The Millennium Zeppelin

Less Than 12 Parsecs!

The ever-present peoplemover of the original Trilogy gets a Victorian/ Steampunk overhaul in this design for MightyFine. There are many a detail hidden in both wording and design--who knew Corellia had it's own logo?
Keen eyes might also spy some Aurebesh script. It's a very small detail, but y'know...size matters not.

Find the shirt here!

[EDIT: An added thanks to MightyFine for making me my own section in their shop! ]

I also created this process video as I concepted and drew out this one. It went through a few iterations while trying to consolidate a blimp look with the iconic starship shape.
[Music provided by dapper pal Digitalcasm] :

Jango Fett & Son

Fett Family Business

This design was previewed in an earlier post-- now I can finally show the completed result!
Available as a t-shirt through MightyFine, check it out HERE (welovefine.com)

A Victorian ad influenced design, I thought it would be fun to conjure a promotional idea for the bounty hunting duo. The most treacherous of freelancers, I can't help but want to relate to their notorious business acumen... If only I could strike a good deal with the Caminoans-- a clone would come in handy during busy illustrating seasons~

There is one more similar Victorian influened design in the works along with a few more Star Wars designs--- stay tuned!



Taun Taun 2.0

I also made a process You Tube video of the previous Star Wars design I did for them, "Echo Station".

Long Beach Comic Con

Ardee R & D

These are a couple process pics of the 'Ardee' model I'm building. He's the central character of my first comic and I'm finding myself oddly in the same role as the Inventor in my latest comic.
I've been having to research many an automata online to figure out how he'll work as a mini Zoltar-esque fortune telling machine...

If this contraption won't fly, at least I'll still have a reliable gumball/toy machine at the table!

Come find Victor Camba, me, and articulated Ardee at booth #1507 in Artist Alley at Long Beach Comic Con, this 29th and 30th !

"I guess I'll hang around for now..."

The Ink Raven

Lightboxes: They make everything more epic~

Don't Graphite, Just Ink About It

This story was my first mini-comic that serves as a intro to a longer 4 part story I'm working on. There is Norse mythology influence in this particular tale and is meant to ask questions about self fullfilling prophecies, the origin of folklore, and the power of belief. Yep, all that in 5 pages~

My first stab at making a mini comic came from much inspiration from the folks at Art & Story.

Much thanks for advice about materials from Mark Rudolph (whose "Echoes from Astroid X" I was using as a quality barometer). I planned to screenprint the band that wraps the mini that lines up with the image, but time constraints forced the monastic discipline of hand painting them in time for the Alternative Press Expo (APE).

[EDIT: for the Long Beach Comic Con, the bands were indeed screen printed!! For a process series, see the link at the bottom of this post]

And now, a story from colder skies:

"Where once there were three

two would remain

bound to the old keeper

of fury and spear.

Flown high from the Tree

to know a dire fate

born to escape

and chase a tale,

a new post--

a ghost. "

-old poem

....

All Part of the Process

In an effort to not overcrowd this blog space (and maybe hide my hodgepodge comics-making process~) I put the "making of" pictures for this minicomic on my Flickr. I thought I'd share this after one person at the Long Beach Con recognized that the band was indeed screened, not just colored paper-- the awesome n' talented Dustin Nguyen! I scored a beautiful sketchbook of his full of amazing watercolors and some of my favorite characters.

The inch strips were actually leftovers from the 11 x 17" single sheet trimmed to make the mini size divide evenly into 8 parts. They wrapped around perfectly, and some part of me wanted to feel like I was honorably using 'every part of the animal' which is paper.

Only some of these minis included a bonus "poster" on the reverse side, a collage of raven sketches I did leading up to writing the story. I think the process pictures can clarify the construction~

Here's a preview for those interested--

If you want more, just jaunt on over HERE!

Back to Triple-two

I will be having another show at this cool little clothing store in Huntington Beach, 222 Clothing. I'm excited to showcase my comic art specifically for this one. I'll have original pages and some new work on display with ole pal Digitalcasm debuting some new songs.

