This Sucks

Dollhouse X-mas Display 2011

2011-12-27T20:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Christmas time again. And in true geek fashion, I decorated my dollhouse once again, with a few more props and a few more inhabitants as well. Behold the glory!

It's Christmas Eve and Cure Aqua can't wait for the party to start.

People begin to arrive bearing gifts.

Snowball ambush!!!

Cure Peach and Cure Berry hop out from their hiding place and lets the snowballs fly!

Cure Rouge gets a snowball to the head!

"STOP THIEF!"
Cure Black runs off with all of Milky Rose's candy canes!

Cure White pets Rudolph.

Cure Pine decorates a tree with silver trimmings.

It's time or Bumble to place the star on top!

And what a lovely star it is too!

Even the bunnies get into the spirit by building a snow bunny.

Cure Dream is feeling a bit of snowman inadequacy next to Cure Mint's snowman.

Unable to compete, Cure Dream storms inside.

Cure Black wants it if you don't!

It's Cure Sunshine's photo opp with the Nutcracker.

But soon, everybody comes inside to start the party. Cure Mint offers some party foods, but Cure Passion is watching her figure.

It's not long before the Robot triplets show up....UNINVITED!
Everybody knows robots give the worst gifts.

"You did not invite us -- REVENGE SEQUENCE INITIATED!!!"

Eas makes her first appearance at the party, and she comes bearing the best gift of all!

And here it comes!!!!

"Level seven robot detected! DESTROY!!!!"

The robot triplets are gone.

And that's the story of how Eas saved Christmas!

And so the party continued into the night. Gifts were exchange and all were merry.

Cure Marine sneaks out to peek at the presents under the tree. But those presents are for Christmas morning. Peeking is strictly prohibited!

Some of the girls stay up all night to catch a glimpse of old Saint Nick.

Cure Moonlight waves goodbye to Santa. "See you again next year!"

Early in the morning, before the sun has even come up, the girls run down stairs to see what Santa has brought!

Cure Marine loves her monkey!

Cure Lemonade loves her ride on bear!

Cure White loves her new white scooter.

Time for everyone to open their presents!
"This one is for you Cure Blossom."

"STOP THIEF!"
There goes Cure Black again, running off with everyone else's gifts!

Wonder Woman again

2011-08-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

Started this a number of weeks ago. Finished it recently. With large gaps of inactivity due to business in between.

P.S. I discovered watercolor brushes in photoshop. I like them....

Catra

2011-08-09T20:55:00.001-07:00

Got my Catra Figure from MattyCollector.com a few months ago. SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!

Bayonetta

2011-08-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a Bayonetta I never got around to posting....here.

Jem and the Holograms

2011-05-05T22:15:00.001-07:00

Poor poor Shana......she was my favorite.

I had her doll......

She had purple hair and a purple dress...purple was my favorite color....

But alas, I could not find a composition that fit everyone including the drummer and was still interesting to look at. So she was left out. Poor poor Shana.....
Maybe I'll just have to give her her own fan art to make up for it. If my lazy ass ever gets around to it.

This piece is SOOOOOO old. It was drawn OVER a year ago. Shortly after I discovered the Google SketchUp program. An incredible tool for getting tough perspectives or difficult to draw objects. I used it for the stage and microphones as well as the guitar.

I also started coloring this piece OVER a year ago. I didn't like how it was turning out. Then I got frustrated. Then I got discouraged. Then it sat on the computer for about a year, until 2011, when I tried again. And finally finished the bitch. I gotta stop doing that.

Gainax Charity

2011-05-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

Japanese Animation Studio Gainax ( Gurren Lagann, FLCL, Evangelion ) made a Charity Book to benefit the people who where affected by the earthquake in Japan. Proceeds will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Here is a non link to the Gainax Charity Book website:

http://talkliveanimated.web.fc2.com/

Bobby Rubio asked me to help out as well as a lot of the other guys who worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Here is a list of the others who participated: Dean Kelly, Grant Alexander, Kenji Ono, Kihyun Ryu, Michael Chang, Seung-Hyun Oh, Bryan Konietzko, Elsa Garagarza, Ethan Spaulding, Ian Graham and Joaquim Dos Santos.

Kimber the Destroyer

2011-04-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

She can be quite the destructive little Corgi.

Extra Large Dump

2011-02-04T16:33:00.001-08:00

So here's a bunch of old junk and some old commissions that I never got around to posting. Some of it may not really be worthy of posting...but whateves. Just close your eyes for those ones.

So here we go in no particular order...
A Sailor Venus I drew around the time I was doing my Sailor series of drawings. All the others were at rest sitting poses, so this one didn't quite fit in with the feel of all the others. It was too kinetic. So she got dumped.
I was trying to draw a cute Tinkerbell...and failing... a lot.
Another failed attempt at a cute Tinkerbell. This one made it all the way to color.
A commission for a couple celebrating their anniversary. It was a gift from the husband to the wife. They had superman and wonder woman cake-toppers. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.
I was just in the mood to draw a She-Hulk... for some reason.
Another one I drew while I was drawing my sailor scout series of drawings. This one was too melancholy looking. All the others seemed happier, so she also didn't quite fit in with the rest. So she also got dumped.
And yet another sailor scout series drawing. This one just didn't fit the boundaries of the paper. I went through a bunch of different poses for Pluto before I ended up with the right one. This one was not the right one. DUMPED!
I worked on G.I.Joe Resolute. For one segment. These are the storyboards.
Always wanted to post the line-art for this picture.
A commission I did for an Avatar fan a while back of Azula in her Earth Kingdom outfit.
A fast sketch I did while I was watching Tweeny Witches. I guess I just felt compelled to draw a witch.

Supergirl is Fast

2011-01-31T17:58:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. Supergirl flying... with birds.... and above a farm no less... could I really be any less original? Probably not. But
this is quite possibly the fastest piece of art I've ever done. Probably because I didn't do half of it. The BG is just a blurred jpeg. CHEATER!
It took me around 2 hours to do. And it's colored! For you young kids out there, it's probably not very impressive. But for someone like me who colors at a snail's pace...that's friggin amazing. So TOOT TOOT goes this horn!
This is the first piece of artwork I've been able to do for myself in a very long time. It was awfully fun.

Nerd Christmas

2010-12-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm too lazy to decorate my real house, but I'll got to all lengths to decorate my friggin doll house.... So I'm living out my childhood in my adult years... so I bought a dollhouse at WalMart that would be perfectly to scale with my awesome Sailor-Moon-esque Pre Cure Figuarts figures.....so I shop at WalMart... so I really don't have the time to be doing this sort of stuff but I did it anyway.... this is normal, right?

Well, for someone who works in animation....it kind of is normal. And it's AWESOME!

So bask in the nerdiness of my amazing dollhouse all decked out for XMAS!!!!!

The full view.

Cure White placing the hat atop the snowman.

Cure Berry attempting to electrocute herself?

Cure Peach standing under the awesome wreath.

Cure Lemonade decorating the tree.

Cure Passion bringing stick arms and carrot nose to Cure Pine who is in the middle of Snowman sculpting.

Cure Milky Rose ready to beam Cure Aqua and Cure dream.

Eas is hogging the present. Since there is only one....

Cure Black rolling herself up a humongo snowball.

Embrace the nerd-dom!

2 Stragglers

2010-11-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

I never liked Rini very much, but I had to finish off the sailor series....with the two characters I thought I'd never draw.

Well, hell. You knew I had to draw him. Just out of pure morbid curiosity. Can I make Tuxedo Mask look cool?

Apparently, the answer is no.

But this really is the last one of the sailor series.

Poor Tuxedo Mask. Didn't even get enough love to have a nice inked line. He just got a crappy colored sketch.
Sorry Tuxedo Mask. You're just too ridiculous.

How strange is it that I am more willing to accept a man in blue spandex with red underpants and a cape....who flies... as a crime fighter than I am a man in a Tuxedo and Mask?

Bat outfit....cool? Tuxedo.....silly? Maybe in crime fighting... but probably not in any other circumstance. If Batman and Tuxedo Mask attended the same ball...... who's the silly one now?

So yeah, I drew Tuxedo Mask, for the first, and possibly last time. But I draw the line at white knight or Arabian prince or whatever his other outfit was called.

Superman and Batman: Apocalypse

2010-10-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Is in stores now... and has been for almost a week now. I'm a little behind.

Go buy it!!!!!

Been a While

2010-08-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't been terribly active on my blog for quite a while now. But I'm not dead. Just busy. So I thought I'd pop in just to post up these sailor scouts who have been hanging around on my computer for way too long now doing nothing.

