ADVENTURE TIME!

One of my favorite cartoons! I think this is probably my first piece of fan art as an adult. It was a blast painting it. ENJOY!

Paradise Fallen, The Card Game....

So mid last year, I finished up a bunch of images for a card game put out by Crash Games. It's called 'Paradise Fallen,' and takes place in Hawaii after some global apocalypse...Here area few of those images...
Oh...you can buy a copy here.  Each card represents a move action, resource, or island. ENJOY!!
or don't...I'm not here to force anyone.

It's been awhile...

Wow. That's crazy. It's been a very LONG time since I've posted. We've got a lot to catch up on. *rolls up sleeves* so let's get to work.

I've done quite a bit of stuff since my last post, and I still can't share all of it...yet. But we can start with this.

This is a book cover for the YA book "Dance of the Scorpions," which is the sequel to another cover I painted, "Mark of the Dragonfly." http://aglibexperience.blogspot.com/2012/07/dragonfly.html
My friend Sarah was gracious enough to pose for it, and she did a marvelous job...

You can find both these books here...both electronic and physical.

http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Scorpion-Dragonfly-Chronicles-Volume/dp/1623750695
http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Dragonfly-Bobbie-Shafer-ebook/dp/B009LPBMJS

As always...I love the HANDS!!!!

Rincon!

Rincon is a gaming convention being put on by S.A.G.A (Southern Arizona Gaming Association.) on the 28th of this month.

It also happens to be one of my favorite places to go surfing in southern California.

At any rate, earlier this year I illustrated their new mascot...I'd forgotten I hadn't posted it yet.

Enjoy!

PHOENIX!


FLYING PHOENIX!

POST APOCALYPTIC BACKGROUND!

WHY WAS I YELLING?!?!?

Apocalyssa...

So I drug out another personal project I had started but didn't have time to finish due to actual work; and finished it. I'm not going to explain much about it other than it is set in an post apocalyptic wasteland...mainly because I'm tired...

*shrug*

ENJOY!

The Shadow Knows...

Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men?

The Shadow knows.

While I was in my tweens my mother had bought my father a large collectors pack of old radio dramas for Christmas. Amongst the various serials was probably one of my favorite story lines to date, "The Shadow."

Wealthy man-about-town Lamont Cranston (no. not the guy from Breaking Bad...did you know there was a band named 'lamont cranston?" Crazy.) was really, in fact, a supernatural crime fighter. Ok. So an insanely wealthy, dashing, SANE, guy who has mental abilities that allow himself to move objects and render himself invisible...essentially a rich jedi who can date without whining like a little mama's boy?? Yes please, I want to be him.

This was initially started as a submission to enter a pulp fiction based art exhibit, but deadlines with actual jobs kept me from meeting that deadline... I started it close to six months ago and finally made the time to complete it. I really, really like this one. Please Enjoy. 

  

BLAH!!!

I vant to suck your...MONEY OUT OF YOUR WALLET!!!

AAHHHHH!!!!!! AHHH!!! AHHHHHHH!!!AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

That's much scarier to me than someone wanting my blood. I've got plenty of scars on my arms where phlebotavampires have stuck me...it's not nearly as bad.

At any rate, another cover for an old classic. Dracula! The first version I produced wasn't scary enough or pale enough for the publisher so I did a revision on it...and frankly, I'm glad they requested it.

The first one looked great!...that is, until I painted the second then looked at the two side-by-side...

Now the first just looks like a goofy, retarded, not-close-to-being-scary version of the second. Kind of like the difference between Edward Cullen and an actual vampire. Ah well. such is life.
I also threw in the hands which were the same before and after. I like hands.

I could make the joke that the original is with makeup...and the second without. But I won't.

...though I kind of just did....and it was horribly cheesy. But who cares right? No one reads this crappy blog anyway! WOOHOO!! Have a great day folks!

Dragonfly

This is the second book cover I've done for the Malachite Quills Publishing company...and it didn't turn out half bad...

Little Sketches

I've got a small notepad I carry with me on Sundays that I do little sketches in. Nothing major here...just a few little guys. Most of these are pretty old too, I found some I'd scanned a while ago and figured I'd post them up. What's cool about digging up old sketches like these is that they're much like little journal entries...a mere glance at one conjures up where I was at, who I was with, how I was feeling at the time...The memories conjured up are fairly vivid as well, almost as evocative as coming across a nostalgic scent. I wonder why it's these little sketches that cause that within me, and other, more finished, drawings I dust off I can hardly remember ever working on. Odd.

Oh. A friend and I are starting a podcast soon....

The Darkling!!!

So some of you may remember this post...

http://aglibexperience.blogspot.com/2012/01/mysterious-painting.html


It's my first foray away from film and television in a long while. It is finally out for the Kindle and the Nook! Go buy a copy!! You won't reget it...

Unlike that one night I had in San Philippe last summer...which is why I am now scared to death of eggplants and rubbing alcohol.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Darkling-ebook/dp/B007AARGYQ

The spearman

So I've been working on developing a style for a graphic novel, and I don't know about you, but I'm really tired of the mainstream slick inking and shiny photoshopped color that permeates mainstream comics today. Not that there is anything wrong with it; it takes great skill to be able to put something together like that...unlike some other illustration styles...
**coughcoughanimecoughcough**

If it weren't so prevalent and was the exception rather than the norm, I'd probably gobble it up.

