side face

Revised this one a bit once I got better reference.

Brenda in profile

big face

Carrion jiggler and a vinegar bottle

Auncient One

At work we did a "giant monster" themed sketch session.

A day of thanks

Thanks for the fingers, Santa. Without which I could not tickle the harpstrings.

Zomb

A quick zombie gunslinger offering meat

The birth and death of Supershitty Comics

At a cafe today I decided to write a comic. No planning. No "good" art. Just get that shit done!

I drew three square cells and then put some super simple characters in random poses then added dialogue without knowing what they were going to say next.

The first and last 3 issues of GEIST, here for you now.

Taking the tank out for a spin

Guy in the shadows

A skin tone sketch.

Ronald

Baby summoner

kid head - octopus body

a new face. Trying to get some skin tones down. Angry boarding schooler.

Pope Innocent x master study - portrait

she knows how to use 'em

new stuff

Character concept

Somewhat deformed character concept (minus some text and titling)

Little Hawk

cafe doodle

a naked old man

Neptune with a shark bite.

magician poster

I was looking for something to do yesterday and saw a post on craigslist from a dude who needed a business card. He was a magician with a crappy website so I emailed him and made this (had to be b/w due to the card stock he was using.) Basically worked pro bono.

I tried to capture some of the old style classic magic posters and practice a little graphic design which I usually avoid. Came out pretty cool and he was happy.

The final size is business card but this is 1/4 work size. The text is all his request (he really wanted to show how "green" his Magic biz was)

Parambulator

I felt the need to do something with more than 2 legs so here it is. Still trying to keep it in control during the transition from scanned pencil sketch to painted. There are so many unintentional marks and textures that gradually get painted over even if they are cool. Hmm. I think ultimately the way to go is with a simpler sketch then paint in the base through details so there isn't the remorse of painting over something that could stand alone but that doesn't work in the final piece.
On to storyboards..

some new stuff I posted on my portfolio

YAK!

Keith Thompson has a cool look, sortof like Wayne Barlowe but not as good. Here is me trying to do a quadruped in that style

a soldier and a beast of burden

done!

my first device

I guess it is just a flashlight but it looke much more complicated

an angry turk?

Some parts of this guy came out as intended but there are some glaring bad perspective parts that really bother me. Values and contrast are 80% of what I wanted, on to the next I guess.

the original sketch

pencil drawings on Sunday

square brush quick concept

3D based city with Titan

I made a simple 3D model in Maya - then textured it and drew details in photoshop.

This was meant to be a period architecture piece but I had to throw in a Titan protecting the city from some huge blast. We can never understand their motives..

Getting a bit tired of this color scheme now..

realistic environments

Trying out some more realistic textures. Less stylized. The guy in this is a bit more painterly but I accidentally saved the flattened image so he is in there permanently.

Outside the city speedpainting

Lunchtime quick street scene numero 2.

No perspective fussing here. Bricks lit by the fire!

defiant/bashful/insane russian cosmonaut

nebulas

Nebula+ship=future

Quick character - comfy

This character is just a fast concept in a comfortable style for me. Cartoony, not too finished. From a sketch, Scanned and given a steampunk color theme. I'd like to do some more realistic people when I can put more than a few minutes into a personal drawing. Soon!

Cliff castle with some concept sketches

I was about to go to sleep and had this idea pop in my head of a cliff with animal headed cylinders extending over the edge. After a few sketches I worked up this idea. I like it but got too mired in the messy middle phases. The values work desaturated though so I know they are good:) * If it looks good in black and white then the shadow to light balance is correct.

I wish the architecture was designed better - it is really bland and not to scale (windows are too big by far) but I didn't work on a detailed sketch so had to make it up as I went along. Next time I will definitely use real perspective and map out a tight sketch for architecture before painting.

Space crap

Space town
Moon Burg Quadrant
Star-ville Region of the Kentucky Nebula
U.S.A.

speed painting

10 minute mountain

blue junkland

I wanted to do another pice with the same blue night, industrial theme color scheme as the last one. This one was little more planned out to begin with. Took maybe 2.5 hours?

I started with perspective lines. Added junkland shapes and went from there, adding the miner/traveler and the working forge area last.

City scape

Next attempt at landscaping with the brush set. To be clear, I'm using someone elses brushes. Huge time saver if the project needs loose and gritty. Going to try something naturalistic next.

new brushes

I am trying out a new set of brushes. Makes loose and fast landscapes pretty easy. Compared to the soft brush I used on the last one, this landscape has way more detail and took about an hour.

some faces

I've been working on skin tones and faces in general a bit. Here are my first few. The mohawk girl has jelly bean of a head and her ear is in the wrong place but the skin is passable. I like how the guy came out, took a bit longer on him.

Viola

Not a huge backstory on this. Just trying some stuff without doing a sketch first.

