The Wisdom of Splinter

No drawing today, just wanted to post a favorite clip of mine from the original TMNT movie.

The scene I posted below made such an impact on me the first time I saw it so many years ago and still does to this day. Powerful stuff, even though you have a rat talking to a turtle, still knocks the wind out of you.

Stand by Me

"Boy, you don't know nothing! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman's a real guy. There's no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy"

- Teddy Duchamp

A little more tradition...

So I've been craving just pencil to paper and brush to canvas as of late... so I did a couple of gouche portraits of my favorite characters. I painted them traditionally and then touched them up in photoshop. More to come!

Volcanoes and Lava and Paint oh my!

Here is a quick video on a recent environment I worked on for the new online game Star Guardians coming out later this year. The music is off the upcoming Soundtrack for the game, done by the talented musicians Kit Bateman and Todd Brown.

Star Guardians

So I've been on the freelance path for a few months now and it hasn't been dull:) Lots of different types of projects and I'm grateful to be working. As of recent, I was able to join an awesome team doing visual development for a new virtual world online game. It's called Star Guardians, and it's coming out in early 2012. The project has been a lot of fun so far and the crew on it is SOLID! Here are a few pieces of concept art and character designs I've worked on for the game... Please check out our Facebook page, as well as the site at www.starguardians.com for more concept art and info on the game! The site will be launching soon!

Victor

A while back I started a Mr. Freeze piece and I finally finished it:) I posted the roughs and the inks below to show a bit of my process as well as the final version.

Roughs and Inks...

















After I scanned in the inks I wasn't liking the composition, so I decided to move things around a bit in photoshop.






















For those of you who don't know the story of Freeze, here's a vid with some backstory to him...

Fringe

So recently I was able to get a gig working for an amazing studio called Zoic. I did some freelance work for them doing some backgrounds for an animated episode of Fringe called 'Lysergic Acid Diethylamide'. In the episode Peter and Walter go into Olivia's mind to rescue her from her own psyche. While they are in there, everything appears in a graphic novel type of state (which just kicks ass). It was a really fun episode that just came out a few weeks back. The talent that was working on the show was insane and it was amazing to be working with such great artists.

I was able to contribute two backgrounds and they both were in the show, which is a first for me seeing it on tv:) I posted the art below...

As far as process, I usually get a storyboard or idea from the art director. Then I start out with a black and white sketch to get the concept across and focus on value, then I go to color. This piece was a compilation of drawing and painting in photoshop as well as photography... so basically a matte painting.




For this shot I had to come up with an intersection in Jacksonville, Florida. So I started off with pulling some google map shots in Jacksonville to get the feel of the shops and such. Then I focused on doing straight on views of each street followed by illustrating the shot in perspective.




















Here is a cool making of video for the episode, check it out...

Ciao Bella

Here are some random sketches from my sketchbook with a few textures in Photoshop...

Dunbar

This is a sketch I did a while back after watching one of my favorite movies Dances with Wolves. The likeness of Cosner isn't really there, but I tried to more capture the character of John Dunbar before his transformation to Dances with Wolves.

Here's an awesome clip of the film...

MX Toyota Boards

Some roughs I'm working on for my bro...

Awakening

No drawing today, just a quick scene I wanted to post. I love this scene in the film Hook. There are so many spiritual layers to this film, this being one of the main parts of the story that taps into that. Watching it always reminds me to always remember your true self that lies within, that can be forgotten by attachment to the illusions of the world around us.

The Last Airbender

Felt like drawing some Avatar Fight Sequence boards for practice...

Avatar Exhibit

Here are some concept sketches I recently did for an event this past April. The event was held on Earth Day in Washtington DC, where they had an Avatar exhibit decorated like Pandora for the DVD release of the film. In addition, the event was held to inform and inspire people to be conscious of their own carbon footprints, and go green (or blue in this case) so we can transform the earth back into Pandora.

Noble

First off, I know I haven't posted anything in like 100 years, last year was a crazy busy year full of turns and twists... it was school of hard knocks for sure:) I'm excited for 2010 and really feel like it's been off to a great creative start. Hope all is well with everyone in their start to the new year as well!

So, this is a side project I'm working on with a buddy of mine from work. I've always loved the pulp genre as well as the 1920s in general. The fashion, the music, the film noir look, it's all beautiful stuff. So, that's the setting of this story... here are some character designs and concepts I've been sketching.







This scene from Road to Perdition is beautiful as it really depicts the feel of Chicago in the early 1930s, this movie will be great reference for the comic...



Here's another vid of an animated piece from the animatrix I love that has the steampunk/film noir feel... it's called "A Detective Story"

Kal vs Hulk

Here are a few roughs I'm doing for a cover of Superman and Hulk battling it out...



I started to work on the second rough as a finished piece. Below is my process from the pencils to the finished colors... (Btw, Superman would beat Hulks ass any day of the week, this just happens to be a bad moment for him, haha)



Here's an awesome video done by a very talented 3d Artist...

Miyagi

I watched the original Karate Kid the other day, and I have to say it's still after all of these years one of my favorite movies. The acting is fantastic, the story is awesome and the philosophy and spiritual undertone to the movie is beautiful.

One of my favorite characters ever is Mr. Miyagi, of course he's just a plain bad ass that could crack any Cobra Kai in half, but he's also a healer which I especially think is awesome. He has such a great presence and there are many scenes within the movie in unison with the japanese flute that are very moving. I posted one of my favorite scenes below as well as a cool/cheesy music vid lol. These drawings are dedicated to Pat Morita for doing such a wonderful job in bringing a hero and mentor to life on screen. Arigato gozaimasu Mr. Morita.

Howlett

Man, it's been a long while since I've posted anything. I took way too much time away from creating, but I'm back and will be posting some of my new work in the weeks to come. Here is a wolverine painting I did for my buddy's birthday recently. I started with a sketch which started out on the realistic side, but became a little more graphic and cartoony as I began painting. I painted this in Gouache on Bristol Board and had a really good time with it. One of my fellow painter friends gave me a wealth of info on color mixing recently. To slowly inch back into painting, I'm just starting with a few colors on my palette.... including White, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Pthalo Blue, and Alizarin Crimson. I did the following painting above with just these three colors, the nice thing is that it forces you to mix all of your other colors as well as creates color harmony in your painting. Color Theory is a bitch for me personally, if anyone else shares this same pain, keep reading... If you'd like a little guidance in the area check out the website of Felipe Echevarria, he's a hell of an artist and a teacher. You can find his website at this link... Felipe Echevarria; for info on his teachings in mixing color click here and scroll down till you see "On Mixing Color", there are three lessons there. Anyhoo, hope everyone is well, until next time...

 

Australia Comic

Here are a few pages from the finished Australia comic I recently finished penciling...

ROGUE LAWMAN

The following pages and character designs are based on the novel ROGUE LAWMAN by the great writer Peter Brandvold, see the links section to visit his site. The pages below were penciled by Jeremy de la Garza and inked by comic book veteran Jon Holdredge.



Page One



Page Two



Page Three



Page Four
(Pencils were scanned in the making)



Page Five


This is the cover in progress, you can see the sketch to the left and I have started to build up the painting to the right in gouache.


Here is the finished cover.