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.

Mama Said Knock You Out!!!

I have been a long time fan of the "sweet science", better known as Boxing. Having fought for many years myself as an amateur Golden Gloves champion. So today's post is a color sketch of a boxer who finds himself getting set up for a knockout blow. However boxing is a sport where one punch at any given time can end the match for either party. As they say, it's not over till the fat lady sings.