Tapped Out Games - 2011 Championship Flier

Here's the flier the local store's Championship event that I designed & sketched. Based on Pete Venter's Flametongue Kavu illustration for Magic the Gathering it incorporates some figures of pro wrestling.

October's Pauper Game Day Flier!

Here's the flier for next month's Pauper Game Day. Normally this isn't something I'd post but given the specialness of October's event I decided it would be worth sharing. With Halloween the following week I thought it only fitting that the tokens and the flier for the event be fitting of the season. I'm a big fan of the B-movies from the 50s, 60s, & 70s that MST3k would always make fun of and I wanted to mimic some of the movie posters from that era. Enjoy!

Artifact Creature Token - WIP Update

Here's an updated image of the latest Pauper token I've been working on. I wanted to get as far as I could on it before heading out on vacation so I wouldn't have too much to do other than tweaking colors and the printing itself to deal with when I got back. As you can see I went with the inked version instead of the more painted version I alluded to in my previous post. I worked on that for a few days and was finding it difficult to really push the colors I wanted. Because of the grayscale underpainting I developed, most of the colors were coming out muddy and I opted to go with this for now and try to revisit that approach at a later point when I have more time to explore it. I'm probably about 85% done with this one and I've got one main element I want to add in as a finishing touch so I should be able to knock that out fairly easily when I return. Enjoy!

Artifact Creature Token - WIP

Working on the next token for this month's Pauper event. With Scars of Mirrodin coming up I wanted to have something that fit into that heavy metallic realm. Like my recent entry to MTG Salvation art contest, this piece is going to be a bit more painted than my normal inked cartoon work. I'm enjoying working in this style and hope I can continue to explore it with future pieces.

In some respects this is very much like some of the work I did in college with charcoal. I had an awesome professor by the name of Kell Black who did amazing large scale pieces with charcoal and conte crayon. Working this way in Photoshop is very similar minus the charcoal saturated boogers you'd ultimately have after a project. :)

Godzilla vs Eldrazi

Here's my entry for this month's art contest on MTG Salvation.com. It came together fairly quickly. Rather than ink and color the piece in my traditional cartoon fashion I wanted to explore the more rendered technique I've been experimenting with lately. It's more in line with how I worked traditionally before I made the move to digital and it's something I'd like to do more of but maybe on a smaller scale until I have a better grasp of it overall. Big thanks to Brandon Dayton as some of his custom brushes that were very helpful in making this piece.

Here are a few in progress screen caps I took while working on the piece:

Rough Pencils

Mid-way through the colors.

Wookies vs Ewoks - WIP

Here's something I started yesterday and am still developing the color on. I just think the concept is funny. It can be really challenging when you've got something you want to share. This started out as a quick little doodle in a notebook and as I was inking it more ideas came to me on how to make it better. More elaborate. There are still things I want to explore but it entails a lot more work and I wanted to post something as a starting point just to get it out there. Enjoy!

Bear of a Day

What a day! Heading home with my head held high from a day of conquered errands my car dies. At a very busy intersection during rush hour. Then it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Roads flooded and by the time I got home from dropping off my car at the dealership we had lost power. No cable. No internet. Not even enough power in the laptop to last through a DVD. It was like living in the 1700's. Now I know why they went to bed so early. Suffice to say I'm sure the car can be fixed and I'm really glad I was able to get everything I needed to done early.

So in light of all this when power came back I fired up my favorite digital coloring book, cranked some tunes, and started doodling. Here are a few of the fruits of my therapy. They're not going to wow anyone. They are more exercises in a more painterly approach I am attempting. I'm happy with how that aspect came out at least. Until next time!

Magic 2011 Gunslinger Token

In an effort to increase attendance for this weekend's Magic 2011 Game Day the TO is pulling out all the stops including offering Judge Foils as prizes and having our resident "pro" player gunslinging during the event. While AJ has only Q'd twice for the Pro Tour he's the best in the area and quite a character at that. He asked me to create a Gunslinger token for the event in my traditional Pauper token fashion and I was excited to do help out. I'll be finalizing the piece over the next 24 hours but here's a look at a few work-in-progress screen caps.

