun. The silhouettes came pretty easy, but I second guess a lot of lines curves vs. straights so I drew them a couple times each. The faces were tough mostly because I didn't know what angle/pose to use for each. Should it reflect their character? Should they be sexier just for interest? Should I alternate them looking right and left? Should they all be centered? Just a lot of questions.

Anyway, I think that's as far as I'll go as far as posting this project. I have other design ideas not show in these roughs but I know I'll fool around more as I start getting into Flash and Photoshop. Maybe I'll put up a low rez watermarked final version, but I want people to see/buy somethin' completely new from me in San Diego this year. Speaking of which - Dave and I will have our books this year! They're only a year late! Printing problems kept us from having our books in time for last year so if ya didn't order one from us online, then we'll have a couple fresh boxes to sell at the show this year. I'll do another reminder post or two as it gets closer to go time.

storyboards

2008-03-17T23:07:00.005-05:00

It's taken me some time, but here's some storyboards!

I'm enjoying the process and feeling good about how it's shaping up. Basically these are all the drawings I did straight into Flash (with plenty of "trace back")for the first scene. I'll be animating to a piece of audio so I was able to immediately time these out. In some later instances I plotted out a few keys just so I felt sure about the timing and movement.

I've completed all (nearly 2 minutes) of the boards (not all shown here) and over the course of it I've been walking a line between being productive and being creative. One thing I didn't anticipate is the indirect pressure I'd feel to make use of my free time on this project. The hitch is sometimes I just don't feel creative even though I do have the time. Often I'd feel mentally exhausted after a particularly stressful project at work and I'd just go to sleep. Sometimes I was just more interested in a new video game. So in turn, I've only worked on it when the mood struck and I had the time. It's been slower going, but because of it I think I've maintained interest. It's not about getting another chunk of boards done when I have a few hours at the end of the day - it's more about figuring out a pose or solving a composition problem and feeling small accomplishments. I'd feel better and look forward to coming back for more the next time I have the time. I can compare that direcly to other projects I've worked on where I'm looking forward to one element and I just need to complete the bare essentials to get to the good stuff. Like my own mental sweatshop. When creativity splinters the projects tends to as well. Then it's on to something else.

Now that I'm speaking all psychological like, watch me drop this whole thing like a hot potato ;)

I thought these boards would look cool in a strip/comic book form but really, it seems kinda boring. It's fascinating to me though because I'm doing what I want. This project is something I'm doing in my free time so it's a selfish indulgance. I'm looking forward to some lip sync and some subtle character bits. And that kinda stuff basically look like a string of repeat storyboards. I guess what I find interesting is that this is what I find interesting. Not ninjas fighting robots or someone getting hit with a frying pan - even though I like all that stuff for sure.

Just a few larger ones:

The long and short of it...

2008-01-09T21:14:00.000-06:00

I meant this post to be posted on January 1st to start the new year right but apparently my resolution to stop procrastinating will hafta wait til next year... Ha ha ha...hahoooo...hooo *sigh*

Anyway, the plan is to complete a short film. 2 minutes. Simple. Fun. Attainable. Easier said than done I suppose. And I'm even hesitant to say anything for fear I can't actually get it done. I have a pretty good stack of incomplete projects; some I've even re-started just to unfinish them again. I ain't sweatin' it though - I just hope it's different this time.

So I have the audio from a friend and former co-worker, Mike Caisley. A great little dialogue piece that I hope I can do some good character work with.

I could try to tell you what it's about and how it's inspired me creatively but I won't because I'm afraid you won't care or think it's funny.

This is a creative endeavor where I'm selfishly the only audience. I'll want to show it off when I'm done (provided I finish) and hopefully others will like it. A lot of people get tied up with story and the writing and crafting what they hope is something truly fantastic. I don't really think like that and aspire to be that brilliant storyteller, but I do often think about what will get the biggest reaction. What can I show them to get them to laugh, cry, think, etc. And if that means animating a talking piece of poop, do I really want to do that? Suddenly I'm making a film for someone else. This is my free time, this is what I will enjoy watching and making. Me me me. Dammit :)

Anyway - I'll try to document significant milestones along the way on the blog. First up are the characters. This is a French (no?) couple and their look has been knocked around in my head and on paper for a couple months now. So far I can still stand lookin' at them. It's very stereotypical and part of French fashion has always been the black and white striped shirt but there's something I like about the even more simplified design sans stripes.

And here's the development doodles in chronological order. The earliest ones were doodled at Bakers Square with Dave in one of our "eat 'n' ideation" sessions...

SDCC!

2007-12-21T11:56:00.000-06:00

San Diego Comic-Con has already infomed us of our exhibitor location! Sure beats years past when we found out a month before the show! I give 'em credit for being a little more organized so far :)

So far, the gangs all here. Dave and I will be splitting a table and here's the cast with renewed cotracts from last season:

Javier Guzman

Bruno Werneck

Sam Aquino

Tae Young Choi

Ryan Summers

They'll be more to say when summer rolls around but I'm gettin' excited/nervous already! No worries though - Bruno told me he has a plan ;)

once dead, now alive

2007-12-21T11:02:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas everybody! Nothing says Christmas to me like a black man and his HO...ho ho!

This is an illustration I did for a friend (Rodimus Love-a-lot) who's pitching a project centered around "Mr. Smooth" here. These characters will be modeled in 3D so I have a few general notes around them. I did a couple turn-a-round sheets too. I really enjoy character design and while my arch enemy is 3D, I do still like to imagine how characters would look in 3D. It's a visual challenge and a fun mental process...as long as no one's trying to make ME weld the vertices... Whenever I supply model sheets, I have to stress that it's not set in stone - not everything is figured out dimensionally on paper. If it was, I think you'd lose a lot of the 2D design. I have plenty of ideas of how it might work, and I draw it too look good in a few positions, but someone's gotta fill the "Z" gaps. A talented modeler can identify the "feel" and what makes something appealing. Maybe the hands are too curvy and loose on the girl here but you get what I'm aiming for. Someone who really understands 3D can interpret that better than I can draw it for them in a way that I only THINK could work in z-space. If that makes sense...

Bridging the 2D/3D gap has always been a collaborative process for me in the past and that's probably what I enjoy about even aiding the "dark side" :)

One thing I that kinda irked me was how much the girl turned out looking like a Chris Sanders' girl. I was trying to give her an exotic black look so I spaced the eyes farther apart, slanted them a bit, short wide nose, big mouth - not really thinking and presto, it looks like an adult Lilo. Doesn't feel as original as it could have been but Sanders' girls are certainly appealing.

I also took it upon myself to try a different coloring technique in Photoshop for this image. Kevin Barber shared some tutorials with me so thanks for that Kev. I only used Flash for the linework. I was certainly clumsy trying to emphasize a process rather than worry about my brushes and tools. I needed to learn something and apply it my way. Fun stuff and the work motivated me.

