Tim Mitchell Illustration

Two Years, Time for a Logo Update

2010-06-01T22:18:00.001-07:00

I'm working on a new website, promo card, and business card. I figured the first place to start on updating should be my logo. I wanted to actually make this guy a character and have flow, contrast, and personality to him.

I haven't decided if he should just be a head or a full figure. With the head alone, the logo occupies the space of a square, which is more common with logos. On the other hand, the full figure makes a nice silhouette. Bah! Anyway, do me a favor and zoom out on the logos to about the size of a stamp (that's what I've been doing tonight, haha).

Finished Just in Time for Summer Vacation

2010-05-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

So at the last minute I ditched the girl's face and redrew it, giving more emphasis to expression than making a perfect face. I like the result, and I think she turned out looking like Lea Michele from Glee!

I went heavy on the textures this time since I liked the result in the windmill illustration I did a month or so back. The illustration looks good next to the editorial illustrations I've been doing recently. My next project, and then I'll move on to working on my character design portfolio, is an illustrated magazine cover. I'll use the technique that I used to paint David Bowie (previous post).

The Joy of Painting (a Happy Little Bowie)

2010-05-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

I actually finished this last week for my girlfriend Jen on the occasion of our two year anniversary. This is a pretty amazing milestone for me as I previously hadn't been with someone for more than a few months let alone two years. She's great, and she's a fan of the Labyrinth (as am I).

Painting is just a cake walk once you establish the values and colors. Finishing this just took time, but I was satisfied with the cleanup as I went. I hope to add a few more paintings to my portfolio as an alternate side of my work.

My girlfriend Jen is doing a fantastic job in her senior year at the Savannah College of Art and Design. You can see some very fine illustrations at her blog:

http://jenniferhochman.blogspot.com/

Yay for Input! Also, Cartoony Darwin is looking awesome.

2010-05-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

So, this one went through a lot of ideas before coming to this drawing. After suggestions from Andrea and Jen, I finally decided that this drawing isn't about Christianity being forced into schools; it's about conservatism. Jen reminded me that you have to be obvious with editorials. I made the teacher into more of a Texas politician (someone who doesn't belong in the classroom) and added an elephant trunk as a bookmark. Andrea suggested I make it more apparent that we're in a classroom so the chalkboard, linoleum floor, and bookbag were added.

Color has always been difficult for me, but in this case it helped me understand where the focus needs to be in the illustration. That is for sure the girl, as she is the one that these changes will invariably impact. Once again, thanks for the input. Sometimes illustrations flow out, sometimes they take some hardcore refining (more refining to come).

Barack Obama

2010-05-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

Our President Obama looks like such a hard hitter next to all the other heads of state around the globe. He means business! I drew him with really wide shoulders because his suits always seem to make him a bigger man than he is. He's got that Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" cut going on.

There's something about drawing such a ubiquitous man like Obama, you won't stop until you get it right, haha. I'll be honest, this took me most of the day and that frustrates me. Hopefully the next one will be faster.

Under the Sea

2010-05-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at flying fish, dragonfish, eels, and all sorts of marine life today. Just like Sebastian said, under the sea is better than anything they got up here. So many cool looking animals (and we haven't even found them all yet).

This monster fish might be used for an illustration I'm thinking of. Those are whistles and fish blowing them underneath his belly. He's kind of a motivational monster, the kind that will run you down to eat you, so you run faster. Great for people needing to jumpstart their exercise program.

For British Eyes Only

2010-05-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Actually, you can all look at this. David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain and is poised to win this week's election. Here's David Cameron, the doughy faced, swooped hairdo that has a concise message for all British voters. Families that are strapped for cash make cuts, businesses do too. Why shouldn't the government? That's right, snip snip. I hope he doesn't become the next Prime Minister, because in reality you have to spend your way out of a recession. Keynesian economics has the right of it.

So, he was a tough one to draw. I don't see him every day on the telly (oops, television) and it's hard to know what to push and what his attitude is. I ended up watching the live prime minister debates and BBC interviews. So much more useful to actually watch a person move and talk than to look at photographs.

Our Secretary of State

2010-05-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton. She gets things done and seeks reform tirelessly. I'm sure some people don't like her because she's brutally honest, intelligent and tenacious. That's fine if you're Teddy Roosevelt, but if you're a woman people feel threatened and consider you scary. I think that's why things are so ass backwards and Sarah Palin has the popularity that Hillary Clinton doesn't.

