Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Uka Uka - Part 2

Continuing with everyone's favorite evil voodoo spirit mask from Crash Bandicoot 3. The first two drawings are the last designs I did while working on the character on January 29 1998. At this point the look of Uka Uka had been pretty much finalized as per Naughty Dog. The follow up session on February 12 1998 started with a sketch of the definitive version of Uka Uka which is the third image below. These are photocopies of the originals made on the day I created them to keep for my records which I'm able to share with you now. 

Werewolves !

I like to draw werewolves. I don't draw them enough and when it's October I get into a howlin' spirit for sketching them. So that's what I did yesterday in class.

This was my first one of the sitting. More of a traditional wolfman I'd say. Started with blue pencil and finished off with black line...

Then I thought of drawing him in a more graphic style with illustrated texture...

Next I attempted to explore possible body types for our wolfman creature...

Then I remembered that I came up with a werewolf last year while drawing with students in class...

And I also remembered a werewolf drawing I did way back in 1983 while working on the original He-Man series. I shared an office with Bruce Timm who went on to great fame with the Warner Bros Batman and Superman animated series. He was a really inspirational artist and I was motivated to do this. I drew it in a sketch book and the border of the page kept me from fully describing the back leg..

Shadowy Girls

While teaching at Cal State Northridge in 2007 I was drumming up some excitement among my students for finding new and unusual ways of doing things. This imagery came about as a result. The lesson was in the use of positive and negative shapes with black playing a prominent role within the composition. I got the idea of blocking out everything that was in shadow and playing it off of areas that were in the light. The results were effective and fun and kind of spooky. Black marker with blue and red pencil. Really enjoyed creating these demos.

Cuddly the Mad Pufferfish - Part 8

Here's Cuddly in his maniacal state. All puffed out and ready to do some serious damage. This was the transformed side of the character displayed at the game Developers Conference in San Jose California in 2003. The project was great fun and it was an honor to creatively participate at this level at such a high profile industry event. I hope you enjoyed the presentation and if you're a character designer or concept development artist or student perhaps you might have picked up something educational through this.

Crash Bandicoot - Origin of Uka Uka - Part 1

Here we are in October already and a great way to usher in this special month is something special for the Crash fans.

On January 29 1998 while working with Naughty Dog on what was to be the third game of the series I began work on Uka Uka. He's the evil brother voodoo mask spirit that is in opposition to Aka Aku. While the later is tied to Crash Uka Uka is allied with Neo Cortex.

These are the first 3 sketches in order of their completion. They're photocopies of the originals made the day they were drawn at ND's studio at Universal. I dolt know if they've been published before. I tend to think this is the first time.

Spyro the Dragon revisited

The other night in class I had a chance to draw with my students. It came to mind that I haven't paid much attention to Spyro lately. This after a lively debate among those in attendance concerning how Spyro is represented in Skylanders. The consensus was for the classic version of the character. So I took it upon myself to do a few sketches of him and spend some time exploring different approaches to Spyro through head drawings. Not anything drastic but some modifications just for fun. These are the images I'm happiest with...

Character Expression exercise

A few days ago on September 13 my blog entry was a character rotation I came up with for practice while drawing with my students. You can see the entry here. This past week I moved on to facial expressions for one of the groups currently enrolled. I try and practice what I teach as much as possible so I created this series of expressions for the character used in the rotation.

It's really interesting to see imaginary characters come to life in the most basic of ways. Once the design concept is defined and we move into showcasing behavior the true essence of the character's personality begins to emerge. The individual expressions are established prior to the drawing of the assignment and students are required to make their character act accordingly. Of the drawings below each page contained 2 expressions for a total of 6 as you see here in the posted graphics. This was fun and everyone had a good time.

Crash Bandicoot - Lab Assistant rotation 1997

Here's another rarity from Crash. A rotation from 1997 when I was coming up with concept sketches for Naughty Dog as reference for turning characters into a toy line. This fellow is a Neo Cortex Lab Assistant with a jet pack and a face partially hidden because of a metal plate much like N Gin. This is a photocopy of the original and probably the first time the art's been published.

A different Mona Lisa - 3

It's been a while since I added to the Mona Lisa collection. Last entry was this past May 16 so why not take a look at what we've got in the inventory and post a follow up. Something out of the ordinary since I conceived the image as a graphic emblem and then colored it in Photoshop in the days when I was first learning how to use it.

The series was inspired by a melody sung by Nat King Cole and was a number one hit in the US in 1950. Here's the song as.it will familiarize you with the theme of these concepts.

Cuddly the Mad Pufferfish - Part 7

After exploring numerous concept designs for Cuddly it was time to sketch out what made him unique and dangerous. The next phase of this project for the game Developers Conference in 2003 involved describing the transformation process. 

Like the classic Jekyll and Hyde we see Cuddly changing from what appears to be a friendly little fish swimming in the sea to a complete opposite of who we think he is...