Mermaid!

The topic for this week's Drawergeeks is mermaids, so I did this one up really quick. We are pretty busy right now doing alot of character development on a few projects but it was nice to take a 15 min. break and do this. Color was another 15 minutes. I know what you're thinking, "NO! How can that color job have ONLY taken 15 minutes?!?" It's my mad skills. I say that sarcastically obviously, I am no Photoshop whiz. Anyway, the new Drawergeeks should be up after lunch (Central) today (Friday) at www.drawergeeks.com. Should be a good one. BTW, no, this is NOT supposed to be Ariel, it just looks alot like her.

Andi's J. Development

This is some older stuff, but not seen very much. Above is the character lineup of some of the characters from our "Andi's Journal" girls chapter book series that is being published by Tommy Nelson. This lineup and the model sheet of Andi that is with it were designs I produced during my time at Big Idea productions in Chicago. I had developed this after hours (actually it was pretty different back then, it was called "Queen Andi" and had a different story) as a new girls property for Big Idea to consider. They liked it and it went into "development", which at the time meant that I was going to "work on it when I had free time". You know how that goes, so there it sat. A couple months later I (along with many other folks) got layed off. I was upset and surprised that day, but had the wits to ask that "Andi" (and another property I had pitched) go with me. Big Idea was in financial straights and knew they weren't going to do anything with it at the time, so they let me have it. I have no idea how I even thought of it since I was so upset and worried about moving, etc. I move back to Florida to work at Disney again. I leave after Bro. Bear and start what is now Funnypages Prodcutions. A year or so goes by and Rob, my wife, and I have developed "Andi" into what it is now and we pitch it to Tommy Nelson as a DVD series. They skip it for animation but like it enough to recommend it to their publishing department. Publishing is looking for a girls property and this fits what they are looking for. Good timing? Nope, God was there the whole time we just didn't see Him at work.

Andi book one and book two, written by my wife Jen and illustrated by Rob and me have been out for about 4 or 5 months. They seem to be doing well, but it's hard to tell when you don't have the stats. We are waiting for the word from TN to see if we will do two more and go from there. Check Amazon.com if you want to see them.

Fairy Final!

Man, I'm really getting teased about this at work. I'm starting to get known as the "fairy guy". I promise I don't have any porcelain fairy statues on my desk! To top it off, we are doing another job right now that is character design for a new video game- and guess what? More fairies! So that's why Rob is starting to call me "fairyboy". 'Course if you've seen Rob's blog (hit the link at the right) then you'll see that he's the "cutefurryboy". Or, like I like to call him: "The King of Cute". Anyway, the above was the final model sheet and color model for the web animation job for this (unspoken) company. On to the next fairy! (It's amazing how much fairy research there is on the web, you'd think that computer people would be more into Nascar or something.....)

copyright 2005 the unamed copyright holders

Fairies!

These are some roughs for a client that needed a fairy for their website. The original idea was that it was going to flit around and give little suggestions on where the "viewer" could look around. We were even going to animate dialogue and everything. Well, this was a MAJOR big conglomerate company so needless to say, it took forever and never happened in the end. At least not with us. I may post the final on the next blog.

Girl sketch

This is just a sketch I did awhile back. You know when you do a sketch and you kinda like something about it (in this case it was her face) and you just put it into a pile because you like it? This is one of those. As you can tell, I became disinterested in it as I started to draw the body. You can tell because I put zero thought into the pose and it's not even finished. Worse than getting disinterested or distracted from a drawing is when you are drawing a "great" drawing and you run out of paper! ARRRGh! I hate that.

HULK/ PG color versions!

I wish I could say I had the time to do up a final color version of my Hulk/Powergirl inked piece below, but I didn't. I'm no Photoshop/color wizard anyway. I'm also really slow. BUT three intrepid artists said they wanted to give it a try and all of them did them FAST! They are: Mike Merideth, Josh Alves, and Mark Runyan. Each illustrated the image in a totally different style ranging from watercolor to airbrush-y to somewhere inbetween. Thanks to all of you for doing this, it is really interesting to see how different- yet all cool-they are! Go to their blogs and sites!

Mini Marvels!

These are just some fun little sketches I did the other night. These are just some characters that I like to draw. I have this strange vision of doing something that is mini versions of superhero characters- not kids, just mini. I don't know why. Anyway, here they are.

PS> I'll post some Hulk/Powergirl color tomorrow. Thanks!

MY HEAD!!!

About a week ago I was helping my wife with some planting and mulching in the front yard and I had a accident that only seems to happen to me. I was putting mulch around one of the trees and stood up fast banging my head across one of the limbs. It actually scrapped part of my scalp on the top of my head. It hurt bad, but looked even worse. It's just now going away, but I had this 3-4 inch red scrape across my semi-bald head for a week! My dear friend and partner, Rob, after hearing of the horror drew his version of the carnage. Enjoy.

HULK/ PG Ink final!

I couldn't wait any longer, so I did up the final inks last night (sorry Howard!) for the Hulk and Powergirl piece. I looked at all the comments on the last blog and it looked like Hulk #5 and Powergirl #4 seperately were the winners! Here is the new version, inked, with those designs combined. I tweaked both heads some to get a little more tilt in both, but other than that, they are pretty much the same. I used a brush marker called a PITT pen. I think I like it, thanks to all for your suggestions! Now, if someone out there with really strong Photoshop coloring skills wants to color it, I won't mind at all! (Please) Otherwise, I will color it somehow/someway before the Friday deadline (This friday!). If you want to, email me and I'll send a higher res version to ya. I want to add a "color splash" effect behind them to jazz it up a bit. We'll see soon enough. Hope you like it.

HULK AND POWERGIRL!

Okay, back to the Hulk (see below). Only this time, I'm throwing in a girl character, well, because I like drawing them! It's Powergirl. She's kinda DC's version of Supergirl's older sister. I didn't have any reference for her so forgive any costume mistakes I've made. Anyway, I thought I'd make this blog a contest! Put in a comment with your favorite version and the one with the most "picks" will be the one I do up as a final for Drawergeeks. You can pick a Powergirl from one version and a Hulk from another version too. The winner(s) all get a PIECE of the original rough drawing to split!!! :) (please notice the sarcastic "happy face" symbol) These are all first time roughs, so hopefully I will refine the final and make it even stronger (God willing). BTW, They are in numbered in order of how I drew them so you can see a bit of an evolution in poses and character designs. Weird thing is, whenever I do a few versions of anything, I usually end up liking the first and the last versions most. I think I try harder on the first one, get sloppy in the middle, and try again at the end. Let me know your thoughts.

(PS> I can't get Blogger to put these in correct numbered order, so go by the number on the drawing, not where it is in the "lineup" here.)

Character design blog!

Hey all. There is an interview with me (and some artwork as well) on the "Character Design" blog. I have a link over to the right, just click it. You may have to scroll down a bit. Hope you all like it!

SPIDEY doodles

In keeping with the comic book theme I've started, I did a few sketches of Spidey just before the holidays. I just now got a chance to scan and post them. These sketches are probably the second time I've ever drawn Spidey and they look it! I've read the comic for years and he's probably one of my all-time favorite characters BUT when I start drawing him I realize how I don't look at his details at all. Poses either. Maybe I'll go back to the girl characters again.....