Echo

The needle was empty and Echo was reelin'. Jus' watchin' the shadows stretch cross the ceilin'. The lights had turned to winding worms and the sound of every pin dropped or key turned was carried up to Echo's loft, and the worst of it was the words. They slid and rolled and swelled and rushed from screaming anger to hush-hush and swept up in the voices her attention span was blurred. And just when it began to be so much that she could hardly stand the screams her mind escaped by fleeing to the forgetfulness of dreams.

She sees a woman running. It could be her, but she's not sure. There's a monster in the darkness. But it's so big she can't see all of it at once, only pieces of a claw, a scale, an eye. A light in the sky, she wants it to point towards the beast, but it shines in all the wrong places. There's a gun attached to a man attached to a smile with too many teeth. A flash, a crack, a sharp, deep pain.

Echo's eyes shot open while her hands tried to close around the pain in her chest, but they couldn't reach that deep. The sound was still pounding, and she felt herself drowning, but she wouldn't abide by dyin' without making a peep. She lifted her horn and sucked her final breath in deep, then blew one final lullaby before the big sleep. If her heart's givin' out, she's got nothin' to lose, 'cept an empty needle, her horn, and the blues.

"Dangerous" Donny Payne

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Mutant Fighting League. I'm standing here with "Dangerous" Donny Payne, a mutant, a man, a challenger, poised to--

LUCKY CHEN!! YOU HAVE SQUIRMED AWAY FROM ME FOR THE LAST TIME!! You can run, that's right. You can HIDE, mmm hmm, okay. BUT I WILL FLIP UP YOUR MOMMA'S SKIRT AND FIND YOU!! I will be all over you like a bad rash! THIS is aMERica, Lucky Chen. I WILL SHOW YOU THE POWER!! EAGLE SOAR!! A choke slam for every stripe, power bomb for every star on old glory! One hundred percent. When we meet in the ring tomorrow night at Muti-Mania, YOU WILL KNOW WHAT IT IS TO RIDE INTO THE DANGER ZONE!! YOU HAVE A ONE WAY TICKET ON THE PAYNE TRAIN!! Destination: DOWN. One hundred percent. RED LINE OVERDRIVE!! Lemme tell ya, Joe, when "Dangerous" Donny Payne steps into the ring Lucky Chen will finally realize how unfortunate he is, mmm hmmm. One hundred percent. He will FINALLY REALIZE that his life is in serious danger. He will FINALLY REALIZE that the INTERCONTINENTAL SUPER HEAVYWEIGHT MUTANT FIGHTING LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP BELT RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO DANGEROUS, one hundred percent, DONNY, and if yer watchin' at home and you know who's the real champ say it with me now, PAYNE!!!!

Chip

California Highway Patrol unit #110182 model P-2.3 requesting warrant. Suspect observed speeding in excess, unauthorized possession of firearms, and failure to appropriately utilize turn signal. Logging additional charges in progress. Status: in pursuit. Uploading video evidence... completed. Permission to engage requested... use of deadly force authorized. Sirens engaged. Logging additional charge: assaulting an officer of the law. Evasive maneuvers engaged. Minor damage sustained. Targeting... Engaging weapons systems. Logging additional charge: unauthorized possession of explosive material. Vehicle non-operational. Suspect threat level: neutralized. Analyzing... Suspect's injuries result in ineligibility for facial recognition identification. Sampling genetic material for DNA identification. Uploading sample analysis... Evidence confirmation requested... confirmed. Resuming patrol.

Bonnie

The streets would've been remarkably empty for any other part of town. Venturing into the skids on wheels often led to an involuntary exchange of ownership. When Bonnie got off the bus she checked her watch. The one thing that seemed to stay consistent among the ever changing landscape of L.A. was the inefficiency of the public trans. She was a long way from London and an hour later than she thought she'd be. She doubted the Faders would care as long as she delivered the fix. She wouldn't care much either, so long as they had the dough and she wouldn't have to waste anybody. Ugliest part of the job, that. At least she wasn't in the pleasure parlors any more.

