Art & Nostalgia

Unintentional chibis...

2012-01-18T11:14:00.001-08:00

So, I'm planning to run a D&D game, and as I was writing the history of the deep dwarves, i felt compelled to draw the deep dwarf princess. Think I might use this to study some digital painting in the near future...

As i'm drawing this graphic novel, I keep bumping into snags. I haven't really drawn a comic since high school, so things like "Oh, I can't ACTUALLY draw those" or "What does this character wear again" pop up frequently. This is a little diagram of the main character outfits.

2012 Sketch a day: 001, 002, 003, & 004

2012-01-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

First day back home from the long holiday adventure. Here are some scans of sketches done in the last couple of days...mostly. First is actually from a few months ago when Blizzard announced the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft. They released a lot of concept art, but none of female Pandarans. I figured i'd try my hand at it using influences from...well, fighting games and Kung Fu movies.

Next up, Spider-Man is a busy New Yorker, so i imagine sometimes he has to take bagels down in one bite.

I've had this idea for an animation about the adventures of a bard. The style is derivative of the Final Fantasy III remake for the nintendo ds.

Finally, one of the characters from my graphic novel is just...I dunno, she needs work. So this is me fiddling around trying to pin down the design of "Giest".

More character dev for the graphic novel

2011-06-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you just joining us, I've been working on a graphic novel...The Great American Graphic Novel! As a side note, character design is kind of my thing, so I have A LOT of development sketches.

Ok, so a colleague asked me how Amazona's battle kilt worked. Basically, its made of twelve alternating strips of a heavy leather-like material. Even numbered strips on the outside and odd on the inside. So, it falls like a long skirt with slits, 'cause sometimes a lady needs to axe-kick people.

Amazona v.5938659857075057057

2011-06-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

Don't feel like I'm nailing this design. Something is off, and whatever that thing is, makes her no fun to draw. The hair's a blast, though :)

All Star X-Men sketches...

2011-06-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

So, what would YOU do if you had a chance to create an X-Men series? A friend and I had been batting around ideas just for the hell of it and that conversation put some cool design ideas in my head. This is a rough approximation of how I'd handle Beast.

2011-06-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

More concept art for the graphic novel. Some people have commented that his mask looks like spiderman, but actually its supposed to look like one of those Area51 aliens with the spooky black eyes. Te second pic, I just wanted to work on the color scheme a little. Think I'll go with a lighter gray next time.

Same character...

2011-06-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

...with her girlfriend. This is a sketch for a splash page late in the book. I had a very clear vision of how her hair would be splayed out on the bed while she stares blankly into nowhere. But I wound up copping out :( Sometimes that happens in the sketching stages. Hopefully, I'll have it worked out by the time I get to the actual story-page.

What I've been up too...

2011-06-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been working on "The Great American Graphic Novel". The founding fathers intended for us to have the freedoms needed to make a graphic novel, and I've been pounding away. Since I'm keeping the story pages top secret, I hadn't been posting.

But for you, my loyal Briamaniacs, I will post sketches!

These are some developement sketches for one of the main characters. Sometimes I need to design what a character's back looks. Being an animator, a quick alternate view sketch becomes a hole page of "Oh how do her teeth look when she smiles" "Where does her hair part when she wears pigtails"...But sometimes I just warm-up by drawing a character doing regular everyday activities.

Artstream: Ed McGuinness

2011-04-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

Maybe you weren't paying attention...but this guy is doing some of the best mainstream work in the industry. As the legend goes (and don't quote me on this) Ed Mcguinness was a pizza delivery boy. By a stroke of luck, won the lottery and was like "Wow, now I can stop worrying about survival and devote myself to breaking in to comics." He paid his dues, showing sample pages to editors and pros at conventions, and eventually found himself pencilling a Deadpool miniseries. We loved Ed's work...We loved Deadpool, and so Mcguinness got more chances to prove his awesomeness. He started working with Jeph Loeb on Fighting American for Awesome Comics, and that relationship flourished into a full-on creative team. The two even made it to the top of the mountain: Superman. The Loeb-McGuinness Superman run is one of the best the series has ever seen, and after a ridiculous ammount of issues, they finally moved on to something new...Superman/Batman. I won't get started on the brilliance of that particular concept, as this is a post about art. After Superman/Batman, Ed "signed on" at Marvel, but the original Ultimates4 idea he was supposed to do got canned. Red Hulk became McGuiness' new project, and OMG, that book is crazy! At first, we were all on the fence about the story, but after about five issues of Hulks having Dragonball-scale battles, you kinda stop caring about why they're fighting in the first place. Keep an eye out for McGuiness' next project, he rarely fails to impress.

Supergirl art battle?!

2011-03-01T06:48:00.000-08:00

So, I participated in an art battle on penciljack.com the topic "Supergirl". Now my opponent did a really cool piece of Supergirl fighting generic robot in the citay. I'm not being sarcastic, its really pretty cool. I on the other hand focused on the "girl" part and tried to do something reminiscent of Masakazu Katsura's I''s covers. Penciljack didn't really get it. They complained about the photo background and the "simple pin-up" pose (to which I say 'try copying it and you'll find out what makes it complex'). From now on, I'll play the penciljack game, but I just wanted to show this to all the briamaniacs out their and explain that I'm still an artist even though its gonna start to look like I'm selling out and not trying things or challenging myself...

Vitriolic. I really don't mean for this to sound as spiteful as it probably does. This is one of those instances where seeing something in plain text really strips it of a lot of inflection and context.

Also, for those interested, I upgraded my phone to the G2. Its incredible! Does everything that the Itouch did (music and art inspiration on the go) with a LOT of freedom that comes from the AndroidOS. This is not a joke. The phone is bad-meaning good. My favorite thing about it right now is the Gameboy Advance emulator. I've been playing Pokemon Ruby :P
On that note, I've also been experimenting with more XBOX 360 games. Top of the list right now are Gears of War 2 and Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.

