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!