HAMRSIKL

2007-08-26T13:32:00.000-05:00

I've always liked communist Russia. Wait, lemme explain. The hammer and sickle and Russia in general have such strong iconolgy. The colors, the style, the feeling of impending doom. It makes ya wonder if every dictatorship used the same graphic designer.

I've been playing a game for PS2 called "Red Star" based off the comic book and I've had Red Skull in my head for some time now and I've wanted to try using the water color tools in Painter. So mash all that together and this is the result. Whenever I try something new I'm usually very doubtful. I know I can fall back on other methods, styles, design that I already really enjoy doing and be confident it will turn out good. However, I like a lot of things about art and there's times where I'd like to be looser and let things flow more spontaneously. So I guess it's natural reaction to feel "nervous" when experimenting outside the "comfort zone".

The funnest part is always the drawing and design. A few different skull sketches here:

INNER WORKINGS!

2007-08-09T09:51:00.000-05:00

It's here! Dave and I just started selling our book online complete with it's own blog! It's basically a callaborated collection of our work over the last year or so and something I'm really happy with. Check out some pics and get the whole scoop here:

INNER WORKINGS

Pick yours up today!

San Diego!

2007-07-11T04:27:00.001-05:00

Hoo Ha! It's that time ladies and gentlemen!

Table F5 in with the other artists in the exhibitor's area. I'll be sharing a table with Javier Guzman so keep yer eyes peeled for us! Not only that, but much of the Chicago gang is returning! Check out this collection of talent that'll be yuckin' it up and selling their goods:

ME
Dave Pryor
Javier Guzman
Bruno Werneck
Daryl Young
Sam Aquino
Ryan Summers
Kevin Barber
Robin Mitchell

To top it off, I'm super excited to be teaming up with my good friend Dave Pryor on a new artbook this year! It's titled "Inner Workings" and we've tried to offer something a bit more unique in the way of sketchbooks. The left sided pages show sketches and doodles and a bit of text from each of us talking about the development that lead up to the "final image" which is printed on the right. I really like seeing/reading about the mental process behind every artist's work and this was our chance to present a little of that here.

Printing is wrapping up as I type this. I've upped the quality from my book last year and now we're looking at 96 full color pages at 6"x9" with a hardcover. The proof looked fantastic so needless to say I'm excited.

I am a little nervous at how people might take to it though. Are people really interested in development and ideas? Especially when so many doodles are very VERY rough? Will people even want to read what we have to say? There's not a lot of superheroes or sexy girls in here. I just hope people can enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to talking to people and getting their reaction.

So I posed the question last year, and I'll do it again this year:
What do you think is a fair price for something like this? I'd be interested to hear from anyone else out there.

Check out the cover and the first few pages featuring some He-Man favs:

I really really owe it to the the whole gang for being as dedicated as we are. It makes a lot of the stress and planning melt away when ya gots the posse at your back. Like one big semi-functional family!

dug up doodle

2007-05-28T22:34:00.001-05:00

I know there's been a lot of time between my posts lately - sorry 'bout that. Thanks to the few people that seem to stop back every now and then to leave a comment!

As of late I've been preparing for San Diego again this year! Another sketch/art book is in the works. It's getting closer and I'm getting more excited. I think finally all the details are squared away - hotel, flight, exhibitor table, sellers permit, etc. I'll flyin' out with the "Brazilian wonder" and splittin' a table with the "Puerto Rican powerhouse". Most of the Chicago crew should be re-collected on the west coast again. I hope we all have somethin' to show off and/or sell. Months are ticking away!

I'll post details about the new book pretty soon I hope. Maybe a sneak peek at a page or two...

Oh, but I wanted to post this long overdue doodle. Jeff, Mike, Mike and I threw down at a drawing jam with Scotty Young and his gang a while back. I thought I'd go to check it out even though I'm not much of a comic book guy. So the gimmick that night was a mixed bag. Everyone had to pick a random comic book and draw the main character. I got a fellow named "Grim Jack" from the Marvel Universe and after a couple doodles I worked out this...uh, FINAL doodle...

Hulk Smash

2007-04-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile! Hello my non-existant peeps! I have a perfectly good reason for not posting in so long: I've been workin' on a project that's not exactly ready for showing. A few projects have come and gone and I have a ton of horrible sketches I'd really like to post, but frankly I just don't feel comfortable revealing everything I'm pouring my weekends into. There's ideas, and things, and copyright stuff that I'll post when I become that world famous super surgeon and art doesn't interest me anymore ;)

Here's a very profound piece I dug up called "Hulks of the World". Basically, "Hulk smashing" was an Outsider topic and I had a hankering for drawing some busted glass. So that's where this came from.

On a similar note, has anyone ever noticed how no one can make GOOD shattering glass in video games? When you shoot a windshield the glass should spider-web. It seems it should be a simple texture map. If it's a plate glass window, and depending on it's thickness, it should spider-web quickly then fall into pieces. If it's anything but a gun shot, I guess it can just break in a way that relates to the point of impact. I'm sick of seeing flying triangles that are way to big, barely effected by gravity, and that clip right through the floor. I'm sure it's an expensive particle effect to pull off, but it's next gen - let's see some nice glass people! Midway people you out there???

2D vs 3D!

2007-02-21T14:23:00.000-06:00

click image to see it move!

If you're inclined to hang around me long enough, you'll probably soon figure out where I stand when it comes to the age old battle: 2D vs. 3D. I'm 2D all the way. I don't care how mind blowing 3D animation gets - there is nothing that can replace the look and feel of moving lines and shapes. 2D is limitless in terms of the look and feel. Style is infinite. There is so much to explore, and it might not all be appropriate for feature animation but that's what interests me the most about art and animation in general.

Plus too, it's plain hard to think in 3D :)

All babbling aside, this kinda stuff comes up all the time everywhere I've worked. You'll always find a divided crowd. And in any case, it's always a great topic to stoke the artistic fires!

So my buddy Sean is a 3D animator and he's issuing the challenge: 3D vs 2D on his new blog. It's a great topic and excuse to do some sloppy fun animation for a good cause. And as everyone knows, the best flipbook style animation features only the most wholesome violence possible :)

Anyway, check out the blog and drop him a line if ya wanna participate. I'd love to browse a collection of violent animations from various animators featuring the age old debate 3D vs. 2D (or as I like to think of it, 2D vs. 3D) ;)

Technically speaking, I did this frame by frame in Flash with onion skinning turned on. It's 24 fps and I switch between one's and two's where need be. I used some re-looping symbols here and there, but for the most fun this had to be quick and sloppy! Also, I'm not sure about the frame rate in some browsers. I spit out an animated GIF at 24 fps and it seems to run good in Mozilla but Internet Explorer seems to have problems. Is the frame rate some how embedded in the sequential frames? I'm not even sure how GIFs work. It's also doing this weird outline effect in the posted image. I can't seem to fix that. Regardless, enjoy!

