The ARt of Jeff Welborn

FRESH FROM THE OVEN

2012-01-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

This is for a local art show called "Sweets and Treats". Since I love that exaggerated chef art you see around sometimes I thought I would do one of my own. I imagined what a view it would look like from the bread's point of view looking out. I also thought I would try a different approach on this one. Basically I would do simple vector shapes and shade it semi realistically...would it work? Stay tuned!

As always, it starts with a sketch:

Then I took my sketch into Illustrator and built all the flat colors out of simple shapes. I wasn't too concerned with making it perfectly symmetrical. I wanted it a little off here and there to give it some character. Click to see larger.

Then I took that file and brought it into Photoshop to do some of that fancy schmancy coloring on it. I wanted to have a really warm color palate (duh it's in an oven!) I also added a slight texture to the entire image. Mainly so the bread would look more bread like, but I also thought having the texture everywhere would tie all the art together.

SPIDEY AND LIZARD

2012-01-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

No reason for this drawing really. I have a sticky note by my desk that I write little notes of inspiration on to come back and draw later. "Spidey and MJ in sewer with Lizard" has been on that list for quite a while. I tried not to copy myself on the background. The one I drew on the Batman and Clayface looks very similar. But give me a break, a sewer is a sewer right? The background would have looked better if I would have used a 2 or 3 point perspective, but I wanted to ad action lines without action lines. So I chose a 1 point perspective and had the vanishing point near Lizard's face to really draw your eye there. I realized that after doing some research the Lizard has quite a few looks. Some are almost completely lizard while others are more human. I chose to take the features from a Kimodo dragon for reference. How does that tickle your fancy? I just realized that I forgot to put lines on Spider-Man's other hand. Doh!

It goes without saying, but click the pic for a bigger view, I didn't draw all those scales on Lizard for my health. :)

MOJO DIGITAL PAINTING IN 5 EASY STEPS

2011-12-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

Here are the steps I took in order to capture this charming fellow: Click on any of the pics for a larger view.

So here I go again with a step by step blog. I don't know who enjoys reading them but I enjoy writing them. I'm not sure of the best methods for digital painting, as I learn my methods may change, but since I'm self taught in this medium I sort of developed my own way of doing these things that work for me....so here goes:

STEP 1 - THE SKETCH
I still start all my art on good ole fashioned pencil and paper. For me it's just an easier translation to get what I have in my head to paper. I sketched out Mojo and scanned it in. I love drawing Mojo, he's just so weird and creepy.

STEP 2 - ADDING FLATS
The I added all my flat base tones using my sketch as a guide and added a simple background. I was going for a photo shoot portrait here so that's what the gradient background is supposed to portray.

STEP 3 - ADDING SHADING....LOTS OF SHADING
This is the hardest and most important step. Adding enough shading and shadows where all the forms are defined enough so that you don't need any outlines to define them. I also added some discoloration in his skin to make it look diseased and unhealthy.

STEP 4 - HIGHLIGHTS
Same step as the shadows but adding highlights instead.

STEP 5 - ADDING MORE..UM, STUFF.
Finally just adding more detail. Here I added more skin wrinkles, some boils and his drool. I also added more texture to his skin and did a brown color wash to give everything an unhealthy look to it.

And that is that! Thanks for reading.

STORM

2011-12-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot of old X-men issues lately. While Storm isn't the most interesting character personality wise, she sure does look cool when she using her powers. I also really like this classic costume. What is that thing on her head? I don't know but it suits her perfectly. This piece actually came together fairly easily. I did a few sketches for her pose, arms or legs bent in various poses, but after 2 or 3 sketches I decided I like what I had so I went on to final pencils. Not a very interesting story there, but there you have it folks.

DOWNTOWN CHRISTMAS RUN..GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE

2011-11-24T09:22:00.001-08:00

I always find tutorials or step by step blogs interesting. It's fascinating to me to see how an artist started with nothing and ended up with something. I guess that's what I like about art. Anyway I've done a few step by step blogs about my illustration work, but I wondered if I could do the same kind of blog detailing my steps along the way to a finished design piece. Let's find out how I did at not making it too boring.

STEP 1: CONCEPT

Recently I've started my designs with a sketch. Some of the more simple ones I can go right to the computer but on the more complicated designs I feel like I can iron out most of the details in sketch form first.. This was an idea I had a few years ago (hence the old date) to illustrate the Downtown Christmas Run. I thought making the buildings look like gifts was a good way to represent 2 themes at once: Downtown and Christmas. But the trick was how to get it from concept sketch to final artwork.

STEP 2: BUILDING THE BUILDINGS

I started out with simple buildings made out of squares. Illustrator's "Split into Grid" function was instrumental in making all the windows. Since 3 planed would be visible I made 2 sides on each building and a top.

