Hernan Cerezo of BlueKanine

May Not Look Like Much

2010-01-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

It may not look like much... But this is the happiest of Christmases we've ever had.

This is a belated Christmas picture I wanted to do for 2009.

It went through many stages in my head as I was brainstorming for it.

It was first inspired while I was flipping through a magazine in the dentist's office, and saw some awesome Christmas decorations being displayed in the snow... and a bear and a Labrador popped into my head.

I got really into it. I couldn't stop thinking of the scene... the movie in my head about a bear adopting a little puppy Labrador, and it became decently elaborate.

I played with different scenes and poses and 'camera angles'... but then a friend of mine, who loves bears, and dogs had his precious dog pass away.

It moved way, in a mix of good and bad feelings. It's great to see how much someone loves someone, but death is always a sad moment. But after that happened, I wanted to change the characters around, make the Labrador a GSD, and add in a third character to represent my friend's wife.

I was JUST about to do this, but it WAS a touchy subject, and I felt like it'd be best to stick to my original plan, and not make it DIRECTLY about my friend, his wife, and their dog, in fear of touching a touchy subject with them. I thought of asking their friends, and while that would've given me a good estimated guess as to if they'd be hurt by a picture like that, I figured the SAFEST bet would be to just stick to my original picture plan.

So here, I did.

I wanted the characters to be feral, in the sense that the lions in Lion King are feral.... but still have some slight anthropomorphic qualities. If this picture was animated, they'd be able to talk.

A good friend of mine, wrote a short passage about Christmas and to set the mood and tell a bit of a story for the picture. The story itself has changed a bit too.

ORIGINALLY, It was an injured Labrador pup giving his father bear his favorite stick for Christmas, and the bear had given the pup a tennis ball. I eventually strayed away from this idea, because a tennis ball felt out of place in a forest scene with feralish characters. I tried to replace the tennis ball with something more naturally found in the forest, but then there was the trouble of portraying it so the viewer could know which gift belong to who.

So I ended up just changing the story slightly, to have only one gift, from the bear given to the pup. Naturally, the father bear doesn't need any gift in return, cept for the love of his pup.

The jar of fireflies acts as their Christmas Tree.

The picture also started pretty saturated, which was a bit of a mistake on my part, so I went back and tried to desaturate and cool and dim it down some.

This picture wasn't meant to be a polished up and detailed piece of work, (and I'm on vacation currently), so I wanted to stick to that plan.

I tried to bring a bit of the saturation back near the bear's foot and toes and the back of his arm.... pretty much where a lot of the firefly light was hitting.

Hope you all had a good holiday and a good new year. :)

Belated Christmas 2009

2010-01-10T09:24:00.000-08:00

So here I am, working on a belated Christmas picture.

I had this idea awhile ago, and it came up while I was waiting in the dentist's waiting room, flipping through some magazine and saw these awesome snow-themed pictures. As usual, I'm in my sappy Christmas mood, and just started devloping some mini short story in my head involving a lonely bear and an orphan Labrador puppy with a broken arm.... but how despite their situations, being together with someone you love can make any seemingly bad Christmas, become the best Christmas.

I imagined both of them in a semi-feral form (ie: Lion King, Brother Bear, etc.), living in the woods. The Labrador pup, as naive is the pup is, made pretty his favorite stick, to give as a gift to his papabear, using foliage as ribbons. There's gonna be a gift that the bear has given to the pup, and I was thinking of making it a pinecone, but I haven't decided yet....

I set plans with a friend of mine, Kashra, to write up a short short story to be paired up with this picture.

There was a quote floating around in my head that helped this creative train along, for this picture: "It may not look like much, but this has been the best Christmas, of all Christmases."

This picture was definitely one of those pieces that I kept going back and fourth on between the amount of toony-ness. But I think I landed in a comfy, decently toony area that I think I'll be happy with.

I'm aiming for a snowy, cool-toned picture here, something that's calm and peaceful and most of all, cute.

*Crosses fingers*

The Half Moon Pride: Strength of the Alpha

2009-12-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

(Click for Full-View)

So this is the Alpha Wolf, in a universe that a friend of mine writes about. He's standing at the entrance of the marble temple, with a bit of the interior, mostly with the giant waterfall and foliage that travels through the multiple levels of the temple, through the center, like a spine.

So instantly, as I think about how to draw this alpha wolf, I know I want to go for a more mature, maybe even a little more feral (in the face) style than I usually draw. So right off the bat, I knew I wanted to try something new.

I also usually minimize the amount of linework WITHIN the outline of the figure, but this time, I didn't go crazy, but I didn't limit myself either with linework within the outline of the figure.

I knew the character was all black, so I also knew that would be a bit of a challenge as well, to get the contrast in certain parts of the body that I need.

So as a rule of thumb when I do anything with color, is to 'never' use pure white or pure black. Because not only do those colors tend to look flat, but a pure black or white doesn't usually appear in nature, due to light being reflected off of pretty much all surfaces.... so I don't like to use pure blacks or whites in my art either.

Along that line of thinking... I try to never use a flat hue of color for anything. For example, snow is white, and so most people would be tempted to just paint white snow. But in reality and on the contrary, white snow, from a visual standpoint, isn't just white. Snow, whether subtly or not, will pick up hues from its surrounding lights, and objects, and those objects will pick up hues from the light reflecting off the snow.

