Surf Dog's Blog

Those crazy Aliens

2011-12-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

Here's another page of aliens. We ended up using pieces of some of them and then one of them completely as a finished design. Truthfully I was kind of bummed. I was having far too much fun doing these. I wanted to do some more. Enjoy.

Warfbart

2011-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

So the Alien DLC for Keflings required a few special keflings that would be a specific character. I knew right from the begining that I wanted to have some fun with Alien stereotypes and rip off a bunch of Scifi movies. One that I knew I had to do was the alien design from the alien movies. There was no way I was going to get the creepy vibe from H.R. Giger's work, and it wouldn't fit in the game anyway. But if we were going to have an angry yelling kefling than I could certainly borrow from Giger's design for some fun. I still wish we could have had the double mouth thing, but it just didn't work out. Oh well.

I've been playing with a different style lately with this stuff trying to work a bit more like Nico Marlet. His work on Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon is still the gold standard of character design and I figured if I could work a bit more like him, use the same tools and methods, maybe then a bit of his genius would rub off on me. It's been fun working with the markers and pencils. I know for sure I still don't have Marlet's genius, but man is it ever fun to draw this stuff. Enjoy.

Aliens

2011-11-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

For the recent level we released for Wolrd for Keflings I was able to design a bunch of aliens. talk about a fun project. I have pages full of random designs. These are just a few. Obviously I copied a few designs from popular movies. But that was part of the fun. Who doesn't want to see a Yoda kefling? Enjoy.

More Aliens

2011-11-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

Here's another promotional image I did for the latest game I worked on. This one was a blast to do. I've always loved those cheesy b movie posters and this was my chance to do one. I want to print it up really big and hang it in my house.

Aliens

2011-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

A game I worked on is coming out with an additional scenario that you can download and it's all about aliens. The project was so fun to work on. They've released this image that I did for promotional purposes. Thought I would share it here. Enjoy.

Shape drawings

2011-09-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

This was an excersise we did in school for a character design class. First you would draw some random shape with nothing really in mind, just let the pencil flow. Then you take a look at the shape, you turn it around, swuint your eyes at it, until you saw somehting in the shape, and then you draw. It's a great excersise in creativity, in finding new shapes to play with and new approaches to subjects that might be getting a bit stagnant. I was feeling the ned to stretch myself and so I did these. I put up the shapes first and then the drawing I did based on that shape. Enjoy.

Painting Practice

2011-09-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

I was teaching an art lesson yesterday and we were just having some fun painting. This is what I came up with in the 45 minutes we had. I was pretty happy with it. Working on cardboard turned out to be alot of fun. I may have to do some more art on it. Enjoy.

Hula Dancer

2011-07-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

Needed to clear my head and do a fun little drawing. This is the result. Enjoy.

Gator in a Tutu

2011-05-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

This started out simply as an excersise in an art class that I teach to have fun with acryllic paint. In the end I had some fun with it and my daughter oves it. We'll put it in her room. for now, I'll just pop it up on the blog. Sorry it's been so long in posting. Trying to get back on the horse. We'll see how that goes. Enjoy.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

2010-07-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Was having some fun yesterday just sketching and this is what came of it. I'll ink it up this weekend and then color it next week. Enjoy.

Cowboy Doll

2010-05-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Since I had previously drawn up a space man toy ala Buzz Lightyear I thought I would take a stab at a Woody Doll as well. This is what I came up with. Enjoy.

Space Man

2010-04-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

I was playing with my nephew's Buzz Lightyear doll a couple weeks back (and enjoying myself immensely) and decided to try my hand at designing a retro 50's space man. Had alot of fun with it. Enjoy.

Nico Marlet Sketchbook!

2010-04-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

A few hours ago it came to my attention that Nico Marlet had a sketchbook for sale. Who's Nico Marlet you ask? Shame on you! Nico Marlet is the mad genius character designer behind Kung fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon, he's also my hero. This guy is amazing and his work is nothing short of beautiful. So far the only way to get his work has been through a few art of books (The art of Kung Fu Panda, the Art of How to Train Your Dragon etc.) I almost peed myself when I saw this book. The I saw that it was out of stock and my heart stopped. I missed my chance! The reason I am writing this post is so that hopefully some of you will know what a genius he is and will want to have some of his art work. If you follow this link http://www.gallerynucleus.com/home/detail/9218 you will see it is out of stock but there is a button right below that where you can contact the gallery and request that they make more copies available. My thought is, the more people request it the more likely the chance of them printing more up. So go forth, spread the word. The world needs more art by this guy available (and by the world I specifically mean me, but if you want some too that's cool with me). Thank you for your time. As you were.

