Zombie QB

I'm not the biggest fan of this whole zombie craze going on these days, but I have to admit, they are a lot of fun to draw.

Head Sketches

Just some head sketches I did this week. Trying to practice my character stuff.

Race Track

This is my entry for this month's Monthly Challenge over at the Gnomon Workshop. The topic was "Race Track." I always mean to do these challenges, and I'm not going to pretend this is me turning over a new leaf, haha, but I really enjoyed it, and I would like to set more time aside for future challenges.

Style Experiment Film Study

Here's another sketch exploring a more illustrative style than I usually work in. As with any study, there are elements I'm pretty pleased with (the eyes) and elements that will be better the next time around (everything else, haha). I was so anxious to jump into the inking and painting that I didn't spend the necessary time to get the drawing right, but as far as the style is concerned, I feel like I'm getting closer to nailing down something I'm pleased with.

Raph Sketch

This is just a sketch I did this evening to practice a new technique I'm playing around with.

MegaTRON... get it?

I've always been a sucker for a (good?) pun, so when this idea occurred to me the other day, I couldn't resist :)

ImagineFX Issue 67

A few months back, I was contacted by the editor of ImagineFX, a popular UK magazine that focuses on all sorts of art in popular media. They cover comics, entertainment design for movies, film, video games, etc... I was asked to provide a brief write-up outlining the process I followed when designing my personal Gears of War-based project some time ago, and I just found out that my piece will be published in the March 2011 issue (#67 for those who are counting)!

I am honored to have the opportunity to have my work featured, and I'm especially thrilled to be included in this particular issue. As you can probably guess from the image below, there's a great article by renowned cover artist Adam Hughes, and the rest of the issue features some of my greatest art heroes (including Jim Lee, one of the artists that inspired me to want to draw in the first place many years ago).

The issue is currently out in the UK, and it should be hitting shelves here in the US in about a month.

Turtle Power!

This sketch is dedicated to both my son and my life-long friend, Ben Rolph. Ben and I used to draw the Ninja Turtles to keep ourselves occupied during church when we were kids, and drawing with Ben is one of the things that made me want to be an artist when I grew up. While I'm still waiting to grow up, I also still love to draw.

As our generation is wont to do, I am infecting (blessing?) my son's life with my nostalgia for things of my childhood. My son is really into Ninja Turtles right now, and his favorite alternates between "Yee-oh" (Leo) and "Raff-a-ell" (Raphael).

The Collector

This is my entry for this month's 2D challenge over at the Gnomon Workshop forum. The topic was "The Collector." I've been itching to draw a fighting robot, and with the topic, I thought it could be cool to have a robot who collects the aerials from his defeated foes, as a kind of kill trophy. As you can see by the tally marks on his chest, he's almost up to his 20th victory now.

Form and Color Sketch

I've been doing a lot of blocky and straight-edged stuff at work lately, and I need to break out of that. So I've started sketching out some more organic forms in my sketchbook. I'm taking some of them and rendering the forms using photos as color and material reference. I'm beginning a personal vehicle project with a couple of friends, and I need to work on form and rendering. It's been a while, and I've gotten a bit rusty.

This one is from a photo I took of a little Corvette show they had in the parking lot of an ice cream "festival" my wife dragged us to back in June. I guess the day wasn't a total loss if I got a good sketch out of it ;)

Iron Giant Sketch and Painting WIP

Any of you who know my two-year-old son probably know about his obsession with The Iron Giant. He watches it almost every day. In fact, he knows it so well that he directs my wife and me in role-playing his favorite scenes, commanding us to "stand over there. You're looking at the giant building [power plant], and I'm the Iron Giant in the trees." Then he proceeds to walk around making loud stomping sounds with his mouth. This continues for some time, until we tire of it and distract him with something else. Or put the movie on again. I'm actually quite glad that he likes the movie. I think it's one of those oft-overlooked gems, and it's one of my favorite movies.

