new sketches!

Hot off the press, drawn tonight, just for ye.

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BIRDS - you can't make this stuff up. AMAZING and ridiculous looking creatures, I am fascinated with them. There are a few subjects that I can't draw enough of, with various looks, personalities, shapes... one of them is definitely birds.

So. Blog silence. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's been so busy here in MOONBOT land. I've been traveling all over the globe for presentations, festivals and research. We've been cultivating our next batch of stories to tell the world, and we're really excited, so forgive me for the intermittent absence.

One last note: the iPad App of which I was lead developer and designer, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, is up for an ADOBE MAX Award! You have until 5pm EASTERN time to vote for us, so click here, scroll down to DIGITAL PUBLISHING and click on Morris! We really appreciate it.

More sketching!

I've had some fresh influences lately. Just having fun and trying to get better.

SKETCHES!

Here are some more sketches from this week. Just warm-ups and having fun.

We also started a Sketch Tuesday a while back, over at the Moonbot Blog - check it out each week!

Old caricature scan

I promised a few artists in 2009 at the ISCA Caricature Convention that I'd put this sketch up for anyone interested, at a print resolution. I was cleaning my studio the other day, and found it!

If you are one of those pals who wanted it (or even if you aren't), here you go!

Click the image for hi-res.

Sketching

Here are more recent sketching pages. Relaxing and brushing up on old man faces:

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and setting a goal with drawing ability for graphic novels, sequential art, illustration and storyboards...

Task 1= hands:

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These are all done with a light Copic marker then inked with a Pentel Pocket brush pen.

I'll post more Morris Lessmore design work and production art soon, as well as some other little things we're working on here at Moonbot.

Just on a random fun note, I watched Pixar's UP again last night... once again, brilliant.

Sketchbook!

Here's another little comp from a few pages in a new sketchbook. I'm just having fun and getting inspired by a few artists I'm currently checking out. Hope you enjoy (click to enlarge):

Morris Lessmore production art

Even with a film as short as 12 or 15 minutes (long for a 'short film', I know) takes a LOT of creative people and a LOT of design and artwork.

At Moonbot Studios, we are fortunate to have the approach of hiring multi-talented artists who are willing and ready to wear many hats and tackle many challenges. I am lucky enough that I was hired as a storyboard artists, doing a majority of the boarding for this film, but also moved directly onto character design, production design, color scripting, concept art for environments and miniature sets, prop design, then textures, and even 2d animation.

This was an amazing chance to experience nearly every facet of the 'art department' of an animated production. I enjoyed all of it, and have a lot of artwork to share with everyone, but it would be far too much for one post here, so I'll parcel it out over the next few months, along with some tastes of what we are producing "after Morris".

I hope you dig... here's a first look:

This is the first quick 'paint' I did of Morris Lessmore. It was based on Bill Joyce's first pencil illustrations of Morris, but with a bit more cartooning and flow to it. This was sketched and painted in Photoshop.

Here is the sketch that influenced the final direction of Morris Lessmore's character design. We were going a much different route where he was meek, chubby and small-eyed, however Bill wanted me to get some more Buster Keaton in the movement and poses. So I sketched from DVDs for a few hours and this is the one that everyone latched on to enough to redesign him. This sketch is done with pencil and a Pentel Pocket brush pen and is no more than 4" tall.

These pencil sketches are concepts for layout and shots, done during the storyboard process. Bill had some specific shots he wanted and some he had sketched, some he had described. These are nothing special or sacred, just 2" wide each done with blue pencil in a sketchbook, scanned later for reference. It is nice to look back on these looser and 'smaller' sketches and see what it informed and what it did not. Either way, the small sketches are just as valuable to production.

I ended up doing a LOTTTT of prop design and the following orthographic drawings for the modelers and CG production team. I found that I have a specific eye for detail, and am very critical, so it came into play here naturally. These 'turnarounds' are essential, and while they are rigid, they are also fun to do. These chairs in particular, were actually not used in the film, but at one point, we had a place for them. Integrating these "William Joyce details" into each object, giving it unique character to this world, is really fun.

(click to view full size)

These are just a few panels from the color script. A few artists worked on the color script, and we all really enjoyed it!