Dragon Face

2010-04-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

I don't see how it's possible for anyone to see "How to Train Your Dragon" and not go home and draw dragons for a month straight.

Sorry it's been so long. I've been doing plenty of work, just not any that I've shared lately. Let's see if we can change that.

Back to sketches

2009-06-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

I don't have much in the way of polished art to show off so I thought I would just throw out some sketches for ya'll. Don't know where this guy came from, but I like him anyway. Enjoy.

Mr. Ben

2009-05-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

This was another character along with all the latest posts. His name is Mr. Ben and he was really funny. We needed kind of an Obi Won Kenobi type character (thus the name Mr. Ben). At times he was a hobo and at others he was a professor. At one point he was even a hobo pretending to be a professor trying to score some free food on campus. His advice got less and less wise but he was a blast to draw and write. Enjoy.

Pug Dog

2009-05-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

This was another character created for the same game. Not so much a character as an obstacle really, but still he was darn fun to draw and color up. I was going for a pug dog look but it kind of got away from me. Not sure what type of dog he is now, but I still like him. Enjoy.

Rock

2009-05-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

This a another character with the rest of this batch. His name was Rock. I loved this character. We came up with quite a backstory for him and an attitude and personality as well. He was so much fun and I'm really bummed he never went anywhere. Oh well, at least I can share him with you guys. Enjoy.

Mel

2009-05-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here's another character for ya'll. This one is actually based on my wife's cousin. She's pretty cool and looks almost exactly like this. She's one of those cool people that just had to be drawn and put in a video game. She almost made it. Bummer. Enjoy.

Super hero

2009-05-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

Another character. Just a fun skater guy. I really like the tire tread tattoos of his. enjoy.

Another Character

2009-05-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here's another character that never made it. I'm bummed these didn't get in. Still I'm glad I'm able to show them now. Enjoy.

Karate

2009-05-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is a character I designed for a video game that was never released. I thought this guy was still fun enough to find an audience so here he is. Enjoy.

Godzilla

2009-05-01T13:30:00.001-07:00

So here's a drawing I did. I wanted to do several things with this drawing. I wanted to draw in a different medium, something I was unfamiliar with and something permanent, so I drew this whole thing up in ball point pen. Then I wanted to do just a large black and white drawing and try to fill the page with different shdes and tones. And then I just wanted to draw a big drawing of Godzilla, cause hey, who doesn't? Enjoy.

Samurai

2009-03-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

Here's the last piece to accompany the geisha and the kung fu master. I'll post up the entire page later today, but for now here's the samurai. Enjoy.

Kung Fu Master

2009-02-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

Here's this week's drawing. I'm trying to do a couple of them based on a similar theme. I'm currently working on a samurai as the last one in this little series. Hope ya'll enjoy.

Geisha

2009-02-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late with this one, but I'm pretty happy with the results. What's more my wife is happy with this one. She's a much tougher judge than I am, so that makes me really pleased. Enjoy.

Goblin

2009-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Here's another colored pencil piece. It was weird working on black paper. I'm used to inking things up and then coloring it. Still I like the results. Wish the scan turned out better though. Enjoy.

Red Dragon

2009-01-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

Here's the second piece of art of the year. I'm trying to do one a week. so far so good. enjoy.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone! One of my new year's resolutions this year is to do a bit more art work. I'm going to try and do quite a bit of character stuff on my own time. So far so good eh? We'll see how it turns out.

This is Liza Hempstock. She's another character from the GraveYard book and she's one of my favorites. She's a witch that was buried in the unconsecrated section of the graveyard. I Thought her character was just a lot of fun and I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. More to come. Enjoy.

200 Posts!

2008-12-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

Wow 200 posts. I remember starting this blog. It doesn't seem like all that long ago. Thanks everyone for coming back here and looking at all these random drawings I keep putting up. Wish I had something a bit more memorial in honor of the occasion. Oh well, Enjoy!

