Aaah! Real Monsters!

Brian and his friends up in Chicagoland started a really awesome art group called Everyday Monster. Their goal: every week or so, take some everyday objects and make really cool stuff out of it to follow that week's theme. This week was Monster Sightings. You make a monster face out of paper, plaster it on an object, take a really awesome picture. It was really fun, and the first time I participated in one of their projects.  These are just a few of my favorite pictures I took. 

All the entries are up on their blog:  www.everydaymonsterjams.blogspot.com Vote for you favorite! Show the monsters some love!

Anatomy of What I Do

I really liked my baby monster doodle I did the other day, so I figured I'd take it a step or two further and do what I do at work for a lot of art and apply it to (gasp) some work I did on my own free time.  Using skills I've learned in a professional environment outside the workplace? Unheard of, I know.

So first I take it into Illustrator and ink it using various line weights and such, thus getting the black and white image at the top.  Once I'm good with how that turns out, I fiddle around with it and fill in the areas with drop-in color. Really, really easy. And that's normally where I stop, but this time I decided I want to give rendering a try, using some techniques I learned at Disney. This one's rough but I'm happy with it. It's a lot smoother than my normal Photoshop paintings, and I think the whole Disney rendered art feel comes through. 

So, yeah. That's pretty much what I've been doing for a year, except with trademarked characters I can't legally put on this webspace.  Lemme know what you think! :)

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated... but not too far from the truth.

I'm back! Yay! So... sorry about the long, long......long absence from the blog-o-sphere. I've been working as a full-time freelancer for Disney Design Group here in sunny Orlando. It's been very very awesome, and I've been keeping busy with work. So busy, I haven't had time to do my thing for a few months now. And since I can't post what I do for Disney on the interweb, Doodles and Such has suffered a long lapse of nakedness and shame. But not to fear citizens! I'm making a vow to continue to post and work on my own artwork again. It may not be as often as I'd like, or as often as before, but I will try my hardest to push myself so this months-long absence of creativity won't become commonplace here on this blog.  As God is my witness I shall never go hungry again!  

Here as a new post (!) is a doodle of a cute little baby monster I did for Brian's nephew. He loves Monsters Inc, hence the slight Sully resemblance. Enjoy!  

Little Miss Muffet Storyboards

Baby Dragon

Yay! Cute lil' baby dragon! So cute! Just a little sketchbook doodle I liked and decided to give it a quick paint job in el Photoshop. I'm happy with it since I was only painting for maybe a half hour.

Sketch Crawl Gestures

Just some gestures from Animal Kingdom in ballpoint pen. Nothin' too fancy. I promise I'll get some more character stuff up soon. I've just been on a life drawing stint right now! It's fun and a nice little break from what I normally do. But it'll be back to business as usual soon. 

DAK Sketch Crawl Watercolors

Yay! So I went sketch crawling at Animal Kingdom today, and these are three quick little watercolor sketches that I did while I was there. These were all done in 20 minutes or less on location. I also did some gestures, so those may pop up on here soon-ish. All in all it was very very awesome, and I'm planning on sketch crawling around the parks more while I can still get in for free.