The failed attempt...

So years ago, comic book publisher BOOM! Studios got the rights to several Pixar properties and were planning several comics based on "Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles, Wall-E and Monsters, Inc.". I was excited about this idea and tried my hand at doing some tests. During this time, it was at the San Diego Comic-Con the year of the announcement that I had, what I thought to be an amazing idea. Each Pixar movie starts with a short and those shorts have their own characters. Why not do a short before each issue or at the very least, each collection? An homage to the old Disney comic books that had short one page stories at the beginning and end of each comic. I threw together a few ideas and the idea was generally well liked, at least enough for them to hear me out and ask me to send them samples.

After a few storyboards (I'll scan a bunch of them for a later post) they found two that they liked. As "Tin Toy" was the short before "Toy Story", the first book they were releasing, I thought it apt to use that character. Below are the two pages in rough form I came up with. They never saw the light of day as I was told Disney/Pixar did not want to do anything with the shorts characters. It's a shame really, I thought it would have been a nice touch.

Pause

Sorry all, I missed a day, a lot going on I guess. Anyways, here is another look at a project I have been working out for a bit. This is a rough character sketch of the villain/hero from an animated short I am trying to get ready. The story is about a super hero and a super villain who fall in love in their real life alter egos. It's a story about love and redemption and all that sappy stuff, with a bunch of action and humor mixed in. For now, enjoy, with an image of PAUSE!

Through the looking glass...

So here are a few sketches I did for a comic I have been on again, off again working on. These characters have pretty much been scrapped from any of the ideas I have going now, but thought I'd share them. Obviously the story tied into the world of Alice in Wonderland.

Awkward

I don't usually like to share images of things I am currently working on for obvious reasons, but figured over the next few days I would throw a few things together for everyone.

The first two entries I have are from a graphic novel I have been working on called "Awkward" starring a turtle named Sheldon. The story itself is semi-biographical and will chronicle a lot of the awkward situations I have experienced and known other people to experience over the years with love, work and life in general. Below are some rough character designs for Sheldon and his friend Walter, a happy go lucky alligator whose only passion is finding the perfect lobster for dinner. I am really excited to share these and even more excited to finish the story.

PelletHead Continued...

Because I can only upload 5 pictures at a time I give you the rest of the pages I actually scanned.

PelletHead

I often have people ask me about PelletHead, well, those that knew me when I was going full force with the character years ago at least. Well... I honestly have not done much in a long time. I originally planned using him in an animated series, which never got off the ground, although a bunch of test animation and even a few scripts were done for said show. I then decided years later to do a web comic before the whole web comic thing was common place and well, never got past getting the website up aside from 1 or 2 episodes. I then tried to do an actual print version of the book shortly before moving to San Diego and even did a prologue story for the 2004 Even More Fund Comics Benefit book. Shortly after moving to San Diego I got distracted by a girl and didn't go back to the character until years later. With no distractions and having worked in comics for a bit I decided to take what I learned and start over. I scrapped the original pages I started and pretty much scrapped the story, but found a way to kind of tie in that original prologue. The character became much more serious and less humor was involved as was originally written into the proposed animated series from years earlier.

I did not really tell too many people that I had actually started work on another PelletHead series and very few people actually saw any of the work I did for it. Today I present to you a look at that work I did. I almost finished the first issue, but got distracted when a death in my life turned my creative endeavors to another book. That book we will look at in the next few weeks, but for now, here are the lost pages of PelletHead: Intergalactic Explorer.

Headless...

One more before I hit the sack. Again, another freehand sketch of a Haunted Mansion character. I kinda screwed up the legs, but oh well, I had fun doing it.

Enter the Hat Box Ghost...Freehand!

So, I have been working on doing a few exercises lately to sharpen my skills. A few years ago while I was working at the San Diego Comic Con I was having a conversation with Ash Wood (http://ashleywoodartist.com/) about how he stopped using pencil and goes straight to inking. It was something completely alien to me, I relied on my pencil far too much. I had a few failed attempts on my down time that day... miserable attempts and never went back to it. You clearly need to be comfortable with your subject and yourself when doing such a drawing as there can be no mistakes. This drawing I did tonight was done completely in pen, a fine point sharpie to be exact with out the aid of a pencil or a layout.

My subject for the evening is the Hat Box Ghost from Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction. The Hat Box Ghost never actually made it's way into the ride as it was deemed too scary. I have always been a big fan of the character thus my drawing this evening. More Halloween goodness to come and more Haunted Mansion at that, because there's always room for one more...

Transform and roll out...