This happens with the monthly Huntington Beach Art Walk. Directions here!

[EDIT: I forgot to note a fun factoid: The 222 Store specializes in Scandinavian and Nordic Indie Brands of clothing-- a perfect perch for a Raven~]

2010: a Toy Odyssey

"I'm sorry Buzz. I'm afraid I can't do that..."

So I keep hearing through the Twitters and Facebooks that Toy Story 3 is quite excellent and also a tear jerker. I wondered if anyone had done this mash-up before-- my bad if it has! Here's my version of a toy coming face to face with something so epic and sublime as the origin it's creation... and the HAL 9000.

Plus it's funny how the Pixar director's name rhymes with "Kubrich"..

This was done for the weekly art jam on the Art Jumble blog. Lots of great talent on there to stay inspired and challenged!

Below is a process gif animation of how this came about:

By the looks of that initial scan, apparently I was considering having Buzz say "Que?", as a nod to his newfound language skills in the movie. Seems like I'm keeping in theme with polygot astronauts in my posts :]

Oh and btw this was Post #100 !

Yay.

Building a Birdman

Going Gizawatt

[Scroll to bottom if you don't wanna read/see an animated .gif !]

Here's a process post about the making of this Thadius Gizawatt, galaxy renowned space explorer from Mark Rudolph's "Mulligan's Run". Mark does a microcast "Mark of the Beast" as part of the Art & Story Supreme content and posed some questions about the process. It did so happen that I saved some images while working on this piece, so here's how it all went down! :

I usually start with a pencil sketch that I scan in-- but I went rogue this time. An idea for the painting was in my head pretty early on, so I worked out the pose straight into the computer using my Intuos tablet. No special brushes at this point, just good ole Round, with pressure sensitivity turned on.

I realized I needed better reference for Mr. Gizawatt to familiarize myself his costume, proportions, and see which parts of him are anthropomorphized. I would later use the bird photo reference to put in subtle feather textures on him.

I kept this nice image of him being choked (I know, how cruel) as I laid out some of his environment. I pictured him as being a reflective kind of guy and wanted him to rest his chin on his fist, but hadn't figured out where his elbow would go at this point.

The spaceship consoles were actually desiged around him to fit as I added in more background. Once I knew just about where things would go, I separated him onto another layer and began to define his silhouette. My favorite brush for this part was from a Chris Oatley's set of custom ones: "Soft Oil Tapered 88" and a modified Calligraphy Oval set to Pressure sensitive.

For the most part, I paint at about 70-90% opacity.

Here I started to add a strong light source. I wanted something bright and saturated so went with a red glow from a radar screen or something. I wanted to keep with a very colorful palette and also a compliment to his green suit.

I shrank his feet [thanks Transfom tool!] to better match his small stature. I also cut out the metal box onto another layer so I could compose it as a foreground element later.

At this point, you start to see more form being described as I darkened the figure using Multiply in my Brush options. Using the same or slighter lighter color in multiply seems to keep it from getting too muddy. I try to sample color [alt/option] while using the brush tool to stay within a decided color palette and use HSB sliders in my Color selection window so I can see both value and saturation.

The paint challenges at this stage feel like a mix between Acrylic and Watercolor so I treat a bit like Gouache. I used less opacity for laying down darks and higher opacity for lights (Something I read from Paul Lasaine's blog-- an exceedingly amazing Dreamworks artist who's very generous in sharing his knowledge and methods)

A lot of the background was very angular and geometric so I used a lot of Shift-click and turned off Pressure sensitivity to draw in the spaceship interior. Once the forms were in there, I used Magic Wand to select planes of shapes and added in some 'painterly' strokes to give it a bit more lived-in look. I used the Burn/Dodge tool to do the same and punch it up. The floor was a photo texture Transformed with Perspective/Skew to fit.

The Nebula was added in to give it the second rim light source (putting multiple light sources throws a form in the round real quick). He's actually lit by three (the third one at his feet shining his boots...maybe coming from somewhere behind the box) just to stage it bit more 'theatrically'.

