There and Back Again: "Digital Paintings"

Adapting to new styles and technologies; Well digital painting and the Wacom tablet were the the two aspects of conceptual art that I needed to get a firm grasp of. I've purchased a lot of reference material, usually concept art books of popular films and video games and digital art made up a large portion of what was shown. 
I feel that I really found myself now that I work, for the most part, on  the computer and my Wacom table (I currently use an Intuos 3). It took me about a year to really get the grasp of how to use this tool and to get a feel for it. But it really helped me loosen up and experiment.

"Rhino Warrior": This was my first character that was completely drawn on the tablet. It started from a sketch I did at work (I like to go to Google and sketch from random images), from these sketches I came up with this cool looking rhino/human hybrid face. I later redrew it in Photoshop and added the rest of the body. I went with a tribal feel for this one and I still hate his shoes :)

Here are few other concepts:

"Bird Man"

"Female Study"

"Zombie Concept"

The "Bird Man" started off as a sketch I did while looking at some bald eagles and this old mans face kept popping into my head.The next one was my first attempt into painting a female character; she is my Pre-Wonder Woman. The final one was for this video game project that never got off the ground, I'm still pleased with it.

And a newer one!

"Dwarf Warrior Revised"

"Warrior Dwarf Original"

Well this guy was actually a revisit to an earlier design that I had did a few years back. The original was a sketch I did for a class project which was then colored in a Photoshop (I didn't know what I was doing). The revised design shows a significant amount of growth in the tools that I now know how to use (somewhat). I had a lot of fun with this one; He has a personality and a story which the viewer can have fun imagining when viewing specific traits that are visibly present. The only thing that I had to keep somewhat the same from the original design was his two handed ax, I still think it's bad ass.

Well that's it for know, the next few posts will continue with some of my older projects then off to the new stuff!

Character Design for Animation Research

I found this book, "Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950's Animation" by Amid Amidi at the public library. I really enjoyed this book and it helped me take a good hard look at my character designs to see what I was missing... Style!

This book covered animation from the 1950's and I loved the simplicity of everything. The following designs were created based on what I observed. 

 I like to start with head shots, its important for me to get the character's personality this way before I tackle the rest of it. 

"California Dreamin"

I decided to create this blog as a means of sharing my artwork and my creative process. It also serves as a replacement from funding a website! I wanted to share with anyone who was interested... Why I draw what I draw, what inspires me, and how I'm working toward the goals I have set for myself.

So "California Dreamin", why did I decide to title my first blog with that? Well when I'm about to start working on whatever project that I'm currently working on, I play this song as a means of pumping myself up. Since childhood, I've had but one goal and that goal was Disney. I grew up watching the Mickey, Goofy and Donald; Plus every Disney feature film available (live action and animated) with Pinocchio and Swiss Family Robinson being my favorite. As time went by, I started to become fascinated with the man himself, Walter Elias Disney and of this world that he lived and worked in, Hollywood. 

When researching Walt, I got introduced to all of these other individuals like Chaplin, Threes Stooges, Bing Crosby and my favorite Hollywood movie star, Lucille Ball. I would watch all of these classic movies with my mom and I fell in love with these comedies, dramas and musicals. My favorite of these movie genres were the ones staring the classic Universal Movie monsters. The art that went into the makeup and the design of these creatures fascinated me.

Well  I digressed, back to Disney! Animation, that was my original goal, that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be one of those original animators who worked along with Disney to help establish what animation was and what it could be. I wanted to experiment with different techniques and new styles to design these awesome looking and believable characters that you actually care for. I wanted to get thrown into W.E.D. and get the challenge of designing what you see at Disneyland. Damn it, I wanted to be Marc Davis! 

Well I was born a few decades too late, the Disney I fell in love with is now gone; I fell in love with history. But the desire, the passion to work for this company and in Hollywood is still there. I really want to call John Lasseter my boss. My passion is not the actual animation anymore, but in character design and conceptual art. I want to create the characters you see in those big blockbuster movies. I want to design those characters that everyone falls in love with (like Buzz and Woody) or scares you (like Jesse from Toy Story 2), she creeps me out OK!  I want  to work in the Hollywood industry period. Times change, so do goals but one has never changed for me and that is to see my name in the credits of at least one film. That is why I play that song whenever I prepare to do some artwork.

Next time some actual artwork ;)