SOTD 11/05/09

THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR.

SOTD 11/04/09

Thanks Chris for purchasing a set of prints, here is your sketch for being the first to purchase it!

SOTD 11/03/09

Sketch for Robert who ordered a set of my Timely Wonders piece, hope you enjoy!

SOTD 11/02/09

Reginald Duby, professional card player.

Pencil water color and white gouche on toned paper, yes I actually used real paint..woohoo!
Still figuring some things out, but felt like mucking around with the good stuff.

SOTD 10/31/09

TRICK OR TREAT!

SOTD 10/30/09

Cereal Killer show wraps up this weekend in San Diego, thanks again to everyone for the support. I will be posting some new work up on here later on so stay tuned!

SOTD for 10/27-29

Even though I missed few posting days, I still did the drawings, so here we go:



"Give me some sugar baby!"






ROCKY XXV





Sir HUGO




Defender of good and slayer of all heathens.

SOTD 10/26/09 and some make ups

Sorry I have been MIA for a few days, been pretty hectic with regular life stuff, but I am back and refreshed with a drawing vengeance. So here is the SOTD and some make ups that I owe you guys.

Saw this guy at a jousting tournament in San Diego, no joke, he was the coolest character ever.

Pierce Featherton: British Marksman and assassin for hire.

Kiera Tazir, tree warrior and next in line for queen of her people.

Tre Maddox: Swat captain under investigation by Internal Affairs.

And finally, here are some pics from the jousting tournament I went to with my buddies Dzu and Keith. Yes, a real joust with real knights. But below are images of me hanging out and learning how to fight with the Romans.

Where's Russel Crowe when you need him?



Dude, they were really attacking me.


Man, know I want some armor.


Thanks for being patient guys, hope the update makes up for my absence.

SOTD 10/22/09

XANDER DAXTER, zombie hunter.

SOTD 10/21/09

"You've got red on you."

SOTD 10/20/09

YO ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!

SOTD 10/19/09

2 Gold Stars if you know where these characters are from!

SOTD 10/17/09

Not really a sketch and another space person, but its in color! A demo I did for some students. Still some things I want to fix with this one, probably on another pass.

SOTD 10/16/09

Sorry for all the space stuff, it just comes out cause I've been doing it all week. I promise next week to post a different subject matter.

SOTD 10/15/09

SOTD 10/04/09 and Timely Wonders Prints

I got my first run of Timely Wonders prints, I have 20 sets for sale and they will run $40 plus shipping and handling. If you are interested please email me at:

patrick.ballesteros@gmail.com

for details and payment options. Also, the first 10 orders I receive will get a free sketch with it.

Timely Wonders, each measures 8" x 16" on Lustre paper. I put a quarter next to them for scale.





So this guy below has always been one of my favorites from childhood, but I also did this in honor of some prints I have for sale.

SOTD 10/13/09

WHEW! Just made it, got out of class late and wrapped this one up.


FIRST CONTACT.

SOTD 10/12/09

I think I just have a thing for samurai and Batman...hmm,
I wonder what the next piece will have in it?


Grayscale marker 20%, sepia tone pen,
burnt umber and raw sienna watercolor,
and white pigment on 8.5" x 11" toned paper.

SOTD 10/10/09

SMASH!!!!!!

SOTD 10/09/09

Not so Fast and Furious.

SOTD 10/08/09

Been drawing a lot of space suits for a project, kinda cool cause now I have a repertoire of space suit vocabulary to draw upon. Learning is grrreaaaaaat!

SOTD 10/07/09

Everybody has a bad day, even the great ones. Keep at it guys, we can only get better.

SOTD 10/06/09

Why do I draw this guy so much, I think its more for the villains and the fact that he has always had a cool back story to him. Like I said before, so many classic baddies in the original Batman the Animated.

I still think Patrick Stewart would have been a dope Mr Freeze, Arnold, what the heck were they thinking.

RECAP OF SHOW AND SOTD 10/5/09

The show was a blast. Thanks again to everyone for showing up. The night started with a few friends and guests showing up at 6 p.m. on the dot. From that point on, people started to trickle in and then it was pretty much packed the entire evening.

I was totally shocked to see my name on a window! That was pretty damn cool. And as you can see, my artwork attracted people of all ages. (The baby seemed to enjoy the show. I love that picture!)

I was so happy to see everyone enjoying the pieces and I had a chance to talk to people who have only seen my art work online; it was a big treat! O yea, I was selling prints at the show and there are still a few left. If interested just shoot me or the gallery an email if you wanna know prices.

Big thanks to all my friends and family that showed up. My high school art teacher, Fred, even dropped by. That was especially cool because I like to think I have come a looooong way since my days of drawing really bad unproportioned figures.

Below is one of the pieces from the show. I have also attached the line art so you can see the before and after. If you were not able to make it to the show, it will be up until November 1st. All you have to do is send an e-mail to Dylan at Subtext Gallery: dylan@subtextgallery.com

It's not fancy shmancy or a big deal, it's just that the gallery has a limited number of staff and making appointments makes sure someone is there to open the door for you plus this means you check it out based on your schedule instead of set gallery hours! Any questions on that again, feel free to contact me.

Finally, the sketch of the day. I watched Zombieland the other day with Kay, Dzu, and Nick. Man, that movie was a lot of fun. There is an awesome cameo in there but no worries I won't spoil it for you.

Wow, what a whirlwind, I can't believe I made it through the opening. I hope you guys enjoyed the show as much as I did. What's up next?....I have plans for another series but for now....rest!

SOTD 10/3/09

Hi guys,

I will have a recap of the show on Monday for you with some pics. It was crazy, tons of people, a lot of new and old faces but tons of fun. Thanks to all of you for the texts, emails and well wishes for the show, they all helped and the it turned out great. I feel really blessed. A big thanks to the L.A. and Orange County contingency of friends that made it down, I am glad I got to share that experience with you crazy kids.

On to the sketch of the day. The art show brought out all walks of life which made it more fun for me.

SOTD 10/2/09

CEREAL KILLER ART SHOW TODAY, WOOHOOO! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE ALL OF YOU THERE!

If you can't tell I'm excited and I pray all goes well tonight so after the show I can have a refreshing beverage and be this happy:

SOTD 10/1/09

TOMORROW IS THE CEREAL KILLER ART SHOW!

Here is a quick peak at installation day. Yup you can't really see the much, all I can say is the pieces have taken on a different life hung on those walls, I was even shocked...in a good way.




Also, I can't forget the SOTD.


