Busy holidays

Sorry for not having the time to post artwork here, but I haven't had time to create artwork to post! I did submit the leprechaun illustration to TeeFury today, so I will use this post to document how long it takes to get a response (if I get one at all). I do like many of the shirts available on TeeFury, especially the recent Doctor Whoville image, so I would like to join their ranks. Keeping the fingers crossed.

CMYK

Okay, I'll continue discussing the leprechaun illustration a little more. As I've mentioned, I want to start getting shirts printed by some of the online one-a-day t-shirt shops, like RIPT, Woot, or Threadless. While some of them are capable of elaborate direct-to-garment printing, others employ traditional screens, limiting the number of colors that can be used. Of course, if one understands how to utilize CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), a fairly wide range of colors can be produced. It looks like the classic comic book color. All I did was separate the art into four separate channels and then transform each channel into a half-tone bitmap. Once they were realigned, I brought back the original ink art because the image looked too vague. A couple of tweaks later and voila! A new shirt design. One thing to note: if this is printed, it needs to be on a white shirt or have a white base to print over as any color will greatly affect the look of the image. Some companies can manage 5 screens, others cannot.

I do hope you enjoy the design and I will surely let everyone know if and when the shirt is made available.

A little early

It's the middle of November, but all the stores and theme parks have been celebrating Christmas for over two weeks now. Think of how Thanksgiving must feel. I decided to give Christmas a taste of its own medicine by jumping ahead to St. Patrick's Day. Actually, I drew this thing about ten years ago, but after painting the Frankenstein image, I wanted to try painting this one. It's all Photoshop.

Here is the original line drawing, for comparison.

RIPT submissions!

Hello. Those of you who can scroll down an inch or two may recognize these two images and wonder why I'm posting them again. It's because I made a couple of adjustments to incorporate halftone dots in order to make the screen printing process a little easier and wanted to show them to you. The Devil Girl was pretty simple; just convert image into a bit map and choose the halftone option. I did have to bring back my black lines, which made it more complicated, but manageable. With the Dinosaur, I had to apply the halftone, then select the dots themselves and paint them in. If there is an easier way to do that, I'd be happy to hear it, but this worked well enough. I submitted both images to RIPTapparel.com today. I'll let you know if they are accepted and when you can make a purchase.

Just a tad more refined...

Hiya. I really liked my sketch of Frankenstein's monster and his bride so I thought I'd take it further and see what I could do. I lost some of the energy of the original pencils, but I think I got some nice painterly effects. I also like the bride's hair.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Here's a simple tribute to the classic Horror monsters of yesteryear. If I submit this as another t-shirt, would you prefer it to be a pencil sketch on a white shirt, pencils on an orange shirt, white, black, and green on an orange shirt, or white pencils on a black shirt? So many options.

A couple more designs

Okay, here are a couple more illustrations I've come up with that I want to put on T-shirts. My brother came up with the Fate's Dancing Monkey quote (credit where due) and I drew both of these traditionally and colored with as few colors as possible. Obviously, the monkey's tutu is one of only three colors in the piece (the background tone could be any shirt color, really) but the dino has only four colors: black, white, red, and green, to be printed on a yellow shirt. I've noticed that some of the t-shirt shops only print with as few screens as possible, so I'm keeping them as simple as I can.

New shirt design

Hiya. After another long absence, I'm back with a new illustration to share. Quick explanation of image: I watched an art demo video by the "Good Girl" artist, Adam Hughes. He used warm and cool grey Copic markers, pen and ink, white paint, and colored pencils to render a "convention sketch" version of an Art Nouveau Mermaid. Inspired, I decided to try the same technique. I used Prismacolor cool greys, but couldn't find a set of warm greys at Michael's. Afterwards, I made some adjustments in Photoshop, erased the background, and tried several different color fields. I'll put this out to you, my audience. Which color would you like to see on a t-shirt?

Why does the TARDIS smell like bacon?

Hi ho! As promised, here is another mash up of Muppets and Doctor Who. Obviously, I went with Kermit, but I did change him into the brown suit. With so much blue and purple in the image, I wanted to keep him in warmer hues. Also, Scooter looked ... okay as Eccleston, but not quite there. Maybe with a couple more tries he'll look right. Anyway, I need to be faster with these, but I'm having a good time. If there's enough interest out there, I think I can arrange for a limited number of prints of this or any other piece of mine that you like. It's never too early to think of the holidays.

Pigs in (Time and) Space!

I had to continue the Muppet/Doctor Who project. This is just a sketchbook watercolor study I needed to do in order to figure out what Miss Piggy looks like. Her eyes are closer together than I thought and her snout is more rectangular. Obviously (to me), she's outfitted like Rose Tyler from the Eccleston season. I'm just about ready to start drawing on the watercolor block, but I'm wondering if I should include a Doctor. Having already painted Kermit as Tennant, I'm thinking along the lines of Scooter as Eccleston. Any opinions?

