An Overall Perspective on Education

Star Wars Mashup: Darth Jafar!

With Disney owning Star Wars, and new Star Wars movies being made, I felt it was finally time to do a Star Wars Mash-Up!  So here it is: Darth Jafar!  Kinda amazing how many of his features matched so well with Darth Vader's helmet!

A LuchaDoodle!

  Had a friendly challenge in a drawing group to do a Luchador painting. Which I forgot 'til the night of the deadline of the challenge. So this is what I pulled off in a handful of hours.

A Redesigned Pink Power Ranger

So I've decided to make a massive redesign concept for every Power Ranger. I started many moons ago with a Yellow Power Ranger for a work's weekly design challenge, but since then I kept revisiting old concepts for other rangers that were left on the cutting room floor, I thought, "Why NOT draw them all out?"
  So here's my final illustration for the Pink Power Ranger. Enjoy!

  And of course don't forget to check out my normal portfolio at www.ConceptCreature.com.  Thanks!

A Fish

Part of researching animals is finding out things. I found out they're NOT called "Bugged-Eyed Goldfish", but Black Moors.  There ya go! :)

  Wouldn't mind making this lil' fella into a game, one day!

Sometimes You've Just Gotta Draw A Squirrel

  After an exhausting few months, I've finally done some flagrantly self-indulgent artwork of a Eurasian Red Squirrel.  I'll have numerous new projects I'll be able to show off within the next few months, so stay patient, as I've got some stuff I'm REALLY proud of!  Until then, also go to my website, www.ConceptCreature.com, for occasional new art. (also expect a NEW, IMPROVED website sometime within this coming year!)

I Have Some Of The Most Interesting Friends

     I must say, I have some pretty interesting people that I call friends. Some are cops, while others used to be crooks. Some have been insanely successful, and others I'm absolutely baffled that they aren't famous or rich. There's nurses and teachers, cops and military, all honorable professions that must have a calling in your soul the likes that I can't even conceive. Some are raging liberals, while others are staunch conservatives. Regardless our political ideologies, we're able to discuss our differences civilly and with respect, 'cause that's what friends do. I know people that have toured Alaska, live in Europe, worked in Antarctica, and are diplomats and humanitarians that traveled to places I wouldn't DARE step foot on. And that's not even including the friends that have stayed in the same place they were born, and can't imagine living anywhere else.

    Ex-junkees, prior alcoholics, current winos and productive stoners are also within my friendly repertoire, and if you think that's a bad thing, let me just insist you get the best stories from all of them. I got a surprising amount that continue to play with puppets, jump around in cartoon costumes, dance to songs, even juggle, and those seem to be the happiest and most satisfied of all my friends.

    A lot of them are creative, like me. They've made your kids laugh at movies you've all watched a million times. They've created cartoons that have been on your television for over a generation. They've won Oscars and Caldecotts; Addies and Little League Trophies. They make their own beer, sell their own crafts, bake their own cakes, write their own scripts, shoot their own films. A handful of them can't catch a break, no matter how hard they try, while others seem to live the most charmed lives in the world, with opportunities almost seeming to be wisped down to them, with barely an effort involved in earning them. Regardless what spectrum you fall under, I root for you both, and cheer you on with every endeavor.

   Some have reproduced like rabbits, and it's crazy to see these cute little clones of my friends crawl and scream and run and quickly grow up into being their own people. Some haven't had kids at all, and although there is a small part of me that envies your copious amounts of spare time and money, I do kinda muse at the lack of a pretty damn interesting part of your life that you've more than likely chosen to not engage in.

    Devout Atheists, stringent Catholics. Modern Muslims, transcendental Buddhists. Most don't really seem to have a strong opinion, one way or another. I still keep in contact with my very first best friend from Kindergarten, and continue to hang often with old co-workers-turned-best-friends on a weekly basis. I've noticed that true friends have a magical way of picking up with you right where you left off. It's a strange alchemy that makes time and space irrelevant, and you act like you just saw them yesterday, even if it's been a decade.

    You all are insanely interesting, and make my life so much richer by being within it. There has been so much laughter during the good times, and thousands of words of support during the bad times. Life would be so much more boring without you, and there's so much that all of you have contributed to me that has helped make me more interesting to the rest of the world.  I thank you for the spice and flavor that you add to it all, it's truly an honor to be part of this bunch!

