Charity Auction

Tonight at work, an impromptu auction for Breast Cancer and AIDS patients and research. This is from an idea my wife keeps kicking around about a brother and sister. The title is " My Brother is the Worst Pirate I know(thankfully his men are not!)" A.K.A. "The Key". I hope it finds a good home.

The Great Pumpkin!!

As a lad growing up in Eastern Europe. As for me, well with our show released, I have found very little time to do any fun work for myself. I try to use at least one Holiday a year to do something, this year it's Holoween/Samhain/Day of the Dead. I've always like Linus' story about the Great Pumpkin and decided to add a little history to that familiar Autumnal gourd. I hope this finds you all well!!
This weekend I will be dropping by APE to see some of my friends work (Le Tang, Jackie Huang and Derek the Monster Thompson to name a few). If you have the time please come on by and support some Alternate Press!

ORDER 66

Wow! So a few of us at work decided to do 66 sketchcards for Topps. With production being in full swing and several things on fire,San Diego Con looming, and just trying to live life, it was excruciatingly hard! But fun,..really, it was fun. What kept me going was thinking how cool it would be to open a package and find a card done by one of the crew. Some of these I feel proud of, some of them not so much, but in the end I'm honored and glad that I got the chance to do it. I am still trying to figure out what happened at the Con. I will be posting pics and musings next time.

COMICON!!

I apologize for not posting, I hope you haven't all given up. It's been really busy at the studio(more later) and it's also been really busy at home,,,,getting ready for San Diego ComiCon!! I am sharing a booth with some fellow Coworkers at Booth#1329.
I will be selling 2 prints and an anthology I did a couple years back called Babes in Space. These are some of my booth mates work

BattleMilk

-you may not have heard of them but that shouldn't stop you from drinking it in! Do it!

Who is BattleMilk?? Who indeed....
Kilian Plunkett-lead designer on the television Clone Wars, Comic book artist extraordinaire and all around fun guy
Thang Le-fastest designer in the West, silent but deadly, so very deadly
Wayne Lo-Art Director for the video game Lair,man of mystery and brand new papa
and
Jackson Sze -bringing art and style to the devil box!

Who else??

The Fantastic Work of Kinman Chan

Bosco Ng

-watch out ladies, he has x-ray eyes!!!

Le Tang

-genuinely one of the most talented and nicest story artists around, until he starts cussing

Steward Le

-Pulse pounding action Sifu and fellow Episodic Director on the Clone Wars TV series

Our sister booth over here at Table H09 . Sports such mighty talents such as

Captain Russel Chong

-You can salute if you want

Kelsey Mann

-careful, he's watching you!

Jackie Huang

-builderbot, creator and all around tinkerer

Want more? Well your in luck! The Jew Bros. are creating a talent vortex in artist alley
Benton-table EE02
Anson-table EE01
One time team member but now affiliated with another justice orginization will be defending Booth #1534

Derek Thompson

-the original Monster!

along with

Ted Mathot

-Amazon worshiper and yarn spinner

Justin Ridge-tall in stature and talent, deal with it
Sho Murase-modern day Nancy Drew modern day cool

Not full yet? You dare!? Then fill your talent void with the following....
See and hear some of the above mega talents speak about the sacred texts in

PANEL #2 10:50-11:35am Using 3D Story in The Clone Wars Series
Room 7AB

stay for all the talks and you may be deemed worthy of a reward!!!

To Recap
booth #1329 - BattleMilk,Prints,Sketchbooks,Comics
table # H09- books,gifts,portfolios,prints
booth #1534 - monster sketches,Comics
Artist Alley
table#EE02 - Raw Talent
table#EE01- Unbrideled Talent

We would love to see you, so come on by, and remember to support the little guys!

For Another Friend

Henry Gilroy is an awesome writer. Hire him! I got to work with him on a project an WOW!! He knows his stuff. He carries around a sketchbook with the theme of "Your favorite Robert E Howard / HP Lovecraft character". I just happen to love both those authors ability to create some neat visceral visuals. I was happy to do a piece, or two. Of course having the book be over half filled with Bruce Timm's homages, tends to dampen ones ability. These were the best I could do.

WHEN IS A SKETCH NOT A SKETCH

I was driving home about a week ago(the sun goes down around 8:00 right now) and I saw a hill with a window of golden light hitting it. There were hills higher around it but this one was the only one that was getting hit. I thought"Hey that would be a nice painting,...if that hill was a dinoasaur." I finally had a little time this weekend and I wanted to just do a little sketch so I wouldn't forget that hill top. About an hour in, I still thought I was doing a sketch


I had 2 versions before this, and it started flopped in the other direction. The gist of the piece is there. I have quite a few of these at this stage (and that's where they will stay). I usually stop at this point. For some reason I felt like I needed more from this image, to make it richer or more complete to me.


I added some atmosphere and foreground elements. This is where I got into trouble. Now I felt like I needed to clean up a mess that I made. I started trying to fix my mistakes in the "sketch". (the compy's looked like velociraptors and the diplodocus looked like a weird 3 legged beast) but I still thought I was doing a sketch(now 3 hours in).


Here's the semi final version.

So I think it must have been when I exported the image from Photoshop to Painter to use the Glow Brush. Yeah that was when I realized this was more than just a sketch. Still less than a "real" piece but much more than a sketch. It's important to go with the flow since you never know when the flow will come. Not my favorite piece but , there you go.
Based off of the response from this piece I am "finishing" it off and may present it in some final form later.

Far East Facetasm

Artists fall into ruts, blocks and bad habits. We do everything to get out of them once we realize we have fallen. Changing the way we draw, using new materials, looking at new things and the best, looking at life, or uh,TV. Yep that's right TV. I often use TV to do cheap life drawing(I say cheap because the brain is doing a 2D to 2D translation which is alot easier than doing a 3D to 2D translation)I was watching a neat little movie with some amazing faces and couldn't resist. I love faces! Sometimes you can see a persons whole story as it is written on there face. And their is beauty in it all.There is a Japanese story I would like to tell someday but it's far too soon to actually tell it. So as a visual person I have to draw my way through it.

See Out Loud

One of the more uncomfortable aspects of blogging is the seeming self importance and vanity that is inherit to it and art as well. So I always relish the opportunity to talk about a fellow artist and friend who's doing exceptionally well,......like my friend and fellow director Warren Fu. He just finished directing a music video for The Strokes. If you want to see more of his work check out his website over there on the side of the screen.

(If you want to check out the video click image above)