In order of appearance they are:
Sailor Moon

Sailor Mercury

Sailor Mars

Sailor Jupiter

Sailor Venus

Sailor Pluto

Sailor Uranus

Sailor Neptune

and Sailor Saturn

I apologize for the crappy color jobs.....I'm crappy with color. But then you should already know that by now.

Fun with Painter and Rydia

2010-04-14T20:02:00.001-07:00

I just downloaded the trial version of Corel Painter Essentials 4. I've never used painter before and I think it will still take me some time before I am able to use it even reasonably well, but these were just my first couple tries at experimenting with it. The sketches were done with Sketchbook Pro.

Batgirl: Year One

2010-03-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, is this an old one. 08! 2 years ago I tried to convince DC and Warner Home video to let me direct this as one of the Direct to DVD line of DC movies. It's my most favorite graphic novel ever! I love it to death. Needless to say, they were not interested in anything that did not have Superman or Batman in the leading role. It went nowhere. :(

Recently I saw that a Batgirl: Year One motion Comic has hit DVD. That's kinda cool, right? At least she got something...........

I would have liked to direct it though....... :(

You win some, you lose some.

Rant + Rose Petal + Sketch Dump

2010-03-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Why the heck do I keep getting so many darn spam comments? Does anyone else have this problem? I really don't believe you when you tell me this post was very helpful to you for your college assignment. I also don't need to know how to make money fast. And it really annoys me having to go through all the comments and delete them one by one. UGH!!!!! Do I have to change my settings now? So people will have to type the word they see before they can post a comment? I guess so....

OY! SO ANNOYING!

Well anyway, back to art.

This poor little Rose Petal sketch sat around for a LONG TIME. I drew her at the same time I drew Iris and Sunny.... which was a while ago. I have a crap load of unfinished drawings all sitting in a folder and I thought I should probably start finishing some of them off and being done with them finally. So here's one.

This drawing came about because I got an awesome Alphonse Mucha book from the bargain books rack at Barnes and Noble. So I got inspired and wanted to draw something pretty like he does..... well..... it didn't work. I just drew this. It was supposed to be Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mom) holding the baby Diana (Wonder Woman) and the baby's blanket turned into the golden lasso which became the border and was all fancy like. Needless to say I didn't like it. So I tried to redraw the same general idea. My focus this time was just on making a better drawing. I got this:

I didn't like it much either, so I tried again:

Still don't like it. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

2010-03-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Is now in stores! And has been for about a week. I've been super lazy in pimping my projects lately, but definitely pick this one up. It's one of WB's best.

And check out The Spectre short that comes on the DVD. It's amazing!

Art Challenge 5

2010-02-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

Mermaid Princess.

I was a bit of a cheater on this one. My sister asked me to draw her an octopus girl like Ursula but hotter. I decided to changed things up and did a slightly different take on an Octopus girl. Basically I put an octopus on her head. Anyway, sister didn't like it, so I used it to serve another purpose. I'm not really sure if an octopus girl counts as a mermaid princess....but heck, I've done enough mermaid drawings to last me many years. This will just have to do.

Art Challenge 4

2010-02-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

Fix a Rob Liefeld Drawing

I guess this type of thing is a bit of a joke amongst a lot of artists around. Personally, I was not familiar with this man's work until I had to start doing research for this assignment. If you've ever read anything on this blog, you probably know I'm an animation whore, not a comic whore. So it is all too common I am unfamiliar with comic book artists. I'd heard his name before, usually in a joke context whenever my coworkers were talking about sub-par drawing skills, or artists whose hype was bigger than their talent. But apparently this guy was pretty famous at one time.....

I've got nothing personal against the guy myself. I'm sure he's somewhere rolling in money laughing at all his critics. But this was the challenge of the week, so here it is.

The assignment was to find a Rob Liefeld drawing and fix the anatomy, the perspective, draw the feet, just generally improve the thing. So I chose this one being that it had a few things that needed improving. The perspective was off, there were random shadows over people's faces for no apparent reason...so I did my best. But in fixing the perspective, I cut off the foreground girl's feet, so does that make me just as bad?

Old Artwork Is New To You!

2010-01-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

Drew this around the same time I drew the last Soul Eater piece. Then it sat around for a few months. Colored it probably about 3 weeks back in about 30 minutes toward the end of work one day. Then it sat around for a few more weeks. Figured I'd post it since it's not dong me any good just sitting on my desktop. BG is a modified photo. I didn't paint it.

This is a progress meme that was going around DeviantArt and I liked it so I decided to jump on the bandwagon...just this once. I've never done one of these things before, but this one seemed fun. And I didn't have to draw anything new for it....and I'm lazy....

It was quite a challenge finding artwork for some of those earlier years..... actually, let me rephrase that. It was quite a challenge finding artwork for some of those earlier years-that was already scanned into my computer, because I didn't feel like scanning anything extra...because I'm lazy. Luckily for everyone else, this time line didn't go back far enough to see my REALLY TERRIBLE drawings. Just a couple more years and you would have been in for a treat of bad anatomy and non-existent composition skills.

So, drawing skill wise, sadly I haven't progressed a ton in the past years... I've just kind of plateaued. But what I have done is gotten a lot more ambitious with my compositions. All my earlier drawings used to be eye level single character with nonexistent background. It was probably the storyboarding that got me a lot more interested in making my drawings more into scenes and less into photo shoots. I try to use more dynamic perspective any chance I get nowadays. It tricks people into thinking the drawing is good. ;)

Another very obvious addition to my artwork over the past few years is the use of color. I still suck at it, but I've been trying. You can see a very definite point in the time line where color started appearing in my work. It's probably because that was the time I finally got a real computer set up and a Cintiq to go with it! I can't color with a mouse to save my life.

Draw Challenge 3: L4D2!!!!

2009-12-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it's time for Draw Challenge #3! You may be thinking.... 3? But what happened to 2? If Namor was 1, then what was 2?

Well, I skipped 2 because I am a pansy and can't draw Clint Eastwood. So ON TO 3! This week's challenge was to do ANYTHING with ZOMBIES! So naturally, my current Zombie love affair is with Left 4 Dead 2.

Sure I could have been creative and done something totally not zombie related and included Zombies with it, but that's a fun game dammit! And I wanted to draw it up good.

But I didn't..... I was way too ambitious with the setup and started coloring before really thinking it through, therefore ending up with a somewhat crazy and poorly executed coloring job. But would you really expect any less (or more) from me? Needless to say, this piece does NOT pass the squint test. It's like a reverse Monet. Up close it's okay, but from far away, it's a MESS!
Maybe next time I'll do good.
This is a quickie I did about a week ago. I wanted to draw something uncomplicated...unlike the former piece.

Poses and Expressions

2009-11-17T13:15:00.000-08:00

Time for some old stuff from Green Lantern: First Flight!

Pose and expression sheets are by far my favorite part of the character design duties. I don't character design too often, so when I'm given the chance to help out with the poses and expressions, I jump at the chance. Jose had so many characters to handle on Green Lantern so I tried to pitch in the best I could by taking on the women of the cast...which weren't all that many.

Here's the result. These are my original drawings, based on Jose's designs, before I ran them past Jose and had him correct anything I had done wrong.

These are Boodika poses. Boodika was the only character of the movie I designed. Really only her face and body type was done by me. The costume design was done by Jose, which is why it looks so cool.
For all the visual reference we gave the overseas studio to go off of, Boodika was still the poorest looking character in the animation. Knowing that the only charater you designed in a movie is the worst looking character in that movie is a pretty sucky feeling.
Arisia was the cutest looking character in the whole movie, in my opinion. I love how she turned out. You can see that originally I had imagined she had leggings on under her skirt because there are no bloomers. That was later changed so that she could have bare legs to better harken back to her original comic design.
Carol also looked great in the final animation.
Labella was quite a challenge for me being that she does not have the conventional human facial anatomy, but she was fun to figure out nonetheless. And she ended up animating pretty well also.

Draw Challenge 1: The Submariner

2009-11-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

Who did you expect?

I'm not dead.....just really busy...or lazy. One of those.

Anyway, The draw challenge has begun at work. This week's challenge is "any Marvel character". So I drew Marvel Aquaman. Otherwise known as Namor.

Black Star!!!!!!