So today I draw one hell of a diplomat. I drew her stern because that's when she operates the best, a harsh but fair speaker and negotiator. Any suggestions for a political figure tomorrow?

What I Do To Relieve Stress

2010-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

I have multiple projects in the pipeline right now, and they're all stressing me out. So I decided to draw the Dalai Lama. I know, that's weird. XD

Actually, I should do a few more of these by next week because I'm going to be sending samples to magazines. Three or four of these political figures will look good beside some of my recent editorial illustrations.

P.S.- find some videos of the 14th Dalai Lama, just to hear and see the guy speak. He's around 75 but he's still a dynamo.

To Texas: Don't Mess with Education.

2010-04-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's an illustration about the recent Texas Curriculum changes. You know, the ones where creationism is to be taught alongside evolution and Thomas Jefferson's writings are cut in favor of John Calvin (founder of the Protestant movement of the same name). I'm also disgusted at all the recent additions of prominent conservative figures at the expense of reducing Latino historical figures. There is a clear political agenda here and I'm afraid that since Texas is the largest consumer of textbooks, these changes might have far-reaching damage.

Now that my ranting is over, I like this illustration for the figures and the perspective. At first I approached this in a straight on, flat angle. This has more dynamism. Darwin's pose looks a little off, so I'll work on that in the final. I still haven't decided if this should be a borderless illustration.

Underneath, fun with historical figures! Darwin's my favorite, I should make a three-dimensional version of him (plush Darwin, anyone?).

David Bowie Painting- 2hr

2010-04-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

Working on the more simplified, comic style rendering with my editorial illustrations made me want to do a digital painting.

I've spent the longest time starting a painting with the airbrush tool and then building the contrast. I found I don't like working that way; I like to squint or stand back and see basically the finished painting before I clean it up. I started this painting like I would an actual painting, blocking in the values and colors. I have everything about where I want it now, so I'll start to smooth out the transitions in areas.

WIND!!! (Captain Planet Reference)

2010-04-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading this editorial in Newsweek about how individuals should take action if they want to save the environment and get rid of deadwood politicians. I'm very satisfied with the color key for this one, as well as how I resolved the windmill mess. The subtle texture is acrylic gesso on board. Hopefully it translates as wind. I also added pinstripes to the politician's suit to emphasize the sleazy-used-car-salesman type he might have been.

Editorial work isn't my favorite, but I did enjoy executing this one. I'm thinking for the next one I do, I let my love of fantasy and horror come out.

Iran Bomb Finished!

2010-03-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Two versions of the final. Literally just a click of the mouse and I can toggle between the two. Personally, I like the bottom version (the one where I dropped out the black ink in favor of color lines). I'm pretty happy with the end result.

I've decided I'll have two methods of working for my portfolio. The first being this kind of polished, ready for print method that is very clean and simplified (seen above). The other method is more like the paintings I've posted from life. I like to take the more stylized figures I do and give them a realistic rendering. This guy gets what I'm going for:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GDL9Bp_YZj0/S7J6foD0pcI/AAAAAAAABYg/VtddgK-diVY/s1600/Grump17_Edges.jpg

*The artist from the link is a Disney story artist, Sam Nielson. This guy inspires the hell out of me.

Iran Away From That Country With The Bomb

2010-03-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

I like this composition a lot more. It took me at least a whole day with this new sketch because the bomb was shaped like a penis (which is fine, but it's not the statement I wanted to make). The action and emotion is more apparent in the figures and I like the wings of the bomb as armrests (a lot more subtle than a bomb shaped crown!).

I will start inking this one today or tomorrow and hopefully start another editorial soon.

In honor of Where the Wild Things Are

2010-03-06T22:59:00.001-08:00

Where the Wild Things Are is now on DVD. I cannot give enough kudos to this movie. The production design by itself blows me away. I've been working on editorial illustrations for some time, so I felt like taking a break by drawing what interests me: monsters. Not Hannibal type monsters, but just beastly, fangs and claws types. It's great to test and push me on shape relationships and silhouettes since I'm not bound to the human anatomy.

Why Ahmadinejad and Nuclear Weapons Don't Mix.

