Fun with monsters

The night before in Visual Development at the Academy I gave myself a theme to create while students worked on their assignments. Monsters is a good one that you can't go wrong with. I sketched these concepts for head designs in black line pen. At first I wasn't happy with some of these but now that the drawings are digitized I feel better about them. This technique is called free form sketching and is a good exercise in developing your confidence and imagination.

Early He-Man - Dragon Concepts

The other day a friend suggested that I start a new blog dedicated to showcasing the art I created for the original He-Man series of the early 1980s. Got me thinking about prepping artwork for it. In the meantime I can feature some of the images here.

This is one of the very first production drawings from He-Man. I did it in either very late 1982 or very early 1983. I'm not sure which year so I'll go with the earlier date. My assignment was to come up with concept designs for dragons that He-Man could fight or that could be turned into individual characters. I thought I'd be efficient so I sketched a composition in which many dragons would be featured and any one of which could be further developed. I had a little fun and placed He-Man in an impossible situation. 

This is the very first time the drawing has ever been published. Very few people have ever seen it. I have an extensive archive of art from He-Man and She-Ra and Bravestarr that's been waiting to see the light of day for a long time. Since 2013 will mark the 30th anniversary of the broadcast of the TV series I think it's a good time to get started on showing some of it.

I worked on animated projects prior to breaking into the animation industry proper. Developing the original He-Man series was my first job in an actual animation studio. It was called Filmation and they did a lot of cartoons throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s until they closed in 1989. I was one of three artists on the development team and the only one still alive. Looking back I realize how much I had to learn. Wish I could do things over again but alas... we know how that goes. I'm sure the He-Man fans out there will appreciate the significance of the drawing. Clicking on the picture will give you a better view.

Today's color demo

I was working with a student of mine this afternoon. Gabe is a talented artist in Michigan concentrating on his visual development skills. I used a drawing I came up with in 2006. It was a ball point pen doodle that I thought would look interesting in color. The original sketch is followed by the Photoshop rendered version. I used a few different techniques and emphasized getting the color you want and going with it in a direct painterly manner. It's fun to see how pigment can affect a simple black line drawing. I enjoyed this demonstration. Some fundamental advice for up and coming artists. Get your analog basics down and you'll become a better digital illustrator.

Black and Blue Girl

There was a period around 2007 when I was getting into drawing with blue pencil and black markers. I like the way black and blue work together as can be seen from the design of my blog. This is from that time. A class demonstration from my days at Cal State Northridge initially sketched with ball point pen prior to rendering.

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Coco - Part 2

Following up on my last entry. Here's a few more concept drawings from the origin of Crash Bandicoot's sister Coco. These also date from March 18, 1997 and there's still more from this sitting. Looking back it appears I was able to visually define her right from the beginning on the first day of working on the character. Her clothing changed but the design essence is evident early on from her inception. Not sure what order these were done in but it's pretty darn close chronologically.

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Coco - Part 1

I'm sure the Crash fans out there will be excited about this. Did some digging around today and guess what... Found artwork from the creation of Crash's sister Coco Bandicoot! There's a few drawings of her. Most of them are photocopies of the original art which Naughty Dog has in their possession as far as I know unless they gave them away to Sony executives as a present. They did that quite a bit with original development art. They'd frame the drawings and gave them away as presents to executives.

Coco was created as a counter balance to Tawna who was Bandicoot's  girlfriend. She came along because ND was sensitive to Sony Japan and wanted to please them. Sony Japan didn't feel comfortable with a super sexy character with Crash so ND went with a sister character instead to appease them.

So here she is on the day of her birth. These are the first few sketches. This is where she started from. There's more and I'll be posting those in a later entry. I wrote down the date on these pages when I drew them. March 18, 1997. I was developing Crash 2 at the time.

A different Mona Lisa

A few years ago in 2006 when I was familiarizing myself with Photoshop I was doing experimental work discovering different ways to use the software. While listening to the radio Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" was playing. It was a hit song in 1950. I was inspired to do a few versions of a Mona Lisa type of character described in the lyrics. I used multiple layers in this composition isolating the line in certain areas and sweeping my brush strokes for a unique effect. Touched this up a bit prior to posting. She's based upon someone I used to now in my college days.

Hello there Skeletor

Nope. It's not this guy. This was a doodle from class the other night.

Which lead to this. For some reason I drew a skull head character.

Which in turn lead to this interpretation of what was forming in my mind's eye. One of my students thought it was a new version of Skeletor who is He-Man's prime adversary. So why not?

J&K - The Road to Daxter - Part 2

Here's the follow up to my entry on December 17 2012 when I started featuring concept designs for the development of Daxter from the Jak and Daxter game series. There was a huge amount of work that I did for the character. More so than any other video game I was involved with. These are from the earliest days of Daxter's coming into being.

Angel and Devil

Everybody has a little of both in them.

Happy New Year everyone! Wishing that 2013 is healthy and prosperous and creative for you! I'm really looking forward to this year. I've got a special project in the works that I'm excited about. Looking forward to launching it soon! Meantime...

Not exactly sure when these class demonstrations were done. I think it was around 2003 so that's what I'll go with. Starting with a concept sketch I used a light box to redraw the images onto watercolor paper and   then give them some pigment. Like everything dealing with life we choose which way to swing. Yin and Yong, positive or negative, day or night, angel or devil. So let's begin 2013 with a wee bit of contemplation and a couple of fun characters

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