Let The Party Begin

photo taken with my new fisher price digital camera. 640by480 grooviness

Happy Halloween!

EDIT: Wow I didn't realize that DMD just posted a similar greeting! I think hers is WAY more demented than mine.

Halloween Greetings!

Here’s a little something for Halloween. I hope it’s not to scary (or disturbing). If it is then all you have to do is keep posting until it is pushed to the archives.

Tentacle Robot as Village Idiot Babysitter

Taking a break from LOD model work in Maya.

I did more linework on the figure.

Here's my final color version of my Pilgrim, and I've thought of a name for him... Phil Grimm!

Mr. Mittens the Halloween Cat

Here is the front of my Halloween card for this year. It looks better printed than as a jpeg.

Scott Check This Out

Info on another Carlsbad outfit....

John Rowe is a honcho of some sort. I believe the prez. You always got on well with him. This is basically some sort of party where pros are invited. May be a golden moment.


http://www.highmoonstudios.com/blasts/lesscrunch.html


I'm ready with more outside the box thinking. Tell that to the money men.

LEEJA and Her DAD and a Book Recommendation

Leeja's Dad is furious that Magnus has brought Leeja home late again.

Also


I scanned a great page from the new Scott McCloud book. Making Comics.
This section on expression is great. I was drawing that Mexican Wrestler mask of muscle and thinking about it and having light bulbs go off. Even if it isn't showing in my work yet.

Character sheet from "Pirates of Venus"

Here's another drawing from "The Pirates of Venus" pre-production files. He's Carson Napier, the hero. You can tell he's the hero by the jutting jaw and absence of nipple-piercings.

I'm also including the logo I put together for them. Have no idea if they'll use it. Maybe one of you guys can pay me for it!

Nightmare Character: The Eggplant King

New picture ... the one I'm going to submit as soon as I've formalized the background write-up.

He is tall because he is a new rival for Jack Skellington ... and his one enduring trait is that he believes the lowly eggplant can aspire to pumpkin-like status. He slinks through the night replacing pumpkins with similarly carved eggplants, then observes people's reactions to his creations. He is undeterred, however, even when they don't immediately love them as much as he does. Secreted away behind high walls is a rambling, cobbled together shack where the Eggplant King lives. The building also contains his organic laboratory; the open fields outside are devoted to eggplant growing in advance of All Hallows Eve. Like pumpkins, these enhanced eggplants grow much bigger and have a distended appearance that makes carving of them easier to imagine. The wall is patrolled by sleek, purple weasel-nosed minks who howl out a shrill alarm whenever a stranger approaches.

Evolving Mural

The hypnotic time-lapse recording of a mural that was done and redone in the course of a week.

Take 2

So here's my refinement of what I did before... what's funny is without even trying, the Pilgrim now has the silhouette of a turkey.

Frankenstein, the Joker

He uses a high voltage joy buzzer, a puss squirting flower and is generous with dynamite cigars .

TenNapel Speaks ...

Jason Weesner sent me this link. Doug TenNapel is such a read. Give this a little look when you have 1/2 a minute. Salient quote: "I didn't leave games, the games left me..." But that's only one of many, many, many quotable quotes. And to those of us who toil daily in the vidgame industry, it's particularly close to the bone ...

;-)

Here's the link to TenNapel's interview.

Nightmare Ideas

So I sketched around some ideas for the Nightmare Before Xmas characters... Cthulhu boy (no back story), Abominable snowman (no back story, but too close to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer), the limbs in the wrong place guy (no back story), and the Pilgrim, who has a complete back story...

After Jack Skelington embraces his calling as the Pumpkin King, he decides to explore the other holiday doors at the edge of Halloweentown. He visit Thanksgivingtown and meets up with Indians and white settlers. The settlers think that Thanksgiving the only holiday worth celebrating and try to bring it to Halloween town, whether they like it or not. Jack escapes and enlists the help of his friend "Sandy Claws" to save Halloweentown.

As you can see, I like the Nightmare Before Xmas a little too much and have spent too much time thinking about new stories that could be told about that world!

This Guy Should Have His Own TV Show

Saw this link from Drudge,

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006480089,00.html

about Americans going to England to live off the dole.

The whistleblower had a very distinctive sillohuette. Not doing a great favor to the guy. He'll be easy to identify, can't be one in a million with that rugged look.

