Happy New Year

My last pen sketch of the year. I wish everyone a healthy ,Prosperous, productive, and sexy 2011. More hot pin-ups, cool robots, and scary stuff etc. in my portfolio this coming year :) Now it's time to drink.

Bruce Willis

Here's a caricature of Bruce Willis as John McClane from the Die Hard Movies. I've been wanting to do a caricature of Bruce Willis for some time now and although he has been in some great flicks throughout the years, the role as John McClane sticks out the most in my mind. This character also lends itself to caricature easily. This piece was done in Photoshop and Corel painter using a technique of about 80% painting and the other 20 photo textures and manipulation. Below I posted the reference pick for comparison:

Santa's Little Helper

Merry Christmas to everyone out there in Cyber Space. Santa has been having a hard time seeing clearly in his old age and Rudolph's light has dimmed a bit through out the years, so one of his cute little helpers was pretty confident that she could keep him focused on the path in the sky in her own little way:) I wonder if she will be on the naughty list this year. lol

Gladiator Mecha

This guy is waiting for his opponent to step into the arena. He's been dying to try out his new mace arm upgrade.

Speedpaint

Here's a speedpainting I call Dinner Time. More like dinner time on Monster Island. The idea came to me while watching Dreamwork's How To Train Your Dragon on Blue Ray.

Graf and Hairstyles

Today's doodles: couple of faces and some GRAF,

Snowy Scenery

Another Character design put into some scenery for presentation purposes. This is a scanned in pencil and painted in Corel painter IX

Crazy Cartoons

I did the sketch for a good friend of mine (He was watching the expendables on his laptop at the time), but decided to color it for fun. You can see the sketch in an earlier post...
Note to Jet Li: I'm so sorry, I love you, please don't kill me, this was only for fun.

Character Design

A quick and dirty color treatment. Enough to get the point across:)

More Cartoon warm-ups

Study, study, draw, draw, happy, happy, joy,joy :)

The Expendables

Here are today's practice/ warm-up sketches. This time doing a caricature/ cartoon version of some of my favorite celebrities. I picked up The Expendables on blue ray this week. It was a real kick ass fun action flick with an all-star cast of rough necks. It would be fun to explore this design for an adult animation short.



Arnold did a quick appearance in the film as well.



I grew up watching Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners.





I'll have to make a point to add some color to these soon.

Pen Sketches

I hope everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving out there in cyber world and beyond. Here are a few warm-up sketches for today done in ball point pen.

Nacho Libre

A quick Caricature sketch before bedtime. I love Jack Black. It's not easy to caricature someone who is already so animated, there is really no need to exaggerate him that much. Here is a sketch of him as Nacho Libre.

Azazel

Azazel is represented in the Book of Enoch as one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time preceding the flood; he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dying the hair, and painting the face and the eyebrows, and also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, leading them into wickedness and impurity; until at last he was, at the Lord's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of Duduael, where he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever.
“ The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin. ”
— 1 Enoch 10:8
According to 1 Enoch (a book of the Pseudepigrapha), Azazel was one of the chief Grigori, a group of fallen angels who married women. This same story (without any mention of Azazel) is told in Genesis 6:2-4:
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also afterward, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
1 Enoch portrays Azazel as responsible for teaching people to make weapons and cosmetics, for which he was cast out of heaven.

I started this piece as a mirror image in the program Alchemy, then later carried into photoshop for a paintover and texture pass. I wanted to experiment with a different style here, more of a collage then a painting.

Daily Warm_up

A quick warm up sketch I call Big Chief Clickem Teeth.

Toy Design

Part of a turn around model sheet for a old biker dude.

Military Reference

Some practice sketches for today. I was looking through a huge book I own of military uniforms from around the world, and the pics inspired a bunch of sketches. Here's a couple of them.

Pacquiao vs Margarito

For my daily warm-up today, I decided to do a couple of caricature/cartoons of the two warriors about to do battle tomorrow night. Manny "Pac-Man Pacquiao vs. Antonio "The Tijuana Tornado" Margarito. It should be interesting, hopefully there's no hand wrap scandal or steroid rumors. May the best man win.