She eyeballed the building before going in. Bullet-chipped bricks, rust, and termites seemed to be the only things holding it together. In the second story window she saw the reflection of a neon sign that read "liquor". Past that scarlet glow she saw a mutie wearing teashade glasses and a white suit. Past that she saw the bulge of a gun in his armpit, and three muscle-bound goons lined up behind him. She hit a button on her mobile and said "I'm going in. Keep my backup on standby."

Anders

Anders rocked back and forth on the worn out, uncomfortable, metal chair in front of the cafe. The hand-cannon tucked into his pants under his shirt kept digging into his gut, and he determined that some of the creds from this job would go towards one o' them fancy slide-space holsters another trigger-man told him about back in the slammer.

Something in the lighting changed and suddenly he was more aware of the slight breeze that made it past the high collar of his coat to the back of his neck. He could feel the anxious rush of adrenaline entering his system, felt his muscles coiling and his skin tightening, and knew that his prey was near.

He could smell her from where he sat. Her high-end perfume mixed with the salt of nervous sweat. As sure as he knew the hunt was on, so did she. She hurried through the swishing automatic doors of a multi-level boutique and disappeared. Anders cursed to himself: too many possible exits. He got up and pursued as casually as he could force himself to be. The doors swished shut behind him as his hand slipped into his coat to grip the holster of his gun.

Rainbow Bloblin with Jelly Girl and Bignose Taffypants Esq.

My sister sent me a painting her kid made, and I added black and white over the top of it. Even though he's probably not thinking about it, he's grouping the colors and keeping them from getting too muddy (except in the middle). It's nice painting exclusively for fun sometimes, and all too easy to forget to do.

Monstrous Manual 005: Arcane WIP

This week I thought I'd show a bit of the mid-process artwork for the Monstrous Manual Project. The next monster I'm working on is called an Arcane, which are slender blue giants that roam around selling magical items.

I've started by creating a silhouette of the creature, gradually pushing and pulling at the edges until the shape looks right, flipping it horizontally from time to time to make sure it looks good both ways. I then start to block in different elements of the creature into separate layers: it's body, robes, bag, and cloak. This allows me to begin organizing the tonal structure while continuously making adjustments to the major shapes. I also usually put some extra time into the head, as I've found that allowing the focal points to be a bit more developed than the surrounding areas tends to help keep my creative momentum.

Once everything's blocked in and I like how the shapes are looking, I lock the transparent pixels on each layer so I don't 'color outside the lines' and start modeling the form. I usually try to travel around the piece evenly, working on adding details and pulling things into focus here and there. If I find myself focusing too much on one area, it's time to move on to the least developed area, or any other element that is calling for attention.

This technique has its drawbacks, but it is a quick way to play with ideas and start to get a sense of whatever it is you're creating. As for this artwork, I'll probably try to approach this monster from a different angle, but experimenting with this idea establishes a landmark from which I can determine a direction to move towards with the final artwork.

Monstrous Manual 004: Ankheg

This monster is like a big, nasty cousin of the things from Tremors.

Monstrous Manual 003: Aboleth

I haven't done one of these in a while. This creature's an odd one. It's got psycho-mind manipulation powers that turn adventurers into pwn-drones.

Tank Girl

This is a recent collaboration with Ken Flewellyn. It is based off of a Tank Girl cover, but the accessories have been modified to relate to a mutual friend.

Here is some recent work from the show at WWA and a little illo from Nerd Night:

"Chimera"

"Mother's Nature"

"The Sea Witch"

A quick sketch of Chester Fields, one of my friend's characters:

Nerd Night

Every Sunday night I get together with some friends and run a paper and dice RPG. Now that the work for Welcome to the Freakshow is finished, I thought I'd create some quick digital illustrations for the game I'm running. While I get to explore and archive the different elements of the game, I also get to practice putting together images in a small amount of time.

This first one I actually did a few months ago, based on a vampire character I was playing in a game set in the dark ages.

   

Sometimes the NPCs in the game are described as though a familiar actor is playing them. This is Major Neeson. The game we're currently playing is a mix between X-Files and X-Men, so his character is sort of a mix between Professor X and Asst. Dir. Skinner.

