JUST FOR FUN

This was a quickie image I did to show to a prospective client. I wanted to demonstrate that I could handle doing dynamic images of vehicles. It's a little different from what I normally do but it was a fun exercise.

RUMPLESTILTZKIN

This was an image I just completed as part of a series on Grimm's fairy tales... I guess I am going to a little bit of a dark place these days--still working out some issues and trying to find a style that more reflects my personality. Really, the best thing for me is just to keep sketching--keep the pencil on the paper. Some good stuff happens, but not always. It's about patience and persistence. Funny thing though... I almost prefer the illo on the right--the less polished one. It looks more lively and has more character than the one I spent hours on. Fancy that...

GPCP AUCTION PIECE: TRY AGAIN JAMES

Okay, so the first painting idea I had (the take off on the Obama "Hope" image) was a stupid idea so I jettisoned that idea in favor of this one--which I kind of love. This was a sketch that I just sort of blew up on the canvas and then pretty much just loosely roughed out with acrylics. Once I had all the colors blocked in, I went back in with pastels and then added accents. Total working time, about 4-ish hours (including the time for making coffee, talking on the phone and pulling Daily Show and Colbert up on Hulu).

GPCP AUCTION PIECE: DOG

This is going to be a large-ish canvas that I am planning for the GPCP auction benefit. Of course, it's a play on the whole Obama/Shepard Fairey image that was so ubiquitous during the campaign. Iam thinking a bigger canvas--nothing too huge. I basically found a stock image of a dog and did my own little paint-over in Photoshop. It doesn't make me Duchamp or anything but I thought it made for some pretty nice satire.

Anyway, what I plan on doing is to basically create a pasted collage background and then paint over that on canvas... We'll see. Not really sure how it will come out. You never know with these things, you know? They kind of take on a life of their own. Stay tuned!!

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: INSTINCT

I love to eat them birdies. Birdies what I love to eat. Bite they little heads off. Nibble on they tiny feet.

SKETCHBOOK DROPPINGS: NEW STYLE

I have been adapting a style lately that more accurately reflects my personality and how I work. In the past, I have tried so hard to polish my style--to create works that are "gleaming" in their finished appearance. The ironic thing is that those pieces generate nowhere near the positive reaction that my looser, less polished pieces generate. I have shown my portfolio to people, watched them flip past all of the pieces that I was so proud of because of their polished finish only to have them stop at gaze at some sketch. I don't know what that says about me but I think I am going to explore this for awhile.
Here is another piece from my sketchbook...

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: CELEBRATE

Pretty much all I have had time to blog about these days are Illustration Friday topics... I have been busy with work and taking on other projects... It's been hard to stray too far from the work stuff. But I was able to knock together a fun sketch for this topic...

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: TIME

This is another loose color sketch for the Illustration Friday peeps. I don't know what I'm really trying to say here. Maybe nothing. Honestly, some of my sketches lately have seemed a little out there. They're not really anchored in anything except nonsense--which, oddly, I kind of love. I love the organic nature of sketching for fun... I think I need to embrace the nonsense more.

MORE SKETCHES

Some more deposits from the sketchbook. I thought this was a funny sketch. Not really sure why. I just think it's funny...

The other one is a sketch depicting a scene from Rumplestitzken for a series I was planning a year ago on Grimm's Fairy Tales. I never finished it because I don't really think I am saying anything "new" with this image. It's sort of too familiar. I kind of abandoned the whole project due to my inability to stretch... Time permitting, I like the composition though. I might noodle around with it some later...

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: FLAWED

This is my latest entry in Illustration Friday. I noodled this out last night. It's a "flawed" snapping turtle/dog. Of course, the inspiration is definitely Michael Gagne's Insanely Twisted Rabbits.. His character designs are truly twisted and beautiful and look like nothing I've ever seen. Check out his site for more examples of his wonderfully insane art and designs.

I truly need to spend more time sketching. It's so hard when I am staring down the barrel at daily deadlines and other projects, but it's so important to keep those muscles honed and fit. I can really tell when I have been too long away from the sketchbook... My draftsmanship gets very flabby.

TALES FROM THE SKETCHBOOK

Lately, I have been taking a break from work and other stuff to look at old sketches and came across some from a while back when I was thinking about The Jungle Book. I was wanting to create a Shere Kahn design that is less Disney and more "Terry Gilliam." Anyway, I like these tigers a lot. Big cats are a lot of fun.

I posted this on conceptart.org in their critique center and got some amazing feedback... One of the major points was that folks felt that there needed to be more variation in the colors overall--that is, adding more warmer colors, browns, golds, oranges. Others felt like it needed some more atmospheric touches to the background--maybe add some more cooler greens. I even desaturated some areas in the background to provide more of ma feeling of depth. One artist did me the honor of doing a brief "paint-over" on the image to better demonstrate his suggestions. I loved it so much that I tried to recreate the wonderful touches he added--though, of course, I added my own spin.

I attempted to do a "do-over" of this image--basically to flip the axe with the blade down (one critique was that the axe looked a little unnatural posed upright). I also did some revisions to the figure as well. I ultimately felt, however, that this piece was, overall, much stronger. Anyway, I had some printed today and they look amazing. I am pretty pleased with this--although, I see a lot of changes I want to make already. I am most likely going to be doing more pieces on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as time permits. Stay tuned!