Iceage Fireman

2007-02-14T21:10:00.000-06:00

A quick idea (that dragged on for days...) from Outsider Art last week:

Once I got the idea, this was the chronological string of doodles I did before gettin' dirty in the computer:
Rough pass on the firetruck. I went with the flat side view because I didn't want to figure out the dimensionality of the cylindrical volcano base and how it sat in the back of the truck.

Refinement pass.
First stabs at the cavman fireman holding the hose.

Then I thought maybe the caveman would be an actual primate.

I thought that was asking a lot from the audience though. "A monkey? Volcano? Firemen? Huh???" So I went back to a caveman.

First attempt at the second caveman trapped in firey ice. I tried to keep that bell body shape but ended up chaning it below.
New body shape, but in the end, I thought this guy was the weakest componet of the image. Up to this point, these drawings took me a little over 2 hours one day after work. I remember starting these tighter pencils on Sunday and it took a few more hours.
I didn't end up using these lines for the ice block shape, but I still like the look.
Look how many times I redrew the little lava puddle! Sheesh! I can get obsessive over certain things when I'm trying my best to make nice lines.

And back to where I started. I dreaded this one the most because of all the straight lines. I can't lay down a straight line in one shot. I have this nervous sketchy quality as I lay down the line. Over and over. Babying it and adjusting all the way. Then I might erase it and try again because the line got too thick in places.

From here I scanned everything, composited the pieces, and blocked out color in Flash.

Anyway, it's not often I'm able to keep my sketches coherent and pretty contained so I just thought I'd take this opportunity to show EVERY doodle that went into the final image.

Bun Buns!

2007-02-09T14:25:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to post new stuff as of lately, but I have a good reason:

Meet the kids! I've been thinking about a pet bunny (or two) for a little while now and with some coaxing from Sammy Chu I finally went through with it!

They're about 6 weeks old in these pictures. The brown and white Dutch breed is named "Radar" and the tiny-eared Dwarf is "Nuz". They're super fun! I had a rabbit in college too and I think they're some of the most emotive animals. Their body language and ears are always indicators as to what they're thinking. You can tell when they're excited or happy. Scared or playful or relaxed.

Here's a couple random Flash doodles from when I had bunnies on the brain:

Even bunny fetuses are cute!

SUPERBOWL FEVER!

2007-01-30T01:55:00.000-06:00

Can you stand it!? The BEARS in the SUPERBOWL!!!

The last time I drew something relating to sports was probably during the '85 Superbowl with my crayons.

I'm a little let down by my color choices here though. I love orange, so that's not the problem - but maybe the bear coulda been more red or brown or something and the green grass and blue sky are pretty standard blah. I tried a lot of weird things and hot colors but I kept coming back to the colors of football in my mind.

Early on I intended on having the bear plowing through actual horses (colts) in jerseys. All my horses were very flat and posing them was a pain - those back legs always give me trouble. It was just easier to doodle up a buncha flailing bodies.

In closing:

"Who would win in a fight: God or Ditka?"
"Trick question Bob. Ditka is God. Daaaa Bears!"

-- The Superfans.

GO BEARS!

Paging Miss Page

2007-01-10T21:33:00.000-06:00

Wow - it's been exacly a month since my last post! I hope the holidays treated everyone well. A lot has happened since Christmas and the January is already flying by.

Anyway, I didn't have much of an idea for how I wanted to treat this image of Miss Bettie Page. Clean in Flash? Roughed up a bit? Monochromatic? etc. I ended up liking the rough pencils but I started re-drawing her in Flash real clean like. I wasted my time there because I layed the pencils over top in the end so there was no need for perfect lines/shapes.

One thing I wanted to achieve from the beginning was to do the whole figure. I always seem to concentrate on the upper body of a character or I just run out of room for the legs. And because of that I feel my proportions are a bit weak. Just trying to make an effort to correct that I guess.

Below are the horrible rough poses that led up to my end piece. These drawings not only helped me find the pose, but it helped me find what felt right. At the start I imagined a seated pose or something where she was bent over or balled up - something contained or foreshortened. When I had 4 or 5 drawings to choose from it just came down to what I thought worked better for the image, the character. It's kinda hard to describe and it happens in your brain very quickly - how you're evaluating and making decisions and you don't even really know why. Or maybe ya do know why but you're not taking three times as long trying to put it into words for a blog :)

Pretigious?

2006-12-10T04:01:00.000-06:00

I meant to post this a while ago. I can't remember if I mentioned it here on the blog before, but drawing like I'm 5 is the coolest! There are no wrong decisions! It really is freeing when you can take time off from being your own worst critic. My sis and I saw The Prestige several weeks ago and this is what came of it.

Gimme a hug.

2006-12-10T03:48:00.000-06:00

Don't you just wish you had chainsaws for arms?

I probably had 15 or so doodles of my noggin but scanning and assembly is a lotta work at 3 am. Hope this preliminary concept suffices :) I don't like all the negative white space when you see the small image here on the blog. When you click it and it's just an image surrounded by white I accept it much more. The wide open saw-arms just made some awkward space issues. I tried blowin' up the background texture to fill some space but I liked keeping it smaller and tighter.

St. Abe

2006-11-21T12:01:00.000-06:00

St. Patrick's day + Abraham Lincoln's birthday = one tall drunk. Up top are the sketches that led to his design. Hopefully you can see the thought process from right to left. I remember wanting to start with the usual keyhole shape for the head but once I added the cheek bone and heavy brow that very graphic shape kinda melted away - which is cool cause that's usually how design works for me.

One time at work Steve Lambe told me that he wanted to get to a point where he could do the drawing right the first time. Get so comfortable with a style and know exactly what to draw and visualize the poses and just execute. I remember saying that I didn't know if that would ever be possible. Lately though I wonder - I've seen plenty of artists pump out sketches that are gold right from the get go. And looking back at my warm up scribbles I wonder if it's a matter of practice and/or just different methods. Different processes. For me it really is like re-learning how to draw everytime I sit down to a project. I guess that's where the satisfaction is for me - working and redrawing til I see the shapes and lines turn into somethin' I like. Finding the groove every time. Hmmm...I wonder if I'd have any fun drawing if I had the golden touch at the start.

And that's my psycho-babble for the day :)

Ghetto Star Wars

2006-11-07T00:42:00.000-06:00

Over at the Outsider Art Club the theme was "Ghetto Star Wars". I went a little more obscure with my character selection - I chose Dengar the Bounty Hunter who probably had 10 seconds of screen time and he's probably the least well known of the group. He always seemed like a pathetic oaf to me in toy form. I thought dressing him up with some of Jabba's dancers would be a nice gift for the mummified goon. So that was the thought. Plus I'd try to gansta him up with a gaudy neck chain and a hat. Let's be real - it was all just a ploy to draw some half-naked girls ;) Anyway, here's some development sketches leading up to the final image. Whenever I start drawing it's like I don't know how to draw at all. I hafta re-learn everytime I pick up the pencil. Like warming up I suppose but I'm usually pretty embarrassed at the start:

This first sketch doodled at work. I blew it up on the copy machine and this is a scan of that. The idea for the poses 'n' such came from a google image search for "Snoop Dogg". The guy in the top corner was an early idea for using Bossk instead of Dengar. Looks just like 'im don't it?