2009-08-24T17:26:00.001-07:00

I've been obnoxiously busy lately. But I managed to find some time do draw for myself this weekend. Woohoo! I've only seen the first 4 episodes so far, but Soul Eater is shaping up to be an awesome show. I'm liking it a lot. So much that I felt the need to draw up some fan art. Nothing like a muscle boy with a Napolean complex to make me laugh.

Green Lantern: First Flight

2009-07-28T14:41:00.001-07:00

.....is now out in stores! Go buy yourself a copy. On Blu-ray, DVD, Two-disc Special Edition DVD..... whatever you want! Buy 2 of each. 3 of each. Buy, buy, buy! Because in this economy, we all have nothing better to spend our money on, right? RIGHT?

SDCC, Green Lantern, and more Wonder Woman Stuff

2009-07-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Well it's about that time again. I'll be heading down with my boyfriend next Wednesday to take part in the sensory overload that is the San Diego Comic Con.

Here's a list of all that will be going down...at least on my schedule:

Thurday, July 23rd:
8:00- 9:30pm
Green Lantern: first Flight Premiere
Ballroom 20

Friday, July 24th:
1:30-2:30pm
Green Lantern: First Flight Autograph Session
Warner Bros booth

5:45-7:15pm
GreenLantern: First Flight & Superman/Batman: Public Enemies Panel
Room 6BCF

And that's all the working I'll be doing there. Everything else is fun time!

Here's some more costumes that Diana wore during the Wonder Woman movie.

The first is her first outfit she wears on Themyscira.

The second is what she wears while doing guard duty in front of Ares' cell.

The third is her tournament outfit. Most of the amazons had different helmets and arm bands. We kept Diana's guard duty helmet and arm guards to show how quickly she had to disguise herself in order to enter the tournament on time, and also to differentiate her from the other tournament amazons.

The fourth is her hospital gown.

The fifth is the last dress she wears on Themyscira.

And the last is her final outfit of the movie that she wears in New York before she goes off to kick Cheetah's but.
Here are a few more of Hippolyta's outfits from the Wonder Woman animated movie.

The first is the dress she wears on the beach while first sculpting Diana from clay.

The second she wears during the tournament.

The third she wears in her final appearance in the movie as she sends Diana off to be the Themysciran emissary to the world.
These are a few of Artemis's extra oufits.

The first is her armor from the opening battle sequence.

The second is the outfit she wears during the tournament.

The third is her final outfit she wears on Themyscira while trying to enjoy reading.
Here are a couple extra outfits for Alexa. One of which never actually showed up in the movie. The first dress was what Alexa should have been wearing in her first appearance on Themyscira. But something happened and it was never used. So you'll notice that poor Alexa is the only main Amazon who never changes her dress once while on Themyscira. Poor stinky Alexa.
The second version is the Alexa zombie version. This is when she comes back from the dead. You'll notice she's not terribly decayed, because she's only been dead a few days.
These are the extra couple outfits for Persephone.
The first is her armor for the opening battle sequence.
The second is the dress she wears on the first day on Themyscira.
These are the few extra costumes and/ or characters from the Wonder Woman animated movie.

The first is Steve Trevor in his final outfit that he wears just before Diana leaves him behind to go off and fight Cheetah.

The second is Etta Candy.

The third is Cheetah.

The fourth is Ares in his prisoner attire.

The last is Hades.

Wonder Woman Turnarounds

2009-07-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, "Green Lantern: First Flight" is almost at it's release date, which can only mean one thing. I'm not sure what that thing is, but I think it may be that I've been totally lazy and have not yet put up any of my production artwork from Wonder Woman. So let's do that now:

For a better view go here.
These are all the turns I did for the Wonder Woman movie....except maybe Persephone whose body, I think, may have been done by Lynell Forestall. And then I slapped her head from my head turn on it. I think.

But anyway, looking at them now, there are a lot of things that make me cringe and a lot of things I would have done differently. But hell, it was my first time being PAID to character design and it was definitely an awesome learning experience. And thank goodness and character design flaws didn't show in the animation....

I guess I should say that this artwork is property of Warner Bros and not for reproduction or resale or whatever it is they say, blah blah blah, legal jargon.... THE END.

Little Mermaids

2009-07-01T10:15:00.000-07:00

When I was but a wee lass, I happened across an animated version of The Little Mermaid playing on TV. Not the Disney one. This one stuck very closely to the original Hans Christian Anderson story. And I think it may have emotionally scarred me at a very young age. What an f'd up story to tell your kids.
Maybe this is why I love the disney version so much. Happy endings are always better.

So anyway, I recently rewatched it on youtube and it went a little something like this. The little mermaid gets turned into a human to get the prince to fall in love with her. If he doesn't, she'll turn to seafoam. Prince falls in love with a different girl who he thinks saved him. They get married. Little mermaid's sisters cut off their beautiful hair and give it to the sea witch. In return they are given a knife. Little mermaid needs to use that knife to kill the prince. When his blood spills over her feet, it'll turn back into a fin and she can be a mermaid again. Little Mermaid decides she loves the prince too much and cannot kill him. She turns into seafoam. Prince wakes up, sees a scale that the Little Mermaid left behind and realizes it was her all along who saved him.

So EVERYBODY IS SCREWED! Little mermaid is DEAD. Sisters cut off their hair for NOTHING! Prince is stuck with the OTHER girl. Depression ensues until I watch Disney's little mermaid and am happy again.

Even more screwed up, I remember the TV version I watched when I was young saying if the little mermaid stabbed the prince in the heart with the knife, he would fall in love with her instead of the woman he married. I also remember being totally confused how someone could get stabbed in the heart and potentially live through it. My guess is that this was the American censor way of making this movie suitable for airing on television. Good work television censors. Tell kids that stabbing people in the heart makes them like you MORE!

As an adult, I am able to appreciate the tragedy and irony of the original story a little more, but as a kid.....well, I wouldn't recommend showing it to kids.

Well anyway, since this Little Mermaid is by far my more favorite of the two, I figured I'd do an Ariel to go along with the series of her sisters that I did a while back. You can't have all the sisters without Ariel. :)

Old Sketches

2009-06-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Haven't had much time to do any new stuff lately, so here's a bunch of old stuff I found while organizing my home office. Enjoy.

A couple random Miami Vice looking characters and a couple Justice League/ Superman style Lobos. The one up top is supposed to be riding his motorcyle thingy, but I didn't know how to draw that soooo.......

I went out of my way to include a small diagram of the multiple bad tangents created in one drawing. Feel free to check it out on the drawing in the upper right corner. I must have been going for the record.

Some badly drawn animals with badly drawn women.....

Cheetara, Thunder Kittens, Emma Frost, and Psylocke, as well as one other random sketch.

Three of these were preliminary designs for the cover of the "Beauty and the Beast" joint sketchbook I did with my friend Eric Canete. The other two are just random drawings.

A bunch of girls.

A bunch of girls, Glimmer, Sky Doll, and the girl from "The Cat Returns."

A group photo type shot of some characters I created while I was in college.

A bunch of DC characters.

A Bunch of GL and one Dumb Sketch

2009-06-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't had much free time lately for free time drawing. So here's a bunch of GL stills and one thing I drew a few weeks back. Enjoy!

This is not from Green Lantern.

Sinestro bullying poor Labella.

Labella and her moonball.

Kilowog ready to shoot.

Kilowog and Hal.

Boodikka looks worried.

The Guardians.

Hal screaming.

Boodikka and Tomar Re.

Hal looking at a little ring Tomar.

Happy Kilowog.

More GL Stuff

2009-05-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

There's another interview floating around on the internet, but I won't post the whole thing here. Just a link this time.

Here's some more images.

Hal is ready!

Boodikka looks angry.

Hal in some Green light.

Happy aliens!!!

More to come later!

Green Lantern Pimping Begins

2009-05-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

So they've released an interview with Victor Garber about voicing Sinestro and have included some images. Let's take a look:

Here's the cover for the one disc edition of the Green Lantern DVD. This was drawn by Jose Lopez, our character designer for the project, and colored by Hye-jung Kim, our color stylist. My only contribution to this image was Hal's right foot. Apparently someone somewhere on the home video side of things had a problem with it not being there, (it was implied that it would be behind Hal's body, therefore not visible to the eye) and HAD to have it drawn in so they could sleep at night. So, yeah. I really didn't touch this cover, which is probably why it looks so nice.

Boodikka, Sinestro, Kilogow, and Tomar Re.

Sinestro and Hal.

Sinestro giving Hal the CRAZY eye.

Sinestro shooting his Green energy.

Wonder Woman Commission

2009-04-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is a commission I did a little while back for a very nice man as a gift to his niece. I hope she liked it!