Regained my muchness?!

2011-01-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

As part of my resolve to produce more "finished" work, I dug up a cleanly drawn piece and colored it. I'm still experimenting with different styles, but I've gotten good feedback from this. Its a very simple medium flats/tins/shades technique. I think I need to fool around with more lighting effects.

repost...

2011-01-10T11:40:00.001-08:00

new portfolio site and new artworks soon...i promise.

Happy 2K11!!

2011-01-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

These are some quick life drawings from Dr. Sketchy's Philadelphia last month. The model was REALLY easy to draw. I sometimes, in the scramble to keep up appearances and stuff, forget how much I love the actual act of drawing...I'm reminded of this EVERY time i go to a life drawing class!

The science of old-school RPGs...

2010-10-27T09:32:00.001-07:00

So, I was testing emulators on my vaio netbook today. Now as some of you know, the best emulators run most games very well. You'd have no problem playing Super Mario World on any emulator. The problem comes in with Squaresoft RPGs. Now, I loaded up Final Fantasy 1&2: Dawn of Souls for the gameboy advance. The emulation was pretty bad for the intro, but I wanted to see how it would handle the actual game. Pressing start about 257209562 times lead me to the "opening cinematic". It began with this operatic score...I mean, this music was epic! But the visuals behind it was a bunch of cutesy 16-bit sprites. I particulary recall a scene that just had a rinky-dink tower on barren desert world map with a partical system covering the wholescreen and moving left to right. At that moment, I thought "I actually like that these simple graphics and symbols let my imagination handle this 'Tower standing in the sandstorm image. I thought "This is why I still like these games". Now you think about it. You thought Magus was cool in '96. The rinky-dink graphics of Chrono Trigger only nudged you in the direction of how to invision that character, but your imagination, powered by all the things you'd seen and experienced at the age of 15 made him cool for you. Now think of how differently you might have envisioned that character AFTER seeing Ninja Scroll or Princess Mononoke. Now think of how you might see him in the present, after seeing more recent animated awesomeness! Point is, i realized that the way I see a game like Final Fantasy VI changes as i change. It grows with me. Final Fantasy X does NOT. And neither does any other RPG made after....Maybe Wild Arms 2074523056 is old school style, but who cares about Wild Arms. A lot of you missed out on this experience because you only really got into RPGS with FF7, But I think that you might all be able to relate this concept to RTS/RPG hybrid games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea.

335 Days of Scetches!!

2010-10-25T20:51:00.001-07:00

So I've been watching a lot of TV since the invention of Hulu and Netflix Watch Instantly on my ps3 & wii. One of my guilty pleasures is a fox show called "House". Structurally, its a terrible concept for a show. Basically Greg House is the Sherlocke Holmes of medical maladies...literally, he's Sherlock Holmes the way Neo was Jesus. Even though it can be predictable, I still like mysteries and i love Love LOVE Sherlock Holmes. This is a sketch of that character painfully scanned on my piece of crap all-in-one. Find me in real life if you want to see the ACTUAL drawing :P As a side note the original title for the show was "Everybody Lies" :)

336 Days of Scetches!!

2010-10-25T20:48:00.001-07:00

As you've probably guessed, i managed to get a scanner up and running so there will be more post daily as i try to catch up with the ridiculous goal of posting a sketch a day for the year 2010. The explanation for this pic is "Sometimes you just wanna draw a ninja turtle...what else can i say?"

336 Days of Scetches!!

2010-10-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I was on a subway train leaving University City and the car was kind of packed. I wound up just standing by the door. Facing me and about a foot and a half away was this really hip looking girl. She was wearing those huge sunglasses and a black t-shirt with the name of some trade school I'd never heard of (and don't even remember for that matter). I asked what the school was and she said "Cosmetolegy!" I thought to myself "Of course your hair is so neat and shiny, you a artist of making people pretty"

337 Days of Scetches!!

2010-08-12T14:51:00.001-07:00

Another of my Warcraft avatars, Qlippoth! She's a gnome deathknight. This pick isn't finished, she's actually staring down a huge dragon, but that drawing was "unscanably incomplete". Its really fun to draw gnomes in clunky armor. fact.

338 Days of Scetches!!

2010-08-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

This is Totoroh, one of my World of Warcraft characters. He's kind of like a bear-bull beast thing. One of my favorite ideas in WoW is that you can play as a 4-legged creature, which seems novel to me :)

339 Days of Scetches!!

2010-08-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Playing catch-up on the skatch-a-day project, so you guys are gonna see EVERYTHING for a little while. This is an idea that has been lingering in the back of my mind for some time. Basically, Lane is a swordswoman from a sci-fi space opera i was working on last year. I wanted to make her kind of tomboyish. Like, she's not a "romantic interest" sort of character, so in the design, i tried to make her more androgenous and eventually had the idea to give her a mohawk that falls on one side. Plays on the idea of a kind of androgeny where instead of look like either male of female, she'd look masculine on one side and feminine from another...

340 Days of Scetches!!

2010-08-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

Working out the design for an unnotable character in my comic. Also, i tapped into the old super-deformed style to work out a costume for Dark Detective...nothing past the mask really :(

341 Days of Scetches!!

2010-08-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just copy photos from magazines to study lighting or anatomy...but sometimes I just wanna draw someone i think is cute :P

Got a new sketchbook recently. A Moleskine...a BIG moleskine. Its like 9x10. Don't really like the yellow paper, but otherwise its really cool and i can't wait to bombard its pages with sketches!

Artstream: Olivier Coipel!

