Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Billy Joel


This piece was done first with cut out colored paper and then colored pencil on top of it. It was pretty tedious yet had a good finish.

Black Beard the Pirate



Blackbeard is known for giving pirates their look. He would dress all in black, braid beard with gold, and put canon fuses behind his ears. Right before he aboard a ship he would light the fuses and walk on in a gray cloud of smoke. Spooky, huh? Anyways eventually his pirating days ended off of the Carolinas. He was shot many times, and wounded by canon debris. Then they chopped off his head and kicked his body into the water. The story goes the body swam around eight times before it sank. After that they buried his body on over 400 Bahamian islands. After they decapitated them, they put his head on the bowsprit to show everyone the great pirate was finally dead. I decided to do a sculpture piece of Blackbeard's end. The head started out as just a strong wire frame. Then I put wire mesh over top to have something for the sculpey to attach upon. If you mix firm and soft super sculpey it makes a nice happy medium for adding detail yet still being able to mold without much trouble. Then after the sculpting I primed it and glazed on tones of acrylic. Then to add hair I used apoxy to smoosh the hair into and then I just painted around it. Also for a great skin texture I used crumpled up foil. For boat I split a old barn post and used a old piece of a horse tiller to connect the rope.

Jeremy Wade


This piece was done in honor of River Monsters. I got hooked for awhile, excuse the pun, and had sketch him out getting eaten by a huge fish. This eventually turned into a caricature. This was done in Photoshop.

How to Survive a Behavioral Interview


This piece was a gouache study that turned into a concept editorial piece for an article on how to survive a behavioral interview.

Modest Mouse


This was meant to be rather funky looking and disturbing. I think I succeeded. Anyways this sketched out and then scanned into illustrator.

Ten Second Rule


This piece was for a concept Velvet Ice Cream Advertisement. I wanted to get an older Rockwell style that would make this a fun yet aged design.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Momma's Recipie


This piece was done in honor of my Mom's amazing pizza. I really wanted to paint it in away that seems nostalgic and shows you how I saw it when I was growing up. These characters are representative of my family, and actually that looks a lot like my kitchen. This work was sketched and painted in photoshop.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Scifi School Bus


This piece is how I look back on my school bus rides as a kid. I lived out in the middle of nowhere so my best friend and I would kill aliens on the way to school. I wanted you to get the feeling at first that the kids are in a spaceship but then you realize its a school bus. This sketch was reworked and then painted in photoshop.

Evolve

In this work I was trying to work with a more simple image but with a strong concept. I wanted the square wheels to fade into the mist and then the evolve fade back out. This was done in ink and then digitally painted in Photoshop.

Pistol Pete the Peanut


Okay this is a peanut that you do not want to mess with. Pistol Pete is a Western outlaw and is distinguished by his curly mustache. There is a lot of fun detail in this piece, such as the bar fly which is actually a fly, and the rock faces in the background actually resemble people. This piece was sketched and then painted in Photoshop.

Aztec Aquarium


This work was painting on 11x14 illustration board with acrylic. Then I scanned it and touched it up in Photoshop. This piece shows a Aztec man pushing out from an ancient temple that you can see as a reflection in the water.
This piece I think truly shows how cats manipulate us. They do that cute little roll on the ground and you just have to pet them. This piece was done in ink and then painted in Photoshop.

What Will Be the End of Us?


This info graphic shows the many ways unfortunately mankind will come to its end. I wanted to get the old 8 bit mario style and treat our existance as video game.

Mermaid Vision


This piece is a digital painting done in photoshop. It was inspired by the story of how sailors and pirates would get lost out at sea and mistake manatees for mermaids. Personally I don't know how this could happen but I thought it would make a fun piece. I really wanted to focus on a simple and elegant design and color scheme. Also after looking at many Rockwell Paintings I wanted to accentuate the poses of my characters and really bring them to life.

Elephants Can't Jump


This piece has a very sad humor. Unfortunately elephants are one of the few land mammals that cannot jump. In illustrating this fun fact I inked it first with a quill pen and then transparently painted over it in Photoshop. Also this piece has inspired an animation short about an elephant and a bunny rabbit, I think you can see the plot coming together there.