Some of Disney's more obscure villains

Disney has had a lot of crazy characters in their movies over the last gazillion years.  I took it upon myself to draw the bad guys a while ago.  Here are some more of those sketches, a sampling of some of the lesser well known perpetrators of cruel deeds.

This villain is probably the least malicious looking of anything that has ever come out of Pixar.  I mean, it's a ship's steering column. But the Auto Pilot in Wall-E had its own directive and was willing to do anything to achieve its goals.

Although looking like the classic, mustache twirling villain from years gone by, "Meet the Robinsons" Bowler Hat Guy was comically incompetent.  No, the true threat was the hat itself.

Sometimes a villain is cruel for the pleasure he gets from it.  MacLeach was a poacher in the Outback in "The Rescuers Down Under."  His prey was the magnificent golden eagle, and he was willing to murder a young boy to keep him quiet about MacLeach's activities.

Speaking of "The Rescuers," the original film featured the horrible Madam Medusa.  Her greed led her down the path to kidnapping, child slavery, child endangerment, and keeping illegal exotic animals as pets.

Some Disney Villains

A while back I decided to draw all the Disney villains from the major animated features.  Gaston was featured a couple of posts ago, but that was quite a while ago and I never finished sharing them.  Here are a few more of them.

Cute and innocent she may appear, but Zootopia's Assistant Mayor Bellwether is not to be underestimated.

Less a villain and more a force of nature, Chernabog is the threat in the original Fantasia.

Clayton's only goal is the capture of the gorilla family and not even Tarzan will stand in his way.

If I drew the Batman universe...

Welcome to the world beneath Wayne Manor, where the heroes can be as dark as the villains they face.  I decided to play a little with the familiar characters of DC Comics Batman line.  I acknowledge that all Batman related characters are copyright of DC Comics, and are here for no other purpose but as fan art.

First up, the nefarious Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker.  Although he's been portrayed in many different ways across multiple media, the characteristics that have stayed with me since childhood are the green hair, white skin, and bright red lips pulled into a gruesome smile.  This watercolor version accentuates the fashion style of Jack Nicholson's portrayal, merged with the Bruce Timm animated character, voiced by Mark Hamill. My own style is influenced by the comic creators, as well as animation studios like Warner Bros. and Disney.

Finished Painting and a Special Holiday Deal!

Once I started blocking in Piggy, I couldn't stop.  There's something about the white on white costume that I really like.  Instead of being easy with one color, it's a complex exercise of warms and cools.  The iPhone camera doesn't show it very well, but it looks interesting to me.  Still lots of work to do.

Eyes.  Kermit and Beaker needed eyes.  The cockpit also needed quite a bit more detail to make it look active.  I knew there would be no way, and no reason, for me to recreate every panel from the film set, but it still needed the little details.

In the final image, I made sure the Swine Trek was in space, all the random space was filled, and that the Empire would fall to this plucky crew.

So, that's it.  Finished in two days, oil on canvas, 16" x 20".  BUT, if you love the picture and want it for your very own, I have excellent news!  I am getting giclee prints made!  8" x 10" will be $25, 9" x 12" for $30, and $80 will get you the full sized 16" x 20".  As a special holiday deal, I'm offering both a 16" x 20" and a 8" x 10" for $100, plus FREE SHIPPING!  All interested parties please contact me at Eric.Sweetman@gmail.com.  Holiday deal good through January 6, 2013.

Pigs (and frogs and dogs and test subjects) in Space!

As promised, here are a couple of stages of sketching on the 16" X 20" canvas.  I start out with a regular pencil before going over the important lines with a black colored pencil.  The graphite tends to wash off the canvas when I apply the acrylic tone and what remains is so faint, I can't see what I drew, so the colored pencil keeps it visible.  It all gets covered up with oils anyway.

In the image above, I was free handing everything and the only reference picture other than the movie still was a photo my brother took of his Kermit photo puppet (yeah, he's got one).  It gave me a guide on which to base my lighting and color for the frog.  However, since I just started drawing, I didn't center my image very well.  I assumed that if I made it off center and at an angle, it would look cool and dramatic.  Not so much.

Further research (read: Google) helped tighten up Miss Piggy's head but I still had the composition issue.  Since I did not want to redraw everything,  I had to think of something that would help balance the picture.  Something outside the window?  Sure!  The Death Star?  No, this image is from The Empire Strikes Back.  Ooh!  How about a Star Destroyer?  Yeah, that'll work!  Except I ran into a friend at work (Hi, Christina!) who joked about Pigs in Space, triggering the idea of the USS Swine Trek.  Genius!

Later:  Painting

Basically finished

Here it is, mostly finished.  The only extra thing I need to add is some gold leaf on Dr. Teeth's tooth.  I could simply paint it in yellow, but I want the reflections to change based on one's position relative to the art and the lighting in the room.  I credit my brother, Ian, for the title of this piece.

"Posilutely Electro-fying!," 24" X 30", oil on canvas.

Soooooooooo close.

Okay...I had a pretty busy Independence Day.  I did some face painting in Celebration, FL, as part of their fireworks festival.  It was fun, but kept me away from the Mayhem so I'm not quite finished yet.  Hopefully, that will change in the next day or two.

As you can see, some changes were made from the original sketch: Janice is raising a tambourine and Zoot is  playing his sax and angled inward instead of looking out to the viewer.  Both changes are intended to redirect the eye around the image rather than following Janice's eyeline off the edge.  Previously, I thought about using a guitar to bounce the eye back into the picture, but Janice is a left handed guitarist, so the presentation wouldn't work.  See, I think about these things every once in a while.

What the...? Another post?

Yeah, I know it isn't expected, but I've actually done more art things lately. I have more on my plate still, but I'll get to posting them as soon as I can.

This image is for the book Stories and Shows from Pinocchio's Marionette Theater. You may be wondering how I could be doing new art for a book that not only was published three years ago, but was also taken out of print almost immediately due to a lawsuit involving copyrights. Well, I am happy to say that the suit was settled and the author, Dave Eaton, is legally allowed to print his book again. Rather than simply starting up the presses again, Dave decided to spruce up the book a little by adding one of the few scripts he left out of the first edition, Peter & Wendy. Dave nearly used some public domain image to accompany his story, but fortunately came to his senses and dropped me an email. And that is the story behind this fun little doodle.

No Foolin'.