I could have taken the easy route and just found a pic from NASA.com, but decided to draw the the spacescape from scratch. Here's a how to build your own universe:

Galaxy Quest

Draw a simple starburst pattern from the center using the Polygonal Lasso tool, then

[Filter > Distort > Twirl]

[Edit > Free Transform] to manipulate it into the right perspective.

Start to add some brush texture. I used a combination of Spatter Brush and a custom Oatley's "Feathers" Brush while adjusting Scatter in the Brush Presets. The custom brush creates that speckle pattern if you don't drag the stylus, just dab like a real-life sponge and let Size Jitter from the Presets do the work for you.

It kind of jumps here... I must've got too excited about creating new life and forgot to save a step (it happens ie: Cambrian Explosion~). I selected a bluish/purple hue with a slighted cool white and alternated between them painting the spiral arms. I tried to finish with the lighter stars opaque on top. For the galactic core, I used the brightest white.

The interior core was a white with an orange [Outer Glow] set in [Layer Styles]. I played around by duplicating and using a combination of Blending Modes.

To create just a few billion (well technically...) more wayward stars, I duplicated on another layer, set the blending mode to Screen, reduced Opacity, and scaled it it to haze out the edges.

Eat your Heart out Hubble

That lonely black needed some colorful nebulae (nebulas? nebuali~?), so here's how that came about:

There's tons of ways to draw a star field I'm sure, but I used the Photoshop trick of [Filter > Noise > Add Noise]. Check Monochromatic, play with the sliders, and watch a black canvas turn into deep space. I selected a swatch of the dots, duplicated, and Transformed them larger to make bigger stars-- Screen Blending in Layers to see all of them.

On two Layers, bottom one black and second one a saturated color, select top color and [Filter > Render > Clouds] and repeat the filter until you get some clouds you fancy. I took a piece and blew it up to the size I liked.

Repeat the process using another color. You can see where I Lasso'd the shape of the other one. While selected, going to [Select > Feather> ~15 pixels or so] softens the shape nicely. Use Blending Mode Screen to see them both.

Combine that earlier star field with on a Screen layer to get something like this. Use these two layers to move/rotate/scale them around till you get something like the startup screen on a Mac.

Voila--!

I drew in the larger stars with a standard Round Brush and duplicated to add some variety. As an afterthought, I kind of wish I had spelled out something clever in the constellations.. o well, you can do that.

Choosy Moms Choose GIF

(It's the poor man's process vid !)

Digital Painting Process: "Opal"

Opalescent Descent:

I've been watching a lot of time lapse videos of the art making process lately. It's been really interesting to see people's processes. I haven't actually looked into how to record one of those myself, but I do make it habit to save frequently and so we have this here--!

This a short process post about making this digital painting of a character called Opal in the comic "The Front" by Jerzy Drozd.

The author is of course is one of the hosts on "Art & Story", a podcast that explores the deep ideas within the craft of cartooning. I originally read the comic to better understand the references made in the show about considerations for character development, panel layout, dialogue, themes, pacing... it goes on. Like mentioned, the podcast digs really deep!

As most of the comics I've been reading lately have been more for grown-ups, the book was a surprisingly entertaining read as all-ages content. It hammered a good point: "All-ages" doesn't mean "For kids only"! Solid storytelling with compelling characters and a lot fun, find it on Indy Planet here.

The podcast is also on my most-recommended list not just for cartoonists, not just writers-- but any folks out there with some curious spark in them. A musician friend of mine and I have can rap and relate about some of the creative topics covered.

Further thanks goes out to another podcaster and prolifically cool artist, Chris Oatley. This drawing was done to test out a set of Photoshop brushes that he offers on his site. It's also chock full of other great resources and tutorials. "Chris Oately's Artcast" has great insight presented in a really down to earth way. Great accompaniment during long nights drawing at the art table!

Now on to the Process! :

1. Drawin' it out loose

I like sketching pretty small for thumbnails-- often on a post it note or similar size. I use a bunch of these to figure out which ones work best without being hampered too much with detail before drawing out a blueline at final size.

