Monday, December 23, 2013

A brief update on Role Model

Hello dear viewer, I apologize for the lack updates in recent weeks, I've been busy what with Christmas and all. In my spare time, I've gone back to my wrestling comic project 'Role Model'. I've been revising the script and pushing the character designs. Here's a little peak at what Mark Arrow looks like now.
 Stay tuned for more updates!

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

On a fighting game fix

Hello dear viewer, it's been a minute since my last update. I've been busy with animation.

In my spare time I've been watching and/or playing a lot of Killer Instinct, Soul Calibur 2 HD Online, Guilty Gear Xrd. Really been on a fighting game fix lately. Normally, I don't do fan art but this compelled me to break from tradition and draw Ryu. Enjoy!


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Sketch Dump

Some sketches I've done over the past 2 days. For the most part, they're all nameless doodles but the guy with the axe and shotgun is a character from a story I was working on during a road trip. I took to calling him Cimakuu. Anyways, enjoy!

P.S finishing up another animation pass at Donnie Baxley, expect to see it uploaded soon.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Slain demon

Hello dear viewer,

Last night I was feeling a bit unproductive, felt I was losing my muse. I've been playing a lot of the Devil May Cry HD Collection lately, and with that came thoughts of Maximo, a forgotten gem of the old PS2 era. Also, some friends of mine were showcasing some pretty impressive inked pieces, which compelled me to do something a little creative with these ideas. 

Rather than just listening to the soundtracks of those games, which would've just led to me doing fanart, I decided to listen to the Overture from Jesus Christ Superstar on loop without a single pause. Something unrelated to keep me working from my head alone. I did this in 3 hours straight, no breaks. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq-qJf7R5JY



It was a good little psychological exercise, seeing how my brain pieced things together. A little bit on the gross side but the human squirting out of the demon's side was an unfortunate victim from earlier. During the demon's last moments, he was on the verge of vomiting him out. The barf ended up getting clogged up and eventually burst through the side. Eww...


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Sentai Transformation

Hello, dear viewer. Lately, I've been having a marathon of Power Rangers seasons 1 through 3. On top of that, I've been getting in some Ronin Warriors as well. So yeah, watching a lot of Sentai. And because of this nostalgia, for my next animated project, I'm gonna tackle a sentai henshin (transformation). The motif will be fire, which will mark the first time I'll be animating effects. So far, I've finalized the character and mask, all that's left is deciding on the costume and then I can start on the animatic.







Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Flea Market

Hello dear viewers, sorry for the wait. I noticed that I usually forego the backgrounds for my artwork, focusing solely on the characters. The reason for this is I personally can't stand looking at my backgrounds. It never looks as good as I want it to. But seeing the artwork of my fellow crew compelled me to try my hand at it again.

When I was a kid, growing up in Southern Georgia, I always went to the Flea Market in Jacksonville, Florida. It'll always hold a special place in my heart, because it was there that I got the VHS tapes of The Five Deadly Venoms, Chinese Super Ninjas, and New Legend of Shaolin (Legend of the Red Dragon), the first Jet Li movie I ever watched. Whenever I think of it, I remember the smell of popcorn and peanuts from the concession stands, and then I decided to draw this. 

Two hours, one layer, 70% Opacity on the brush, no filters. Enjoy







Sunday, October 13, 2013

My first animation job

Hello dear viewer,

Some of you may have been wondering why I haven't uploaded any new material lately. That's because... I've been hard at work with my first animation job! I am now doing clean-up animation for the new TV show, Axe Cop! It's part of the animation domination block on FOX, which plays on Saturdays. Make sure to check it out, it's an awesome show.

But please believe, I haven't forgotten about my blog. Soon you'll be seeing a lot of new content on here, new characters, new sketches, and my personal animation projects. Stay tuned!

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Role Model Sneak Peek

A while back, I mentioned in a post I was working on a short comic titled 'Role Model'. I've been following wrestling since October 1998, and I've wanted to do a wrestling related project for awhile. 

