Concept Sketches: The Bully

Here are some concept sketches for one of the supporting characters. I wanted to give him this imposing, troubled home life, probably held back a few years-type look. I also wanted him to have some greasy looking mullet hair. I had fun coming up with the body design and his knuckle-dragging arms. Enjoy!

Three Pigs Project Aftermath.

Well the activity with the kids went well. It's interesting to hear the comments from kids about your work especially if they don't know you were the one who drew it. They were told they had a "professional artist" draw them (hardly). Immediately the critics began questioning the content.

One kid, pointing to the big bad wolf page, "Seriously?" (that one made me laugh). Another kid, "you said there were three pigs and I only count two houses!" (there were three, he just hadn't gotten all the way through). And another, "these two pigs don't look little, you said it was 'The Three Little Pigs.'"

Once the initial critiques faded the story was read to them. Here is where I felt I failed. I made the pages based on my own memory of the story and not off any source material. The story that was read was pulled randomly off the Internet, which has numerous continuity difference from my 9 illustrations. I think the version read was some orignal Brothers Grimm version because there was much more murdering in that story than I drew.

The kids liked it in the end and it was fun seeing them pour over the drawings. I found the critcism from kids rather refreshing even if some of them were misplaced. Kid's have a great and sometimes annoying ability to tell the truth regardless of whether you asked them for it or not. It's not candy coated and for the most part it's honest. If given the opportunity I would definitely do it again... I'll just make sure the correct story is read.

Three Pigs: Finished!

Hey all! I finally, after one late night cram session, finished this three pigs project I've been working on. I think given the time constraints this turned out really well. For those that need to be brought up to speed read THIS. Tomorrow is the big day so we'll see if they like what they see. Enjoy!

Three Pigs: Pages 1 and 2 of 10

These are the finished pages for the Three Pigs project I'm working on. Not sure if I went too dark with the Big Bad Wolf but I figure kids these days see scarier stuff than this. Gotta set the villain up good early on. Enjoy!

Three Pigs: Page 1 of 10

I posted the other day about this project at work for the Bring Your Child to Work Day. I got a rough idea for each page and I just started on page one. There won't be any text on these illustrations so I get to use all the space. This opening page will be a character introduction. Using the concept sketches I put a little more detail into them. I decided to do some hatching on this project just because I like the look of it with the rotund characters. The background is a work in progress. I'm trying to get a more fairy tale look but given the harshness of the hatching on the characters I might modify it a bit to match. Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Concept Sketches: Books

Not wanting to give too much away, books play a huge role in my new webcomic. Growing up I loved to read adventure stories. I still love to dive into the lore of certain worlds that writers create. This is one trait I wanted the main character to have in my own story. I figured since I would be using books a lot in my webcomic I should start practicing drawing them. For my lunch sketch I took some time to draw books, books and more books. One in particular should help explain an earlier sketch. Enjoy!

Three Pigs Concept Art

While my day job isn't cartoon related in the least bit, I occasionally get to do something with my art for special events. I was informed the other day that "Bring Your Child to Work" day is coming up and they wanted to put on an activity to teach the kids about what we do in the Bureau of Mitigation using a well known story, The Three Little Pigs.

On my other website I posted a gag strip I did awhile back involving this story  and apparently it took hold like wild fire around here (see below). It's now used as the "go to" analogy when talking about mitigation to someone who has never heard of it. Well now they wanted a few illustrations to show these kids and give them something to take home. I took my normal sketch time during lunch to do some concept art for these characters. I gave them some new looks to make them stand out more, as well. I put in some process shots for funsies (see after the break). Enjoy!

Concept Sketches: Character profile

Working out some of the details with one of the characters. One thing I wanted to avoid with this new webcomic that I fell into with "My HMP" was not having a solid design for each character. When I first drew Edgar I got it to a point where I was like ,"that's good enough." It hurt me down the road because I could never draw him consistently. It was only until about strip #80 where I was able to draw him and the other characters the same. Below you will see some concepts for one of the supporting characters. I reverted back to dotted eyes rather than framed ones just because I like the look of them on the characters. I will probably do an occasional frame eye to emote certain looks, but for the most part it will be pretty minimalist.

If you're wondering what this has to do with yesterday's concept art, you'll have to wait and see. Enjoy!

Concept Sketches: Pirates!

Hey all. I'm hoping to do more lunch sketches on top of some other process pieces for this blog. I'm still not ready to reveal anything substantive about the webcomic I'm working on, but these sketches might help you imagine what it might be. First up is some pirate concepts. Working on different builds. Enjoy!

Fresh Start

This blog will serve as my base of operations until the new webcomic goes live. Until then I will be using this space to post sketches and production/concept art for the webcomic and other junk floating around in my head.