This morning I decided that I needed a Pikachu iPhone Wallpaper so I made this. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I'm pretty into how it did. I've been wanting to do some electricity stuff ever since I did the LAZERZ a long while back. Here it is in action: Hope you dig it!
Here's the latest finned fiend, a Blood Parrot. These fish are a manmade hybrid. Really cool blaze orange color and funny stumpy body. Inspiration, Bryn's Parrot:
Here's fish numbah 3. If the last one had ice powers, then this one can harness the power of fire. This coloration of fish what's called a "fader." They start out the normal brown color, like the first fish I made, then they "fade" to this orange/yellow/white hue. Good looking fish. And here's our fire and ice duo. And I probably should include the actual fish:
Here's the latest fish painting. Owen says this one has ice powers. I'm going to do a bunch of fish I think, which will be different for me. Never really done a series before so it should be fun. This painting is simpler than the last one, but I think I like it more. It's a bit more geometric, I like that.
This particular fish belongs to a friend of mine here in the cities. He's one of the highest quality fish around. His entire body is covered in a light blue/iridescent sheen.
I bought this fish as a pet/show fish a year ago and he was 2" long. At about 8" I gave him away and from there he grew to 10 inches and then just up and died a couple weeks ago. Here's a photo journal of the fish, from 2" to 10" in one year's time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My school is having every student make something to send to the president when he gets elected. I thought the future president might like a portrait of his rival, or if worse comes to worse, a portrait of himself to hang on the oval office wall. I did this piece in Painter 7, in the style of Basil Gogos' monster paintings that I love so much.
One of the promised Bela Lugosi portraits. Speaking of Bela Lugosi, if you haven't seen Tim Burton's film ED WOOD, I highly suggest it; it's Burton's best movie (even better than Planet of the Apes). But seriously, it's really, really good. Martin Landau gives an Oscar-winning performance as Count Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi. As for performances from the actual Bela Lugosi, check out director Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, where he gives a great performance, even though he was dead when the movie was made...but I don't need to tell you guys this, you should all already know.
A digital painting I spit out. I have 2 Bela Lugosi's in the mix. One time, in Storyboarding class, a student (we'll call him "C. Cebulski") said the words, "Who's Vincent Price?" That student was killed that day in class.
Here's a Hanna-Barbera-like background I made for my Count Goulash animation. Photoshop, Photoshop, Photoshop. Also, here's a close-up shot of Goulash's finger pointing at his calendar.