Greetings from Carpinteria State Beach

Dan and I took a break and went to the beach. The Walf "sketch" is mine and the other one is Dan's.

Select Your Line Work In Photoshop

Scott, you being a linework guy just starting to manipultae his stuff in photoshop, I wanted to share this little gimmick with you. Take your scanned art, go to "channels" , duplicate the blue channel, invert it (ctrl I), and drag it to that little dotted line circle at the bottom of the channels box.

This selects just your line. And it can be used later to reselect the line area any time you feel the need to eradicate or reinstate that line. This is very useful for recoloring the line as someone else suggested. Deselet the inverted channel and select the RGB channels to go back to your regular art's appearance. Press ctl h to hide the crawling ants selection effect and just start painting over the line with colors that set off the fills you've chosen.


I touched up your nymph art with this selection technique. Just effortlessly reselecting the line area, alt selecting to get rid of some selction and doing different fills. Then at the end I just started putting black back on the line area. Wacky eh?

Nymphs

Howdy,

Here's a new drawing I did on a whim.

I stumbled on this scene while I was in the woods one summer. I woke up hours later bloodied, bruised, with my pants and shoes stolen. Stupid fairies. I thought they were supposed to grant wishes or something. All I said was, " Hey ladies, whatcha doing? Getting a buzzzzzzzzzz?" I thought it was witty. Then they beat me up.

Stupid fairies.

NightMare Doodle

Dabbling. Thinking Vampire. I think a backstory would be essential. I'll get into this weekend

Mr. Mittens Progress Report

Here is what I’ve done so far. I placed the scanned sketch into an Illustrator document and chose template as the layer option. Using the pen tool, I traced the various parts of the cat on separate layers. Finally, I filled and stroked the various bits and pieces. I’m still playing around with the color and would like to make some sort of a background for him.

Nightmare Contest First attempt

Here's my first attempt at the contest entry but I dont' think this is the final. I was just searching for a shape that would fit in the world. But as I was drawing the character, I was trying to come up with a backstory and nothing seemed to fit. So my advice to you is to come up with the backstory FIRST, then draw away. I only say this because you have to turn in a character description with your design. It might account for 50% of the entry AND it only makes good sense.

Nightmare Before Christmas Fan Art Contest

On my earlier post of my costume idea that will never be Rickart replied that we should have a theme drawing contest thingie. Well here's an idea that you can win prizes for and have fun too. So here is the official text:

Calling all artists, designers, creative geniuses, film lovers and Nightmare fans! This is your chance to create an original character for Walt Disney Pictures’ holiday classic, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, making its return to the big screen this month in stunning Disney Digital 3-D. You are free to create the scariest, creepiest, most inspired character you can think of that fits into the world of Tim Burton’s beloved film. Your submission will be judged based on creativity, originality, and the unique features of the character.

We will select one winner from the submissions. Along with the winners from 4 other sites, these five finalists will be judged by the filmmakers of The Nightmare Before Christmas,. One grand prize winner and 4 second-prize winners will be announced on the site during the week of Halloween.

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D, opens in theaters nationwide on October 20, 2006.

Grand Prize Winner (1):
• The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D one-sheet signed by the filmmakers
• 6-foot tall Jack Skellington theater standee
• Two-Disc Special Edition Soundtrack with covers by Marilyn Manson, Fall Out Boy, She Wants Revenge, Fiona Apple, and Panic! At The Disco.
• The original DVD of the film.
Second Prize winners (4):
• The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3-D one-sheet
• Two-Disc Special Edition Soundtrack with covers by Marilyn Manson, Fall Out Boy, She Wants Revenge, Fiona Apple, and Panic! At The Disco.
• The original DVD of the film.

SEND YOUR CHRACTER ART AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER (BOTH ARE REQUIRED) TO HERE:
nightmarebeforechristmas@comingsoon.net

(FILE SIZE CANNOT EXCEED 600KB!)

The contest is open from October 9 - 31, 2006. You will be notified by e-mail if you have won.

Click here for the official contest rules.

Trying again.

Okay, here's another attempt at coloring. Thanks to Rick, Ellis, and Jeff for the tips. I tried the gray value under-drawing first then built the color layers on top of that.

Go ahead and have at it. I want to hear comments on what's working and what's not. Mind you, I'll hang myself if any one of you says anything that sounds remotely negative...