We all have gone through that feeling of trying to get that monkey off our back, so here is my art monkey. Sometimes he behaves, unfortunately, there are the bad days were the art monkey creates distractions and frustrates me. Hopefully I can sneak him a banana so I can get back into the swing of things.

SOTD 9/30/09

1 MORE DAY UNTIL THE CEREAL KILLER ART SHOW!

I just finished finished installing the...whoa...I am super excited and can't wait for all of you to see it in person. It's a totally different experience seeing my pieces hung on the wall in person! I will post some pictures tomorrow of the installation.

Anyways, my brain is fried and I had a tough time with the sketch of the day because I am artistically drained pretty much. So being somewhat brain dead here's the sketch of the day.

SOTD 9/29/09

3 DAYS UNTIL CEREAL KILLER ART SHOW!!!!

Click here for my post about it.

This guy was always my fav.

SOTD 9/28/09

4 DAYS UNTIL CEREAL KILLER ART SHOW!!!!

Click here for my post about it.

On to the sketch of the day.....oooooooo, the CLAAAAAAAW!

SOTD 9/26/09

6 MORE DAYS AND COUNTING UNTIL THE ARTSHOW.
Previous posts have the details.

Anyways, on to more pressing issues:

HAN: Ohara's treachery has disgraced us.

SOTD 9/25

7 MORE DAYS TILL THE ARTSHOW! Check the previous post for details. Meanwhile, here's another one:

Lee: Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

SOLO ARTSHOW FRIDAY OCT 2, 2009

Yep that's right. Next Friday in San Diego I will be having my first solo show at Subtext Gallery. The show is called Cereal Killer and it is based off of the piece below. The show will contain 7 totally new pieces, original drawings and even the sketchbook I used solely for this show. I will also have prints on sale at the reception and will be signing them for those interested.

Here is the official announcement from the gallery:

Gallery info:

SUBTEXT GALLERY
2479 KETTNER BLVD.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
PHONE 619 546 8800

SUBTEXTGALLERY.COM

If you have any questions you can email me or just leave a comment and I will be sure to get back to you ASAP. I look forward to seeing some old and new faces at the reception. And Yes I am still going to post a sketch of the day, patience you!

EDIT: Here is the Sketch of the Day for 9/24/09

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


That makes me giggle..heh heh.

SOTD 9/23/09

COOOBRRAAAAAAA!

So I forgot my red pen, but by luck I found a red colored pencil at school during my class so I was able to finish this on time. What luck!

Anyways, colored pencil, marker, pen and ink on toned paper.

Also, I have had several inquiries about prints and if these sketches are for sale. I am in the works with getting prints together for some but I will post more info on that soon. As for the original sketches, please email me for availability and pricing. Thanks all!

SOTD 9/22/09

Killer Croc was another cool character, I'll tackle something a little different tomorrow....or maybe Mr Freeze...he was the coolest too!

SOTD 9/21

I was watching Wolverine and the X-men all day yesterday while I was working so I got inspired to pop out this guy. He looks more like a villain to me but I might use him for an illustration down the line.

SOTD 9/19/09

Crash Landing.

Been crunching late nights past week or so, getting burnt out here and there but its all worth it...I think.

Time for some sleep.

SOTD 9/18/09

Old dudes and robots, 'nuff said.

SOTD 9/17

Two of my favs from the early 90's version of Batman the animated series. I remember coming home from school everyday waiting for the next new episode of Batman. The intro was just mesmerizing and for me each was the coolest thing I had ever seen. They actually used real gun sound effects and not cheesy lasers, I think that's what added to the cool factor. Anyways, here's an homage to Bats and Clayface, one of the cooler original characters from the show.

Cartoons these days just aren't the same.

SOTD 9/16

Mathilda: Do you "clean" anyone?
Léon: No women, no kids, that's the rules.

SOTD 9/15

Samurai + girl + sword + arrow in my leg = another badass I would not want to mess with.

SOTD 9/14

He never gives up he's always there, fighting for freedom over land and air!

Come on, you know you know the rest of it, just hum it at work so no one hears you sing it.

Roadblock is still a badass.

SOTD 9/12

Mongol General: Conan what is best in life?

Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

I love that movie.

SOTD 9/11

Congrats again to my friends Joe and Riann on the birth of their beautiful girl.

So this one is in honor of my new niece , whom we have nicknamed baby dragon.



What a little beast, but o so cute!

SOTD 9/10

They've been fumigating some of the apartments at our complex, so here is my homage to the "EXTERMINATORS."

But who's exterminating who?....hmmmmmmm.

SOTD 9/09

Happy 9/9/09!

I forgot how much fun traditional is, below is an homage to the most butt kicking character who could have missiles on his wrist!

I was going to crop out a lot of the misc. sketches on the page but figured, eh...keep em. That and I got lazy.



Materials used, copic markers 30 and 50%, some japanese brush pen (not a fancy one just the 8 dollar one), a red sharpie--oil based marker, and a .4 Hi-Tec C Pen. Yep, no pencil, even though I probably should but this teaches me to really conserve lines and helps my drawing stay loose.

SOTD 9/08

Whew, barely made it. Anyways, on the superhero front...we all know he did.

SOTD 9/07

Happy Labor Day!

I was in kind of an art funk coming up with my SOTD so this guy came around to punish me into shape.

SOTD 9/05

Inspired by Iron Giant, that movie just rocked! 2D needs something like that again.

SOTD 9/4

Little study for an illustration I have planned. This is one of the baddies, I am working on a series of characters that will be fighting this little guy that I will post later. For the meantime, here we have a private school kid turn ghoul. More character studies to come in the next few weeks!

SOTD 9/3

Rough weather ahead, pushing through with the last of the artshow pieces and its been fun but at the same time stressful and exhausting at times. O why do artists torture themselves so... well, can't be all bad, I still got time to make silly pictures!

SOTD 9/02

Just saw District 9..man, too many kinds of ass kicking in that movie. 3 THUMBS UP!!!

It inspired my sketch of the day.

SOTD 9/01

HAH! Made it before Midnight so it still counts as today's sketch! Whew, thought I was going to miss it. Anyways, for those of you who were raised on 80's cartoons, this was my tribute to the short lived GALAXY RANGERS. Man, how can you not love that intro!

I also forgot there was an African American guy in there, he was like the wild west space version of Lando Calrissian, so here's my take on him with a little space baddie.



Ah the 80's, they don't make cartoons like they used to. More of these to come!

SOTD 8/31

More dead action. This one has actually inspired an illustration that I want to do.