Sunny Sunflower

2009-04-15T09:52:00.001-07:00

Another Rose Petal place character. Sunny Sunflower was Rose Petal's best friend. And kinda the tomboy of the group??? I think. If I remember correctly.

She lost some of her cuteness in transition from rough sketch to clean line. But she's still kinda cute, in my opinion. But there's still something about the rough sketch that I like better.

Old School Wonder Woman

2009-04-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

Had a ton of fun doing this. Probably the easiest, funnest coloring job I've ever done. Found a good tutorial on how to get this coloring effect here.

I didn't follow his instructions EXACTLY, but I used a lot of his ideas to accomplish this look. Always wanted to learn how to color things like they're old comics, but always thought it would be too hard. It's totally not! It's way easy! If only I could color everything this way.

Happy Birthday Melissa! Have fun at Disneyland without me. :( (sniff, sniff)

Phoenix

2009-03-28T14:18:00.001-07:00

Two questions:

1. So, what's the reason for both the green and red phoenix costumes? It can't be simply so toy companies can sell chase figures. But I never ventured to find out for myself.

2. How the hell do you paint convincing fire? Anyone know of any good tutorials? I'm afraid my sad attempt simply isn't cutting it.

The End

Final Fantasy IV

2009-03-25T20:32:00.001-07:00

I actually tried this time..... you know, to color. Well, what I mean by "tried" is that I reverted back to my much easier means of cell shading everything. But I actually put effort into this.

I love the uber-metrosexual-ness of the final fantasy boys. They crack me up. This guy at least wears armor...and no crop jackets. But that hair, oh, that hair! And the head bands adds the perfect touch.

I think I made his lower leg a bit too long. TOO LATE NOW!

Yoko-Gurren Lagaan!

2009-03-23T21:08:00.001-07:00

This is pretty old. I don't remember the exact date but I know it's from 2008. If I recall correctly, this was the first piece of artwork I had drawn for myself after a long period of working on Wonder Woman followed closely by Green Lantern. I hadn't done a free time drawing in a while, and then I did this. I think I liked it a lot better then than I do now, but isn't that how it always is? I guess it'd be a lot worse if I looked back on old artwork and thought: "Hmmm, I don't draw that good anymore. Time to die."

Random Free Time Stuff

2009-03-21T14:57:00.001-07:00

So I had a TINY TINY bit of free time at work this past friday, so I took one of those many unfinished and undeserving images from my computer and decided to try to get it into shape to actually post. Well, not the most successful endeavor I've ever set out to accomplish, but whatever.
It's a simple display of how I often work. Start with the sketch, clean it up, then MAYBE slap some pathetic attempt at color on it. This particular character is from the Rose Petal Place toy line, animated special and series of books that I was quite fond of in my younger days. Her name was Iris and she was the shy artist.

Soooooooo oooollllddddd. This image is SO OLD. From back when I worked on Justice League Unlimited old. It's been sitting on my computer for forever, half colored and unloved. So what the hell, I'll just throw it up in all it's hideous glory. The pose is a bit wonky, and the color is horrendous, but that is why I don't get hired as a colorist. Cuz nobody in their right mind would pay money for this.

Horrible, horrible photoshop airbrush. Craptastical gradient sky.

So why the hell did I sign and date it as 09? Oh yes, because the terrible color job is mostly recent. Ever here the phrase "haste makes waste"? I guess it's true.

Recent work?

2009-03-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well, not all that recent. But probably my most recent POSTABLE stuff. As in, I'm not under contract by Warner Bros to not post stuff regarding future projects etc..... suck.

This is a commission I did for an Avatar fan. It's based off a preliminary design for a piece of press art I did back in my Avatar days. You can probably find the rough somewhere in the older posts. But if you're like me, you're lazy and you don't care.

Apparently I did this at the end of January. Hmmmmmm.....

Do you ever feel like your drawing skills have regressed? .... I do...... sometimes.

:(

Avatar Storyboards

2009-03-10T21:45:00.001-07:00

I've been asked in the past to post up some of my storyboards, and I just recently put aside my laziness to actually do that.

So, here's a section of storyboards I did during my time on Avatar: The Last Airbender. All this stuff belongs to Nickelodeon of course. As you can see, my drawings in this storyboard are far from on model, but then my drawings are never really on model. That's why I'm not an animator, I'm a storyboard artist.

While working on Avatar, we were required to do very thorough storyboards with all levels separated so they could build a very tight animatic. That is the reason there are so many pieces of single shots stretched out over multiple panels.

March 3rd! Wonder Woman Hits Shelves!

2009-03-02T22:04:00.000-08:00

Today is the day! March 3rd! Wonder Woman is ready to be purchased at your local DVD and/or Blu-ray disc distributor. Go now! Buy! Watch! Enjoy!

Please! I want to make more girl superhero movies. And that will NEVER happen unless Wonder Woman sells in good numbers! Show DC and Warner Home Video that you like seeing girls kick ass too!

Final Pre-Release Post for Wonder Woman!

2009-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

This is the latest onslaught of images I've found floating around online in regards to Wonder Woman, and probably the last post before the release date of MARCH 3rd! We're setting off for San Francisco Wonder Con on Friday to attend the West Coast premiere of Wonder Woman, and if it goes over even half as well as it did in NY, I'll be happy. If you can make it, come watch with us! If not, please purchase the DVD and support these movies. Without your support, they will not get made....and I'll be unemployed. :( I don't want to be unemployed....

Hippolyta facing off against Eris... who is a FEMALE demon creature. Not a DUDE!

Hippolyta subdued by Ares...temporarily.

Diana Vs. Steve.

Hippolyta is unsure of the badly drawn Diana imposter behind her.

A happy Steve is a drunk Steve.

Diana kicks goblin guy's face in!

The Amazons prepare for war.

Wonder Woman comin' at ya!

If you scroll down fast enough.... it animates?

Here's the special 2-disc artwork. It was my job to draw this slightly awkward Wonder Woman pose to look more like the animated version than the comic book version reference I was given. The background was cobbled together from bits and pieces of the many different BG keys our BG guys drew for this movie. I did not handle the coloring...which is why the boob on the left is incorrectly colored gold instead of red.

THE END.

Even More Wonder Woman

2009-02-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Very soon, I will be flying out to New York to attend the east coast premiere of Wonder Woman at the New York Comic Con. If you are going to be there as well, please come by and attend the screening. It's on Friday night...in a room...somewhere.

I really like how the movie came out and hopefully you will to. And if you don't, keep it to yourself because I don't really want to hear it, you big jerk.

So here's some more images! Woohoo!

Steve Trevor being a pilot.

Steve Trevor kicking or something.

Steve getting the stink-eye from Queen Hippolyta, Artemis, and co.

Persephone.

More Persephone.

The End!

Wonder Woman Gift 1 & 2

2009-01-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the obnoxious Watermarking, but these images were done as gifts for friends/coworkers, etc., and I feel a little weird about putting gifts up online. The whole point of the gift is the person gets something that's one of a kind that only they own... until I post it online and everyone has access to it. So hence the hideous ruination of the image to ensure that the owner of the gift will be the only one who has the nice clean version.

Apologies to all.

A Few More....

2009-01-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

... images from Wonder Woman!

Alexa hiding from a minotaur.

Steve tied up by Hippolyta and Artemis.

Ares atop a building surrounded by amazon soldiers.

That's all for now!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T12:08:00.001-08:00

Happy bleepin' NEW YEAR!

I have every intention of spending New Year's day playing this game. Cuz it's FUN dammit! I like this game cuz it's fun. Everyone should play it, and swing their wii sticks around and break their TVs.

Her head piece is an F'n mess!

Have a good one!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

Here's some new Wonder Woman images!

Zeus

Hera

Amazons

Wonder Woman fighting Deimos.

Steve and Wonder Woman.

Ares in his demon armor.

Merry X-mas!

2008-12-19T10:03:00.001-08:00

Merry bleeping Christmas everyone!....or happy holidays and the rest of that politically correct crap.

More Wondy!

2008-12-11T10:32:00.001-08:00

Will the images ever stop? Hope you like!

Wonder Woman looking pissed.

Steve Trevor.

Ares

Ares and Cerberus.

Ares and Hippolyta.

New Wonder Woman Screen Captures!

2008-12-09T10:38:00.001-08:00

I found these on ENI.com. Yep, I didn't even know they'd been released. That's how much we get kept in the loop around here... :(

For starters, here's the cover to the Wonder Woman DVD. Not sure why she looks so pale, but whateves. It's a lot better than what it used to be...

