TWEEDLE DEE OR DUM

Here is the final color concept for the Tweedle character in my previous post. He is mostly a warm character, not fuzzy huggable, but warm in regards to the color choices. I did this so that the cool colors in the arm will really help contrast it with his skin tones and clothing. I harmonized the whole piece by injected some reds and browns into the mechanical arm to simulate rust and ware and tear.

The next is a sneak peak of some characters you will be seeing in a series of paintings for an upcoming solo artshow I will be having in San Diego in October of this year.


O.K., so during San Diego Comicon I will be very busy doing a few things. Friday July 24 is actually my busy day. I will most likely be doing 2 character design workshops at the Art Institute Booth at Comicon. One at 1pm and another time T.B.A. Anyone is welcome to attend and there will actually be a few stations open at the booth to work along with me and get some 1 on 1 time.

That same night from 6-10P.M. I will be in an artshow at Gallery Subtext entitled: Meanwhile… at the Hall of Justice A Collection of Superhero Mishaps
I will post more about this next week so you won't forget to go but if you want more info and cannot wait until then, here is the link to their site:
http://subtextstore.com/blog/?p=1007

Thanks for looking all, again stay tuned next week for more info on those workshops and for the gallery show. I can't wait!

-Pat

TRY AND TRY AGAIN

Hey all, back for some more fun I hope. Well, after I posted that character (The Cat) last week, I really looked at it, and I really did not like it. It felt bland and forced, the personality was not there and I felt ashamed to call myself an artist for posting it (okay a little melodramatic but you get the point). Anyways, upon seeing it I threw myself back into the drawing chair and started sketching a new and improved Cat. The first image is the result of it. For me, why this one works better is because the overall shape feels more devious and underhanded. I pushed more twists into him like in his hair and pipe and I made sure to give him pistols that felt more akin to the type of person he is, very outlandish and dirty (hence the gun with 4 barrels). Finally, the colors in the previous version were too bright and cheery, now the muted dirty colors really help to push the accent to his hair and head, an area I want you to focus on.
These next few images are for the next character in my retelling of Alice and Wonderland in Japan, Tweedle Dum. He has a twin who looks exactly like him but the arms are different. You'll see what I mean, and no I haven't designed the other twin yet, this one alone took me some time to figure out the design. OK, here we go:

Step 1: Figure out my story--Tweedle Dum, henchman to the Cat. Dum and Dee are the Cat's most dangerous and loyal bodyguards, not the smartest but man are they tough. The queen of Hearts tried to assassinate the Cat but failed. Upon trying to escape she ran into the twins, in short, she kicked their butts and cut their arms off to flee. This did not go well with the twins.

Step 2: Sketch--I did quite a few pages of sketching and a few more hours on gathering reference for my characters. This helped me greatly because I had a clear picture in my head of the feeling I wanted Tweedle Dum to have. I know, a clear picture of a feeling, what the heck is that...I myself cannot explain it fully but it is an important part of my creative process. Below is the final sketch I decided to go with, this was done in my sketchbook and its about 2.5 inches tall.
Step 3: Revisions--Took it into Photoshop, created a new layer and began to do another iteration or version of it. Making another layer in Photoshop is pretty much like putting a piece of tracing paper over your drawing to make corrections. That is basically what I did and this is the result:
Now, I love the weight I got in this guy and I am starting to like what is going on with the arm, but I am still not happy with the overall shapes, I want a little more contrast and flow pushed throughout the forms....ah...now on to.....

Step 4: Revisions...wait, wasn't that step 3, well its my step 4 also so get over it buddy! Revisions and iterations are keys to a successful design. Not to say to keep doing it infinitely, but for myself, I learn a lot from my bad drawings and do not want to just accept those mistakes but learn from them to create better deigns. I usually do 3 or 4 passes at a design, some of you may be bale to hit the design on the money at first pass..to those who can I admire and hate you at the same time...j/k...not really.

Step 5: Final revision Lineart. Now I clean up my linework considerably and really start to pay attention to how things work, especially that dang arm. I spent quite a bit of time on that arm, figuring out how it would work and what shapes to push. I have a lot more to talk about on that particular aspect of the design but I will save that for another post. Basically, I looked at gears and drawbridges, combined with a Japanese storage barrel that holds a spiked statue head which he uses as a mace. Makes sense right?!?!
Well, I will be coloring this guy up now so I will post that up when ti is done. I will also post a sneak peak for an upcoming show I am going to be a part of in San Diego during Comicon Weekend..the show is called Meanwhile in the Halls of Justice.

Stay tuned!