SOTD 8/29

Was at the mall in Thousand Oaks waiting for Kay to show up to run some errands. Started sketching an open seating area cause it had some cool architecture. It kinda evolved into one of my favorite subjects. Hope you guys dig!

SKetch of the Day 8/28

Man, they don't make 'em like this anymore. I think once the art show passes over I may be doing something epic with these guys....anybody else want to see more? Let me hear from ya!

SKetch of the Day 8/27

Dagnabbit...I will be doing this everyday.....I hope.


I just loved this movie.

DEMO FROM CLASS

Yesterday I talked about prop design and the importance of doing studies and iterations to my class. Below is the demo I did for them. To preface this the characters I am creating in class, 2 of them are German soldiers that run a work labor camp during WW2. One is the Evil Colonel Von Merl, a craggly old man and the other is Capt. Guinevere Rommel the evil henchman.

The props below 1) is Excalibur the German's new hydrogen bomb still in development. To access the bomb you need to dial in the right number combination on the phone on the side of it or else the dynamite around it will blow you up. Don't worry, German engineering was soo good back then that the dynamite would only kill the person and not detonate the bomb...scout's honor!

The second prop is the General's breathing apparatus which is hooked up to a backpack that he carries around. I might have someone else or a pet carry his 02 around but this was the first pass at it.


These are the studies I did in my sketchbook to help my hand get familiar with the shapes of the hydrogen bomb.

Usually I work digitally in front of the students because 1) it is easier for them to see everything and 2) everyone thinks digital will save your design. Some of my students learned the hard way that working digital does not compensate for bad draftsmanship. Anyways, in trying to keep my draftsmanship up I worked traditionally for the demo. Materials: toned paper, grayscale marker at 30%, hi-tec-c pen(.4) and a white out pen.

Thanks for stopping by!

SOME REDEMPTION

Update on some artshow stuff. Here is another page of studies for one of the pieces. Again this will be on display at the show. I used ballpoint pen, gouche and watercolor for these. Trying to do something a little different for myself. Enjoy!




-pat

WHOA AUGUST ALREADY

Hi all, long time no post. I am such a boob for taking so long to put up a new post. However, this last month has been super crazy with freelance gigs, traveling and attending more weddings than art workshops. I know, get off the excuse wagon and show me some art, right? Well, I have a few sketches and stuff to show but the reason for my long absence is that I have been doing a ton of artwork for my first solo art show down in San Diego at Gallery Subtext entitled "Cereal Killer". This is the same gallery where I showed the Wonder Woman piece. Opening reception will be Friday, October 2nd, 7-10PM. I will be posting more info on that with fliers and such as it gets closer so all of you can remember to come down and visit!

OK, seriously here is some artwork I have been able to squeeze in here and there.

These were some character explorations I was doing for that civil war samurai character I finished a few posts back.


I did this batch of space pirates at a life drawing workshop. These weren't the models but during the break someone mentioned Space Ace, then I thought Space Pirates and came up with this crew of misfits. I am hoping to do something more with these guys after the art show.


Next are some teasers for the upcoming art show "Cereal Killer."

These are some studies for one of the pieces...can you guess who I am killing off..hmmm.....
A lot of these sketches will be on display at the show.


And here is a small teaser for one of the pieces...what could be going on here, well to find out you are just gonna have to come to San Diego to see the show!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Pat

COMI-CON WRAP UP 2009

What a blast as always! I picked up some great sketchbooks and got to see a lot of old friends, some whom I have not seen for quite some time. Friday was my character workshop at the Art Institue booth; you never know what to expect from those at Comi-Con. Let's just say it was quite difficult competing with the noise and fellow geeks (note I said fellow so I do acknowledge myself as one) but I was able to meet a couple of you out there and get some "quality" talk time with others. So thank you for your time!

Anyway, the workshop was on character design and I created a Jedi Librarian who watches over the physical books of the old republic. Quick back story--he is a Jedi wash out and yearns to be like Obi Won, alas, he is stuck using the force to shelve books.

Silhouette and character iteration demo:
Character type and face demo:

Friday night was also the night of the big art show at Subtext Gallery open during Comi-Con week only. For those who missed it, here is my piece entitled Unexpected:

Next up are some books I picked up with links to the artists' sites:

1) "Ogeley Boogeley 5" sketches by Pascal CampionPascal is one of those rare artists that bursts with life and imagination and at the same time is a very kool kat! He has always lent me great advice and has been very supportive of my artistic career and growth, thanks buddy! Click here to link to his site.


2) "Cano Scribbles" by Octavio RodriguezOctavio is just one cool mutha. While visiting Pascal, Octavio was chilling out in the wee morning hours. He looked at my portfolio and we struck up a conversation. He currently works at Lucasfilm Animation (I throw my fists in the air in a rage of jealousy..ha ha) and he is just one badass. ClickHere to link to his site.

3: "Bento Box" by Paul LinsleyI first saw Paul's artwork on the Character Design Blog and was BLOWN AWAY! Luckily I was able to talk to him in person and got to chit chat a bit on the industry and his journey as an artist. More of his great art can be seen here. We asked him the secret to art and he told us.

"There is an old lady in Mexico City, if you find her, give her 15 pesos and repeat these words....déme un cigarrillo. And then you will be given the secret to great art."

On that note, I will wrap up this post but I will have a couple more things to share later on this week. As for me, man I need to do some frakin laundry!

COMI-CON WORKSHOP AND AN ART SHOW

Hey guys, for those who don't know, Comi-Con 2009 is this week from July 23 to 26 in San Diego. It's looking like another fun year with a lot of cool artists and workshops scheduled for the week. You will catch me wandering around the halls looking at cool art, buying books and other things I do not need, and geeking out at a lot of artists that I admire. In between all of that I am going to be keeping myself pretty busy.

On Friday, July 24, I will be conducting a 2-hour Character Design Workshop at the Art Institute booth (booth #1947). The workshop will take place 3pm-4pm followed by a 1-hour break and then resume 5pm-6pm. I will be covering some character design basics and doing a demo as well. During the workshop you will be able to work along with me and get some one-on-one time with me, too. Seats are limited, so you will need to sign up 1 hour prior to the workshop for a guaranteed spot. Regardless, please stop by, hang out, and cheer me on or just say hi! Here are some samples and the official description of the workshop:

Character Design for Comic/Gamers I & II: 3:00PM, 5:00PM
What is the secret to an awesome character design? Concept Illustrator, Patrick Ballesteros, Instructor from The Art Institute of California – Orange County will focus on the importance of storytelling and the tools used to make memorable characters for any medium. Design topics such as the use of silhouette, gesture, reference, and attitude will be discussed. This workshop is great for beginners and will provide a sneak peek into the world of character design.

