Skulls

I'm working on a small book which I plan on printing next week. It'll be my second book but the first to be published using an ashcan format which is an industry term for a booklets that are popular with artists in the animation biz.I intend on producing a few of these in the days ahead. Meanwhile one of the page spreads of the one I'm currently working on has a theme that is related to skulls. I don't have enough skull sketches to fill up the space so I created these last evening in class for inclusion. Drawn with ball point and black line pens. A step closer to taking this to print.

He-Crash

What would Crash Bandicoot look like if he were to morph with He-Man? 

Follow this link to the Bring Back Bandicoot Petition

Here's a link to Bring Back Bandicoot on Facebook.

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Dingodile - Part 3

Continuing with development art from the creation of Dingodile. These drawings are dated February 4 1998 while Crash 3 was under way. I wasn't provided with decent duplicates of the drawings I did for Naughty Dog. These are xeroxed copies I made when I created the images at their studio. In some of them parts of the composition are missing in the tail area. Good thing I made these copies as we're able to see the process of how he came about. Previous entry was last week on April 2.

Red pencil doodles

These sketches came about from working with beginning students last evening to help them overcome specific problems they were having with the advancement of their initial assignments in Character Design. The images came about as a result of making dimensional sense out of what they were doing plus I created some design solutions of my own to enhance appeal. I use red pencil to bring attention to issues with their art.

Teddy Bear-able color

I was going through files and organizing artwork when I rediscovered this demo from a couple years ago in 2011 while I was teaching at Cal State University Northridge here in the northern Los Angeles area. This was done entirely in Photoshop on a Cintiq tablet which is a monitor that you can draw on. The first image is the final version. Prior to the color tints I set up the composition in gray scale and then of course there's the original line drawing that defined the subject. It was created while the class watched the process projected on a large screen. This was fun to work on. CSUN students create a good environment.

Drawing with kids

This evening a close friend invited me over for a visit and asked if I would draw for the kids that were hanging out. I gave them some tips on how to draw and asked them what they wanted to see. These are some of the sketches I created per request. A good time was had by all.

  

Hurricane girls - 1994

In the mid 1990s I was working a lot at DIC. They were an animation studio that produced cartoons for TV.  I had quite a few gigs there and at one time in 1994 I was designing for a series called "The Hurricanes". It was about a soccer / football team. It was not very challenging as the series was already designed so I had to adapt to what was established as best as I could. One episode involved a woman's team they had to play against I think. These are some concept sketches I created for that episode. The last design is their business manager.

   

Man in black and blue

The evening before was the occasion of this drawing in class created in black line and marker. I doodled the composition in the company of my students. Later after I scanned it I used Photoshop to add color and tone and some design elements to the face. Here it is from the final illustration going back to the original composition.

Last night I continued working on the drawing and used good ol' Col-erase blue pencil to finish the original art with analog tonal renderingl. Best of both worlds...

Character from DreamWorks' "The Croods" sure looks familiar

On several occasions I've seen characters in animated features that look strikingly similar to something I've created before. Take a look at this one that appears in the latest animated feature from DreamWorks "The Croods".

Here's a poster image of Douglas which is something of a cross between a gator and a dog...

Here's a line drawing of the character...

Let's flip the image horizontally...

Compare it to this character I created as a class demonstration ten years ago in 2003 which was published in my school's schedule and also in my book Controlling Illusion and which is in the possession of one of their top visual development artists...

Just setting the record straight. Thanks for taking a look at this.

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Dingodile - Part 2

Continuing with the my initial entry of the Origin of Dingodile from March 16 2013. Here's a few more images from the development of the character for his appearance in Crash Bandicoot 3. The art is dated February 4 1998.  

At one point Dingodile wore a hat reminiscent of what you'd see in Australia...

I genuinely do not like this drawing and considered not including it in the presentation but I decided to show it anyway as it's part of how Dingodile came to be...

I dropped the hat and tried a mop of scruffy hair instead...

There was a moment when Dingodile walked on all fours...