This is the original we gave them.

Here's a close up of Diana in Wonder Woman garb.

Hippolyta pwning Ares.

Hades. Nuff said.

That's all for now!

Sucky Sketch Time!

2008-12-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've drawn on paper. It's been even longer since I've drawn in a sketchbook. Most of my drawings these days are just done on lose leaf paper (like the below Demona sketch) so it's easier for me to throw them away when they inevitably turn out looking like crap.
....Obviously, I didn't have a very good plan when it came to Demona's legs. Hence the many poorly erased lines. :(

I used to draw sketch in books all the time. They were easier to carry around in a backpack during school. And they were a lot more organized than a pile of lose leaf paper. But lately, after drawing storyboards for many years, and converting to drawing mostly on the cintiq with an unlimited number of undos, I've found myself having performance anxiety when I try to draw anything in a sketchbook these days. There's a feeling of having to come up with a drawing that's good the first time, versus being able to draw and redraw until it's good enough. I'm always afraid I'll keep ripping out pieces of paper with crap drawings on them until I'm left with a sketchbook that's 10 pages thick.

On the other hand, sketchbooks also force you to take a drawing for what it is. There is a limited number of time you can erase something when you're using paper and sadly, you cannot select and recenter drawings like you could in photoshop or any other computer drawing program. Such is the case with this crappy Selfie sketch. No matter how many times I erased her hair, it still looks like poop. And there's no real way for me to move the entire drawing up so I can eliminate the horrible tangent of the foot just barely kissing the end of the paper......this drawing needs a lot of help, but it's in a sketchbook, so it's not going to get it. In conclusion, sketchbooks keep me honest.
As for Ariel, well, I found myself looking at my older sketchbooks with drawings from close to 10 years ago, and in one of them was a beyond terrible Ariel drawing. So I decided to redraw it and see how much better I could draw it now. Well, it's better than the old one....but it still sucks. And the best part is, this was one of those skewed drawings. You know, when you are sitting back and looking at a piece of paper that's laying flat and when you sit up, you realize that the drawing you spent so much time on is all crooked and funky looking....so I DID do a little photoshop tweak on this one.... so much for sketchbooks keeping me honest. ;)

I Hate Self-Promotion

2008-11-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

But in hopes of raising some small amount of awareness or interest in the upcoming Wonder Woman DVD to be released early March of 2009, I'm afraid I'm going to have to just bite the bullet and do it. So here is a copy of the interview I did that was released on the internet yesterday. Please buy this DVD so DC and Warner Home Video will keep making them.... and I can keep my job.

Director Lauren Montgomery Discusses Animated Wonder Woman

November 24, 2008

After her successful co-directorial debut on SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY, Lauren Montgomery takes full command of the helm for WONDER WOMAN, the next entry in the popular series of DC Universe animated original PG-13 films. Warner Premiere, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation are set to release the all-new film on March 3, 2009, distributed by Warner Home Video. The animated original movie will also be available OnDemand and Pay-Per-View as well as available for download day and date.

Montgomery has directed an origin story for WONDER WOMAN that remains true to the title character's various incarnations, while setting the tale in more modern times to allow greater accessibility for a wider audience. Working alongside producer Bruce Timm, Montgomery has brought to life Michael Jelenic's script with a balance of action and humor. A talented artist with a lifetime of experience devoted to drawing and animation, Montgomery is proud to give Wonder Woman her first feature film treatment.

Montgomery, who is already involved in other superhero films, discusses the upcoming WONDER WOMAN movie, her love of drawing, artistic influences on her style, lessons from Bruce Timm, and Cheetara's lonely place among female heroes.

Question: You've gone from directing one-third of SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY to helming the entirety of WONDER WOMAN. What's that progression been like for you?

Lauren Montgomery: It's mostly in scale of responsibility. On DOOMSDAY, it was all about my one section of the film. Now, it's everything from background design and color to character design and camera angles, helping select the voices for the cast and approving every storyboard for the entire film. So it was all a lot harder. It's been an incredible learning experience, it's probably the most hands-on I've ever been on anything, and it's really prepared me for more of those responsibilities in the future.

Q: What were the driving factors behind the final design of Wonder Woman?

A: We kept the designs simple enough for animation, but we wanted to give them a slightly more detailed, less cartoony look for the PG-13 content. Wonder Woman went through a lot of different versions. Gradually, and for the betterment of the film, we determined that she should look strong and athletic without being manly. She's an Amazon, so I wanted her to be able to be taken seriously. We wanted her to look like she worked out, and not just make her a curvy, busty pinup. So I tried to give her slightly slimmer hips versus the hourglass figure, and I think it makes her more believable and engaging in a lot of action.

Q: Did you utilize a different color palette from previous DC Universe films?

A: We wanted the film to be vibrant, but we also needed our characters to fit into their settings. Our color stylist, Craig Cuqro, used colored filters to set the characters into their backgrounds, and our overseas studio Moi added a lot of diffusion, which gives the characters a really nice kind of glowing look -- especially during the scenes in Themyscira. The soft diffusion throughout the scenes in Themyscira makes everything seem much nicer, like a paradise. The style adds a lot of quality to the overall look of the film.

Q: Are you a mythology aficionado?

A: I always liked epic stories, and Greek mythology was a subject that kept my attention in school. The characters were larger than life -- they were gods and each had their own nuances and specialties. Being an artist, I could really visualize those characters and that made their stories that much more interesting. WONDER WOMAN is based in mythology, but it doesn't follow it to a 'T' by any means. I really just had to bone up on my WONDER WOMAN version of mythology, so I could make sure that we pleased the fans. We wanted to stay true to the legend but we did eliminate or underplay some of the sillier aspects of that mythology.

Q: Like the fact that the Amazons have an invisible jet, but they with fight swords and don't appear to have indoor plumbing?

A: There are a few things in the movie that we opted against really explaining because, honestly, the explanations were more convoluted than not explaining it at all. You don't need to break down the minor details. If we tell you exactly where the invisible jet came from, then that's time and energy that would've taken away from our core story.

Q: How did Michael Jelenic's script complement your approach to direction?

A: Michael Jelenic has really strong, entertaining ideas in his scripts. Seeing his first drafts really inspired me because there was a lot of action that showed her true strength. He told a story that captivated me the entire way. Beyond the action, Michael is good at interjecting a lot of humor -- Steve Trevor's sense of humor echoes Michael's in many ways. He also likes to write a lot of director-embellished action scenes, which didn't always make it easier on me. That's the one thing I'd like to punch him for. But otherwise, he did a great job.

Q: What's your depth of love for comics and/or superheroes?

A: I was always more a fan of animation than comics. I just didn't realize until I was a little older that you could actually make a living making cartoons. And once I discovered that career path, I knew exactly what I was going to do when I grew up.

My love of superheroes didn't really start until BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES -- that series just took everything to a higher level. It didn't speak down to people, it made you think more, it had really serious stories, and it went about telling those stories in a way that didn't put the violence right out there for you to see. It kind of undertoned it. It was more sophisticated storytelling and that drew me to the SUPERMAN and JUSTICE LEAGUE series, and then I ended up working on JUSTICE LEAGUE. So most of my experience with superheroes are through animation, not actually through the comic books themselves.

Q: You said BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES was your awakening to superheroes and a career in action animation, and now you're directing the next generation of that genre of entertainment. What's it like to live your dreams?

A: It was surreal at first, but now it's just another day of work. I've kind of adapted to it. But every once in a while when I sit back and think about it, it's like, 'Here I am doing what I've been waiting my whole life to do.' And that's cool. Even on the days where it's hectic and there's intense schedules and the deadlines are looming, and I might be pulling my hair out, I know there's no other job that I would be happier doing.

Q: Along those same lines, you now work side-by-side with Bruce Timm on DC Universe films. What's it like to go from fan to colleague?

A: Working with Bruce is extremely interesting, and not in a bad way. This is going to greatly understate it, but he knows what he's doing. It's always a really good learning experience just to sit back and watch him, to see how he works, because Bruce definitely has his own way of doing things. Pretty much all the calls he makes are the right calls -- it's obvious in the body of work that he's produced. When he makes a call, even if I don't 100 percent agree with it, I usually just let it go because I know the film is going to be better for it.