Threadless update

Well, as far as I can tell, there is no way I won the Muppet T-shirt contest. I appreciate all who voted for me, but the overwhelming number of people who scored me low effectively put me out of the running. I don't know which shirt is the winner, but congratulations anyway. Time for me to start painting new stuff.

Threadless.com Muppet shirt contest.

Here is the finished scan of the painting. I added a lens flare (I know, cheap photoshop filter) and a couple of color adjustments. I'm trying to enter it in a t-shirt contest on Threadless.com so come on over and vote!

I'll edit this post as soon as I get the design uploaded to their site so you can vote. The internet reception in the green room isn't wonderful today.

Here's the edit: I just managed to upload the file to Threadless.com. They should let me know if it is acceptable pretty soon. After that, please vote! I'll post the link as soon as I can.

Edit 2: It is up on Threadless and waiting for your vote. 5 is good, 1 is bad. Just saying.

http://disney.threadless.com/themuppets/submission/1201/

Done!

Here it is, in all its geekery glory. This project went so much faster than I expected. Thanks to Google searches for helping me with the costumes and thanks to really small liner brushes for Gonzo's shirt. The original art is 9" X 12", but I never used a brush bigger than my #6 round, which is pretty small for this kind of thing.

I will be making a few prints for portfolio purposes (nice alliteration), but if anyone is interested, I could get a few extra. Let me know.

Moving Right Along...

Just a little bit more. I went with the blue suit for Kermit to contrast with all the warm colors of the TARDIS.

Anyone catch the double meaning of the post title?

Process work

Okay, I really don't recommend the way I work to anyone else. Most artists I know suggest working across the entire picture in general at first before focusing on detail. That's a GREAT idea...just not my natural way of doing things. *sigh* Anyway, after I started painting the background to look like the TARDIS, my brother suggested I add another Doctor to the mix. Since I had Gonzo as Matt Smith and Kermit as David Tennant, the two most recent Doctors, and only Fozzie as an older Doctor, Colin Baker, Ian wanted the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, included. Tom is the most familiar Doctor from the entire series, after all, but who could fit in the space available? Rizzo the Rat, of course.

Pencil work

I was doing my regular, non-art, job yesterday and had a strange idea for a mash up illustration. With Star Wars Weekends dominating Disney's Hollywood Studios lately, I felt the need to pump a little alternative sci-fi into my life. Also, I found the amazing work of Greg McCullough recently. He does these rich and colorful oil paintings of Disney characters, including a very cute Minnie Mouse as Princess Leia in Jabba's palace. Out of all the character prints that are available, McCullough's work are among the best...and Muppet stuff is among the worst. Sad face. Anyway, my hope is to elevate the quality of Muppet imagery and tap into the possibilities.

Since my blog is theoretically about the process, here's step one: Pencils. I started sketching without any real thought aside from including Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo. Because of Gonzo's penchant for bowties and silly hats, he became my choice for the 11th Doctor, portrayed by Matt Smith. Kermit is a good fit for David Tennant's 10th Doctor; slim, looks good in a suit, and Fozzie ended up as Doctor #6, a la Colin Baker, because the cravat is a perfect match!

More will follow as I render the characters in watercolor. Keep checking in. It won't take so long this time!

Yet Even More Face Painting!

This will be the last group of face painting pictures. Like I said before, the theme was Toy Story, which explains the Woody and Jessie faces. It does not explain the bat, however. For some reason, the birthday boy wanted Batman, posted earlier, and this kid wanted a bat. I made it up on the spot and he seemed to really like it.

Even More Face Painting

Even adults enjoy a little facial creativity!

More Face Painting

As promised, here's a little more face painting. One of the most popular, full-face paintings that I do is the tiger. It gives boys a chance to express their inner predators. Some girls like this one as well, but you won't see many boys going for the butterfly face.

Face Painting

It's a mother lode of posts from me...two. I figured everyone has been so nice waiting for me to resurrect my blog, why not show off some of the face painting I've been doing. If you're interested, I can be hired for all kinds of events. The rates vary depending on type of event and distance from my home. If you live in Central Florida, it'll be much cheaper than if you're in Northern California. Anyway, here are the pictures.

This is Xadhiel, the birthday boy. The theme of the party was "Toy Story," so Xadhiel wanted...Batman. Hey, who am I to argue with a kid whose name I can't pronounce?

I'll show more faces over the next few days. See you then.

Where the HECK have I been?!?

First things first, the upcoming series of podcasts from the My Favorite Movie group will be all about Star Wars, so this modification of our logo is appropriate. Popcorn Troopers with buttery goodness.

Okay, the only explanation I have is that I haven't drawn very much lately. I've doodled here and there, but the only artwork I've finished over the last few months has been some face painting and a mural for my nephew's room. I guess I can post those images, too, but I'm hoping to have more illustrations soon. Thanks for your patience.