2010-03-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

Actually, I don't like the idea of nuclear weapons at all. No one should have the power to do what the US did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The article came from Slate and it explained why it's a bad idea for Iran to have enriched uranium leading to nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad has always worried me as a leader, since he pledged to dismantle the state of Israel. Now imagine this zealot with a bomb. Yeah...scary stuff.

This is kind of a rough sketch (for me). You can see some things I haven't worked out (the playdoh clump I call Ahmadinejad's hand), but overall I like the mood and the composition. I'm trying to work faster, which means I have to do battle with the perfectionist in me.

P.S.- There's some repetition of imagery in the crown. Too much?

http://www.slate.com/id/2244428/

All the Colors of the Rainbow

2010-02-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to play around with symbolic color. I won't go into all of my color choices, but it was a conscious decision to have the windmills green tinted or to have the politician's suit brown in one pass (symbolizing the 70s or something outdated). I liked the idea of the people being blue in the face from blowing so hard. I'll look at these for a bit and then make my final decision.

The Year of the Tiger! Rawr!

2010-02-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

I'm planning on creating a Tiger character. I don't have much experience with animal anatomy so I'm pouring over photographs and videos to learn how these great beasts are put together. It's amazing how close the big cats are in construction to their domestic counterparts. The end result I hope to achieve is somewhere between the Lion King degree of abstraction and the more simplified animals that Nico Marlet designs for Dreamworks.

There are 3,200 tigers left in the wild....in the world. That was a startling fact to be confronted with. Tigers have been my favorite animal since I was five and wrote a story in kindergarten about a tiger who lived in a trashcan and mauled those that came too close (no joke). I read Calvin and Hobbes, ate my Frosted Flakes, etc. All this time I've marveled at these creatures, in zoos, national geographic, or in abstractions like Master Tigress in Kung Fu Panda. Tigers were always there.

Now we are coming to a period of time that might not have tigers. In this, the year of the Tiger, we should really be aware of their shrinking populations and find a way to help rebuild.

Incidentally, the UN has declared 2010 the year of Biodiversity. Not just tigers but other species are disappearing from our planet due to habitat loss, climate change, and man's intervention.

The World Wildlife Fund site for Tigers:

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/year-of-tiger.html

The UN site for 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity:

http://www.cbd.int/2010/welcome/

and finally, back to the WWF for a resource about things we can do, whether it be writing a letter to Congress or donating time/money.

http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/PageServer?pagename=can_home&linklocation=topnavdropdownmenu

What to Do with Politicans who Don't Move on Climate Change

2010-01-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

Here's an editorial I'm working on for a Newsweek article about (paraphrasing) the need for citizens to take action to fight climate change on their own. In that way, they're not waiting on politicians who have special interest groups holding them back. The article was also a call to arms to vote out politicians who don't make climate change one of their top priorities.

The final will be in color and will be integrated into the existing article (maybe adjusting the original's type).

My Sister's Doll in a Slightly Larger than Doll-Sized Chair

2010-01-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

I started this painting in late December but the holidays delayed it. This is by no means a finished painting, but a demo (took about four-five hours). I try to paint things that I'll be utilizing in future illustrations. In this case, it was the doll's hair. I had to really try not to paint every hair, instead opting for shapes or clumps of hair. Painting this was a nice, calming exercise in the middle of a stressful week.

P.S.- I think there was a time in which I could sit in this chair. That's pretty incredible considering a doll is almost big enough for it.

Improved Sarah from the Labyrinth

2009-12-08T17:14:00.000-08:00

Hey there, Labyrinth fans! Thought I was done with those drawings, eh? I talked to my girlfriend Jen and then got to looking at the Sarah drawing and wasn't satisfied by it. I noticed the previous drawing made her look a bit like a snot nosed little kid. She's 15 in the movie, so I wanted a character that reflected the transitional age. I also like in this drawing that the hair is noticeably disheveled by the orb, which was pretty understated in the original. Finally, I wanted to give a hint that the dress is threatening to swallow her up from being so big and puffy.

Thank you Jen for staying up with me to work on this (she was super tired). <3

It's a Crystal, Nothing More.

2009-12-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

...but if you turn it this way, it makes two drawings (had to be done). I think I have a pretty strong foundation here with the drawing and the values. Sarah was definitely the hardest to develop into a drawing, partly because I had trouble getting a likeness that was still in my style. Jareth came naturally because David Bowie is always around me, haha.

