Thursday, December 31, 2009

Axolotl Doodle


Clearly inspired by my recent oogling of the Charley Harper book, and because I told Kari to draw one, I whipped up this Axolotl doodle tonight in celebration of getting some work done. It seems like it's been forever since I've drawn something for fun.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas to Me, From Me


One morning last week, in a fit of holiday cheer, I ordered myself the latest printing of the unbelievably inexpensive and insane Charley Harper monograph. This is my kind of book. It's massive, over 400 pages thick, and almost every page is just pictures. Big pictures! Big book! I haven't even begun to look through it all, but here are some choice cuts. And if you don't dig it, check your pulse.


My favorite Harper piece, so far. Can't beat a bloody dinosaur fight (Merry Christmas!)




One fer me Aussie mate.


Now GO BUY ONE!!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

PokeProgress 1


I'm going to try and post more progress pieces of the Pokemon Kid. Here's a still from one of those pre-battle fast-moving-background-with-character-calling-out-their-Pokemon shots. Can you dig it????

Sunday, October 25, 2009

cute\\grotesque


Lately I've been interested in the juxtaposition of cute and grotesque. The rad pizza dude was a lot of fun to draw. I also enjoyed drawing the little blob guy's expression. It took me a while to find a coloring method and palette that I liked, but I think this look fits it pretty well.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Pokemon Kid Gross Up


Here's a screenshot of a gross up shot of the Pokemon Kid right after he sees the Oddishes run by and realizes he's passed into the realm of Pokeland. I wasn't entirely sold on the real throat, but it grew on me pretty quickly. I like the extra creep factor it adds. And it's pretty gross.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Pokemon Kid Scene


Here's a finished shot from my Pokémon Kid Animation that I'm putting together in my free time. This shot takes place right after the kid wakes up to find himself in Pokéland. Is that real? I don't remember it being called Pokéland. Well it is now.

More Freelance Screenshots

Here are a few screenshots from a previous freelance short that Ben and I made.

Wastecorp on a sweltering day:


Part of a panning "Break Room" background in Wastecorp:


Wastemeister enjoying a cool breeze from his open refrigerator:

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Some Freelancing Screenshots

Been without the internet for a few weeks, makes it tough to drum up a blog post. Here's some screenshots from my freelance Flash work, which I animate with my good buddy Ben Bury.

First, an Illustration I did of Wastecorp, Wastemeister's office building for the loading screen.

Wastemeister at his desk. My background with Ben's Wastemeister drawing.

My shot of Wastemeister's clock.

Here's a take I animated with my background.

And a Ben Bury Wastemeister over my pink bubbly background. Great face.

Hopefully there'll be more posts soon. Internet first.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

New Self Portrait



Every once in a while I like to make a new one. I'm not really this ornery looking, honest. I drew this one in Flash and colored it in Photoshop.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Gonzo: Portrait of a Weirdo


My latest doodle, a portrait of my absolute favorite Muppet, Gonzo the Great. He's always been my main Muppet since I was a kid; I've always felt like I can really relate with someone commonly called a "creep," a "weirdo," and a "whatever." John Cleese once called him "the ugly, disgusting little one who catches cannonballs." Story of my life.

This illustration was a lot of fun to work on. I started with a quick rough sketch I made in Flash with no intentions of doing anything with it.

I then brought the sketch into Illustrator and inked it/cleaned it up.

From there, I brought it into Photoshop and painted it up.

This post obviously wouldn't be complete without a video of Gonzo's act. Dave Goelz is a brilliant puppeteer.

Friday, May 22, 2009

King Hippo


My roommate, Dylan Lathrop bought Punch-Out for the Wii yesterday. I've always liked Punch-Out, and this new game is awesome. The graphics are really fun to look at, having a cel-shaded look. Super challenging game too, I highly recommend it. It couldn't be more perfect for the Wii controls either. The insanity of the game made me draw my favorite Punch-Out character, King Hippo.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Owl and the Squirrel


Finally "done" with this thing. My brother Sam did the sound design on the piece, I think he did a really great job. There are still things I'd change, and some great suggestions that were made that I unfortunately didn't have time to revise (sorry Mike). I should probably put music in there....but I haven't written any yet. Let me know if the video plays alright. Ed said it was playing choppy and laggy on his computer, and I don't want that to be the case.

If anyone's interested in seeing my graduating class's Commencement Exhibition (Senior Show), you should come to MCAD and check them out. The shows will be up until the 17th, and there's some really cool stuff in there, beyond just animations. But if you are interested in checking out some cartoons, head to Gallery 148 in MCAD, where all of the animators have a group show. Everything said, I'm pretty ready to move onto a different project... O__O

Monday, April 13, 2009

Do you hear that?