This is the first rough on the lightable. Working out the girls poses. The girl on the right was pretty much there from the beginning. Keeping her in profile made it easier for the face. The girl on the left was a pain because I wanted to do a 3/4 face to make her different. I'm still also trying to find the style or look. Her arm placement and leg length were issues.

Dengar enters the mix now. Working out his face and what will be seen of his armor. Threw in another girl head. I was trying for some sorta Power Puff Girls/Samurai Jack eyes. Very weird to say the least.

Another one. I remember thinking that maybe the head should be rounder. Sheesh...

Another pass on the whole gang. I was really liking everything now. I really just combined what I was doing with the girl's head to come up with something decent here. I didn't feel it til I got into the computer, but I kinda think the girls' legs are too short.

Here's another shot at Dengar's head. Wow. I kinda like this one better. At the time I remember really wanting to empasize his flabby jowels and it kinda contridicted his face all wrapped up. I just had to choose. I do like this more stylized version though.

And here's the final composite sketch in Photoshop. I drew things on different pages knowing I'd put 'em all together once they were scanned. It's kind of a weird habit - I get worried I'm gonna mess up the drawing when I'm tightening it up so I throw down another sheet of paper.
And here's the final:

I had specific ideas for the colors going into it: Chocolate browns and baby blue for the girls. I kinda missed the mark but I like this direction too. See how clever I am? Just lop off the girls legs and you'll never know if they were too short or not ;)

Oh, and here's an image of the real Dengar.

-------------------------------------------

Next up is IG-88 sporting his Flava-flav duds. Just another quick idea I had that I wanted to contribute. Everything is pretty simple here. In a lot of ways this was more fun, and more satisfying than the Dangar image. An idea quickly turned around and easily readable with fun flat colors and shapes. Here's the quick run down:

Some very important RGB numbers there...

And there ya have it! Not as detailed as my "TV Dinner" post but hopefully ya still enjoyed it!

Are we not men?! We are DEVO.

2006-11-04T10:45:00.000-06:00

This year I was DEVO for Halloween. Every year our friends Sean and Dorothy throw an expertly themed Halloween bash. This year it was the 80s! I always have fun making my costumes and the "energy dome" was no exception. Here's a few glamore shots my sis snapped and color corrected. I fooled around with some filters in Photoshop for the bottom one.

Now in case you were still making boom boom in your diapers when DEVO hit the scene, here's their most famous song to catch all you youngins up to speed:

the portable Polyphoniczoetropeophone

2006-10-28T03:18:00.000-05:00

Another OutsiderArt doodle. I was thinking of this as some sorta portable audio video device. Maybe like an antique DVD player. A grammophone mixed with a zoetrope can provide entertainment for whole days in 1850. I added straps to the horn to make it "portable."I wanted to make it look like those old drawings of inventions back in the day. I was actually gonna do it up in orthoscopic blueprint-like views but I remembered I hate drawing parallel lines...

MetalJaw TrapGear

2006-10-14T10:39:00.000-05:00

Trapjaw has always been a favorite character of mine from He-Man and I chose to mix him with the character designer behind Metal Gear Solid: Yoji Shinkawa. I really admire his style and you really get to see his artistic evolution from game to game. His work on Metal Gear Solid for PSOne was his specific inspiration. These red lines ran all through his charaters in the concept art. I imagine it was a stylistic choice but it felt like it belonged rather than just something for the sake of being cool. His work got even loser as the games went on. Stark whites block out portions of characters and his brush strokes are more visible. This was fun to attempt for me, somethin' I wanted to try in Painter, though I think I missed a lot of the subtleties.

The image above is a sample from Yoji Shinkawa for Metal Gear Solid. Just great work.

Head poppin' fun!

2006-10-08T23:43:00.000-05:00

This is my piece for Outsider Art this week where the topic was "kiddie cage match".

Usually with these weekly projects I have a direction I want to go or something I want to experiment with but this week I was lucky enough just to get a sketch. The colors were especially tough. The more I worked in Flash the more they boiled down to oranges and purples. I like the contrast, I just wish I had a better mental color image from the start. I also debated about the blood. I was going to tone it down - maybe erase it from the goons face? Too much? In the end I left it all - the sprays and splatters were just part of the fun so even if it weakens the image (or turns people off) it sorta represents my original drawing. So what have we learned? Violence = fun.

A look back...

2006-09-25T01:28:00.000-05:00

- MONDAY -

After work I gotta jump start. I was determined to get this week's Outsider Art drawing done before Friday. The theme was "TV Dinner" in a 50's style. I always seem to procrastinate til Wednesday or Thursday before I even put pencil to paper - but this week would be different. Or so I thought...

I started with this little baby right here:

Taschen makes a mean reference book. I own this one covering ads of the 50's but they publish a book for every decade. I picked out a few images I generally liked. A few toy ads that were 2 or 3 color printed - the pages were black with ink. I would show 'em to ya but with the small size of the book and the tight spine, it woulda yeilded some bad scans.

- TUESDAY -

I turned to everyone's favorite internet resource: Google. I nabbed a buncha stuff I thought looked cool or represented a direction I wanted to go. I began thinking about B-movie posters and sci-fi/horror movies of the 50's. That'd be fun so I stuck with it. This image was most inspiring and I referred to it for fonts and composition:

I was still attracted to the limited color palette like the ads I found in the book. I could see similarities in what I was drawn to overall so this seemed to be a good route.

- WEDNESDAY -

At some point during the work day I came up with a list of elements relating to the theme that I wanted to include. This would help me visualize the TV dinner/monster idea in the end:

it came from the refrigerator
salisbury steak
mothra poster
turquiose/black/limited colors
glasses
mushroom cloud/background

You can see I started to get the mental image. The mushroom cloud and the glasses never made it - not sure why. "Glasses" referred to the stylish frames women would wear studded with rare gems. And Salisbury steak I just think is funny. Visually there was already enough to work with so I guess that explains why these got cut.

When I got home I started drawing TV dinners. Here they all are in chronological order:

For the most part these are all pretty horrible, but the represent me working out ideas. Immediately I knew I had to figure out the TV dinner and I knew I wanted sort of a low angle. I had to look up how TV dinners were divided and how would I show it visually. I got thinking about putting a face on the dinner and maybe I could use the food to form the eyes, nose, and mouth. I really wanted to make a mushroom nose work but it just wasn't happening. I tried a few things and I'm not sure I should have given it a face at all in the end. Maybe it woulda been better faceless? Just a tray of food standing there? I opted for a few important features regardless - eyes and a mouth. Making him a cyclops solved some visual problems for me with two eyes. I sorta pictured the eyeball nestled in a pool of mashed potatoes and I doodled this wavy/blobby sorta shape in that top compartment. It's sorta abstract and just a strange shape so then I figured this would be more graphic anyway. Seemed to make sense with limited colors and shapes which I hoped would be reflect of the fifties.

