scribblepad

2012-01-14T16:31:00.000-08:00

A couple unrelated vehicle sketches.

Finished!

2011-12-20T13:02:00.001-08:00

Finally wrapped up my MFA and final thesis review! Received really wonderful feedback from the review panel and it feels great to be finished up with this chapter of my life. My project included a body of concept art as well as pages of a graphic novel adapted from Robert Low's The Whale Road.

Many thanks to Robert and his editor at Harper Collins for letting me move forward with this project. Robert provided information and feedback all along the way, essentially having a final say on all imagery...and I am extremely grateful for his generous participation and support throughout.

I plan on creating a site dedicated to this project soon. Here is one of the concept paintings and the printed package materials (Sorry for the low-rez blurriness of the package pic.. snapped it with an ipad.).

2011-10-27T17:20:00.000-07:00

Not dead...not yet.

Been laboring hard to bring some projects together, hence the lack of updates lately.
Genre hopping with this sketch again. This is my tribute to the Southwest Art magazines piled up around the house while I was in high school.

What happens often with personal sketches, and what happened with this, I spent a long time 'fixing' it without actually fixing anything. It's sat on the hard drive for a while now. Here's where I let it go.

(Thanks Grant Alexander and Zack Zdrale for quality feedback)

EDIT: made a slight adjustment.

2011-09-19T21:21:00.001-07:00

Transformer for fun...

2011-09-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

Matua Mark at my daughters pre-school has a kit car with an Autobot decal... and yes, I just had to transform it. Took a fair whack of time working on it incrementally when I could afford it. A good learning experience....I really need the practice at hard surface rendering.(my excuse for being a nerd)

Edit: Made some adjustments...not real happy with the results, but I'll let it go.

2011-09-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

quick and messy...and I really have to fight myself to leave it that way.

2011-09-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Been knocked down with the flu this week. All I have is trees.

2011-08-26T13:07:00.001-07:00

2011-08-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

2011-08-19T17:31:00.001-07:00

This one is posted on my portfolio page, but thought I'd throw it up here as well.

2011-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, looks like I'll just post every August.

Thanks to those who follow this blog, I apologize about not maintaining it better.

While chugging through school and commissions over the last year, I have managed to compile a pretty big folder of personal sketches in progress. My plan is to open up one a week... finish or scrap it...and post up the ones that turn out halfway decent. That will result in at least one post a week, and should be manageable.

One more semester to go in Grad school. Yaaay! Just in time to step out into economic armageddon with student loans chained to my ankles. Aaaaugh!

Tried a bit of a different style with this one.

2010-08-27T05:15:00.000-07:00

This one is pretty disgusting.

2010-08-11T05:38:00.001-07:00

2010-08-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

2010-08-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

2010-08-02T15:01:00.001-07:00

2010-07-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Umm, did I mention everyone will be holding guns in every picture I make from now on?

2010-07-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've made a mid-year resolution to create 1 sketch a day for a year. These will be experiments ranging from half an hour to 2 or 3 hours, depending on time and ambition. I can use the practice!

Here's today's.

2010-07-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

archandroid...

2010-07-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a small fraction of work I did for Janelle Monáe's Archandroid album. The crown and armor was sketched out roughly by me, and then built by Hollywood prop-maker Jessee Clarkson out in L.A. I believe he infused some elegance to the design. The gown was fabricated by Jeff Gillies in Atlanta based on these sketches.

The final crown was pushed more towards a gold 'regal' look throughout the process, reflected in the final product (as opposed to the sketches). Also, the album cover image of the crown and armor was a composite, using photos taken of Janelle in costume by Andrew Zaeh, and pumping it up with additional details and lights. The earrings were painted on.

I should mention that the blast shield is just me nerding out the concept. Needless to say it was never seriously considered.

2010-07-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

This matte painting project was created in moveable layers and animated in 2.5D with a slow camera move. The waterfalls were animated and some birds were thrown into the mix for good measure. It's amazing what the camera move adds to credibility...and our instructor for the class was awesome. I'll post that version along with the shot plan soon.

2010-07-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

Red Riding Hood...

2010-07-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

A project for class where we had to re-imagine characters for The Little Red Riding Hood.

I imagined her skating around a creepy town at night, pulling sick tricks on her board while blowing away werewolves.

Thought it would make a cool video game.

Done...

2010-06-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

Conclusion of the project below...with the 'elements' added back in for some life to the image.:)

matte painting process...

2010-06-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

Took a matte painting course which I loved.This is one of the projects charted from beginning to end, where the requirement was an extension of an existing urban scene. Maybe a bit on the boring side to look at, but it was fun to do.

2010-03-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

guess which film?

2010-02-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

concept sketch...

2010-02-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

This was irrelevant when I produced it a while back, but it's ended up being assimilated into a current project in development (for now!).

...

2010-01-30T13:19:00.001-08:00

SEQUENTIAL ART...

2010-01-29T19:07:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the last post...