League of Legends: Wukong, The Monkey King

Here is the first of several League of Legend characters I want to illustrate. I have become more and more obsessed with League of Legends, and the amazing world that Riot Games is producing. It's super-inspiring to see how far they've come, and how fast! Wukong was a character that fascinated me in original Chinese mythology, and I was thrilled with how LoL approached the character. I really want to do a few other champions from that world, and have created a survey you can take here, to decide who else I should draw next. This final painting was an upgrade to a very old illustration I started, and put down, many years ago. Here's my original rough illustration that I started and walked away from:

I liked the initial IDEA, but made tons of notes on this original doodle, knowing where it needed to be improved upon:

Beyond that, I knew there were fatal flaws in the entire composition. The color wasn't vivacious enough, the monsters looked like lame lions, instead of something that had more emotional impact (was trying to make an organic version of the Chinese lion statues we've all seen). Finally, many years later, I came across Wukong, and he and the entire League of Legends universe, and it seemed to answer all the questions I had with the composition--this badass monkey HAS a staff, and is a natural character and animal to be so deftly balancing on it! The minions and realms where you fight in League of Legends had the natural type of surroundings that'd add more drama to my composition. And Cho'Gath is just a more vicious-looking champion and frustrates enough LoL players that'd be thrilled to see him wasted on the ground. From there, I had some great friends that really helped me evolve this initial idea to the next level. I love that I have seriously talented friends in the industry that are willing to give me honest and constructive feedback. You can't ignore a note if you hear it consistently from completely different sources. Or, as I like to say, "If nine Russians tell you you're drunk, lie down." Here's more of the process I went through:

The Work-In-Progress

Value Study, with emphasis on Character, and general layout.

I already had a general idea from my prior illustration years ago of how it would look, so just wanted to make sure I could make Wukong look cool, and that it'd fit the composition layout.

Refining Composition

After Wukong was heading in the right direction, I started to make sure that the rest of the elements tie together in the composition. I ended up flipping the mountains in the background as I was refining the background. It just seemed to "flow" better, from a composition standpoint.

First Color Pass

Color isn't my strong suit, so I threw some color layers on the different elements, playing with the transparency layers and values of different background and foreground objects. Had very specific objects on different layers: Wukong had two color layers, Minions had one, trees had a color layer, the entire background did, and Cho'Gath was broken into several pieces (head/arms, torso, leg, abdomen) which ended up helping me greatly, as things were further refined.

Revisions Based Off My Friends (aka, "No Man Is An Island")

I *highly* recommend to all artists out there to get feedback often and frequently during a composition. To create entirely in a vacuum is just not beneficial to the end result of your product. At this point, I got feedback from some good and trusted friends. Got consistent feedback from all: they had a hard time understanding the foreshortened shape of Cho'Gath (LoL players knew exactly who the character was, but I need to think beyond a niche audience, and make sure shapes read properly, especially since you may be involved in creating promotional art of characters to draw new players in); even more specifically, the left leg/knee cap was described as "penis rock" by several of my friends. You gotta eat a big piece of humble pie if any drawing you make gets phalic references from your buds! There was also requests to cool down the background to make the character "pop" more, and perhaps blur the background for more drama.

Responding To Feedback

Ended up redrawing the penis leg, and that actually helped with the entire composition's perspective, and clarified the features of Cho'Gath, as well. Since the color was on a different layer, and the body parts were separated on layers, it wasn't nearly as complicated a revision as it could've been. Cooled down the background, too. Dammit, they were right, it helped! They also noticed that the sky streaks should be going from right-to-left, just to add more flow to the composition.

Fine-Tuning

If time permits, I highly recommend walking away from a composition and returning a few days later. Don't think about it, don't picture it in your mind. Come back to it fresh, and see if anything else "pops" at you. I did that, and decided okay, the background would look pretty cool blurred. Like my friend suggested. Did a slight blur to the front claw, as well, to add a real shallow depth-of-field. Also polished up some features on the ground, on the minions, and on Cho'Gath and Wukong's weapon and costume.

So I hope you enjoy my rendition of the champion, and please vote on which League of Legend character I should draw next!

