Papa T

I was commissioned by my friend Pat's mother to do a portrait of her father as Mr.T, since he appears to have been obsessed B.A. Baracus from the A-Team. This was a birthday present for her daughter, who found it rather hilarious that her Papa was so obsessed with Mr.T. in the first place.

I sent these initial sketches to Nancy and asked which one she liked, and she said that they were all too awesome to pick. She told me to pick which ever one I thought would work best; the last one was my favorite so I went ahead with that drawing.

Pencils
At first I had started the drawing on another piece of paper that reacted poorly to water, it would just instantly buckle when I applied the watercolors. So I had to start over and as I drew in Papa T and I decided it needed something more. And what would be more appropriate than a giant explosion?
Ink
I had decided to add some bullet holes to the inked version to make it look like the A-Team logo. I also decided to carry this onto the matte and cut bullet holes into the matte and colored the insides with ink.
Paint
I wish my scanning bed was a little bigger it seems that everything I paint is just a little too big for the bed. I couldn't get a good scan but here is the general look. I had planned this painting to fit in this gold frame that I had in my possession for a while. I figured that a picture of Mr. T could be in nothing else.
Matte and frame
Originally on the matte I had painted the words "I pity the fool" in gold letters in a stencil font. However, I didn't take into account that the frame covered the matte so much and it cut off the bottom of the words. I didn't really know what to do about it, Laura suggested that I just paint the whole matte gold, which turned out awesome! I think Mister T would approve.
Nancy really liked it, Kelsey really liked it and they told me that Papa could recognize himself, so I count it a success.

Laura's Bert Impersonation

Laura often has this picture of Bert from Sesame Street, that she found on tumbler, as her status message with the note, "This is how I feel."

Looking for a quick project to work on and realized I haven't done a portrait of Laura in a while I decided to do one of her looking like Bert in this picture. Thinking it would be good for a laugh if nothing else.
I then formatted it like like the image if Bert. This is a look I am all too familiar with.

Tu-anh Likes Cookies

So after making the portrait of Vear, being "Ol' Jowly" my friend Tu-anh said "Ok now do a dummy-looking Tu-Anh too :D" so that was just what I did.

What I think Vear Thinks He Looks Like 01

So I was wasting my life on facebook, as I am apt to do from time to time. My friend Vear had posted pictures of himself from a night of revely with some friends and he posted one of him self that he titled, "Ol' Jowly." Now perhaps this is an inside joke that I am not into. I instead like to think that Chris thinks he has jowls, big droopy jowls.

Jowls (noun)
1. The lower part of a person's or animal's cheek, esp. when it is fleshy or drooping.

So maybe he is talking about him smiling showing off his bottom cheeks. Well anyway here is what I think Vear thinks he looks like based off of this picture and the title. I added the bowler to class up the picture. This took me about a half an hour.

Salvaged Concept BG

Concept art for the short film Salvaged that I am working on with my friend Ted.

This is about half way done and took me about 45 minutes. Working on this made me want to start drawing some canyons with the stepped rock formations. It was a good exercise and gets me thinking more about concept and about the look and feel of the environment, even when I do things that I consider to be failures it helps me. I always forget you learn more from failure then success.
I have already started adding details and it is looking better, though I would share it at a mid point. Expect to see a more polished version some time next week.

Sea Creatures for Science!

Laura is doing an internship for the Lawrence Hall of Science where she is helping with children education programming for their summer fun day program. The activity that she is planning is designed to help children see that the CO2 levels in the ocean are rising and how it is raising the acidity of the sea and effecting the sea creatures that live there from growing their exoskeletons. These were designed to have a social gaming (i.e. facebook and Myspace games) kind of feel.

Lobster
I had to do a revision on this one because my good friend Chris Vear, a native of Maine informed me I didn't give the lobster enough legs. They have 8. I was really happy with how this one came out.

Sea Urchin

Brain Coral

Chitinous Bivalve or a Clam

Sea Star

New Portfolio

Just posted a brand spankin' new portfolio come and check it out.

Drunken Sagas: The Hill House background design

I really dislike doing backgrounds; there are so many rules one needs to follow to make a really nice and dimensional background and they really just don't come easily to me, unlike drawing people who are more fun and intuitive for me. However, this being said, I need to challenge myself more to become a better artist, and I need back grounds if I want to tell rich dynamic stories. So I challenged myself to try and make 2 background drawings a week, and here is the first.
This is the home and farm of Paul the Wise. He lives atop the a high hill that is easily defended from intruders, much to Eric's chagrin. Every time he comes to visit he complains about the walk up and Paul always just responds, "One day you will be glad that I found this hill." Eric would indeed be glad years later that Paul had found this hill and even more glad that he had the foresight to build and escape tunnel. Though until that day Eric is always looking for a way to get Paul out of his long house at the top without having to go up himself.

Viking Portrait: Ikvar the Black

I was looking though one of my many sketch books and found a couple of Viking faces staring back and me. The first one I decided to complete was a profile picture, because I haven't seem to have done too many of these.

This is Ikvar the Black, if I recall viking history correctly men would get the name the Black because of the color of their hair. I imagined that Ikvar would be a hard and quiet man who some didn't trust, but in truth he was the most trust worthy in the party. Sadly, this wasn't realized until it was too late for Ikvar.

Grandpa Swede Portrait

Yesterday would have been my grandfather's 81st birthday. This is a portrait to commemorate the day. He was always my favorite to draw when I was a little kid - he was so easy with a big red nose and handle bar mustache, and he loved my cruel little portraits that I drew (not every one else was a fan of the things I picked up on). Every year for his birthday he wanted a birthday card from me. To continue the tradition I've decided to make a portrait of him every July 20th. This is a portrait of him as I remember him best, the only thing missing is his cigarette.