Just because an object is not glossy, does not mean it does not reflect color. Even matte materials reflect color.

It's all a matter of the AMOUNT of reflections.

The above red-circled areas in the background, are the more obvious points in the background, where you can see color reflect off of each other. How the sunlight reflects off the water, and reflects off the bark of the tree, and how the surrounding greenery can reflect onto the bark, and so on....

So anyways, with a black wolf, I never used a pure black or pure grey either. There was ALWAYS some warm or cool hue to the dark shades used the color the canine.

For general composition and visual hierarchy, I tend to use linework for things in the foreground, and no linework for the background. The above close-up is just to show how the wall in the foreground has linework, and the foliage in the background lacks any common linework.

The only time I will -kinda- use a pure white, is for glares and other such naturally lit phenomena. Such as the cross-stars. in the water splashes from the waterfalls.... I say "kinda use pure white", because I select a pure white in my color picker, but I adjust my brush's flow and don't usually go ALL the way with it. So there's still a hint of transparency to pick up colors from the layer under it. Same with the glares on the eyes.

Trouble I'm having now with this entry is knowing when to stop talking about it. I've learned a lot, and experienced a lot, and so I really enjoyed it, and hope to continue learning from myself, as well as others. Thanks a ton to all those who helped me with any and all feedback during streams and such for this piece!

Arch WIP1

2009-12-20T01:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm working on a drawing for a friend of a friend, as a Christmas gift actually. It's not really a Christmas themed picture, but it's a Christmas gift nonetheless, and I'm happy to do it. A mutual friend of this person, actually thought up the idea, and I'm simply executing.

This character, named Arch, is part of the story that a friend of mine writes. In this story, Arch is the alpha of a pack called The Half Moon Tribe.

So right off the bat, with "alpha" in mind, I knew I wanted to draw a very mature looking wolf, who was a great balance between muscular for strength, but not TOO muscular for agility. This is my own interpretation and take on this character, as far as physique goes.

It may seem like a simple picture, but I know from personal experience that for me personally, crossed-arms can be a difficult thing to draw... and from a few friends, I've heard them exclaim the same. I think they're difficult, because you're working with multiple joints, that have to match up well, to fit together like a puzzle piece, or else it looks awkward and unnatural.

On TOP of that, I honestly don't draw too many really muscular figures, so this piece for me was a big double whammy.

I tried to form his muscles organic, yet also a bit edgy to further emphasize an almost "chizzled" appearance, as well as to denote a bit of toughness to his figure and personality.... basically to let you KNOW he's a badass.

Excuse my french!

He's a black wolf, a fire elementist at that too. The background to be honest is a bit in the balance still. I would USUALLY have everything sketched out and ready, but due to time restraints, with Christmas almost being here, I gotta do things in a bit of a different fashion, as far as my usual processes go.

Undulation

2009-12-15T22:37:00.000-08:00

Starting out, right off the bat, I knew this was gonna be fun, and that I WILL run into problems. I've never really drawn lions before. And to be honest, lions aren't really my favorite animal either. I'm not a fan of the manes

So you can see from the beginning of the sketch here, I was trying to minimize the mane.... It never looked right though, so I finally gave it, and just gave the mane for volume.

And I'm glad a did. I finally reached a state in the sketch, that I was actually pretty pleased. I gave the mane some volume, I adjusted him for composition, and I'm starting to just take mental notes of how I'm gonna color this thing.

(Click for Full View)

I used Artrage2.5, to digitally paint this piece. It's a great program (though 3.0 just came out!). I naturally starteed with traditional mediums, with acrylic paints being my favorite. So I love working with a (cheap) program that simulates real mediums decently well.

But I DID try something different this time. Usually when I work in Artrage2.5, I'll primarily work with one layer, or in minimal layers. I usually have no linework at all, or if I do, I have it on the same layer as my color layer. I also usually start coloring first, then start blending in natural linework if any. That's how I do it in real life with traditional mediums.

BUT, this time, I went back to my digital routine, where I did some inkwork first, then made a layer for my colors. And I think it resulted a lot better, and closer to what I'd do with traditional mediums, so I'm pretty pleased with the results, and I think I found a better way for myself to work in Artrage.

I also added even MORE volume to the mane. Also, as much as I don't really care for manes, I gotta say that PAINTING them, was a LOT of fun, because I got to play around a bit, and I aimed for a blurred line between the main looking like smeared paint, yet being organized and intentional enough to look like the natural mane of the lion.

I usually go into Photoshop for a few touch ups, but with this piece, It was purely painted in Artrage. :)

Twas a fun piece!

The Half Moon Tribe: Sword and Dagger

2009-11-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

Whew! So I finally finished this commission piece, for Kyle. I'll try to keep it short.

So this piece was a lot of fun. It's a piece for a story that Kyle is writing, and I liked working with characters that actually had a back-story.

So when I'm working on a commission, naturally I want to please the commissioner. He gave me a lot of information, and I tried to use as much of it as possible. Originally, the composition wasn't going to show the sky or forest. But as he described the setting to me more, I realized it was important enough to have it shown and set the setting in the picture. On top of that, I think the sky and forest helps add interest to the picture.

