Ahoy!

I've been looking at a lot of Howard Pyle and N. C. Wyeth recently.  I love their pirate paintings, especially the colorful ones.  It reminds you that these are a bunch of savage dudes sailing around a tropical paradise.  It's a pretty funny juxtaposition.

My pirates look more like Muppets - not quite ferocious, bloodthirsty, homicidal maniacs.

Alien Martini

Famous last words.

Serval

A Serval is a type of wild cat from the grasslands of Africa.  They have spots, but mine has stripes.

Beasts! Fiends! Rapscallions!

Here's a whole bunch of quirky creatures.  I was trying to play with some color palettes outside of my comfort zone.  It was fun. These guys don't look like they're having fun though. . .

PFFF Layouts

Here's some of the background paintings from the PFFF animation.  These were all done in Photoshop.

And a silly doodle.

Raptor

A raptor, complete with feathers.

Giraffe

Just a doodle.  Playing around with a different rendering style.

Another Color Study

Here's another color study, this one's the theater interior.

Color Study

Here's a color study for the animated spot I'm working on.

Link!

The Legend of Zelda is 25 years old this year.  That gold cartridge was definitely one of my favorite games growing up and a huge influence on me.  Here's a little doodle of Link, the Hero of Time.

(Link and Legend of Zelda copyright Nintendo, Inc.)

Salamander

He might be poisonous, don't eat him!

Shepherd

Playtime

I wouldn't mind having that dinosaur suit myself.

Pencil Test

So the short "Sand" I've been working on is being retitled "The Well".
Here's a rough pencil test I did to start to get a feel for the character.  I dropped in a quick background and some color just to spice it up. 

Colorscript

I've been posting a lot of artwork from this project called "Sand" the past few weeks (here, here, here, here and here ) - so I thought I'd elaborate on it a bit.

The story follows a young boy who lives alone in a deserted wasteland, talking to the sun for company. He leaves in search of people, companions, a friend.  Along the way he encounters several creatures and what he discovers in the end is not what he set out for.

Right now I'm developing it as a short, but I'm not positive if that's what I'll end up doing. Maybe it'll be an illustrated book, or a comic, or a massive flipbook, or a series of embroidered pillows. . . who knows?!

Anyways, here's the colorscript - you can get the gist of what's going on here. There will be some storyboards and character designs up here soon. I'd love to hear what you all think.
Cheers!

More Lighting Studies

Here's some more lighting studies. 

Lighting Studies

A few abstract lighting studies for a short film project I've been working on.

Ruined City

This is an environment study for a project I've been working on.

And here it is before color.  This was drawn and colored straight in Sketchbook Pro - no pencil sketch beforehand. The light streams and fog effects were added in Photoshop afterward.

Under the Tree

The Lonely Ghost found a shady spot.  I was going for a looser drawing and more high key coloring on this one.

Turtle

Here's a turtle!

And here he is before being doused in color.