Bombs Away!

Bombs away!

This was another unused idea that went along with the arrows concept. It was also done in photoshop.

Crazy Lady in Verizon store!

It seems like everytime that I have gone into a cell phone store the majority of people in them seem to be whacked! This lady was at the counter with a fairly dubious looking guy who was paying for her phone. Everytime the cashhier did something, like entering her name into the computer, Crazy Lady would whoop and holler at the top of her lungs. When it came time to pay, the guy who was with her pulled out a roll of cash about the size of a baseball. I suspect he was either a dealer or "manager."

More Unused Photoshop Illustrations

These are illustrations done in Photoshop for another direct mail campaign that doesn't appear to be going anywhere at the moment. For the sake of showing them I removed any text.

Notes on Head construction.

Attn Emily: These are some quick notes I put together. It seemed easier to draw an explanation than trying to say it verbally. Basically you have two options when constructing a head: a large solid ball with a chin, or two ovals. The two oval method will give you a more natural feel allowing the jaw to hang correctly. For some characters it won't make a bit of difference how you design it. However, this approach will work best if and when you have to animate and design more human characters.

A lot of the construction really comes down to what you are most comfortable with since you are essentially dealing with graphic cheats. If you get into animating, you'll start to notice that the shapes become much less about literal construction and more about graphic ideas like silohuette, line of action, and visual clarity. The literal construction has more to do with model sheets so everyone in the animation department can get on the same page. In reality, very few guys really animate like that. Look at Preston Blair's roughs from Dance of the Hours in the First Walter Foster animation book and you'll see what I mean: loose and graphic but still working in space.

Finished BlackJack Illustration.

Though I only finished it a few weeks ago, I nearly forgot about it. Unfortunately, this is one of those projects that I put off a while back and only recently returned to. Overall, I like the way it came out, but I am not too keen on the pose or expression. I think the biggest problem, looking back, is that the illustration doesn't hilite the match enough. Some of this may have to do with the differences between what is often called hard sell vs. institutional advertising. I 'd say that this one lands closer to the insitutional.*

*Institutional advertising ususally refers to selling a product by pushing things like lifestyle or image. It is the opposite of a hard sell where a products advertising is about facts and measurable data.

Transvestite golfers?

Here are a few more drawings for a quote that went South. Originally the concept was suppose to be centered around two average golfing buds out on the course. However, as time went on the creatives decided a transvestite playing on the LPGA tour had more humor. The two drawings that I have here are the ones I liked the most though the agency was really pushing for something that looked more graphic. Unfortunately, those just weren't as funny. In the end (as depressing as it sounds) we probably lost the job because I wasn't able to get a better graphic design. That's Life! Live and learn.

Here is an old advertising illustration we did for a mailer a while back. This image actually appeared on the postage side of a 5.5 x 8.5 card (the image took up the lefthand side). The drawing was done by hand but the coloring was all done in Photoshop to look like colored pencil.

I thought it was cool, but if I had to go back and do it again I would have inked it by hand and thrown in a little more detail instead of cleaning it up in pencil. Pencil works great for animation but more and more I think I am wanting to do stills with a pen and a fine point nib. The line coming off of a quill pen just looks better.

Unused Character Sketches

These were conceptual drawings for a client that wanted a "Health Nut" character for thier website. Unfortunately the job never made it past the character designs because the client and the agency couldn't work things out.

Character A was an intentional take on Sponge Bob while the others are just variations. You can only do so much with an almond that has arms!

Elvis Lives!

Ooooh.... I haven't posted much the last few months. However, these are some late night sketches for some random ideas that I have floating around. The Elvis is something that just makes me laugh and I have always wanted to do a baseball thing for some reason (though I have never played baseball).

As for the drawings, the side pose of the king was more of an attempt to figure out the fat on the body. A while back I started to do the obvious and began structuring the head as two ovals. If you don't do it that way you'll never get the jaw in the right place.

Western Sketch

A while back I decided to try to create a series of faux western advertisements done in an art nouveau style. This is a rough layout for the first idea. The product, Blackjack Matches, is completely fictitious though it did require quite a bit of research on Matches from the 19th century.

Unfortunately I got a little sidetracked on this one because my wife and I considered putting our house on the market. After several weeks of packing stuff away, painting, picking up, and what not, we finally came to our senses and determined that trying to sell our house would be a ludicrous idea at best! Now that I am getting back to reality, I am going to get this idea back out.

The layout is actually 18x24 and I am going to ink and paint it in photoshop. I initially considered doing it by hand, but I determined that I need way more practice with a quill and brush to get it right.

How Time Flies!

Has it really been since June 9th that I posted last? I've been busy enough with work and doing things around the home that I more or less forgot about the blog. Fortunately things around the house (we almost decided to move and then thought better of it) have calmed down so I can now proceed with a few personal projects that I had started on back in June.

I had this idea for a series of posters focused on 19th century Western products (Lanterns, hats, matches, lariats, spurs and on and on) done in more of an Art Nouveau style. I actually have the first one sketched out but I need to decide how to paint it.

As for the business, we have been treading water: neither sinking or swimming ahead. It would appear that all major advertisers seem to be taking break until the elections are over. One creative director told us that most of thier clients can't afford the airtime with all of the candidate ads and they don't want to get mixed between spots for the local DA race and the Presidential election.

Speaking of which...

I did do a few "mock" buttons for a mailer that we sent out mid-summer. The concept was "Animate in 08" so the layout for the mailer was a picture of a bunch of campaign buttons intermixed with stills from recent spots. Unfortunately we decided that we didn't want to risk copyright issues so we only used buttons that indicated Democrat or Republican. Here are the ones that we designed!

Obama vs. McCain

This one is for a "Gallery Challenge" over at AN that involved Captain America. It is suppose to be McCain and Obama fighting for the shield although McCain doesn't read very well without his hair being visible.

Thumbnails!

These are thumbnails for a little league baseball idea that I had. Mostly they are just random thoughts for page layouts that were done late at night. For me, the thumbnails really help to figure things out quickly without wasting a whole lot of time. Once they are figured out they can be blown up on a copier to actual size and used as a template. This is really helpful when it comes to doing curved or three point perspectives where the vanishing points are well out of the frame.

Finally!

Well... These are a few recent drawings from the late night TV sketching that I like to do. The first is a politician whom I can not recall the name of (he was just real happy and kind of stoned looking!). The second is Joel Coen of the infamous dyanamic duo also-known-as "The Coen Brothers!"

Final Character Model

This is the final version of the model that I posted a few weeks ago. Because the character was suppose to be an animated version of a live action spokesgirl, we had to match her outfit. I think it looks pretty nice, but the color was a bit of an issue. Since the real girl was wearing a black outfit, and has black hair, we decided to bring the suit color up to a grey.

I might try to post some of the animation from the spot later on.