I knew the background was going to be broken. I honestly thought it was either going to make or break the piece.

So originally, the temple in the background was pretty simple, as shown below (paying attention to linework, not color):

But as you can see in the finished piece, I fleshed out details in the temple, which I think really helped. Imperfections such as cracks in the marble, I thought was also important to really make the picture feel more alive, rather than some perfect modeled out drawing.

It was a lot of fun to work on overall.

Kyle's Description for the picture:

The Half-Moon Tribe. A society of magic, stealth, speed, and strength. Ruled by their Council, each of its members represent a unique aspect of their society: the mages, the striders, the scouts, and the warriors. The council is headed by Arch, their Alpha and supreme protector. These five people work to better their tribe and live peacefully with the other packs and tribes, most notably the leopards.

Slayn, the Alpha-Strider for the Half-Moon Tribe, is responsible for coordinating the intricate network of messages, reaching not only in their territory but to other tribes all over the known world. New to his rank and unsure of himself, the presence of Arch makes him act out of character. He must learn to not only fill the role of Strider-Alpha but realize his personal opinions and feelings are not always the best leads to follow in the course of life.

Avalon, a new member of The Half-Moon Tribe, was given the rank of Gamma-Warrior. He arrived during a turbulent time in Slayn's life. Honorable, strong, and brave, he naturally protects people who need his sword, making Slayn a prime target for his attention. His desire to protect Slayn puts him in harm's way, risking his new rank, his place in his new tribe, and potentially his life.

Halloween 2009 - Jack-o-lanterns

2009-11-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

Halloween 2009 just hit us, and it hit us hard.

Personally, I have not been in the spirit for Halloween this much, for years. I've been watching a lot of horror movies, I drew Halloween art, I read more of my Zombie Survival Guide, etc.

Jack-o-lanterns.

Growing up, my parents never have been very much in the spirit of most holidays. In all the years growing up, I think there was one time, maybe two times, of my life where my I've carved a pumpkin. My family never really helped either, they simply handed me the pumpkin, and I carved it myself. My brothers were never into it either.

So anyways, as soon as it was suggested that me and my friends carve pumpkins, I was excited.

So they emptied the pumpkins, I sketched the patterns, and we all transferred and carved our own pumpkins, and I think they came out pretty good.

Transferring wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be, but we basically secured the sketch onto the pumpkin, and pricked tiny dots all along the lines, then carved out the pieces.

Out of the few times I've carved a pumpkins, these were easily the most complicated ones.

It was a lot of fun though, because art for pumpkin carvings have a few challenges, like making sure it all connects to the edges of the pumpkin, you have to consider the details you CAN reach with your carving tools and the details you can NOT reach with your carving tools.

I wanted to TRY and keep things simple, and so I wanted to work with only carved and uncarved, rather than mess with partially carved that all the fancy pumpkin carvers do. It felt like I was doing vector art in illustrator or flash. Which is fun. I had a good time carving this with my friends.

Happy Halloween everybody, and I hope you all had a good and safe one. :)

(Click for Full-View)

Keto

Vason

Radjin

Kashra

Three of them on a table (Radjin's candle ran out)

Tiberius Commission WIP2

2009-10-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Click for Full-View

Sketch is finished. I worked with the composition of this piece a bit, shifting the characters around, and playing around with cropping and such, and this is what I ended up with.

I think this will be a picture where the background will really help make the picture overall. The characters are sitting on top of the staircase of a temple in a forest.

This one's gonna be a lot of work.

All those damn stones in the background will look great I think, but it's going to be kinda tedious.

But hey, I'm being payed, and I gotta do what it takes to satisfy. I can't half-ass it.

These characters are part of a story he's writing, so I feel like I wanted to not only portray the characters, but as well as the setting to help encompass the world that he's writing about.

I have a friend who's going to help me fix some of the form in the bigger canine's legs and arm. I'm not use to drawing muscular characters, and my friend is, and I 'ain't 2 proud to beg'.... (TLC reference)

I was streaming this picture live, and TLC came into conversation....

Tiberius Commission WIP1

2009-10-20T12:03:00.001-07:00

Click for Full-View

Here's the first (two) WIPs for a commission I'm working on.

The first character you see here, is Slayn, an agile and swift anthropomorphic wolf.

Right now, I'm currently just working on his physique.

What you see above is a comparison of my first attempt (left) and my re-editing (right). Because the character is suppose to be agile and swift, I had to actually edit his formerly more muscular physique.

This Slayn character is part of the commissioner's story, and he was very specific on his physique, so naturally, I want to be as accurate as possible.

The character's physique is important to emphasize and compliment the character's role in the story he's in. There will be a second character, who will actually contrast the lean-physique of Slayn, with a more muscular physique.

Working with specific body types of other's characters other than my own, or characters I'm already familiar with, is really interesting and fun... reminds me of Life Drawing classes I use to attend, which were amazingly fun and felt incredibly productive and educational.

I miss it really.

But hey, I can still practice on my own, and just get general feedback from other artists and non-artists alike using this blog and streaming live.

Keto Shoe Project

2009-10-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

Click Thumbnails for Full-View

Finished.

This was a fun little first-time project. I actually really enjoyed it and even learned a bit.

I really wanted something on the toony side, which I honestly don't do enough of.

