Big Ol Update n Stuff!

Hey everybody! (once again referring to the 4 people that browse my blog site)

So the big news is that I've been working on an art book with some friends and it's been a pretty cool and very educational experience doing it. I sort of assumed the role of being schedule guy and "accountant" for the group on top of working on pieces for it. It's been a long time coming, but I think we're finally close to finishing it! Which is why I'm saying it now since last time it seemed like it was still a ways off.

Anyway first things first. Here are some roughs and concepts I did for the book. I'm not going to post up the finals because... it'll be in the book...

Anyway... TO THE ART WORK!

Cover Concepts

So well based on this first picture it's pretty obvious whats inside the book. When we started we had gone through several different ideas for the cover and several different styles. This was one of my draft contributions. I sorta liked the ninja posing on the pirates shoulder even though he looks like he's taking a crap hahaha!

Version 2 I was trying to make it a little more dynamic. The logos I suggested and actually made to print, but the actual drawings were different from the ones posted above. Also I just realized but if someone was going to pick this kinda book up just for art, I can assume that some people would actually be offended that there is a zombie/person getting decapitated on the front cover. Either way, both roughs and both designs scrapped but it was still fun.

The silhouette ended up being what we would go with in the end. I drafted this (and about 13 other versions and variations) for the front cover but it made it on the back cover so I was pretty happy. The colour pallet ended up changing in the end, but I just worked with what we had drafted originally. The decision to go with silhouettes as oppose to having artwork is that we realized that from all the artist contributing we had a HUGE variety of styles in the book. So this ended up being the most non favoratisim cover style we decided on.

Piece One

This is my draft page for the ideas I was thinking about. At the time when we started I was playing a lot of Fallout 3. So originally I had thought of doing some 1950's style advertising posters. Only thing was that I wanted to make one poster template that I'd do 3 versions of with Pirates, Ninjas, and Zombies. But the more I thought about it, it sounded like a really REALLY time consuming task (tonnes of ad reference for accuracy etc.). I mean... yeah, you could sight laziness as the culprit. At the same time I also had to contribute 2 pages. So on a tight time budget, was it wasn't in the cards. The idea in the bottom left ended up something like what the final would be based on.

Concept 2 was to just make a bunch of short panel comics originally dealing with a Pirate, Ninja and Zombie parents and children. It was sounding like fun, but at the same time I was also behind with my progress on this due to life stuff and procrastination. Also because I started to notice that people were doing full pieces instead of small comics. So this, and a couple other ideas got scrapped but again still fun doing them.

This was my draft for what would be my final piece. This is just the roughed out version so there are 6 or 7 different save versions plus countless layers for clean up, lots of details and colour and some re-composition. I think the final product turned out well. But man o man, I really need to explore colour more. The next book I'll definitely invest more time into colour to really help my pieces pop more. Also work on posing a do more posing drafts.

Piece Two

So yeah this is the kinda stuff I should have been doing more of forrr... mmost of my drawings to this point to make sure my stuff wasn't so stiff. Eitherway, the second piece was a PAIN to get into. After finishing the first one I just didn't really know what to do for the second, so 2 weeks from deadline I started drafting this. Inspiration came from the fact that some people were doing some really nice serious pieces. At this point I'll note that I also started reading "The Walking Dead", which is a pretty awesome comic book and I highly recommend it! I already had one semi light hearted piece with kids. So I ended up wanting to do a piece that really challenged me more and had lots of detail. I really started to realize that one of my strengths lies in details.

So several versions and revisions later I got the base for the 2 main characters down. I was working with forced perspective and this was one of my early drafts for making the female ninja character. She went through about 4 different styles before arriving at the final. I was working up until morning on one of the drafts and I was so tired that I unintentionally made it look like Kasumi from the Dead or Alive game series. Anyway, at this point, I started thinking about what was going to go around them. But then it dawned.. I wanted bodies. And lots of them to sort of fill the space.

So once again, SEVERAL versions later after revisions and finally finalizing the look of the female ninja and the pirate, I set out to do the horde. So, uh yeah this was... a lot of work. Originally since they have blades I wanted to put some hacked up bodies on the ground. Only problem was that as I started drawing the bodies cut in half I wanted to add all the detail for accuracy sake, so I researched dead bodies and dismembered stuff and well.. lets just say it looked gory. Just... crazy gory. Needless to say after running it by a couple of people, I scrapped it post haste, took a long shower and started on this one which ended up being way tamer.

And the other stuff!

OK so after everything was said and done I just wanted to goof around a bit so I played some SF III (yeah that's right... 3, hate all you want but I actually like it better then 4) and then got some ideas. top left was the original pose for it. I think it worked alright as a sillhoette but stiff overall in pose and impact. Bottom left ended up being the exaggerated but definitely way more weight and impact which I thank Ragnar for helping me bat around ideas and do kung fu in my living room at 4am. Bottom right ended up being a crazy angle of the one on the left. I'll clean these ones up because I feel like doing more of these "vs" pieces.

One thing that Ragnar helped setup for me in sketchbook is the custom brushes, and I ended up using custom brush to get the right effect for blood in piece two of the book. But as I sat down and sort of fooled around with it I ended up having alot of fun with it. It has a very guash/chinese calligraphy brush feel to it so I started running with it.


Uhh yeah.. hahaha.. well, it started out with the bamboo then the chinese zodiac animals then I thought well if I'm making it this asian I better trying drawing some old guy with a fuu man chu and to help everything along write "STEREOTYPES" in an asian stereotypical font.
To keep things rolling with stereotypes I started drawing an asian woman that quickly just turned into Chun Li. I kinda liked this one. and I know people say you shouldn't really be happy with your own drawings.. but.. well I still kinda like it so.. yeah!
I thought Chun Li looked ronrey so I put Cammy next to her who happens to also look asian. I didn't mind the shading I put on Chun Li but the pink highlights I'm still not sure I like them. On Cammy at least it sort of defines certain details.

ANYWAY, first! Congrats if you've read up to here! I realize I write alot. Secondly... This blog is now, for the most part, completely caught up with most of my recent drawings!

.... shit I gotta draw more...

I'll try and update in the next 2 weeks as I'll be revamping my 3 year old portfolio.

In the meantime! I updated my portfolio blog with my new demo reel I just finished which you can check out here!

Anyway, thanks for checking my stuff out! Leave comments critiques whatever I'm open to suggestions etc.!