Scary School Character Renderings

Zoinks!



Alright, this is starting to come together now, but I still have some stuff left to do. I still want to mess with the lighting and I'll probably give it a slight color cast. Also, the characters aren't quite integrated with the background enough, so I'll need to add shadows and reflections on the floor.

Remember when I said I'd talk about the characters in the last post? I lied. As you may or may not know, I occasionally post stuff from my teeny-tiny 3.5x5 inch sketchbooks. I have some sketches of these guys, so I'll wait until I get around to posting those to go into greater detail about them.

I can talk about the zombies, though. I didn't want to do the typical rotting flesh thing, cuz one: I want this to be kid friendly, and two: I just wanted to do something different. What I thought might be interesting is that there's this sentient, evil, tar-like goop that animates the remains of the deceased or whatever else it feels like moving.

Have ya Heard?

Probably.



I remember hearing that saying on Adult Swim, either on TV or on their website, and it inspired me to do this painting for my Intermediate Painting II class. I find it kinda humorous how each generation thinks the end of the world is right around the corner, but it never happens. In this case, I was thinking of back in the day when everyone thought we'd all die from atomic holocaust.

This isn't that old, but I already see some things I'd change now. The guys limbs are way too thin and his hands and feet aren't big enough for cartoony proportions (they should be about the same size as the head).

Scary School Characters

Weirdos.



Okay, now I've got the base colors of the characters down. I made sure to give the line art and each color it's own layer and mask so I could go back and properly render one without messing up any others. With the line art specifically, I plan to do them the Disney movie way, where the lines are colored, but not the exact same color of the paint, so it's a happy medium between black ink and lineless art that you see in stuff like Samurai Jack.

Speaking of which, here's the line art by itself. I always like the way stuff looks with just the lines for some reason.



I'll save the specifics of the characters in the next post, but the general idea I have for these guys is that there a bunch of school kids of varying ages that do Scooby-Doo type sleuthing of odd paranormal occurrences, except that the paranormal stuff is real and not disgruntled real estate agents in disguise. Also, there's no talking dog. There's friendly ghosts though, such as that straight jacket dude coming out of that girls backpack and the cutesy little one with the bow.

As you can tell, I don't want this to be too serious. I'd like to make something the kids could like.

Phillip's List

Since Schindler is his last name, this should technically be called Craig's List, but, well... you know.



I'm probably gonna go to Jewish hell for this. Is Jewish hell much worse than real life?

I haven't actually beat Pikmin yet, so I just made up the total Pikmin number. So please don't bother telling me if it's impossibly high or embarrassingly low.

Disney Merchandise Girl 1

So, yes, there will be more.



Can't tell what the date is on this thing. Suffice to say it's a few years old. Almost every time we get back from a vacation at Disney World, I draw a girl with some Disney stuff. Not really a tradition, rather I just wanna draw something Disney related when it's still fresh in my head, and it's usually a cute girl cuz I'm a perv like that.

Anyway, this one's supposed to be wearing one of those translucent Mickey ponchos they hand out when it starts raining. Hard to tell when it's a pencil sketch and you're not a very good drawer.

Scary School Background

Well, not that scary.



Here's what I got done in the past week for this more detailed illustration I've been working on. It aint terribly special, but I'm still rather proud. I think this is the most detailed thing I've ever bothered to make in Photoshop.

Keep in mind it'll be cropped in the end. Also, since I want it to be creepy lookin', I'll most likely make the overall image darker, so it'll probably look more like this when it's completely done:

Paint Guys Begin, Part 3

Here's the last batch.

If I could make video games, I'd make one with these guys. Just saying.

...If you couldn't tell, I've ran out of things to say.

Values from Elders

The Creative Child

Peer Pressure

Leisure Time

Handicapped Children

Dry Hands

If this were animation, the third panel would have a fog horn sound effect.



I seriously do have chapped hands most of the time. Probably cuz I wash them too much. I'm a borderline germophobe. I'm this close to shaving my head bald, growing a goatee, and hosting Deal or No Deal.

Paint Guys Begin, Part 2

Let's continue, shall we?

In a lot of the art projects you have to do in college there's that point where it gets grueling, no matter how much you like art. You hafta stay up late, or just not sleep at all, to get it done and you can't wait for it to get over with. With this project, I can genuinely say I enjoyed every minute of it. It was my first project in one of my first classes, so a lot of that could of been the excitement, where you're all like, "OH BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY, MY FIRST HIGHER LEARNING ART THINGY!"

...No? Just me? Alright...

Anyway, I sure the biggest factor of the enjoyment was making these guys. Power to them.

Family Time

Emergence of Identity

Education

Crisis in Values

Children without Prejudice

Scary School Sketch

Scary school is scary. Zombies don't help either.



This is a sketch I've been working on with plans to make it a pretty detailed CG image, to take a break from the comics and to make and illustration with these weird group of characters that I've messed around with for a couple of years. I was taking my sweet time to get a good composition, and it'll take me even longer to put it through it's paces in Photoshop, so this will be something I'll be working on for a good few weeks. In fact, seeing as I've just started a comic for next week, it'll take even longer to finish since I'll do other things if they come to mind. It must be nice to do this kind of stuff for a living to have harsh deadlines and promise of pay as "motivation" to get it done quicker. That, and not working at a bowling alley as a day job.

I ain't hatin' on bowling alleys though. Nice job to have while working to get a more relevant one.

Anyway, on this image, I'm gonna focus a lot on the background. I'd like to make it more painterly and avoid using flat colors as I usually do for the comics. Let's see what happens. Fingers crossed!