Just finished this illustration that I've been picking at since before the holidays. I really do love fantastic art and have long wanted to try to tackle some more challenging subjects... The above image is my depiction of the Green Knight from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I read it many years ago in Medieval Lit class in college and always thought it would make an interesting illustrated text.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the illustration--although I would like to try and re-work the character a little bit. We'll see. Time permitting...

LAST ONE

I did this animation test using Lightwave about 4 years ago. I was messing around with doing Inverse Kinematics--a term used in 3D animation which just signifies a particular method for animating a character's arms, legs and body. It actually sort of works the same way a marionette works.

SOMETIMES I AM SILLY

Me being silly...

I ILLUSTRATE. SOMETIMES, I ANIMATE.

This is a rotoscoped animation I did a few years ago when I was producing a documentary for South Carolina Educational Television about the American Revolution. Wavy Davey, my co-producer, and I had toyed with the idea of doing several rotoscoped animated sequences to serve as visualizations for key points in the story. What we didn't realize was how truly TRULY time consuming it all is. This, coming from an illustrator--not an animator. An animator will tell you, "Well, Duh!" But still. I thought this looked pretty cool--and not bad for about a day's work.

This was another rotoscoped shot with some particle simulated sparks and smoke courtesy of Lightwave 3D. Crude in some ways but I was learning so much. I would video myself and then import the files into Premiere. I can't remember how I output the files to facilitate drawing on them in photoshop but... Anyway, then I converted the Pshop files into vector images and then colored them in Illustrator. I think I used Flash to animate and then AfterEffects to compose? I can't remember. It's been awhile. Of course the person bears a striking resemblance to me:)

This is the exact moment where I decided I was losing my mind and had to stop... It was taking way to long to get up to where we needed. Of course I was on another deadline at the time.

Anyway, I'll publish some more as I go through these...

MORE MOVIE SKETCHES

This was a quick 20 minute photoshop sketch I did of a scene from Last of the Mohichans--one of my all time favorite historical movies. Below is a detail/closeup:


When I say 20 minutes, that is to say I was really screaming fast and didn't even try to capture Wes Studi's likeness. Had I been trying to get a likeness, I would have spent much more time working on the drawing. This is really more of an exercise to try and nail down some lighting and value issues I have been having lately. Being largely self-taught as an artist, I am constantly realizing how little I actually know about color/value/composition. I have been sort of faking it--intuitively feeling my way through. Most of the time it works out but I often find myself struggling with some basic stuff as an illustrator--stuff most artists probably work out in art school.

Of course, the trick is to keep drawing. I am going to plan on doing several of these--as many as I can, a week. We'll see...

MORE PROJECTS I CAN'T TALK ABOUT

It's frustrating but I can't post anything about the cool stuff I am doing right now. Hopefully, I'll be able to soon. In the meantime, be on the lookout for some sketchbook stuff in the near future! Happy Palm Sunday...

TOO MANY PROJECTS

It's funny how the old wheel turns around. A little over a month ago, I was ready to swan dive off the nearest overpass due to the SEVERE lack of any meaningful freelance work. As many of you know, my fulltime job is fine, but let's face it, it's not what I want to spend the rest of my professional life doing and I've been doing it for eleven years. Of course, in that time I have been very lucky to branch out here and there with several side projects like the CHASING THE SWAMP FOX documentary and subsequent picturebook... Still, those projects have been few and far between and last fall was terrible. I was considering going back to school--which to me, felt more like an act of desperation than anything else. I mean, what would I study? And I'd be in exactly the same boat when I got out of school, only this time, I'd be in A LOT more debt! It was really starting to scare the ever living holy hell out of me. The idea that I was going to be this sad, bitter 50 year old scraping together one little gig after another... When faced with the alternatives of either shitting or getting off the pot. I chose to get off the pot and get moving. I can shit later...

Now I find myself awash in cool freelance projects and am even turning some down here and there. I am bound by a confisentiality agreement I signed not to publically discuss some of them but they are pretty cool and I am hoping some of these projects grow into something bigger. We'll see. I also submitted some Illustrations to the Spectrum Fantastic Art annual. We'll see if I got in or not... I should know this week whether I made it. I am hoplessly hopeful that I made the cut--but I won't be disappointed if I don't. It's a very presitgious annual and you have to really bring it if you want to make it in. I'll just keep submitting and see what happens...

Anyway, hopefully this trend of business will continue and I'll be able to post some preview images soon!

POLITICS

I am for Obama this November. I think he represents the best hope for our country to break the cycle of destructive "dynasty" politics. I also like the fact that he is, at once, critical of where we've been as a country--and yet is openly and genuinely optimistic about our country's potential. That is a most progressive virtue.

One thing that is getting me riled though is how he is being attacked as being "unpatriotic" for not wearing a flag lapel pin. This is a talking point that originated from the orifices of the right wing media and some of the festering lie suck-holes at CNN. All I have to say is this: If George Bush's little play-time dress-up photo-op on the deck of the aircraft carrier (mission accomplished!) is the measure of a patriot, I think we could all do without that kind of patriotism for awhile. Obama is hadling it very deftly though, by simply refusing to dignify those attacks with any sort of substantive reply.

Here's to Barack rocking on to the nomination...