Texturing characters and objects is essential. The color and surface of an object must be created by putting an image on it, that essentially is a 'wrapper' of color and surface properties. Here is just one of the many textures I created. This is part of the cover of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme book character. You will really enjoy his part in this film.

This is part of Morris' design and breakout pages. Giving the animators a reference of poses and personality of movement is helpful, especially when we are specifically referencing Buster Keaton in certain ways. These are silhouettes of some of the poses drawn for Morris, and below (click to enlarge) is one of the full pose sheets:

I hope you enjoy seeing this artwork. There is a LOT more and I'll continue to share it with you very soon! In the meantime, check out the film trailer here.

The Anthology Project V2

Hey ye all. If you have not yet seen this, check it out... it's called the ANTHOLOGY PROJECT:

Some hella-talented illustrators, designers and sequential artists put this together as a personal project. As you know, when it's a labor of love, it always ends up being among your best work-- this is no exception.

The Anthology Project is a beautifully designed, lush collection of comics from some very talented artists: Joy Ang, Nick Thornborrow, Connor Willumsen, Jeffrey Thompson, Kim Smoth, Christopher Ryzebel, Tom Rhodes, Matt Rhodes, Darren Rawlings, Chris Makris, Ed Kwong, Casper Konefal, Ben Huen, Christine Choi, & Sam Bradley.

The art is original, bright, diverse, incredibly tight, inspiring, and fun. Also, having published books myself, I can tell you that they went all out on the quality and design of this simple and wonderful little book (here's me with my copy!):

Anyway, check out this link -- they are looking to do Volume 2 via KickStarter -- you can pledge a little or a lot, and it helps fund this project. They are also being ultimo-cool about it, too, and offering copies of the book and other goodies to those who pledge. And if they don't get the moolah they need for the project, you don't owe anything at all. I think it's a win-win, so click here and at least watch the vid (for me)!

LIFE Drawing!

The first figure drawing session at ArtSpace, here in Shreveport, LA, went GREAT. Here are some of my sketches from last week (click to enlarge):

Shreveportians For Drawing!

YESSSSS.

Come one, Come all, Louisiana locals who care about your craft (or like to drink):

Doodlin'

I haven't been drawing much since we ended our shoot schedule for the short film (catching up on emails, etc) but I'll be drawing a bunch this weekend and also doing a painting for some dear friends. In the meantime, here are a few doodles/sketches that I grabbed from my sketchbook, from December (click to enlarge):

Sketchbooking

Here are some recent sketches from my sketchy von bookus. I am enjoying the errant line of the pen and how charming it can be on its own. Sometimes small areas are nice in their simplicity:

details:

Halloweeeeen busy

I'd love to share more of what I've been working on for the last 7 months, but that will come in time, when it is appropriate. It's safe to say that it is exciting and you will enjoy it and the art it took to produce it.

In the meantime, I'll be sharing what art I can: sketchbook pages, caricatures, doodles, warm-up pieces, etc... but it's been so busy with so many different things that I'm just trying to keep caught up-- there is an art auction at the local gallery here in Shreveport, engulfed by a ZOMBIE PROM tonight, and we have been working on decorating skeletons for that. There is a new bar opening soon that should be pretty hip, and we've been painting a 13' mural there on and off, and we're also working on getting a new fun figure drawing session going at a good central Shreveport Location for all the students, artists and creative minglers here. On top of that, there are no 8 hr work days here, so we're keeping ourselves busy.

In the "news" department, I will be attending the ISCA caricature convention in Sandusky in a couple weeks. Thanks to all of those who donated, you have no idea how much it means to me. If you wrote me a note attached to your donation, I will reply soon, and if you have commissioned a caricature from me in the last year (or two, for some of you), I promise I will get to it very soon.

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More Sketchbook scans

If you dig these, feed the monkey and grab my cheap-yet-top-quality sketchbook collection, HERE.





UPDATE: I also hope my buddy Dan doesn't mind, but he is REALLY GOOD, so I had to share this:

New Sketchbook

Sketchbook, brush pen

I've been finally back to sketching as much as I can, lately. My buddies at work are inspiring and motivating in this avenue, so I'm trying to keep focused. I'm trying to keep my facebook album for "daily sketches" at least updated weekly.