STEP 3: PERSPECTIVE

Originally I wanted an isometric 2 point perspective look to the art but I could not find an easy way to do that so I switched to a standard 3 point view instead. Using Illustrator 5.5's Perspective Grid Tool I set up a 3 point perspective grid and attached each side of the building to it's appropriate plane and attached the tops to line up with the sides. This is also how I made the roads and sidewalks.

STEP 4: STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A CITY

After making many buildings and aligning them it's starting to come together. I wanted it too look like Shreveport but I also wanted some fictional neon buildings to make it more fin and colorful. Some of the Shreveport landmarks I did add are the Regions building, Municipal Auditorium, Sci-Port, and Sam's Town. Very basic representations, but they are recognizable. This is also the point where I added ribbons to the buildings to sell the gift idea and where I placed it on a black shirt. The 5K race is one of the few races at night so a black shirt would help represent that.

STEP 5: HOW ABOUT SOME SHADING?

Once the buildings and ribbons were all in place I used Illustrator's "Recolor Artwork" to select the shaded faces of the buildings and made them all slightly darker. I used teh same method for the roofs and made them all slightly brighter. That really helps the buildings look more 3D. I also added a black to transparent gradient behind the front row of buildings to give the scene some depth. Then I added some simple runners and made the blue gradient field at the top to look like a nice nighttime sky. After that I added some stars. Stars can easily look like snow so I always make sure to put a few stars as twinkling help distinguish them better as stars.

STEP 6: ADDING TEXT

Just to give it a little more depth I added cast shadows on the ground again using the perspective grid. This is also where I added text to the design. The use of text really changed drastically from my sketch because I felt that the large bold font from the sketch would just be too much and take away from the city. I went with a simple, more tasteful font to compliment the city art, but not overtake it. This is also where I decided to leave off the string of lights. Sometimes less is more.

So that's basically it. Way more than you ever wanted to know about my design process. If you made it all the way to the end, congratulations. :)

"HOPE" COVER

2011-11-13T19:08:00.000-08:00

These are the final pencils of a cover for a book called "Hope". I don't know much about the story but what I do know I like: It's a post apocalyptic setting where survival is priority number one. Not only is the prospect of food and water vital but so is staying away from the dangerous bandits and looters that want to take your supplies and possibly life away. From what I understand these very different people have formed a make shift "family" to try and beat the odds. So in a nutshell it's really about a group of people relying on each other in troubling times.

Not much to say about the actual art, the writer is great at supplying me with reference photos and character sketches. He wanted this piece to have a slightly retro look hence the circle panels at the bottom, sort of like those old comics or movie posters with the "featuring" panels. Bing Bang Boom, my blog is updated!

Pirates of Dark Water

2011-10-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

My son (who is 7 now) is a huge fan of pirates, what kid isn't really? I introduced him to the C.O.P.S. animated series from my childhood and he loved it. So I thought I would try again with Pirates of Dark Water. After watching the series with him I realized that it really is a cool show and has held up very well, we are both fans of the show. Ahhh, bonding over a canceled cartoon. That's just like throwing a baseball or fishing right? As I mentioned in the past I'm a sucker for good character design, and boy does this cartoon have it in spades. Every character has a really cool design to him or her. Even secondary characters you may only see in one episode are really thought out and cool looking. But it's not just the characters themselves, the cities, ships, weapons, everything is designed with a really cool style. And they all had much more detail than most cartoons of the day. Which may have accounted for the series being pulled sealy because of "high production costs". That's what I read anyway. To make a long story longer, I watched the show. I thought they looked cool. I drew them. The End.

Batman and His Villians

2011-09-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well this drawing sure ended up different than what I started out with. I wanted to do something BIG. So I had all intentions of a double page spread with a ton of Batman villains. Doing some research I realized that Batman has way too many villains to draw them all, so I just picked the biggest and the baddest. Most of them are pretty fun to draw. Clayface is probably my favorite because you can really let loose with his anatomy and it will still look okay. Another character I really like is Two Face. However I find Bane kinda silly, I mean he's basically a professional wrestler with a gas mask. After doing many many sketches I realized that I wasn't happy with the horizontal layout of a double page spread, so I switched to a single page layout. I also decided to put Batman in a smaller, more static stance because I really wanted this piece to be about the villains.

First I sketched all the characters individually and scanned them in separately and put them on different layers so I can control position and sizing easier. I don't know why I have never thought of that before.

So after tweaking all the characters to get a unified layout going I printed it out and used my lightbox to trace and tighten up the drawing.

I always do my outlines first to avoid smudging. Sine this is a Batman piece I knew it was going to have a lot of black areas and if I wasn't careful I would have smudges everywhere. So I always work top to bottom with a spare sheet of paper under my arm.After doing all my outlines I go from top to bottom doing all the heavy black shading for the final drawing. Voila!

ANATOMY OF A PERFECT CLIENT

2011-08-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Good clients are made up of 2 or 3 of the following characteristics.