And even more

2008-11-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Still Boingz

2008-11-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

Even more boingz

2008-11-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

More Boingz stuff.

2008-11-20T13:38:00.001-08:00

Nothing much more to say. enjoy.

Boingz

2008-11-19T12:34:00.000-08:00

Hey ya'll. so I have a new game coming out soon on the Nintendo Wii. It's a Wiiware game which means you buy it online when you plug your wii into the internet. The game is called Boingz and it's alot of fun. I was the concept artist on this project so just about everything you see on the screen I designed. I didn't build it or animate it, but I did draw it all up. Since it's so close to being released I can finally reveal some of the artwork I did for this project. My wife thinks this is some of my best stuff. Most of the art I did involved objects that would populate the background which isn't normally something I like doing, but this world was so weird. It was fun to design a whole Dr. Suessian world. any how, enjoy. there's plenty more of these on the way.

by the way, it seems that everyone liked the first turkey the best. I'm painting him up as we speak. I'll bring it in to show you guys a work in progress shot.

Turkeys

2008-11-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

Hey ya'll. Just doing some doodling the last couple days and ended up drawing a couple turkeys. My wife would like me to paint a turkey so that we can put it up for a thanksgiving decoration. So I thought I would let you guys decide. I'm going to do one of these two, so which one will it be. Leave some comments and tell me which one of these you'd rather see painted. Enjoy.

Silas

2008-10-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

In the story the young boy is raised by the ghosts of the graveyard. Someone still has to go out into the world and get food and clothing for the boy. That job fell to Silas. He is the caretaker of the graveyard, and he provides food and whatever other physical necessities are necessary.
Enjoy.

Graveyard Book

2008-10-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I read a really really awesome book, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I absolutely loved it. It's about a boy who is orphaned as a small baby and subsequently raised in a graveyard by all the ghosts and what not that live there. It was so much fun that I decided to design some characters from the book as practice. This first one is Mr. Owens. When the young boy is first brought to the graveyard the Owenes are the ones to adopt the small child. Plenty more of these to come. enjoy.

Face

2008-10-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

You decide what this is. It was fun. Enjoy.

Dino's!

2008-10-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to sit back a just do a bunch of art this weekend and it felt really good. Mostly did alot of sketching just to loosen myself up. It was nice to sit and draw stuff that wasn't work related and that I could show around. I did these dino sketches Saturday night and I liked the stegosaurus so much I decided to have some fun and paint him up on sunday. The painting went really quick and only took me 2-3 hours. I need to do more stuff like this. Enjoy.

Church Dragon

2008-09-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sketched alot at church yesterday. Of the things I sketched this was the one that I was really rather pleased with. Might color this guy up. I think he deserves it. Enjoy.

Monster Boy

2008-09-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

Just something I did real quick on my computer. He kind of looks like a bunch of paint cans threw up on him, and I kind of like it that way. nothing special here. Just playing around. enjoy.

Ninja Monkey

2008-09-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is a new project that I wanted to play with. I painted a "Munny" figure that I ordered blank as a birthday present for my little brother, Drew, who just turned 14. Enjoy.

More Faces

2008-09-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

Just some more faces while at church. Enjoy.

Sketch dump

2008-08-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a bunch of church sketches. Sorry there isn't more stuff for ya'll. I'm working on it. Enjoy.

Just some quick sketches

2008-08-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Went to dinner last night with some friends. Had a great time and couldn't help but do a little drawing. It was fun. It seems as though I don't have as much time these days to just sketch something totally for me. Everything I draw it seems has a purpose. Something I do for work, something I draw for the comic strip, something I draw for a painting for something or someone. These were for me. And it was fun. The bottom of the two I drew up and then a friend of mine colored it with water color pencils and some strawberry lemonade for water. He's got a blog that you should check out. He's got some great stuff. Go to wilsonillustration.blogspot.com .Good times had by all. Enjoy.

Romeo and Juliet

2008-08-04T14:45:00.001-07:00

I went to my brother's wedding this past weekend. Everything went great. Fun times had by all. I wanted to paint my brother and (now) sister in law something for their wedding. They asked if I could paint them as Romeo and Juliet (they met on a production of said play). This is what they ended up with. I'm pretty pleased with it. Enjoy.

Rhino

2008-07-24T07:39:00.001-07:00

Just a quick sketch of a rhino. gotta do something for the blog every now and then. Enjoy.