Plant Token - Part Deux

Here's another step in the process. Added some additional lighting and shading to the piece. Just playing around at this point. I still need to develop an environment that is a bit more appropriate for the overall scene which I'll work on over the next few days. Baby steps.

Plant Token

As I alluded to during the development of my wolf token, it gave me ideas for two additional tokens. The zombie you saw in a previous post that has a slight cameo of sorts in the Wolf token was the first and here's the second. Heavily inspired by Little Shop of Horrors I think it'll be perfect for the tokens deck in Standard Pauper right now. I'll be working on this and the zombie token simultaneously for future events. Stay tuned!

Pauper Game Day - Wolf Token

Here is the finalized Wolf token for my next Pauper event coming in August. These tokens are a give away to each participant of the event and a little something I do to make the event extra special. Winning free entry into the next prerelease is nice too.

PGD03 - In Progress Token Part 5

Here's yet another update on the Wolf token for my next Pauper Game Day event. I'm confident that I'm nearing the 95% mark of completion for this piece. I've really enjoyed working on it and its been a great learning experience for me. It has also lead to ideas for two other tokens that I'm currently developing for future event give aways. Here's a peek at the Zombie token that has a cameo in the background of the Wolf token:

It still has a ways to go I'm sure but its on the right track. More to come!

PGD3 Token - In Progress Part 4

After a few test prints I am continuing to tweak the color. The overall environment thus far has been a bit more difficult to see than I initially desired so I'm having to punch a few things up to make things read better. I still have a ways to go but I'm not certain how far that actually is. I may try an alternate version with just flats instead of the more painterly approach I attempted here.

PGD3 Token - In Progress Part 3

Here's another step in the process for the token for my next Pauper Game Day event. I've gotten a start on the coloring in earnest. I still have a lot of work  to do tweaking the overall colors plus adding some details to tie it all together.

Pauper Game Day Token - In Progress Part 2

 Welcome back true believers! (sorry Stan it just came out) Here's another progress report on the token I'm working on for my next Pauper Game Day at the local gaming store. I've flushed out the environment and have started laying in colors. Detailing the trees was a lot more challenging than I initially thought. I had to force myself to work on them as opposed to other elements in the foreground. It did give me an opportunity to check out some amazing tree reference from artists like Jeff Smith & Bill Watterson so I can't really complain. There's still a lot of work needed to be done but I'm taking it slowly and trying to not force anything. Excelsior!

Pauper Game Day Token - In Progress

Here's an in-progress glimpse of a token I'm working on for the next Pauper Game Day. There are a lot of background details that still need to be finalized and polished but I think its coming along well. I can't wait to jump into the color for this one. I'm trying to up the level of detail from my previous pieces and this one has inspired me for two other pieces I want to work on. More to come. Stay tuned!

Daily Doodle - Tiger Tiger

I'm returning to a somewhat normal schedule after an unexpected trip out of town and a busy weekend with very little sleep. Daily Doodles has been a way for me to warm up, experiment, and improve a little bit at a time. Here I was able to add a lot of dimension to the character with the airbrush and gradients to compliment the bolder graphic lines of the piece. I couldn't help but think of the Shirt Tales when I was working on this one. For those curious that is a Smile t-shirt the character is wearing. Not sure is there actually are Smile t-shirts but there should be. Raina Telgemeier's book is a great read.

Daily Doodle - Wolf & Rider Sketch

At the conclusion of this past weekend's Pauper Game Day one of the participants had an excellent idea of incorporating the winner's portrait into the next token. I thought it was a really interesting idea and it gave me the inspiration to produce this sketch just to try it out. Traditionally Elves don't have facial hair so maybe this is a half-elf. Or maybe I'll just change the ears to make him human. Either way its a nice start.

Pauper Game Day

This weekend I hosted a Magic the Gathering Pauper event at the local gaming store and everyone who came out had a blast! For the previous Pauper Magic event I hosted, I created an exclusive token card as a give away for each participant. This time I expanded on the idea and created four separate tokens within an interlocking panorama as seen above.

