Jab Jab Whammo, now available at Amazon.com

So before I get into some shameless self promotion, I wanna take the time out to share some awesome tutorials by the very talented Anthony Jones. If your not familiar with his work, do yourself a favor and check it out here. I first heard of Anthony Jones through a 9-week Creature Design course that I signed up for over at the Schoolism site a few years ago. The course was awesome, I learned tons and have been following Anthony's work ever since. Anthony has put together a series of very affordable tutorials , and from the sounds of it he intends on adding a bunch more. I picked up Designing with confidence, Painting with confidence, Zbrush to Photoshop workflow, And Kitbashing your own Paintings. They are all awesome, so head on over there and pick them up. You won't be disappointed. You can check out the Videos Here. I forgot to mention he includes all the files, tools etc. that he uses. Now for some self love :) My art book Jab, Jab, Whammo is now available through the Amazon marketplace. You can check that out here. Good father's Day gift I must say, perfect for toilet reading :) So feel free to help spread the word about Anthony's tutorials and my book of course. Sharing is caring you know. You can preview a sample of the book below, and I also added a nifty little animated Gif of some progress shots of a painting of Italian Actress Gina Lollobrigida that I am working on. I'll be posting the finished piece soon, so be sure and check back. Thanks for stopping by, Enjoy!!!!

jab, jab, WHAMMO!!! by Rafael Rivera | Make Your Own Book

The Creature from out of the Mist.

I fell asleep a few nights ago while watching Stephen king's The Mist directed by Frank Darabont. This guys been dying to get out of my head ever since. lol This one started out as a z-brush sketch done with dynamesh option turned on in z-brush 4r4, then painted in photoshop cs6. Towards the end of the piece I uploaded Anthony Jones tool presets (which you can get for free and watch a quick video demo at the schoolism site. http://schoolism.com/?share=r0qv2 The presets were cool to play around with. If you have CS6, copy and paste the link above and check 'em out. I have been enrolled in Anthony's creature design course for the last few weeks, and I must say it is so much fun, and I am learning tons. I highly recommend the course to anyone who wants to step up their creature designs. Plus Anthony is super talented, so your learning from someone who is very good at what they do. O.K., so here's my creature, Thanks for stopping by:)

Creature Concept

This is the dragon design that I posted as a sneak peek in the last post. Below it is the first pass based on the thumbnail on the upper left corner. As you can see the horns and wing did not make sense with the anatomy so they got scrapped for a better design. I used a picture of a plate of BBQ Chicken and Beef ribs that me and my wife made for the 4th of July for my color pallet. Proof that inspiration can come from anywhere:) This was done as an exercise for Anthony Jones's creature design course on Schoolism.com

Alex In Wonderland?

Here is an illustration I did using an abstract ink blot thumbnail as a jump off point. The ink blots just looked like mushrooms to me, so I thought why not do a cool version of Absalom with a gas mask hookah and a Steam punk garbed character that's obviously a long way from home. And while we are on the subject of Alice In Wonderland... I finally finished the Johnny Depp/ Tim Burton caricature I was working on. I can't even count how many projects these two have done together. I love their collaborations. I wonder if Tim gets jealous when Gore Verbinski uses Depp in his films:) Next up is a W.I.P. of another assignment for Anthony Jones's creature course. Followed by some random doodles. enjoy:)

Creatures

So here is some more thumbnails done for Anthony Jones's Creature design course. I did a quick study of a rhino with some studies of the skeleton structure. I got some great advice from creature designer Carlos Huante after he reviewed some of my work, that involves me doing alot more of these type of exercises to ground my designs more. Carlos is one of my favorite creature designers, and the advice he gave was invaluable, Thanks Man:) The next couple of thumbnails were inspired by the Scribbler Too sketches I posted earlier on this blog. Keeping Anthony Jones's techniques in mind and letting the abstract shapes dictate the direction I go in with the creatures. I will most likely select a few of these and make finished pieces out of them in the near future. Next is a few cartoony thumbnails and a zombie pinocchio done for two different clients. These designs are not being used , so I might as well share them here. Enjoy!!!

Tim and Johnny update

I got to do a little more on my Tim Burton and Johnny Depp caricature today. Hopefully I will be able to finish it soon, but I am taking my time and working on it in between work and Anthony Jones's creature design course on schoolism which I started earlier this week. It's a lot of fun and I highly recommend the course. The first lesson assignments called for some thumbnails of a dragon creature which we'll be finishing at the end of the nine weeks. Below is the caricature which still has a way to go, followed by my first assignment and more scribbler too sketches.