- THURSDAY -

What the? Where did the time go? I should be finishing the coloring at this point! The ultimate problem this particular week was that I was only dedicating an hour or two per night - really kinda dragging it out. Though I did get to sleep early this past week :)

I still needed some horrified people in the foreground and then arrange the entire composition with the text. The first people I drew were somewhat more realistic:

They woulda worked fine, but I guess I wanted somethin' a bit more fitting style wise with some bug out eyes 'n' such. Then I had some fun drawing a few different hands for the monster. I really like drawing hands because they're challenging and and I like experimenting with different styles - I feel like you see how the artist thinks a lot by looking at how he or she has drawn the hands. Anyway, I tried a few different things. I kept it simple in the end and I did want 5 fingers:
- FRIDAY -

I put all the pieces together in Photoshop and started "Flashing it out" (that's gold baby...):
I drew a few lines in Flash and fell asleep at the computer...

- SUNDAY -

Didn't get around to finishing it up til Sunday after the Bears game. There's some things with the composition and readability of the text that are certainly "iffy" but for whatever reason I was able to let some things slide. I guess I felt the general feel/theme was more important. Oh, the colors are very hot in the final image and Blogger's compression seems to screw with them. The reds shouldn't be this dingy and blurry in this post but I've wrestled with this problem before. I can't seem to get images looking any better:
And there you have it. A little bit of a mental journey. Sorry I didn't get into the software side of things, but I dig the mental process way more than the technical stuff. Hope ya like!

Picasso - I hardly knew you...

2006-09-17T19:16:00.000-05:00

This was a past topic for Outsider Art Club themed "almost famous". I suppose it's pretty cliche to pick an art related subject for this topic. And I suppose it's pretty cliche to use Painter for an artsy piece about the artist who did this type of art...

Hope ya dig anyway. Ryan sent out a link about how some people believe the renaissance artists were cheats because they may have actually used lenses and mirrors to project images on to the canvas. Pretty interesting. It got me thinking that a guy like Picasso couldn't be accused of cheating with his abstract view of the world. So this is him when he was younger. Yeah, his classmates would give me nightmares too...

As overwhelming Painter is, pushin' the paint around was pretty intuitive for the somewhat more "realistic" rendering (comparitively) on Master P. himself. Felt pretty natural.

Fixer upper

2006-09-01T15:55:00.000-05:00

In kindergarten I remember explaining that "I wanted to be a robot builder and do art on the side." Yep, my whole life was squared away by recess.

Later I learned that I didn't have the desire to be an engineer and learn all sorts of complicated math and science. I didn't even like doing my times tables so why would I want to do it for a living? Still love robots though, so it looks like I'm livin' plan B - which was really plan A all along anyway.

Bonus points if you recall the toy robot my drawing is loosely based off of. It's an oldie I had when I was a tot and earlier versions existed as far back as the 60s.

Blog plug

2006-08-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

Check it - they're featuring my Santa Zombie over at:

http://monsterosity.blogspot.com/

It's a monsterish blog that just started up. Thanks for including me guys! Hit 'em up and check out some of the other goulish beasts!

Jingle Bells

2006-08-17T09:32:00.000-05:00

Some evolving sketches of a Zombie Santa. I love to look back at the design process and see where the decisions lead me in the end. Plus I love to laugh at my own horrible horrible doodles :) I can't explain the wagons on his feet...

Thumb wrestling champion

2006-08-08T02:10:00.000-05:00

Here's somethin' I pulled together over the weekend. The theme at work was "Pirates vs. Zombies" and Marshall actually had the same thumb wrestling idea. Pirates would win hands down. I don't know why I drew the zombies in the socks and underwear - that's just how I imagined them. Don't ask.

Coloring is always the funnest part for me. I don't usually have an idea of color when I'm drawing. It kinda just happens when I sit down at the computer and start playing. And once I have a couple colors I like, I'll try to play remaining colors off each other. What balances what works well together - really just trying to keep it appealing and not clash unless it's intentional. But I don't have much color theory in my head so it's all sorta made up as I go.

Anyway, my buddy Kurt found this picture of Ernest Borgnine that reminded him of the pirate here. Creepy similarities. Creepy pic. Kreep-EE.

An offer you won't find in stores!

2006-07-27T21:12:00.000-05:00

Everything must go! Hurry - supplies are limited!
It's a total liquidation sale!

In all seriousness, I think I actually figured out how to add a PayPal button to my blog. I've posted it in the right margin so if there's anyone interested in buying a copy of my sketchbook by all means, click away!

38 full color pages!
5.5" x 8.5" perfect bound!
Signed and numbered!
Only $10!

I hope the PayPal button works. I can't test it myself because it won't let me send money to me... So who will dare be the first to try it??? I'll pick up the shipping cost though (I'm not sure if it's set up that way or not). And if it's more trouble than it's worth, and you consider me a trustworthy fellow, you can drop me a message, send me a check, and I'll mail ya a book. If you're even thinking about it I thank you sincerely :)

SDCC 2006!

2006-07-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

Cripes it's been a while! For good reason too - San Diego has come and gone and man whatta blast! Sam snapped a ton of pictures and here's a few of them. There's a few more over at her blog too. Lookit that table! Whatta slew of stuff! I was impressed. All our books and prints and magnets and everything up there was different. We all had somethin' different to show off. I got to meet several artists in person and some even bought my book! Some of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of shaking hands with. I got to check out some panels and I did my fare share of spending money for sure. Thanks so much to everyone that stopped by the table and anyone that plunked down a ten spot for my work! The experience was great and completely encouraging. Tons o' fun and I hope to do it again next year!

Roomies
Left to right: Javi, Bruno, and myself

Miah made it out! Yeeha!

The rest of the multi-cultural gang: Dan, Darren, Jasmin, Bruno, Andy

And no vacation is complete without a badass lumberjack and token bald guy - Steve and Ryan

I keed because I love.

Proof!

2006-06-23T22:22:00.000-05:00

I received my sketchbook proof in the mail today and it turned out pretty fantastic! I'm super pleased especially after my first printer bailed on me...

The cover has a correction (I missed erasing a few specks of color down by the bottom - barely noticable) and the only other thing is that I wish the sketches came out darker. I LOVE the color in the book though, I just wish the col-erase blues and reds reproduced darker. Partly my fault for not adjusting them more in Photoshop. A minor complaint though. I'd rather have the sketches lighter and the color elsewhere lookin' good. But yeah - I think everything turned out great otherwise. A big THANKS to Animal Qwacker who pointed me to www.rapidpod.com - nothing but a pleasure to work with. Quality, sevice and price. Anywhere else that combo is impossible.