I recently purchased a Pentel Pocket brush pen which has a great sumi-style brush with replacement ink capsules, so you just have to keep buying ink. The ink is pure India ink and flows wonderfully.

My friends jokingly call it the "Hanzo" (as in Hatori Hanzo) for its master-samurai-blade-like qualities and cutting lines on the paper. It can also be pushed heavily on the page to create wonderful bits of chaos. Below are some drawings I've done with the Hanzo, with a detail from one of the sketches. The people are drawn from a great photo book called "Nylon Streets", similar to the line of "Fruits" books, but a bit more anchored to realistic-looking clothes in the US and Europe.

detail

Live Caricatures

You may already know that I made a living drawing caricatures in destination theme parks for nearly 5 years, and it's a large part of where I met a lot of my favorite artists, best friends and really cut my teeth. I say it often, but I really feel that this experience was more beneficial to me as an artist than art school was. Perhaps I was at the wrong school for my needs, but either way, the community and inspiration of friends and artists made it WELL worth my time, and I will probably never "wash off" the love of caricature, especially live drawing.

I've received some requests to share more live caricature here, so I'll continue to do that. While I am working on other separate projects and career directions with my art, and only do corporate gigs and parties now (and they aren't very frequent), I still have a passion for this entertaining art form and will always love those that are excited and driven through it.

The above image is from a day of sketching with my good friend Matt Zitman at a 6 Flags theme park in New Jersey, last year. This was one of his employees, and I was feeling inspired by the simplicity and symmetry I saw in his face. The number one thing to do is to have fun and make the drawing fun, even if it's trying something new.

The sketches below are from my recent booth setup at the Orlando comic/art/entertainment convention called "MegaCon". Orlando is home to some of my best friends in the world and I meet more amazing people and artists there each time I visit. These were some great folks who came by and purchased some books and a caricature from me, as well as sharing their great personalities with the group. It was a great time. Anyway, these are all done with a Dixon Markette bullet tip marker and took anywhere from 8-15 minutes.

Drawing live caricatures at a party, event, or retail (theme park) environment is an interesting thing, because you have to be quick. I was asked recently about taking 15 minutes on one face... HERE I can get away with it, because it is my table at an event where I am representing myself and my artwork. It is less about the product and more about myself, so the patrons and fellow artists want to see something with a little more frosting and sprinkles, rather than hurry on to the next viewing of the Dancing Penguin Waterslide Spectacular. There must be a balance for live artists, where you realize when and who can afford a few more minutes, who would appreciate a more extreme, rendered, or interesting caricature, and when you need to make some money and crank out the CUTE. It is the most delicate balance, and a good artist like my buddy Ed Steckley learns this first and foremost, and is great at it. It takes more than just funny drawings to be good at this profession, and it's important for the business. That being said, find your happiness and see if it fits with the business. If you can make it work, you'll be very happy to pay the bills and laugh at your own drawings, but find what works for you.

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Here is a nice fella who was coaxed into a caricature by his wife. He was evidently worried about what I might "do to him." He was right. He has a great face.

I first noticed how large his head was, with a little extra width. Immediately after that, I caught his clenched or 'forced' smile, slight gaps in his teeth, mole above his lip and intensely squeezing eyes that felt uniquely lazy (tense and lazy?). From those observations, I sketched what I described as a "mountainous terrain", with the paper in landscape orientation.

I try to keep these more extreme sketches loose and fun. A big inspiration is John K. and his Ren & Stimpy cartoons, and how he will break the rules with every scene, going off-model, but keeping the important features. The structure should be strong, but does not have to be absolutely perfect, rather it can strongly suggest the form, with a loose and animated feel. On top of it all, I laid down the Prismacolor Art Stixx in a way that describes form, highlights, mass and shadow. I typically use the light and colors that I see on the person for 98% of my coloring choices, the rest is finesse and having fun, heightening things and adding a little spice.

It's not a perfect drawing, and looking back I see many places where I could improve, but overall it's fun, looks like the guy, and he laughed. That's what it's all about.