If I like one of the loose thumbnail sketches enough though, I'll scan it in, blow up the image, and use a lightbox to draw over it. In this case, I used the iSight camera on my laptop. This little device has more uses than just making silly faces in PhotoBooth (which I do plenty of too..;)

2. Addin' some color

Import the picture into Photoshop. This was using CS3.

I used a reference image from the character profiles on "The Front" website to keep on model and started laying down some color on a separate layer from the sketched linework using Multiply in the Blending Mode. I do this often so I have an Action set to do this with one stroke of a Function key. Shortcut key here will be in []. These little seconds saved add up and really speed up the workflow for me~

3. Start turnin' the 'drawing' into a 'painting'

I'll often try to keep a bit of the linework showing through--There's often more geture captured in those initial lines. Making those extemporaneous lines doesn't happen for me as much on a tablet versus good ole pencil. I imagine the Cintiq has much more mark making possibilites.

Using Hue & Saturation [cntrl-U] and clicking the Colorize box, I changed the linework into blue lines to match with his base color.

4. Renderin' out the forms

At this point, I've merged the layers into one above the neutral gray. I pushed around some of the sketched blue lines using the Smudge tool [R], and started using one of the brushes in the Oatley tool preset: "A_Sketch Pen_50". I like how it responds to pressure, even on my inexpensive Wacom Bamboo (my tool of choice on the go).

My challenge with this character was trying to show some parts of him as traslucent, like real opals.

...not sure how his circulatory system works or how he puts a shirt on over his Popeye arms in the morning, but I think it's okay cause he looks cool~

5. Checkn' the tones

I turned down the saturation [cntrl+U] to see the grayscale values and see what parts of the drawing fell flat. I check the levels balance [cntrl+L] to move the sliders around to get a some good contrast. For other parts that still needed tweaking, I used the burn tool and dodge tools [O] to punch up darks or lights, respectively.

Though I think these tools really help in expediency, they do take out a lot of the control of painting using a palette of colors and traditional painting methods, so be aware~

Using about 80% Opacity for the brush, I paint over more parts. Once I have a general set of colors I'm liking, I'll sample from other parts of the images using the eyedropper tool [I].

6. Addn' a background

And finally here we go. I went through a few iterations for the background... many didn't work for the lighting on him since I hadn't considered where he was before finishing. I got a bit to caught up in the pose. I ended up referencing some panels in the comic for the tech-inspired background and make some sense of the rim lighting on his pants.

A lesson re-enforced-- think about the environment before getting too wrapped up in rendering bells and whistles of a character!

I have some ideas for my next one to keep this point in mind. More to come, hope you enjoyed :]

CbugX and Hadrian

Wacom Work:

A couple new sketches. See the process GIFs for both of these on my Flickr page: "CbugX" and "Guard Hadrian". I think naming characters is real fun part of design, gives them more personality.
I always thought the stock symbol cbugx had a funny sound...
I wanted the guard to have some regality to him so why not a wall-building Roman emperor...

Hit a bit of misfortune recently in getting my laptop stolen. A good reminder to back up files and be ever alert. I've since been spending some more quality time at the desktop though. The Intuos 3 definitely has it's pressure sensitivity advantages compared to the Bamboo Fun (if the name didn't give it's 'hobby' level functionality).
I haven't tried out the the newest Intuoses, but trying out the Cintiq, sure makes an investment in a Modbook more attactive.

Jedi Knight training/drawing process

Kalik Vrosh:

'Cause every Star Wars character needs a cool name. This was done for CGHub's bi-weekly 2D drawing jam. A wealth of talent on there with enthusiastic creatives to keep me motivated.
There was another sketch of a duel I started after first reading about this irresistible theme that I'll post soon-- just a few more things to tweak.

I've found that most of my favorite characters develop out of teeny tiny thumbnails that cross out the option of too much detail.
Expect more gamer-ly art done in this method to be added in the next few weeks~

Natural History of Ginger

I went to the Natural History Museum a little while back... i drew a cape buffalo. we named her Ginger. The exhibitions here are great to draw, lifelike animals that hold still for--hours!