s'more stuff

I got Painter installed, so I've been coloring things up and generally experimenting with the program. My favorite tool so far is the the Chunky Oil Pastel. It gives a great traditional look to things.

The Giants

Above is a rough sketch of the the race of Giants. Below is the finished Avan design.

Avans

Another character design for the same project. The Avans are the bird-like race in the rough sketch above.

Below is the finished version of the Spartans.

Spartan warrior design

I've been designing a few characters for a friend's project and I recently began finalizing some of them. Here's the design for a Spartan, roughed out in Flash. I'll refine the lines and add color soon, and I'll put up some of the others as well.

The Untamed West

Unlike a lot of artists I know, I tend to sketch a lot of the same thing over and over for quite a while, rather then skip around stream of consciousness style. Right now that same thing seems to be this cowboy character.

I like to think he's some sort of trick shooter, by the clever name of Rick Shay, who abhors violence but can split a hair off your head looking through a mirror at forty paces in a rainstorm. At least that's what I like to think.

Mario Kart

I've found myself playing a lot of Mario Kart DS lately. It can be sort of addicting. I ended up sketching Mario, and he's pretty fun to draw. There's a few things I think could still be better about this piece. For one, I wanted more line of action to show up in the characters, but it got a bit lost when I added the blocky karts. The sense of movement also isn't quite as fast as I envisioned. I didn't spend enough time on the background, so it's a little boring. Line work could be better too. Beyond that, I'm pretty satisfied with the volume, detail and likeness of the characters.

Here, also, are some of the warm-up sketches:

Yar

I missed International Talk Like A Pirate Day with these, but here are some pirate sketches anyway.

Munchy, of Crunchy Bunches.

Crunchy Bunches is a cereal for kids, which is the best kind of cereal, because they have mascots. Munchy's goal in life is to be the mascot of Crunchy Bunches, and he does it quite well indeed. He's always on the hunt for the best new flavors for his cereal bits, or marshmallow shapes or frosting colors to make his cereal the best ever. Sometimes his plans get interrupted by The Growlies, who only want hunger and famine to prevail at the breakfast table, but Munchy always gets the best of them thanks to the ultimate power of Crunchy Bunches brand breakfast cereal.

I've been working on a re-design of this character from his first appearance in these comics.

Old Treehouse

Here's another from the vault:


This was done in an early version of Painter, and I'm not too experienced in the program (or painting in general, for that matter), so it isn't all that it could be. I'm happy with it mostly, though. I like the atmosphere of it, and I think it'd be cool to have a secret treehouse with a view like that.

Explosions!

Here's a couple flash animations I did with the sole intent of blowing stuff up. I was inspired after playing the game Alien Hominid, which has some really fun explosion animations.

Man O' Steel

I was inspired to doodle my interpretation of Superman for one of The Drawing Board's character jams:

Illustration Friday: Portrait

This is a different style then I usually do; I wanted to try some different techniques gleaned from various inspirations. This was all done in Photoshop, unlike most of my latest work which I used Flash for. I also tried a more painterly way of coloring it then I normally do. Another thing is that I tried to rely less on cartoon drawing conventions, and come up with unique ways of interpreting the face in a cartoony way.

Call him Captain Cornflake.

A friend of mine where I work created this character for an independent game project he'd like to do eventually and asked me if I could design him based on a few sketches he had made. He's Captain Cornflake and he dispatches injustice with his trusty super spatula. Crazy, I know, but it makes about as much sense as an Italian plumber in a land of mushrooms, at least. At some point I'd like to start on a 3D model of this guy for the actual game.

Electronic Entertainment Exposition 2006

Or E3, as some call it. It's an industry expo for video games and computer entertainment. This was the first year I went to the show, and it sure was fun. I traveled down from Seattle to L.A. for about a week with some friends from work and tried out all the unreleased games, stood in lines, got hypnotized by flashing neon everywhere, and got all touristy around Hollywood.

The prestigious Olive Manor Motel. Enjoy the complementary coat hangers in the beds and water-less pool!

We got some drinks at the famous Smoke House the first night and caught a good stand-up comedy show there. Warner Bros. Studios was near the motel, and we spotted the iconic home of Yacko, Wacko and Dot.

The LA subway was eerily deserted. It's gigantic size and lack of crowds seemed strangely dramatic.

We arrive. Notice the tanker truck filled with Mountain Dew. "Gamer Fuel," apparently.

The Nintendo Wii (previously Revolution) was definitely a highlight of the show. I'm really excited about the new Super Mario Galaxy game coming out for it.

Adam West was there.

The famous Pink's chili dogs.

Best. Photo. Ever. At the famous Bob's Big Boy.

We also stopped by the "I am 8-bit" art gallery, which showcased some awesome art based off ancient video game history.

On the Hollywood walk of fame, and the Chinese Theater. Bette Davis, Clint Eastwood, and Marilyn Monroe.

Our last stop was sunny and colorful Venice Beach. I expected it to be crowded on a Saturday afternoon, but because of it's vast size, it still had tons of space. Interesting people sure do hang out at Venice Beach. It was a great end to a great trip.