1. They pay well
2. They pay on time (even early)
3. They make very few changes on your art
4. They want cool designs
5. They come to you with ideas, but let you put your own spin on them.
6. They don't give you ridiculous deadlines.

Perfect clients are made up of all of them. CrossFit Oahu is my perfect client. They reached out to me last year by doing a random Google search for Hawaiian art. They liked what I did and we've done some pretty fun stiff since then. Here's a sample of some of the stuff we've worked on.

LOUISIANA LOTTERY DESIGN

2011-08-01T04:37:00.001-07:00

This design was my entry into the Louisiana Lottery 20th Anniversary shirt design contest. Mainly I wanted it to feel like Louisiana. New Orleans in particular. I wanted it to be fun, colorful, full of movement, and really be alive. I based the design on a simple concept. What would the musician look like that played the trumpet in the La Lottery logo? So after sketching around a bit I came up with my character and changed the trumpet to a saxophone to get further movement out of it since the sax has a really cool shape to it. So I guess that's about it.....and no I didn't win the contest :(

RED SONJA

2011-07-04T15:33:00.001-07:00

I've always really liked the Red Sonja character. I don't think it's because it's a half naked woman in a chain mail bikini (although that may be part of it) I think it's her overall persona I'm drawn to. She's different than a lot of other female characters. She's been through hell and back and has the take no prisoners/kill anyone in my way attitude that a real warrior would posses. Plus...the chain mail bikini. :)

Anyhoo, while my last pinup of Croc Master went pretty easily by getting what I wanted on the first sketch, this one didn't work out like that at all.

I did 3 or 4 sketches for Sonja's pose and once I landed on one I liked I started to sketch her background and the monsters. I had several variations on the monster's designs as well as their poses. I wasn't even sure of what background I wanted.

As you can see the creatures started out having long tusks for hands, which while certainly menacing looked like a lazy design. I guess because it was. Drawing those long hooks were way easier than drawing hands. But that did give me the idea to have very long, bat like arms and I like how that turned out. Plus the first batch of monsters just weren't vicious enough. So after really amping up their intensity I was finally happy with the initial sketch and started to do the final pencils. Doing so much prep work actually saves me time in the long run since I do very little erasing/reworking on the final drawing. So there you go, way more than you ever wanted to know about my drawing process. You're welcome world!

CROC MASTER

2011-06-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Again, my inspiration comes from the strangest places, and sometimes out of nowhere. I had no intention of drawing this guy, but I saw a tiny pic of him online and it just clicked in my head "I have to draw him right now!" It's like I have no control of impulse art. But I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Plus I just love Cobra character designs.

This drawing came together pretty easily. Usually I do 3-4 sketches to get my character positioned right. Sometimes that may take some of the energy out of the piece. But on this one I was happy with the very first sketch I did, so it was off to final pencils pretty quickly. I looked at a lot of Alligator and Crocodile pictures online and I realize something: They are scary as hell! Can you imagine a 10ft mean ass looking dinosaur with a giant teeth coming after you? But the main thing I wanted to focus on was texture, I really wanted the croc to look scaly and rough. But the roughness of the reptile skin should look different than the roughness of tree bark, so I used different rendering techniques. So I guess that's about it.

STARFLAME PINUP

2011-05-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

This is me taking the costume designs I did to the next logical step. I produced this fully penciled pinup or cover, I'm not sure what Frank will be doing with this art. I just know I wanted to create an old fashioned superhero piece. Powerful, iconic, classic. Almost a Superman type look. In fact, you could replace Starflame with Superman here and it really wouldn't change anything.

I took a few tries at this because I had in my mind I wanted to ink this in Manga Studio while I was drawing it, so I was penciling things much looser than I normally work. After scanning it in and inking in Manga Studio I realized that's not the route I wanted to take. Don't get me wrong, Manga Studio is great for inking and drawing, but working on this piece in the computer just isn't fun for me. I really enjoy putting a pencil to paper and DRAWING something. Much more enjoyable than doing it digitally. I can probably get better results working purely digital, but it takes away the enjoyment a bit from me. And I never want to stop loving to draw. So long story short this piece was traditional then digital then back to traditional.

STARFLAME COSTUME DESIGN

2011-04-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

A friend and writer I have worked with many times in the past , Frank Dirscherl (http://frankdirscherl.blogspot.com/) of the Wraith fame contacted me to say he was throwing around some ideas for a new superhero. This one would be his homage to Superman as The Wraith is his homage to Batman. He wondered if I would be interested in doing the costume design. I really enjoy character design so I was eager to help him out. As I mentioned he didn't have too many details ironed out but what I did know is that he A) should be in bold/heroic colors and B) He origin involves a shooting star. So that's what I focused on: heroic colors and a star motif. I know I wanted something classic, but not dated. So I tried to use more interesting cape clasps and for God's sake..NO UNDERWEAR!