Bikes and Babes

Some more daily warm-ups. Some figure drawing, and a Katsuhiro Otomo inspired (Akira) character on a bike. When I practice figure drawing, I still try and apply my style to the sketch and not so much drawing exactly what I see.

New Sketches

Here are a few sketches I did while watching some movies last night:

Vehicle Thumbnails

A couple of vehicle iterations. These start out as abstract shapes done in Alchemy, then carried over to Photoshop for refinement. This technique allows me to come up with several dozen designs very quickly. Some of the shapes can be turned into photoshop brushes or used as parts for other ships or mech designs.

Amaros

A Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen AngelsArmaros was the eleventh on a list of 20 leaders of a group of 200 fallen angels called Grigori or "Watchers." in the Book of Enoch. The name means "cursed one" or "accursed one". In the book of Jubilees Amaros was credited with teaching man Enchantments and Magic. I knew that I wanted to depict the demon with two heads and thought it would be cool to have the heads stacked like a totem pole, rather than side by side. I'll be doing a series of fallen angels and heavenly angels in the near future. I figured it being October and all, I would post this nightmarish image in progress. Enjoy.

Grafitti Graphics

A graf sketch for a possible t-shirt design. The character has a message for the powers that be, " if you can pry the can from my 5 deadly venoms grip, then I'll stop". Now that's dedication for you.

Daily Warm-ups

Some more daily doodles from DARAF

Random scribbles

Messing around with random shape generator program Alchemy and various custom brushes in photoshop for fun.

a scribble a day

A scribble a day to keep the creative juices flowing.

More Scribbles

Some daily warm-ups before work.

Character design technique

Here's a fun way to design characters. Start off with a few random shapes, then try and fit a face into the shape. I came up with dozens of cartoon aliens, girls, guys etc. using this technique. Give it a try, it's fun. Don't feel restricted to the shape, you can draw outside of the shape if you need to, but it's a good starting point.

New interview on theboxingnews.com

I was asked to do an interview by Ray Kilgore for his site the boxing stories.com Ray had contacted me initially about using my art for the header on his website. During our correspondence we ended up getting into a conversation about boxing and I told him I was an amateur boxer when I was younger and also that I boxed out of St.Paul Minnesota (He also has a site called Minnesota boxing .com) He then asked me if I would be willing to do an interview for his site. It was a lot of fun to share my story with Ray and also to reconnect through Ray with some of my old friends and coaches that were such a big part of my life.
Here is a link to the article:
http://boxing-buzz.com/?p=95
you can also check out Ray Kilgore sites for the latest in the Boxing world:
www.minnesotaboxing.com
www.theboxingstories.com
I would like to give a special thanks to Ray Kilgore for the opportunity to interview with him and share my art with the boxing community. R.I.P. Tommy Brunette , my amateur boxing coach and mentor, and also to all the families that lost loved ones during 9/11, my family's prayers are with you all.
Here is a cartoon/ caricature of one of my all time favorite fighters, Rocky Marciano who retired an undefeated champion with a record that was similar to my amateur record: 49-0

having fun with Z-brush 4

This guy's head was sculpted in Z-brush 4 using the work of the insanely talented Jordu schell as reference. I then carried it into photoshop were I added the torso, background, textures and color. I imagine this guy just escaped or emerged from some experimental chamber, hence the green smoke. The green growth on his body looks like it could erupt at any moment with larvae.
Jordu Schell is a character designer that has worked on many of the top films we see today. His credits include: Predators, Chronicles Of Narnia, Avatar, The Mist, Hellboy, and 300, just to name a few. This guys sculptures are amazing. Check out his blog, where he post his daily creature drawings. http://schellstudio.com/blog/

Godzilla Wants a Burger

I wanted to explore a style that was painterly, sort of like the work of Artist Paul Felix. This was an older drawing I did when I was taking a game designing course with The Art Institute a few years ago. I Painted over top of the original painting using some oil brushes in Corel Painter IX. Godzilla was a favorite of mine growing up, and some of my earliest memories as far as art goes, was of me drawing Godzilla and some of his villain monsters fighting. I would like to explore this style further, next time with a newer piece. you can check out some of Paul Felix's work in the Art Of Bolt book, among other animated films he's worked on. paul is an amazing talent.