I'm imaging a melange of pinks, yellows, and navy blues for the color scheme on both. I think the palette will be the unifying element.

Daily Paintings- Giraffe Plush

2009-10-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

After being bogged down in my teaching job, I decided to start painting on a daily basis. I made a list of 40 objects around my house with different textures, shapes, and colors. I'm going to try to paint at least 2-3 of these a week. I'm not spending a whole lot of time of them, about an hour for drawing and blocking in color and then an hour for more in depth painting.

Observations on this first painting after my hiatus: I rely on line a lot to define form and I need to kick the habit. I'm pretty good at spotting vibrant colors but have some trouble with subtle variations and more neutral tones. Overall I'm pleased with this two hour painting and look forward to getting better.

Add: these paintings will be done in Photoshop CS4 to begin with, though I'm open to exploring Corel Painter.

This is a Pika.

2009-10-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Last year I watched 'Kung Fu Panda' and found that the sensei, Shifu, was a red panda. Red pandas are relatively rare, but my theory is that this animated film sparked interest in the conservation of the animal. All of a sudden I saw red pandas at zoos and my natural science center. Not a coincidence, in my opinion.

So my idea is to read up on animals that are threatened with extinction and create a cartoon version of them. I found this little guy, a relative of the rabbit, called the Pika. The pika thermo-regulates quite well so he doesn't hibernate in the winter. Pikas live in the Rockies on the highest elevations, necessary because they are so warm internally. Global warming is causing them to seek higher elevations to find the cold. The pika really is the canary in the coal mine that is our environment.

I don't have the clout of Dreamworks Animation, but I do think it's good practice to find an animal, do reference sketches of it (see above), and start the design process. My favorite sketches are the ones that abstract enough so you're left with a few basic shapes. I chose my favorite and gave it the color treatment. This painting took about an hour, maybe a bit more.

I plan on finding new animals and going through this process each week, kind of a break from projects I'm working on.

digital painting 1 hour 30 min

2009-08-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Life Drawings

2009-08-13T20:50:00.001-07:00

I draw in a cartoon style, but I don't forget that cartoons are an abstraction. To do abstraction, you have to know the real thing. That's why I regularly draw from life and take reference photos of what I can't draw from memory. My sister and my brother's dog consented to be models. Let me just say that small dogs are very difficult to draw because they don't stay still! He did well, though, and I gave him a treat after.

iPhone Game Concept Renders (someone donate an iPhone to Tim Mitchell)

2009-08-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Been doing some character designs for an untitled game for the iPhone. Since this is primarily a student project and the production staff is quite small, there's no NDA and I can post these sketches. The premise of the game is a dragon teaching children foreign languages. Here are girl designs. I was told to work simple, geometric, and in the style of flat, cut paper animation.

Here are the boy designs, which were actually done first and show me getting my feet wet and experimenting with form more than character types.

Finally, the big draw of the show. A DRAGON!!! See? Even the caps lock function on my computer is impressed. I like drawing dragons, my girlfriend loves dragons, so this was a fun assignment.

Finally, the project director TJ Liedel decided on these versions of the characters. He made a good decision, these look good as a group. I'll be playing around with minor details to unify the characters and create some strong contrast.
Next up: polished version of the characters as a set and then individual character studies (turn-arounds and action poses). Stay tuned, comrades!

2009-07-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

Do you know that fantastic illustration I posted earlier this week? Well, it's now under consideration over at Threadless for a week. However, I want you to vote now! You know it's good karma to rate my submission and leave a comment. Thanks again!

Thar's Jello in Dem Hills

2009-06-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

And that's a wrap on this one. A few things bothered me about the original sketch, including the ibex, the spoon, and the giant's expression. I feel satisfied with the drawing now and I'm proud of myself for being very economical with color (seven colors!). Thanks to Jen and my brother for some really nice feedback. This should be up for voting on Threadless in the next couple of days.

2009-06-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

Probably the last of the caricatures for now (besides some ones I'm bringing into Photoshop to paint). I'm going to be doing editorial cartoons in their place as I need them to submit to magazines. Go figure :).

I love what a user on CG Hub said about caricatures. They look at the person's distinct features and then make the person in their personal style. So much cooler than, "let's ultra render a face and stick it on a tiny body for kicks." Noooo thanks.

What's Better than a Mountain Full of Gold?