Here is a map of where I will be:

Mark your calendars again! Also on Friday, July 24, please stop by Subtext Gallery in San Diego (Kettner Art & Design District) from 6pm to 10pm. I contributed a piece to their show "Meanwhile... at the Hall Of Justice: A Collection of Superhero Mishaps."  I'll be at the gallery after 7pm and I would love to hear from you!

Here is a link to the gallery's website and show details:
http://subtextstore.com/blog/?p=1007

This is a link to the gallery location:
http://subtextstore.com/blog/?page_id=8

**This show will take place only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Comi-Con week (July 24-26) so be sure you don't miss out. Here is a sneak peak of my contribution!**Alright, well this week is gonna be super crazy but I know it will be a whole lot of fun. Like I said, I hope to see some of you at the workshop and most especially at the art show! Thanks again for stopping by.

-Pat

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

BOOK SIGNING THIS SATURDAY

I mentioned this a few posts ago and now it's just around the corner, in fact it's this weekend:
One of my pieces made it into this book, which has been 2 years in the making and it is finally out. A ton of artists contributed to the Untitled Love Project but only a select few were chosen to have their work in the book. It's very cool with artwork and interviews with some of the artists, all for only 5 bucks!

There will be some artists in attendance doing signings; I'll be one of them. If you ask me to sign your book, you will walk away with a sketch by me! Now how can you pass that up? Even if I'm just standing around please tap me on the shoulder and say hello; I would love to meet you.

Untitled Love Project Book Release Party
7pm to 10pm
http://www.ismcommunity.org/ulprelease
Cerasoli : LeBasse Gallery
8530-B Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
http://www.cerasoli-lebasse.com/

Looking forward to seeing you there! Bring a friend or two...heck, bring three!

-Pat

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED......

Try and try again right? So the image above was my first attempt at a character I have been working on for a series. His name is Sergeant Hook and he is 1 of 4 characters in a band of assassins for the Mexican Army. The story takes place during the Texas-Mexico revolution of the 1800s. Their job is to assassinate Davy Crockett to avert the historic Battle of the Alamo. So as you can see I have my story pretty well thought out; I usually try to do this so I can give my characters a sense of believability. This is crucial because if you do not believe in the characters you design what makes you think your viewer will?

When I started drawing I was content with the shapes I was using and felt pretty good on how the character was coming to life. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line I got stuck. After I finished the face I was noodling around with the body and arms and felt like something was missing from the overall design. I wasn't feeling the character in the sense that his personality did not feel strong and his believability was falling into question. I found myself erasing a lot and redrawing the same thing over and over again. I pretty much got stuck in "the artist's corner." After a few hours of frustration I stopped, stepped away, and decided to go back to the sketchbook to figure out what was not working.

I went back to basics and did a few thumbs of the character on a small scale concentrating on the silhouette and his basic overall shape. I began a page in my sketchbook then started putting yellow Post-its on top of that page so I could flip back and forth between iterations. The Post-its made it faster for me to look through all my designs and I found using them very liberating. I know a lot of visual development and animation story artists use Post-its so why the heck not. I finally found a better shape in A (circled in red above) and talked out the character with a buddy of mine. We figured he was a very volatile character who could explode at any minute. Since he was the explosives expert this fit perfectly with his personality and archetype. His overall shape also resembled a bomb waiting to blow.

Before I attacked the line drawing I did some studies of the face and his hook arm. He has a prosthetic arm cause he held on to one of his explosives a little too long. B (circled in red above) is the face I decided to use so I combined that with the silhouette and took it into Photoshop. Next up are studies I did for his hook arm.



Above is the reference I gathered for Hook's prosthetic arm and below them are my marker and pen studies. I did a search of prosthetic arms from the 1800s because I really wanted to the prosthetic arm to exude a gritty feel with its buckles and leather intertwined with metal. I wanted it to grab your attention but not have the prosthetic arm be the focal point of the character. The arm is a secondary player and is meant to enhance my character. Doing this page of studies helped my hand get more familiar with the reference so that when I started drawing I had a visual vocabulary to draw from and did not have to stick verbatim to my reference.



Above are a few process shots showing the evolution of Sgt. Hook. Most of my costume references were taken from images of soldiers in uniform similar to the one on the hook reference page. I used a lot of shapes and colors that I saw in them. Again, if I did not have these references to borrow bits here and there I would have been drawing "generic" uniforms that would not help me place my character in a context or time period.

(A) I scanned my sketches, composited the body and face into one, and then took it into Photoshop to play around with the silhouette. This helped speed along the initial phase of the design. I printed it out and slapped it onto a light box for the next step.

(B) A lot of my design time was spent in this phase. I tried to maintain the energy of the sketch in the final lineart, but we all know that is easier said than done. I tried to make sure the design read well but was concentrating more on the simple big read and silhouette. I especially paid attention to my forms to make sure it overlapped correctly; for example, making sure his belly fat wraps over the belt logically.

(C) I begin laying in my flat colors, not worrying about shadows but thinking about the big simple tonal read.

(D) Here I added a color layer to push some color variation to his face. After laying in my flat colors I move in on the face to start painting.

(E) Always make sure you know where the light source is coming from. In this case it would be up and to the left on screen. Establishing this will help light the forms and planes of the body. I like bringing the face up to a semi-finish because it gives me a standard of what the rest of my painting needs to look like.

(F) I bumped up the contrast in the image and played with the curves and levels a little bit.

G) I added a brightness contrast adjustment layer and a color balance layer in order to reduce the dark values in the face. This will also help to harmonize the whole figure.

(H) I desaturated some of the colors a little so that it doesn't feel super bright. What made it feel super bright was the white of his shirt. To offset that I added a a yellowish tint to his shirt, making it feel gritty or dirty. Now the white of the shirt is no longer a distraction.

The next step is to finish off painting, add some highlights, and viola!
Finally, he's done in all his glory--Sgt. Hook! I hope you enjoyed this; forgive my talking too much, I'll make sure to post more work next week to compensate for all the words you had to go through.

Thanks again for dropping by. More to come!

-Pat

ANOTHER STAB

See, I told you I would post sooner. Well, the first version of this zombie old dude kinda bugged me in the morning. So instead of working on other things I tweaked him a little bit. The main thing bugging me was that I was not describing the forms enough. So I added more shadow to his chest and legs facing away from the light so you can get a sense of a side and front plane to the torso and legs. You can compare the two to see what I mean.
Also, the first rim light I put on his face and clothes (screen right) were too "cool" as in temperature. I changed it to a more yellow orange (a warmer tone) to really pop his form out on that side which I think created a bit more contrast and "pop" to the image. Finally, I added some detail shots of the head and dead head. The main thing when you color; make sure you know where your light sources are coming from and make sure to stay consistent with it. Hope that helps.