2010-08-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Just so you guys know, Olivier Coipel is my current favorite comic artist. Just saying. This guy's stuff is AMAZING! He has masterful control over lighting techniques and inanimate objects. A background in animation shows through in his comic work in a wide range of physical expression...and the action? omfg.

You know, what i really like about Coipel's work is the ambition. He just tackles these huge concepts with everything he's got. I feel like I'm 10 years old and looking at Jim Lee stuff in the 90s again. Sometimes I even say out loud "Does this guy live next door to a thunder god he can constantly use as a reference!?"

342 Days of Sketches!

2010-07-05T15:45:00.001-07:00

I've been messing around with these copic markers :) If you guys remember the character...its Star Angel! (Yes, these are the official colors)

343 Days of Sketches!

2010-07-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

...lot of trouble posting today.
This is Shera. She's a murderous thug...say's that on her business card.

Artstream: Masakazu Katsura

2010-04-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

Around my second year of college I was introduced to the work of this Japanese comic creator. Since then, Masakazu Katsura has been a huge influence on me as an artist. What I liked the most was how subtly the over detailed work goes together. His backgrounds are like photos but he seamlessly blends them with these manga characters. His action is great, too, and his romance illustrations are unparalleled. What I think other people will easily notice though, is the strength of his storytelling. This guy does AMAZING panel work. I uploaded a scanned/translated page from on of his more popular mangas, I"s. Also, and as a side note, Katsura worked closely with Akira Toriyama in their Shonen Jump days, and just like how I sometimes draw Triumph for Henry, I guess he did the same sometimes :)

Keith is probably the only one who can really appreciate that Goku.

On a related note, I've recently started watching the I"s Pure anime. Katsura had his hand in the production, just like with Video Girl Ai, but I"s is really an epic so crunching it down to 6 episodes, kinda hurts. I'd like to hear someone's opinion on the anime who hasn't read the comic.

344 Days of Sketches!

2010-03-09T09:04:00.001-08:00

Here are some redesigns for the Studio Monster mascot "Mister Monster". Wanted to try something with a bigger head, but that turned out to be too cute, so I settled on the left version.

345 Days of Sketches!

2010-02-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

Went to the Wicked Faire last weekend. Its kind of a Steampunk Ren fair, and this year it was Alice in Wonderland themed. Lots of fun. My favorite part was the performers who were just skulking around in the shadows waiting to jump out and entertain me with belly dancing or magic tricks. Also, there were lots of Top Hats with goggles around them...very Victorian style sci fi.

346 Days of Sketches!

2010-02-28T16:38:00.001-08:00

Little Big Planet is a blast. I recently got this red cape and I just want to put it on every costume!

John K is weird...

2010-02-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

So i was in the supermarket the other day and passed by this really cool looking 50s retro cereal box called Quisp... I flipped it over and there was a John Kricfalusi comic strip on the back! It was 3 bucks, so I grabbed it for "artistic inspiration", but when I sat down in front of a bowl, it was not inspiring at all! It was Captain Crunch in a cool box. I don't regret it though, because the box is reeeeeeally cool.

347 Days of Sketches!

2010-02-28T12:59:00.000-08:00

Every time I get a new sketchbook, I draw a character on the first page and write a letter to myself. The letter includes words of encouragement, advice, and sometimes a P-Wing to get through those tougher stages...

348 Days of Sketches!

2010-02-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

KAME-HAME...
Sometimes you just feel like drawing Goku. Annoyingly, I kept pushing the pose by hunching him over, but if I had moved the drawing up on the page, i could have probably got that foot on the page :(

Shuffled into Jupiter Jazz while drawing this, so now I'm in a good mood :)

349 Days of Sketches!

2010-02-06T21:16:00.000-08:00

Running a behind schedule do to lethargy and metal gear solid 4, expect multiple posts in the next couple of days.

I draw Wonder Woman a lot these days. Maybe more than the Hulk, Captain America, or even Wolverine (who holds the all-time record for me at like 0285698565 drawings). I hope to color this once I get a computer that can handle Painter :(

Artstream 101: Construction 2a (or Crisis on Infinite Art Supplies)

2010-01-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

I ran out of col-erase blue lead, so I couldn't finish the drawing..but this should be enough to get the point across.

Today we talk about fleshing out a character from basic lines of construction. On the right, there's a quick sketch of the basic arm construction I use and to the left of that is the same thing fleshed out with arm muscles. From years of studying musculature (for drawing super heroes and the like), I have a pretty well formed idea of how I'd like them to look. This is something I recommend even in the early stages of an artists career. You'll notice in the sketch to the left that I've done the construction in graphite and the fleshing is in blue. I usually make the head about the size i want it to be in the finished drawing, but the rest of the body's construction is a bit smaller as to function underneath the flesh like bones.

This particular blog article will be discontinued as I'm writing a book from the subject matter I'd planned to cover here.

350 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-26T17:21:00.001-08:00

Here we have some doodles from my moleskine of an original character from my "League of Defenders" project called The Wraith. I wanted to fiddle around with the hood a bit with different designs, but really just winding up.

351 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-19T20:29:00.001-08:00

Lisa Simpson dresses oddly. Anyone else notice she wheres a Flintstones dress? Groening says that The Simpsons were named after his own family, so maybe his daughter Lisa liked to play cavewoman...

352 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-17T12:26:00.001-08:00

This is an older piece that I recently unearthed and decided to blog about. Its Makoto from Street Fighter III: Third Strike. She's has an awrard build, kinda stocky with big hands and feet, so she's A LOT of fun to draw. Watercolor is not my favorite medium, but its fun and I hope to work with it more in the near future.

Artstream 101: Construction!