Click the button (I might..) to watch it. Sound required. It's just something small (tiny, really) I made since my Senior Project is preventing me from making anything bigger or cooler at the moment. I think it's funny.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

LAZERZ


I painted this in Photoshop for James Obrien's Digital Illustration class. We were given some time in class to do an illustration inspired by the topic word "tangle." I came up with some tangled electricity/energy beam. I got the idea from looking at the concept drawings in the Special Features section of my Ghostbusters DVD. They had designed some really cool looking beams and drew them on black paper with what I remember to be chalk or pastel. This was really fun to make, and I think it's neat to look at so I'll probably make more.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

On the Surface of the Moon


Here's my latest background painting effort, a panning shot of the moon. I wanted to finish this one quickly, and I did, but that meant I wouldn't allow myself to go back and work new ideas into it. The result is a piece that I like, but think could have stronger/more fun design. It was fun to do though, so I'll probably make a better moon shot in the future. I've been listening to a lot of John Lear and Richard C. Hoagland's interviews about how they believe there to be mining operations on the moon as we speak and even that the moon itself is artificial and was towed into orbit thousands of years ago. ... They're a lot of fun to listen to.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Sam's Branmallow Man


This is my version of my brother Sam's character that he created for an assignment in Mike Owens' Storyboarding class. I actually like Sam's version of him better, seen here in a greyscale storyboard sketch:

Sam invented this little bran guy (made of bran, not poop) who's the mascot of the Branmallow cereal. The commercial Sam thought up and storyboarded is hilarious, and hopefully Sammy and I will have some time in the future to animate it. I'll let you know when Sam posts the boards up.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Magical River of Adventure in Technicolor


Click it big. This took a long time to color, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. It came out pretty much exactly how I wanted it to, which is rare. I definitely had the work of Sid and Marty Krofft (H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters) on my mind while making this. If you've never seen those shows, I encourage you to check them out, they're amazing.
Here are a few closer shots of some sections.


Friday, March 20, 2009

Boshi-Basiik Designs


SMBFC.net wrote a nice article about my girlfriend Susan's company, Boshi-Basiik recently. Amidst the table of Susan's adorable hats is one I actually designed: the Koala. It's light blue..and on her head. I designed a handful of hats for Basiik over this past summer, and thought I'd post some here now that they've been made. They were scribbled pretty quickly in Flash, but they're kind of fun.

The aforementioned koala design.

The obligatory owl design. I gave this one ear flaps that are actually little wings, which I think are cute, though a bit much for handmade bulk production.

This raccoon-looking character is actually a Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog). This was the first hat design I came up with, and originally did so just because I planned on begging Susan for a custom hat of that design. It's also my favorite one, probably because it's the one I wanted in the first place.

And of course, the line wouldn't be complete without a hat of our wonderful cat, Mudjo. And this post wouldn't be complete without this picture of him after he wedged his plump body into a shoebox on the desk next to me.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Owl and Squirrel Background


Here's an establishing shot from my Senior Project animation about an owl and a squirrel. If you look closely, you can see the owl perched atop the hero tree in the shot. The camera will be slowly zooming in on him in the animation. I painted the piece in greyscale first, then colorized it, all in Photoshop. I actually like the grey version a lot too, so I'll post that as well. The trees are from a custom brush I made.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Forbidden Island


Here's my latest environment comp. I looked at this next to the other illustration I'm working on at the moment (coloring my waterfall drawing) and I realized that this piece is really boring comparatively, even though I personally like it. My future environment compositions will hopefully have a bit more going on, in terms of design. That said, as boring as it is, I'm sorta into it. My love for Mary Blair's conceptual work on Peter Pan definitely played a role this one. I sort of based it on that particular body of work, but not directly. Instead of using her work as reference for style, I used my cloudy memory of what I could remember her Peter Pan work looking like. The result ended up not really looking like the Mary Blair work much at all, but had a similar tone to it.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Waterfalls


This is the first you'll see of this large drawing. It started out as just the top waterfall and grew into this. I represented the flow of the water with a changing pattern. I had a surprisingly good time making the stagnant swamp water pattern. My favorite part is probably all the faces, trees...well, I drew things I like, so I'm into the entire piece I guess. I've got some plans for coloring it, hopefully that doesn't take forever. I'll probably color it in Photoshop, but I drew it all in Illustrator.

Friday, February 27, 2009

More Background Comps



Here are a few more environment compositions that I made. I actually made the forest comp back in October and forgot I made the picture until I stumbled upon it today while looking through my art folder. The other piece is an image of some islands I was inspired to draw by a Suiseki I saw in a Bonsai book. There'll be some more interesting stuff up soon hopefully.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Flapjack



Flapjack's quickly become one of my favorite cartoons. What's not to love? It has insanely great character design by C Raggio and Devin Roth, and amazing art direction in general. Love all the visual gags too, I can't get enough funny faces.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fallen Tree comp


Here's a thumbnail-sized composition for an illustration I may make a finished version of. If it's unclear, it's three (or 3 and a half?) people crossing a creek on a fallen tree under cloak of night. Sorry it's so small, that's just what it is.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Susan and Mudjo


I drew this as a gift for Susan; it's her and our cat Mudjo. This turned out better than I expected, so I'll probably continue to be a creep and draw little girls and kitties. D: I drew it in Illustrator and did the color in Photoshop. Here's the real Mudjo in a bowtie, inspired by the drawing.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Stalking Tiger



Here's something I whipped up today, a tiger stalking through a snowy birch forest, whose anticipated meal has fled their firesite. I drew it in Flash and added textures and shading in Photoshop. I think I'm going to try to get back into drawing in Flash.