Paint Guys Begin, Part 1

Here's what I did for my first Design project, where we had to make small designs on small panels with cut paper. The theme was some kind of a faux commission, where the designs were for some sort of child education promotion thing. I obviously don't remember the details, but for every panel we were given a title with a child theme that we had to work with.

Anyway, in this very first project I created these Paint Guys. I call them that as the original idea was they magically came to be after you make big paint drops come together to form a simple, cartoony figure (if the figure part ain't quite coming through to you, watch this animation dealie). I love these little guys. They're probably the most interesting (certainly the most original) things I ever created. I used them in other projects in almost every class I had throughout college. In other words, I'm super proud of them.

There were quite a few of these, so I'm gonna load them in a series of posts like I did with the alphabet thing. They're in no particular order except for how they came up in the upload images list.

Child Injuries

Child Development and Mass Media

Child Care

Child Advocate

Changing Families

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Thirteen

THEND.



Well, that took forever. I liked it, though. It's easier to think of jokes when you have a story going rather than thinking of punch lines every week that aren't related to the previous one. I've got other Animal Crossing related arcs in my head, such as creating more human players that are all controlled by me which starts some crazy multiple personality stuff, and visiting the town of someone that uses an AC mod device to make their town and anything/anyone in it all weird and whatnot. Don't know if I'll get to those anytime soon, though.

And now for something completely different.

I've got a more detailed illustration in mind for my next project, and it may take me longer than a week to get it done, so next Monday might just be a progress report with some sketches and whatever I've done up to that point.

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Twelve

Punchline! Get it?! HA!



I guess I'll just make every comic end with a punch.

I've started working on the next comic, and I know it'll be the end of this arc. I don't have many Animal Crossing ideas left, so I may back off of them for a while. Or maybe not. I often don't get a new idea until the day I start working on a new one.

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Eleven

Out of the frying pan...



Okay, I lied in the last post. It'll take me another two comics to finish this arc. Change your schedule accordingly.

And now for something completely the same.

To keep in the theme of the last panel of this comic, I probably shoulda put this drawing of Resetti in there somewhere:

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Ten

The RIB telling you to reset: the epitome of irony.



I think I can milk this arc for two more comics. But this'll be the last comic where I'm (more) crazy and disheveled.

When I started doing this arc, I originally planned to give myself a beard in the later strips, but then the 20 minute joke wouldn't have made sense. So it became a five o'clock shadow instead.

I guess it doesn't make sense either way since you can't grow facial hair in the game.

Maverick Deke

Why's everybody gotta smack my laptop?



Deke McClelland is a graphics and image guru who, amongst other things, is one of the awesome teachers at lynda.com. Since college, I've been going there to improve my Photoshop and Illustrator skills, and the main series' of tutorials I've been focusing on are the One-on-One's, in which Deke is the instructor. Him and the website in general have been a tremendous help in my growth as an artist, so I can't thank them enough. But I'll try anyway.

Thank you, lynda.com and Deke!

*UPDATE*

Edit by John:

Coming Together

They sure do wave a lot.



I've been wanting to post this for a while, but iMovie 08 proved to be too sucky to easily add the credits I wanted at the end. Dad suggested reinstalling the older iMovie HD, which worked much better. Before I posted it on the interwebs, I wanted to make it quite clear that the music IS NOT MINE AND I DON'T CLAIM IT AS MINE. It's from Samurai Champloo. Anyway, those credits were added, and after going back in forth with John, I eventually got it to a format I like. It's still low quality, but the pictures I originally took when making it were low quality to begin with so I could fit most of them in a single SD card.

I used Red and Yellow and other similar... whatever they are in lots of projects in college, starting with my first design assignment. I wanted to show their animated debut first, as it's easier to figure out what the heck they're supposed to be if you see them in motion first.

Anyway, now that this is posted, I can finally start showing more of these guys. I'm quite proud of them. I'd call them my children, but that sounds creepy.

Here it is on Youtube, if you'd prefer that.

Super Senior Returns

To be in a ho-hum movie, no doubt.



Another project where I messed around in Illustrator. The paintbrush and paintbrush blob tools are great if your like me and prefer to work more with illustrations rather than design. I might have to start doing my inking in Illustrator, as the paintbrush tool's good at adjusting for human error in wobbly curves.

As for the Super Senior thing, that was a one shot thing I did for a comic, back when I was in college and still hanged out with that talking squirrel. I still stay in contact with him though. His oldest son still has one more year at UD left, apparently. And his wife sent me a very nice Christmas card last year! Good people... or rodents, or whatever.

Warhol's Mario

Perhaps screen prints of E Tanks with varying palettes would of been more appropriate.



Here's an Advance Painting project that I did really quick during the Thanksgiving break of that semester when I felt that I should be doing something rather than sleeping off my Itis. It's was done on a rather small canvas and I didn't have much paint on hand, so I had to apply carefully and thinly. It worked out okay in the end, and my teachers and classmates thought it was interesting. Some thought it was some sort of commentary on different races, but really the different colors of the Marios are based on the palettes he flashes through when you get a Starman in the original Super Mario Bros. (They aren't exact, so please waste your time telling me im doin it wrong.)

As for the idea, I just thought it'd be cool to see what Andy Warhol might make had he still been alive to do work on current icons of pop culture.

Here's some shots of the individual Marios:

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Nine

RESETTI PUNCH!!



He actually went easy on me. He coulda used his pick axe.

Nice of Rover to keep me company while I waited for the Resettis to show up. He could of left, but that's just how nice of a guy he is.

I've always thought of Sonny and Don Resetti as stereo typical Italian Americans in the way they speak and act. Based on their temperament, Don is Tom Hagen and Sonny is Silvio Dante.