2010-01-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, so This is the first installment of Artstream 101, a crash coarse in character art conducted by me, Brian Charles. Disclaimer: If you feel as though you're a "better" artist than I am (AND don't have the intestinal fortitude to challenge me to an art battle) rest assured that the information included in Artstream 101 is regurgitated from wise masters of the character design craft. Thusly speaking, if you've studied The Illusion of Life, Chuck Amuck, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and Constructive Anatome, you can probably skip this coarse and meet up with us for Artstream 102 :P
I hope to build up from very basic breakdowns and sketching tech to sequential art, animation, and eventually I'll teach you guys how to play Rival Schools.

First order of business is construction. Everyone who draws characters well uses construction, and I know that you might think you've seen the pros NOT using construction, but lemme tall ya, you're wrong. Think of it like the basics of a sport. When you first tried to dribble a basketball, you did it with two hands and probably bounced your whole body with the ball. As you become more advanced, you learn to practice dribbling with one hand, so that you can switch hands to avoid defenders (your first crossover). Stay with me, this is the important part... Once you've mastered switching your dribble from hand to hand, to the point where you can do it through your legs and behind your back without looking, you're not even thinking about the day you learned to NOT dribble with both hands. Your body remembers the practice and activates everything you learned whenever needed. Drawing construction is like that. The more you do it, the less you have to think about it, to the point where you don't even have to lay down a sketch all the time. But lets not jump ahead :P

The image in this post will be referred to as fig-1. In fig-1, you see my basic construction for a character. You can probably expect to develop your own style at some point, and bare in mind that it took me years to settle in to doing it this way. I first learned this specific style of construction from the book "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" when I was 12 or 13. It involves using circles and lines to map out a stick figure that can be posed in different ways before fleshing it out to look like a specific character.
I start with the head by drawing a circle at the point that I want the cranium to be. Then I round out a jawline with a half oval underneath. A horizontal line drawn about the points where the oval jawline and the cranium circle meet gives me a basic idea of where the eyes will go, and a vertical line crossing that will show where the nose will go. Yes, drawings of characters that are not referenced with photos or models should have that sort of symmetry. I know everyone's eyes don't line up perfectly and all noses are not in the center of the face, but drawing is about making something that "looks" correct, not necessarily something that "is" correct (more ranting about this later).
From there, I draw a line from the head down that will basically indicate the spinal column. A large circle represents the torso.Toward the top of that on each side are small circles where the shoulders will be and lines going down the sides representing upper arms that go into small circles which are for the elbows, another line segment for the lower arm and a circle at the end for hands. The spinal column line goes down to a horizontal oval which will be the pelvic area, with circles on the end where the legs meet the pelvis and lines that drop down from there for the upper leg that go into circles for the knees. Another pair of vertical lines that rep the lower leg and a jumble of circles for feet. Now, I know that pelvises don't actually work that way but in years of development through my personal style of construction, I found that using a triangle (with the singular point facing down) which is the "normal" way to handle this area lead me to drawing REALLY tiny waists, so I came up with this to give my characters a more solid feel.
The feet are composed of a very small circle for the ankle, a bigger circle for the heel, and a sort of triangular oval for the front of the foot. The reason for all of this is that the position of the feet REALLY balances out a pose. Much like how the head requires a lot of construction to determine the direction the face is pointing, the feet also need a lot of fleshing out at this stage.
You'll notice that most of my lines are curved slightly in toward the body or out away from the body, and that the directions of the curves alternate. This is a technique sometimes referred to as "controposto" that gives character drawing a more relaxed and natural feel. I'll do a lesson on "line of action" later, but for those of you who know about it already, this controposto construction gives a line of action to different parts of the body and helps to make dynamic poses less mechanical.
Ok, that's part one of construction. Next week we'll discuss fleshing out the body and talk about how to use this construction for dynamic posing.

353 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-14T09:10:00.001-08:00

The other day, Tess handed me a pamphlet for the online Japanese culture clothing store called maruione.jp. It had some cool costume ideas and when I saw this one in particular, another idea i'd been sitting on surface. And so I give you creepy-eye-faced-lolita!

354 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm sick as a dog, so this'll be short. Had the strangest compulsion to draw anthro. This is the first time i've tried this in a while, and while I like the way this fox character came out and feel like I'm getting the hang of how this style is supposed to work, it'll probably be a while before you guys see a finished anthro piece from me :(

355 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a little diddy I sketched for conceptart.org. They do a weekly sketch jam called "Character of the Week" (or CHOW), where the moderator posts a character concept and everyone is invited to post their interpretation. This one was called "The Observer"
and was supposed to be some entity that roams around exploring. I thought of some crazy stuff, but in the end I just felt like drawing a chic with wings :P

Feedback?

2010-01-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

Ok Briamaniacs, I've been throwing up sketches exery day for the last week or so and I'm wondering if that's enough to satisfy you guys. Remember when I used to do a weekly artstream post where I'd talk about a different artist every week? I'm thinking about starting that up again. Maybe more about other things I'm into like boxing and video games...

How about comic reviews?

356 days of sketches!

2010-01-11T08:06:00.001-08:00

"I thought you were made of sterner stuff"
Keith and I were shooting the breeze the other day and I mentioned how if I could cast an Avengers animated series, I'd have Peter Cullen (the voice of Optimus Prime) voice Captain America. Then I got carried away with who would direct and write and other voice talents...It was fun, and lead to this cap sketch. 616 Cap is hard to draw because you have to capture his physical youth and his psychological age (I mean, I guess you don't have to, but I don't see what the fun in drawing would be if you weren't trying things like that all the time).

357 days of sketches!