They were well received and I was very happy with the results. The last few days have been so busy. Having just returned from a funeral out of town on Wednesday, I only had a few days to finalize the tokens. There were several long nights and I am still bleary-eyed from the experience but I loved it. My wife was very supportive of my efforts even though she knew it meant time away from her and the kids. The "kids" (our cats) were a little confused by my efforts burning the midnight oil. Patches probably thought daddy was in trouble for some reason.

Daily Doodle - Monster Inks

Inked this while listening to the Escape From Illustration Island podcast with Kevin Cross earlier today. They had a good discussion about changing their styles. One thing that stood out to me was Kevin's comment on how challenging a simpler cartoon style is to achieve. That's one of the things I have struggled with in my own work; just how cartoony or quasi-realistic to make it. How much detail to include. Every piece is a single step in a never ending journey. I created a second version as well and after staring at them all day I'm not sure which one I like more. Or less. One seems heavy handed and the other seems littered with unnecessary details.

//DOUBLE EDIT:

Here's a completely different version I sketched and inked. Not sure if its better or worse than the others or simply different.
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In other news, this weekend I took a day trip up to Charlotte for Heroes Con and had a blast. I got an opportunity to reconnect with some friends from college as well as meet some others I know online. It was a great experience and really got me excited about my work and the comics industry at large.

Daily Doodle - Pauper Monsters!

Here are a few sketches I'm working on for a token card. They will be giveaways as part of my next Pauper Magic event coming up later this month. I hope to top the Goblin I did in January in complexity if nothing else.

Wedding Invitation Sketches

 

Working on an off-beat wedding invitation. Here's a compilation of some of the sketches involved.

Oodles of Doodles

I filled up another sketch book recently and thought I would show off a some of the funner ones. Enjoy!

Daily Doodle - Dragons

Someone on MTG Salvation suggested I create a humorous cartoony dragon as a future project. One of the aspects I really enjoy about cartooning and illustration is exploring the different options available within the subject matter when I'm starting out. So here are a few initial sketches along those lines.

Daily Doodle - Character Sketch

Here's another Daily Doodle. Another character design for a comic story I'm developing. Worked on it while watching/listening to Otis Frampton's ArtCast on Ustream.

Daily Doodle

Yet another daily doodle. Character study for a comic I'm brainstorming for at this point. Writing is really challenging! Its really hard to bring something "new" to the table when so much has already been done and redone. I'm trying really hard to keep the story simple and easy to follow so that my four year old nephew can follow along while still being something grown ups can enjoy and get something out of as well.

Daily Doodle

Here's another daily doodle sketch. Gonna ink & color this over the next day or so. I'm getting much more comfortable drawing directly in Photoshop. This piece is approximately 4.5 inches squared at 300dpi. The brush I use in Photoshop is a 3px brush with the Smoothing engaged as well as the Opacity and Flow Jitters set to pen pressure at zero percent under the Other Dynamics section. It closely replicates the way I draw with a pencil. I use light lines and build up the ones I really like as the drawing progresses. I use the same brush, albeit a larger sizes, when coloring occasionally.

Boba Fett Finished

Here's the finished piece based on my Boba Fett sketch from Star Wars Day.

May the 4th Be With You

In honor of Star Wars Day I did a sketch of Boba Fett as he appeared in the recent Clone Wars season finale on Cartoon Network. It's definitely worth checking out if you haven't already seen it. Season 3 of the Clone Wars can't come soon enough. I'll be finishing up this piece over the next day or two and publish the results then.

Quick Color Sketch

Here's a quick color sketch I put together today.

Dino Riders

Here's a character design sketch for a comic idea I'm working on for my nephew. He's only 4 so anything with dinosaurs is golden. Throw in some spaceships, robots, as well as a few pirates and you've got an entire saturday morning lineup!

Birthday Greetings

Here's the artwork for the birthday card I created for my good friend David. He's in the visual effects industry and shares an appreciation for some of the old-school effects methods the industry was built on so this was a fun piece to develop. Normally I have the layout nailed down in the pencils/rough stage but in this piece I was constantly playing with it adding things and moving them around up until the final hour. It was fun. Kinda like being George Lucas for the day.