Monsters on Bikes Art Show

Hey folks!

On November 14th, from 6pm to midnight, I'll have a work (or two?) at an art show in Highland Park. There's two physical locations, and it's part show, part benefit - sales will help support two non-profits helping people with buying, repairing, and maintaining bikes.

Which brings us to the theme - monsters on bikes! I have a penchant for monsters and putting one on or around a bike sounds like fun!

You can find more info at their website, http://www.monstersonbikes.blogspot.com/

A million thanks to Shing Yin Khor (of http://www.sawdustbear.com/) for the heads up on this!

A Girl and Her Blob

Inspired by WayForward's adorable remake of A Boy and His Blob. Once an 8-bit NES game, now on the Wii.

Alive and Kicking

Also working on a Halloween card, and a submission for an upcoming art show. Details to follow!

Today's sketches

Lots of sketches done for work and on my break.

I Cut You To The MAX

Done for a DA friend, iloveyoutothemax. You can check out her work over here!

Had a lot of fun with this. Not a big expert on robots, so I did what I could while keeping it goofy and fluid. It's put me in the mood to do more robots too!

Super (?) Mario

The Day's Doodles

Just some stuff I was sketching during downtime today at work. Figure being productive one way or another is better than goofing off when I'm waiting for design approvals.

Worky Worky

Work related drawings!

Re: The King of Brothers

A few months back I posted some WIP of a King of Fighters pic. Got word today that the piece is in the top ten of the contest! I'm stoked about getting that far, seeing as there were some pretty amazing last-minute entries.

Also - totally not slacking...sort of. I started a new job two weeks back and between it and some hush-hush work, I haven't had much to update with. I'll make it up starting this week!

Oops - Darkstalkers!

I knew I was forgetting something. This is the submission that made it into the Darkstalkers Tribute album, published by Udon Entertainment.

The Sasquatch darling is copyright Capcom.

Mai Oh My

This was created for the King of Fighters 12 art contest at http://www.kingoffighters12.com . Unfortunately it was down to the wire and didn't get in on time.

At least I got a cute piece out of it.

(Mai & King of Fighters are copyright SNK-Playmore)

Moderation in Panic

It's been a crazy few weeks. Called back in for some freelance, let off again, and producing some more examples of work to show at San Diego Comic Con. Haven't posted them because a) still ironing them out and b) need to make printing examples and integrating into portfolio priority one.

This update is to more or less assure you (actually, myself) that keeping to a dedicated workflow and update schedule is still at the forefront of my mind.

Now, who else is hitting up Comic Con?

Duncan Colors

Took Duncan - one of the early concept sketches this week - and whipped up a color layout.

Lonestar Officers

Two color layouts for a single outfit idea across three body types.

Sketch Dump 7/8 - 7/9

Went to a local cafe in Long Beach, Portfolio's last night with a few art friends and Liz.


Today drew the view looking out from my balcony window while sitting on the couch. Here's a photo for comparison.


Tonight went to Starbucks with Liz and had the foresight to bring the 4"x6" pad.

Digital Painting - 07/08/09

Concepts Abound!

Some character sketches - the kids are reiterations of older characters I had while the eye lamp/tree thingie was just for goofing around.

Digital Painting

I've been watching free vids at Digital Art Tutorials - it's been giving me a better understanding of how others work through PhotoShop for painting. The recent freelance work taught the same lessons with Illustrator. So I'm taking a real focused look at how others approach mediums in an attempt to see if there's faster approaches than those I'm used to.

Anywho, the image is the result from staying up too late, watching tutorials, and painting in CS2 for about 40 minutes.

Baby Steps in 3DS Max

Trying something new - attempting to wrap my head around 3D programs. Using 3DS Max and the tutorials at 3D Total, I whipped up this little thing. You know the phrase, " a face only a mother could love?" That's the vibe I'm feeling - this is a real early attempt and yet I'm so excited that I made something.

Big Illustration Party Time

If you're a budding illustrator heading to school, just starting out in the real world, or even been around the block, there's a great podcast out there. Big Illustration Party Time is hosted by freelance illustrators and published cartoonists Joshua Kemble and Kevin Cross, and covers a lot of technical aspects of illustration.

The format's informal with loads of helpful content. They cover topics such as starting out, building a portfolio, promotion, and process of projects. It's the first podcast I've ever heard that gets into the nuts and bolts of illustration and never resorts to generalizations or vague insights. While they go off topic from time to time, it's never a distraction. In fact some of their tangents provide even greater bits of info. Plus it's a lot of fun just listening to other artists "talk shop" - a definite joy for any freelancer working from home.

It's been a personal boon this past week, seeing as I've been redoubling efforts into producing work at a steady pace. I got so caught up over finding a job that I feel the need to place just as much emphasis on daily practice and steady content. BIPT is a great listen and a smart addition to any playlist.

King of Fighters 12

The King of Fighters 12 website has a contest running. Submitting art for their upcoming game under "Fan Art" and there's a $1,000 first prize attached.

I grew up playing a LOT of video games, KoF being one of them. So I have an affinity for doing this sort of thing and since the Darkstalkers thing went so well, I thought "why not?"

For one it gives me another project to work on. For some reason I become way more productive when I have a defined goal or end point to work with. When I'm drawing just to fritter away time I may get some good ideas, but I never flesh something out to the point of completion. Psyching myself out into viewing any artwork as a project tends to accomplish more.

In that spirit, take a gander at some of these process drawings. All characters are copyright SNK/Playmore and I'll update as I put more work into this thing.

05/20/09 - New process at top added.
05/21/09 - Background added.
05/22/09 - Added type, not too sure if I can call it done.

Linking Things Together

With a LinkedIn account I found a neat program that aggregates my blogs from here as well as my Deviant Art page. Not too shabby - I'm all about integrating elements.

Which got me to thinking about owning a domain, and consolidating everything into one website. It's about time too - having patchwork elements on the web may have passed in the 90s, but not today!

House Cleaning

It's funny that cleaning seems like such a great way to unwind. Spent so much time growing up avoiding it or at odds ends with it that it's weird to enjoy it.

Been poking away on sketching and making new friends on Deviantart. I think that will stay as my big launch pad for work until enough friends follow the work here. Or just register a domain and throw all relevant content there.

These drawings were from a life drawing class. I miss life drawing classes - especially for the gestures.

Return to Darkstalkers

Remember the Darkstalkers Tribute Album I mentioned earlier?

Got an e-mail today saying I'll be in it! I'm telling friends and family, getting some buzz going about it. They still want the actual pieces to be hush-hush, so I won't put the work up til after summer.

In the meantime I need to get back in the habit of putting my daily sketches and projects up here. Been doing some color samples for comics, so those should be up shortly.

Finished!

This didn't too long, once I had a color palette put together. Enjoy!