Now that it's in my hands the cover feels a bit plain to me. I mean, I was going for simple and stylish but I wonder if I didn't go far enough. Ah, no bother - live 'n' learn is what I always say... :)

Chinchi Chu!

2006-06-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

Sammy Chu and her new dwarf lop!
Oh, and she left you a present. Kyute! :)

Cheese pizza and lemonade please

2006-06-15T07:39:00.000-05:00

What, it's been like a month now?! Cripes. Sketchbook stuff has kept me busy especially now that the printer I had lined up (a friend of a friend) is bailing on me now...

Anywhoo - here's a sketch of a super cool waitress I met at our local bar/pizzatorium/ on our usual Thursday lunch. So if I work with you, and you're reading this, you may have given her your order already :) Just a doodle from memory. I left it with the bill one non-Thursday lunch and she really liked it! Whew - I'm never sure how people might react to a strange drawing especially of themselves. And especially from practical stranger :)

Dash of color

2006-05-15T23:13:00.000-05:00

Here's a girlie I finished from a post a while back. Some thick 'n' thin and a splash of color. I included the sketches that I posted before so you can see the evolution. Some rough stuff but I'm pleased with the result. Real interesting though. I can't believe some of the choices I made in the middle drawing. I remember thinking that it was a good drawing when I did it only a few months ago. In my own defense, I did try to crank out as many clean line girls in different poses as I could in one night. Sounds like an excuse to me. Oh, really Bob? Yeah - really, Bob.
:)

Anyway, I had a blast with color. I whipped through 30 sheets of me layin' down all sorts of yellow strokes with marker. Scribbles, swoops, flowy type stuff - fun! You can't see the marker detail here, but I hope ya can with a 300 dpi print. I ended up using some black "Marks-A-Lot" strokes that I colored yellow in Photoshop. Just had that brush sorta quality that I liked more compared to the other Prismacolor doodles.

He-Man's a wuss

2006-05-05T01:24:00.000-05:00

Skeletor always bullied He-Man when they were growing up together. "Flesh face" was such a baby.

Are there any He-Nerds out there that can name this vehicle? You'll win absolutely nothing but the respect of millions...

For fun

2006-04-21T02:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a sketch of me and my friend Kurt. I'll leave it on his desk tomorrow morning. He's been cryin' lately that he doesn't get to draw as much anymore at work. Like a baby ;) We can laugh about it, but it pains me cause he's a great artist and animator. So anyway, I tried to parody the "meeting with the Bobs" scene in "Office Space" cause, ya know - my name is Bob an' all...
He's impossible to draw as I quickly found out. At first I thought I'd draw Kurt angry at me in the image - so that explains the grimaces. Then I thought I'd put big glasses on him that magnified his eyes like the Milton character in the movie. I tried a comic booky look, I tried some annoyed anime styles. The funny thing is, I convinced myself that each drawing looked like Kurt. "Yep, that's him. But maybe I'll try one more for good measure..." and ultimately none really work. I settled on a simplified anime mug but it's still not right for my liking. So much so I had to write "Kurt" on his shirt and that made me laugh so everything felt okay in the end.

Weekly doodles!

2006-04-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

Just a collection of scribbles over the past week. Mostly doodles from meetings at work. You can sorta tell what leftovers were rolling around in my mind when I put pencil to paper. There's a couple geisha in there, a mechanical jaw, sumo, people with hats, some bald guys, some goof calling me a jerk (thanks Chu)...and George Lucas. Mostly crap, but it's fun to figure out where all the thoughts came from. Like a dream ya might remember from the night before; and you realize all the leftover thoughts in your brain got rolled into one.

And sometimes work is only 20% fun as illustrated in this page from the pad:

Up, Up, Down, Down...

2006-04-09T21:34:00.000-05:00

IGN held a contest for "I AM 8-BIT" - a gallery for art based on retro gaming. They were lookin' for "real art" done the old fashioned way and even though my work is 95% digital I submitted it anyway. The sketch is my final drawing I took into Flash. I went through plenty of doodles to get there and I still wasn't absolutely sure I liked it.

I was inspired by the look of some Brazilian speedos... I mean, I totally dig the “controlled messiness” and visible strokes in some of Broohoo’s speed paintings. This was nowhere near speedy for me however :)

Hope you all know the game...

Take it off!

2006-04-03T03:51:00.000-05:00

So there's this giant-sized Johnny Depp poster outside of Sammy Chu's cube at work right? And occasionally an annoymous post-it will decorate him with a funny quote or joke. Well someone put up a drawing of some cowboy guy (sorta like Boss Hog) yelling "Take it off!" in a word balloon. So for whatever reason I decided to do the same... Just havin' fun comin' up with different designs for this lude cowboy. And what's more fun than drawing on post-its? :)

Oh, and Javi's latest post reminded me about San Diego! I hope to have a sketchbook together to sell at this year's con along with a bunch of my friends. So that could put a damper in future posts - I'll still try to keep 'em regular though.

So I gotta ask - would any of you guys plunk down $5-10 for a collection of my dribbles? Or maybe trade for a half eaten sandwich?

It's been over a month!?

2006-03-27T01:03:00.000-06:00

Cripes! I have no excuses for not posting and for that I could be going to hell. Actaully, I switched jobs about a month ago and it's taken me a little while to settle back in. A little San Diego planning too. Plus I managed to find an Xbox 360 last week so all productivity has gone out the window recently. Neat stuff them games.

Anywho, I dug up some stuff for a video game I worked on called "Zathura" based on the movie. The ball started rolling on the game just as the movie started production. I was helping with a little concept work for the game. Basically, we only had a script to work from for a while and the early idea was to adopt a real cartoony feel for the game. We were envisioning Jax and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank. I was pretty psyched about that. So below is my take on the two main boys in the movie/game. I was just guessing with their physical design because there was no reference to go from. Pretty interesting to compare these guys to the kids in the film and ultimately the final stuff in the game.

Then we got word back that the publisher didn't like the cartoony feel... These were real kids in after all - why try to make it fun? *insert eye roll here* I understood their concerns though - wanting to adhere to the look of the actors and make use of as much of the movie visuals as possible. And realistically - to get the project done on time we were gonna mocap all the animation so it just didn't make sense to go with the cartoony look. Frustrating. In response to that, I was asked to whip up realistic concepts of the boys late one Friday afternoon. By then we had photos of the actors. These are horribly embarassing... I tried to tie in cartoony elements (larger proportions, strange hand design) and paint it up (something else I don't do very well) for this rush job. Here's what happens when I don't have time to think and/or care :)

After that, they naturally wanted to see something inbetween the cartoony and "realistic" versions. Below is my modified Danny character in modelsheet form. The modelsheet was my subtle way of saying "we need to model this now if we're gonna get your game done on time"At the same time I was working on various creatures and environment ideas. Concept was never really more developed than what you see in this post in order to meet our milestones. So here's some doodles of the "dead planet" which was one of the levels in the game. It was actually fun drawing rocks for a couple days :) Some neat shapes came out of it but I don't really think the player gets a real grand view of the environment - feels more enclosed like you're in a cave.