-Pat

GONE CHOPPING

As of late I have been driving around L.A. a lot, running errands and seeing friends. During these excursions I run across the most interesting people you could ever see. As I was going home one day I saw this old dude carrying shopping bags as he was walking across the street His image stuck in my head so vividly that I had to draw him up real quick.

So the heads in the bags...I have been playing the video game Left 4 Dead a whole lot and have zombies on my mind. For those who know me I am a big zombie-head fan so I just had to put it in there. Below you can see the final product as well as a series of progress shots. I am still messing around with a few techniques here and there but all in all this took me about 1.5 hours from start to finish all in Photoshop.

Also, for those interested I will be one of many artists doing a book signing at the Cerasoli-Lebasse gallery in Culver City. It is for the book Untitled Love Project, I was one of the artists chosen to participate in this great book that has wonderful art and artist interviews regarding their piece. This will be going on Saturday, Dec 13th from 6PM to 10PM. I will post more information about this as the date gets closer.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the art from there:
http://www.ismcommunity.org/untitled-love

Finally, some sketchbook pages. These are all ball point pen; I was just messing around with head shapes and looking for different shape combinations to get interesting characters. Well, that's all from me for now, I'll have more characters soon and I promise I will update more often!



Thanks for looking!

-Pat

THE GRUNT PROCESS

Hi guys,

Been a hectic week with the workshop and weddings (not my own but one of my best buds) so I am in recovery mode and getting back into the swing of things. The character design workshop went really well, thanks again to: Rachel #1, Rachel #2, Melissa, Bob, Savannah, Ashe, Emily (I believe that was your name but I know it started with an E), Cindy, Derrick, Myra and Stephanie for showing hope. I hope you guys had fun and learned something from me babbling.

Anyways, I started a demo in class on how to color line art and I promised to finish it by this Friday. Well, I like to keep promises and since I did not want to look like a fool I knocked it out last night. Hopefully it turned out well. I have included some process shots for you guys to look at.



So I think what really helped me with this character is that I was watching a WW2 movie while painting him up, this helped me get into the mood of the character and I had reference on hand to look at for colors and such. All in all it took about 3-4 hours to complete him. This is basically the first time I took a character from start to finish entirely in Photoshop.

STEP 1: So I have my loose line art sketch, my main thing in this phase is to get all my shapes and forms working so that this character has gravity to him and feels 3-dimensional. I have seen a lot of students forget about that and their character falls flat and becomes unbelievable.

STEP 2: I found a random texture online just to give my character some grit and to tone the canvas so I am not just working on a blank white page. This helps me get started so I don't get the "deer in headlights art phase" and stare at the blank white page for hours on end, not knowing where to start. Gotta trick your brain sometimes.

STEP 3: I block in local colors (local meaning the color of things before light or shadow affects them) using a color layer. Applying it like thin washes of watercolor just to get things rolling.

STEP 4: After my washes are applied I just start painting, I usually start with head and try to bring that up to a finish so I can judge everything off of that. When that is finished I work my way down the body but as I work I always make sure to zoom out so I can see how the whole figure is shaping out. If you stay zoomed in too long you end up noodling an area too long and forget about the big picture.

STEP 5: I tweak the colors adding an adjustment-color balance layer, I cooled down the whole image and lowered the saturation a bit to help harmonize the painting.

STEP 6: Final tweaks, highlights on the metal parts and helmet, sign and put a black border and add a ground shadow to secure him to my ground plane.

THE END

Hope that was helpful to you all. Again, I will be posting more soon. I have a couple more characters and I will try to save more process shots of those as well. Thanks for looking, drop a comment if you have time and I will be back soon with more art!

-Pat

CHARACTER DESIGN WORKSHOP

Hi all,

For anyone interested I will be doing a small character design workshop at the Art Institute of Orange County, Thursday, November 6, 2008 from 5:30PM to 9:30PM with a short break. I believe it is open to anyone being it is for prospective students, but if you are interested you need to sign up here:

http://www.aiinfosession.com/orangecounty/

It says for animation but I will cover topics that relate to gaming, film and animation. There is still space but I am not sure when they will cap it so sign up soon.

Above demo for an actual class.

Above work in progress sketches for character designs in development.

Also, back in August I was part of a group show at Alpha Cult in Long Beach. I stumbled upon this review of the show just recently and thought it was pretty cool....cough "self promotion" cough. I guess they really dug my Cereal Killer piece:
http://thedistrictweekly.com/print/arts/visual/sugary-snacks/

Alright, that is all from me for now. Remember to sign up and I will see some of you there!

-Pat

MORE PICS AND ART

A few more pics from my recent trip to Peru.

First up is a shot of me in the Amazon. A had a little visit from a tiny green friend. He fell out of the sky and really freaked me out. Turned out he wasn't so bad after all.

Next up, on our way to Cusco via bus we made a pit stop at a restaurant for lunch. As I left my seat to go to the restroom I was greeted by this furry guy.

Lastly, another infamous jump shot. This was at the top of the hill on the second and most difficult day of our 4 day hike up the Inca steps. Although I was extremely tired I was able to muster up some strength for a couple of jumps in jubilation.

Alright, as promised here is the art section. These next pages are some face studies for new characters I am working on. I will get into detail on these a little later on. Still exploring some options. Also, on the last page you will notice some small comps for a big illustration I am working on. In this early phase I do a rough sketch and mass in big darks just to see how the shapes read. Very simple but in the end it is these shapes that we connect with and that make the illustration visually interesting.

Enjoy guys, I will post more images early in the week!

-Pat

MORE PERU PICS AND SKETCHES

Still trying to get back into the swing of things with art and teaching and life in general. Slowly but surely I will get there. In the meantime I will reminisce and post some more pics from my recent trip.

First one is from the last day in Peru on the way to the airport in Cusco. I saw these monuments in the center of town and tried to snap a quick picture from the taxi. We were moving really fast and I though I got a crap shot, it turned out to be one of the better pictures I took the whole trip...go figure.


Next, a candid shot of the porters carrying up all of our crap to the next camp site. These guys were amazing and literally carried our whole camp up those damn steps day in and day out for 4 days. I'll say it again, AMAZING!