I'm fickle, what can I say?

I like my comics to have some grit. So in that vein I decided to try black and white watercolor, which I can burn through like nobody's business, and color it digitally...which is also fairly quick to do.

So the first is the original black and white. The second and third, obviously, are the color...Unless you're colorblind...then you're probably glad I pointed out which is which...

yes...I use a lot of these...

... ... ...

Mysterious painting

So...I did a painting for a client...but I'm not going to give details about it yet...

Enjoy!

Friend Portrait

Awhile ago I participated in a charity auction to buy presents for needy kids on Christmas. I donated a painting of any subject and finished it earlier this month. It was a christmas present for my friend's sister and brother-in-law so I had to wait until today before I could post it.
Um...nothing entertaining to say really....so....how about a joke?

Three fish are in a tank.

One fish looks at the other two and asks,

"Either of you two know how to drive this thing?"

TRAINS!!!!

I grew up in a town just north of Los Angeles that has always had trains. When I was a kid I used to love to listen the faint whistle in the distance as the train carried fresh citrus to and from the town. Eventually the need for trains waned, but became popular again as they became as tourist attraction. Now they run as murder mystery dinners, carry tourists to pumpkin and christmas trees farms during the holidays, and production companies constantly use them for shoots. So here's a little ode to trains. I'll probably be doing more paintings like these in the future.

Children's Book Progress

So I've had a couple of children's books sitting around for a few years and I've decided to finish them up. Here a few sample images from the first one. It's called, "Brayden Weldsworth, and the Mystery of the Stolen Pie." Enjoy.

Roller Derby!!!!

So when I was an art director at Blue Table Painting, there was a girl there that was in a roller league. She recruited me to be a referee....which was AWESOME. It was sad when I had to move...no more reffing for me. But anyways, I've got a lot of respect for those ladies.

Surprise Attack!

So this one I started earlier this year and finally had time to finish it. I originally called the big guy there a Grumph, named thusly because of the huffing sound they make when they're shuffling around. Story in an image is very important me. It guides my decisions and helps add authenticity to a painting. It also helps create a mood and can carry me through some of the more tedious moments when painting.

And here are a couple of closeups of some areas that I found interesting.

Enjoy!!

Art Order

So my last post was the first few processes in my art submission for the Art Order Story Extraction...And I finished it...Well...as finished as it's going to be.

There are some obvious changes...like a massive amount of cropping for one. I did this for two reasons. 1. I wanted the characters subtle facial expressions to read and, 2. It meant less work, which means less time. If this was for an art director I never would have dreamed of doing that once the initial sketch was approved...however...There is no art director except me...And he said to crop it. *shrug*
I also changed up the sky a bit. I had spent hours on the sky according to my initial sketch and the color study I had done. It looked like crap. Udder crap. Yep, you read it right...that's crap with four teats. I just couldn't get it to work, so I scrapped it all and started over again. It's better than it was, but I'm still not satisfied....but then, with regards to my work, am I ever? The answer to that would be a big, morbidly obese 'NO'.

At any rate. ENJOY!

Art Order Challenge.

So I've decided to participate in the Story Extraction Art Order Challenge for July. http://theartorder.com/2011/07/13/story-extraction-artorder-challenge/ I chose the steampunk scene of an airship coming upon a city set into the mountains.
After some thumbnails, a couple of my friends were gracious enough to pose for me.

So generally when I do drawings for paintings I'm not necessarily trying to make a beautiful drawing. Most of the marks I make are really just a complicated series of notes I've made based from the reference shots I took. If you'll notice, most of the dark shadowed areas are noted by dark hash marks. The detail level is extreme in the most important areas and the lines get more bulky or lighter the less important something is...or less "notes" I'll need when I start painting. Clouds and mountains need less notations than say, the airships, so there's a slightly higher degree of detail with those. Generally the notes include shadows, contours, plane changes and perspective marks so when I start painting I can make my brush stokes move around the forms, lending more depth and dimension to the objects in the painting.

The way these guys are drawn kept reminding me of 'Take On Me' by Ah-Ha. I had that song stuck in my head constantly while drawing....so....in honor of that... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&ob=av3e

PHONICS

So last year I was contacted by a person who had developed a phonics program that targeted 3-5 year olds and wanted to bring it to fruition. I created 26 characters, one for each letter of the alphabet. A few are listed below. I was also commissioned to design a box for everything to go into...which I did....but never got paid for. BOOOOOOOOOOO! Fortunately, I never sent a large resolution file so there's no way they can use the image in any decent capacity. So instead, I shall show the box cover to you!

InfoGraphics

Several years ago I sat on a Virgin Airlines jet, it's engines' thrumming seeming to permeate everything attached to them. As the slightly pleasant disorientation of the upward lift wore off they began to play an animation explaining the emergency procedures normally recited by flight attendance. A pleasant British voice narrated while little iconic figures went through the emergency actions. I loved it.
This was, of course, an animated infographic, while most common are generally in static 2d posters. I've always been in love with design and random facts...So merging the two appeals to me to no end. I recently finished a test page for a potential client, (seen below); will it bear fruit? I've no idea. But here are the fruits of that labor on my end regardless.