Happy Holidays

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

Goldilocks and the Bear

A quick drawing. This bear doesn't want to share with...anyone.

Another Goat

I just wanted to draw the hair. I hope that everyone has a terrific weekend!

Goat thing

Franken Creatures

A couple of drawings I wanted to get out of my system before getting off to bed this evening. I guess, I still had a few October drawings left over in the ole' cranium.

Good enough to Teach

A quick ink drawing of one of my favorite genres, pirates. Aye.

Friday Inks

Moments in a Day

YUMMY

He's just thinking about how delicious whatever you have in your lunch bag must be.

Morning Sketches

Anything more fun than a brand new duckie in your hands?

Sketchbook

Here are a couple of ink skethes that I found while rummaging around in my art closet. I really like the nature of the ink pen.

I am working on a little bit of animation for this month's 11 Second Club competition. It has been great fun to break out the old animation paper and start the mad dash of scribbles. I cannot believe how rusty my animation bones have become. Still, this practice affords me the opportunity to draw, draw, draw.

I noticed that this blog just passed the 100 post mark! Considering the frequency of posts, I dare say that I didn't think this time would ever come. So join me and my friend above in celebrating the blog's first milestone!

Character Development for 11 Second Club

I was talking to my coworker, friend and veteran animator, Eugenio Mediavilla, about this month's animation competition for the 11 Second Club. I told him I wanted to do a toddler in his playpen. He immediately began to ideate a thousand and one ideas for the character and the scene. So I asked him to rough up a concept for me to build on. He came in with this sketch which I really liked. In my initial sketches, I had the toddler wearing nothing but diapers. Genio asked me, "are you really going to animate ten fingers and ten toes?" I saw his point.

I merged his concept with the work I had already been doing to create this little guy. I did concede the point about letting the folds in the Onesie help create expressive drawings. However, I needed the little guy to have fingers for the acting I have planned so I did away with the mittens.

How do you like it?

Two for the Price

I have been thinking about entering this months 11 Second Club Animation competition as a way to get back into doing some animation. I really do not have the time to spare, but I am a terrible glutton for punishment.

I decided that my character for the competition is going to be a tyrannical toddler.

Who says I can't Dance

"these are some of my best moves yet around the camp fire.."

Fish Fish

I wanted to make a fun creature drawing to help me to get back into the swing of things. What do you think?

September 11, 2009

This is a suicide mission

"You haven't even heard what the mission is YET! Put your hand DOWN!"

Unrequited Love

She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me....

Pirates

I have always loved pirates! Here are some fun doodles.

ESPN ART

Hello All! I have been terribly busy and terribly awful about keeping the blog current. It seems like I go through spurts of dedication where I post three or more times per week and then trail off. So, for any of you that are actually checking in to the blog today, here is a piece of rejected art done for ESPN.

I don't know why it was rejected, but I like the vintage feel of the design just the same. So there.

Boeing F4B4

I am really lucky to be able to work on such a wide variety of topics and subject matter at my job. On any given day, I might be working on a rendering a very famous parrot. Or I might be designing a candy dish or character coffee mug. I have worked on a hula girl with a grassy skirt and a flirtatious grin. I even got the chance to stretch my graphic design skills by working on various concepts for Indian Motorcycles. That was very cool.

Here, I had the chance to render the F4B4 fighter that was used in the climatic ending to the original King Kong movie. You would never think that this might come up in an M&M illustration. Yet, there it is...plane as day.

Elvgren Study

This is a study after the great pin up artist Gil Elvgren. I wanted to try an emulate his painting style using nothing but Photoshop. Getting a computer to approximate the richness of oil paint is a great exercise! Copying a master stretches the skill set. I didn't really do the original justice, but I did learn alot.

Underwater Fishie

A happy little doodle to get the 'ole pencil warmed up and ready!

Sarge

Just a quick doodle of the Sarge character... he's gonna need another 50 Cent cigar.

Not Tippy

Just another Black Beret concept for Chaotic Fiasco.

She is...

Finished.

Cougar color

I always like to see other people's works in progress, so I am not shy about posting my own. Here I'm experimenting with technique and style. With any luck, I'll learn something as I go! I still need to figure out the leather boots and how I'm going to handle the hair! Should be fun.

Cougars Revisited

Here is another go at the cougar sketch from last week. This time I waned to get a bit more life into the drawing. I think it is moving into the right direction; and it proves that there is great value in doing some warm up drawings!

Beware of the Cougars

While out on the town this past weekend, we spotted some unusual nightlife....apparently, our Metro area has a very robust cougar population.

Mer Mer

I made some changes to this little mermaid. Once I began to throw down some color I noticed some weighty issues with her starboard side that hadn't bothered me before. So I took off a bit here and added some details there. In any event, I would consider this color sketch finito.

More MER

I decided to get myself a little deeper into trouble by sketching in a background. Let's see where this takes us...

Mer-ladie

Here is a bit of process. First a quick sketch of a mermaid just floating around in the water.

A bit of digital inking to get the ball rolling. Still getting used to freehand inking on the computer. Still, well enough for this little exercise.

Now I have begun to lay in some shadows. I am trying to work out a simple value system to help give form. I could not resist throwing in color for the hair. I just knew she would have to be a red head.

Change of Pace

Here is something that I am excited to be working on. As you may have guessed it is a parrot. This is not just any parrot, however, but the one and only Margaritaville Parrot. Since I cannot show the entire piece, I thought I could show a detail of the head.

Here, too, is a detail of the feet. Photoshop can be loads more satisfying when you find the "magic" button. As you can see, I am still looking for that key.

A Son of Berlin

A little character concept of a German infantryman. The Turtle is gonna have his hands full with both the Nazis and the Communists. Not to worry, the Turtle is gonna be serving up a double helping of Pain Cake and there will be plenty of left-overs.

Although by no means a final design, I thought I would add some color to this sketch...just for fun.

Henri Grenouille

Here's a glimpse of Henri Grenouille, the local Marquis contact for Operation Chaotic Fiasco. I like to keep my first sketch of a character rough and untethered to the need to make a good drawing. Otherwise, I get hung up on the mechanics and cannot connect with the "character" I am trying to draw.

Please let me know what you think of all these character doodles so far!

Take a Gander at this...

Lt. Robert Downs of Her Majesty's Special Air Service on loan to the American Rangers detachment, the Black Berets, for Operation Chaotic Fiasco in occupied Europe...

Green is my Favorite Color

I cannot believe how fast the week has gone by. I am working on some more concept sketches for the Crazy Turtle idea that was spawned last week. I am having a great time researching old photos and World War II era uniforms and weapons for these yet unseen sketches. Check back for progress on those. In the meanwhile, here is my go for this week's DrawerGeeks, the Orion Slave Girl from Star Trek. Also, see the new movie. It's pretty entertaining.

Bearly a Sketch

If that turtle is going to fight the Commies, he's going to need an adversary.