And another shot from the last rainy day of our hike. No beautiful sunshine but man those clouds were breathtaking.....literally man it was hard to breath, freaking altitude!

Again, here are some sketches from my moleskin sketchbook. Mostly ballpoint pen and a little graphite here and there.


Lastly, before I left I helped out a buddy of mine with some storyboards for a music video competition. He used them for his pitch which I thought was really clever and cool. You can check it out here:
http://www.massify.com/pitches/citizenbrand

Click on pitch and if you just want to see the storyboards, click on the one that says storyboard. Hope you enjoy guys, I'll be back with more very soon!

-Pat

WELCOME BACK

Hi all, I am back in the good old U.S., land of the flushing toilets with seats...woohoo! I have quite a few pics to show from my trip to Peru and a few pages in my sketchbook. Most of my drawing time took place in the airport waiting for flights or in between bus stops in Peru. First, we'll start off with a few highlight from my trip.

This first image is overlooking Machu Picchu. It was a rainy day, which was cool for us because it created a lot of cloud cover that slowly revealed the mountains. Very mysterious and beautiful at the same time.

The next image is me eating a fried guinea pig. It was pretty tasty but the feet and face freaked me out.

Here I am with local villagers at Lake Titicaca. This family actually took me into their home and showed me around. The quilts you see in the picture were all hand made by the woman in the picture and tells the story of their daily lives.

This is an image of Kay in the jungle. It was pretty crazy seeing all the foliage almost engulf you as you walked through the Inca trail.

Lastly, the infamous jump shot. This was at one of the cathedral/ruin sites in Cusco. In the bg you can see some llamas and alpacas.
Here are a few pages from my sketchbook travels. I have a few more in a moleskin I need to scan but I will save those for next time.Alright, I will have more stuff to post soon including some storyboards I did for a friend's music video pitch as well as some comps for a few commissions I will be working on. See you all soon and thanks again for waiting for me to return!

WE WILL RESUME PROGRAMMING IN 2 WEEKS

Sorry for the delay in posts. Its been super crazy prepping and getting ready for my trip to Peru which leaves in about 5 hours. So I gotta make this quick. Wrapped up with the school term so teaching is done for now, I resume right when I get back, like literally the next day. WOOHOO!
Al I have to show right now are a few sketch pages and some studies.

The sketch pages I am going back to the old hi-tec C and trying to use minimal lines to get the gesture and attitude. Lately I have been trying to push myself to find different shapes in the figure as well as an attitude. Very hard but fun at the same time.

Lastly, some more Leyendecker studies. I'll be getting back to these after the trip. I am focusing on getting the big ideas and big shapes in there without having to over render everything. This guy was the king of design.

Ok, the woman is signaling me it is time to go. Wish me luck guys and I will be back with a vengeance!

-Pat

12+8+3+2=TIRED

So below you will see a few more pictures from this week's latest hiking adventures. Again in San Diego with my buddy Dzu ( a badass artist as well). What the title of this post refers to is that we:
hiked 12 miles, in 8 hours, used up 3 bottles of water each and then had 2 dinner buffets at Barona Casino. I didn't get pics of the food because I was too dang tired to do anything but eat, fortunately we did get some pics of the hike.I did a Karate Kid pose on this last shot, but I did not hold it for long because although you can't see it here, on the other side of those rocks is a loooong way down, say about 4000ft.

Alright, enough rocks and crap on to some art. I have been working on my own stuff but haven't finished enough of them to post so here are some good old sketches from the sketchbook.This first page was drawn in Alhambra, Kay and I went to get some dumplings and as you can see there was a variety of Asians to choose from for sketching. There was this really cool Yakuza looking bald guy with all his nieces hanging off of him at the dumpling house. I think I might do a little doodle of him later today. I started drawing different iterations of him on this page.
Next I was at a coffee shop in Burbank near all the studios. It's fun cause you see people drawing and practicing their lines for auditions and such. Always fun characters to draw there.

Finally, I was at Barnes and Nobles at the Americana mall in Glendale so this was just a fun page form the imagination. Just exercising the imagination and seeing what spills out of the old noggin.
Lastly, I have been trying to do a study a day from the old masters. These are some from this week, I have been looking at a lot of J.C. Leyendecker images. He was such the master of shape design and caricature so I have been studying how he locks shapes and forms and what he pushed to get good character types with a lot of energy. Hopefully even just 5% off his genius rubs off on me. I missed 2 days because of the hike but I promise to be more diligent.
Thanks again for stopping by, more sketches and studies to come and some character designs I've been doodling with. See you all soon!

GET UP FOR 5 MINUTES

Seriously, if you are at your desk sitting in front of the computer, hours on end for as long as I am; before you go any further on this blog, stand up, and go walk around the block or outside the office for just a few minutes.....then come back please.






So Stand up.









GO NOW!







Still looking, stop and move your booty!











OK, thanks for coming back. I wanted to start off with a picture from a hike I took with a buddy of mine in San Diego last week. So that is me sitting on that thin rock.
No it is not Photoshop and yes it is me up there. Believe me, I was scared ****less up there but it was worth the shot and the hike up there, it was beautiful. I just wanted to share this with you all cause everyone needs a break from art. I know we all feel lazy if we aren't doing art 24/7 and that we always think, man there is some guy out there working hard while I'm outdoors hiking! Please, do not think like this, yes work hard but seriously, all work and no play and your art will suffer. We all need breaks and it is healthy and inspirational to get out. Your artwork will only get better by it, trust me.

Alright, sorry about that, now on to the art. The piece below is another commission for a wedding "Save the Date". The couple wanted an homage to the classic Star Wars posters so it was a fun assignment. I started out with a couple comp sketches while I was at a coffee shop, you can tell cause I was having fun drawing some other interesting characters on this page while working on my assignment.

I picked the comp that I liked(first from the left) and proceeded with the revised comp sketches that you see below. Once that was worked out I printed it out and proceeded with the line art.

Taking it back into Photoshop I start the value stage and lighting. Next comes the rendering and color lay ins.

Finally, we have a finish plus the final version with text. All in all I spent about 3 days on this. Had to haul butt on this one cause I have a few other projects waiting in the wings.
I will be posting some sketch pages next as well as some studies I been working on. I have been trying to do some studies from master's each day so we'll see how that turns out. As always thank you for stopping by and please feel free to drop a comment!

Also, if you are interested I have updated my site with some new concepts so drop on by(shameless plug I know).