As you can see in the sketches I was going for something fairly simple and clean. I just really wanted the star element to stand out. I was just getting basic elements here. I can always mix and match from these sketches, but mainly this stage I was trying to figure out a logo for the character.

On this set, I'm cleaning up the sketches to get a better feel for a finished drawing. I made a generic body in the computer and put my costume details on it so I didn't have to draw a body 6 or 7 times. This stage is when I realized that the more mask I put on him, the more dated he appeared. On some character types a mask works fine, but on a Superman type, it just looked silly.

Frank chose "B" and wanted to see some color options. He liked "B" because even though his face was exposed (which I think is really needed on this design) he liked that he had a mask. It helps avoid that "why don't people know Clark Kent is Superman" situation. Along with the mask I will also draw his hair differently to help disguise him. In his normal clothing his hair will be down and in his face a bit. In his costume I will draw it more wind swept and flowing. Almost like a breeze is constantly blowing on him, it helps give him that god-like, mythic quality.

Here are the color options I gave him. I scanned and inked it in Manga Studio and did my coloring in Photoshop. I had all my flat colors on one layer and all my shading on another so I could use the paint bucket and just drop colors in quickly and change what I wasn't liking easily. For the most part I stuck with the heroic red/white/blue color scheme.

After Frank chose the color scheme he liked, I created the back view by silhouetting the front view and then using that to draw the reverse angle.
So that's it....way more than you ever wanted to know about costume design. :o)

CROSSFIT OAHU T'S

2011-04-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I was commissioned to do a series of pinups for Pona Loa. It's fantasy comic book steeped deeply in Hawaiian mythos and lore. I really enjoyed doing those drawings because I love the Hawaiian culture. It's like a different country entirely! Fast Forward a few years and the owner of "CrossFit Oahu" was Googling Hawaiian artwork and stumbled on my name and he loved my style and wanted me to do some T-shirts for his gym. I agreed since I really dig the subject matter. After hearing what he was looking for (a shirt for men and one for ladies) I sent him the first sketch. He really liked it and only had a few tweaks, mainly regarding the authenticity of the guys tattoos. Which is understandable seeing as how tribal tattoos bear significance in Hawaiian culture. Here is the finalized sketches:

He told me the shirt printer could only print 9 colors so I knew I had to do the art vector based.

After scanning the sketches I used Manga Studio to ink them. I LOVE inking in Manga Studio. The drawing and inking tools are so natural and precise it makes inking in Photoshop feel like you are drawing with a rock and chisel. After inking I brought them into Illustrator and put a LiveTrace on them. Since the default resolution of Manga Studio is so high (600dpi) the drawings trace very precise and look almost exactly like my inked version without all that vector wonkiness. After tracing them in Illustrator I bring them into Freehand (which I still like way better than Illustrator) and color away. I still only have 9 base colors and all the rest are done with halftones of black or percentages of the base colors. They turned out pretty nice and the client loved them, which is the most important part.

DR. DOOM

2011-03-03T07:36:00.001-08:00

Before I started this pic, I had a few ideas that I wanted to convey. I wanted Doom to look evil and menacing, but I also wanted to play up his regal status as the king of Latveria. After I had the sketch finished I thought it was missing something. He looked regal enough sure. But it was basically a picture of Dr. Doom sitting in a fancy chair, it didn't tell a story. So to up the ante on the evil portion of this pic, I added Reed Richards begging for mercy at the bottom. That's chilling when you think about it. Richards is burned and possibly beaten within an inch of his life and instead of walking out of the room like other villains may have, Doom decides to have a seat to watch the life slip away from his foe's eyes. Now that's cold blooded!

WOLVERINE AND FRIENDS

2011-02-17T09:34:00.001-08:00

Okay, so "friends" may not be the right term here. I guess I'm not very good with...um...word thingies.

For the next few weeks I have a series of good ole fashioned pinups I want to do, just to keep those drawing juices flowing. This is the first. I've been doing so much design work, I just have to step away from the computer now and then. And then apparently come back to it to update my blog. Oh cruel irony!

THOR DIGITAL PAINTING

2011-02-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

So the fam and I were walking around in Target looking at Toys (what else?) and there was a Thor figure I picked up. I was really inspired by his costume update. I know it's been around for a few years now, but it really struck me as a great design. It's everything a costume update should be: It retains elements of the old costume (the helmet, the large armor circles) but it updates it with a modern twist. And it also takes elements from his Viking mythology. Just a fantastic costume all around. So I was inspired to take a crack at it since I've never drawn the new Thor.

Anyhoo this was intended to be a quick 30 minute digital sketch, but after 2 hours or more I realized I was all in. I have a problem leaving things unfinished I guess.

Thanks to my friend Ray Dillon for some painting tips on this.