2010-01-10T14:01:00.001-08:00

This was a Queen of Hearts costume I was asked to design. Before you start busting my balls and saying its uninspired, you should know that it had to include a conventional skirt and top. Also, I had the idea that there would also be a cloak which would ramp up the coolness exponentially. All that being said, it was fun to draw :P

358 days of sketches!

2010-01-08T19:32:00.001-08:00

Pipeline was a human paladin I used to play in World of Warcraft. Really this is a drawing of his sword and shield. The sword, Titanguard, Is this thick, stocky claymore that tapers out from tip to hilt. It really feels like a tank weapon...i love it. And the shield, I think its called Shieldwall of the Breaker, is just magnificent looking. It has the creepy old-looking gray face in the middle...very clever.

359 days of sketches!

2010-01-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

Super Brian Charles! This is a quick drawing of the main character for a platform game I'm working on in flash...And when I say "working on" i mean "lazily animating and scrounging up codes". I started the project after playing New Super Mario Bros. on the DS.

360 days of sketches!

2010-01-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

This is a sketch of the GroundUp studio mascots Nu and Star. I asked GroundUp's Senior Mascot Correspondent, Henry, for some information about the characters. He said "One of them is Asian and the other one is Black" so I worked with that :P

361 days of sketches!

2010-01-06T00:05:00.000-08:00

Here's one I did for my buddy Keith. He had a toy line and designed this sort of urban ninja guy called Katana (its actually a lot cooler than that, but i don't want to let cats out of bags). We batted a few ideas around relating to the property, and when I went home, I sketched this up. Someone else saw it later and spun her own story out of it. Kind of like a modern day fairy tale that i won't tell you about because it is also not my property... I feel like that bill from the Bush administration that was practically illegible because of all the redacting :P

362 days of sketches!

2010-01-05T23:39:00.001-08:00

This was a comission i did recently. The client wanted a girl holding up her fists to count from 1-10 and to be able to edit the hands in order to show different fingers.

363 days of sketches!

2010-01-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

A lot of my friends (particularly the ones who quit drawing after college) have "Dark Detective" superhero stories that they'd like to tell. Mostly they come off as fan fiction or revamps of the more popular dark detective superhero who will remain nameless at this point. I tell people "make you're own character for that story! Think of how you would personally handle that archtype and let me tell you, creation is a slippery slope!".

Here's an example of one such creation. Don't have a name for it yet, and haven't really settled on a costume, but I wanted to try it with really dark eyes in the mask. Read the notes on Gary Frank's Batman: Earth one sketches, where he mentions that he's going to make the eyes "visible" through the mask for a fresh take on the character. I thought "That's the dumbest shit i've ever heard. Batman aint Captain America...but now that I think about it, what if the eyes were soo hidden that it frightened people? Like the abyss staring back at you." Anyway, this is my first take on this idea.

364 days of sketches!

2010-01-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

Been watching a lot of Southpark lately on southparkstudios.com and sometimes they break model for special actions. One of these is crying. When Cartman cries, he opens his mout really wide, and I wanted to draw it. He didn't really survive the transition to my style, but it was fun anyway :P

365 Days of Sketches!

2010-01-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

So 2010 begins and I have a goal to post on my blog every day this year with drawings from my sketchbook. That being said, here is a sketch of two characters from my upcoming League of Defenders comic. The tall one is Amazona, and the bespectacled one is Whizz Wilson. I actually did this a little while ago and intended to color it before posting, but my inking pen broke...really! stuff like that happens :P

CMU Life Drawing...

2009-06-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

For a brief period of time, Carnegie Mellon University was hosting open life drawing classes on Sunday afternoons. It was amazing. In fact, the whole art building was fantastic. Full of inspired energetic and quirky artsy fartsies. I tried a weird thing this time. I drew the shadows with a gray marker before drawing the actual model. It was really fun, and people seem to like the way it came out. You should try it!

Old Man Ryu!

2009-04-28T10:54:00.001-07:00

Fundamentalist Christians think that Walmart's prices are so low, that it must be the devil trying to tempt them into debauchery.

Henry did a very fleshy Storm... makes her look like a mother. I always thought of her as a crone.

Finally, back when I was delusional and thought that SF4 would actually be a progression in the streetfighter mythology, I imagined that Ryu, after training under Oro would be the last boss. I told Henry about it and he started petting his supervillain cat and saying "Yesssss, Brian...that's a good idea."

HP reflection!

2009-03-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

If I can be serious for a moment...

I've been making a living out of web design lately. Thus, I've been looking at a lot of exhisting sites for inspiration. That kind of thing, especially stumbling onto home pages of people I consider to be peers, really gets me thinking about the design of my own site. I thought it'd be interesting to note key features of my own homepage and how it is influenced by some of the sites I've come to love over the years. Now, I know what you're thinking, "What homepages last years?!" Well, America, listen up...

One homepage that I go to frequently is joemadfan.com. Now, this isn't "really" a homepage, in that Joe doesn't actually maintain it. Its run by a fan named Nathen. This guy has been updating this old-fashoined shrine-style site for so long and with such dedication, that the artist actually acknowledges the site as like "the first place people go to find out about Joe Madureira". The effect of that is Joe sends him stuff to post! Ok, maybe I'm geeking out a little, but I'm a huge fan of Joe Madureira's work. The main influence that this site has had on my own hp is updates. They're very personal. Like if Nathen is talking directly to you, the viewer.

Nextly, there's johnkstuff.blogspot.com. John Kricfalusi is this bat-shit crazy Tex Avery clone from the cold war era who's got A LOT to say about animation. His site is a blog where he talks about animation theory (often citing the Illusion of Life and his personal experiences in the industry). Its brilliant! So informed and well thought out. I hope that someday people will care about what I have to say on character design and illustration the way I care what guys like John K and Hideo Kojima have to say about their respective fields. This sort of site is tricky, though. Doesn't work for everyone. Warren Ellis' site, for instance is super-lame! He just pats himself on the back all the time and brags about how he's too cool for comics...it makes me sad. I hear Grant Morrison has a pretty nice homepage. We should check it out some time...