A lot of filmmaking is finessing, and I've learned a lot of that art from Bruce. He knows the little tricks to make things a lot better. Certain things to avoid, simple camera moves, and ways to not draw attention to the camera. And he's an amazing editor -- he has a way of looking at a film and being able to identify the important parts and really hammer them home. I'm still kind of focused on the storyboards, planning everything out so it plays the way I want it. I don't really think about cutting around or rearranging scenes because I already did that in the storyboards. But Bruce can look at that footage and know immediately how to rearrange the scenes to make things that much better and that much smoother. That's what I'm trying to learn from him now.

Q: Has drawing always been a passion?

A: In my younger years I drew a lot and I wasn't quite as social. When I came home after school, I would finish my homework, and then sit in my room and draw. And that's all I did, because I knew that's what I wanted to do. I would save my money and buy... whatever Disney art book was out that year. I would take it home and look at it, and I would think, 'Okay, now my drawings aren't anywhere near as good as these drawings, so I'd better get to work to make them as good.' I figured the more I practiced, the sooner I would get that good, so I drew as much as I possibly could.

Q: Who are your influences artistically today?

A: I don't have specific artists exactly, but I was definitely influenced by the Disney films. Those were the drawings I was tracing and sketching during my early years. I would study each and every one of the princesses and draw them until I had them all down by heart. My facial features are still influenced somewhat by Disney characters. As I got older, I was definitely influenced by Bruce's style in BATMAN, and I started getting into anime, and some of the more subtle styles in anime drawing. The clothing is a little more detailed than the typical American animation -- it's more believable, yet still simplified. It's the way they draw bodies and cloth that I kind of incorporate into my drawings, as well as certain aspects of how they would draw hair. So I'd say I have a few different influences in my art style.

Q: You're one of the very few women directing action animation today. Does that factor have any resonance within your career?

A: I never focus on the 'one of the only women' aspect of my job -- I just always liked action and wanted to work in this genre. I never realized how few women there were in superhero animation. I just thought, 'I like to draw, surely all the other girls like to draw, too.' I guess I just didn't realize how different I was. So I don't think I've got any special trick that makes me a successful woman in action animation. I worked hard and it has paid off.

Q: Do you have a preference between male and female superheroes?

A: I definitely prefer female leads because I feel they're just easier to direct their acting. They're allowed to show a much wider range of emotions. A woman can be feminine and tomboyish, and she can hit all the same poses that a man can hit. But if you start putting a man in a feminine pose, especially a superhero man, it doesn't fly. So when you're dealing with the male superheroes, you have a much, much more restricted range of acting. It's not just a challenge, it's more of a limitation in general. You can do more with a woman character and it's still acceptable. So it's a lot more enjoyable for me. Plus, on a personal level, I think it's good to give girl fans more options. When I was a girl, I would watch THUNDERCATS and all I really had to choose from was Cheetara. I always wanted more female heroes to choose from and I never really got them. Hopefully we'll be able to explore more of them in these DVDs.

Visit the film's official website at www.wonderwomanmovie.com.

Luckily, our pubicity guy, Gary Miereanu, has been kind enough to send me the images as they release them to the internet so I can out them up here too! Thanks Gary!

So here are some of the images that have been released from the movie. Hope you like!

An Adam Van Wyk Storyboard panel of Wonder Woman running.

A slightly unflattering image of Wonder Woman pulling her lasso.

Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother) fending off some enemy warriors.

Baby Diana's birth.

Wonder Woman!

Persephone helping her fellow Amazon, Alexa.

An Amazon defending herself.

An Ethan Spaulding Storyboard Panel of Amazons with swords running at camera.

Ariel Drumming

2008-11-21T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm lazy, and I have work to do, and I haven't drawn anything for myself in a while.... so I'm posting something rather old, and quite sucky. Just because. It's a quick sketch of my Rockband drummer! Ariel is pretty rockin' on the drums. So rockin' in fact that I created her all over again in Rockband 2. Rock On!

Squall and Rinoa

2008-10-23T19:09:00.001-07:00

So I was listening to the Final Fantasy 8 soundtrack while working today and remembering how much I like that soundtrack. And the game too.

A boy once told me the reason why I liked that game most of the Final Fantasy games was because I am a girl and it was the most romantic of the games. This is not true. I liked it most because the characters finally didn't go all midgety on the world map or in the cut scenes. They were the same size the whole time.

Of course now, almost all the Final Fantasy games have ceased the midgety-going-ness. I am glad.

Belle or Bust

2008-10-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

...or just Belle's bust. Whateves. I BUSTED this out (pun intended) after a full day of work yesterday, which was Sunday. I worked Sunday. Ugh, I hate working weekends.

I heart sketchbook pro. It's a lot of fun.

I'm sitting at home, waiting for the inspector to come and pass my repipe job, so the guys can patch up my walls so I won't be living in swiss cheese anymore. I really hate having work done on my house. I'm hoping the inspector gets here soon so I can leave by 1:00 so I can be sure to make it to Burbank well before 2:00 which is when we are scheduled to do the audio commentary for Wonder Woman. The movie isn't done yet. The music and sound effects aren't finished. But we're doing the commentary anyway. I guess sound isn't that important when you're supposed to be talking over the whole thing.

The End

Starfire

2008-10-02T10:45:00.001-07:00

Wow...... That's all I've got to say.... wow.

Sometimes I even amaze myself.....with my incredible ability..... to make everything look......infinitely worse by insisting on using my extremely limited and uninformed knowledge of color to ruin my semi-decent drawings.

Oh well, at least it's not a character I like. Stupid Starfire with your stupid swimwear costume.

At least the background is nice...... oh, right.... I didn't paint that. I just photoshop filtered a picture of clouds. If it weren't obvious enough on it's own.

God, I hate coloring.

Jun Kazama

2008-09-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

Just a super quick drawing of Jun Kazama from the Tekken video game series. She was my favorite character to fight with.....until they killed her off. :( AFTER THE FACT SPOILER ALERT! Psych your mind!

Her outfits were horrible though. Something I would've wanted to wear in the 5th grade. I guess that means I'm old.... yes..... I'm old.

Anyway, I'd just do handless cartwheels all over people's asses. Kind of cheater like I guess. Like those jerks who use Law and just backflip you to death. I hate those jerks. I've had my character backflipped to death more than once, in case you couldn't tell.

Commissions!

2008-08-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

These are a couple commissions I did for a very sweet lady named Esther.

The first is Silver Age Catwoman.
She asked if I could have Catwoman posing with her two cats. She sent me some photo reference and this is the result. It was a challenge doing realistic looking cats, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.
The second is Grifter and Zealot from the Wildcats comics. I wasn't very familiar with either of these characters so I had to do a little bit of research to figure out their personalities.
I ended up doing this piece twice. Here is the first attempt:

It just happened that this one ended up being extremely similar to a commission she already owned, so I took another stab at it. I'm kind of glad it happened that way, because I ended up liking the second attempt a lot better. Zealot looked a little manly in the first.

SDCC '08 is coming!

2008-07-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

So I've had a few people have asked me about my activities at this years comic con so here's all the answers at once:

-I will be attending.

-I will not however, be sitting at any booth (except for one hour from 3:30-4:30 when I'll be signing autographs after the DC panel). Not sure where the signing is, I'm guessing Warner Bros booth or DC booth.

-I will not be sketching, being that I will have nowhere to sketch. Nor will I have anything new to sell, like sketchbooks or prints. But, as always, I do take commissions.

So in summary, this year I'm just gonna have fun walking around, except Saturday when I have to do work stuff like panels and signings.

Now on to the fun stuff:
This is a piece I did for the upcoming SDCC 2008. It was done as a favor to some fellow artists, whom I respect very much, as an extra splash page type image to go in a compilation book they are doing, though I don't know if I'm supposed to say what it is, so I won't. But anyway, it was a lot of fun to do and was mostly done in the hours after work on my office cintiq. Now I have a cintiq of my very own, so I can actually go home and work! Hooray!

Not really sure why it looks so chalky and odd in this smaller version, but oh well. If you don't like it....you can suck it.

This is my contribution to the Street Fighter Tribute Book that is being sold online and at this years SDCC.

This here piece of artwork, though simple in appearance, was especially hard for me. The deadline was quick, I really don't know too much about the individual characters of street fighter, and at the time I was doing this, I was suffering from my worst case of artist's block in years. It was taking me way too long to figure out who I wanted to draw for this, and I kept trying to do way too ambitious compositions with way too many characters while knowing full well that I wouldn't have the time outside of work to draw and color a piece like that well enough to want it to be published in any book that a large audience would see.