HELLBOY

2011-01-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

Hellboy sketch painting. It's no masterpiece but what is significant about this piece is that it's the only one I've done completely in the computer. Normally I do a series of sketches on paper beforehand to figure everything out before I scan it in and color it in Photoshop. But on this one I wanted to go from start to finish in the computer. So I did my initial sketches on the Wacom and kept building on top of it until it was finished. It was more of an experiment to see if I could do it. There are plenty of artists out there that are completely digital and that's cool that they can do that, but I'm not looking to work that way. I just enjoy sketching on paper too much to give that up. Pencil and paper are the foundation on which all of my illustration work is built.

KINSEY AND A VERY FAT CAT

2010-12-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

I don't consider myself good at caricatures at all, but this one turned out okay methinks. Trying to "brush up" on my digital painting...get it?!

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMMISSION

2010-11-30T08:57:00.000-08:00

It was really nice and a little weird mingling at our art show. At first I was really nervous seeing people look at my art. But to have complete strangers come up to you and talk about how much they liked your work and to actually sell some pieces was very satisfying. Anyhoo, this is a commission for one of those strangers. A nice lady who took a liking to my work and wanted a Christmas gift for her husband. That's quite a compliment, to know that something you made will (hopefully) make another person happy. Ah geez, I'm getting all emotional. Damn it!

DOWNTOWN CHRISTMAS RUN

2010-11-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

This is a digital painting I did for the Downtown Christmas Run. It's a 5K run and walk through downtown at night during Christmas time. I think it will be a nice race and since the only 5K's I've done have been in the morning, it will be a change of scenery, so I'm defiantly going to run in it. Hopefully it's apparent that I was attempting to honor Norman Rockwell's amazing Saturday Evening Post covers.

THE SHEN

2010-11-16T09:49:00.001-08:00

This is a team created by multi talented and single bearded artist Ray Dillon. It's a really cool team whose origins lay within Chinese mythology. A neat concept and I really liked the character design and I don't need much more motivation than that to draw a pinup. However, this one was pretty tough and while I'm not 100% happy with it, I think it turned out okay. I must have drawn and redrawn the layout 5 times before I got one I liked. Art is strange like that for me. Sometimes I'll sketch a layout and I like it on the first try, others like this I really have to nail out all the kinks before I go to final pencils. I think I feel the need to get back into some more digital painting. Stay tuned...

THE ART SHOW....SHE IS APPROACHING.

2010-11-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

All of the 4AFTER5 guys will be selling various awesomeness. Here's a lil pic of what I'll be selling. 8X10 Laser prints for $10 and 11X17 original art for $50. What a bargain!

X-MEN vs. MAGNETO

2010-10-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

So it's been quite a while since I've done any comic penciling. It felt good to go back to it. I've been doing other concept animation work and design work that I haven't had the time for it. I had this sketch done months ago and just set it aside and forgot about it. As I mentioned it had been a pretty long while since I had done any comic work, so I wanted to draw something to basically wee if I still could. I wasn't really inspired at the time so I went looking through some old sketches and found the layout for this piece. So I decided to give it a shot. I do believe my life drawing classes helped in this drawing. Thinking of a real live model helps me draw a more convincing figure I believe. It helps me draw "through" the figure and think about how the parts of the body you can't affects the parts you can see. Weird huh?

LANCE HEADSTRONG!

2010-10-20T13:57:00.001-07:00

So after being at my last job for 14 years, I had the opportunity to work with an up and coming printing company. It was just what I needed: new challenges, new clients, a whole new atmosphere to be creative in. And the best part about it is that I can work from home. I'm really surprised how much better I work at home when I can really focus on the project at hand. I was talking to my boss the other day and he wanted a mascot for our company, which is named Running Dog Sportswear. We know we wanted an athletic looking mascot since we do a lot of work for various races around town like 5K's and Triathlons. He wanted a dog (obviously) and since he's a huge Family Guy fan he wanted him to look like Brian. He mentioned he wanted him to have attitude. I started sketching around and the discovered that round features of Brian weren't looking quite right for an athletic looking mascot. So on one sketch I gave him pointy ears and that really made the difference. Once I got away from the round, bubbly features of Brian and implemented a more angular style, he looked much more athletic and fast and it really fit the bill of what we were after. So there you go....and I think you can guess where his name Lance Headstroing comes from. :)

LIL IRON MAN

2010-09-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

So my buddy Travis is having a baby! He's doing the baby's room in a robots theme (how cool is that?) So he found these cute little blank statues and he gave one to each of the 4after5 guys for us to paint and design to put in the babies room. Now aint that sweet? I decided to do Iron Man, while not technically a robot, I thought it would fit the theme well enough. I used craft paint for the red and yellow. I then used thumb tacks for the ear and chest pieces. I then cut electrical tape in very thin strips to put on the black detail because since I'm better with a knife than a brush I thought I could get a nice clean line with the tape. I had to do that center chest piece 3 times! First time I had it too high and it broke off when I put the head back on, then after painting another one, the paint scraped off. But the last one did the trick.