Space woman beating a low charisma fuzzball.
Some surly guy with patterned skin brands.

the alchemists

These are the alchemists. Not your typical wisened european chemists but men who are following the Great Work in various ways. This guy is more of a blacksmith, with protective leathers due to explosive endeavors. He has already lost a leg but still gazes deeply into his creations.
This fellow below is inseparable from his bopkin. He is selfish and dangerous.

This one is just a blue sky attempt - alchemy on an alien scale. Human ingredients are needed. His pose is reminiscent of giant buddhist statue, perhaps they used his form as a model. He has humanoid anatomy on the outside but his pose has no counterbalancing, inside he is boneless. His clothes are perhaps a crabs casing. Giant voodoo alien alchemist?

Needs a ride

Just a quick black and white undead bandleader patriot gunslinger looking for a ride.. A bit sloppy but I'm proud of how the tree branches came out - just made a crappy brush and threw em down in 5 seconds. Economy!

the dreamer

I tried some new stuff with this guy. Didn't take him to the level of finish I would have liked but my hand is hurting from the day of painting.

I do like how his face is hard to focus on, with an upper face it's almost like your eyes are crossed for a second when you look at him. His posture recalls hindu statues, double limbs and multiple eyes pimple his body. Two cherubim souls help unfurl his "wings" as he meditates.

I did paint over a sketch on this, it is showing through. Needs more work but I'll probably move on. The lighting came out ok but not as intentional as it could have been.

portraits

Creepy pin eyed priest, some surly snail-like alien smoking and an overjoyed undead fellow looking for love.


These potraits are taken from a scanned pencil sketch and colored with an overlay layer underneath the spencil set as a multiply layer. It's a pretty good way to do a fast coloration with value but still needs to be painted over if these are going to be taken to the next step of polish. A finished piece in this technique would have no pencil marks showing.

paintings and sketches of the inferno

Some demon types. The first cannot be reasoned with at all. it is all fury and smoke. It bends the air around it, pressure and shockwaves. the second demon might listen to you for a minute, if only to find out how to torture you more effectively. His skirt is leather made of souls, only the eyeholes are recognizeable, it is seamless.


The pit that forms the ninth circle of Hell. Traitors are frozen in a lake of ice called Cocytus. They enter this circle through the chest of Antaeus - a giant frozen into the firmament of the pit.

This rightmost image is inspired by the idea that Hell has fauna that predates the angels' fall. These industrious creatures work the billows in a smoky landscape.



A doorway. Escaping hell is not easy. This door doesn't go out anyways. It goes someplace bad, and it's not easy to get through the door. Sometimes anywhere else is better than where you are.


Various folks. Didn't shade them just took em close to final lines.

Something bad

This guy lives in hell. He doesn't have a personable face.. But he does adorn himself with a fur or two. He has his likes and dislikes but none of them have anything to do with compassion.

More figure study

More figure study from the afterwork group. 1 to 5 minute sketches, I added the highlites afterwards.

Figure study

We have a figure study after work once a week that I've started going to. Here are some 1 minute to 5 minute sketches that came out well.

Old dead drunk

This old warrior is a bit more interested in a stein of the sauce than bothering the living.

More stuff from the archives

Here are some old personal projects that weren't quite tuned for portfolio showing. They can moulder here for a bit.

More unfinished biz

Cowboy robot..Maybe a la Westworld or something.

This guy I love. Just refound him. He's an old soddered king of the woods.. He is all texture.

unfinished biz

Above: Clean techno jumpsuit guy with uncontrolled plant hybridization. His arm is in a test tube of nutrient kindof like what you get when you buy flowers. He's rooted at the bottom and leafy up top. Losing his humanity a little in his masked face. Next is an idea me and a friend worked up about a victorian gentleman who has a twin body growing out of his back conspicuously. It thrashes and has "moods" all the time and in his conservative social group he just tries to ignore it..Imagine dinner party.. Puberty..etc..pink elephant.
I was looking at an old folder named "art" on my desktop and realized I have a ton of unfinished drawings that I may have to admit I will never get to finish. After not seeing them for several months I find some of them are cool and just to preserve them I've put em up here. Mostly character concept sketches. It's hard to look at some of them but I think there are some good ideas here.

This one I WILL finish..It's just too clean not too. Plus I really like her character. Typical chick in space suit with a way too big gun but she's still girly and swingin a purse.

Squid love

I really like the slick look that a lot of today's cartoons have. With such line economy they add a huge amount of style. Not my personal style but I wanted to give it a shot.

When doing the initial sketch for this guy, I tried to have geometric connections. Lines lead into other ones. There is a stiffness to this guy, lines are straight and curves are exact and inflexible. This hopefully is in contrast with octopus' curves.

The guy is a smoker, he likes fire and smoke. His outfit is brownish and his eyes are tired. His angles are stiff. The octopus is cool and wet - Feminine.