I learned about sketch transfers (refer to previous journal for details), to next time use MORE masking off when I'm spraying the acrylic sealant spray, to relax when I ink and not be so uptight as that only causes more mistakes, and also I realized that I SHOULD HAVE worn the shoes first, and walked a bit to realize where the shoe will crease, so I know what areas of the shoe I should have the details of the picture avoid.

I COULD have used a cheap old crappy shoe for my first test, but really, I rather risk buying nice shoes that I'd actually want to wear, and trust in myself, that I'd do a decent job, enough to where I'd be willing to wear it... and I'm glad I did that. I'm anxious to wear these. :)

I dig skater clothes for the most part, except for the really busy stuff. These are very simple.

But, next time, I'll do better, but I'm currently pretty happy with this.

I don't expect these shoes to last forever, especially because they're white, but I'll try to save them for nerdy special occasions that don't involve mud or something.

Thanks a ton to all the people who watched me stream this shoe live while I was working on it. Not only were you guys fun, but the participation from you guys helped with the finished product.

Fun stuff!

Shoe Art Project - WIP1

2009-10-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

So I've got a pair of White/Black Osiris shoes:

I've seen a few shoe artists here and there in the past couple years, and since I first discovered the community in shoe art, I've been wanting to give it a try myself.

Customization has always been a big draw for me. The idea of having a pair of my own customized-drawn shoes immediately appealed to me. So I bought the white Osiris's a few months ago, but my lack of knowledge of even where to begin caused me to hold off on the project.

I've finally tackled the project though.

My first worry was deciding how I'm even going to attempt this. My second worry is how I want the finish product to look. I thought a lot about what I wanted, and I decided on a black and white image.

But again, 'Where to Begin' is always my first worry when I attempt something new, even if it's a fun process.

Issue 1: Sketch- I knew I'd need an idea and a sketch. I wanted a picture of a character I've drawn a few times, named Keto. I'm a sucker for cute things, so I knew I wanted a cute style used too. I found myself confronted with a problem though; how will I get my sketch onto my shoe?

So obviously, I thought about sketching directly onto the shoe. I decided not to go this route though, because that has problems. Sketching involves a lot of construction lines and mistakes to be made. The last thing I want to do is put a ton of scuffs on a white shoe, with stray lines of graphite that won't erase. On top of that, the shoe is obviously not perfectly flat, so that would also cause problems. I'd prefer to sketch on a flat surface.

So I decided NOT to sketch directly onto the shoe. I'd need to sketch it somewhere else. This led to my next issue.

Issue 2: Transfer- I had no idea how to transfer my sketch onto a show accurately and easily. I thought I could sketch it on paper, then just try to copy it on the shoe with as few lines as possible, but that lacks accuracy.

So I started to think of what I already knew. I knew there was a way to transfer using a marker on the backside, but I didn't have the materials for that, and it required ink, which I didn't want to use because it's too permanent, and I wanted to ink it by hand at the end.

So then I remembered Michelangelo actually, and the 16th chapel. It might sound silly, but I remembered how he transfered his sketch onto the chapel's ceiling... He sketched it out onto giant sheets of paper, then pokes tiny tiny holes alone the sketch lines, then lined up the paper along the ceilings, then painted over the paper, and all the paint seeped only through the tiny holes he made, and like magic, his sketch was suddenly on the ceiling. But again, the problem with this is that I don't want to use inks or paint at this stage, because I want ONLY black ink on the shoe, I can't hide any mistakes with white paint, because the white paint won't match the white shoe exactly.

But this at least gave me direction. So I went out and bought some thin tracing vellum paper, and got to work: (Click For Full View)

A. This is the outline I traced over the area of shoe I wanted my art within. Because the show is not completely flat, I needed to trace a border of available space I can do art in. This is the outline trace of the front of the shoe.

Then I drew Keto's face, centered.

B. This is the first background idea I had. I used a thin hatching style that was inspired by another artist who goes by Voln.

C. This is the second background idea, more of a thick ink-blot style idea.

D. This is a combination of the two styles in B and C, where I used a thick outline of shapes, with thin hatching on the inside.

I eventually chose to stick with style B, because the thin lines worked best as a background, as to let Keto's face take prominence in the visual hierarchy (what catches the eye first).

Then I cut out the shape. The little drawings you see on the right side are my practices sketches, trying to figure out the amount of "tooniness" I wanted.

So now back to transferring. So remembering Michelangelo and his 16th chapel transfer, it led me to remember some old technique I remember hearing about, but never tried.

I darkened up my sketch on the vellum, making sure I put as much graphite powder onto it as possible, then put it face down on the shoe, with the graphite power side facing the shoe, then I held it in place and still and tight, then used the back side of my pencil to rub over my graphite lines, to push the graphite powder onto my shoe, and hoped for the best.

It worked out perfectly.

Next to come is the finished product.

Team Building Exercise: Zombie Tested, Kid Approved

2009-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Most of my thought process is on the sketch post below this.

BUT here you have it.

Halloween. Zombies. Makeshift weapons. Kids. Costumes.

When kids have to fend for themselves, surviving zombie mayhem is possible.