Ready to do tiny battle...

Lookin all heroic and what not.

Tony Stark=Ladies man.

STILL HERE

2010-09-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Just to let everyone know what's going on. I quit my job of 14 years and am doing design work from my home and loving it. I have quite a few penciling projects lined up, but right now I'm working on a Slime Robbie cartoon series proposal with my friend Jeremy Johnson for the Red Stick Animation Festival in November. So I can't show any of that art, that's why my blog has been sitting here collecting dust, but I assure you, I'll be updating it soon.

Also, the aforementioned Jeremy Johnson, myself, Brad Campbell, and Travis Ecks are working on an art show that will be on display in November as well (http://www.4after5.com/).

So things are happening....Trust me.

IRON GIANT

2010-06-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

So in my humble opinion, The Iron Giant is the greatest American animated film of all time. It's got a great cast, amazing artwork, a few genuine laughs and a big heart beneath it all. Plus I'm just a sucker for anything with a 50's retro vibe to it. If you haven't seen it, what's wrong with you? See it now!

Anyhoo, on to the art. It's amazing that I ever finish any of these digital paintings. I'm not confident in my painting abilities yet so every step is a struggle to continue. Here's how things go in my head while I was working on this: "Man those clouds suck, why do I even bother?" "Gah, those trees look like crap!" "Damn it I can't figure out these shadows." I almost delete the file and give up like 10 times, but alas, when I stick to it and actually see it through to the end, it didn't turn out too bad. But I just need to keep at it and once I have a few years of this behind me I can really attack a painting and have the confidence to know how to achieve exactly what's in my head. I had a grey outline of the Giant floating in mid air throughout the entire process. I just knew it was going to be tough to get right so I saved him until last. Surprisingly, he ended up being on of the easier parts.

ARES - GOD OF WAR (ala MARVEL)

2010-05-07T06:23:00.001-07:00

So after months of digital painting and storyboarding and computer coloring I decided to get back to the drawing board (literally) and do some pencil work. There is just something about working traditionally that I still like quite a bit. I can't "command Z" when I make a mistake, but when it's all said and done having a one of a kind piece of art to hold in your hands is pretty neat. Right? right? Um..okay. Anyway, this is Ares from Marvel comics. I don't really know anything about this character other than he looks pretty cool, and gosh darn it, that's enough for me! On a side not I realize that the Parthenon (bottom right) and the Colossus of Rhodes (middle left) may not have been visible at the same time and may not have even existed at the same time, but I'm playing my artistic license here. When I was looking for reference for the Colossus of Rhodes I did a bit of reading about it, really fascinating story, look it up.

THE KID FROM CHINA - NEW ANIMATIC

2010-04-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a new animatic hot off the presses.

I've had a few people inquire as to how I go about creating these shorts, so since I always enjoy seeing other peoples step by step processes, I thought I would do one myself. So here goes:

STEP 1:
First things first. I establish a short script to work from, nothing too elaborate, just a scene with a beginning, middle, and end. Then I design the characters to act out the scene. I already had these characters in mind, so I did a few model sheets to try and keep things consistent. Then on small thumbnail size squares I lay out the story in storyboard form. I'm not worried about detail here, just trying to get the story to flow.

STEP 2
I take the small thumbnail sketches and draw them full size at about 4"X5". Adding or taking away frames to help the story flow better. This is defiantly the longest process.

STEP 3
After all the drawing is finished, I'll scan all the storyboards in, making sure to keep them numbered correctly so when I import them they will fall into place in the correct order. I'll take each frame into Photoshop and do some quick shading work.

STEP 4
After I have all the frames drawn, scanned, cleaned up and shaded, I'll import them into iMovie as a slideshow. It's not really an animation program, but it does the trick for me. Then from there I'll work on the timing, making some display longer and some display shorter depending on what kind of action is happening. I'll add some subtle camera movements or video effects where needed. Then the last step is adding the music and sound effects. This part is really tough because I don't have a large library of either, so I have to really dig to find the right music or sound effect.

So that's basically it, it's just a glorified slideshow with music added. Nothing fancy, but it tells a story and that's the whole purpose. Hopefully that wasn't too boring.

LARA CROFT PAINTING

2010-03-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

This took 6 months to finish!!

Let me explain. When I first got into digital painting around 6 months ago my second painting ever was going to be this pic. So I drew it, scanned it and applied all the flats to it. But when I got into actually painting it and working with the lighting and textures I realized I had no idea how to accomplish what I wanted. Plus I hadn't painted a realistic woman before. So I put it away and even had it in the trash for a while, I didn't delete it because I though, "Maybe one day I'll try that one again". So about 2 weeks ago I dug it back out and thought I would take another whack at it since I'm a (little) better at painting now. So there you go: I drew it, it sat in a folder getting dusty for 6 months and then I painted it.

