!Happy Holidays!

This year my Fiancee' and I decided to send out some holiday cards for our friends and family. And rather than picking some out at the store, we thought we should create our very own, so I painted this little piece of our Yeti friend decorating his tree and getting ready for Christmas. It's probably the one time out of the year he takes a break from killing mountain climbers and sasquatches, and for good reason. I hope everyone out there has a great holiday!

7" x 10" Gouache and Paper Cut-Out

The Ancient Book of Sex and Science

USE TECHNOLOGY TO COLLECT THE WOMEN!

Here is the first piece that I've done for our next installment of the "Ancient Book" series. Our next book will be playing with the themes of Sex and Science. I'm hoping to weave a little story between all of my paintings again which was fun the last time around. As for this piece, well there's really not much to explain other than it's a giant cyclops robot operated by scientists collecting wild naked women on some unknown planet. I have to say I love the logic in Sci-Fi pulp. Anyways below I've included some rough sketches of the piece and some earlier thumbnails. Check out the blogs of Lou Romano, Scott Morse, and Don Shank for updates on their awesome artwork for the book.

10" x 15 1/2" Acrylic, Gouache, and Paper Cut-Out

Yeti Vs. Sasquatch

I did this Yeti vs. Sasquatch painting a few months back as a commissioned piece. It was fun to simplify and stylize the idea of these two characters and their two different worlds getting ready to go head to head. The battle hasn't happend yet so I can't say who wins, although I was told a long time ago to never bet against a Yeti.

13" x 20" Acrylic / Gouache / Paper-Cut Out

New York Society of Illustrators

This Cyclops painting I did for the "Ancient Book of Myth and War" has been accepted into the 50th Annual Exhibition for the Society of Illustrators in New York. I'm not sure when the opening will take place, I just hope I can make it out to New York to see the show.

I'M BATMAN!

When I was younger I always thought I would be a comic artist. Well, even though I'm not, I still love drawing super heros, so I thought I would start doing some fun sketches and paintings of some of my favorites. Batman is a great character so I thought I'd start in his world and see what happens.

Ratatouille 2-D Animation

So now that Ratatouille is finally out on DVD I thought it would be fun to take a few screen grabs off the DVD of the 2-D animation that we did for the movie and post them. Now these obviously aren't the complete credits of the film, but just the first few to show the style we chose to go with. The Idea really came from Harley Jessup the Production Designer who saw some of my illustrative design work on Ratatouille and wanted to pitch the art as an Idea for a credits sequence. And as we moved forward Teddy Newton came up with all the gags for the sequence and keyed out a lot of the animation, I created the style, design and look of the sequence as well as painted some of the animation and layouts for the sequence, Scott Morse helped me paint some of the BG's, Bob Scott led the animation team, and Andrew Jimenez put everything through AfterEffects and created all the camera moves. There were way more than the five of us that helped make this happen so I have to tip my hat to them because they all did an amazing job. Everything was animated by hand, and since we wanted such a painterly look on the finished animation, we had to paint all the animation in a futuristic old fashioned way, all in the computer, but frame by frame in photoshop with no cheats or short cuts. Unfortunately we didn't get to use any cell painting gloves, maybe next time.


As for the Short film "Your Friend the Rat," Jim Capabianco had this great idea about the history of rats and humans and wanted to do most of it with hand drawn animation. Doing the production design for this short was tons of fun but was also quite challanging with trying to incorporate several different styles of animation all in under 11 minutes. In the end we used a combination of 3-d animation, 2-d animation, stop motion animation, and AfterEffects animation. There also is a shot in the short that we actually projected animation and traced it frame by frame on a large chalk board. It took me 13 hours to do and I swear I was coughing chalk for a few days after, so it's not some fancy animation filter, trust me it's all real chalk. Anyways if you pick up the DVD, I hope you enjoy it.

Viva la 2-D Animacion!

Evil Scientist

Not much to say other than this guy is probably up to no good.

King Sized Development Art

So About a year ago my friend from Cal Arts Devin Roth was developing a show idea for TV and he asked me to do a piece to help sell the style of the show. Anyways, unfortunately the show wasn't picked up but I had a blast doing some bits of design work here and there for Devin. Here's the main character, stopping to check out this vista with a castle off in the distance.

