The Secret's Out
The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition has just been announced! Check out the post below to see a bit of the "making of" video, turn on the sound if you need to!

Here's a link to a great interview about the game by executive producer Craig Derrick. With a bit of nice concept art behind him. :)

http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6210601/the-secret-of-monkey-island-special-edition-first-look

It has been a while! I've been keeping super busy with a bunch of great projects, but my personal art hasn't been getting much love lately. Here's a quick sketch I did near work.

Here are some photos of a piece I did with a great group of artist that go under the title 218. This is bit different than how I usually work, I started out just wanting to do some character designs over a fixed silhouette. And since I've always like the shapes bottles (great silhouettes). I combined the two and this is what I came up with.

I had a blast working on this and with the 218 group, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I little while back I caught the Totoro Forest Project show at the Cartoon Art Museum and needless to say I was blown away by the collective work of all the great artists who contributed to it. It was inspiring to say the least.

Afterwards a few of us stopped at Mel's for a bite and I did this little sketch in between eating my burger and munching on fries.

Happy new year all!

I did a gallery show last month with a great group of artists. There was a great turnout and I had a lot of fun being part of it. One of my pieces was a pencil drawing and if you take it out of the frame this is what you'll find drawn on the back. A bonus feature of sorts. :)

Here's a Bunny Pirate I did for a couple friends who have a special day coming up. I'm still thinking of adding some small details in the background like a few treasure chests full of carrots or something, any suggestions?

Again thanks for your comments and crits, I really appreciate it. From Peters crit on the Wicked Witch I did a while back I tried to show more material change and texture in this one. Thanks!

When the world is in dire straights the only ones capable of saving it are a secret order of short order cooks. From across the globe this ancient order of short order cooks will use it's ninja cookery to... ah I don't know. I just wanted to come up with a project that had no solid logic behind it, but would be fun as heck to concept out.

I also want to thank everyone who has been leaving comments, you rock! And as always crits are welcome too, thanks!

Return to Oz

I haven't had as much time as I would like to do personal work. Here's my attempt to get back to the Wizard of Oz designs I started once upon a time. Aside from the main cast, I also want to explore the rest of the people who populate Oz.

This is just a little thing I'm working on with a great group of artists. I'm hoping to share more info about it over the next few months.

Here's an old piece I did, just added some tone to push the from over the shape.

Here are some book store sketches I did with some friends, these are from a couple nights. There were some really great looking people, I couldn't get them all down but I tried.

Things have been busy, good but busy. Here is just a quick tonal paint I did.

Some sketching done the other night over coffee at the bookstore with friends. I still enjoy the feel of pen on paper.

Here's a piece done in a little different style than I usually work in. It's for something I'm working on with a friend, can't say much more than it's a very fun and imaginative project.

First of all thanks for all the feedback from those who gave it, it was all right on. I'm going to do some more explorations with this character and include your feedback with a few other things I'v been thinking.

This piece was really just me working towards posing out my characters vs the static pose, and you can see the blue pencil I like to work with. Again any comments or crits are welcome

Here's another drawing of a possible Wicked Witch direction, just playing more with shape here than story. In case anyone was wondering I can draw feet. I just noticed that the last few images I posted are from the waist up.

As always any crits or comments are welcome.

Just a quick exercise in tonal studies from Pirates. Really looking at how the compositions are set up and lit.

The Wicked Witch. Not much visual story telling, just had a tough day at work and had to draw something of my own.

To all of you keeping art blogs, thanks for the inspiration it keeps my going.

Here are a few of the early thumbs I did for the Scare Crow. I always like to begin the whole process of character design with small ideations, to quickly explore the various directions a specific character can go.

A great part of this process for me is when I exhaust the ideas and directions in my head, and that forces me to step into directions that I'm not used to or that are new to me. I get to learn new things about the subject, and a lot of times that is when some of my favorite designs are created.

Here are a couple designs I'm working on for the Scare Crow.

I thought of this character as being a little off up stairs, not an evil "nuts" but definitely nuts. I wanted to push what might be done with the hay or corn husks that the Scare Crow is made from, so I explored looping and weaving these materials together to get a new look. Something nice that came from that was it allowed for secondary action when he's moving, which helps sell that nutty personality. It also really opened the door for the different shapes and silhouettes I could explore with his head.

I also imagined the clothes he wears would be worn to the bone, with tons of patches, like the family that made him tried to used those clothes as much as they could before putting them on the Scare Crow. I also thought it would be fun if the Scare Crow hadn't gotten off his wooden cross easily, again he's a nutty character so in one drawing he still has the cross on his back and in the other it's splintered but still attached to his wrists.