SKETCHIN'

2010-03-17T06:18:00.000-07:00

So I've never really been one to do a lot of sketching. Usually when I have a pinup or cover to do, I'll do a lot of sketching to prepare for it,, but as far as every day sketching, I just didn't do. I guess I felt like if it's not finished or working toward something finished, it was a waste of time. But then I discovered brown paper and that all changed. I don't know, the feeling of it and the way you can add white to it really clicked with me. So I've been sketching like a mad man. I'll fill up a page or 2 every day. Just random things I see or things I think of I draw and it's really fun and keeps the juices flowing. For instance, I woke up early one morning and I just HAD to draw a cat attorney. I have no idea why but after that was out of my system I feel better. It's like cheap therapy.

ROCKET BOY ANIMATIC

2010-03-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well after learning a thing or two about a thing or two on my Guitar Hero animatic I thought I would try using my "Rocket Boy" storyboards to create another one. I really don't have a name for this kid, so let's just call him Tom (as in Major Tom..the song...from the 80's). I knew before I started that this one would be much more difficult than the Guitar Hero animatic. Firstly because I'm always trying to challenge myself and do more and more on my projects so I knew this one had to be better than the first and second, because I had to find more weird, otherworldly sound effects to pull off the right atmosphere. Because after all, the Guitar Hero movie had a few small sound effects and a huge piece of music taking up the bulk of the time. But on this one I had about 3 times the sound effects as well as 3 completely different pieces of music and layered sound effects as well. For my monster growl I layered a walrus, a tiger, and a dinosaur growl because I wanted it to sound alien and unfamiliar. Plus just to give it some more presence I added a few video effects as well, although some of them aren't quite playing well on the internet. Oh well. Whaddayagonnado? And yes, I did try yo fit in Elton John's "Rocket Man" in there, but it wasn't quite working. Sorry Elton, I'm sure you're disappointed.

GUITAR HERO ANIMATIC

2010-02-18T19:15:00.001-08:00

So this is something I may like to do more of in the future. I took my Guitar Hero storyboards and made a short, very crude animatic out of them. I basically made a slide show and then added music and sounds effects to try and create a (very) short movie. It was pretty fun to do and quite a learning experience to try and get all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together correctly. So give it a peek would you?

SOME ELEPHANT...UM...DUDE

2010-02-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it's strange how my art will develop. This particular piece started out as a Judy Nails painting. I know, you're all like "a do what?!, it's about as far from Judy Nails as it gets." And yes that's true, but here's what happened. I downloaded 5 or 6 reference pics of rocker girls and was starting my sketching for Judy Nails. Once I settled on a sketch I liked I went to bed and planned to scan and start coloring in the morning. But for some unknown reason, as soon as my head hit the pillow I thought ,"I should draw a Hindu God, I think there is one that looks like an Elephant". So I went and wrote myself a note on my drawing desk that just said "Elephant". So when I got up in the morning, I started drawing Elephants. None of whom had the Hindu flavor I started out with. Oh well, that's okay. And now you know how my mind works (or doesn't)

SLIME ROBBIE SKETCH

2010-01-30T00:10:00.000-08:00

This is a sketch of my next painting. It's of "Slime Robbie" created by my good friend Jeremy Johnson. He has piles of folders with character concepts and series pitches so I just picked one to illustrate. He's a neat character and I though he would be fun to paint. This will be quite a challenge for me. I have cast shadows, dual light sources, reflections and transparent subjects to figure out. Slime Robbie is made of...you guessed it...Slime, so I'm really going to try and get a Jell-O look for him. Plus I was looking though The Art of Monsters Inc and was inspired by the color schemes and "retro future" designs. Slime Robbie is sort of trapped in this industrial science complex called "Sci-Co" (get it?) Hence all the eyeballs watching him. So as soon as I finish it, I'll post the final art and we;ll see how it turns out. Wish me luck! I'll need it.

SLIME ROBBIE - FINISHED!

2010-01-29T22:07:00.001-08:00

Aaaannnnd, here it is finished!

Word for the day: Anthropomorhism...USAGI YOJIMBO

2010-01-25T08:19:00.001-08:00

I'll always remember this piece for the following reason: Before I started drawing this I printed out 3 or 4 reference pics from the internet. I had them on my seat on my way to pick up my 5yr. old son from daycare. (He is a huge Ninja Turtle fan.) He got in my truck and immediately picked up the printout with Usagi. He must have stared at that thing for a solid 5 minutes. He asked me about 20 questions about the character: What is his name? Why are his ears tied up? Is he a ninja like Leonardo? Where does he live? Is there a movie with him? It's as though he felt gipped because such a kick ass character existed and he didn't know anything about it. He requested to watch a show with him when we arrived home. I told him I don't have any cartoons with him. So to appease him I looked Usagi Yojimbo up on YouTube and found one 10 minute clip of him fighting alongside the Ninja Turtles. He acted like that was the coolest thing he had ever seen and has since watched that one clip about 5 times. But in his defense, a samurai rabbit is pretty dang cool.

