Some Designs and Sharing Stuff

So I haven't had much of a chance to share work I've been doing for, ohhhh the past YEAR for my job! Just didn't really get motivated to compile a good little collection. And since most of these spots have aired for quite some time, I'm assuming they've run their course enough for me to share some behind the scenes of a few elements.

My biggest and most enjoyable position so far has been character design and color work. Color used to be my kryptonite funny enough, when I was younger, but I've beaten my weakness to a pulp over the years and now love working with it.

All of this artwork in this post are for just a few General Mills spots I've worked on so far.


I really loved this first design here:


This was the final:

I had to paint a doll concept as quick as I humanly could, and she came out super cute!

I love painting mock-ups for scenes to help set the environment. My painting skills in Photoshop are getting faster and faster:


I even got to paint (a ton!) of backgrounds for a series of Trix web shorts. Though since I was still new at it and doing so on a mass scale, I soon found out I was way in over my head and had to bring in extra help!


Which designs do you recognize? See any on TV recently?

Next post will have...DINOSAURS!

Character Art Post

A little something for this morning to share, one of my newer characters...for goodness knows what at the moment to be honest. Wanted to post a bit today since I'll be really busy with guests this weekend.


Mellie the mysterious rock princess.

Gouache Work

Been busy on and off, cutting into time to create pieces for myself or doing any daily drawing. I also lost time to work for July's 11-Second club, so it will unfortunately not be done in time. Will still work on it though for a demo reel pieces since I love the sound effects and idea I came up with. Good news though, I sought out an open drawing session in a gallery close to work, so I'll be working on figure studies once again (slacker me!). Also, here's a random gouache piece for you all:

Daily Workout - Week 7

Just gonna post random stuff all this week! Keep checking back daily for images added to this post.

A quick color and design sketch, two baby tyrannosaurs are stalked by a mysterious creature after their mother dies:


Shoot...didn't get around to posting yesterday due to finishing up a ton of animation clean up, but I've got this little guy for today! I'd going to try and pull together a piece for this month's 11 Second Club competition, especially since it's a really fun sound FX clip and I immediately got a cute idea for it. This is the design of one of the characters in my clip.

I'm only going to add color if time offers me such a luxury, but for now it's only going to be black and white. I just dropped in this purple for fun.

Henry Color Sketches

Some work done over the weekend; practice in gouache.

Daily Workout - Week 6

So I've had a "meh" week and a half not posting. Honestly, haven't been very motivated, but on the other hand was more concentrated on work. Got myself a new journal to jot down stuff while on the train though. I'm such a sucker for wanting a clean, purdy new journal when less than a quarter has been used in the last one.

I also saw Transformers 2 last night, and all I has to says is...when the heck am I gonna be seein' sum DINOBOTS HMMMM????


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Tuesday Morning:

I cheat! I did this last night... =)

Daily Workout - Week 5

Nothing special happening as of yet, but I did get that disaster of an art room clean this weekend! Hopefully I'll be seeing myself at a desk working at home more often again.

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Monday Morning:

Starting off the morning with a beakey turtle man creature.

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Friday Morning?
ehhhhh I've been really slow on drawing in the mornings this week since I've been so distracted with work and other personal projects. Been doing way too much writing and daydreaming as well, so I've only been able to do some practice sketches on hands.

I've also been painting in gouache in the evenings at home, so I'll have a make up post of all that practice soon.

Daily Workout - Week 4

What weird weather we've been having here in Chicago...cold rainy to warm then cold again. In June. Thanks, climate change! =P (maybe I'll just move somewhere warm again...)

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Monday Morning:


For good news though, I got a brand new bike and took it for a fun test spin yesterday running errands. Maybe I can actually get into shape again...

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Tuesday Morning:

Once upon a time there was a mysterious girl, and two boys fell in love with her. One was a handsome prince, the other, a lazy scoundrel. All the girl wanted to do, however, was climb trees and play in the dirt!

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Wednesday Morning:

Umm...a dragon???

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Thursday Morning:

I'd love to be on a warm beach with clear water and bright white sand, especially today (rainy....).

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Friday Morning:

TGIF!!

Daily Workout - Week 3

Happy June everyone! Starting off the day to more Henry this Monday morning.



Also! Check out my big-timey cover art over at Screen Magazine:



There's a great chunk about Calabash Animation inside pages 12 - 13!
The art is all digital (Photoshop) save for the "movie screen", which is cut paper composited on top. There's a total of three layers of various textures of mine to make it look water-color-ish, even.

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Tuesday "Morning":

Well, didn't actually get to do a "morning" warm-up per se, because of tight deadlines on stuff that took up all of my time, but I managed to squeeze this out before I left the studio for fun and study work.

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Wednesday Morning:

I was getting carried away with this one and started coloring it, but thought to just post the linework for now! =)
....
Here's a little work in progress for the color, at the moment:


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Thursday Morning:

I don't draw a lot in the way of machines and vehicles, so this is just a rough attempt at a concept.

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Friday Morning:

TGIF!

Daily Workout - Week 2

Whoops! Missed a couple of work day warm-ups! Actually, I took last Friday off so I could get some things done at home before I flew out of state for vacation, and of course - studio was closed on Monday. Hope everyone's Memorial Day Weekend was nice! I'm a little late for Tuesday, erm, "morning", but here ya go!


This is Henry the Aardvark! I caught a glimpse of a blurb of two colors, and suddenly wanted to doodle this little guy. I didn't think he was any kind of animal until I thought he looked like an aardvark. Actually had to google an image of one because I've forgotten what they look like! What neat creatures! I want one now...

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Wednesday Morning:

More Henry, I guess!

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Thursday Morning:
(ok ok...so I'm cheating a bit and posting a day late...but my computer had been commandeered for Maya rendering, and...well...ya know....)


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Friday Morning:



One last Henry piece to end the week! I don't draw much underwater environments, so this was nice to doodle up.

Daily Workout - First Go!

So I'm trying to convince myself to fall into certain habits. Isn't it funny how you can get into bad habits easier than good ones? Haha...ha...no it's not!!!!!!

But here is my attempt at a "morning workout" routine. Boy I WISH it was an athletic workout! Instead, I'm trying to do a morning warm-up drawing when I first sit down at my desk at work...whether it's a digital color piece, or a doodle on a scrap of paper to get my gears turning. I don't do this as often as I like, but maybe posting here will bump up the production.

Here's my first "morning workout"; this Monday morning, to be exact.

"snrk!"

I'll keep adding the morning drawings to each weekly post, so they're easier to follow. This'll also be a fun time to experiment with techniques and styles for myself, since having more design roles calls for that.

Here's to moar art!!

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Tuesday Morning:
Thought about this kind of color study walking home from work and observing buildings; how the difference of where the warm and cool colors are can bring about different effects.

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Wednesday Morning:

haha, spent way too much time on this one!

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Thursday Morning:

I personally feel that, as a designer, you should never be married to one way of doing things, and always enjoy experimenting.

Random Stuffs

Some recent random pieces I've done in my spare time. All these are digital (Photoshop).


A mama 'Rex from a short idea!




This last one's a work in progress. Utilizing some reference for starters (the moss, main part of the tree trunk, and main clump of needles), but mostly out of my head.