2009-06-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

A mountain of jello! Here's a new shirt idea for Threadless. I'm really determined to win over that fickle crowd. :)
Anyway, the emphasis on this design was character and placement. I want the right balance of hidden and shown information. Before I actually did the rough drawing I took a thumbnail and arranged it on the shirt. My girlfriend says I should be designing with the shirt in mind, so this time I did (and felt better about the design going in, thanks!). Also here are three color passes (my gut says go with option 1). Also, that's an ibex on the peak. Google that guy; his horns are amazing!

2009-06-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

Really high quality animation has been taking over my life at the moment. Thursday I went with Jen to see the senior animation show for the Savannah College of Art and Design (www.scad.edu) and Friday was Pixar's UP. So it makes perfect sense that I drew two animation directors today, one from the west and one from the east. It's really great when, as my brother puts it, some is already a caricature and you just push the edges a little bit. I'm curious to see how I'll do with a real bland face (maybe offset the face with some explosions and tigers?).

2009-05-24T00:56:00.000-07:00

These two are for my girlfriend Jen :)
And I'm fully aware of the second one's resemblance to Count Orlock from Nosferatu, haha.

2009-05-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

More caricatures! I have to say, this is a good way to loosen up in preparation for more involved pieces. The first two were done on Wednesday actually. The last one (I sincerely hope you know who it is) took 3-4 attempts before I got one I was comfortable with. Check the comments for the names of these people and thanks to those who commented for the last ones!

2009-05-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

Summer's here for most of the college going population and that means caricature artists are in demand! Summer doesn't really mean that, but it's relevant to my post. Anyway, craigslist frequently throws up special events that are in need of an artist for one day to do caricatures. Up until now I've only done a handful of distorted celebrities and I would like to have a wealth of them under my belt to get some work.

I'm doing 2-3 of these a day and trying to keep in mind the circumstances that a normal caricature artist would have. Fast and loose is the name of the game, with each of these taking 20-25 minutes. For now I'm using Prismacolor markers in 30% grey for blocking and black for a final pass. I'm leaving the names out so you can guess who they are, or you can be a filthy cheat and read the comments section ;).

LOST Caricature

2009-05-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is a caricature of Daniel Faraday from LOST (who I sincerely hope the writers didn't kill off last week). Faraday is a physicist who comes to Magic Island to study its unique properties and, thanks to some time-traveling, tries to alter the course of history to prevent the crash of Oceanic 815. Yes, now I'll stop talking about the show because I sense the non-fans are annoyed.

The actor Jeremy Davies has a very unique face and definitely contorts it in amusing ways when he's thinking or perplexed. This face in particular is my favorite, the "oh crap this island is going to kill us all" look. Check out the images below to get an idea of what his character looks like and compare to the drawing. That's what I've been doing for most of yesterday, haha.

Haha!

2009-04-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/52741?page=1

Hey there, sports fans! I have admired the t-shirt site Design By Humans for some time and I finally got around to a design that I thought would fit in with their current line. The shirts are chosen daily so it would please me and be a big help if you could vote on it.

Also, my fellow illustrator Andrea knocked it out of the park with her latest shirt design for Threadless. Good karma abounds for those who go to that site and vote right now!

The Real Catwoman

2009-04-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Special post today! Today (actually, April 8th) is my girlfriend Jen's b-day. She's a real trooper in that she's working hard on her animation projects on her birthday. I'm getting into caricatures so I thought I would start with my favorite person....Jen! The whole process is really fun for me; I start with reference sketches of the subject until I can draw the person easily without resorting to copying a photograph. Then I start to notice parts of the person I like and that have great design potential. Finally I choose a pose and push those features to make it a solid design. This isn't nearly finished yet, but I like the drawing and hope to polish it soon. Jen, I hope you like this! <3.

Robo-Scare-Crow

2009-04-07T22:45:00.001-07:00

A robot scarecrow! In my mind he would probably run on corn ethanol because it's right there on the farm. Ideally, he should run on electric because most farmers are already hurting the environment with pesticides such as DDT. And I've been thinking about this too much, haha.

I've had this guy in mind for a while, I just had to get off my duff and flesh him out (notice the irony?). This is the first sketch, which I will then blow up about 150% to get a nicer, more detailed final drawing. Then I'll color it and submit it to either Threadless or Design By Humans. I'm leaning towards Design by Humans because they favor illustrations that take up the entire canvas that is the shirt. As always, input is desired! Ciao.