SO, I started by looking through my Capcom artbook and picking out one of the less popular characters. I figured everyone else would be doing Ryu, Ken and Chun Li. I picked this Karin, girl. I was just an added bonus that she was Sakura's rival....and I don't much like Sakura. No real reason why, I just don't. So I made Karin beating the snot out of Sakura in a schoolyard fight.

My pretty little boy toy did me a huge favor by coloring it for me, and the background kids were a last minute addition after I was unhappy with my overall composition. So, if you're still reading after all that, I hope you like it. If you don't..... you can suck it.

So those are the only two artworks of mine for sale at Comic con this year. There will also be a huge Wonder Woman bag being handed out at the Warner Bros booth that I drew and Bruce Timm inked. They're BIG. You can make a sleeping bag out of it. But you don't have to pay for those, you just have to wait in a line.

The End

Wonder Woman Artwork

2008-07-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hooray! It's finally been released so now I can put something I've done for Wonder Woman up on my darn blog after working on it for almost a year and not being able to post a single thing! Of course I can't take all the credit for this image. I really only drew Wonder Woman and filled in the paint colors. The color styling was done by our awesome color stylist, Craig...I know I'm gonna spell his last name wrong so I'm not even gonna bother. And the awesome sky background was done by one of our amazingly talented BG painters, Wei Zhao. Wonder Woman was designed by Bruce and I, the logo was done by...someone at DC? Etc., etc., etc. The image was orignally done as an art piece for the lobby of our building, but since the release of the sneak peek material for Wonder Woman on the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD, I've seen this image all over the internet as press art....
This is the version that will be distributed at Comic Con on little signable cards for our signing after the DC Universe DVD panel on Saturday....
...And this was the original concept art that I did for the piece.
It's nice to have something to post again! :)

Rapunzel

2008-05-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

I really didn't want to make her blonde. There's too many blonde princesses out there. But then I made the background too dark and blonde was the only color that really stood out. Damn me and my terrible color sense!

That Darn Slipper

2008-05-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

I never INTENDED for it to look like a Lisa Frank folder, but..... well ..... it looks like a Lisa Frank folder.

Wonder Woman!

2008-04-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well, since everyone pretty much already knows, I guess it's safe to say that I've been working on the next installment of the DC Direct to DVD movies. This time it's the Amazon Princess's turn so here's your first peek at the artistic style used for this movie. Hope you like it!!!!

...is it too late for April Fools? ......It's still April....

Falling

2008-04-02T17:24:00.001-07:00

Well, I guess it's been long enough since my last post. So if anyone still visits this poor neglected site, hope you like it. Thanks for looking!

Day of Black Sun- Avatar Press Art

2007-12-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the wait. I've been so swamped at work lately that I didn't even notice this episode had already aired. To be completely honest, I just plain forgot about posting this in general, until I was reminded by a fellow deviant artist. So Kudos to you Silentjosh847!

Anyway, I was commissioned by the wonderful people at Nickelodeon to do this piece of press art for the big two part battle taking place right in the middle of the 3rd season entitled The Day of Black Sun.

As usual, I did the 3 preliminary designs, one was approved and moved forward with. In this case it ended up being more like 5 preliminary designs simply because my fickle mind couldn't settle on one specific layout for a couple of the ideas.

Then a final pencil version is done. I was obviously a bit rusty at drawing the characters at this pont because none of them look quite right. Many thanks to Bryan Konietzko for putting them back on model for me.

Then the colored version. I did two different backgrounds for this one because I wasn't quite sure whether I liked the full eclipse or the partial eclipse better.

After all that, the very kind and talented Bryan Konietzko went over the painted version and sweetened the whole thing with subtle tweaks that really made the final piece look 20 jabillion times better than I ever could have done. And that's the final version you see at the top. Thanks for making me look good Bryan!

Hope you guys like it!

We Are The Daughters of Triton...

2007-11-07T23:36:00.000-08:00

... great father who loves us and named us well...
Aquatta
Attina
Arista
Andrina
Adella
Alana

Poopy Time!

2007-10-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

It's a very sad picture to come back with after being absent from the deviant art and the blog for a good few weeks, but it's all I got. I'm drawing a whole lot these days, but it's all for the job and therefor unpostable. So this little nugget of crap is all I have to offer.

There are so many things wrong with this perspective-wise I'm not even going to count. I drew this thing a couple months ago. Then I started coloring it. It only took me a few minutes to remember how much I hate coloring. Then I abandoned the endeavor completely. Please no comments of how much better it would look with color, could use some color, wish you could see it in color, etc. It ain't going to happen. Lets just all admit that not even color can save this.
In honor of the wild fires eating up a good portion of California, spewing ash into the air, making my nose run non stop for a couple days due to the copious amounts of unhealthful air I inhaled, turning my spa into nasty grey soup, and giving me an excuse to stay home from work on Tuesday just in case I had to grab my dog and evacuate....here is a crappidy ass drawing of some fire nation kids. They all look wierd, but I haven't had to draw these characters in a good long while, so I'm a little rusty. SO SUE ME!

.....I really hate fire. Luckily the Santa Clarita fires are pretty much contained at this point. My prayers go out to all the San Diego residents that are still being affected by the fires.

Avatar Press Art and 100th Post!

2007-10-02T23:16:00.001-07:00

Woo Hoo! 100 posts! Well, now that that's out of the way...
This is a piece of press art I did for Avatar when they were getting ready to start advertising the premiere episode for the third season. Depending on what monitor you are looking at this on, it could either be really dark, or... not...really..dark.
And here are the concepts that the press people had to choose from. They chose the one with Aang windsurfing with his glider...if you hadn't figured that out already.

Currently, I'm working on another piece of press art for Avatar. But I won't be able to post that one for a good while now. At least not until the third season is half over.

How many times must I draw Raven....

2007-10-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

...before I end up with ONE drawing I actually like?
Not one.
Not two.
Not three.
Not four either.
Maybe five is the lucky number. I guess we'll never know.

Terra

2007-09-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is my interpretation of Terra from the Teen Titans comic. I was never a fan of her buck-tooth, turtle neck, no pants deal. So I gave her a quick makeover.

Pirates of Dark Water

2007-09-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

I don't remember a whole lot about this show. I remember liking it, but not as much as a lot of the other shows I was watching at the time. But most of all, I remember their eyes doing CRAZY things when they were animated badly. . . which was pretty much every episode.

If I Got to Design She-Ra

2007-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

It would be slightly less gay. But only slightly.
This is a terribly drawn, slightly malformed She-Ra interpretation that I drew on my lunch break using Sketchbook Pro and a cintiq. I later found out that they are retiring sketchbook pro. Tis a sad sad day indeed.

Eeeeewwww! Speeeewwww!

2007-09-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee lass, I watched a lot of movies with my father. Mostly action movies, but every now and again, a mushy part would pop up, and I would react much like the Zentradi did when the Micronians kissed. I'd cover my eyes and yell "Eeewwww. Mushy stuff!" My father would humor me and do it too, but since he was a married man with three daughters, I knew he must've taken part in some mushy stuff himself. The End.

Yagami Team

2007-09-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Too bad he's too gay to even appreciate this. . . Not that there's anything wrong with that. They're just more of shopping friends than anything else. That's how they managed to pick out matching outfits.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

2007-08-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

I've colored this something like 5 different times.

I still hate it.

I'm also OVER it.

I'm not painting it again.

So suck on that Nausicaa!

Tellos: For Mike

2007-08-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

This is the piece I did for the Mike Wieringo tribute.

Nick Magazine 2nd Edition All Avatar Issue Cover

2007-08-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Well that was a mouth full. The magazine hasn't officially hit newsstands yet but since the cover has already been posted on a couple different sites, I figured I could probably post my version up too without any major legal action ensuing.

Final Cover
This image is the final image I turned in for the cover. A few minor tweaks were done by the magazine people themselves before it went to print, but this is MY version. In the magazine cover, Azula and Zuko are a lot more transparent and a bit smaller. Somehow Sokka's ponytail ended up right on Azula's cheek, but that's what happens when you've got to make enough room for the extra words to fit. Overall, I'm still happy with how it turned out.