Mark Arrow is an old wrestling great from the 80s that has come out of retirement due to poor money management, painkiller addiction and bad divorce settlements. Mark's tag team partner, Neil Bowe, looked up to him as a kid and modeled a lot of himself after Arrow, from his wrestling style to his mannerisms. 

Mark feels ashamed of himself when he's around Neil, because Neil only knows Mark Arrow as the babyface wrestler, not the vulnerable man being torn apart by his inner demons. As the match begins, Mark sees shades of himself in Bowe, envisioning him as his younger self, and the opponents as his ruinous vices. The match soon transforms into a dramatic reenactment of his life. Will Arrow finally be able to overcome his inner demons? Or is it destined to end in tragedy?

I'm currently putting the final touches on the script, and here's a glimpse at the characters.




There will be flashbacks to his younger career back in the 80s. And being the 80s, yes, there will be mullets. And maybe a rattail or two lol.


Thursday, September 26, 2013

Female Guitarist

A doodle I made last night. I was in a bit of a rut at the time, so I was listening to the Damaged album by Black Flag. I was thinking of Kira Roessler at the time, and it inspired this sketch. I'll probably revisit this after I get done with The Criminal Element.


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Donnie Baxley Update

Lately, I've gone back to working on the Donnie Baxley Project, as I've been neglecting him lately.  Did a slight  turnaround of ol' Donnie B, for reference and for a tune up.


Then I started breaking him down to basic shapes, as to avoid any terrible hiccups during the clean up. I've tweaked a few minor things that some of my viewers found distracting in the old test. Now to begin the clean up.




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Criminal Element (WIP)

Hello viewers, it's been a few days since I've posted something new. I've been getting over some artist's block. Here's a glimpse at what I've been working on lately. The face will be a collage of criminal subject matter, which I've labelled. A piece I've taken to calling 'The Criminal Element'. Expect a fully illustrated version of this soon.



Friday, September 13, 2013

Cowboy update

A quick update of the cowboy piece I did awhile back, a colored version.



I decided to leave the rough lines in, just because I like the aesthetic. Don't know exactly what I'm going to do for the background, but the gears are turning in my head.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Red Fist vs. Iron Feet - Red Fist revisited

Back when I was in college, I had to complete a senior thesis film to graduate. I grew up on a diet of martial arts films and comic books, so I decided that I was going to make a martial arts movie. The end result of it was Red Fist vs. Iron Feet. It was the first time I ever directed and the first short film I made. I learned so much from the experience: scheduling, networking, the three stages of production, everything.


After graduating, a friend of mine is going to have Red Fist appear in his senior film. I revised the model sheet of Red Fist to better accommodate his film. 


Thursday, September 5, 2013

Cowboy WIP

Just a quick update on what I've been doing the past couple of days. I've been working on a wrestling based comic strip called 'Role Model'. Expect to see some artwork of that pretty soon. In the meantime, here's something I drew at 5AM. I was having a particularly bad episode of artist's block, so I decided to go and get motivated. By listening to the audio-book of "Get in the Van" by Henry Rollins. I don't know how I linked 80s punk rock to a cowboy though? Eh, whatever. Expect to see a full colored version of this soon. I'm heavily considering putting in a background as well, ya know, just to break the mold.


Saturday, August 31, 2013

Something of a self portrait

This September marks what will be the most pivotal month of my life so far. August took it's sweet time finishing up and I worked diligently from beginning to end. Gesture drawings, ideas for new animations, new character designs, trying new techniques to add versatility to my style, etc. On numerous occasions, despite the urge to continue working at 6 AM in the morning, I forced myself to sleep the rest of the morning with the knowledge that it would benefit my health, both physically and mentally. And truth be told, I don't regret a thing.

But enough about that, here's a picture of the anticipation driving me nuts. Enjoy!

