Quick Study

The Book of Life

Here is another lighting key I did for the film. In this scene Joaquin proposes to Maria, a gesture that forces Maria to either be true to her own heart or to save the town she loves.

The environment, color, and lighting was designed to reflect Maria’s inner turmoil in the scene. Much like her inner state, these components are a stark contrast to the otherwise vibrant festive environments in the film and references the same visual language designed for The Land of the Remembered.

The Book of Life

This is one of many lighting keys I did for the film. They wanted the moon light to feel like it was shot day for night, spaghetti western style. This was a lot of fun to paint I really enjoyed playing with the warm and cool colors.

THE BOOK OF LIFE in theaters now!

About a year ago I had the pleasure of working on the feature animated film The Book of Life. I am so excited I get to finally share my contributions to this vibrant and wonderful world. Keep checking in, I will be posting more work soon!

The Fall Of the House of Usher

The Drawing Club: Master the Art of Drawing Characters from Life

The Drawing Club: Master the Art of Drawing Characters from Life by Bob Kato. Bob taught me the most important things I know about drawing and design and all of them are in this book. I am very lucky to be a part of it!

Check it out!

The Drawing Club Website

Thunder and Blood

The Goon

Frosted Wendi-O's

Did this one for a contest over at Strange Kids Club!

Update 11/4/13: This entry won 1st place!
Starnge Kids Club Cereal Monster Mascot 2013 winners

Slimeburger!...Hold the cries!!!

Hit The Cat

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From Walt Disney's The Aristocats, my 3-D version painted in Photsoshop

Dia De Los Muertos

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During the celebration of the Day Of The Dead in an old Mexican city, a boy and girl skeleton lock eye sockets and in that moment fall in love.

Tree

This tree is inspired by the amazing J.C Leyendecker.

The Fall of the House of Usher

These are some concept sketches for a new personal project I'm working on. It's based on "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe. I wanted the house to literally feel as though it could swallow you whole. The theme of twins appears in several places in the story, so in most of the designs I wanted to make the house symmetrical. I want to subconsciously infer the "twin" idea.

I WAS A GRANDPA WEREWOLF! TUTORIAL!

 This is where we are heading...

 After some very quick ideation sketching I did this rough. My main considerations here were character and communicating the concept. I already had an idea for lighting but instead of indicating it in this sketch I focused on just concept and communication.

 After feeling confident about the design I moved into detail and refining and designing. Here I made little visual notes to remind me of what I want to do later on in the rendering. I want to "keep something in the tank" and leave some exciting bits to be explored, I don't want to figure it all out yet. I find this keeps me interested and leaves room for happy accidents and surprises. I make sure to save a flattened copy of this on a multiply layer to refer to once I start painting.

 My next step was to drop in a color ground and begin blocking in large forms. I begin painting under my drawing to maintain the integrity of the design, I also let the ground show through in places for variety. I paint on top of the drawing when I want to make the form more 3-D. I find this helps maintain the original character of the drawing.
The swatches are there to help me maintain the color relationships I want.

 I am only concerned with the lighting coming from above at this point. It is easier to concentrate on one light source at a time.

 You may have noticed that I flipped the canvas. I do this to get "fresh eyes" on the painting. At this stage I lay down a rough blocking of the lighting.

 This a close up of the refined cyan light source.

 I have been reading about Howard Pyle and how he used to edit his paintings down to what was only necessary. At this point I asked myself "what is the cane doing for me? Does it help tell the story? Is it distracting?" I decided it wasn't doing a whole lot so I added a smashed jack o' lantern. I dropped in a white layer on %60 opacity and drew on another layer on top. I want to see enough of the composition to make the pumpkin work but not so much as it distracts from my drawing the new element.

This is an example of me checking the drawing against the painting using the same method I described above.

The finish! I hope this was helpful, if anyone would like to know about anything I haven't covered here just ask.

Happy Halloween!

10 minute digital paintings

   These are some 10 minute paintings I did using a great website that is basically a drawing workshop online. You have a variety of subjects to choose from: men and women, costumed or nude, and animals. you can also choose the length of time each slide is held from 30 second to up to 10 minutes. They also have what they call a class which range from 30 minutes to 6 hours where you are given short poses which build to longer ones. check them out!

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/

Last Stand

Knight

4 1/4" x 3 1/2" ,Watercolor and white gouache 25 minutes

Cowboy portrait

4"x6" Watercolor and white gouache