-Pat

ANATOMY OF A COMMISSION PT3

So, here is the last of my trilogy, not an epic Star Wars trilogy but I will save that for a later date. We started coloring last week by defining our focal area in the illustration (the girl and the bear). Now I move into the BG characters, I start with Mr Freeze (the Blue guy on the left) and work my way around to the right. I am trying to keep things simple and describe the planes facing the light and those not facing the light. While I do this I have reference open of a space suit to see how the folds and highlights occur on an actual space suit type material.

Here I wrapped up on Mr Freeze, I added a little red glow from the instrument panel on his belt and cleaned up his freeze gun. For Joker, I reduced the size of his head just a tiny bit to fix the perspective and make him feel like he is farther back, behind Mr. Freeze instead of on the same ground plane. Now on to the Penguin, he is wearing a black suit but remember, light is influencing his suit and since black is a very absorbent color I push it a tiny bit warmer describing how the light is affecting his suit. However, I was conscious about maintaining the BG value system so that it doesn't break the picture and take away focus from the girl...PHEW! You guys get all that?


Next, is very subtle change but it helps push the BG characters back into space a bit more. If you notice, the spaces in between Joker, Mr Freeze and Penguin are all very warm, I decided to inject some cooler colors (blues) in those areas to add another layer of depth and push it back in space yet again.

We are almost there, I finished off the cast of characters in the background and added the question marks to the Riddler's suit. I had to make sure I was rendering the question marks with the form and perspective of his body or else it would just look like a really bad cut and paste job. Additionally, the top of my illustration I added cooler tones to it to really make the focal area the brightest/warmest area. Wrapping up I then brought Catwoman to a finish and finally added a little more light to the ceiling lamp for dramatic affect. VIOLA!

OK here is the real VIOLA! Before I got to the finish I showed the piece to a few buddies asking their opinion on it. This is really important because you need those fresh eyes to give you an honest assessment of things, that is the only way you will get better. After talking with my friends I increased the contrast of the little girl again and painted back in some definitive light on the upward facing planes of her and the box she is standing on. By increasing the contrast in that area it helped to create a cleaner read. Last but not least, I readjusted Catwoman's hand and hair so there wouldn't be an awkward tangent anymore.

That's basically it, thanks for hanging in there on this journey with me. I hope this was of some help to anyone who looks at this darn blog. As always, I will be back with more art and some sketchbook pages. See you all soon!

ANATOMY OF A COMMISSION PT2

Okay, welcome back to another exciting adventure of "Patrick likes to hear himself talk." In the last episode....well please read the previous post so I don't have to type it again. Today we will be tackling values and lighting and begin the color process. Sharpen your pencils or should I say open up a new text file and let's begin!

After the line art stage I usually fill the whole canvas with an average tone on a multiply layer so I can preserve my line work first. I figured that my composition would be an overall medium value, with blacks as the next major accent and spotted whites for highlights in my focal area. I use a big brush to block in the major value separations and never zoom in. It's all about the big read at this point so don't bother being too nit picky with staying in the lines. We aren't rendering, we are just going for a good big read. Why is this important? Well let's say I am standing at the front door of a comic book store and your cover is waaaaay back in no man's land, I will be more drawn to it from afar because of the interesting graphic read.

Next phase is the block in of color; you can see the washes of color I put in the background (BG) characters. That was laid in using a variety of color and overlay layers to retain my value structure while creeping up on the color. I am no color expert so I tend to take it slow. I start to render my focal area first (the little girl). Now, this isn't a hard rule but I usually work from the focal point out. This allows me to see how much I want to render the focal and how much I want to not render all the other element. Less is more people. I also start to render out the character in the left foreground (FG) to establish some lighting.
Continuing on, I have rendered both the bear and the girl. I also tweaked her cape a little so we can see more of it on the floor. I made sure the temperature of the cape was cooler so it wouldn't pop out and break the sense of depth. I finished up the crate and deepened the shadows she is casting on it. Since the girl's costume is primarily blue, I was pushing its complement, orange, on the crate. Now, I really grayed it out so it wouldn't be jarring to the eye but by doing that it subtly allowed me to push her out more and reinforce her as the focal.

For the bear, it's the same process as the girl. I am painting opaquely atop my line art at this point and more than anything else I am describing forms....what is facing the light, what is not, thinking planes, and having my shadows inform the forms.

This is where I am at right now. Next I am going to be hitting up the BG cast, the FG, and final lighting. I am also working on another commission so I will start posting the prelims for that one next time. Thanks for looking guys, I'll be back with more I promise!

ANATOMY OF A COMMISION

So, I figure I document the process I take when it comes to commissions. 1) Because I've always enjoyed seeing how people work and thought you might enjoy it as well and 2) Heck it helps me remember how to do this stuff!

I will be starting out with a typical brief I receive from a client. The client asked me for something similar to the Timely Wonders Piece I did for the Stan Lee show, something with superheroes.

That's basically all I got as a brief, really not much to work on. As an artist this freedom can be nice but can also be a pain in the butt with the unlimited options available to me. I decide to dig a little deeper and ask the client, what were your favorite superheroes growing up or what cartoons do you remember watching as a kid?

Long story short, the client recalled growing up with the Batman TV series from the 60's and wanted something in that realm. I usually start with a general idea and do little doodles and comps as they come to me. Below are the comp sketches I started out with. You can see I starred the one I wanted to go with so I scanned the page, isolated that comp, scaled it up and fine tuned the composition in Photoshop.


I also work on designing the individual elements in my sketchbook so when I get to my final drawing all my design work is done and I just have to worry about execution. This next page is a sample of how I work at designing shapes for the characters involved in this piece. I actually did research on the villains of the old show and tried to capture the spirit of them as best I could.After I figure all that out I grab my trusty light box (Yes I am not 100% digital just yet), print out my comp and do my final drawing atop my comp so I can try and maintain the life that my original sketch had(easier said than done). So below is the final line art ready for color:So you can see how much work this entails up to this point. I reworked a lot of shapes in the final drawing to get the right feel for the shot. My main focus, is of course, the little girl and bear hanging upside down, everything else is meant to support that focal area in the image. I will post more as I approach completion of this piece. The next phase would be lighting, laying in my black and white values and start the coloring process.

I'll be back with more stuff, hope you guys enjoy this!

-Pat

ART SHOW IN LONG BEACH THIS SAT. AUG 9

The title pretty much says it. The good people at Alpha Cult are celebrating their 3 year anniversary. What better way to enjoy that than by having great art up on the walls. I contributed a few pieces to the group show, all of them are on my site already so if you want a preview you can head over there.

Below is a flier done by the fabulous people at alpha cult with all the info.
If you are interested in going, here ya go:Looks to be a fun show with a lot of talented artists including yours truly, honest, you can see my name on the flier as proof!

