Robots!

I woke up yesterday with this strange urge to make some robots. I don't know why. Maybe it's because robots are really cool, they can pretty much look like anything you want, and I never ever draw robots. Hey! And now I did.  

And I have no idea why my text is underlining itself. I can't seem to turn it off. Hopefully it won't do this in the next post.

Lunchtime 'doodle'

I was fooling around at lunch today and I did this cute little illustration of 2 dinosaurs in love.

I did this in around 20 minutes, and I'm happy with how it came out. I'm really liking this Illustrator style. It's fairly simple to do, and the results look really clean right away, unlike a Photoshop painting that takes forever and a day to render out of you want a smooth look.

So sorry if things are looking a little repetitive with styles, but I'm experimenting. 

The Birds Sing Words and the Flowers Croon....

I really like my little bird icon I made for this blog, and I've gotten some really good feedback on it too, so I decided to do a couple more in the same style.  That and the 'Tiki Room' song keeps playing on my iPod... that might have something to do with it too.

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. 

Little Doodle

I haven't posted in a few days because life has gotten in the way of sketching as much as I wish I could.  But in a good way.  But things should liven up again soon. :)

Cutest Lil' Bear This Side of Care-A-Lot

Not much to say. Just a compilation of sketches of this really cute bear that I've done over the past 4 months or so. 

The only thing cooler than a pirate...

..is a pirate that is also a space monster. Monster pirates rock. More so than ninja pirates. Although a monster ninja pirate would reign supreme. I did this guy in an hour from drawing to finishing up the painting which is pretty good for me, especially since it's a little bit of a style change. Normally it takes me a bit longer. And I did it while listening to old 80's TV show theme songs. (Nothing like painting a scary pirate monster while listening to the 'Zoobilee Zoo' theme song.) So I'm happy, and will now go to sleep because it's late. 

Meet Maarten!

This is Maarten, a little friendly dinosaur I designed. He started off as a doodle, but I liked him so much I decided to develop him into a full-blown character. I really liked how I tried something new with his overall shape and design; I used a lot of different shapes in him, and I'm really happy with the results. I'm going to experiment more often. Expressions and movements to come!!

More Amminals

More gestures. These were done out of my head with pen. Good times.

Monkey Gestures

Yay! Monkeys!!! Monkeys are cool. Gestures from Animal Kingdom in pen.

I'll Be A Blue, Blue Penguin

Is he cold, pigmentally challenged or really really sad?.. I don't know but if you give him a hug, he'll love you regardless! Just a quick Photoshop painting. Nothing too detailed. I was originally going to name this blog 'The Blue Penguin' but I decided against it and did this sketch instead. I memorandum, 'Blue Penguin Blog'. May ye rest in peace, ye cuddly flightless bird.

Obligatory 'People at a Diner' sketches

So it seems like in almost every single artist's blog, they have a few doodle of people at restaurants and diners, usually depressed, broken waitresses, strange-lookin' scrawny guys or truckers. I don't have any diners nearby, so I used my imagination! YAY! So these people don't exist. I made 'em up. But I liked the way they turned out! Just a ballpoint pen on paper. Simple yet effective. 

Morocco Pt. 2

This is how the Morocco sketch is coming along. I've just taken it into Photoshop, added a paper texture and started to lay in some colors. So, it's slow going, mostly because I've been busy as of late. Hopefully though I'll get some more time to work on it.  I'm happy with how the clouds turned out.  That was a happy accident!

One More

One more monster doodle to add to the repertoire. This lil' guy is of the electrical variety. Good times with ballpoint pen!

MONSTERS!

        

So I've been drawing some monsters lately after seeing 'Cloverfield'. Of course, mine aren't the New York-Eating-Godzilla-Wanna-Bes, but monsters are monsters, and are ALWAYS fun to draw! Just some quick pencil and pen sketches the good ol' sketchbook. 

Work-In-Progress

This is a sketch I did at the Morocco pavillion at EPCOT. I'm trying to get a little more experience with architectural drawings and such. I'm currently trying to paint it in Photoshop, so if it turns out well, you'll see this again. But with colors. 

Christmas Card

I know it's a month after the fact but I thought I'd share. Just a Christmas card I did for my aunt's library branch. Done in Photoshop.

The Adventure Begins..Right Now!

Hi and welcome to my blog! So I figured it was about time to actually start one of these puppies and stop talking about it. So here it is! Yay! This space will eventually be home to any doodles, sketches, characters and anything else that pops out of my imagination and finds it way onto paper.. and the interweb. Enjoy!! :D