As some of you know I got to work for a comic book publisher for a short while. During that time the company got the rights to Transformers. It's amazing how much knowledge you retain from your childhood and lucky for me a lot of that knowledge was Transformers related. During the first series of books I helped out spotting color errors and when we were compiling the trade paperback for the series I had the honor of being editor on the book and going back and fixing all of the coloring mistakes. It was a dream come true. That is until the second series had rolled around. I had left the company at that point to be a full time computer tech (oh the irony), but got a chance to work on the first issue of the second series doing color touch ups on all the pages. Most of the pages were in gray tone and I did the rest. Here are two of those pages. The best part? Many of the pages involved Optimus Prime and Megatron.

You can purchase both the trade paperback for both Transformers: Infiltration and Transformers: Escalation from www.idwpublishing.com today.

The Gill Man...

It's Halloween time, so let's add some monsters to this blog, particularly my favorite monster. I have a lot more of these that I will add over the month. This is a sketch I did many years ago, when I was trying to do a project that involved the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It never went anywhere, but I learned a valuable lesson... I love to draw the Creature. Happy Halloween!

Robot Remains

Speaking of album covers... Recently I had the honor of doing the artwork for the Jabbawockeez first single "The Robot Remains" by The Bangerz. I had intended to do more with it, but time did not quite allow. Regardless I am still proud of it. You can purchase the release on iTunes and you get my artwork with it.

To take flight...

Well, seeing as I have failed miserably over the past few days at actually adding posts I figured I should do the right thing and just carpet bomb you all with artwork. This next post is an interesting look and evolution or de-evolution of my style when I was running my record label. I was always intending to make the label art heavy, but costs and the fact that no one actually buys music anymore it never really came to fruition.

This first piece was for my second release, TFR002, which was by Orion and the song was called Testimony. I was just throwing ideas around and it's plenty blurry because my scanner was not working at the time... where the original is I have no idea, but it was fairly big.

This next piece was an idea for a promo advertisement I was going to create in order to create some awareness for my first compilation album. I never did anything with it and yes, I colored it with crayons.
Here is the final cover art for Altitude Volume One. This was the first compilation CD I did on my label, not to mention the last. The label only saw one vinyl release after this as fate would have it. Coloring credit to the fantastic Thomas B. Long, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, thus inspiring me to add this.

Finally, here is the artwork for TFR003, the last release on my label and my first release as an artist which saw me working with two of my favorite musicians, ASC and Blame. ASC produced the song Labyrinth with me and Blame provided the flip. The final art labels never got printed, but a digital version may have to be on the way... time will tell.

I still have a few more pieces that I did for the label, but let's save those for another day.

Big thank you's to Mr. James "ASC" Clements for actually providing me with most of these images as I apparently lost them... for shame!!

Justice!

I'm going to Disneyland today, so I figured I would add something Disney related. This is a drawing I did for Bill Justice's 96th birthday. Bill Justice was an animator at Disney, who also happened to work on many of Disneyland's attractions, such as Pirates of the Caribbean. I had the honor of meeting and getting a few words of wisdom from the man many years ago, hence the drawing. Enjoy.

Here we have a rough little piece I did for a friend's fishing team. It ended up not being what they were looking for, so I am still working on a more cartoonish version of something like this. I figured I'd share the original as I was really happy with how it turned out.

Because he killed ALL of the unicorns...

So, let's face it one post, albeit the first post, just looked a little awkward and since it was a squid and not a turtle I have decided to add a second post. Do keep in mind awkward turtles are in the future of this blog as I am currently working on a book which is based around an awkward turtle, but then again, who isn't? So this little piece really warrants an explanation and I sadly don't have an easy one.

This is an animated GIF I did for my friend and former co-worker Michael Neebul. To describe Neebul would take far too many words and euphemisms for me to even remotely get into on an art blog, so you get the cliff notes. I had a theory that Neebul himself killed off all of the unicorns and described it much like the images you would see on a nature show where a pride of lions take down a herd of zebra. Neebul being the majestic lioness (yeah, I can't picture him with a mane) and the unicorn being the fallen zebra. Anyways, he challenged me to make an animated GIF of just such a scene and I rose to the challenge. I apologize if this one offends anyone, but if you knew Neebul this would not be a shock to you.

The background... for now.

I'm not really sure how to explain this first post, or the background you see here on my blog. I have an affinity for the aquatic... namely squids, octopi and the such. Anyways, I did a freehand sketch the other night, armed with only a Sharpie and this is what came out.

Welcome to the blog, mind the squid on your way in...