I decided to do a drawing and painting of the Iron Giant for my son as a painting practice exercise. Here's the sketch on toned paper and the work-in-progress painting I've begun in Photoshop. It's kind of fun once in a while to do a piece whose sole purpose is to practice painting and not to have to worry about designing something from scratch. I'll post updates as I go.

New Blog

Hey, everyone, as you may have noticed, I haven't posted any work on here for a while. I'm very fortunate to have been rather busy of the last few months, and while I'm doing a lot of work, I'm prevented by NDA's from showing it just yet. To be able to do work that I can show and continually add to my portfolio, I've made it a goal to participate in more online forum challenges and activities. There are so many of them out there, and I've been making an effort to catalog them for my own convenience. In so doing, though, I realized that such a catalog might be a useful resource for others, so I've decided to create a blog dedicated to gathering information about various online forum challenges. You can find it at this link.

My goal with that new blog is to make it easier to sort through the many challenges available online. I'm sure my listing isn't 100% comprehensive, and I welcome any other suggestions or links you may have. I'm also in the process of designing the blog to be a little less boring looking, but I figured I'd just go ahead and get it out there. I'd love to get your feedback, so head on over there and see what you think and let me know what you think might make it more helpful.

Thanks!

R.I.P. Norm Schureman

It is with true sadness that I write about the passing of a great inspiration and instructor of mine, Norm Schureman, who was killed in a tragic turn of events this weekend. I only ever had the chance to take one class from Norm while I was at Art Center, but he's been a friend of mine ever since, always offering advice and encouragement. I learned so much from Norm about design and drawing, and I was always in awe of his vast amounts of knowledge on just about every topic he ever discussed. He taught me that it is never enough to know how to draw, but that it's more important to know about what I'm drawing-- and know it inside and out. His instruction and outlook on life have contributed immeasurably to my skills as a designer and as a person.

I'll miss you, Norm.

EOW- Ancient Palace Ruins

This week's Environment of the Week at ConceptArt.org was "Ancient Palace Ruins." Here's my entry:

Constructed adjacent to the beautiful river, the palace offered a stunning view to its former occupants until it was swallowed by the raging torrents of a merciless flood. Now the palace has become part of the river, merely another large stone worn away by the rushing rapids.

Deep Space Pitstop

In my continuing effort to participate in more art forum activities, I did this piece for the monthly competition hosted at The Gnomon Workshop. The topic was Deep Space Pitstop. This space station would be the closest outpost to the Serpent Nebula, and families would stop there to get some food, rest a while, and let the kids go to the bathroom before seeing the popular tourist attraction.

Creature of the Week #165: Zombie Dinosaur

For someone who thinks that the whole zombie thing is getting a bit overplayed these days, I sure have been doing a lot of zombies... The Creature of the Week topic over at ConceptArt.org this week was "Zombie Dinosaur." I'm trying to participate in more of the many weekly activities available on various forums, and this is my first step in that direction.

Here's a quickie I did as my brothers watched. We had to look up some gross pictures of rotting meat to get it just right. Gotta love Google image search (thank goodness for SafeSearch).

The newest member of the Round Up Gang

I was given an assignment to place a character from an old movie into a screenshot of a newer movie. My son has watched Toy Story 2 dozens of times in the last few months, and I've been watching just about as many Clint Eastwood westerns. So I made the Man with No Name ("Blondie" in The Good the Bad and the Ugly) one of the members of Woody's Round Up Gang.

Coupla Paintings

Here are a couple of digital paintings I did today. The first is from a 4 hour life painting session in class. I'd like to go back and figure out something for the background to make it more interesting.

This second painting is the result of about 20 minutes of experimenting with a method of "finding" an image in an assortment of random found images. I like the mood of the piece, and I'm afraid to do anything more to it, lest I ruin what it has going for it. I'll probably go back and add some more, but here it is for now.

Film Study

I'm kind of a latecomer to Westerns, but I've spent the last year finding and buying every Western featuring Clint Eastwood that I can find. They invented the term "tough as nails" for that guy.

Here's a study I did from one of his movies. Bonus points go to whoever can name the specific film that features this shot.