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!)

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.

Finished SOMETHING.....

Wow, I'm always a little shellshocked when I've suddenly finished up several projects, and somehow between the made rushing through of projects, contacting clients, touching base with sub-contractors, keeping myself on schedule, then find myself panting, and looking around frantically for the next thing to do...only to realize that the main priorities are already DONE, and that's why the dust is finally settling. Website project's been greenlit and posted, and just finished up this final illustration for the potential comic book gig:

Hopefully I'll know sometime today if I got a commission off all this work. It's so strange to have several projects going, and the difference in your work ethic when it comes to something you love, versus something you're not so keen about. For instance, the website? Yeah, hate those kinds of gigs. Part of the reason why I charged a lot--if you want me to do art I hate, I won't say no, I'll just throw a number out there that might make YOU say no. If you don't, well, sure, I'll do the gig, and at least that way the money will motivate me to get off my ass.
The comic book I did the spec work for--Flash Gordon--has a species of natives from the planet that back in the day they just called Lion People. The original comics from decades ago never really made such an interesting name an equally-interesting illustration. They just basically made a human have tan fur, and a mop on their head that'd put Tina Turner's to shame. But the new editors now have done a KILLER job of making them look REALLY cool, and it's been an absolute BLAST playing around with the species, and really feeling out possible stories through their artifacts on them that'd add texture to their fictitious culture! Visual storytelling, that's what it's all about! Here's a head illustration I did of a Lion person General:

Now the amusing thing about this whole wacky career I have as an artist is this: my parents just plain don't "get it." They can't quite wrap their heads around the fact that I receive checks from people for doing silly cartoony or fantasy characters, or animating a cartoon for a commercial spot. Like most people, I think they just default to the assumption that these things just magically appear on the screens, and takes no "real" skill, whatsoever. When I was talking to them yesterday on the phone, I was telling them about this potential gig, and how it could be a game-changer for the types of gigs I get. My mom's response? "Yeah, well, don't hold your breath!" You'd have to know my mom to know that as she gets older, the filter between her thoughts and her mouth has pretty much been removed, and she really doesn't actually mean anything by that. In other words, she sometimes doesn't realize when she's being a bitch. :) I, unfortunately, sometimes suffer from the same epidemic, and so I worry how I'll be treating my daughter in the future, as well.
Either way, MAN, I love what I do! It's exhausting, but also insanely enjoyable! Who said, "If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life?" Goddamn right. Seven years after college graduation, I'm feeling like I'm finally hitting my stride....

One Week 'Til Convention

It's Memorial Day weekend! Guess what I'm doing? Beach? Barbeque? Beer? Nope, nope, and maybe later. I'm knee-deep in watercolors, making Critters for my in-process children's fantasy picture book, Lil' Book of Critters.
It's a little bit of a drag, 'cause I'm running a few weeks behind where I wanted to be with the book. I was hoping that I'd be finished with a website commission a few weeks ago, but in standard Jason fashion, I misestimated how long this project would take. S'kay, I got it taken care of. And I'll GLADLY sacrifice a weekend of fun for....well, FUN, honestly. I lovelovelove art, and it's SO nice to just be able to focus on your own wacky project, for once.
I have the SCBWI Florida Children's Book Mid-Year Workshop this coming weekend. I'll have an Illustrator's Intensive on Friday, Picture Book Workshop on Saturday, finished off with two critiques of my book that Saturday evening. I went to the event last year for just the one day, unsure who or what this convention had to offer. But after seeing the big-name authors, literary agents, and other "power" people there, as well as the direct-access addresses and other inside help the organization offered, I realized it's worth me taking this seriously.
In amazing synchronicity, this year had two big industry editors coincidentally really gravitate towards this book that I just had mentioned on a lark. One was an editor from io9.com, who found my art on a site like DeviantArt or something like that, and did a whole little blurb about me. I felt like I should have my Professional Geek card revoked, because I wasn't familiar with io9.com! I checked it out, and just marveled at the amazing stuff they had on there! Comic books, fantasy and sci-fi book and movie reviews, concept art from big-time video games....and now an online article about lil' ol me?? No way! She asked me what current/future projects I was working on, and decided to mention this children's book I was toying with. She was really interested in it, and in addition to my other illustrations that she wanted, I sent her some scans of the rough illustrations I had done. She asked me if there was a story in addition to the characters, and I'd discovered through sharing the book with others that people had more fun making up their own stories, so felt it was more enjoyable for the viewer to just have the visual of the critter, their name, and then let others make up what the critter's story was. The editor loved the illustrations from the book, and then did exactly that--she took the critters, and made up what she felt these creatures do, what they eat, where they live! She even changed the gender of what I felt some of the critters were, which was once again affirmation that leaving these critters this open truly gave people their own imaginary playground to enjoy!
A few months after that, I contacted an editor from one of my favorite art magazines, ImagineFX. I sent him some samples of my work, as well as a link to my site. He liked what I had to show, and asked for three print-ready samples of my work, as well as to answer several questions that he sent along. One of the questions that he asked was, once again, about current and future projects I was working on. In the same way, I mentioned the Critters book. My work was supposed to appear months ago in the magazine, but due to circumstances out of his control, ended up postponing my blurb in the magazine 'til June of this year. As that date approached, in early May he revisited my information, and realized that I was doing this Critters book. He asked if I had some information about the book, as well as some pictures of some of the critters, and if so, he'd put it in their "Products" section in addition. Holy shit!!! I was now going to have an internationally-known publication helping me sell my book, free of charge! This has made me suddenly have to move in fast-forward. I immediately contacted the information architect that helped me put together my own site, and told him, "Hey, here's some scratch! Can you please set up an e-commerce site for me, stat?" I've looked into Paypal, and am setting up a new bank account to just focus on money earned from that project. Hopefully if I get enough pre-orders from this, it'll help me seal a deal with a publishing agent or better yet, a publisher.
It's really amazing how life works, sometimes. I never really thought very much about this book, except for it just being an exercise for my imagination. But after seeing two industry people react so positively to it, I suddenly thought, "Holy shit! I might be on to something, here...."
I REALLY hope this convention and children's book does well! I'd love nothing more than being a daddy that takes care of his kid during the day, and earns his keep, working on his art during the evening. That, in my ideal mind, sounds pretty much like a dream come true, no doubt! Wish me luck!