This is what I love about Halloween. I love how it feels like an adventure, where kids go out together, their friends, and no parents, and they roam the streets on their own, using their own lingo, their own trust in each other, and in a zombie apocalypse, you need this.

I miss this about Halloween. I love the idea of young kids pulling together like this, because it's something adults don't expect to see. Kids being resourceful, using teamwork, not letting little differences separate them, and just sticking together, while learning tons about each other, about themselves, about the zombie-filled world around them, and so on.

Happy Halloween. :)

Halloween 2009

2009-10-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a sketch for a halloween picture I'm working on. Zombies.

Zombies. I love zombies, and it's Halloween month... I just HAVE to a quick zombie picture. I love the horror genre.

I'm also a sucker for cute things, so why not mix the both?

With this piece, I'm going to pay extra attention to the balance of cute and gruesome. I don't want it to be too cute, but I also don't want it to be too gruesome. I want a nice even balance.

It's just Keto and friends, all as kids. Halloween night.... you would think everything would go fine, and the kids with go trick or treating...

But BAM!!!!!!!

Out of nowhere, a zombie apocalypse emerges.

What do you do? You fight back of course, and these kids know that.

I love thinking up makeshift weapons for these kinda things. I was reading my the Zombie Survival Guide I got from friends for my birthday, and actually learned from it, and it helped me decide what weapons I COULD give to these characters, and what weapons I DID NOT want to give these characters.

For example, Radjin (Wolf on the left) was about to have a chainsaw... but the Zombie Survival Guide made a good point about such weapons.... They're clunky, heavy, and once they run out of gas, are useless. Not a great choice of a weapon.

So instead, I gave Radjin an axe. It's decently lightweight and doesn't run on fuel or ammo.

Another thing I paid attention to for this piece, was to make the weapons something accessible to all the characters.

An example of this.. Kashra (the dog on the right) is a german shep in a chemist costume... I struggled finding him a weapon. I wanted it something science related, and I had people help brain storm ideas with me, and people had these awesome ideas, like napalm, and chemical gas, and all that... but none of those a even semi-realistically accessible to a kid.

We ended up deciding on a Bunsen Burner. It's DECENTLY accessible at a school (granted, a high school, while Kashra is only in elementary), especially for a nerdy little kid who was determined to snag one during a zombie apocalypse.

So this one has been a fun picture so far, using the zombie apocalypse scenario, and playing with the kid-theme. I love the kid-theme... the idea of kids on a rampage during mayhem, and being more organized than most would assume, and being united by their youth and innocence, and using each other's skills together with team work.

Arguing Ks

2009-09-25T17:19:00.000-07:00

So I've got a close friend who writes. I enjoy drawing. It was only a matter of time that the two of us put our heads together for a collaborative product.

We have a finished prequel comic, and plan to continue it. Here's a little offshoot picture from two of the characters in the comic, Kashra (left) and Keto (right).

Working on comics have been very educational and a new experience. It really IS a different world from just illustrations, because you can't spend as much time as you want on a single frame. You have to balance quality and quantity.

This is one of the reasons I chose to use black shadows, and solid flat-colors, in an attempt to speed things up.

On top of it all, my friend and I collaborated heavily. It wasn't just him writing, and me drawing. Him and I brainstormed, built ideas together on both the story and the artwork, we'd go over numerous work-in-progresses, and so on. Every single frame in the comic, was a collaborative effort.

And luckily I get along well with him, and his ideas and my ideas, his art and my art, all compliment each other nicely, if I do say so myself.

I am, by any means, a comic professional. So I learned a lot. There's a lot of things you have to worry about in comic, that you don't usually have to worry about.

In a comic, you have to worry about fitting an entire story, within a limited amount of space and pages. You have to worry about flow of the frames and make sure you get the story across in an effective and efficient way, while trying to keep every frame interesting and making sure every frame is important. You also have to stay consistent with everything, meaning you have a million things to keep track of.

Then you have to pay attention to page-breaks, and use it to your advantage when you can. When the reader turns the page, or goes from one page to the other, that page-break is important to either make flow well, or to take advantage of to create a sudden action in the story, or a surprise, or something along those lines.

When sketching, I thought about leaving space for the talk bubbles, in order to save me time for when I color and ink. But really, as I went on, I figured it's worth just drawing the ENTIRE frame, for flexibility sake.

When I only do a single illustration, I only have to worry about that ONE image. I can afford to put all my concentration into just that one picture. I have to tell only a partial story with JUST imagery.

Doing comics, you have to have the art and text compliment each other, to avoid redundancy. Everything has to be efficient this way. You have to avoid having the dialogue explaining the same thing that the art is explaining. You need both art and text to BOTH pull their own weight to push the story forward. And this gets difficult at times.

I can go on and on, but that's a good intro for now. We may create a blog in the future, for the comic alone, and have more organized thoughts and details and wips and so on.

Wild Things again - 2

2009-09-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

So I can't really help myself.

The closer the Where The Wild Things Are movie approaches, the more excited I get. I just have to do another piece of fanart.

Instead of a shirt design like last time, I'm going for more of just a standalone illustration. I wanted to try out a new simplistic and toony style, but I accidentally didn't sketch it that way. It's fun as hell to work with new styles, but it can be tough to break out of what you're use to.

