Egyptian Robot

This is another crazy bot concept I have been working on. I decided to do an Egyptian themed robot. Originally he was going to have a uni-wheel, but I thought he could be more use in the desert if he hovered somehow (hence the anti-gravity thingy). I like the contrast of a past historical theme with a futuristic twist. I call this one The Pharaoh's guard.

BK-7

This is a robot concept that I had in one of my old sketchbooks. Up until now it was just a ball point pen doodle about 2in. by 2in. Still, the silhouette held up nice at that size, so I knew it would work when I blew it up and painted it. To make the design harmonize, I played up the shape by repeating the egg shapes throughout the design. I imagine this robot to be more of an industrial mechanic type robot. That thing on his shoulder is some kind of soldering gun, but it can double as a weapon if he needs it too. Stephen Spielberg's AI and anime movies like Ghost In the Shell 2 were influences for this character.

We are having a baby

I just found out recently that my wife and I are having a baby (Yaaay). After 10 years of marriage , I really didn't expect it to ever happen. Vicky (wife), has 2 children, and I have 1 daughter from a previous relationship. This will be our first child together. The family is all very excited about this new addition. Best Christmas present I ever had. It seems like just yesterday, my step-children were little babies themselves. they are both grown and about to graduate high school soon. Now my wife will have some company to help her with any empty nest syndrome she may have experienced when her children go off to school.
I am also working on a graphic novel with my good friends Todd Livingston (MTV's Wild n' Out) and Scott Madden ( Producer - The Contender) . I will tell you more about that and the baby as it all develops. Here are some more cartoon faces I did for practice today. As always I enjoy trying out new techniques. If it isn't fun, I can't get into it.

Video game concept art and tattoos

Here are two colored versions of some of the sketches I posted earlier. I was tattooing for the last ten years and only recently took a hiatus from the tattoo world to pursue other avenues of artwork. I decided to use some tattoos as a design element within both of these characters. The first character has a day of the dead skull on his weapon and the second a devil girl pin - up on his arm.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Here are a couple of warm up sketches for the day to get me ready for work.

Siesta Key Beach

The first one is a page of sketches from out of my Moleskine journal, I try to carry it when I'm out so I can get some live sketching of the people around me. These were done at Siesta Key beach in Florida. I live about 10 minutes from there, so I am never out of Models. I try not to be too realistic and practice exaggerating the features instead. The next few are designs of Lord Gordmout, for a children's book written by Donald Rogers and illustrated by yours truly.
The rest are a series of sketches I did throughout the week. Some of them are works in progress, and will be painted soon.

Cartoon Soldier

Here are a couple of cartoon soldiers from different parts of the world and different time periods in history. Perhaps I will start a series of these. This gives me a good excuse to keep experimenting with various techniques. Outlining with different tools and rendering the colors differently gives you an infinite amount of possibilities.

Sneaker Pimp

Here is a character design I did for my good friend Steven Jones, for his clothing label, Soul Ova Gold. Steve's urban clothing line should be launching some time in Spring of 2008 and many of the T-shirts will be featuring artwork by yours truly. To keep up to date on Soul Ova Gold, goto www.soulovagold.com
Next up is a character design for a short comic book story and a grumpy old man wondering why all the beer is gone. This caricature is based loosely on actor Burgess Meredith, from Grumpy Old Men.

STEVE MASSERONI

My good friend artist Steve Masseroni just launched his new website recently and it is a must see site. I had the pleasure of working with Steve on a project called The Silver Cord this summer. I had a good time collaborating on the pages with him. It was fun and a great learning process, plus I met some new friends. Here are 2 of the pages we worked on together. They were pencilled by Steve and I provide the color under his art direction. If all goes well , Silver Cord should be out in the book stores sometime in 2008. Everybody involved has big plans for this project, but I can't say too much about it at this point. So head over to Steve's site, to learn more about the Silver Cord and see why this brother of mine is so Rockin'
http://www.mazz-art.com/

Cartoon Character design

Here are a few sketches of character design I have been working on recently. I decided to explore a different approach to the coloring. For these I don't concern myself with rendering to the point of detail that I achieve with some of my other pieces, but instead keep the detail to a minimum of detail and very little shading. I pick a flat color, a darker tone of that color for shade and a darker version for the colored outline. This gives it a nice animation character design quality. The inspiration for these come from a combination of everyday people I see around me, and character designers/cartoonist that work on animated films like the kind put out by Disney, Dreamworks animation, Pixar, anime etc.
No matter what style I work in, I try to make sure I keep my own signature style in there somewhere. I am working on a bunch of other characters done in a similar style, so I will be posting them as I complete them. I find this style fun, easy and liberating, so I decided to explore it further.

Ace Comics

Here is some work I did recently for Ace comics. I will be doing much more for this company in the near future, so I will update as often as possible. Ace has tons of cool projects in the works that they are about to launch. To read more about their plans for future projects, check out the myspace page www.myspace.com/chara19
The gun on the sci-fi girl comes from an old Power Rangers toy, my step-son, Miguel used to play with. Proof that inspiration can come from just about anywhere and anything.

Bagged and Boarded the movie

Here are a few of the pieces I have done recently for Writer/Director Ralph Suarez and WarmMilk productions. They are for a movie project called Bagged and Boarded. Ralphie is a great person to work with. He always provides a detailed description of what he wants and plenty of references also. I hope to work with him more in the near future. To find out more about his films head over to www.warmmilkpro.com and www.baggedandboardedmovie.com

Comic book cover art

This is a comic book cover I am working on for WitchIron Media. They wanted a classic western showdown, with an eclipse in the sky above and a skeleton hand in the foreground. The first pic is the initial sketch that I send the guys over at WitchIron. They approved the sketch ,but wanted the canvas flipped and told me the color scheme they wanted. The second pic is the completed piece.