Batman!

2008-07-18T12:13:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited to see Batman tomorrow! This sketch isn't anything great, but it was fun to do. Maybe I'll do another after I see the movie. enjoy.

ZOMBRE!

2008-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

This was an idea my friend Isaac had. He's a mexican day of the dead zombie. The spanish word for man is hombre so if he got bitten by a zombie he would become a ZOMBRE! Enjoy.

Owl

2008-07-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sketch on the cintiq. enjoy.

Blues Guitarist

2008-07-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Did this piece a little while back and just plain forgot to post it. It was an image that came into my head that I really liked. This is the guy who traded his soul to the devil to play a mean guitar (you know the story). I wanted to get him hitting a particularly great note. I also like the colors on this one. I would love to do a few more kind of like this with a different color scheme, but who knows if I'll ever get around to it. Enjoy.

Inquisitor

2008-07-02T11:03:00.001-07:00

Here's another piece of art I did from the Mistborn books. This guys an Inquisitor. He's bad news. The tatoos on the side of his face are taken from the designs my friend Isaac did for the books. Enjoy.

Dragon Head

2008-06-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch from church yesterday. For some reason I draw alot of dragons. Not quite sure why. Oh well. Enjoy.

Rocket Road Trip

2008-06-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. This is something I've been sitting on for awhile. I made a webcomic. I've actually been on it for about 5 months now. It's been alot of fun but I didn't want to post much about it till I had done enough of them that I was sure I would keep doing it. Most people who start doing webcomics end up doing like 5 of them and then quitting and never coming back. I wanted to do it long enough that I felt semi comfortable with it and had enough to share with eveyone. that being said here it is. Me and a friend of mine at work, Isaac Stewart are writing it and then I draw it up give it to him and he adds the text and throws it up online. You can find them all at rocketroadtrip.com . I suggest going back to the begining of the strip and reading through. Some of the stories are sequential in nature and I think it reads better that way. Enjoy.

Koloss

2008-06-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

Did this piece a little while back. It was for a friend of mine who is an author named Brandon Sanderson. This is one of the creatures in his Mistborn series (which totally rocks by the way). I had started doing some sketches that were a bit more realistic (the books are serious in nature not silly like my drawings) but I quickly figured out that I should just stick to my strengths and draw a koloss my own way. It was alot of fun. I've got a few more like this one coming up soon. Brandon's books rock by the way. You should go check them out or check out his website where he has tons of free downloads and cool stuff. brandonsanderson.com Enjoy.

Biking

2008-06-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sketch. Hope ya'll like! Enjoy.

Great Scott!

2008-06-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

Had alot of fun with the Hulk yesterday so I decided to do another quick digital sketch. So here it is. A friend of mine at work asked me if I had some time to design a character kind of like in the game Team Fortress 2. The characters in that game look great so I said I would. Well a couple months later here's my first sketch of him. Just a head shot so far, but it's a start. I think I'll give him a kilt. Enjoy.

You won't like me when I'm hungry!

2008-06-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

Went and saw Incredible hulk today with some friends at work. Not sure exactly how I feel about it. It was fun and had alot of the Hulk just beating the ever loving snot out of stuff (always a plus). Not my favorite movie of the summer. Still fun enough to inspire a quick sketch. (that and I haven't posted anything here for a long time. Sorry) Enjoy.

When in doubt....Elephants!

2008-06-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

So it feels like I've been doing some art but I guess I haven't as much as I thought, and the stuff I have done I can't put up here. So I'll give you some more elephants. With these ones I feel I'm really getting into it and having some fun with the shapes on them. Enjoy.

Football

2008-06-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything artish. What can I say. I guess I've just been lazy. This a sketch I did yesterday at church. It's done with a ball point pen which I don't normally use. I prefer to have a pencil so I can erase if I need to (and I often do). This one turned out well though. Sometime's it's nice to change things up. Enjoy.

Keflings Episode 1

2008-06-07T10:59:00.001-07:00

Hey- this is a commercial we did for work- kinda fun!

Happy Birthday!

2008-05-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

Last thursday was my wife's birthday. I had gotten her some stuff for her birthday but she was with me when we bought it. So I wanted to suprise her with something and decided to do this. I've drawn her a few times and the results have never been good. I always get nervous about making it look like her which of course makes me screw up the drawing and it looks bad. This time I decided to play to my strengths and just make it cartoony and cute. This was the end result and I'm pretty happy with it. She seemed to like it too so that's nice. Enjoy.