-Pat

Coffee Shop Sketch

So outside the studio most artists take a break into the real world by grabbing some caffeine at their local coffee shops. Coffee shops are like artists' home away from home. This is where we let our hair down and get a chance to see different characters and scenarios. I have frequented several over the course of my art career and today was just one of those inspirational days. While sipping my drink today and listening to some tunes I was inspired to just start some random sketching in Photoshop. The sketch evolved into color, which evolved into a small scene and then a vignette. I am one not to brag about how long something took me, I just want to merely state that when inspiration hits its like lightening in a bottle and it just flows out.

The below is the product of such inspiration, for some reason I was able to knock this out in 20 minutes. It's one of the cashiers and I just felt like he was jamming away on the cash register like it was an instrument. I think this works well because of the energy and gesture pushed into the character and overall scene.


So, from the advice of my fiance', I have decided to try and do an inspirational sketch from each coffee shop I frequent. I think it will be a good exercise and just fun. Hope you guys enjoy what's to come! Thanks for reading, i know, i know.....artists...read and write...just get to the pictures
Pat!

ME AGAIN

Back from a little mini vacation from the Bay area, it was very refreshing and a whole ton of fun. Picked up some great books which I will post later and ate some of the best food ever. Here are some of the sketches from my trip. I drew everyday just observing and jotting down characters, something I have not done in a while and man it got the creative juices flowing.




Lastly, this is a character I finished before I headed out for vacation. This is part of my take on Alice in Wonderland, he is Cheshire a.k.a. The Cat. A former Union soldier that headed out to Japan and has take over one of the local crime syndicates. I might take another pass at him, not sure yet but I still have 3 of his cast member to go...Tweedle Dee, Queen of Hearts and Alice. Enjoy and I will post the rest of my sketches from the trip.

-Pat

INTO THE WILD

I was recently asked by Mr. Cory Godbey to contribute artwork to a blog he has created called Terrible Yellow Eyes. This site is a collection of artists creating artwork dedicated to the story Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. If you are a creative mind and have not seen this book go out and pick one up. This book with its illustrations and words have been very inspirational for not only my work but for a ton of other artists I admire as well. So he was my entry:Below are the sketches for the piece.Each time I do an illustration I always do several iterations and try to work out the composition before I go with a full head of steam into the drawing. This is the phase that counts the most. Taking the time to do little studies and work out the details of the piece can save you a tremendous amount of time when you go into the final. Now some of you may ask, well doesn't that kill the spontaneity of the drawing i you plan everything out meticulously? Not at all.....what that helps you to do is to train your hand to get used to those rhythms and shapes, so that when you do go into the final drawing your mind and hand are working in unison making the final image easier to get out. Hope that makes sense.This next page I am working on new compositions and value schemes in ball point pen. I eventually decide to go back to a composition on the first page which I later flipped horizontal for the final piece.

Enjoy all, make sure to visit Terrible Yellow Eyes and I will have more work to show!

Best,
Pat

E HONDA HERE I COME!

I have been doing a few more demos in school this term which has been a blast for me. I Did these two in class the other day. This is my version of Tweedle Dum from Alice in Wonderland. My story takes place in Feudal Japan and Tweedle here is the bodyguard to the evil Queen of Hearts. His weapon of choice, the statue from a Buddha Statue that he uses as a flail and his pattented Sumo crusher which was stolen from him by E. Honda.



I plan to do a cleaned up drawing of Tweedle with the statue head and the second one I plan on taking it to a finish all digitally...just testing out different methods for myself.

I will post the concept sketches for this guy as well as the lineart and finish. I plan on doing 3 more characters, the Geisha Queen of Hearts, Alice ninja in training and Cheshire Cat the drunkard ninja master.

Enjoy!

CALL ME SNAKE

Final color version. Went to a coffee shop the other day to finish this one off. Haven't done that in a while. Unfortunately allergies kicked in and I had to go home early...sucks!

Also, big thanks to some of the artists from Blizzard that dropped by my class to talk to my students. They showed a lot of cool art and visual effects, more than what I expected. I just hope it was as inspiring for my students as it was for me. Thanks again to Rob, John, Chris and Matt. I look forward to having you guys come back again.

POST EXPLOSION

MAN. Almost a month since my last post, what a hack I am. I apologize for not posting any artwork, the past 2 months has been crazy with teaching, weddings and I finally wrapped up my 2 month stay at Technicolor Animation. I was originally slated for only 4 weeks but I ended up working on a couple fun projects for them which I will be able to talk about later. I met so many cool artists and people over there and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with them. SO if you see some new people on my friends list, that will be them!