2010-01-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

Here are a selection of beat boards I completed for Janelle Monae's Many Moons video, which I'm sure I can safely post. This treatment was discarded because of budgetary reasons, and I only did a few for what would eventually be the finished product, which you can see here.

batman color script images...

2010-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

From a class project. We storyboarded an entire sequence from the animated series..then took 6 random panels and added color.

some quickies...

2010-01-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

more...

2010-01-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

Sketchbook stuff...

2010-01-29T16:01:00.001-08:00

I usually don't like my sketchbook drawings, because they are mostly initial scribbles of ideas and such which are embarrassingly ugly. I liked these ones though..

Edit of an earlier sketch...

2010-01-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks Matt for the suggestion on this. The whole sketch is a little too halo-ish, but oh well.

process...

2009-11-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a little process description I put together for some of my classmates at AAU. It tracks a technique for creating environments I learned from Scott Robertson...so all credit belongs to him. Essentially the process involves finding little abstract compositions and then trying not to screw them up as you define them a bit more. It's also super fun.

head studies...

2009-11-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

More work from AAU.

Mickey Mouse...

2009-10-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist posting this. Kennedi scrawled out a rather impressive Mickey on the chalkboard the other day. Do you see it? Awesome! I've got her drawing ellipses and circles all day long so this should show significant improvement by next week. Haha. Nah. But she's still only two, so we were blown away.

Some quick environment thumbnails...

2009-10-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

wondasketches...

2009-09-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

I flew in to do some work at Wondaland in the ATL last February, and as warmup exercises I did these real lickety-split sketches from life...

2009-09-06T04:37:00.000-07:00

a forgotten sketch I found wandering around on my hard drive.

2009-09-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

2009-08-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

creatures...more to come.

2009-08-27T06:37:00.000-07:00

Others from the same class...

Finally!!

2009-08-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

after nearly a year of shameful absence, I have made an update. This will thrill and delight the three of you that still bother to visit my blog.

Hello?

Well...I'm wading through all my classwork pieces now as I'm preparing for my master thesis and collecting some of the ones that don't stink too bad. I'll try and post these pretty regularly for a while as I dust 'em off.

This one was done for a class called Drawing from the Imagination. I'd like to fix the values put color to it at some stage.

More floaty things

2008-09-03T03:48:00.000-07:00

another sketch.

Another Evil Army...

2008-09-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

complete with mist and other things you've seen before... but really fun to do.

These guys actually started out as Samurai.

...

2008-09-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Study after Brent Cotton...

2008-09-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

I love the way this guy handles colors and paint...with no overkill of detail. Hopefully I can make some of that quality rub off.

another expirimental sketch...

2008-07-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

Meeting the Gai-Jin

2008-07-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

snowy street in the early morning

2008-06-26T06:11:00.000-07:00

I used to work on this street. Charles Joseph Traffic Services. My best friends dad owned the company, and we worked with a group of close friends over the course of a few summers.

One of those summers we all 'worked' in this dank warehouse filling sandbags... there was a rickety upper level we would leap off of into a giant sand pile and pelt each other with rotten Asbestos tiles that had crumbled from the ceiling. The broken tiles would slice through the air and explode into powder right above our heads while we ran around like cackling idiots. ..can't wait for the after-effects of that one.

Anyway, this was painted years down the track the morning after our daughter was born. The street looked different, but the same. Strangley deserted but hauntingly familiar.

battle on a galleon

2008-06-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

Portrait of a humanoid...

2008-06-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

my wife hates this. She hates it very much. Come to think of it, I'm not sure how I feel about it either.

retro vroom!!

2008-06-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

concept doodle...

Sargent copy

2008-05-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

... filling in while I'm sweating out environments for the interactive Metropolis game 2719. Will post what I can when I can on those.

self portrait

2008-05-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

in charcoal.

2008-05-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

This sketch was done for Janelle Monae's metropolis album, which for those unfamiliar is a concept album that features Miss Monae as an android named Cindi Mayweather. The year is 2719, and Cindi is on the run because she fell in love with a human, and this is against the rules. This is an early ideation for droid control marshalls... safe, expected, and ultimately rejected. The concept was abandoned for a while but will need overhauling for the associated online game, 2719. I will be reimagining them as creepy kids inspired by Mark Ryden's Little Boy Blue.

oak queen

2008-05-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

small oils...

2008-05-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

These are fun for practice...plus it feels like I actually produced something when it's done outside the digital realm. I'd like to get decent at oil painting...hope to do some more of these in the next few months if freelance work subsides.

iowa bridge

2008-05-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

2008-05-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

A couple more digital sketches completed in the bustling metropolis of Rochelle, Illinois.

2008-05-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Not quite sure where this blog stuff will go, but I thought it'd be a great way to share a hodgepodge of work while
I construct a (hopefully) more organized site. I'll kick this off with some semi-old work. Digital sketch from life/memory. This punga tree is a viewable through our bathroom window... usually one of the first things to see in the morning. I was struck by the way it looked in the early sunlight.