For this guy to work with an octopus he has to carry a water spritzer. It is obviously cumbersome to have an octopus on his arm at all times but he is willing to compromise his nature to keep her close. Is it love or symbiosis requiring lots of energy to maintain? The curl logos on his sleeves evoke a little oceanic, nautilus or octopus- arm feel or is it smoke?

Revamped Elf

11th hour, right before i was about to leave I get the request to make an elf for marketing.. 2 hour elf here.

More xmas stuff

This is a poster sized xmas thing for our upcoming title. it's a US dist game mostly but this is the localized one for Spanish.

I added Santa and the Penguin from another piece so the perspectives are off, no time to fix it! It is a little chopped up but I'm happy with how it looks.

Retro Diver a la Day the Earth Stood Still

Retro future guy, a little Day the Earth Stood Still, A little Rocketeer, a little Mysterio. I'm trying out a new coloring workflow, seems decent. Start with as detailed sketch as possible, fancy it up in CS then add overlay colors.

Halloween Hero

This is a title screen for our game Goblin Toss - Trick or Treat. Done from a sillouette and I think it came out cool, I'm glad the dirt color scheme got in there and I got paid to draw a dragon and a goblin, I have arrived:)

Painting over a screenshot

One of the fun things I have to do is to "uprez" a cell phone screen so it looks good in a powerpoint presentation. This is a 220x320 screenshot that I painted over a little to make it look cleaner, the present pyramid is still pixellated but what the hell.

Paleolithic project

Me and a friend are slowly working on a gritty caveman comic. This character isn't what our final look is going to be about but I liked how it came out. I love adding the rivulets of gore and flecks of ichor.

Finally had to accept that Illustrator has its merits! I got the program and this is more or less my first image. So easy to make it CLEAN. The shark guy I made a while back (with the cane) would have been dead on if I had made him in Illustrator.
I picked Sponge Bob just to try to hit an existing style. I think it's good but Patrick is a little beefy.

New gig

So I've been working at a mobile games company for a few months now. I did this piece of pixel art as a concept drawing, it's the good luck three legged toad from Chinese mythology. He loves coins so grab em before he does!
Minigolf btw:)

Geezer Jaw

An older great white, not in a good mood. He's all out of chondroitin and he has a bad "hip"

Here I tried to work up a cartoony shark guy - I never really do this style but I did want to have the ability to do it if needed.

His profile isn't really old - he could have been a little more withered and sharp but he's not geriatric. Sharks age well anyways don't they?

Loose again

Got caught up in an illustration. Just trying to model the form by using fast color swaths and pushing them around with the smudge tool. Interesting but I'm not going to do this one clean.

The vertical mouth is pretty cool but the carapace style head plates I have done before.

Parasitized undead

I got this idea while reading about chinese herbal remedies. Apparently the Chinese womens swim team some years back was accused of using performance enhancing drugs, their coach in a press conference claimed they were taking herbs including the rare and expensive cordyceps.

Cordyceps is a fungus that lives exclusively on a certain moth caterpillar, eventually killing it as it matures, feeding on the flesh of the animal.

This humanoid with some vague nematodic qualities shambles along and is driven to whatever misdeeds cross it's parasitized mind. Whether it still thinks for itself at all or is now a hapless host to a fungal entity is unknown - better to kill it first and ask questions later.

Like a coloring book

Still refining the pencil to Photoshop workflow. With some extra work this typical midieval euro-style frog soldier could be clean. Without his pencil outline he is actually pretty solid but would need some inking details. I left the pencil instead and called him done.

Right now I'm sketching...adding final lines with pencil and erasing older lines...scanning...digitally cleaning up a bit...dropping in base colors..layers layers layers..working from back to front. Not really inking with pen and seeing how that goes.
I am going to be doing some concept environments next. I have one more character idea to put forth..If I nail it then I'm gonna focus on them for a while. Cordyceps!

Little fella

This guy came out OK except his ink lines stand out and look a bit spotty next to the clean cel shading of the rest of the image. I might go back and stroke the body and get rid of the ink layer. We'll see.

Frankenbean...I have no idea what the Mercury part means..Maybe they know in Japan.

From what I read..

So I was re-reading some H.P. Lovecraft and felt the need to whip this guy up. "Yogg" is a pretty down the middle name for a Lovecraftian elder god. Following "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" this small village has summoned Yogg from the mists of the sea town, long fallen into decay but not abandoned. Sea soaked planks, ever encroaching cliffs and a sickly mist surround the place. Population 120.
Yogg is BIG. And hungry.

The REAL first post

OK! The blog is created. Nothing much on here yet but I thought it would be a good idea to preserve some of the half-baked ideas I work on and abandon. Hopefully some move on to be finished works but sometimes a decent sketch lies around forever without any attention so here some of em come to rest.