A Drawing For Halloween

So thrilled! Finally have a real "big boy" desk! For the past fifteen years, I've sufficed with two crappy file cabinets and a door for the top as my desk. It worked fine, when you're in college and just need a solid surface, but now I've officially moved into a new house, and my office is the first room you pass when you're walking through the downstairs. So, in order to not make everyone's first impression of the place be, "Oh wow, what a junk heap..." I actually spent more on my desk than I did on the bloody refrigerator! But I'm pleased as punch with it, and I'm grateful that it's a tax deduction, since it's a work-related expense. My next upgrade will be an uber-powerful new computer that I'll build from scratch in order to have it beefed up enough to satisfy my need to have a good frame rate when I'm animating scenes in AfterEffects. Until then, here's my illustration for Halloween:

Just did a friendly art competition for my company's blog, called "It Won't Draw Itself." The challenge this week was to do a revamp of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I took it WAAAAYYY out into left field, and made the Yellow Ranger have more of a Geisha influence.

A Giant Brute

From My Children's Book

Here's a two-page spread from my children's book, My Binky & My Bear:

Mad Scientists Have A Soft Spot For Giant Gorillas

And the sketch this illustration originated from:

Assassin Illustration

A quick 4-hour illustration I did of an assassin/sniper.

The Level Of Fame I Want

I look at successful people of certain notoriety, and it has definitely made me realize there is a delicate line of fame that I want to hit. I want a level of fame that gives me certain power to call my own shots. That doesn’t mean I want everyone knocking down my door, with every vampiric agent or rep wanting to sponge off of me, but basically me having the realistic ability to propose my own project, have a company go, “Well, he did these last three projects well, so he’ll probably pull that off, too.” I want a level of fame that, when at a convention meeting one of my idols, I can off-handedly mention one of the projects I worked on, and then they go, “Oh, YOU did that?” which is then followed by a quick exchange of cel numbers, them inviting me to a bar with him or her, and a myriad of other idols of mine happen to all be there, since they all know each other, getting mildly drunk and laughing with them, and all of them remember me as being integral in helping them all have a good time that weekend. I want a level of fame where I can request a fee that would even make Steven Segal stop squinting for a second, but would begrudgingly be honored with little haggling. I want a level of fame where mutually-talented peers will politely approach me at a convention and mention some obscure project even I had forgotten I had worked on, and get a polite handshake and perhaps a quick photo, but still a level low enough that I won’t have a fanatic fan scream and bombard me in a restaurant to sign a body part they will immediately go have tattooed while I have Special Sauce on my face. I wouldn’t mind a level of fame where I can be an “industry voice”, giving feedback, inspiration, and basically giving an interesting, if not humorous point of view to what we all do for a living. It wouldn’t be horrible to have a level of fame where I have a secretary or agent being an intermediary between me and a bunch of time-wasting phone calls, but I wouldn’t want to be so famous that I’d have to hire a person to pretend to be me to write responses to fan mail. I don’t think I’d surprise too many people if I had the kind of fame where I’m on the local channel, getting detained by police for making a scene at a frozen yogurt shop because I’d basically hit my threshold of dealing with stupid people with attitudes for the day, and the zit-faced chinless Goth teen’s emo action of snorting and rolling his eyes at having to redo my order because he put butterscotch instead of fudge on my sundae puts me over the edge and makes me throw a whole container of rainbow sprinkles at his head. I have a kid now, and that’s taught me a level of patience I never knew I’d attain, so probably not gonna happen. I’m just saying none of my immediate relatives would be shocked, if it did. So, I suppose that’s my fame “manifesto.” Time to stop talking about it, and continue to make it happen!

Sea Lions Swimming

Got some work recently for the Mote Marine Aquarium, as well as The Food & Wine Fest, both in Sarsota, and both for BeCreative Studios. I initially started off with illustration work for Mote, but eventually got rewarded for my creativity by getting assigned two short commercials and some banner animation to do. Here's the two commercials: It definitely gave me an opportunity to polish up my skills in After Effects, which is an absolutely amazing program to work in!

UI and Concept Art

Here is a UI design I did for a Mobile gaming company in 2013:

This led to the A.D. asking me to do some quick spec art of monster designs. Very Pokemon-esque, so I spent an hour and quickly submitted these samples:

Nah, they said, doesn't fit the style enough. In fact, we're gonna go ahead and make a style sheet, and then get back to you with that, give you another shot. Finally a month later I had a style sheet, as well a basic assignment: create a baby and adult version of a lion, with a water theme. Doesn't matter WHAT kind of version of water, surprise us. Here's the roughs:

The A.D. thought the Steam lion was an interesting concept, and told me to evolve that to a finished piece. Here's what I did with that:

  These are the kinds of assignments I can't get enough--rough, quick concepts, the sky's the limit, here's some basic parameters, show us what you can do.  Many people ask, "How do you come up with these ideas?", and for me, I wonder how people CAN'T come up with ideas. :)