Scribbles and mouse ears

I've got some character design sheets for a character of mine called PF Bunny for you all today. PF is a pink furry bunny from the land of snugs and hugs that is used for King Velveteen's wetwork ops against the black hearted Grumps. Overall idea is carebears with guns.




Also, a random character in the style of the Dora brand.



Here in a couple weeks I have a new game coming to shelves that i get to announce that I am stupid excited about because instead of pixel work, I was a 3d artist for the first time in my gaming career. My degree was in 3d, but I've risen through the ranks of video game development as a 2d artist so havent gotten to add much to my 3d portfolio. As soon as the title is officially announced I will post some renders.

And, because I havent put them on here yet, a few samples of editing. The posts below are old submissions to the SATO48 hour film competition. Basically, you get the theme and a prop friday night, and you have to write, shoot and edit a 5 minute film to be turned in 48 hours later. The results are always silly, but its a great time.

2007

2008

2009


And then finally a film I served on as editor and DP that will be a great indie zombie film when it finally wraps post production, the Dead Shall Rise, a film by the great director Matt Darst who also led up the Sato projects.

New Nickelodeon DS Games on shelf!

The last batch of games I was lead artist on just hit store shelves this past week. Dora the Explorer Puppy, Backyardigans and Ni Hao Kai Lan all consumed a good 8 months of my life last year and I am proud to see them in stores. These make six titles I have worked together with the Nickelodeon team to develop and it never fails to be a good experience...plus, its Nickelodeon so how could you go wrong?

http://www.amazon.com/Dora-Explorer-Puppy-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WG0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1257366105&sr=8-3

http://www.amazon.com/Backyardigans-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGK/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_b

http://www.amazon.com/Ni-Hao-Kai-Lan-Celebration-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002F87WGA/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_c

Random copies...

As I stated with my first post, the logic behind starting this blog was to see if its casual atmosphere would prompt me to post more work...which would mean I would have to work more to have something to post. The second reason to start it would be to centralize all of my favorite blogs so I didn't have to constantly update work or home computers so I could have access to them all whenever.

Well, the one blog I hit one blog more than any other. He has a passion for cartooning and the artistry behind it, he is a cartoon historian of sorts and the references and images he posts are beyond amazing. With the quick and easy styles a lot of cartoons have drifted toward, it is increasingly difficult to find a place to pick up tips and tricks from the original innovators of the craft rather than watered down fortune cookie sized standards that are easier to pass on.

Generally using classic references, there would be breakdowns and examples of how to make interesting and functional characters, not to mention little exercises to help ones general cartooning skill. I only found the cartoon class two weeks ago and the Preston Blair studies that I took from his site have already noticeably helped out my drawing skill.

So anyway, below are some of the Preston Blair drawings I did, plus a few other studies of various artist works. I can give names of the original artists of any of the work for those interested.

Sweet holy halloween season!

Every October I try to watch at least one horror flick a day, with weekends generally averaging out to 3-5 movies. I try to alternate movies I have never seen before with ones that are old favorites. Tonight I watched 30 Days of Night with Rachel, my wife. I had seen it before, but remembered the visuals being spectacular so wanted to refresh my memory. Indeed, the vampire aesthetic was very near to Templesmith's original artwork, and therefore amazingly creepy in all sorts of subtle ways. The bone structure of the vamps faces all resembling sharks was a great change from the slick and sexy vampires one is used to seeing. The story...meh.

Watched Gingersnaps this weekend. Werewolf movies seem so hard to get right for some unfathomable reason, but this one was pretty decent. Of course I say that with the caveat of liking bad horror movies, so sometimes discerning the ones that I like because I am I and ones that are actually good can be a difficult line to keep in focus. However, I would say this one straddled the line between mainstream good and Claunch good. Dog Soldiers and (of course) American Werewolf in London would be the guiding line of good werewolf flicks.

Caught Trick R Treat last weekend. Awesome, awesome flick. I know that it was shelved for three years because Warner Bros didn't want it to compete with any of their Saw movies, but this gem was better than any of those torture porns. It had a pretty strong resemblance to the old tales from the crypt and Vault of Horror flicks, just a modern creep edge to it. Great actors, 4 interwoven story-lines, just an overall great Halloween flick. Was it scary? Had its moments, but is definitely more of a seasonal movie.

Also picked up Fido, one of my all time favorite zombie flicks and thats saying something. Zombie flicks are my favorite genre. One year I tried to watch every zombie movie I saw on the box store shelf or Netflix. I think I made it just past 100 before I realized that of those 100 only 10 or so were actually watch-able and I was just eating up my life by watching some pretty craptacular films. Again, I like bad movies so maybe 10 is being a little optimistic. Its about the characters, not the carnage. I don't understand why its so hard to get. My list of favorite zombie flicks (no order) for those bored enough to be reading this blog in the first place. (Hi mom!)