2009-03-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Heeeeere we go, the final drawings for a proposed children's book. The characters I did a couple weeks back are the cast. So, this is a game I played back in the day in P.E. Centipede was a game that improved on the premise of "Tag" by making the "it" person couple with another person when he tagged them. Then a chain would begin that wouldn't end until time was called.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with these five. I think the contrast will be more apparent when I add color, as the texture of the graphite became distracting (especially on the darker pieces). Body language and characters were the two most important things to me, so I really spent my time doing rough sketches and taking photographs. I didn't want the background kids to be no-faces, so I spent a little time developing each of them. Which is good in my case since a couple panels have the background guys taking the spotlight. I'm really happy with the depth and variety of images. You'll be seeing color soon!

2009-02-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a character sheet in a while. I don't have an animation background, but I am interested in continuity and fluidity of design. That's why I devour animation model sheets (not literally, most of them are circa 1940s and are probably worth a mint) ,for their display of characters from all angles and expressions. These are the featured characters in my submission for Teatrio this year. I'm a little behind, but not doomed yet!

I sketched these guys one time and got too uptight about it, resulting in stiff drawings. So I went back, looked through animation books, observed my girlfriend Jen kicking ass at drawing characters at lightspeed for her animation class, and did some life drawing. Once I was relaxed and nailed how the characters were constructed, I gave the finals a shot again and they flowed. Nice how prep work accomplishes that.

P.S.- to my followers, I can not name these people if my life depended on it. Save me. Some people have the gift, but I've been procrastinating in that one area. So far they are Coach, Sporty Girl, and Larvae Boy. XD

2009-01-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

Hey there! Here it is, one week later. I would have posted this sooner, but I was waiting for the image to go up on www.threadless.com So I took the best parts of both sketches and produced a sketch roughly 10 x 12. I'm really happy with how the colors turned out, that I was able to work with a limited amount of color (8 colors is the website's max for printing). Do me a favor and vote on it by clicking the link under the image. I'll let you know how it did!

2009-01-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Coming soon to Threadless! I was drawing randomly in my sketchbook one day and I had the idea for a guy coming straight out of Brother's Grimm who shambled through the winter forest, devouring everything with his beard. The mustache I drew originally resembled an insect's mandibles, so I ran with it. These are the two comp sketches I did for the shirt design, which I'll post later. I went with the bottom one because I prefer bodies contorting to the straight on pose of the first. However, the first sketch was a lot better executed (only failing at composition) so I took the elements I liked from that one for my final.

2009-01-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

I went looking for inspiration in designer toy (vinyl toy) companies online. Places like StrangeCo, Kid Robot, and TokiDoki all use really bizarre imagery but make it work through cuteness (and some really clean design work). So thinking of how these places turn simple shapes into a character, I took simple shapes in my sketchbook and evolved them into....something, haha. For me, I got a few clunkers and a few fresh ideas. I want to do this more often, maybe under a theme (like Dinosaurs!).

A guy at Pixar's booth for last year's SCAD Career Day showed a couple students a Finding Nemo art book and pointed to the designs for the fish. "See? That's all they are, a shape."

2008-12-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

This would also go on a T-Shirt. I really like this one more than the organist because characters (cat characters!) are the focus of the image. I found out that my two favorite things are texture and shape from this piece. I really revised the characters in the final sketch to get a nice silhouette. I notice a lot of my peers using textures pulled from online texture libraries and I didn't like how things kept reappearing. A friend and fellow illustrator makes her own textures; I like to paint mine. Both solutions are infinitely better than using an image bank for texture.

2008-11-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

It's good to be back :) Here we have a multi-limbed organist with a Dickensian city as his instrument. Silly me, I did a lot of character development for the organist and you don't even see his face.

This is my entry for the Savannah Music Festival's T-Shirt contest. Actually, this is the illustration which was modified for their template and palette of shirts. So the end result would be a little different. I'm pleased with both. Generally the music festival gets a great number of artists submitting some very colorful, upbeat designs. My favorite last year was from Jeff Powers, an illustration major, who did an anthropomorphic tree playing a cello.

Tomorrow I'll probably post the development work that went into this one. And since I left myself some time before the deadline, I will probably get another one done.