Concept Covers
The first of the three concept covers was the one chosen to be fully realized. A couple changes were made. They wanted the UPC symbol on the left, so Momo was moved with it so they could print Text over the bottom right hand corner. They also wanted Uncle Iroh and Appa out. So they got the boot for the sake of not making the thing look too crowded. Sorry Uncle and Appa, but it was for the better.
The second of the three was the version I did to satisfy the main direction I was given as to what they thought might be good to see on the cover of an issue bridging seasons one and two. It featured Aang in the middle with little vignettes of the other main storylines in the background. I sampled some cowboy bebop artwork for the idea of putting the side stories in graphic shapes. Ultimately, this one didn't get chosen.
This last one was just my attempt at smashing every darn character I could think of into a big all out splash cover dealy-o. I'm kinda glad this one wasn't picked. It would have been a bitch to do and I probably would have jacked it up pretty well.

Final Lineart

After the cover was chosen, I then assembled a clean lineart version to be approved. I like to play "Spot The Difference" with this one. Aang's face was revised as well as were Azula's lips. They were too big. And the whole gang was put more on the diagonal.

Color Mockup

Then it was time for the color mockup. Now more "Spot The Difference." You can tell at this point I had completely redrawn Momo. I wasn't terribly happy with my first version. Aang's smile was changed between this version and the final so he wouldn't look so similar to Sokka's smile. Teeth lines were added to Katara and Toph. And the harsh uplighting on Azula and Zuko was toned down so the shadows wouldn't be so dark. And the grass had not yet been colored. I would go on to later color the grass twice before redrawing it three times until I finally got the version you see at the top. I like it a lot better than this version.

Random Girl

2007-08-17T21:09:00.000-07:00

Random sketch of a girl with retarded legs.

Shadow of the Colossus

2007-08-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

He is sad because his girlfriend is dead. He is also sad because Mr. Mike Wieringo has recently passed away. Wieringo was not his girlfriend. But he was a very talented and kind person. I never had the pleasure of knowing him personally, but whenever I did have the pleasure of trading comments with him I found that he never had a mean thing to say. Nothing but talent and niceness. He will be missed.

Sailor Scouts

2007-08-09T15:32:00.001-07:00

Fact: I hate crowd scenes.

Fact: I like group shots.

Go figure.

Pluto's leaning dangerously to her left there. Guess she had a little too much of that Moon Kingdom booze.

Well, I guess I actually have to do the work I've been putting off now.

Felicia

2007-08-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Yo!

JLA

2007-07-30T19:09:00.001-07:00

San Diego was fun! Thanks to everyone who stopped by the table to say hi. It was great meeting you!

The Superman: Doomsday screening went off without a hitch and I don't think I made a COMPLETE idiot of myself at the panel afterwards. The fans seemed to receive it positively, well... except for the ones that accused me of breaking up the voice cast family by not keeping the same Superman voices as were in the previous Superman animations. That's right, I'm talking to you fan who stopped me outside of the convention bathrooms!

Heck, we even sold a few more copies of the year-old sketchbook I did with my friend, Eric Canete.

I bought a few books, got a few freebies, saw a few good costumes, saw a lot of bad costumes, and smelled a plethora of stinky people. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience.

So in honor of Comic-con 07, here's a cramped JLA collage featuring Aquaman, front and center of course. Hope everyone else's convention experience was pleasant if you were in attendance.

Tenchi

2007-07-23T14:10:00.001-07:00

So this will probably be my last post until at least a week from now. I guess it's not really that long of a break. The reason being, of course, the upcoming San Diego trip to the Comic Con. I'll be leaving Wednesday, staying there a long, humid, stinky five days, and returning Sunday. That's right folks, ALL FIVE DAYS.
If you're there early, drop by and see the Thursday night premiere of the Superman: Doomsday animated DVD I helped out on. It"s pretty darn good.
Feel free to drop by the Black Velvet Studios table in the small press area and buy some stuff from them. I'll be helping out occasionally throughout the con. I might even try to sell some of the crappy original art pieces you see here on this blog. By original I mean drawn by me, not copyrighted by me.
Or if you really want to burn some money, you can ask for a commission. But you better be loaded, cuz they don't come cheap. It takes a lot of money to get me to stop being lazy.
So, for anyone going to the con, have yourself a good, safe, deoderant-wearing, non-stinkified time. For all those who can't afford to or have no interest in going, have yourself a good, clean, comfortable, non crowd infested time.
That's all for now.

Battle Angel Alita

2007-07-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

First, a rough sketch of Alita.

And now an INKED sketch of Alita. She actually has a post it over her head, but it's one of them fancy WHITE ones so no one can tell.... on the computer screen... anyway.
She almost had Tiphares in the background behind her. You can kind of make out the pale blue lines. But then I remembered I was lazy. So I stopped.

The Frog Prince

2007-07-18T10:37:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten how fun rough pencil drawings can be. I really enjoyed doing this one.

Robin

2007-07-14T14:45:00.001-07:00

With this one I tried to learn to be more painterly.

With this one I learned NOT to try to be more painterly.

Guess Who!

2007-07-10T21:58:00.001-07:00

I'll give a nice firm pat on the back to anyone who can name this obscure character.

Here's some hints:
1. She's a princess.
2. She has a cousin who looks remarkably similar to her.
3. Her boyfriend has a really bad accent.
$. Her boyfriend is NOT named Mario.
Sorry, no REAL prizes. Some minor artistic liberties have been taken, but nothing major.

Belle

2007-07-09T20:16:00.001-07:00

Pretty self explanatory. No color this time.
This is probably the only time I've ever drawn Belle that she's come out looking anything even close to what she is supposed to. That bitch is hard to draw! For me anyway.

Sedusa

2007-07-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

I was watching the first season of Powerpuff on DVD the other day and I sketched down a crappy little Sedusa on a post-it.
Then I came across a fancy little photoshop brush on Justin Ridge's blog which he actually got from another guy whose name I don't remember's blog. It's called the stumpy pencil.
Put them both together and you get this! I used the stumpy pencil for the subtle grainy look on the shaded areas and around the white heart border, though it's kinda hard to tell looking at low res version. It was pretty fun to use if I might say so myself.

Bust-A-Groove!!!

2007-06-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

Some day, maybe some day, I'll learn to color something so it doesn't look like the inside of a crayola crayon box.
So,I haven't posted in something like a month on account of I was working on a magazine cover for the next all Avatar issue of Nickelodeon magazine. And on top of it all I can't even post the darn thing I've been spending all my time on until the magazine is released. So you'll have to settle for this.
I'm not too thrilled with my crappy coloring, and I darkened Frida too much in the background, but I'm sick of working on it so this is all you get.
Bust a groove, my friends, bust a groove.

Post-O-Rama

2007-05-26T10:42:00.001-07:00

So the scanner went on the fritz. So instead of scanning, I colored. Please don't get used to it, for it will only end in disappointment. So here is a big fat-ass post in anticipation of me not having a whole lot of time to update in the near future on account of work is going to be getting pretty busy soon.
I totally heart this show. It makes me laugh. A lot! Everyone should watch it.
Chiropterates are hard as hell to draw. So I didn't draw one. I drew Saia instead. She is a lot easier. Hooray for the Inverse Adjustment Layer function!
This is a little nugget of, well, crap from my olden days. By olden days, I mean probably a couple years ago or something like that. I doubt I would have posted this if I had drawn it today. But, for back then, I was pretty proud of myself. For a whole hot minute.

Papasquat Jet

2007-05-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

Kiki

2007-05-19T09:33:00.001-07:00

Not thrilled with this one. Think I went a little too far with the shading. That's probably why most of my work stays in coloring book form. Not too happy about how her face turned out either. Well I could go on and on, but I won't. So enjoy this sucky piece of artwork.

Back to Basics

2007-05-17T19:18:00.001-07:00

Too many group shots with too many boys lately.I decided to go back to my "single female character with no perspective on a plain white background" roots. Besides, I hadn't drawn Ariel in a while.

Section 9

2007-05-13T13:36:00.001-07:00

What's this? A 7:1 guy to girl ratio? Why would I draw this? I hate drawing guys. Am I insane? And a perspective shot at that. I hate drawing perspective! I guess I'm just a masochist.

I plan on coloring this, but my plans pf coloring things rarely ever go anywhere. So, for now, the crappy line art will have to suffice.

Cyborg 009

2007-05-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually a fan of the "old school" anime style, but I really liked this show. It had some fun animation and amazing backgrounds. I'd recommend you give it a gander if you get the chance. I gave it multiple ganders while drawing this piece. There was a whole lot of freeze framing going on.

FLCL

2007-05-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

Blah, blah blah blah..... blah blah.... blah blah blah.
Guitars are hard.

Cutesy Aang

2007-04-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite sure if this drawing is cutesy or creepy. I'll let you be the judge.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

2007-04-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

Another background! Holy geez!