The Ancient Book of Sex and Science

So the guys and I have begun to work on our next book, "The Ancient Book of Sex and Science." It's going to be a really fun mix of sexy sci-fi and ancient modern science sex pulp. Anyways, I'll be posting some sketches and a few pieces in the coming months of what I'm working on for the book, and so will Scott, Don and Lou. So keep your looking balls locked to the internet box for more updates.

Happy Birthday Love

So about 2 weeks ago my fiancee Crystal celebrated her 23rd birthday and rather than just buying her a nice present I really wanted to make her something special. Something that you can't just get in a store. So in my downtime, I worked on this painting for her and suprised her with it on her birthday. Anyways, happy birthday love!

The Deadly Fire Cyclops!

Final Paint Gouache / Acrylic / Paper Cut-Out

Below is the process in which I created this piece. Starting at the bottom of the post with the sketch, and finishing up here with the final.



Adding the rough detail to block out some more of the smaller shapes and textures.



Then block in the rough color and graphic shape.



The background color I put down first.



The rough color study I did to help me plan out the colors I'd use.



The rough sketch

Robot Alien Sketches

Here are a few sketches of some Alien Robot designs for a future project that I've been kicking around. When I do some color studies I'll post those next.

Death By Yeti

So Here is the full Ninja piece I did for the Ninja Show at Gallery Nucleus. It was a really fun piece to do, and if you haven't checked out the show, it was great. So many good artists, so much great artwork.

9" x 33" Gouache, Acrylic, and Paper Cut-Out

Rough Sketch

I'm gonna try and post way more sketches on this blog and do so way more freequently. Now that the crunch time is over I have way more time to draw and sketch so I'll be putting them up.

Ninja Show

Here is a taste of my submission into the Gallery Nucleus "Ninja Show 2 Revenge of the Ninja!" The opening reception is on Saturday, August 11th from 6pm - 11pm. The show runs until September 3rd and there are so many amazing artists involved in this show that it's crazy. It's gonna be great, so check it out if you can.

As for my piece, the original is quite big, so this is only a small portion of what you'll see at the show.

9" x 33" Gouache, Acrylic, and Paper Cut-out.

Luckiest Yeti in the world!

Well I'm back from Europe now, and I have to say I had the best trip I've ever taken. I proposed to the love of my life in Paris and she said yes, so I'm engaged and I couldn't be happier. Crystal and I spent time in Paris, Cannes and went all the way over to Bulgaria to visit a friend. It was quite a journey, but like I said it was an amazing trip, and with her in my life I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Yeti In Europe

So I'm off to Europe with my girlfriend this week, we'll be gone for quite some time, I think like over three weeks. It's Our first trip to Europe, so were really excited. I'll have plenty of time to sketch while I'm on all those planes and trains, so I'll post some stuff when I'm back at the end of July.

Too Many Cooks

Last fall at work I was asked to illustrate a childrens book for our up coming movie "Ratatouille." It was a pretty tough assignment given the short deadlines and large amount of work, but it's all done and it's out in stores now ( Borders, Barnes & Noble, ect. ), so check it out I think it's a really fun book, but remember that it's designed for little kids, so the drawings are as cute as I could make them. I'll be sure to counter this post with a yeti vs sasquatch piece so that things don't get too cute around here.

A Nice Wet Old Lady

So I know the title to this post is a bit tasteless, however, we all know it needed to be said. Anyways, here is my quick contribution to the drawing club that a few of my friends have started. This weeks assignment was to draw up an elderly mermaid, and next week build off the idea. So next week I'll have a few more of these old ladies to sneak a peek at. Also, I have to appologize for the lack of posts lately, work has been crazy, but it's coming to a close, so expect a lot more drawings all the time.

Check out my friends

Austin

Rob

Vi

for some more of this drawing clubs work.

