Drawergeeks: Season's Greetings 2009

Here's my entry for this weeks Drawergeeks theme of "Seasons Greetings". I wanted to try my hand at a cut paper design, and it's really fun! This little guy measures 4 inches tall and was based on the doodle I posted a few days ago. I had actually planned on making a half dozen of these as stand-alone ornaments for various family members (thus the way his hat closes into a loop for a hanging string), but as long as this one took, I don't think it's gonna happen- other projects must take precedence. If you'd like to see some other great paper designs- paper sculptures really, then check out the amazing work of Brittney Lee and Kevin Kidney.

* Looks like my submission may have been accidentally left out of the posting this week, but you can still check out the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Teeth

This weeks Drawergeeks theme was teeth. This is one of those pieces that was pretty well formed in my mind as soon as I heard the theme. I think it owes a lot to this record album that I had when I was young:


That picture of Puff always scared me too much to look at it for any length of time, but it definately stuck with me. The eyes and that crooked smile definately came from that LP. I didn't even realize that I still had it until this morning, so the inspiration was from the LP's memory, not actual physical reference. Below is the final sketch that I used for the painting. If I'm working on something that's got an established model or look, I'll do a drawing much tighter than this, but this one was very much about playing with the shapes and lines and I kinda just decided to do that in the painting stage.

You can check out the other Drawergeeks Submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Angel

I've been so busy I didn't really intend to submit anything to Drawergeeks this week. Nevertheless, I found some time to scribble out this doodle, and apply just a bit of gouache for color.

Check out the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Star Trek

I had a pretty unproductive week art wise. I have plenty of art projects that I should be working on, not to mention some fun ones, like this weeks Drawergeeks assignment. I had a big idea for a piece that was a little beyond my expertise, but I just didn't make myself do it. Maybe I still will. At the eleventh hour, I decided to at least add some quick digital color to the Star Trek sketch that I did earlier and just submit that. I did, however I accidentally closed it without saving, and decided that I didn't care enough about the final result to stay up another hour into that already late night to redo it. So just my sketch got submitted. If you want to see it again, it's here. If you want to see the other cool designs, check em out here.

Star Trek Reborn?

After being the last trekkie in America to see the new Star Trek Movie, I just felt I had to draw something Star Trek-ky. I never really have done any Star Trek artwork before, aside from some quick dry erase drawings in the Toontown Gag Factory Stockroom, because one of the other CM's there was/is a big trekkie and we'd always doodle ships on the whiteboard as we passed. But that sort of thing was always more technical than what I usually drew. Anyway, the upcoming Drawergeeks subject is Star Trek, and while I will hopefully have a more developed entry when that completion date rolls around, for now I have just this quick doodle. I only spent about 5 minutes on this, so please be kind.

My intial thought was "Star Trek Babies" ala Muppet Babies (besides Ducktales, the single greatest cartoon of my generation- don't bother arguing, it's documented fact). The possibilities in a single frame would be endless- Baby Kirk in a walker that looks like a big saucer shaped ship, Baby Scotty taking apart or building some elaborate Tinker Toy creation that could probably power a starship, and Uhura sticking things in her ear. For now we have little "Spocky" pinching other kids.

Drawergeeks: Space Girl

The Drawergeeks subject this week is Space Girl. Here's my submission:


I really didn't intend to become as involved with this one as I did. Originally I was just going to paint it in guoache to see if I could get a nice 50's feel. Then after I got the sketch done I decided I'd just try some quick digital color. It just snowballed from there. The whole thing kind of ended up with a comic book cover look (with the exception of being square), just because I like doing big titles and I like the idea of this character having some horrible punny name.

Check out the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Troll

It was another fun subject for Drawergeeks this week. Here's my entry for "Troll"...



I'm glad there aren't any bridges near my house. Oh wait, I think there are... this is why I avoid the out of doors. Check out the other entries here.

Drawergeeks: Candyland

Just some sketches for this weeks Drawergeeks. I know I say this every week but I really didn't have any time to work on this. Not only that, I couldn't think of much that seemed interesting about the subject. After a shift at Disneyland that ended at 12:30 AM I came home fully intending to let this subject go by. But I figured even if it was just a pencil sketch I'd try to submit something, and lo and behold I got two sketches done.

You can view the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Dragon

Here's my submission for Drawergeeks this week:

Pencil sketch colored in Photoshop

Wow! Sometimes the Drawergeeks subject just leaves me cold and other times, such as this one, I have more ideas than I know what to do with. I started some preliminary sketches for this last week but got caught up with some other projects and forgot about finishing this until 2 nights ago, so the final color was a bit more rushed than I would have liked. Still, there's at least 6 hrs of work in this, and I'm pretty darned happy with it. Check out the other entries here.

Drawergeeks- Tiki

Here's my submission for Drawergeeks this week. The theme is

"Tiki"

You can check out the other cool entries this week here.