Finally, my absolute favorite homepage of all time is aimeemajor.com! Aimee was an animation student at Calarts when I was an animation student at AIPH. Mostly, she did furry-type characters I believe to have been inspired by the 1980 disney renaissance. I'm not actually a fan of that sort of artwork, but there was this sincerity behind it that I can barely even explain. Other artist seem to know what I'm talking about by the look in my eye or the way I flail my arms around, but for the purposes of textual communication, we came up with the phrase "Bottled Lightning". Its the pure artistic energy you feel when you look at something that came right from the artists gut, like Dragon Ball or the very first Ultimates3 sketches...Star Wars Episode 2 artbook? Well anyway, she's evolved far beyond the furries and forged a pretty impressive career resume (I think mostly she works for Film Roman, now). In the 10+ years I've been following the site, its been updated almost weekly with new artwork and commentary about Aimee aand her personal adventures. Much of which I would find INCREDIBLY uninteresting if it weren't for the way she talks about the stuff. Sometimes she has stuff about cosplay, doll collecting, Japanese Tea ceremony, and other non-art/animation content, and I think "I want that life. I want people to care about the things I care about vicariously through me." Like, I want my site to give off the kind of energy where, if I'm blogging about Curt Schillling's retirement, you find yourself slightly ammused and interested. I know...I'm an attention-whore, but so are you!

Brian...out!

Come to Purim!

2009-02-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm celebrating Purim this year in Pittsburgh and you're all invited. I even made a flyer just so I'd have some new art to show on the blog :P

Purim is... well, its an obscure Jewish holiday based on the events of the book of Esther in the Bible. I'm sure you can google it if you need to know specifics, but the basic idea is that the Jews triumphed over their advesaries and in celebration of this event you are to get so intoxicated that you forget the difference between good and evil (that tickles me every time I say it).

Anyway, the details are on the flyer. As a side note, there's also supposed to be a Black Mass. Google it. If you think your personal JC hang-ups are gonna be a downer for anyone, stay yo ass home.

One more thing! There's a new art store in Philly called "Blick". It has sketchbooks with ACTUAL white paper AND .13 Rapidographs! I've been without those things for a long long time and it was really starting to effect my ginormous art ego... But now I got some good supplies I fel like the old Brian again :)

1/1/09 Fighting games on the Wii?!

2009-01-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

2008 Has come and gone and with the new year comes new motivation to pretend you can do things you couldn't do last year. Among the things I'm resolving to do this year, What's going to effect you most, America, is my daily blog posts. That's right, 365 posts to awe and inspire you. The guy from linesandcolors does it, so it must be possible. Anyway, I just came up with the idea (and I was hung over aaaaall day yesterday. No one ever stops me when I mix liquor into my beer...some friends, huh?) so today, I'll post twice.

Last night I finally got a hold of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. For those of you who don't know, its a Nintendo Wii fighting game that crosses over characters of 70s anime production house Tatsunoko, with the cast of Capcom games (Capcom = the people who made streetfighter, resident evil, and megaman). Importing Japanese games is always sketchy because you never really know how much you can understand with your limited understanding of kanji/katakana/hiragana, but I really wanted to try this game because it looked like something fresh. I've been rehashing the same stale entertainment for about 10 years and I'm aching to be inspired by something new. Sure I had fun flirtations with Doctor Who, Firefly and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but none of those lasted very long or even inspired a page of artwork.
So I finally boot the game up and watched the little intro anime. It was very nostalgic even though I was never really into Gatchaman or other transforming hero characters of the 70s. My verdict is like this... The game is fun. I don't know if it has online play features or even how the multiplayer goes, but its very pretty from an animator's perspective. Particularly the Tatsunoko characters who haven't really been reinvented this century. They come out as crisp and inspired characatures of what they were like...Just like the Marvel Vs. Capcom games.

In addition, I picked up Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution 2. The Wii version of the gamecube Naruto fighting games. I've played this at Galaxy Video a few times and let me tell you, those kids make Naruto: CONR2 feel like Street Fighter. Amazingly fun multiplayer. Not so cool in single player mode, but the animations are so sweet. The way the animators translated the moves from the comics is brilliant. Check this one out if you are an artist with a wii.

All in all, good times with Wii fighting games. I've been thinking, if there's gonna be a 360 version of sf4, that means it can fit on a dvd, right? So why not a Wii port? Is that too much to ask?

Ok, of to the plantation for me. Draw lots of stuff today and post on concetpgoulash.blogspot.com

Mother, Maiden, and Crone...

2008-12-21T12:42:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been discussing deconstructive symbolisms in character design with various friends. The idea of breaking down female characters into the three categories (mother/maiden/crone) probably came from ancient Greece. The Fates, Muses and their ilk...Gorgon Sisters...They did it all the time. Anyway, A long time ago, I shipped these drawings to Sean Tate for his cel coloring touch. He recently sent them back and just by coincidence, there's a crone, a maiden, and...well Lara Croft isn't exactly a mother, but she WOULD be if I were writing her :P

Artstream: Hank Ketchum

2008-12-21T12:27:00.001-08:00

So, I was sifting through old comics at a used bookstore and I came across this gem! A Dennis the Menace compilation from 1966 :) Note the cold war flavor of the title.

