Rise of the Guardians

Several years ago, I was asked to create a few illustrative story murals for each of the main character's for Dreamworks new movie Rise of the Guardians.  Production Designer Patrick Hanenberger had a great idea of establishing each character's background story in the form of a mural.  In doing so we began to not only develop each characters shape and color language, but we had a fun time capturing bits of each characters background story which came from the original story material from William Joyce.  Shown here are just a few of thees mural illustrations I did, you can check out the rest of the murals in the art of book, as well as a few other sketches I did for the film.

Character Design Class Sign Up

Hey Everyone, just wanted to let you know we have one week left till class starts. So if you'd like to sign up for my 8 Week online Character Design Class for the fall term, click HERE for class sign up info.

A Little Hide & Seek

Recently came across this painting I did last year.

Sweet Tooth

Character Design Class - Pirates!

Hey Everyone, my online Character Design Class just did an amazing weeks worth of Pirate Designs for our most recent assignment. The class is really turning out some amazing and inspiring work, so I thought I might contribute! Click HERE For more info on my Character Design Class and how to sign up for the Fall term.

From the Vault - Puss In Boots

A year or two ago, I worked on a really cool trailer project for Puss In Boots. The idea was to create a "Spaghetti Western" style teaser trailer for the film. We wanted to take page out of the Sergio Leone book of film making for this piece, and we had a blast doing so. It was a really funny sequence that Head of Story Bob Persichetti Conceptualized and Story Boarded. Chris Applehans did some Preliminary Design and Layout work, Jakob Jensen created the funny and highly stylized bit's of Animation, and I Locked and Set the Style, Painted the Backgrounds, Colored the Animation and put it all together in After Effects. All in all it was a really small crew, but the end result was something really fun and charming. It was cool because in a way, it was as if we were making a little film, at a really big studio. We ended up not using it as it didn't end up fitting with the tone of the final film, but I think the trailer is an easter egg or a special feature on the Blue Ray, but I'm not certain. Above are some Final Stills from the Teaser Trailer, & A Logo Chris and I Conceptualized which I created with a Two Color Linoleum Block Print, inspired by the great Saul Bass of course. All artwork above Copyright Dreamworks Animation.

Online Character Design Class Sign Up

Hey everyone, the next term of my online Character Design Class starts next Friday, July 20th. If you'd like to take the class, make sure to sign up by next Friday. Space is limited and last term was full with a wait list. For more info on the class check out the class description page HERE

Character Design Class Has Begun!

The first week is underway and in the books for my Character Design Class for Animation and it was a great first week. All of the students turned in great work, and it's already proving to be a really strong class. To learn more about this course or to sign up to be on the waiting list for next term, click HERE.

Heartwork

A while ago I was asked to contribute a painting to this amazing project known as "Heartwork." Heartwork is a project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at the Target House (a wonderful home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude® Children's Research Hospital.) Every year, a group of artists will create a series of posters to raise money for the art room. Each of the posters will feature a different interpretation of the St. Jude Target House elephant mascot, chosen because it represents family, long life, strength and playfulness—attributes with special meaning at a place designed for families to live, play and heal.

If you want to learn more about the Target House, click HERE

If you want to purchase one of the many Heartwork Prints to help support this cause, click HERE

My contribution to the project is shown above, and should be available for purchase on the website sometime soon.

Online Character Design Course

Starting on April 21st, I will be teaching a new Online Character Design 8 week course for CGMW. In this course we will be exploring the various and important aspects that go into designing characters for animation. We'll be exploring how shape language relates to a characters personality, we'll disect how one adapts to designing characters in various artistic styles, and we'll begin to discuss what it takes to mold yourself to becoming a professional designer.

Click this link HERE to go to the sign up page for more info on this character design course.

Nightmare Show In Paris

This past weekend, I was one of the many contributing artists to a Nightmare Before Christmas Show that took place at the Arludik Gallery in Paris. My piece was a tribute to Zero, and explored the idea of what he might play fetch with. If you are in Paris, swing by the gallery and check out the great collection of contributing artists.

Fetch
7" x 9"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2012

Something from the Vault

While I finish up various other projects and a few long overdue paintings, I thought I'd post a piece I recently re-discovered when going through some old paintings. This was done for a show I was a part of in San Diego in 2009. It's pretty simple : Floating brain in a robot suit meet's little red bird.

One the way to work
5" x 7"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2009

Jim Flora Tribute

Jim Flora is easily of my favorite artists of all time. His style has been a heavy influence on the animation industry for years and years. I've always loved his amazing balance between graphic design and story telling. His illustrations jump off the page with so much life. Above is my next submission for the Jim Flora tribute on the collaborative illustration blog Illostribute.com . I wanted to play off a big style key often seen in Flora's work. Limited & contrasting colors, and a two sided story of a characters good times and bad times.

High's & Lows
Digital
7" x 7"
Jim Flora Tribute
2012

Art Show Tonite

Tonite in LA, I'll be contributing to an Art Show inspired by classic Kung Fu Legends & Myths re-imagined by Author Ryan Gattis. My Piece is shown above, and nn total there are 16 different artists each contributing one piece to this show as well. The show opens tonite at Gallery Meltdown 7522 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles and runs for a couple of weeks.

For more info on the show, Author Ryan Gattis, and the other contributing artists, click HERE

Painting Above
God Of War
16" x 12"
Black Ink & Paper Collage
2012

Movie Poster Show

A little while back I was asked to participate in a Movie Poster Show where every piece entered into the show is a poster inspired by a feature film. For my contribution to the show I thought I'd put a darker "Saul Bass-esque" take on one of my favorite films of all time, Dumb & Dumber. For my concept, I thought I'd focus on the moment when Harry & Loyd find their dead parakeet Peety with his head cut off.

As for the show, it's in Brazil, so it's a bit too far for me to attend, but for more info on the exhibition and to see some of the other contributing artists, head over to POSTER LAB and have a look.

Dumb & Dumber Poster
18" x 12"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2012

Cereal Box Paintings

Last year I was asked if I would design and paint a couple of Yeti & Sasquatch themed fake cereal box covers. Being a huge fan of vintage cereal box design I thought it would be a fun little project to take on. I referenced and took inspiration from classic cereal box designs for this project and below is what I ended up with. Both paintings are a combination of Acrylic Paint and Paper Collage and measure 20" x 16".



Abominable Frostbites. I had previously done a Yeti Cereal Box design a few years back and thought I'd use the same name, but created a new overall design for this painting.



Big Foot's Camper Crunch. This one was a completely new concept.



There are a few of my preliminary paintings I did when I was just conceptualizing the characters. They are pretty similar to previous Yeti & Sas designs I've done, but I still wanted to mix them up a little for these Cereal Box paintings.