Alright, here are a couple of pieces I am currently working on:

First up, this is the gladiator all colored up from my previous post. This took me a lot longer to finish because of time and also I was really pushing the quality of the armor. It was a tiring but fun process. I have 3 more characters from his world I hope to get to those soon!





Next up, for those who know Escape From New York with Kurt Russel, this is my homage to the infamous Snake Plissken. I am going to color him up this weekend. Probably try a more flat style for him, more towards animation.




Here are some pages from my sketchbook. I made it a point over one of this past weekends to get out of the house and go to the mall. I usually sit in food courts because everyone has to eat and you get all sorts of fun characters coming together in one place. A lot of fun until you get a little kid hovering over you with an ice cream bar ready to fall on your sketchbook.




Lastly, I sat in on my buddy's class in San Diego and did some life drawing. Towards the end of the session the model was getting covered up by students heads so I decided to draw them instead.



And I got a little carried away with these, the model as a zombie, and one of the final poses he really looked like a character from Conan defeating his sworn enemy.





Well, that's it for now. I am back with a vengeance and will be posting more regularly. Thanks for stopping by all and thank you for being patient with my updates!

-Pat

Some Free Time

Whew, its been a crazy month. I got extended for another week at Technicolor so I have been spending quite a few 10 hour days at work. I try to squeeze some extra drawing time when I can and I have so many ideas I need to get out. So, slowly but surely they will start to trickle out on to paper.

The next few images are some characters I was doing as class demos for my character class at The Art Institute of Orange County. Our project last term was "Little Red Riding Hood." I set mine during the Roman Empire.

First up is the overall cast lineup for my group. From left to right we have:
The Wolf, Red, Grandma and The Hunter. The wolf and red are my antagonists and Grandma and Hunter are the protagonists (just in case antagonist=bad guys, protagonists=good guys).


I started to paint up the face of the Hunter so here is a closeup of it.



Finally, I decided I really wanted to make the Hunter's design stronger so I printed him out and did a line drawing. The hunter is African American and comes from a long line of lion hunters. Unfortunately, he was captured and put into the gladiatorial games. I will go a little more in depth on him a little later with the final color version as well as some process shots.



Thank you so much for being patient with me, I am trying my hardest to post more often.

-Pat

OOPS

Man, I feel like a slacker, my bad for not posting sooner, it has been pretty hectic and I just realized it has almost been a month since my last post. Basically, what has been keeping me busy is that I have been working in house at a Technicolor in Burbank. Its an outsource company and right now they have me doing some characters for a project I cannot discuss. Its a lot of fun and I have met some really kick ass artists but I work 10 hour days, go home, do another 4 hours of freelance or work on my children's book i am trying to finish and then I teach all day Friday.

Wah wah, I know....I feel blessed to be working but man, MR. Burn Out is hovering around me.

OK, here are a couple things I am trying to finish in my spare time.

This is a character I have been working on for a story I am developing. This is round one of him and will probably go thru a few more revisions. He's the leader of a ghost hunting team.

Next up, part of my Peter Pan remake, this is TIC TOC CROC. Pretty self explanatory, he is basically a charging, vicious time bomb...literally.

Lastly, Just some random doodles.
Again, my apologies for lagging. I will post again soon and will get some color on those 2 characters. Happy March everyone! Thanks for looking.

-Pat

I"M A GENIUS!

Well, not really. When you go on blogs and online forums you see all this cool art. A lot times the artists will say "O yea, this took me 20 minutes no reference" or "yea I just started doodling and I knocked this out in a day." So yes, there are plenty of artists that do this and I humbly respect and bow down to their talent. However, there are some who painstakingly take days to churn things out, redoing things time and time again and then they are still not happy with an end product. To redeem these facts, some slap on the tag " yea, took me 20 minutes, no problem at all." A quick side note, painting fast does not mean you get better, making better design choices is what makes you a better and faster designer. Hope that makes sense.

Where is this all leading Pat? Well myself, I try to find a happy medium between the 2 extremes. I take my time in the preplanning and production of a piece so that when I get to the execution, it flows out faster because I have done my homework and rehearsed my drawings for the final show. Let me show you.


So for the finished Shear Ends (image in the previous post) I did a lot of thumbnail sketches for my composition as well as the stylization of my characters. I probably spent the better half of the day working this out on a few pages in my sketchbook.



