The pig with her house made of sticks

Hey guys,

Well here she is.  I like the idea that her body is just like the pretty pig's only flipped.  Kind of the eternal struggle between brains and beauty.  A few of these aren't the best drawings, but I'm trying to show more of my process and this was the evolution that took place.  Anyone who can guess the story I'm modernizing gets a cookie!

Back from CTNX!!

I had a really great time at CTNX this year! What an eye opening experience. I work from home so I never really knew where I fit in terms of my own development. Well, I gotta lot of work to do! There is a ton of talent out there, but I remember my dad always saying, "there's always going to be some one with a better situation or more talent than you, but you need to be the one willing to work harder than anyone else."

Sooooo...that being said, I'm going to take a project through from start to finish and I can't think of a better place to do that than right here with all you lovely people. The original story was only two pages of quick sketches in my portfolio, but I'm further developing the idea. I'm going to start with characters, maybe a few environments (maybe) and then do some full on concept pieces. Feedback is welcome and desired!! So here goes...

My original pig was a little more human looking. Like a woman with a pig head. Not great, but the execution was pretty nice. So I'm really playing around with Pig silhouettes. I've pushed a few of these past the limits, but it's experimentation so why not?

aviator

New post time!  I've also got this one up on my facebook page.  I've submitted it for a critique from some industry peers.  I'll let you know how it goes  :)

aerial acrobats

I love acrobats on silks.  I just think it's amazing to watch, so in tribute I'm working on a large vertical piece featuring these amazing artists.  But first, starting with a few exploratory sketches.

My process...abbreviated

I was asked recently about my process, and every artist does it differently, but this is how I come up with a character.  Most of the time, you have a style guide, sometimes even the work of a previous character designer to go off of.  Other times you  only have a sentence!  In this case, since this is a personal project, I like to come up with a little back story that helps me visualize and "get to know" my character.  In this case, Patches is a working clown and also a single dad of a very precocious little boy.
I almost always start off with heads and torsos.  I create a variety of head shapes (imagine two more sheets of these) then choose one that really speaks to me and pull the character out of it.  I do this by drawing over it and making more specific choices about the way he'll look, and in my mind, I'm deciding how his face will move, any characteristics that will make him unique.  Then I'll do further tweaks when I move the character to a full body.  Now all this takes place before expressions, turn-arounds, etc.  This is just the exploratory phase, but I hope you like it!

Been a while!

So here is some new stuff!  I've been really focusing in on my character work and have been getting some really great results.  So let us begin...

Raven concept

Another concept piece for a personal project.

Soap City Backgrounds

Here are some backgrounds I did for a vector animated series.  This is to be part of the original pitch and it has a fantastic gritty feel.  Check out the company that's putting it together, they are really great people over there.
www.kingbeeanimation.com

character designs! Zombie Adam.

So these are designs that I'm throwing around for a pitch I'm working on.  It's about a boy, who through his own selfishness, finds himself in limbo.  He's trapped in a rural cemetery where he died but refused to pass on.  If he leaves the boundaries of the cemetery he starts to decompose.  Two old women, below, come by and convince him to come with them so that he can break his cycle of self-centeredness with the hope of regaining his life.

Well, that's the long and short of it!  I'm going to be working on this for a few months so expect more designs to pop up!

Half

So this one is for a game concept by Scott Wiser about a little girl who's soul is torn in half.  One is the good half, one is the evil half.  So I just did a couple of little concept sketches of the girl after the split.

Lovely ladies!

Well, maybe just one of them.  I started playing around with some poses and shapes earlier today.  These are two of my favorites..

new monkey design

This is little more than a warm-up doodle, but I'm trying to nail down the look of this character so I'm experimenting with a lot of different actions and poses.

New Year new painting

Okay, well, not "new"...but revised!  It might as well be new, I went back into every square inch of it...

Happy New Year!

A new year and a fresh new start!  Here's a ww2/steampunk-y riveter.  Hurray!