Pug Dog

2008-05-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

Here's another pug dog. I seem to draw quite a lot of these don't I? This one was inspired by a drawing of a pug by Elaine Bogan. You can check out her stuff at theeelblog.blogspot.com The pug on her blog is just gorgeously hideous and I had to draw another. I drew it a couple sunday's ago at church and just colored it up for a bit of fun. Enjoy.

Secret Agent Chimp

2008-05-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

Thought you all might enjoy this little sketch I did at church on Sunday. Won't know hwy I drew it but I did. Enjoy.

Dia de los Muertos Painting

2008-05-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I started last october. I really love the Dia de los Muertos stuff down in Mexico. I find it cool that they deal with death and skeletons and all that in such a way. Sure there's skeletons and stuff, but they all look so cheerful and colorful. I love it. So the other day I pulled this out and put a few touches on it and I'm calling it done. enjoy.

More Elephants

2008-05-09T07:00:00.001-07:00

Here's a few more elephants from the sketchbook. enjoy.

Happy Ocho de Mayo

2008-05-08T07:05:00.001-07:00

This was a drawing I did the other day for Cinco de Mayo and never got to put it up. It's a bit late, but I still like the drawing so here you go. enjoy.

Once upon a mattress

2008-05-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I went and saw my little sisters production of "Once upon a Mattress". She was the lead in it and she was awesome. When I heard she had gotten the lead I decided I would like to draw her something kind of cool in celebration of it. This is what I came up with. For those who don't know the story in "Once upon a Mattress" is basically a comical telling of the Princess and the Pea. It was tons of fun. Enjoy.

CD cover

2008-05-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

This last week my brother emailed me and asked me to do some art for a CD cover for him. He had written a small musical and was getting together everything to make a CD out of it. The title of the play is (I'm pretty sure) "I'm Dying". He wanted me to play with the Happyface/Sadface drama masks only to have them both be sad. This is what I was able to come up with. I didn't have too much time, but I'm still pleased with how it turned out. It was also really fun to just paint soetehing a bit different and go with the flow. Enjoy.

Flowers for my wife

2008-05-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

I love getting my wife flowers. It's something so small and yet it just makes her day. Sometimes if I'm out getting milk or whatever I will also get her one of those small bouquets that don't cost too much (wish I could afford more but that whole starving artist thing). Yesterday my wife had kind of a hard day and I wanted to do something for her and I couldn't go get her some flowers so this morning I did this instead. I hope she likes them.

Elephants on Parade!

2008-04-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

So I've started yet another sketchbook. This one has a special purpose. It's my elephant sketchbook. I've done something like this before. The basic idea is to fill a sketchbook with just one animal. This really helps to start understanding the anatomy of the animal and just how far I can push a drawing. It also helps me to make new shapes and take a different approach at things. After I've done 10 or so elephants I start looking for new ways of drawing them, or things I'd missed in the past. It's really alot of fun to try and draw a completely different elephant everyday. Some days work better than others but I'm having alot of fun learning. here's five of the first ones. Plenty more to come. If you really want to see some cool elephant drawings go check out Andrew Shek's blog elephantart.blogspot.com . Gorgeous stuff. Enjoy.

Ninja Bee Video

2008-04-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

The company I work for, Ninja Bee, is making the Doritos Unlock Xbox game. It's a fun project. Basically a dinosaur runs around destroying buildings and trying to eat a Doritos delivery truck. Doritos is documenting the whole process and the latest video just got released online. I'm in a few parts of it so I thought I would pass it along. It's pretty fun stuff. You should know that the mustache in the video is a result of Mustache March a contest we did here at work. It was my idea to get everyone at work to grow a hideous mustache. It was pretty fun. They decided to incorporate it into the video so you all get to see me in my hideous mustachioed glory. Anywho, enjoy the video.

http://unlockxbox.com/documentaries/ViewDocumentaries.aspx

Snorkel

2008-04-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I just completed yesterday. When my family and I moved into the house we're in now we made the kids bathroom have a surf/hawaiin theme. I looked at it and thought, this room needs a couple of paintings, so voila here you go. I hope this doesn't make my kids afraid to take baths for fear of sharks. Enjoy.