SOME PAINTED CHARACTER DESIGNS

2010-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

I love animated movies. And whenever I get the DVDs, I always make sure and check out the character designs to see what kind of variations the characters went through to arrive at their final look. Sometimes it’s really weird looking back at what a character could have looked like. I find that terribly interesting. Also, trampolines fascinate me.

THE ROCKETEER

2010-01-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

So after months of practicing coloring and digital painting, I had an overwhelming urge to do some good ol' fashioned penciling, and this is the result...The Rocketeer!

I love drawing The Chrysler building, it's just such a beautiful building.

On another note, what's up with pilots and those poofy pants?

LONGSHOT

2010-01-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

This one came together pretty easily. I just sat down and started sketching and it ended up looking like what I wanted on the first sketch, that never happens. I had to tweak Spiral's poses a little bit, but that's about it. Also, on this I was trying to do something different for me. Curved perspective. I'm not really sure if I was going for a fish eye lens look or the actual room is curved. I guess
it really doesn't matter. I've drawn Mojo so many times over the years. I don't know why I'm obsessed with fat guys on spider legs.

By the way, that's a "Slurm" ad in the background, remember "Slurm"? Man,
that was disgusting.

RAPHAEL...He's a good Sais. (Get it?)

2010-01-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

So I'm back to digital painting. I was pretty confident while working on this one and it went quicker than my others. I still had trouble here and there, but it really wasn't too bad. This is for a fan fiction graphic novel called "Dawn of the Ninja" which brings the turtles back to their gritty roots. That's why Raph looks a little sinister here. But I knew going in that I wanted the moon to be the main light source as well as neon signs here and there. It wasn't supposed to be Chinatown at first, but it kinda ended up that way. I think it gives it some character and fits the Ninja theme.

Fun fact: It looks like there are hundreds of foot clan, but it's really about 15 repeated and cut and pasted at different angles. Gotta love Photoshop.

Colossus

2010-01-21T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest digital painting. I was so close to not finishing this one just because I wasn't happy where it was going. I think that's a sign for me to take a break from the painting and get back to drawing...

Character Designs - SIDESHOW!

2010-01-21T12:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a new set of animated character designs. Usually my character designs are more random, meaning they don't follow a certain pattern or theme. This time I took a single theme "Sideshow" and designed a logo and main cast around it. Weird thing is that I started with the names first. I had this list of weird names I wrote down and I just illustrated how they sounded to me. I had a few more cooking (Bearded Lady, Tallest Man, Fire Eater) but I thought I had a good amount for the main characters. I also discovered a new coloring method with these using the layers in Photoshop and tweaking the opacity to get my different shades.

Kid on a Dragon

2010-01-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

Still working in my digital painting. This one proved to be quite a challenge. Since it was a simpler, more cartoony look, I didn't have as many details to hide behind like on the Kratos painting. So I really had to strip it down to only what was necessary for the shape and try not to over render it.

Kratos

2010-01-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

So after learning a trick or two with my Hellboy painting I thought I would take a crack at another character with a background. Plus I just think Kratos looks cool, so there you go. Before I knew it, I was up to 14 layers. I don't usually work with that many layers, but I needed to on this one. Final size was almost 100MB, yowza. After working with 60K vector files, that's quite a difference. I've learned q good bit since I did this. I end up working with way more layers, but I don't work at such a high resolution so the file size is much smaller and easier to work with.

Hellboy - My First Digital Painting

2010-01-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

I've been experimenting with painting in Photoshop for a few weeks. This is my first full fledged effort at it. It's exciting to try a new style, I feel like the possibilities are endless here and I'm eager to do more.

Thanos Double Page Spread

2010-01-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

MY VERY FIRST DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD!

Man, this took forever! I have a new found respect for George Perez,
but he's always been da man in my book anyways.

Probably the most challenging part of this was the layout and trying
to make sure you don't have two dark or primarily black characters
overlapping. Also, trying to figure out which characters would be
recognizable from the back. But i'm glad it's finished and it was a
fun challenge to tackle.

My Vewwy First Post.

2010-01-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

So I know I'm like years behind the times (how about that Y2K huh?) But I guess better late than never, so let's give this whole blog a try shall we. Here goes...

It's weird how my drawings will progress. This particular entry started out as "I'm going to draw Sagat" to "Well he needs to be doing something" to "I'll draw Sagat fighting Ryu" to "Maybe Ken and Ryu fighting Sagat" to "Well I might as well draw the entire cast from Street Fighter 2".

I stuck with the original cast from SF2 because over the 20 or so years the game series has been out they've added approximately 6,568 new characters and dang it, that's just too many for me to draw. Call me lazy if you want. But if you do I'll kick your ass. If only it didn't take so much effort.