Tattoo is done.

My friend finally got a tattoo of a piece of art I drew for him.  The tattoo artist did an amazing job capturing all the detail and complexity of the original piece.  I'm pretty honored that someone would permanently ink on their body something that I had sketched.  I'm really glad that it came out so well.  Good stuff.

This is the original sketch.

Some Watercoloring

I've been working on these for a few days.  Just doing a little here and there when I get time.  One of the things I love about doing the watercolors is that I can draw and paint in any room of the house.  And even if we go away, like this past weekend, I can take my stuff with me.

Also most of my free time art is doing stuff for Rivet Wars.  It's been really fun to have a focus like this.  Check out the site if you haven't lately.  I revamped the art section.

Some new Rivetwars Watercolors for sale in the shop

Production, production...

Wow.  I've been working like crazy to get all the orders filled for the figures that I've been making.  Check out these picks of them bagged and lined up.  I can't believe I made these from scratch.  Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement.  www.rivetwars.com

Toys for Sale!

You can now get your very own Rivet Vert Tank toy in the rivet shop.  Head over to the site and check it out.  Rivet Shop  Thanks to everyone for their support!

I finally made some toys!

Tonight I finally got around to casting some toys.  It went pretty well.  Next I'd like to make some green ones.  I have some more info on the rivetwars.com website and blog if you're interested. I NEVER thought I be able to make my own toys but now I've done it.  Pretty neat.

I got my 3D Print today!

The 3D print of my rivet tank came in today.  I am really excited.  It came out looking really good and the detail is fantastic.  Now I need to try and make a mold and start making some resin castings.

It's a really neat experience to hold something in your hands that was just a sketch and then a 3D model on a computer.  Technology is so cool :)

How does a Rivet tank really work?

Last night before going to bed I got inspired by some cross-section books.  I LOVE cross-sections and just had to get this drawing started.  I can't tell you how excited I am about this piece.

www.rivetwars.com

Rivet Wars is up!

I've been playing around with the idea of making toys for while.  Well I'm finally getting around to it.  I made some 3d models and I'm getting those printed out in plastic.  When they come in I'm going to make some molds and then cast a short run of pieces from resin.  But to do that I felt like a needed a world in which the toys existed so I created rivet wars.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

www.rivetwars.com

Jason Chan process

Here is a really cool process walkthrough from Jason Chan.  It's written up by Irene Gallo from Tor books.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/07/jason-chan-and-the-new-spring-ebook-cover

Episode IV: A New Post

It's been so long since I posted.  I guess I've been busy with other stuff.  Also most of what I do I can't post which is a bummer.  But I do have some stuff that I've been messing around with.

The first one is a sketch that I did based on someone else's idea.  It was on a toy forum and they had this cool description of what they wanted but they just couldn't draw it.  It's steampunk snail dude.

Improve your use of Value

James Gurney has a great post on his blog about using value.  I have to try this out.  Seems like a great exercise.

Cure for Middle Value Mumbling

Drawing Dragons!

ROAR!!!  ROAR!!!

Last night my almost 3 year old son and I had a sketch night.  We broke out the crayons and watercolors and scribbled some dragons.  I had so much fun drawing with crayon!  Then I went over it with this cool brush tipped pen I bought.  I also made a few line drawings for my son to color in with his watercolors.  The mouth is red because that's where the fire comes out!  ROAR!!!

We decided that we'll start a field guide to the local dragons.  Like the ones we find in the garden and such.

A going away gift.

My friends Aisleen and Chris are moving to San Francisco.  It's really cool and exciting but at the same time it's sad to see them go.  They are both amazingly talented artists and I'm sure they're going to be really successful out there.  And they get all that nice weather!  So I painted a watercolor piece for them in the spirit of San Francisco.  Maybe when they look at it they'll remember good times on the East coast.  Good luck guys!

Distinguished Lecture :)

My friend Ric Giantisco invited me to give a talk at Mercer County Community College as a part of their Distinguished Lecture Series.  He's the Head of their game design department and an awesome animator.  The speech went really well.  It was a powerpoint (It was all pics with only 3 bullet points at the end) that went through my entire career, showing different work I had done and discussing the process of designing and creating art assets.  It was scheduled for one hour but I ended up staying for two hours answering questions. The students were really enthusiastic.  I hope to go back again and talk with them some more.  I just love giving those kinds of talks and interacting with students.

oil painting of raydeen

Collage of some of the companies I worked for.

mini-golf level for a Wii game

More luck dragon work.

I spent a little more time on this.  I added some little dragons and started throwing some color around.  The boy on the dragon is having the BEST time ever :)

If I had a luck dragon...

I always liked the Never Ending Story but if I had to design my own luck dragon it'd look like this.  I was thinking about how neat it'd be to have your own dragon, and a suit of armor, and be a kid, so I just did this sketch tonight.  I think I'm going to keep working this image up and maybe build it into a story?  He should have a little sister who rides a griffin :)

Samurai Jack Background Painting

Really cool demos of background painting for samurai jack.

http://www.youtube.com/user/renwaldo5#p/a/u/1/o-eS_xZbgtc

JORDU SCHELL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI094xaa98o&feature=player_embedded

This guy is an amazing sculptor.  Just amazing.  Watch the video and see him work through and entire bust.  Just awesome how you can see him lay on the muscles and anatomy.  I really found it interesting how he used his fingers together working in perfect symmetry.  I made me think of the symmetry in Zbrush.

Art Gift

My friend Bill is a huge Wonder Woman fan so I decided to make a piece of WW art for his birthday.  I found an image of a painting of Wonder Woman on the net, went over the image with vectors in PS to clean it up and give it a really tight look, printed it out and put it in a gold frame.  I hope he likes it :)

original image

Lego Site!

My son and I started a Lego Blog.  I am a Huge fan of Lego and plan to do everything possible to ensure that my sons love it as well.  I'll be taking pics of our creations and adding them as time goes on.  Hope you see something you like.

http://loganlego.blogspot.com/

Fun After Dinner

I've been working on some illustrations focused on the children's market.  I'd love to do my own children's book some day.  I see picture books as such a great melding of words and images.  A great way to tell a story.  Most of my favorite books are children's books, some that I've kept all these years and am now reading to my kids.

So here is one of the images I've finished recently.  I wanted to get a bunch done for the SCBWI meeting in NYC this past weekend.  For all my images I want the viewer to look at the picture and start imaging the story that goes with it.  Is that the dad on the guitar and his three kids and the grandpa.  Why do they have those uniforms on?  That house seems really unusual.  When or where are they?  I hope you like it and I'll be posting more.

A sad day...

I just read that Clement Sauve passed away.  What a loss to the art world.  He isn't all that famous but to me he was a real inspiration.  His art gave me tons of inspiration and pushed me in directions I wouldn't have ever tried.  It's so sad because he was only 33.

if you don't know his work here's a link.
http://clementsauve.deviantart.com/gallery/

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30549

The Bridge Must Hold!

Playing around with a watercolor I did a while ago.

Kane's Last Meal

Aisleen a friend of mine and a super talented artist turned me on to a contest in which you have to create a piece of work in the style of http://skelanimals.com/.  This one just popped into my head and I did it really fast because I'm too busy with other stuff to be adding another thing to my plate.  But making this with vectors and making it so quickly gave it an energy and style that I'm really digging.  Maybe I just have to start diving in head first without a life vest a little more often?

I hope you all can figure out what it's supposed to be?

Here's a clue :)

Architectural Work

Some architectural renderings that I did last year.