Like on the Tin Man, being able to look into him and see he has no heart is an approach I want to do with the Scare Crow as well. So you'll see that he has ties on his head, this is so sometime in the story he can untie those and we will actually see he has no brain in there. This also lets me create the open version of his head, and all the shapes that can be.

Again any crits or comments are greatly welcomed, and a big thanks to every one who has already left comments on this and other pieces!

The Tin Man from the wonderful world of OZ. This came out of just talking with some friends about stories that had great characters and imaginative environments.

When I was thinking about this character I imagined him having an older hand crafted feel, so I wanted to stay away from an assembly line or sci-fi look. I thought the creator of the Tin Man would have spent a good part of his life working on him and putting a lot of love into the design.

I'm a real sucker for visual story telling, so I try to tell a characters story in their design. I think this really helps tie any character specifically to the story they belong to. For the Tin Man I tried to do this using a heart motif. His breastplate is a giant heart as well as reverse design on his fingers, and even a touch in his face. We're told he doesn't have a heart, but I wanted to show that, so I tried to make his body so we could actually look into it and say "hey man you don't have a heart in there." Eventually I want to have blue and green oxidized rust stains falling down his body, contrasting with his original hand crafted polished design.

Here is some work in progress on the Jenny Green Teeth character I'm hoping eventually to make. I don't think this is close to working, even though there are some aspects I like. I'm going to play around with this design a little see where it ends up. Again, any thoughts are welcome.

Another work in progress. A friend of mine posts weekly challenges to help keep us creating outside of work. This challenge was to take an eighties movie and do it in the style of another artist. So of course I picked the greatest film ever made, the Three Amigos. For the artist I went with Sean Galloway. His works great, it's a real fresh take on character design, plus it's just inspiring to look at. This piece is missing two amigos, but they are on their way.

Here is a work in progress. This is a design I am working on for a creature known as Jenny Green Teeth. She is a human-like creature who lives under water in lakes and bogs. Right now she is looking a little to much like the designs from Pirates of the Caribbean. Eventually I'm going top make the moss hanging from her look like an old dress, as well as put a little more history into her design. Any helpful crit's or thoughts on this piece where it is currently are welcome.

Alright here is some new work! It's been a while since I have put any work up on this site. I had a change of jobs and am now working at LucasArts. I have been putting a lot of time in at work, but here is some new work. This is a piece I did based on a creature from Japanese mythology known as a Kappa. I approached this piece by working only from the written description. This creature has a bowl on top of is head that holds water, if the water spills from this bowl he dies. I thought he would carefully wrap his bowl on his head to keep it from tipping over. I made the bowl on top of his head resemble the silhouette of a crown, I imagined him as noble while also giving a hint to a larger story.

More work to come, promise!

This piece I did is actually a character my brother came up with. This character was based on the story of a orphaned thief living in Venice. He used a back pack made from trash as a means of getting away after stealing things. He would steal something thing run and jump in the canals to make his get away, looking like garbage floating in the canals. I really like this idea because it created a great silhouette, placed the character in Venice, and in general is a great visual look. Again I want to give my brother credit for this concept, thanks man!

I was tossing around the idea of Hansel and Gretel set in Japan. This is the witch from the story. The question I kept asking myself, is why would a witch make a house of candy? I imagined she gained her magic from special recipes. And around her waist she would carry all the cooking utensils needed to make these recipes.

Here is a design I did for Frankenstein's creature after reading the book. I wanted to include some of the sincerity and innocence that the creature had towards the begining of the story. I wanted to contrast him visually by combining his horrific appearence with the gentle presence of the birds. I always trying to show the character's personality in their visual appearance.

Here are a couple of characters I did for a tribe of people who live on an island. I wanted their design to tie them to the island. For the first one I imagined a long dress made from ivy that would connect her to the environment. The second one has a dress made from broken canoe paddles, I saw this as a way she would mourn all those who die at sea.

This character is a member of a group of barnstormers know as the Knuckle Heads. The story takes place at the height of barnstorming before the creation of the FAA. This character would hang from the bottom of planes that had lost their wheels due to shaky landings or close calls. I imagined these guys as using self made outfits, hence the old style football helmet for protection. I think this piece starts to work because the wheels on his chest are a visual story telling element while at the same time creating a silhouette that breaks up the normal silhouette of the body.

This character is Hansel from a Hansel and Gretel story I placed in Japan. For Hansel I wanted a characted who was bad mannered and even disrespectful. To established this visually I have him wearing a western style vest over a kimono as well as keeping his chopsticks in his hair. I wanted to set up in his design a distaste for more traditional ways, which I saw as a reason the Witch in the story would immediately dislike him.