2008-10-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Last week I went and revised the characters in my story. I know, stop working on characters and get to illustrations! This is the end of character work for a while, and it was helpful for me. I learned a lot about character design this summer from combing over websites, interviews, art of books, and a very thorough book on character design for animation.

One very practical idea I gleaned from my research is that characters should not be designed in a vacuum but in a group if that's where they'll appear. So I started with the girl (probably the cutest and most innocent element of the story) and then followed with the papa monster who appears to be the most grotesque and worn of the characters. I played with scale, detail, and color in relation to each character. Putting them all in a lineup at the end was the most fun for me (even if the little monster got his foot clipped by some accident).

Right before I started work on an illustration for the savannah music festival, I experimented with how I paint things in Photoshop. The two characters under the scale chart took about 1-2 hours in Photoshop. I like my color and rendering choices but there's still room for improvement. Hopefully after I get this illustration done for competition I can devote some more hours to practice and make some nice additions to my portfolio :)

2008-09-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

This started out as a sketch of an alien priest that would have had a following of little alien parishioners behind him. Then a combination of the way the drawing was going and something I was listening to in the background made me change my idea (wish I could remember what I was listening to).

I pictured the guy as a thespian and turned him into "Alien Hamlet" with an alien skull of Yorick (Jen really liked that part). It's amazing when you don't have a plan and let the drawing take you on a ride. This could have easily become another drawing and another world. It's fun to think about the Chaos Theory and how any number of drawings could develop based on external circumstances and whatever flotsam in your brain comes to focus at the time.

2008-09-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

I decided to do illustrations in my sketchbook as well as random characters. It's good practice and it really focuses my mind on making something unified. Today I started with Miyazaki in my head and came up with a robotic scarecrow that would patrol the cornfields instead of standing there with a pole up its back, being mocked by birds. The mixing of such advanced technology with very quaint, old fashioned clothing and people interested me. Eventually robotics technology will come to every part of the world!

2008-09-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

These are the last of the "lost sketches". I am caught up now (finally). You'll notice that sometimes I don't fully commit to a drawing and leave it at the blue line. If I'm not enjoying where the drawing is going in the initial stages, then the touch ups won't change my mind. Abe Lincoln Alien was fun to draw :).

2008-09-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

These sketches were done within a couple of days of each other. Just playing around with body types and exaggeration. Haha, I think the old man superhero has a passing resemblance to Dwight from the Office. Maybe I'll run with that. Super Raptor is definitely going to appear again (I love him too much).

2008-09-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

Starting today I dated the things I add to my sketchbook so this wouldn't happen. I have a good third of a sketchbook with only a vague idea of what was done when. I know these happened sometime in July and August! I'm calling these "The Lost Sketches" because it sounds mysterious and cool (plus I love LOST). Expect more in the next couple of days.

We've been...jammed!

2008-09-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have to apologize right here and now for neglecting this blog. It ends now. I like a blog for its ability to update easily (unlike a site) and I should be posting all the things I've been doing. It's the responsible thing to do. So over the next few days I'll be uploading quite a few things. Starting with this....

Here's an image I submitted for a t-shirt for threadless.com, a great website that utilizes artwork from its community for shirts and prints. Users vote on shirts (whether this has any bearing on the decision to print something remains to be seen) and the winner gets store credit and a sizable monetary prize. Overall this was a good experience (even if my shirt wasn't selected) because it forced me to work in a limited color palette (under 8 colors) and the community was very active in giving me feedback. I'll probably make another one or two designs before the year is out.

This is what I came up for a dragon gentleman. I resisted the urge to give him a flowing cape and a button down vest. He has flow and a good silhouette, but I felt he was a bit bland...

Here's where I took that design that I was somewhat satisfied with and tweaked it to give him more style and personality. Number 3 ended up being my favorite of the bunch and I added in the wings of the first (Jen's suggestion <3)

Two different solutions to the same visual concept, a chivalrous dragon challenging a knight or king to a duel. The top one seemed to be more iconic which is why it ended up as the chosen one. All I had to do now was fix the dragon to make him more dynamic and involved in the action. I went to Kinko's, blew up my sketch to finished size (roughly 10 x 13) and added color in Photoshop.

I spend a considerable amount of time in pre-visualization but I think it's worth it if I can explore all the options and really flesh out a character.