Power in Numbers Show at Galley Nucleus

So this is a sketch and some photo reference for my entry in Gallery Nucleus' Power in Numbers show. May 19th - 28th, 2007 7pm - 11pm. The sketch is of Bobby Peru and he has to be one of my favorite movie villains/creeps of all time, so I thought I'd take a stab at doing a painting of him. The final will be in the show, and it will be a 5" x 7" digital print. If you've seen the movie "Wild at Heart" than you're familiar with this character and hopefully you'll enjoy my take on him, if you haven't seen the movie ( see photo reference of character played by Willam Dafoe included above) than I suggest that you do, because Bobby Peru is one hell of a guy.

Baby Blue and Brandy

Lock up your daughters and grand daughters, cause no girl between the ages of 19 and 70 are safe.

Prints for Sale

So for those of you who haven't been to the Gallery Nucleus website, they have several prints from the Ancient Book of Myth and War show availible from all four artists. I have created a few links to the right that will take you directly to the place to purchase the prints of mine that they have. Simply click on the print that you're interested in and go from there. The prints are 8 1/2" x 11" and are all sold through Gallery Nucleus. There is also some original art still availible for sale from all of us so check it out while it's still around.

Show Pictures

So I'm sure you've all heard enough about this thing, but I thought I'd post some pics from the show. If you haven't gotten out to the gallery yet, well I think it might be too late, however you can still purchase someof the art that is left on the Gallery Nucleus website, ill have special links to that stuff on monday. Anyways, here's the pics....

From left to right : Don Shank, Lou Romano, Scott Morse, and Me.



Here I am with the love of my life, my beautiful girlfrined Crystal.



Here with some good friends from left to right : Teddy Newton, Austin Madison, and Me (again.)



The hottest stone cold fox at the show



And of course, the artwork and the gallery!

The Show!

I Just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to the show on saturday night. It was a huge success and it was all because we were so lucky to have all your support. If you haven't made it out yet, the show will be up for another two weeks and there is still a lot of amazing artwork for sale. So if you get the chance come check it out, and the book is availible for pre-order on amazon if you weren't able to pick one up. Anyways thanks again to everyone for coming out, here are a few originals of mine from the show, that I belive are still availible for sale, just contact Gallery Nucleus!

Painting One of Two

So I wish I could post more, but things have been insanely busy and with the show coming up, there is just no time. Anyways here is a Painting I did of Medusa for the show. I've done two paintings of this image and here is the first. This is from Persus's view, the intensity of taking the head of such a montser. The other is from Medusas view, it's a little darker and not as glamorous, ill post it later. Hope to see you all at the show, check the flyer for times and directions.

Blogger Problems

Can't seem to upload any new works I've done, as soon as I get this sorted out, ill post some more work.

Medusa Sketch

Here is a quick sketch of a Medusa character I've been kicking around. She's not much of a looker but then again she is supposed to turn people to stone with her looks. Ill propably finish this one out as a painting for the show coming up.

Myth and War Info

So here is the flyer for the show. Click on the images for a closer look!

Front



Back



The Show will be at:
Gallery Nucleus in LA
March 24th - April 8th
The Art Show Opening : Saturday March 24th from 7pm - 11pm

The Ancient Book of Myth and War

So we now have a date for our Ancient Book of Myth and War gallery show, it's gonna be Saturday March 24th at Gallery Nucleus down in LA and will most likely be in the evening, and as soon as I hear of the exact time the show will start I'll post it. There is also some talk of us having a workshop the next day (sunday) at the same place, where we would be explaining our methods of working. Don Shank, Lou Romano, Scott Morse, and Ricky Nierva are absolutly amazing artists so if this happens you should check out how they work their magic.

As for the art in this post, here is a little glimpse at my final piece for the Ancient Book of Myth and War. It's a painting of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty and arguably the finest stone cold fox in ancient times. Anyways, there is much much more to this painting, however I didn't want to show everything before the book came out, so here is a little close up detail on venus and her crazy hair doo!

Dead Sexy

So I know a day of the dead painting is a bit out of season, however this was actually a christmas present for my beautful girlfriend Crystal. She really loves day of the dead art and also has a strong intrest in zombies, so when she asked if I would paint her into a day of the dead scene with zombies, how could I resist. So what your actually seeing is a painting of her ( Crystal ) as a sexy day of the dead pin up, surrounded by zombies who are coming out of the ground in what would seem like a lustful rage.