Next, came the execution. This took me about a day in total because I had a game plan, I did my homework, and I had a clear vision of what I wanted it to look like. here goes:



1) Get my final line art down, scanned into Photoshop at 400 DPI and cleaned up with levels to get rid of some of the debris.
2) Laid down an overall gray tone on the characters so its not just a white canvas, and started to pick out some highlights in the characters.
3) Worked in the shadow patterns, I flip the order of my lights and shadows, lately I have been laying in my shadows first to find form and volume.



4) Use a color layer in Photoshop to lay down washes of color over my grayscale tones.
5) Start rendering the main character, face first then I work on the body. I like to render up a small section sometimes to help see what level I have to push the rest of the piece to.
6) The bear was too low and cut off too much on the page, so I cut and paste and moved him over to the left and a little higher.




7)Finish rendering the hands and the white background was bugging my so I laid down a quick gradient.
8) Added some darks to the gradient background to give it some mood.
9) Added a final texture to give it some grit in the background. Now, before I decided on this texture I went through several variations and random textures that did not fit. I wanted the texture to fit the personality of the piece as well as the frame I chose for it. These little things are what makes your piece come together in the end so do not forget them.

OK, Enough blabbing from me. I hope this helped out some of you out there. Remember, I'm not a rocket scientist, I just put in a lot of work and I don't give up on a piece...usually.....well maybe 1 out of 10......OK the end.

-Pat

SHEAR ENDS

Man, again my apologies for not posting sooner. I actually got slammed with 2 freelance projects last week that I am wrapping up on. One was doing storyboards for a TV promo that will air on SPIKE TV and the other is character designs for a game company I have worked with before. I can't really say much more than that due to NDA (non-disclosure agreement). As soon as I get permission I will post some of those.

Anyways, the image below was done for the 5 year anniversary of THE KUTTINGROOM salon/gallery. They are the ones that hosted my very first show. So when I asked, I was more than happy to contribute a piece to the event. So my friend Cecile helped me with the title of the piece which is the same as the blog post title, SHEAR ENDS. The theme for the art was hair inspired and of course I had to depict the most awesome hair stylist I could think of. Hopefully, you can guess who it is, if not....WHAT"S WRONG WITH YOU! I kid, I kid. I knocked this out in about a day but in the next post I will show you how much work went into this before I actually attacked the final composition. I did pages of thumbnails sketches and studies to get the right attitude I wanted, you will see all of this next week as well as some insight through the various stages of this piece.

Till then please enjoy, leave a comment and I will be back fairly soon!

-Pat

NO SOUP FOR YOU

Apologies for not posting sooner. I have been in the process of moving so as you can imagine I have a lot of artwork and books. Lets just say I do not want to move for another 10 years. Either that or stop collecting books, which I do not see happening. Alright, enough about that, below is a concept I approached a few years back; a half man/half machine dim sum chef. I had a lot of fun with this guy because I was able to push the shapes a lot more and control the flow of the piece.

A lot of times people put tons of detail and texture into a piece that may seem cool at first glance but fail to really make you see a personality in the design. As a viewer, not being able to connect with the character on screen for more than just 5 seconds is a disaster in the making. For my design, I could imagine how her walks, talks, how he serves people and maybe how rude he is. He's a messy dude that takes his time and does not haul ass for anyone. What made this character come to life faster was I also had a friend in mind when I was designing it. Being able to rely on reference from life is an essential tool in character design even if its a creature.

OK, next up some small water color studies I did when I was in Mammoth over the break. These were each about 30 minutes. I wanted to do more but it was really cold and my water froze while I was painting...yeeesh.

Finally, some good old sketches done with hi-tec-c pens. First page is about an 1-1.5 hours of sketching with some of the homies in Orange County. We went to a Barnes and Nobles and just sat at the cafe and sketched. Was very relaxing and fun. As you can see, I like to cram a lot into one page...makes me feel accomplished.

Lastly, another sketchbook page, I was waiting at Verizon for a while so I just started sketching whoever came in the door. Really fun for practicing gesture.

That's it for now. I will post again soon to make up for missing last week. Thanks for looking and for sharing my blog with others, you guys all ROCK!

-Pat

LATE NIGHT FUN

Well, last couple of nights I have been up till about 3AM working on a variety of things. Mainly a lot of personal projects and making sure my website is up and running. Every once in a while I get inspired to do something just for the hell of it. Last night was one of those nights. A lot of times when you stay up late they put on the coolest crap on TV, well one of the all time greats, CHUCK "THE MAN" NORRIS was on as Texas ranger J.J. McQuade. Badassness at its best. His main enemy was David Carradine who by no means is a martial artist, but man....great classic final showdown.