... ah the hell with it. I anticipate some negativity, so I'm off to find Ellis, kill him, and THEN hang myself. Sorry man.

Tuesday Sketch

This guy is just the sort of slacker to show up on Wednesday when he's expected on Tuesday

Frank Miller's 300 Trailer (daily testosterone shot)

This looks good.

And here's a little fun related bit.

Photoshop vs. Painter (or other art packages)

Hey ... I'm cobbling together an article on Photoshop vs. Painter for Computoredge. The article also covers various smaller packages like Artrage, Opencanvas and Gimp, though only peripherally. Naturally, I have both Photoshop and Painter and typically use both on any given project, but I wondered whether any of you had a favorite or a reason for choosing one over another (or any smaller package). I can imagine some of the others are best (even if they're not as feature rich) because they're free. But there are bound to be other informational tidbits you can share.

Naturally, anyone that makes it into the article can have their name in it, as well as a link to a Web site. I want to turn the article in this evening, so let those fingers fly if you want to weigh in on this subject.

;-)

Hola!

Another spread from my PB. Tom, no models, I draw from my head like most comic book artists I know. I just never go to the inked version, so these stay really loose. These sketches (if I keep the composition) will be used as direct canvases for my digital watercolor/pastel paintings.

Oh no! It's Mr. Mittens

Here is a sketch of one of my current projects. I'm going to try working with him in Illustrator to add color and some sort of background.

Halloween Costume - What If...

During lunch I saw a couple of guys carrying two big plastic trash bags full of corn cobs (they were setting up for a local farmer's market). Since Halloween is around the corner I was instantly hit by the idea for a costume. This is what I saw in my head. My head would be the spikey back of the creature.

If only I had the time to make it....*sigh*

The Dip

This is a page from my picture book dummy KITCHEN DANCE, which is off to the agent tomorrow. He's only been waiting a year for me to finish it. Nice and soft and quiet and fully clothed. Just a little rest from any excess of testosterone.

Zap!

Here's a new drawing I did for my friend Michele's birthday.

Still looking for a full-time job, but I appreciate the help several of you have given me so far. Excellent leads, keep 'em coming. Ellis, I haven't received the kick back for this month for keeping pictures of you off the internet. Keep it coming.

Return to C-Edge ...

Here is the first art piece I've done for Computoredge in yonks and yonks ... Thought it would be my posting for this Tuesday (but it's probably a little cryptic since no one has, as yet, read the story ...). Trust me, the story was a collection of vignettes and the approach I selected was a challenge because I decided to try to include something from the top three. I enjoyed planning, sketching, and hen rendering it and hope to do more.

Happy Kitty Bunny Pony

Cute sells!

Mike Nelson of MST3K has this book that focuses on some publisher that specializes in ubercute imagery.

If George Lucas Made LOTR

Long but there are some funny bits in here. Hayden Christensen's voice is bang on!

Halloween House

Pretty impressive stuff... and pretty do-able...

Sculpey Project Rough

It's an old Idea I've batted around for some time but with my new moldmaking confidence I'm going to give it another go. The big thing is to pour the mold full of rubbery PVC so it's stretchey , allowing custom ping pong ball eyes to be replaced. I thought through how to get the form of the curve of the ping pong ball without cutting it out of my sculpt. I'll heat gun the sclupey to harden it and the ping pong ball will melt and leave a perfect dimensional record when I pull it out with needlenose pliers.

Haircut of the Year

Ellis, Why didn't you think of this?

Fun With Photoshop

This is something I did a while ago. Just playing around with Photoshop.

More Nazi Man With Hat ...

More later; Done soon. The background needs to become a watery grotto with lots of dim lichen and drippy bits ... Roof also needs some rendering. This exercise has been a lot of fun!!

Alex Toth Rips into Steve Rude

In this series of scans, Alex Toth rips into Steve Rude as he critiques the artist’s work on an issue of Jonny Quest. Toth seems quite harsh in his criticism, but there are valuable lessons to be learned here regarding staging, storytelling, research, and layout. One of Toth’s last bits of criticism: “Think! Think! Think! — Before you draw, while you draw, and after! And redraw if it doesn’t work!”

(nicked from Drawn.ca)

The Schooling is HERE

Picture for a Rainy Afternoon

Hi everybody! Hope this works. This is a quick drawing I made with Crayola Twistable crayons. I had some trouble with scanning it (couldn't get the colors right.)