Beer gut

2008-04-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch from my latest sketchbook. I bought a new larger one. Most of my drawings seem to be small and leave no room for detail or for spontaneity. I decided a larger sketchbook would help me overcome some of that. I really like this drawing. More to come. Enjoy.

Dragon

2008-04-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

This is just a little something I've started playing around with. It started out as just a little sketch at church and then I decided I would like to see this one colored up a bit more. I'm not very confident in my painting skills, so I'm using this as an excuse to try and learn a bit more about color and painting. this is just a work in progress that you see here. I'll try and get it up again as it comes together. Enjoy.

Gator

2008-04-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

This was another sketch I did in church that I decided to just put a bit of color on. Can't believe I still like to draw gators as much as I do. I thought I would have gotten sick of them by now. Oh well. Enjoy.

Church Sketches

2008-04-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been awhile. Her's just a smattering of church sketches for you. New stuff coming soon. Enjoy.

Another mouth to feed

2008-04-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just a sketch from the sketchbook. Enjoy.

Ace!

2008-03-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I did for a side project that I'm working on. Basically he's a monster hunter of the James Bond sort (as apposed to the Van Helsing sort). It's really a fun project and I'll let you all know about it when I'm really ready to let it all out there. Until then you get this little teaser piece. Enjoy.

Pride and Prejudice

2008-03-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

I know what some of you are probably thinking. Oh what a nice guy to draw something like this for his wife. But you would be wrong. On top of loving action movies and Godzilla and bad scifi/horror films, I am also totally in love with Jane Austen. It doesn't make much sense to me either but there's nothing really I can do about it. About 2-3 times a year I have the need to sit down and watch Pride and Prejudice. Not the recent one with Kiera Knightly (though I have no objections to it), but the 5 hour BBC one. I love it. I talk to the characters on scree. I get totally caught up in it. I realize that some of you may want to distance yourselves from me now, but it couldn't be helped. Now you know. Enjoy.

Geisha Sketch

2008-03-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sketch from my sketchbook. This is just a little geisha head. I really would like to play with this a bit more and push it further than I have. We'll see if time permits. Enjoy.

Conan

2008-03-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just another drawing from my sketchbook. I saw a drawing that had a shape similar to this guy and it inspired me. I really love the massive shoulders compared to the tiny arms. Hope ya'll like it. enjoy.

Done and done

2008-03-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

This took me a bit of time but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. There might be one or two minor things that I do to tweak this still, but by and large it's done and I'm moving on to something else. I came up with this piece while I was in college. I was often suprised by how somber and depressed most people seemed to me. We were doing art for Pete's sake. What's not to be happy about. So I wanted to paint this as kind of my view of the world around me at times, and also to remind myself of how I want to face the world. Hopefully this will help me stay cheerful and happy. Most of the people I know around me now are pretty upbeat. I think most of them get it. We make video games. It's fun. Enjoy.

Buggy Weapons

2008-03-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

All of the bugs in the Band of Bugs game needed to have weapons. They also needed to have extras because one of the things you can do is change weapons while you're playing. Normally I just prefer to do character design but in this case I enjoyed coming up with some fun little swords and spear type of stuff for the bugs to use. I think they turned out ok. enjoy.

Work in Progress

2008-03-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

Here's that piece I've been working on. I figured I would show a work in progress so you all could see it half done (that and I wanted something to put up here.) I'm probably shooting myself in the foot up to this point. I really enjoy coloring the faces and soon I'm going to be out of faces to color and all I'll be left with is hair and clothes to color and I won't enjoy that at all. Maybe I'll switch gears now and do some hair and stuff so that I have a few more faces to look forward to. I'll post this again in a few days to show you all some more progress. Enjoy.

Alien

2008-03-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick sketch from my sketchbook. Enjoy.

Maori Warrior

2008-02-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

Just a quick sketch from my sketchbook. I really liked this one. I never did get around to finishing up the tattoos. I put them on the face, but I think he needs them on his arms and chest still. Oh well. Still lots of fun. Enjoy.

Beetles

2008-02-28T10:58:00.000-08:00

During the course of production on Band of Bugs I drew a lot of specific bugs but I also drew a ton of random beetles. Whenever I just wanted to play with a shape or size of something I would just draw a beetle. A couple beetle like creatures ended up in the game. I'm still sad some of the shapes here were never refined and made into characters. Oh well. Enjoy.