Like I said, I am working on a few pieces but will have a bigger dump of images coming soon and IN COLOR....how exciting!

-Pat

SHOUT OUT

So I was just made aware this weekend that Irene Gallo, an awesome art director for Tor books, gave me a shout out on the Tor site and her blog. For those who do not know Tor is a heavy hitter in the science fiction/fantasy book genre. Many thanks to Irene, I am glad you enjoyed my work. For those interested here is a link to the little blurb:

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=2542

I am working on a few things right now, one of them being a commission. I will post process shots and studies for it as I complete it later on. In the meantime here are a few sketches from my sketchbook.

First one, I was hanging out at the Starbucks with some buddies sketching, waiting for the doors to open for preview night at the Con. I sketched this one using a Hi-Tec C pen.



Next 2 are ballpoint sketches I was working on while hanging out at a coffeshop with a friend in Sunset Junction. These pages I was just trying to push different shapes and personalities with the people around me. It was cool cause we saw Sylar from Heroes getting coffee right next to us, how random.

That's all for now, I'll be back with more things, hopefully some color to spice up this thing. Thanks for looking!

-Pat

COMICON WRAP UP

WOW...last week was really crazy. In a nutshell, Sunday thru Tuesday I was at an all day Jon Foster Workshop.....AMAZING! He is officially my idol. I even got Jon to sign my sketchbook, he even did a little sketch for me:

Wednesday was preview night at COMICON and most of my damage was done there. Thank goodness I already have a lot of the books that I saw, that and I hear Kay's voice in the back of my head saying...do you really need that? And I would answer back, of course I do, but I really don't so I had to leave some behind...so sad. Here's a glance at my bounty:

I only did one portfolio review this year, and I actually felt more productive than the 5 I did last year. I really just enjoyed the con more and talked to other artists. It was less stressful and I learned a whole lot more.

Thursday and Friday me and my art buddies were able to watch Jon and Rick Berry do some oil demos at the Tor/Spectrum Booth. Very cool and inspiring once again. I was so inspired that I finally decided to finish painting a skateboard deck for an art show coming up through ISM. Here are some process shots and some details for it. And yes, I painted it in oils, yes real paint. Thanks to Lava for leting me crash at the pad during the week and a big thanks to my buddy Dzu for helping me out and letting me use his materials...you the man!
Look Ma, real paint!
Saturday was super crazy, not because of the long lines or the crowds but because I gave a talk about character design to a packed house. I was feeling fine but then got nervous when I saw this gigantic line. At first I thought, hmmm...I wonder who is signing but then as we got closer to the lecture room I slowly figured out it was for my talk...YIKES. All in all I think it went pretty well. I misspelled a couple words on my slide show (damn you spell check!!!) but I got a good vibe from the audience. Would I come back next year...sure...am I....well I guess that is up to the Art Institute and Comicon.

To end the week, Saturday a bunch of us went to a Russian restaurant in north park.....GREAT PORK SHISHKABOB! What was also cool is that they let you write or draw on the walls, so of course I had to leave my mark:
It was super tiring and I am still recovering but I had a blast and can't wait again till next year to buy some art, hang with friends and create more work for people to see. So thanks again Comicon and I will definitely see ya next year!

COMICON WOOHOO

So this is a crazy week for me. I will try to update again near the end of the week but here's what I will be up to. Right now I am in a Jon Foster Workshop which is totally awesome, this guy kicks ass:

http://www.jonfoster.com/

Its really fun seeing him work and he is a super cool guy.

Wednesday is Preview night at:

Can't wait, I'll be there until Saturday and Art Institute has asked me to do a talk on character design at Comicon...how exciting!! So if you are interested I will be talking 530pm-630pm in room 30CDE so drop on by and say hi.

Also, Friday in downtown San Diego I will be part of a custom vinyl toy artshow.
Here's the store address, map and info:

Subtext

680 West Beech Street, No.1
San Diego, California 92101
619 876 0664

July 25th & 26th Opening Reception: Friday, July 25th, 6-10pm

Subtext and Cardboard Spaceship present Beasts of Burden, a custom vinyl show featuring 34 artists from around the globe. As a follow up to LoveHate, we are in the process of curating a heavy-hitting show that will take place for one night only during San Diego Comic Con 2008. Our sponsor, adFunture, has kindly provided us with the platform for this show – their new highly anticipated YOKA Panda. This is shaping up to be an amazing show!

I'll be there Friday so come out and say hi again!

Also, here is some other artwork just so you don't feel like I have been neglecting my drawing duties. First one is a redesign and color pass on my space suit design. I still have another iteration to do on this one.

Next are some sketches for some other character I have been working, I'll post those up as soon as I have something postable....I hope that's a word.
Okay, gotta get back to the drawing, I'll post more later this week....hope to see you all at the con and please drop by and say hi...it makes me feel special!

-Pat

NEW TOY

So I was asked a few months ago to participate in an upcoming gallery show called BEASTS OF BURDEN. It is going to be in downtown San Diego the Friday of Comicon July 25 and it is a custom vinyl toy show at Gallery Subtext. Now you are asking, painting vinyl toys, since when did you do that? To that I would answer, as of a few months ago I do.

Well I dropped off the final product this past Monday but before I was willing to part with my labor of love I snapped a few process shots.

First, is the really messy paint set up I was using. I had just few colors, some warms and cools, I try to keep things as simple as possible for myself. The tricky thing about the painting was keeping the acrylics damp so that they wouldn't dry up so fast.


Next, is the beginning phase of painting the head, I bought the green as is so I wouldn't have to mix and match the skin tone each and every time. It made it easier for tough-ups later on since it is such a potent green.


Here's the head with a little more detail added to it. I used about 4 different brushes in all, all sables. I was able to get a lot of crisp edges using the sables.


Next I attacked the body. The gray on the vinyl toy is an automotive primer from home depot that really makes the paint stick a little better to the surface.


Next, is a shot of the arms and legs. I had to paint in layers to get a nice consistent brush stroke. I went through 2 other vinyl toys as test runs and boy I learned to paint in layers from those. Maybe I'll have the courage to show those later.


Here's a detail of one of the arms, hopefully at this point some of you can tell the character I am aiming at. If not, well then you just gotta see the whole thing in person at the gallery show.


That's all for now, I will post the flyer for the show and other details in the coming week. Thanks for visiting all. I will update real soon with more artwork that I have been working on, just thought this was a nice change of pace for you all. Be back soon.

-Pat