New Sketches

Some sketches, soon to be colored. Have a Happy new Years everyone.

Interview

I would like to thank the guys over at the Character Design Blog http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/ for posting a short interview in the blogs portfolio review section. You can check out the interview here http://portfolio-review.blogspot.com/2007/12/rafael-rivera.html
While you're there make sure you take some time to look around the site. I have it bookmarked myself. They do great reviews of up and coming movies and books and they showcase some of the best talents in the field of comics and animation. This a great place for inspiration if you are an artist.

And now for some random cartoony pig sketches and my latest business card design.

One eyed Ogre

This Cyclops was inspired by Stop Motion Animation great, Ray Harryhausen. Some of my earliest memories and influences can be traced back to Ray's creature creations in movies like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Clash Of The Titans, Just to name a few.

Shepherd Of The Forest

This Old Soul is the last of his kind. He has vowed never to leave his post until the time appointed. Inspired by the Forest Ents of The Lord Of The Rings movies.

Dead School Girl

I have been meaning to do a painting of a zombie or ghost dressed in a school girl outfit. This painting is inspired by a mix of the work of Japanese Horror directors and pin-up artist. Below is a close-up shot of the face details.

Werewolf

I had a lot of fun detailing this one. You gotta love a werewolf with dreadlocks.

Horror concept

The latest in nightmarish images from your truly. Trying out some new techniques with this one. It helps to be versatile in this business.

Santa's Hidden city

This is a concept I developed about a secret portal that Santa would have to pass through to get in and out of his hidden city somewhere in the North Pole. The idea here is that although Santa lives in the North Pole, his city is not visible with the naked eye, or so easy to get to without a special map and instructions. I may revisit this concept to show the hidden city and maybe the elf factory where they make the toys. This piece focuses on the trail leading in and out of the city and the portal, which is a huge highly advanced structure that is in the shape of a Christmas tree. I though it would be neat to have a bunch of huge toy statues on either side of the trail, sort of like a Christmas version of ancient Egyptian pyramids and statues. I also posted a few close ups of the huge toy statues and a Nativity scene made up of Lego people.

Warrior Orc

Inspired by Tolkien's Lord Of the Rings and Peter Jackson's movie trilogy version :

Big winged Lizard

A dragon concept I decided to paint. I started out in greyscale, then started overlaying color and detail.

Digital Painting

Here is a digital painting of a sketch I posted in an past blog entry. I went back to my Brooklyn roots by including a little graffiti influence and a character with personality and attitude.

Character, vehicle, and architecture ideation

These concepts were done as a test for Billy Patton of Vizual Fx studios. www.billydallaspatton.com The first is a page of quick character ideas done in a silhouette style of ideation. Working in small black and white silos allow me to generate tons of character variations quickly, by freeing my mind of thinking in details, and instead focusing on the graphic and shape aesthetic of the character. Next I chose a few silos that I liked and worked them up to a rough detailed version of the character in and out of armor. The second to last piece is a concept of an all terrain attack vehicle. The small silhouette is placed next to the vehicle to provide a size reference for the vehicle. Last is a concept for a high rise apartment complex that will be inhabited by a race of feline type humanoids. The photo of the cat furniture was my inspiration for the shape of the building.

Robo-Kong

This one was fun to draw. I had to do something with some goofy cartoon proportions and details. The idea here is that the guy on top operating the Robo-kong transport is a highly intelligent monkey.

Brains anyone?

Here is a recent painting I completed of a Zombie chef, just in time to gross you out for Halloween. I included a few progress shots -painting, textures, then final details, lighting and color corrections.

Skull Robot

Skull Robot: This would make a cool Halloween outfit.

Cat-girls and Fat Boxers

A few more sketches for your viewing pleasure. I will start to paint some of these sketches soon, stay tuned.

More Sketches

Here are a few , I worked on today. Slow day at the tattoo shop, might as well draw.

New Tats and concept art

Here are 2 Pin-up girl tattoos I completed today. The first is done on my long time friend and fellow tattoo artist Don Caudill. Don's work can be viewed on his site www.tattoosbybigdaddydon.com The second piece is a tat of a sketch right out of my personal sketch book, done on shop owner/ tattoo artist Jeff Browning of Tattoo Jungle in Pelham Alabama. As always I post the original sketches and the finished tat to give you a glimpse of the work in progress. The last piece is a zombie for a project I am working on. This one is still a work in progress.

New Sketches

I have not updated in awhile, so here are a few sketches for now. Enjoy.