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Zombieland
3. Fido
4. Dawn of the Dead (original)
5. Dawn of the Dead (new)
6. Undead
7. Night of the Creeps
8. Return of the Living Dead
9. Hide and Creep
10. Night of the Living Dead (original and Savini)
11. 28 Days later
12. Dead Alive
13. Dead Shall Rise

Thats a good starter list if you are wanting to break into the Zombie genre. They tend to skew a little to the Zomedy (zombie comedy) so bare that in mind.

After spending several hours getting into makeup the past three years in a row (Hellboy, the Goon and Marvels Beast) I am gonna take it easy this year and just paint my face so I can spend more time handing out candy and having fun.

After all that rambling, here is some art! An idea I came up with, a bunch of folk at a costume party dying and becoming ghosts. I sketched out the general halloween pub crawl types, the Playboy bunny, Emo vampire, Chubby guy in the silly full body outfit (you've seen him, he is the one that is either a cow, horse, bunny or teddy bear), The slasher, the frat boy greek type, and the drunk guy wearing nothing but beer stains and a slightly vulgar tshirt. Of the ones I put together I like the ones below well enough to splash some color on.



Also finished up a Shaolin Frog and Grasshopper I had been working on for awhile. Got the final and a step by step below.




I've been drawing at least 30 min a day, so I shall upload more soon.

False Promises

I owe my reader an apology for not getting anything on here in the past few months. I promise a big 'I'm sorry, still love me' post full of oodles of drawings and such tomorrow. For tonight I just want to post the most recent Nintendo DS game I worked on that just hits store shelves. Wizards of Waverly Place. It is a really awesome game and working with the folks at Disney Interactive was a great experience. They are dedicated to getting a gorgeous game and dont mind spending a lot of time on polish to get it right. The Nickelodeon games for the DS that I worked on should be out later this month, so look forward to excited links for Backyardigans, Ni Hao, Kai Lan and Dora the Explorer and her new puppy.

Portfolio Update!

I have been sending out my work to different film studios looking to see what interest/critiques I can hook. Even if I barely get a nibble, it feels nice to have an updated portfolio. I am focusing on the storyboard side, but everyone likes to know you can draw realistically so I put in some traditional style work as well (as shown below). Now to figure out this new lightbox application so I can make my website presentable!

Random appeal

I've spent the last couple of weeks working on a few storyboards for a One Act play that I was a cast member in when it had a short run off Broadway a couple years ago. We had talked about doing an animated version of it back in the day, but the time never presented itself. Now the time still isnt there for a full fledged version, but I busted out the first page and a half into boxes. A couple below:




Also, mainly for color, I am posting a couple of digital paintings that I have done somewhat recently.

Ringtail Private Eye

Some random sketches I did a couple months ago as warmups and just got around to scanning in. Definitely a nod to the Black Sad comics.

Crunch

Another week, another battle to try to make sure I only have to crunch if the logic behind it is valid...which almost never works.

  For the uninitiated, Crunch is what the producers call it when they want you to work 60+ hours a week to hit a milestone.  Its something that is very rarely mentioned when people talk about how cool working in the video game industry is.  I've been on crunch for 3 out of 4 weeks for the past year.  Its rough.  

  The last batch of games I crunched on were the Popcap seek and finds on the Nintendo DS, Amazing Adventures and Mystery PI; both of which can be found at reputable retailers worldwide.  They turned out pretty swank and for them being my first and second credits as Lead artist, I have little complaint over the final product.

  In theory the current titles I am working on should be ready to have their release candidates sent to Nintendo by the end of the month.  I'm lead artist on all three of these puppies as well.  I assume I did well enough handling two concurrent titles with Popcap that they choose me to be art lead on three concurrent titles this time.  But, with that said, I hope that my next lead credit is on a single game.  Managing a dozen artists and making sure that they are each sticking to the completely different style of each sku means I don't get to produce very much art myself, and I kinda miss it.

Maybe?

I wanna see if I will be more apt to keep this updated than I do my website.  Mainly slap sketches and works inprogress up here....probably.  Hopefully.  Thats the general idea anyway.  While I am sure only family and friends will check this thing out...ever...i can hope that one day upwards of 11 or 12 people might check the page with semi-regularity on a yearly basis.

Not to mention this will hopefully let me link the ridiculous number of illustration guru blogs all in one place so I can find their pages when I need the inspiration.

Hi Mom!