Now, I've always bee a fan of comic strip art, but not enough to try it. This makes me want to, though. Its so subtle, but very precise. Ketchum doesn't use a lot of lines to portray something, but its like you can't even ask for more than what's on the page. I may post my pale imitations of his style using brush pens in the near future, but if you're interested, go to the official site http://www.dennisthemenace.com/

Street Fighter II: Turbo

2008-12-21T12:04:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised to see the artwork in this new Udon Street Fighter comic series. Some dood called Chamba Cruz really went all out in the first issue. Its very creative and energetic. I reccomend it to those of you who like to draw...Those of you who think of comics as novels with pictures or movies with no sound, however should totally skip it.

The comic got my blood flowing and I quickly doodled this Sagat on one of my lunch breaks. No sign of SF4 around here, though :(

Ponyo on the cliff by the sea...

2008-09-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Trailer

So...I was a Miyazaki fanboy. In animation school, I got my hands on a box set of the Ghibli movies from Nausicaa to Mononoke. The man could do no wrong...until I saw Howl's Moving Castle. I didn't think it was rubbish, but it wasn't good enough to watch twice :(

Tales from Earthseas IS rubbish. So my once immovable faith in the studio faltered. But at Otakon, there was a screening of this Madhouse movie called The Girl Who Lept Through Time (brilliant btw), and afterwards there was mention of a new Hayao Miyazaki film "Ponyo on the cliff by the sea".

I gave it a shot. Let me tell you guys, its amazing. A huge step backwards to touch the roots...like Lilo & Stitch or Metal Gear Solid 3.

Hit china town, guys! Its worth buying twice, imho! ...Is Disney gonna Dub this one?

Gettin' political...

2008-09-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is pretty funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxpXAmn-wgQ&NR=1

And here's a treat for all you nerdbait fans
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=171493&title=sexism

conceptgoulash and other stories

2008-08-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

So, recently, a couple of friends from college started a group art blog called conceptgoulash. For the most part, we do this thing called "Sketch Battle" where someone chooses a topic and two or more people interpret the that topic. The drawings are judged by everyone and the winner gets bragging rights. This drawing is for one such duel. The topic was design an original character to fit into a Capcom game. My design was a Rival Schools character. An ace pitcher to go against the exhisting slugger.

Keith will be furious.

2008-04-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

I tried to warn him... I said "Hey, Henry, stop making fun of my Gangstalicious Man-bag! I don't care if it looks like a purse, it holds a lot of books!" But he didn't listen. Thus we have my retaliation. The funeral for Henry Lewis Wilson II wil be held in New York tomorrow. He lived an exciting life until he was served to death by Brian's 2H pencil. Rest in peace, bud...

Sunday, 3/9/08...

2008-03-09T21:35:00.001-07:00

So, I went in for a second interview at Custom Graphix in Neshaminy mall today. It was fun. Basically, I had to show that I know how to use illustrator, flexisign, and some other software. I made a Nerv logo decal and a Superman/Batman Licenseplate (geeking out)! I start next week, so I'm excited and hopefully I'll get the other graphic design job downtown...80 hour work-weeks, explode!!!After the interview, I went out to wait for the bus. There was a gorgeous girl sitting on the bus smoking. She had hazel colored eyes, but they kind of look like a gold or yellow...it was weird and interesting, so my sharingan kicked in and my eyes started to recording information for later drawing. Basically, I drew the pose. The true magic of the way this girl looked is beyond what I can do with a pencil in my sketchbook five hours later :( I noticed that her shoes and the bottoms of her pants were dirty. Logically, she'd walked through the mud to get home from work last night (it was pouring outside last night), but in my mind while avoiding eye contact with her and getting on the bus, I'd imagined that she works really hard after hours at the restaurant she waits tables at to feed her lazy older brother... I haven't written any fiction in quite some time, so I'm bursting with sappy cliche's.

Just by pure coincidence, Henry and I were talking about overweight rappers. I told him that I think there should be more because Fat Joe and Rick Ross don't cut it. He said "Why do we need 'fat' rappers?" I told him it was because rappers have to supplement their incomes with clothing lines. Do you guys remember Biggie Smalls? Aside from being an amazing rapper, he looked cool. We need fat rappers to innovate fat fashion. I mean to say "I" need them to do that. I'd like to draw more big people, but I don't know what they should wear :(

-B

I fall in love three times a day...

2008-03-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

Being single for about the last year, I've become very perceptive. I notice everyone, Particularly college-aged females. Sometimes, while riding on the train or sitting in a coffee shop, one will strike me. For a brief period of time, I become smitten by a total stranger. Happens a lot more than three times a day, but I usually can't crank out more than three drawings in a day.

So, yesterday I was at Bonte' again. I sat by the window (The waffle iron was on the fritz, so there weren't many people there and I could choose my seat more carefully). There was a girl cleaning up because it was the end of her shift. I took it all in. She was maybe 5'7" and slender, but with wide hips (the good kind). As she was changing the trash bags, she looked over her shoulder to notice me examining her. Now, I don't know if any of you have noticed the face you make when you're examining something for artistic refference, but I've become painfully aware of how strang I look in those instances. Lots of times, I'll even have to avert my attention to make it seem like I'm not looking at someone. Strangly, she actually smiled at me over her shoulder. Smote! Later, I'd settled into my usual cafe mode; refilling coffee, listening to itunes, and running internet errands. The mood in Bonte' was the usual hip cheerful feeling with people momenterily noticing each other and the baristas joking around. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. A small thin figure charged in. At first, I couldn't pin it down, but there was something different about her. I kept thinking "Jeez, she's so serious!". After she sat down, I noticed she had some kind of note book. She took a sip of her tea and started writing furiously. I assume it was a journal. Once she'd settled into a comfortable position, I started drawing (lower left). The girl noticed that I'd been looking at her, but it was obvious that she didn't know I was drawing her. For a while we were alternating between trying not to meet eyes and pounding away in our books. Afterwards, I felt disappointed that she didn't get to see the drawing...