I love to try new styles though. I've tried my hand at a ton of new styles. I always had this small goal in my head, where if I could put together a collection of pictures I did, and someone looked at it all, and asked, "how many different artists make up this gallery?"... I want to be able to say that it was just me.

I value versatility in artists, and so naturally, I want to be that way as well.

Art's too awesome to limit yourself to one style.

So anyways, the sketch you see here will be very different from the finished product. Instead of resketching it in the style I want, I'm going to try to just jump right in, and see how it goes. Hopefully it turns out decent, and not a giant mess.

I shall jump into the this world of Wild Things. I will stare them straight into their terrible yellow eyes, and yell "BE STILL!"... and hope they don't eat me.

(Yes, it's a very awful, rough, rushed, sketch, but it gives you an idea of composition I'm going for.)

Close Up:

Kuma Art-Trade: Turkey Legs Race Fast To The Heart

2009-09-18T07:43:00.000-07:00

"Turkey Legs Race Fast To The Heart"

The stomach has an amazing and uncanny connection to the heart. Baron is watching this bigger bear handling his favorite food so well, and is just instantly going ga-ga over it all. Kuma knows he's impressing Baron, and his grin shows it. Baron could use a good friend who knows how to eat, and it looks like he found one.

I really wanted a very warm and vibrant picture. Not only only for the sunset, but because Baron is impressed and enjoying what he sees right now, so his world is suddenly more colorful. Everything's soft, warm, and saturated because I wanted to capture what Baron's feeling.

The water was originally a lot more red, but after having a friend review things, he pointed out that it was just TOO much going on, and everything blended too much. I agreed. I needed a better balance of the warm colors, but I also needed some contrast so things don't get lost, and to make the characters 'pop' more.

So I cooled down the water a bit, and I definitely like the results better.

If you compare to the sketch to the finished piece, you'll also notice that Baron's ears are changed in the finished version, to look more like bear-ears.

This is exactly why it's important to get another perspective on art. I think too many artists (both experienced and new artists) sometimes get a little cocky and don't want to seek out other opinions. Or they'll only want opinions from other artists.

I personally find this to be a huge flaw of arrogance, because really, different perspectives help. Especially because the artist gets so deep into the art, that they'll tend to miss things, because they've been staring so long at it. A fresh pair of eyes from a different person will spot things the artist didn't catch, whether the person is an artist or not. Everyone has a unique perspective because everyone has different life-experiences.

For example, for this picture, my friend who gave me feedback is NOT an artist, but he was able to help me to realize the water was too warm and that it made everything blend too much. He also pointed out that Baron's ears were more dog-like and less-bear-like. I missed these things, because I was so lost in my own art, that I overlooked them.

Another example, I was drawing some characters flying around in bi-planes, and I thought everything looked just fine. But that same friend, just happens to be a HUGE aviation-fan. While me, I just think they're cool, but I wouldn't call myself a FAN per-say. Our perspectives are different. I used reference pictures for the planes, but reference pictures will only take you so far. My friend who's a big aviation fan was able to point out major mistakes in the planes I drew, even though I felt comfortable at first from just the references I had.

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Getting other people's perspectives, whether they're artists or not, is important. Now I'm not saying you have to AGREE to everything that other people tell you. All I'm saying is you should keep an open mind and take into consideration other perspectives and opinions.

I'm glad I had my friend's feedback for this picture. I think it's a better overall picture because of his help.

As soon as Kuma (the artist himself) told me he loved turkey legs (which so happen to be one of my favorites as well), I instantly knew I wanted Baron, whom represents my inner-fat-man, to be eating alongside Kuma bear.

This is the result.

Good food is wonderful and makes life better.

Breadown

After I'm finished inking and coloring, I actually create a new working file, to work and tinker with just the composite flatten images (meaning I have a few layers of the SAME image), and I adjust each layer of that same image and use photoshop masks and adjust the opacity's to blend them all together. This final image is made up of 4 tinkered composites. The above frames may be difficult to notice the changes, but I'll try to break it down for you to see.

1) The foundation of basic coloring. General lighting is there, colors and shadows.

2) I added the stronger sunlight direction from the sunset (coming in on the right side of the picture, then I dimmed the left side slightly.

3) I created a warm and heavy red and magenta composite and adjusted the opacity and layer-masked off the right side of the picture (meaning I have a horizontal gradient of transparency. So on the right side, there's little to nothing of this warm-red-magenta layer, and instead you see the layer underneath.) This is mostly noticeable in the sky, the turkey legs, and Baron's leg and Kuma's hand, and that entire left-side of the picture.

4) Glares and glow. I added the glares on the chains on Kuma's neck, and eyes and such, as well as a glow from the sunset, passing over Kuma's body.

Art Trade: Kuma 2009 - WIP2

2009-09-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

So I've got the linework done here, and the background filled in.

I'm always trying to improve my linework. I try pay attention to my line-weight. A few things affect how much line-weight I apply; things such as: the amount of light hitting the surface, how much weight is on that part of the form, how much tension is being applied to that part of the form, and foreground versus background.

The characters up in front have a higher maximum line-weight than the wooden dock and lamp linework that's behind the two bears. Then the elements even FURTHER back behind the dock, have no linework at all. The goal here is to help control the hierarchy of the elements in the picture-- the things I want to stand out the most will stand out the most, and the things I want to stand out less will stand out less.