So we weren't able to go forward on our early ideas and we really had no time to develop the look/design of the game. A bit frustrating, but I still got to draw and do some character work. Stuff I was proud to contribute.

Decomposed Sugar Limbs

2006-02-24T02:21:00.000-06:00

This was a super fun project for 1313 Midnite Kreepshow I did recently! Check 'em out for some wayback monsterism. If all goes well, the coffee table book will be called "Cereal Killers" and it's gonna feature a buncha twisted cereal mascots from artists like Derek Yaniger and Jay Stephens. I'm lookin' forward to seein' everyone's stuff! I'll keep ya posted and letchya know when and where you nab a copy. A wrap around cover, a section of artist sketches - the whole shebang!

I also decided on the first version here. Those are the original colors. I really like the warmer one though. Colors clash a little but it feels aged by the sun. I thought it best to go with my original vision though.

Neat-o!

2006-02-22T00:42:00.000-06:00

John K actually picked me as his favorite caricature from his Jolie contest in my last post! There were a couple entries that really stood out and all were funny in their own way. Check it out over HERE.

I wouldn't say I was deserving of the win, but I sure was flattered. Loads of fun either way!

Angelina I'm sorry.

2006-02-19T02:39:00.000-06:00

John K. has always been a big inspiration for me. Sure he can draw some funny pictures and pretty girls but possibly more than that I admire his candid commentary about the animation industry and art versus business in general. Still fightin' the good fight and now in blog form: John K's Stuff.

So in his newest post he's asked everyone to caricature Angelina Jolie and I thought I'd doodle some up. John did a great job of documenting his process and what he tries to capture when doing a caricature. I read it all and saw his doodles and thought I might try approaching it the same way. As soon as my pencil hit the paper I just started drawing though. My usual process. I wasn't thinking about process or even what I really hoped to achieve. Just shapes and lines. About half way through I was really pretty amazed that my process was very similar to John's. I was shocked because at a certain point I felt comfortable with the subject and just knew what features I wanted to play with. I wasn't looking at pictures of Angelina any more. I then it became more about having fun with the drawing. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I scanned 'em all in and numbered them in the order in which I drew them. So all the embarrassing ones are in there too. That first page I can totally see myself just trying to draw her face. I see the struggle because I want to make it goofy but I haven't even drawn her yet so it's awkward.

I guess what I find so interesting is that I'm not thinking about any of this when I'm drawing. I didn't make this conscience decision to start drawing her real face. And the weird thing is that art is all ABOUT decision making. I'm gonna draw this today. The lines will look like this and it's gonna be blue and maybe a little red. In the end, my mind IS adhering to a process that I'm not even aware of until I look back. Plus I'm sure there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere...

In conclusion, neat stuff :)

Oh yeah - cute kid...

Life doodles

2006-02-11T12:39:00.000-06:00

More stuff from a recent life drawing session on my last day of work at High Voltage. I'm movin' back in with my buddies at WMS Gaming! Hope the 2D work is hot 'n' heavy :) Anyway, I'd like to push things in a more stylized direction during life drawing. I draw that way naturally but I guess I just have this feeling that I should record the proportions and shapes more accurately. Isn't that what life drawing is for? Ah, no matter. As long as your penis- I mean pencil is moving...

Culinary Crew

2006-02-05T15:19:00.000-06:00

Some pirate chef guys I had some fun with a while back. Looking back, I think I could simply shapes even more. Coulda made some better decisions. I dig the colors though I don't think it would work for a cartoon. Too washed out and restricted.

Oldie

2006-01-26T23:44:00.000-06:00

Some more dated work but I still likey. Not only is this guy post-apocalyptic, and a cyborg, and a business man, but I see a little zombie mixed in too with the pale green skin.

I'm not sure who those goons in radiation suits are in the background. I'm sure they mean well...

*** time lapse ***

I just posted it and man red does not compress well. Too hot I guess? The pic I uploaded is nice 'n' sharp though. Looks a lot different in Flash :)

Pictionary - Round One.

2006-01-16T17:01:00.000-06:00

What happens when ya get a buncha artists together to play a game based on speed and clarity? Well the following images are the result. Skill and simplicity usually go right out the window and I'm fascinated by everyone's thought process!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bambi"

There was a mix up on this one but that fat head would have given it away in a heartbeat.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"caveman"

Ya can't much get more elegant than this.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"daycare"

Wow. It worked.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"flash"

Man this was gold. Too bad I only got as far as the second image before the other team guessed correctly having drawn a lighning bolt first. What was I thinking?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Golden Gate Bridge"

A couple bridge depictions with completely different shapes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"honeymoon"

You can tell by his expression that the bear in question has been caught red handed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"horse race"

Fracella's drawing before and after Sam's "My-Little-Ponyfication" I believe Cella used similar tactics in the later word, "boat race" :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An assortment of "kangaroo" and "Jello".

Would Bill Cosby holding a pudding pop have been easier? No way, but quite possibly even more entertaining.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"lazy"

I love that this simple pose embodies laziness.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"liposuction"

And here we have two completely different ideas. Syphoning fat through a straw...hmmm...I wonder how much a job like that pays.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"offroad vehicle"

Dan's truck here can also flatten buildings and pave six lane highways.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm pretty sure the word here was "pentagon" but this looks more like a 6-sided nut and the Washington Monument.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"San Andreas Fault"

This was voted too hard to do right from the get go and in protest Ryan quickly mocked up a fissure right through the state of California. To me it looked more like a hamster drinking.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"square foot"

This was for all the marbles. Both teams were tied at the last space on the gameboard. Dan and I. Mono E. Mono. For whatever reason Dan decided to draw a rectangle.

Team Blanka with the win.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"strawberry"

I'm amazed how very similar these strawberries are from opposing teams. It all hinged on who could speckle those seeds on first!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"third world"

This musta taken me the whole timer to draw. I used bowling trophies to illustrate first, second, and third, then coupled with the completely accurate world map and we got it. There was some dispute over roman numerals which I have a very hard time understanding Dan :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"unkown"

Before I decided to scan this one I found myself turning the page in several complete circles trying to figure out what the word was here. My best guess is "San Diego". If the real artist is out though please claim this masterpiece.

And there you have it! Just some of the highlights. Hope ya all had fun - Until next round!

Behemoth

2006-01-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ho-lee crap. It's been a while. Sorry 'bout that. Christmas, New Year's, my birfday, etc...all that crap gets in the way :)

Did this just before Christmas. Just playin' with color.