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. :)

A Tidal Wave Of Amazing News

Well, the dust has finally settled enough for me to spread the good news. And "news" is plural, this time, surprisingly so. First off, check THIS place out:

This, my dear readers, is IGT, aka International Gaming Technology, one of the titans of casino gaming in the entire world. And now I WORK FOR THEM!! ME!! HOLY CRAPOLA!!! And so far, it's one of the most amazing jobs I've ever had in my life. I worked in casino gaming prior, but it was for a tiny group of people that really had no organization, and honestly no art background (I was the only art guy, for the longest time), so I never felt like I grew there. Now, fast-forward to now, where I work with some of the most talented people I've ever collaborated with; people that keep me humble at their insane skills, and are willing to glady spread their knowledge to me, as well as keep me honest in my own abilities. In addition, Las Vegas is BEAUTIFUL! There's SO much more to this place than the Strip! Everyone I met that's a local are some of the most ardent hikers, and man, does this place have that in spades! I hope that I continue to love this job, and I don't foresee that changing for a long, long time! In addition to that, I have MORE amazing news. Check THIS picture out:

This is a still image from our short comedic film, "The Ducks", about an innocent jogger that suddenly finds himself being confronted by a band of renegade ducks. I originally wrote it as a lark two years ago, upon which my good friend and collaborator, Rick, felt it was a fun script, and that we should shoot it. Besides, it was a one-person, one-camera deal--should take no time, right? Well...then I had a kid. Fast-forward a eighteen months later....and we finally started production on it. We started filming in April on sporadic weekends, and wrapped production in late August. We had mere days to get a rough cut of the film entered into the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival....AND WE GOT ACCEPTED INTO IT!!! I found this out at the end of my first week at my new job. Man, what an amazing end of that week! This was all an amazing culmination of hard work, that, at many times over the last year, made me question the very purpose of my life. At one point, I really debated about hanging up the art towel, and going back to school to be a dental hygienist. I shit you not. 2011 was an insanely stressful year--I had a newborn child that wouldn't sleep through the night, and my father had cancer. The stress this put on my marriage almost ended it, several times over. All the dreams I had over the prior decades of my life were replaced with just one imperative: JUST SURVIVE. GET THROUGH THIS. I had a very hard look at what I was doing, and what I wanted to do, and I had to be very honest with myself, and figure out if what I was doing with my life made sense. For some crazy reason, there were two things that my heart kept telling me: get back into gaming, and finish this duck film. My wife, bless her heart, understood me better than I did myself, and simply said, "Honey, start looking now for a gaming job! This isn't going to happen overnight! Just do it!" With her encouragement, I did. This started a very frustrating road, for the next several months. I'd get phone calls from recruiters, even a plane flight out to interview with an entire team, and then something wouldn't work out. Either a company would have a hiring freeze, or I'd ace the interview, do a design test, and then, nah, they'll pass. The only thing that was keeping me going was that I was getting consistent nibbles. I kept reminding myself that hey, it ain't easy to get into the big leagues, keep working your ass off, people are interested, this is a numbers game, eventually somebody's gotta say yes! While this was going on, I was getting consistent freelance, and hooked up with a creative temp agency that booked me as a Senior Production Artist. The work was for a black-and-white catalog, basically taking text and applying Paragraph Styles to it. The most challenging part of my job was "ragging": adjusting the kerning on every line of a column so that the right-hand side of the text pretty much lined up with the other text above and below it. There was NO challenge to this, but there WAS steady work, and good pay, and I really liked the people I worked with. From here, I finally got the recruiting call for the IGT position, and things happened in a rapid whirlwind of wrapping up the contract gig, pack and prepare, coordinate flights and apartments, and boom, I was here. It's insane how quickly your life can change. But, remember this--your life will only change with lots of work and focus in the right direction. You CANNOT put that much energy out into the universe without the universe responding to your efforts, eventually. This has been an amazing validation of my calling in life. I LOVE doing art. I LOVE collaborating with creative people that inspire me every day I'm around them. I love this so much, I do it when I'm OFF work! And I don't just wanna do illustration--I do animations, gallery shows, short films, children's books! You only limit yourself, in your potential. You really can mold the world to your will, if you're skilled enough and passionate enough to do it! "Don't complain, just work harder." --Jackie Robinson

A Two-Page Spread From My Children's Book

Here's a rough sample of a finished spread from my Children's Book I'm currently drawing/writing, "My Binky and My Bear." More to come soon!

Making of "ParaNorman"

A spectacular making-of featurette of Laika's new stop-motion animated film, "ParaNorman." It's spectacular to see how efficient stop-motion is getting, with the digital advent of wire removal, green-screening and everything else that you can fix in post relatively easily!