This specific picture might not be the best example of all this linework talk, but it's what I usually keep in mind when inking.

If you compare the sketch to the linework, you can also notice that I changed a few things, such as Kuma's hair, Baron's ears, and Baron's muzzle length.

I've also got the beginning of color here. I'm aiming for very vibrant colors and a soft feel. Baron (the bear in the background to the left) is just kind of going gaga in amazement for this bigger bear who just happens to be eating one of his favorite foods, a turkey leg (a man's food!). So to put things kind of in Baron's perspective, the world is a bit more colorful, and things are getting slightly blurry and soft. The sunset helps too.

I want this picture to feel very warm and the colors to feel almost like a dream. I even have the cliche little sparkles in the lake water. The lake water was originally VERY warm... in fact, too warm. A friend of mine looked it over, and made some good points, so I adjusted it to make it a little more cool, for contrast purposes. I planned to have enough warm colors in the ending product, that I wanted at least a LITTLE bit more contrast on the left side.

It's gonna be an all photoshop picture.

Art Trade: Kuma 2009

2009-09-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

Currently doing an art trade with an awesome artist (and funny guy), who goes by Kuma.

Above is my sketch so far. Baron (on the left) is my character, and Kuma (on the right) is his. I'll save detailed scene description for when it's done.

Goin well so far I'd say. It's going to have a warm sunset lighting. Wanted a bit of dynamic with the camera tilt, as it's Baron totally going gaga, I thought that wonky happy feeling would fit the camera tilt.

Time for inking.

Inside All of Us

2009-08-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Click For Full View:

The main character of "Where The Wild Things Are", Max, stands with his scepter and crown, casting a shadow of his inner-wild-thing.

Inside All Of Us Is A Wild Thing.

Close Up:

On a whim today, I was getting myself all hyped up over the upcomming "Where The Wild Things Are" movie, because I was listening to Arcade Fire's "Wake Up", which is the song featured in the trailer for "Where The Wild Things Are".

The song fits perfectly, and as usually, the music and lyrics of this one song, helped influence the picture.

The trailer stills gives me goosebumps, because it feels like SUCH an epic and classic, whimsical, fantasy flick.... like they opened up a kid's imagination, and let it run loose in the real world.

Anyway, so in my excitement, after watching the trailer a million times, I had to doodle up a little simple (possible shirt) design.

Above is the sketch.

By this point of the sketch, I'm still unsure if I'll be going for a polished style, or something more sketchy. I feel like in the past, I've done a lot of loose sketchy pieces, so I'm leaning towards the polished.

Click For Full-View:

Finished.

Decided to go with the more polished and clean-cut look. It really is a shame so much detail is lost in the smaller version. Click the thumbnail for a larger version.

Added a moon behind him, as a reason for the shadow casting, as well as to help balance the entire piece out.

Also available in multiple colored shirts:

The Power of Ice Cream

2009-08-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Ice Cream is a pretty powerful thing. We all know that. It can turn any grim situation, into a delightful one:

Bad day at work? Ice Cream will pick you up.
Relationship problems? Ice Cream will love you unconditionally.
Your mother died? Ice Cream is the best bed-time story.

It just makes life better.

Originally, this shirt design was going to have rainbows, unicorns, candy corn, cotton candy, happy clouds, singing sun, sparkles and glitter, and more to really emphasize the magic Ice Cream has to make the world joyous... But that ended up looking too busy, so I back tracked for a more simple shirt design, and let the chubby fox, the ice cream, and the butterfly do all the talking.

----------

This was done for artfulreggie, as a gift because I was stupid enough to lose my tablet stylus, and he was kind enough to mail me a free one. This is the least I could do. Thanks a lot man! I never got to say thanks, until now!

I’ve been enjoying very saturated colors as of late.

I challenged myself to limit myself to only 7 colors (not including the background shirt color).

AVAILABLE AS A T-SHIRT (in multiple colors):
The folloing example is on a "Creme" colored shirt.

RedBubble's Buyer's Booth

2009-07-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is not me. This is Jordan. Jordan was the first person to buy the "Everything You've Done Wrong" shirt on RedBubble, and sent me a photo of him rocking it out. I just posted it on RedBubble's Buyer's Booth page. On TOP of that, RedBubble JUST selected the picture and slapped it right onto the RedBubble front page to be featured! Awesome! Check it out: http://www.redbubble.com

So to all those who have ever bought a shirt from me, or plans to in the future, take a picture of yourself wearing the shirt, and send it my way, and with your permission, I'll post it on the Buyer's Booth on RedBubble.

What's in it for you? Well here's the deal: RedBubble gives away a $30 gift voucher every week to someone from the Buyer's Booth. If I win that $30 voucher with a photo you sent me wearing a shit that you've purchased from me, then I will give you a FREE shirt of your choosing from my RedBubble page. You may or may not be excited by that idea, but hey, it's free, and "free" is a magical word.

Everything You've Done Wrong (T-Shirt Sale)

2009-07-08T00:22:00.000-07:00

Link: http://www.redbubble.com/people/keto/t-shirts/3383609-1-everything-youve-done-wrong

I can't find my stupid Intuos3 Stylus.... Think of this as a fundraiser. Haha.