2008-08-17T22:27:00.001-07:00

I've decided to post the warm up sketches I do (almost) every day. I got the idea from the late Mike Wieringo (Tellos, Fantastic Four) who kept a blog where he did a full character illustration a day. I'm not quite that fast yet, but I'm working on it. God bless Mike Wieringo, he really made me get excited about drawing every day for yourself.

Here's his blog/site, which is still maintained with his last post intact.
http://www.mikewieringo.com/

2008-07-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

That's the end of a massive upload. Thanks again to my girlfriend Jen for reminding me to do this. :) This guy is the dreaded music teacher. I looked at Beethoven, Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, and many other classical composers for inspiration (and oddly enough, the shape of a metronome). He's a frustrated man that likes order and dislikes a wrong note. Villainous? Maybe. My imaginary backstory for him is that he wants to be a court composer but is stuck teaching rich brats their scales and arpeggios.

2008-07-09T18:16:00.001-07:00

Being a children's book, you usually need a kid in the story (that's how it goes). She is a girl (8 or 9) living in the 17th century. She's fairly affluent and is getting to the age where she is forced into being "accomplished" (painting, calligraphy, piano, etc...). I imagine she doesn't like taking piano lessons and is terrified of her teacher. That's not to say she isn't fond of music, she just doesn't like the anxiety associated with playing perfectly. I picture her as clumsy and kind of a tomboy, which is at odds with her environment.

2008-07-09T17:50:00.001-07:00

Here's the son of the creature in the previous post. This is for a children's book, so I upped the cuteness factor, I think. I looked at a lot of reference material of pianists and composers since this little guy is a proficient virginal player (a precursor to the modern piano). This design was fun because he's basically a smaller, rounder, and softer version of his daddy.

2008-07-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

Hey gang! I have been working on new work during the past few weeks but have been lazy about getting things posted (thanks Jen for bugging me about it!). So my project right now is a children's book that I either hope to self-publish or get picked up by a publisher. In any event I'll have some more pieces to add to my portfolio. This guy is a creature that lives in a bog or the moors if you like. He's a run-down father of many little monsters. I'll elaborate more on him when I've added color. The rest of the characters are coming during the week.

2008-05-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

This is my first outing in the world of self-promotion. I found it really hard to create a corporate identity for my art. What I ended up doing is making as list of my favorite artistic subjects and combined them to make a logo. I'm really fond of the detail in the original drawing, but at the same time it seems really complex for a logo. And so I simplified it to a (almost) silhouette. Anyway, I expect to do other things besides monsters in the next couple of weeks so....watch out!

2008-05-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

I thought this was insanely clever when I first conceived it. A kid is afraid of a monster under his bed so he gets a bunk bed for Mr. Scary to sleep on. The idea is that the monster you don't see is more frightening than the one you do see. Of course, a T-Rex seen is as terrifying as one not seen. Ultimately this image will be in my senior show and will represent my style and subject matter to potential clients on my promo card.

P.S.- this image might take a while to load.

2008-04-16T16:07:00.001-07:00

I whipped this up this morning for my portfolio to be sent to Pixar. That makes me sound like a braggart. Actually this marmoset (or monkey) was created a year ago for a book I was working on about a naturalist who crashes on this Alice in Wonderland type island and documents what he finds. I guess that would make this guy Mr. Caterpillar. I wasn't happy with that design so I took some elements and completely redesigned him. This version drinks the other one's milkshake.

2008-04-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

So here's the story with this kid. He thinks he is Napoleon Bonaparte or something resembling him. I'm sure his parents have "encouraged" him to the point where conquest of Europe seems within his chubby grasp. I also thought it would be funny that the figurehead of the Napoleonic Wars (demonstration of Europe's naval power) would be wearing water wings. And a beach towel. Anyway, I might do a few versions of the neutral pose in color and maybe an illustration involving him and a so far unnamed adversary.

2008-03-18T14:38:00.001-07:00

I guess I named this blog appropriately, no? Monsters. This time the villagers, impressed with the Baron's story and construction of him (in the previous post) decide to expunge the demon, who is actually just an animal that unfortunately looks like a demon. This is just a value study with the final drawing; hopefully by week's end I'll have the final illustration along with the character turn-rounds for my story.

2008-03-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

This image came from my Illustration Portfolio Class. This was the first time I ventured outside of airbrushes in photoshop and really started playing with hue/saturation and the edges of foreground vs. background.

2008-03-17T17:26:00.000-07:00