 

This is Rip Torn cast as Jonah White, an ex-CIA psi-ops participant and occult scholar. The group rescued him from Alabama river pirates and now he assists them with their paranormal investigations.

 

This scene was made mostly with photocompositing rather than straight up illustration. It shows one of the group racing to rescue his teammate, who was tricked and ambushed by a vampire they were hunting. You can see his body being lifted above the edge of a corn field on the far right, the vampire's claws extending through his chest right before he dropped him, turned in a crow, and pecked out his eyes.

This is Harkin, the vampire they captured after the attack. He can turn into mist to escape most prisons, so a weaponized shop-vac and the ultra-durable air-tight container he is held in had to be used to capture him.

  

This last one is a creature created using some kind of nanotechnology the group hasn't fully investigated yet. Their drool glimmers with tiny specks of metal, and their bite transforms the victim into one of them. One of the player characters was bitten, but his ability to psychically connect to and control technology allowed him to assimilate the nanobots into his body rather than be transformed.

 

Covering Up

I recently completed the promo cover of a fantasy novel. The book's sort of a mix between Narnia and Harry Potter with super powers. Recently (as of May '12) the book was picked up by a publisher, and I've been asked to take down the artwork while the publisher considers what they want to do with the cover.

I also took a class from Anthony Jones about creature design at Red Engine. During which I came up with these:



I also put together this set of portraits as a personal project. They are based on the RGB color system.

I'm also proud to announce my new position as Illustrator and Designer for a company called Puzzled Inc. I've been working there for a few months now, illustrating Christmas ornaments, designing plush dolls, and photocompositing packaging for 3d wooden puzzles. Their products are sold all over the world in gift shops and amusement parks.

Also, I will have a bunch of pieces up at WWA gallery in Culver City in a few months, more on that as it develops.

And Now, Here's Some More Stuff

First off, here's a book cover I worked on for a non-existent author. He was pretty quiet, but I could tell that he really liked the illustration I came up with for his non-existent story:


Here's an oil painting I did for a show with The Upper 600s, a great creative collective that puts together some awesome art shows. Unfortunately this piece didn't sell, so if anyone is interested, shoot me an email:


And finally, here's some character design stuff from my Red Engine class:

Lotus Falling

A recent trip to the Raminfard School of Arts inspired me to get back into oil painting, and when I found out that jujitsu legend Wally Jay died on Sunday, I knew I had my subject. Wally Jay studied the same style of jujitsu that I do, Dan Zan Ryu, under it's founder H. Seishiro Okazaki. Afterward he went on to pioneer small circle jujitsu, and work with many martial arts masters, including the ever-popular Bruce lee. Wally Jay will undoubtedly live on in his teachings and stories of his upstanding character. As Professor Okazaki put it in a message to all the students of Dan Zan Ryu: "when the lotus flower falls, it rises to the surface".

So I begin my painting with photo reference, using a very dry brush with very little paint to lay in the light shapes, and make sure my proportions aren't too off. You may notice that even though I'm painting in color, the reference is in black and white, but this is because a) tone is way more important than color, and b) my printer is low on ink:


Next, I begin blocking in some light color and mid-tones, making sure they don't get too extreme so I can slowly build up. I also stick to large brushes so I can get through this stage more quickly, and so there is more variety in brush strokes by the time I get to later stages:


At this next stage, things are getting very close to where I want them, and I wind up doing a lot of adjusting to make sure the likeness reads true and the brighter highlights, vibrant colors, and deeper shadows work in harmony:


And by now, I'm pretty much done. There may be a few minor things here or there to adjust; edges to sharpen, features to change, highlights to pop. But everything, for the most part, is where it needs to be:




And of course, it doesn't hurt to throw a couple of adjustment layers in photoshop to get rid of the way cameras see differently than human eyes:


So there we have it, my tribute to a martial arts bad ass, and six hours well spent.

Self Portrait

Here's a piece I did recently for a self-portrait contest on deviantart.




Unfurling our dreams
To annoint our backs
Hoping paint won't melt like wax

SO BUSY!

Ok, so here are a few of my pictures from Sr. Show and Graduation. I wish the lighting on my pieces was better in these photos, but I'll re-shoot them when I get a chance to show what they really look like.