Thanks to all those in advanced who even CONSIDER purchasing.

Everything You've Done Wrong

2009-07-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Everything You've Done Wrong

"In your life, you get so High,
there's nowhere left to go but down.
Don't believe,
That noone cares,
'Cause we're here waiting for you, baby."

This is for a friend of mine. I think every since him and I met and started talking, I always thought to myself either "Dude, this guy would be an awesome dad if he was my dad" or "I want to be like him when I grow up." He's got a good heart, and the Universe often seems to just be after him... and that sucks. Tryin to keep a brotha DOWN! But yes. He's one of those people who I think are awesome and deserve more and better.... I'd have his back if he needed help, cause a big guy with a big heart who gets flooded with a ton of crap, needs a break every now and again with the help of his friends.

I've had this idea stuck in my head for months, of Belic (the bear) about to beat the shit out of a great white shark with dynamite and a pic axe. It's a metaphor, to where the pic-axe represents effort, and the shark represents troubles. The dynamite doesn't represent anything, it's just dynamite to blow shit up.

Pushed this thing out as soon as my schedule freed up, and got it done pretty quick. I experimented with a few things here, like the style for one. It's a bit on the comic/illustrative side with some exaggerated lines. I was going for a little bit of dynamics and I tried to limit my colors. This entire style was inspired by an awesome artist, named Jared Moratis (Pop Monkey)... It's very closely related to some styles you see often among skater paraphernalia... with the almost obnoxiously saturated colors and heavy outlines. Love that kind of style, to be honest.

Couple of buddies helped me out with this one, with Reggie taking credit for the dynamite and Kirk help offering the pic-axe. So thanks to them!

This is a Metaphor (wip 2)

2009-07-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

Changed up the arm positions... Trying to find a big of a stronger composition and less awkward looking limbs, yet maintaining a consistent toony style.

It's fun.

On to inking!

Can't wait to color. I want to experiment with some loud-ish colors.

This is a Metaphor (wip)

2009-06-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is a Metaphor.

Here's a work in progress picture of an illustration idea I've had stuck in my head for months now.

The challenge and goal for this piece is to go for something a bit dynamic, and work on a clean illustration style. The finished piece will be in full vector goodness. I also wanted to work on in a perfect-square canvas, and try to compose it to fit well in such a container.

Aino

2009-05-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

"Aino" (incomplete)
16"x20"

This is a photo of an incomplete painting I had started awhile back. I figured I'd post it, as to not forget about it, in hopes to someday finishing it.

Naturally, it's the oh so wonderful German Shepherd, that is Charm, running across the shores of Coronado Dog Beach.

I wanted something with dramatic lighting and colors and bright and fun. For the longest time, I think the first time I saw a yellow Labrador running through the shores of a beach, I have fallen in love with that sight. There is something special about a dog happy as all hell, and water creating a trail of mist and splashes to further emphasize such. It's amazing to see that kind of happiness and stress-free act, of just having a good time living up life. It's enough to make any grown man envious. But getting to watch something like that, I feel like transfers a little over to me.

This painting is done in acrylic, and I ran into some problems with some of the lighting and details and/or lack of detail in other things, and colors, and so on... I had a deadline and other paintings to work on, so I put this piece aside once I had it to a decent state to pick up from eventually. So what you see so far, is mainly just blocked in colors and hue transitions and such.

I have yet to pick up from it and finish it though, but here it is to view. I'm hoping I don't forget about it, and get to finish it someday. But for now, Aino is incomplete, but I kind of liked the direction it was heading.

The Guardian (Breakdown)

2009-05-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Not entirely brand new, but I thought it would be worth posting on Blogspot. I haven't posted this in any galleries, so its exposure is low.

Dont Even Think About It

2009-04-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

"Dont Even Think About It"
3"x4"

Here's a quick birthday badge for a friend of mine, who goes by Triller. I first met when I was about 14.

I experimented a little bit with this one, with style and a bit of the technical aspect of constructing it. I blacked in main shadows with the same color as the linework, and for the most part, used flat colors for the coloring. I aimed for a little bit of a comic feel. Gave it a paper texture.

I tend to experiment more with art for other people, because honestly, who will complain about something that I screwed up on, that they got for free, right?

For the past month or so, I've been really pondering trying a new style and coloring technique, and this picture was a foot in that door.

A friend's first comment was something along the lines of, "Oh wow, it's a nice step away from your usual toony stuff," which was amusing to me, because the ORIGINAL sketch was INCREDIBLY toony. Then I erased the entire thing and started anew, deciding to go for a bit more of a mature look.

Done all in photoshop, but while I was inking and coloring, I was really thinking I should've done it in vectors.

Neuter Your Robo Pup (v.2)

2009-04-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

Neuter Your Robo Pup (v.2)
6-color

This is a secondary redesign of a shirt design, for TeeFury.com

It's a robo-pup, with a band-aid on his crotch, and a "404" reading on his eyes. For those who don't know, a "404" error occurs when the client makes communication with a server and the requested file is missing. In which case, for this picture, the robo-pup's reproductive organs are missing. Sad day, I know. The speech bubbles reads: "ARF" in binary.

By the power of nerds and dog-lovers combined, comes a shirt idea.

First Post.

2009-04-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Internet...come here...I want to see you.