Ass Scratch Crash

Say that three times real fast... Ass scratch Crash ass scratch Crash ass scratch Crash...

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Slobber from "Wish Kid"

In 1991 I was busy working in television. That year I had a hand in a lot of Saturday morning cartoons. I was working at a company called DIC which was producing TV content. 

A cartoon I helped develop back then was called "Wish Kid". It aired on NBC in the US and featured the voice of Macaulay Culkin who was a famous child star from the movie Home Alone. Wish Kid was about a boy who had a magic baseball mit. When he made a wish and struck the mit with his fist three times his wish would come true. Wish Kid's pet dog was a beagle named Slobber. I found the production images I created for Slobber. First time publishing lost art from Wish Kid.

A New Day

Hello everyone! I've been working on a project that I'm excited about. It's going to debut next month in January 2013 online and run for the entire year. I'm pretty sure you're gonna love the show. You've never seen anything like it. Something new and completely different. Kick ass characters in a story unlike what you've experienced before. My magnum opus. There's a large amount of content ready and I'm adding to it every day. I'm confident you'll enjoy it very much. Gonna start hyping it soon so I'm giving ya'll a heads up.

It's like a new day dawning! So I'm using this picture from 2007. I did the smiling sun with markers on white paper. This was part of the campaign for Animation Day in 2008. Seems appropriate considering what's on the way!

Recent concept designs

Last year in 2011 during the summer for a few months on weekends I'd hook up with a friend who organized    a project. He assembled a team to develop the concept and asked me to lead on the characters. We'd meet at a local restaurant for lunch and drawing. A group of us would get together and toss around visual suggestions. I created quite a few pages worth of work. The project didn't get the legs it needed to move forward but it sure was fun and I got a lot of sketches from the time spent drawing and eating with friends and colleagues.

These images are for one aspect of it. The first two with black line pen and red pencil while the profile design was created with ball point pen and later colored in Photoshop.

The coolest thing I've ever seen...

Man that's beautiful. Via Shane Eskridge at The Animation Academy's Facebook...

Crash Nitro Kart - Road to Velo - part 7

Here he is! Emperor Velo from Crash Nitro Kart in his glory from 2002. This is the concept sketch that nailed the character followed by the rotation drawings I came up with for the modelers at Vicarious Visions. 

Nope, he doesn't have four arms as you see in the front and back views. What I did was something a bit unorthodox. Since he wore a cape I wanted to show how it draped over his body with his arms at his side. The extended arm position is a standard pose for rotations when the character is to be modeled for CG animation. Combining the relaxed arm pose helped define the look of the Velo as he would normally appear.

Well dressed rodent

I love to paint and I had a good time coming up with this subject back in 2003 as a class demonstration in visual development. Sketched in pencil on watercolor board I used acrylics to bring out the color for a fun character. Kind of an old school gangster in the Chicago style. I kept the image simple and used a classic technique in bringing out form by laying down transparent tones in a monochromatic wash and then following up with heavier applications of pigment. You can see the layers in the emergence of the image.

Animation Day 2

Here's something else from when I was creating odds and ends art in relation to Animation Day. A phase I was engaged in whereby I wanted to encourage unity among artists and turn April 1 of each year into a holiday. This is from 2007 the result of a class demonstration at Cal State Northridge. I drew each element separately and combined them in Photoshop. The distant background tone along with the archers and also the title scroll and lettering.

Oldy - Give it some life

Here's another sentimental favorite that I forgot I had. From the same sketch book as the one I mentioned two entries ago. At the time I was taping older drawings on some pages. This one was done in 1884 while working on the second season of He-Man. There were times when I felt stifled and creatively frustrated and would release the energy I had in doodles on breaks. This was done with graphite and several Col-erase pencils and also some white-out on the highlights of the face. I punched the color up slightly as it's faded a little over the years. Great fun finding these drawings!

Crash in color

A few days ago on November 12 my blog entry was a picture of Crash I came up with which I intended on painting in a traditional medium like acrylics. I wound up using Photoshop instead. This is how it turned out earlier today. Keep the petition going!

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