Face in the crowd

2008-02-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

This is the finished sketch for a piece of art that I am doing. Just something fun for me to do and a piece I've been meaning to do for along time now. I'll post this a couple more times in between now and when it's done. Kind of a work in progress thing. Hope it turns out good. enjoy.

Centipede

2008-02-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

This was one of the other bad guys in the Band of Bugs game. He was supposed to be our "dragon" character. I drew up some designs that would have him scuttling around but he needed to fit into one square of the game board and so we needed a different solution. I drew him then coming up out of the ground so that only a small part of him was visible. We all liked this solution. We also wanted a really cool animation where he would tunnel underground to move anywhere but that ended up not happening. Still I thought he was kind of neat. Enjoy.

Dragon Cake

2008-02-24T19:22:00.001-08:00

My wife and I like to watch a lot of food network- especially the challenges, and we have recently decided to step up our celebrations by going all out on a cake. So, here is a dragon that we spent 5 hours on for my in-laws going away party (they are going to Japan next week for a year and a half). Hope you like it. Enjoy!

Dragon Sketch

2008-02-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

Just a sketch from my sketchbook. I like it. I don't know why he's blowing bubbles, but he is. I'll bet it's hard to blow bubbles if your a species that breathes fire. He must e pretty talented. enjoy.

Grunt

2008-02-21T08:24:00.000-08:00

This was probably the first charcter that we nailed down for the game. There were alot of drawings of this particular guy. We knew we wanted a stag beetle character but we weren't sure exactly what the look of the game was going to be. Once we had this guy nailed down the rest fo the bugs came much easier. He was kind of our guide as to what the look and the feel of the game would be. I also did some of the modeling of this character in 3d. I needed some help cleaning him up in the end and I didn't do the final texturing but I did model him. It took me long enough that they haven't had me do any modeling since. We all play to our strengths and this wasn't mine. So enjoy this one cause it may be the last. Enjoy.

Praying Mantis

2008-02-19T08:48:00.000-08:00

There were two different praying mantis characters in the game. One was just a general soldier, the other was a specific character in the game. He was a guide to the hero and needed to look like he had seen quite a bit of battle in his day. He needed to have a prosthetic limb as well as an eye patch. Lots of fun to make a cool looking character and then playing around with what a bug would use for a fake limb. Still not sure how this guy uses his prosthetic, but he does. Enjoy.

Ninja bee

2008-02-18T07:47:00.000-08:00

One of the really cool things about the Band of Bugs project was the fact that we could put a Ninja Bee in the game (NinjaBee is the company I work for). It was really fun to take the company logo and turn it into more of a three dimensional character. This one came out in just one drawing. Most of the decisions were already made for me. How big he was how many legs to put on, what shape he was, I already had something to work with so I just tweaked that and came up with a character. Enjoy.

Bugs

2008-02-15T07:35:00.000-08:00

Heres another character from the Band of Bugs video game. This was one that I was particularly pleased with. Things just seemed to work well with this design. Enjoy.

Zombie

2008-02-14T13:10:00.001-08:00

This is a small piece I've been working on recently. At work I've been doing alot of work with colored pencils on paper and I've been really happy with the results, so I dicided to a do one of my own. More like this to come I think. Enjoy.

More Band of Bugs

2008-02-13T07:31:00.000-08:00

Well since my last post I gave you the Hero of the game I figured this time around I would show you the villain. I'm not sure where some of the sketches for him are. If I remember correctly this guy was pretty easy to nail down. Just a couple of drawings and we had what we wanted with him. On this piece I did both the initial sketch and then the computer coloring that you see here. I'm pretty pleased with how the coloring turned out on these. Enjoy.

Band of Bugs

2008-02-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

This is something I've been meaning to do for awhile now. Last year my company had a game come out called Band of Bugs on the Xbox 360 live arcade. If any of you have an xbox I would recommend trying it out. It's a fun little game. Since it's out there the artwork I did for is no longer confidential so I wanted to post up some of the art I did for the game. I designed all of the characters and a good chunk of the other objects that you see in the game. It was a lot of fun. So here's the main character in the game. Hope you all enjoy. More to come soon.