Animation coming soon!
Caveman Character
Found this Hilarious Commercial
The facial animation on these 3D characters is amazing!
Vampire Bug
We can finally show this little guy. He's an addition to the Renewables campaign (an on-going project with one of our clients). I did 24 concepts and then 8 alternate sketches for the selected design. From there we did 24 color options. The wings open up and a jet engine is revealed--this sucker flies! We'll most likely be animating him soon for the Renewables website.
Sketch Pad 02
Here are some more sketches from the character dev project discussed in the Sketch Pad #08. The initial idea was to make the "iconic" figure into 3D art. We all thought this would add flavor to it for sure and make it stand out. Originally, the character was going to be an animal but that wasn't what everyone had in mind. Then the top sketch (shown above) almost made it but got killed by upper management. A concept was finally chosen after 3-4 weeks (not shown). After the process of getting color schemes approved, etc. I created a tight psd color comp and a vector version of the character at their request. The client loved the color comp so much that they decided to go with it instead and scratch the 3D direction
Dinosaur Magnets!
I can finally show these! Last year, a client came to me wanting the one thing I've been dying to do...dinosaurs! I did 12 dinosaurs and a background. These were magnets that went onto magnet board. The client told my rep that they can't keep the product in stock--they're flying off the shelves!
New Logo for Pixel Boy...and New Website
Somehow, we squeezed this "rehaul" project in among the many other projects that are currently going. I thought I'd share some sketches during the process and the new final identity. I designed our last logo in a hurry and frankly, it didn't read well when it was small. It was too iconic and didn't say "illustration"...this one does. The website is looking real slick and will be up sometime this week--hopefully.
Our Character in a Parade!
One of our evil-doer characters was in a Denver, CO parade. This is him getting loaded up. And that's him above in our masthead for this blog. The trailer behind him has a few more of our characters printed on the sides. Those propped-up panels on the top of the trailer are actual solar panels...these characters were created to teach children about "green" technologies.
10 Points for Self-Publishers Hiring an Illustrator
10 Points covered:
1) Are You Attempting to Contact a Publishing Firm with Your Concept?
2) Create a Project Brief
3) Expected Costs on an Estimate
4) What Do You Mean by "Rights and Licensing"?
5) What if I Need to Cancel My Project?
6) How is an Illustrator Usually Paid?
7) When is Payment Due?
8) Do Your Research, Know Your Market & Have a Plan
9) NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement)
10) Speculative Work
Sketch Pad 01
This week's scraps from the sketchbook. These preliminary sketches were part of a character development project. I believe I sketched out at least 20 different directions before one was agreed upon. I burned the midnight candle on this one! In every phase, the art director and I always agreed on our favorite picks but there seemed to be conflicting direction with the upper management--not unusual. I own the copyright for the concept work since the client was only interested in the purchase of the final character. I had to hire a lawyer to make sure the situation was fair--everyone was happy in the end. The final character will be used as a branding icon for a series of books sold worldwide. I'll post some more later..
Baseball in the Bedroom Trailer
We recently did this quick book trailer for our client. Bringing some life to all these static images that we've been working on for months is really exciting! We used After Effects CS5 and Modo 501 on the project. So far, we've received nothing but praise on the book and the trailer! Peter Gammons, the famous baseball announcer, did the foreword to the book--which is awesome. I always love seeing the process--so, I attached the storyboards. There was some deviation--we added a background to the beginning to give it life and color AND we placed the book on a bed to give it the "bedroom" factor. Written by Julie Kicklighter Foreword by Peter Gammons.
Children's Interactive Book
Cover art for our in-development 22-page interactive picture book app on www.kickstarter.com. It will be produced for the iPad and the Kindle Fire. The story will have interactive touch points for the kids to discover sounds, additional narrative and voice-over. Sir Nighty Knight is an adventurous and whimsical story about a knight who rides his goat across the The Land of Zeez.
If you have time, please check out our project on the funding site. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1767325640/sir-nighty-knight
You can see concept sketches and some process in the video.
Luxology Mentions Our App in Modcast!
Luxology mentioned our Chump Genius project on their weekly modcast! It's nice to be discussed along side some really great artists! They even posted our project art on their gallery page-- http://www.luxology.com/gallery