Below is a my homage to that last fight scene in my own interpretation.
Nothing super fancy, just another page out of my sketchbook.The main thing I wanted to show is their personalities through their stances. J.J. on the left is more rugged, get the job done type of fighting. David Carradine on the right tries to fight with more grace and elegance but with an air of cockiness, the cigarette in the mouth helps with that a little bad. Like he knows he's gonna win so he doesn't need to put out his cigarette. Remember, even the tiniest of props adds to the overall personality of your character, so make those design decisions count.

More to come as I stay awake late yet another night!

Thanks for looking.

-Pat

NEW LOOK

Hey all,

Sorry for the lack of posts, I have been busy working away at some new stuff for my website that I can know say is updated, uploaded and ready for your viewing pleasure. I changed the layout a little bit but its still pretty simple to get around. Below is a screen cap of the updated front page which I will try and change monthly.

Click here to go check out the site!


I have added a lot of new images to my concept section; characters and concepts for films and other projects. The Storyboards and Sketches sections have also had some new editions. So whenever you get a chance pop on by a for a look and let me know what you think. As always thanks for looking and I will be back this week with some more work!

-Patrick

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hi guys, sorry about the long time and no post. I have been swamped with teaching stuff, some freelance and getting some new content for my website. The relaunch of my site will be soon so stay tuned for that.


On to more pressing matters, this Guardian Leopard is another one of those redo characters. I wanted the character to have more personality, to do this I really needed to think more about his story, something I did not really do in the first version. A lot of the times when we do a character design we want it to look so cool that we get enamored with all the details first...textures, cool weapons, etc... Sometimes we sacrifice a lot of the story which is a shame because the story is what draws us into your character.

For this guy, he was an imperial guard that has fallen out of favor with the king of his land so has now become an outcast and has come back for revenge. Its simple, but I have at least given my character an archetype (villain created by circumstance) and a conflict (needs to kill the king) and a goal ( for revenge to restore his honor).

I could go more into depth but again, I like to keep it simple so I don't get too lost in the story. There's always a balance you have to find between having just enough story to get started and waaaay to much that you "think yourself into a corner" and become stuck.

Alright, I hope that was helpful. Time to get back to updating my website but I will be back with new sketchbook pages, a sneak peak at the new site and new illustrations and covers. See you guys soon in the 09!

-Pat

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Hope everyone is having a happy and save holidays. I finished this guy over the break. It is actually a redesign of an older character I had worked on quite a few number of years ago. I think it is really important to look back at your old work to see how much you have really grown as an artist over the years. It helps to put things in perspective.

Below is the creature design, he is a shaman, a seer/fortune teller. There are some similarities between the old and new but I really wanted to incorporate better shapes and structure to the design. Before, the torso felt very flat, in the newer one I pushed a belly to add to his feeling of reading as 3 dimensional. I also decided to move his arm out to help strengthen his silhouette and after going over it with friends, pushed a little more personality into his walking stick as well. Remember, the personality of your character should be reinforced from the actual character, to its' clothing and props.


I actually went through a few versions of this before I got it right. Still messing around with how much to keep my line art and how much to lose. It changes with each character but again it helps me to grow.

I suggest you try it out, take one of your old designs and redo it. It's a great eye opener and helps to reinforce that, "Hey, I actual know what I'm doing now!"

Thanks for looking, more to come!

FEEL THE MAGIC, HEAR THE ROAR.......

C'mon, you know you can finish off that sentence. You know you want to, go ahead! HA...now you will have that theme song stuck in your head for the rest of the day....you are most welcome my friends. For those who do not know what the title of this blog is from....what a sad day.

I may be biased, but I feel that kids cartoons had more charm back in the 80's. Such iconic characters and designs were pure gold for any kid to feast there eyes on. Shows like the Thundercats, Silver Hawks, Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs ( O yes I went there), Visionaries, G.I.Joe, Transformers, Bionic Six, etc... I can go on and on. So in my geek boy phase every once in a while I will do a character from a show. Right now I am in a a Thundercats mood and decided to start out with the most bad ass of them all, in my mind...PANTHRO!
So, I basically did my own take of him and really wanted to see what types of shapes I could push and pull with him. For me, he was the strongest of them all so I centered everything around his immense torso. I enjoyed doing this because it helped me to see what was working and what was not working with the original design. Its a good exercise and I plan on doing more of these. Along with the finished version I added my line art and my first color block in phase for you guys to look at. Nothing fancy, just trying to describe forms but the main thing I always try to be consistent with my light source and how I light my forms. This will help with the big graphic read of your character.

Enjoy, next up...SLYYTHHHHHHE!

-Pat