Thursday Afternoon Sketch

GARASTIMPY
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I have been working really hard on a couple of different photo retouch assignments and I decided I needed to take a break and this drawing was the result of my time well spent.

So, since I seem to be only working in photoshop as of late, and not doing much traditional drawing. I have been trying to sketch as much as possible so my drawing skills do not become rusty.

The sketch above was inspired by the Japanese Ultraman character "Garamon", and the wonderful Spumco character, "Stimpy". I have been revisiting all of those old Ren and Stimpy cartoons that I enjoyed so much while I was in college. It is amazing that they still inspire me today just as much as they did way back then.

If you are at all interested in Garamon, please check out Michael Nordstom's blog Garamania!.
It is a great source of well researched info and pictures for all things Garamon.

Joy,

Jack

Monday Morning Pickled Sketch

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Today's meeting was something about new procedures, iChat, and we have a lot of work so everyone needs to put forth 110%......


.......... the really important thing I got out of today's meeting was this sketch.

Enjoy,

Jack

Friday Afternoon Pickled Sketch

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I had another informative meeting today..........

.......... this sketch was the result of all of that information.

Jack

Friday Morning Pickled Sketch

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I sketched during today's morning meeting....... I drew a couple of shapes and the drawing evolved from there.

Enjoy,

Jack

Inquest Magazine illustrations

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I was cleaning out some old files today and stumbled upon these four illustrations. These were done for Inquest gaming magazine for a feature called "What If? Far Side of Magic" back in 2002. Basically I was asked to illustrate the Inquest staff's ideas for their own Magic the Gathering gaming cards. The image above has the original rough sketches that I sent in for approval on the left, on the right you will see I had to make a few changes for the final illustrations.

Here is a list of the descriptions I was given when I was asked to do the illustrations:

1. There’s a card called Thriss, Nantuko Primus (I’ll send it to you). This is a powerful praying mantiss type creature. We’re turning it into: Priss, Nantuko Crossdresser. Illo has a Thriss-like creature wearing pink ballerina dress, lipstick, a purse etc... looking very feminine.

2. There’s a card called Border Patrol (I could send it but it’s not a
useful reference). We’re turning it into: Mexican Border Patrol. Illo has
two guys in sombreros sleeping next to a fence, wall or gate of some kind. A huge dragon is walking right by.

3. There are several cards depicting a class of creatures called Treefolk. They’re big humanoid trees (I have a great reference I can send). Our card is Inbred Treefolk. Illo has two of these tree creatures wearing ratty overalls, buck teeth, one has a banjo, etc… Basically treefolk meets hillbillies.

4. There’s a card called Nantuko Monastery. Our take on it is called Nantuko Mensroom. Illo is of three bathroom stalls with only the feet of the creatures visible. One set of feet belongs to an elephant, one to a skeleton and one to a Cephalid (I’ll send a reference but basically a four-tentacled squid). There’s some graffiti on the outside of the stalls but on the door of the middle stall there’s a big red circle with a line through the middle (the international road symbol for prohibited) with the word Spelljacking in the middle.

These illustrations were really fun for me to do. Since I have never really been much of a painter, I decided that I would do very tight pencil renderings of the images and then simulate a "painted" look by coloring them in Photoshop. I think that the look and feel of these illustrations came out very unique and was able to pass as an actual illustration used for these gaming cards.

Unfortunately, this ended up being one of the last jobs I did for Wizard Magazine (and their sister publications), before I moved on to pursue my short career in Law Enforcement full time.

Enjoy,

Jack

Monday Morning Pickled Sketch

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While cleaning up my studio this morning and dealing with the pain from my sinus surgery that I had on Friday, I came across my Father's Senior High School photo and thought that I would sit down and see if I could draw a decent likeness of him...... It has always been a real challenge for me to capture a likeness and draw a decent portrait. It is even harder for me when I know the person and I am trying to capture a likeness that does the person justice and does not offend them. I always put too much pressure on myself when drawing people that I know and love. That pressure takes all of the fun out of drawing portraits and because of that I do not draw them very often.
Recently, I have decided to make a conscious effort to draw more portraits and not worry about who I am drawing and just focus on the basic fundamentals of structure and form when I am drawing a portrait. If the basic fundamentals are there, a likeness should not be hard to achieve.
This drawing of my Father represents my first step in this direction.... Although I did not capture a dead on likeness, it was good practice and can only lead towards getting better. I am planning on updating the blog on my progress as I attempt to do more portrait drawing in the future.

Enjoy,

Jack

Pickle Flavored Slurpee

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The Dallas division of the company I work for was having a submission contest for some really cool prizes over at the Slurpee website. They were about to launch phase 2 of the new and improved Slurpee web site and needed new content. So they put out a company wide call for creatives to contribute content to the site so that it did not look bare.
There were all kind of categories you could contribute to such as: "The Spoon Straw", "Brain Freeze", "Slurpee Drinking", "Slurpee and Granny", "Your Special Mix", etc........ The entries could be anything from photos, video and even poetry.


I contributed the lovely drawing above to the "Suggest a Flava" category. I of course had to suggest a "Pickle" flavor.

Enjoy,

Jack