Noseless wonders!

2005-12-17T17:33:00.000-06:00

Pinups this week! There's some parts I wanna fix if I get around to cleaning them up in Flash but I was pretty happy working on these. I'd like to keep it simple with some nice thick n' thin lines in Flash and a splash of color and sorta make a series out of 'em.

I included the initial sketches because I liked some of the looseness of the sketch lines compared to the clean up with a few of 'em. And plus you can see a bit of the thought process.

I wanna hear which is your favorite! At work I was real interested to hear which ones people liked the best and why so lemme hear it! They're also numbered the order in which I drew them.

-boob.

Portfolio Review

2005-12-12T01:25:00.000-06:00

I made it on to the Portfolio Review blog a little while ago (Thanks for the extra push Jav!) Check it out here:

boob dribble

Here's your one and only chance to bore yourself numb with my interview nonsense. Sorry the formatting is screwed up - that was all the wordwrapping in notepad's fault and in no way was it my own...

By the way, I'm continuing to dig up work to post until I have something I'm happy with in color for the project. Page 5 pencils should wrap up tomorrow. It kinda slowed down for me cause I was hit hard with a loada work this week.

Somethin' a bit more comic booky

2005-12-05T04:24:00.000-06:00

Here's Casey Jones from the Ninja Turtles as a girl. One of those, "turn a guy character into a girl" themes. I wanted to make her this raver-type punk chick and I knew I wanted plenty of black. At some point I wasn't too happy with the colors - it lost the feel I was trying for - this punk feel I guess. I ended up going with more monotone colors and jacking up the saturation and contrast. I blew out the original pencils and I got something I remember being really happy with. In the end it made me feel like this was sorta like a bad xeroxed flyer. Like the kind you'd see all over store fronts and alleyways advertising some band at some bar. Or maybe for some sorta rave thing. Only thing I don't like is that the linework gets lost. I lost a lot of the details but I came closer to the image I had in mind.

Life doodles

2005-12-05T03:12:00.000-06:00

Man this last life drawing session sucked. It's bastically a "Life Drawing Club" that the school hosts and a few of us from work sit in on it. However the model didn't even show this time and so a couple students took turns posing. I want my money back. I don't care if it was free...

I managed to squeeze these out though. I guess I was feelin' a little like Ben Caldwell with those hands on the blue line sketch.

odds 'n' ends

2005-11-23T17:51:00.000-06:00

Some life drawing from last Friday. 30 seconders and 20-30 minuters respectively. Only toward the end of the night did I START to feel loosened up. Gotta get some charcoal or a wax pencil.
And here's just a few Flashed up doggies for the album project I'm finishing up. The band is called "Subatomicglue" and you can check out their electronic tunes here by clicking on the download button.
I might take a sabbatical from the blog to work on some stuff that I don't exactly wanna post up here yet. I'll try to continue posting older stuff though.

Fun with phobias!

2005-11-18T21:40:00.000-06:00

All artwork (I'm pretty sure) © 2005-2006 Bob Rissetto

There are some ridiculous phobias out there. Officially documented and everything. Plenty of material for some fun drawings. I wanted these pics to be 100% Wacom, but after some serious trial and error, I still resorted to the "digital brick" (mouse). I'm sure it's pretty apparent where I used the mouse and where I used the tablet. Hopefully I'll stick with the Wacom, but I don't mind just using it as another tool when needed.

Didn't get to clean up the last image but I wasn't too keen on the bearded guy's design. At least you can see how the sketches started though!

Wacom love...?

2005-11-18T14:35:00.000-06:00

So I've been a mouse guy my whole life. Yes, I just love drawing (and redrawing)things with that electronic bar of soap. Never really got the hang of the tablet. I gave it a good try yesterday though. I came out with some decent results as far as cleaning up part of a drawing in Flash. Problem is, my work flow is already ingrained. The ability to quickly add and remove shapes and/or lines just ain't there with the tablet. I know it's different, but I can't seem to operate as quickly or with as much control as I'd like to. I also love piling on the layers in Flash and flattening them down as I need to knowing lines and color shapes are still easily removable.

It's still just a different tool that I'll use for it's advantages when I need them. Whenever I want that hand drawn look or something more scribbly in Flash I can use it. Maybe I just prefer a cleaner look with precise control. I dunno. Plus a tablet's probably more suited for painting anyway.

So if any youse guys out there have some clean up tips for the Wacom in Flash I'm all ears!

Somethin' new...

2005-11-13T15:21:00.000-06:00

And here's a pic I just finished up with a little back story: At a recent company party we had this Chicago band called "Captured! by Robots" play a private show for us.

I've heard about this guy before so I was anxious to see it. Basically he's a one member band that plays (mostly metal and noise) with these real robots. There's a story behind it all and his shows are themed and I just thought it was pretty damn cool. The human lead, J-Bot, wears this gimp mask with bulging eyes and he's covered in chains (because he's captured an' all) and this particular show was Star Trek themed so he had on a Next Generation costume. Then there was this song called "don't shake the baby!" that he yelled and shook this baby doll to. He jumped down from the stage and shook this doll in everyone's face while his robot band backed him up onstage. Genius. I guess I was more amazed by the sheer work involved with lugging these "band members" around with him. I was impressed with the work and creativity.

So after all that, I guess that's what led me to draw this up. The pics on his site are old, but if yer interested, check him out at www.capturedbyrobots.com. Oh and I really dig the how the sweat droplets came out - close up! :)

Somethin' old...

2005-11-13T15:15:00.000-06:00

I feel bad I haven't posted any work in a while so today will be a double dose. Here's some "bad juju" from a couple months back. I did a few color comps when I did this and now when I look at them, I can't remember which was my favorite. Guess none of them really stood out in that regard. There's also quite a few tangents that bother me here but I won't point them out :)

"Trick or F-in' Treat"

2005-10-31T02:19:00.000-06:00

JJ just doesn't have the patience for Halloween even after all the work he put into his Frank-n-fish" costume.

Not much to post because I've been workin' on my own costume this week. I'll be sure to embarass myself for all of you with pictures in my next post. Merry Christmas...

I'm not a violent person really...

2005-10-24T06:09:00.000-05:00

All artwork © 2005-forever Bob Rissetto

Here's the final design. A co-worker had asked for some art for an album cover to his band and this is the imagery he had in mind. There was actually a lot more he suggested but I toned it down considerably and tried to balance just a few of the elements. It's supposed to have this underlying commentary about consumerism and how everything is disposable in our society - even your pets (man's best friend). I don't usually think about symbolism in my art so I'm not sure if any of that comes across. Maybe it just feels just more like a graphic picture. I did listen to his music (electronica type stuff is my best description) as I was working on it but I don't know if it influenced me or not. Kept me in the mood though. I just hope he thinks it's at least a pretty picture :)