Henry tried to battle me in a drawing contest... He got served up something aweful. I refuse to pay the hospital bill. He knew what he was getting into.

-B

Friday, 3/7/08...

2008-03-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

Back at Bonte' today. People keep smiling at me... I think its my hat. Anyway, here are a few concepts for this Sci Fi space opera I've been working on called "Duel Edge". The first guy is a Wolverine-type assassin. I'm really happy with the way this one's coming out... just lack experience designing space suits (lqtm). To the right is another character for DE. She's like a really tough commando type who uses a spear. This time, I wanted a sort of bottom-heavy look, so I tried to design a kilt for fighting. At the bottom is a quick drawing I did at the first Dr. Sketchy in Pittsburgh. Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School is a monthly life drawing class held in most major cities. They usually have costumed models, and really cheap bear (called "liquid inspiration"). Its a blast, really. You should all look up your local Dr. Skethy's.

Thursday, 3/6/08....

2008-03-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

I've been combing the city for a nice spot to have a coffee (or 20) and write my blog entry for the day. Finally settled into this "Bonte" cafe off of Walnut on 17th. I love the atmosphere. Its feels like its alive. Y'see, the place is below ground level, so looking out the window, you see all these busy feet darting past. Inside, the customers are very relaxed, creaming their coffees and spreading jam on their waffles. Oh, did I mention that the specialty of Bonte is gourmet waffles? Not really interested in that sort of thing, my self. I'm here for a small coffee and a bagel with lite cream cheese (Which came to $3.10...and free refills!).

Just came from another graphic design interview. It was awesome. That place was so busy. It was like a clockwork with humans instead of cogs. People bustling around with stacks of uncut business card, passing CDs around, and juggling three conversations at once (on the phone with random client, telling other employees what needs to be done on that particular job, and "Oh, hello Brian, nice to meet you"). While taking the tour, I kept thinking "I feel at home". It was like the constant buzzing of people trying to perfect artwork AND debating whether or not the Clash is the greatest band ever, has been the soundtrack to my life up to this point. Well...point being, the interview went well. They really seemed to like me, so unless they find out about the whole Infinity Gems fiasco, I think i've got this one.

Some time to kill in center city now. Franck and I have been discussing the whole idea of "blogging". I've come to the conclusion that its an incredible vain thing to do.. No bones about it. But its really fun. My only problem with blogging is that I write for this huge audience ("America" or the "Briamaniacs out there") that doesn't really exhist. I've decided that to build my reader-base, I need to write more interesting enries. Also, I'm going to try to update daily. Before, I'd only update when I had new artwork to discuss, but now, who knows what we'll be talking about...

-B

[If you don't play mtg, don't read this part - Grand Prix is in Philly next weekend! Who's coming? $3500 to the winner and everyone gets a foil Call of the Herd! Wow! I probably won't have the money, or a deck to play unless SOMEONE finds my TEPS deck... Its nice to dream sometimes]

Finished Pepper pic...

2008-02-29T18:26:00.001-08:00

This is me, breaking my neck for three hours on trying to make halfway decent colors with a beat up Graphire2... Digital paint really isn't my bag, but all of my friends were too lame to take this project on. So there you have it, America.

Windwaker Link

2008-02-29T10:35:00.001-08:00

Link and his sister from Legend of Zelda: Windwaker.I did this a few years ago, but my friend Sean Tate just colored it for me (he does this thing where he traces a drawing in flash with an Intuos3 to get this really solid cartoon look).

Does anyone have Superman: For All Seasons? I feel as though I need to reread it, but Philly doesn't have the awesome libraries that Pittsburgs does.

Tried the Fifa08 demo on XBox360....Its gonna be so great!

Pepper Project...

2008-02-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so Artgerm has this character called Pepper, he uses to inspire creativity. He want's different people to try their hands at the character and the best one will be published in an upcoming artbook. Henry challenged me to compete with him (as usual, he got served...). I'm happy enough with the drawing, but when I tried to use Painter with my graphire2, the results were more than frustrating. If any of you BriaManiacs out there want to try your hand at digital colors for this peice, email me and I'll send you the high res and ref pics of the actual characters.While waiting for Henry to decide what he was going to embarass himself with this time, I got to drawing this Lara Croft. Those of you who know me have seen that I get through character drawing really fast, so I sometimes spot people a few minutes when we duel by working on something else. Anyway, rather than pull my hair out trying to color this one, I propose the same thing as the Pepper pic. Once this one is done, it'll be published in the 2nd Ground Up studios artbook.

On a geekier note: Vern and I found the glitch in the XBOX version of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. It slows down whenever it has to show the top half of a background. Superjumps and Launchers are crossed off the list :(

-B

Artstream: Bruce Timm

2007-10-10T19:36:00.001-07:00

brucetimm, originally uploaded by GxDrifter.

This is something I used to do with the old Artstream blog. The Idea was to highlight an artist who inspires me and talk a little about that person and what I see in the works. Today I'll start doing the same thing here on my personal blog. Enjoy.

Bruce Timm is the character designer for many WB animated series of the past 20 years. He worked on Tiny Toon Adventures and moved on to become "famous" in the animation world for his reimagining of the caped crusader in Batman: The Animated Series. Superman & Justice League followed & he's also worked on a few comics. Here is a page from an old issue of Flinch (DC horror anthology circa '00). It was a really provocative 8-pager about two sado-masochists who fall for eachother and embark on self-destructive misadventures. Its probably the only comic work Timm has done that doesn't look like an animation storyboard. If you can stomach the story, I recommend you check it out (Flinch #11).

If you're looking for something awesome, go to abc.com and watch Pushing Daisies. Worth your time, America.