Drawergeeks: Rednecks

The theme on Drawergeeks this week is Rednecks. While it has a definite connotation for me, I kept coming back to this image which to me says "hillbilly" more than "redneck". I tried a couple of other options, and even Googled Jeff Foxworthy's material to figure out what a redneck is exactly. His comments frequently mentioned roadkill, going shirtless, and facial hair, so figured I was safe with my initial idea. Pretty happy with the way it turned out. You can check out the other submissions here.

Drawergeeks: Starbelly

The original inspiration for this week's theme on drawergeeks.com was the Dr. Seuss story "The Sneetches".

But as you can see from my entry below, and the others, people have done some other interpretations of the term "starbelly".

Now to give credit where credit is due: my design owes a ton of inspiration to artist Frank Cho, creator of the Liberty Meadows comic books. His drawings, and specifically his covers, of his main character Brandy are awe-inspiring. The pose in my initial sketch for my Starbelly design bore quite a resemblance to his cover for Liberty Meadows: Eden Book 1. Ok, maybe it isn't a big mystery why, because that is the only copy of his stuff that I have, but it really wasn't an intentional imitation. Once I went to clean up my drawing, I noticed the similarity of pose and intentionally imitated his color and shading style- hey there's no shame in imitating the best is there?

Drawergeeks: Rabbit

The theme on Drawergeeks this week is "Rabbits". This entry has a lot of influences: It's a little bit "Little Golden Books", a little Richard Scarry, a lot of Uncle Remus' Brer Rabbit and maybe just a little "Prarie Home Companion" (since that's what I watched while painting it, though the whole concept came to me much earlier). I think the Golden Books (Poky Little Puppy and Tawny Scrawny Lion especially) stuck with me a lot when I was young, and even though the illustrations were somewhat simple by today's standards, they were very effective. Even living in Orange County suburbs, I think I liked the little illustrated peeks into the forests that these stories always took place in. So anyway the theme "Rabbits" instantly conjured up one of the cuddly clever animals from these mid century storybooks.

There's no more to the story than this verse, but it may be fun to write the rest of it someday. Check out the other entries here.

Drawergeeks: Aliens

Another quick Drawergeeks entry this week: Aliens.

Man, seeing some of the great stuff the other artists contribute I really wish I had more time to spend on my entries. Course, I'm greatful that it's work keeping me busy and not, say civil war or chronic hiccupping or something. This is another quick pencil sketch with some digital shading and text. And, you can view the other entries here.

Cinderella just loves mice...

This weeks theme on Drawergeeks is Cinderella. Doing Disney Princesses all the time, you'd think this idea wouldn't excite me much, but really, I was kinda interested in rethinking something that's so firmly established in everyone's mind. I mean, Disney's isn't the first or only Cinderella, it's simply the most heartily ingrained in everyone's mind. I mean, you could do anything to reimagine the story and characters. I could go with a gritty harsh view of the class system in France in the 1600's, with Cinderella as a sickly but beautiful abused girl living as a slave in her own home. Or I could have done an ornate heavily illuminated take, where the characters and sets are just filled with lavish details worthy of an expensive engraving. So what was my take? I did what all non Disney studios do when they decide to tackle something with such endless possibilities- I changed all the characters to cats.

Inspired, I know. Now all it needs is a cutesy pun in the title. Cinderwhiskers? No. Whiskerella? Um no. CinderFluffyTail? You might want to check back, this might take a while... In the meantime you can check out the other drawergeeks submissions here.

Princess Leia

This weeks theme on DrawerGeeks is Princess Leia. Here's mine:This is my first submission to DrawerGeeks that I've painted traditionally. The others may have used a quick sketch but were mostly digital color. I want to try and make each submission unique in style and approach. Check the other artists' submissions here.

The Titans

This week's theme on Drawergeeks is "Titans". Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to devote to such a powerful theme, however I'm still pretty happy with the two things I came up with- constraints (time, financial, or otherwise) really do force you to be creative. Anyway below are my two submissions. The first is a quick sketch with some quick digital tones thrown in. The second is all digital.

The Sandman

Well I was accepted onto the DrawerGeeks website. For those who didn't read the first post, DrawerGeeks.com is a bunch of people in various art industries who post their artwork on the web. They pick a common subject, and everyone interprets it in thier own style. It's basically just an excuse to have fun and keep in practice. Anyway they post each new batch of art Friday mornings, and I officially joined Thursday afternoon. Against my better judgement I stayed up late last night to do something quick for this weeks theme, the Sandman.

Sandman is a villian from the SpiderMan Comic Books. But DrawerGeeks generally has quite a wide range of interpretations of the theme, people riffing on whatever puns are in the name as well as straight interpretations. So far I'm the only one who didn't do the Spider Man character. I did a quick pencil sketch, then I scanned it into Photoshop and painted it digitally. The sketch took about 10 minutes and the color took about 2 hours. You can check out the other submissions here.