Friday, August 30, 2013

Surfer experiment

I'm always striving to improve as an artist. Lately, I've been watching some photoshop videos detailing the artist's process with the coloring and lighting, and trying to apply the techniques into my own work. For the lines of the surfer, I lowered the opacity so it would blend in easier with the color layer. Then I padlocked and duplicated the color layer, and gave it a dark blue overlay. I did this piece in two hours. While I'm not satisfied with water itself, I do like the splashes and the trails in it. It was an experiment with a different method, and I'm going to keep working with it.





1 Minute Gesture Drawings

The theme for this batch was sports.

Baseball


Basketball


Football


Soccer


Sunday, August 25, 2013

Introducing Jose Bendera

This little picture is the result of playing too much Jet Set Radio, buying back Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, a childhood memory of mine. Jose Bendera was actually the created skater of a friend of mine in 5th grade. I fell in love with name immediately. Since it was my game, I took over his character design, and I've been making him in every skateboarding game for the past 12 years now. I've redesigned time and time again and I consider him one of my early brain children.

 I took after the concept art of Jet Set Radio when drawing this, not cleaning up my blue lines and keeping the look nice and gritty. Enjoy!


Saturday, August 24, 2013

A sneak peek

A little detail of what my next animation project is going to be. I am going to animate a female, it will be a dialogue piece, and for this one, I will be puppet animating. I've been on an old school feel as of late, particularly looking at old international star, Josephine Baker. She was the reference for the character that I will be animating, pictured below.



Stay tuned for more!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

More pen gesture drawings

Some more of my pen gesture drawings. 

Poses from a  female dancer, two minutes a figure, just to get warmed up.


My one minute gestures, I was watching Muay Boran tutorials which served as my reference.


 These I did in pairs. Conversation pieces, a minute a figure.

The Grandmaster

For those of you that don't know, I come from a martial arts background. I grew up watching Bruce Lee and the Shaw Brothers movies of the 70s and 80s. I've dabbled in the styles of Capoeira and Xingyiquan, and I intend to dedicate myself to studying martial arts when the opportunity presents itself.

That being said, I'm hyped that The Grandmaster is getting a theatrical release stateside! I remember watching a bootleg of it once with some friends of mine. It features styles like Wing Chun, Bajiquan, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan. I haven't seen a film depict Xingyi since Jet Li's The One. Now I finally get to watch a clear print of it and with subtitles. I quickly made this as a spur of the moment thing and I figured, why not share it?


Sunday, August 18, 2013

Jett "The Jaguar" Langford

As I work at my cintiq, I tend to my TV switched onto channels showing K-1 and MMA marathons. Naturally, this seeped into my thinking process and I decided to make a character based on it. The roughs of this character were sitting in a photoshop file for a few weeks, and last night I finally decided it was time to finish him. My kickboxing mixed martial artist, Jett "The Jaguar" Langford. I can't remember exactly what brought about the cross tattoo, but I felt it added a little bit more to his character to make him a man of faith.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Pen gesture drawings

This is my first time doing gesture drawings in pen. I'm enjoying the looseness of it and the fact that if you make a mistake, there's nothing you can do except keep going. It keeps me from over-thinking and helps me improvise.

3 minute gestures

 

2 minute gestures


1 minute gestures





30 second gestures





Life Drawings

Hello all, here are a few life drawings for a change of pace.






Monday, August 12, 2013

Friday, August 9, 2013

Donnie Baxley - The Actor

While making my demo reel last year, I noticed a glaring problem. While I had action scenes, there was an absence of dialogue pieces to show off my acting capabilities. Donnie Baxley, an obnoxious movie star that you love to hate.

For the character design, I sought the feedback of one of my professors, who is the client. The design went through many iterations, 

 


The one that resonated with my professor most was the one below. This one seemed to capture the arrogant side of the character more. It also has a bit of Hugh Jackman feel.

I'm currently finishing the final frames of the dialogue animation, the post will be coming soon.