Recently Published in Accent UK comics!

In other great news. Last year I met the chaps over at UK comics at MOCCA fest (the indie small press comic book festival and trade show) they were def. cool guys and I have kept in touch with them over the past year.

A while ago I got asked to contribute a piece to the hard cover anthology book (the theme being about robots of course). I found out last week, that I recently got a piece published.
The book is a collection of short stories about robots...and who doesn't like robots?
You can learn more about the anthology and about Accent UK comics here:
http://accentukcomics.blogspot.com/2012/01/manchester-mart-robot-shorts-and-all.html

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Snake Plissken!

Just a little Snake Plissken action for your Sunday!

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"Monst-Her"

I call this one "The Monst-Her". This is basically a combination of "the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Swamp Thing" but the female version. Not anything really dramatic to speak of, but just for fun.

The idea came to me while I was down in Central America. I definitely took a sketch book with me, and along with finishing up the other sketches for the tribute book, I also put down whatever came to mind. This was one of those ideas.

In addition, I was also reading "Color and Light" by James Gurney (you can get it at Amazon here if you are interested). It's a pretty great book, pretty simple to get through and has a lot of really informative tips on setting up color palettes, and color schemes. 

I had definitely made my way up to working with creating color schemes, and up until now I was using color scheme designer. The thing that I was missing though was about color gamuts, and limited color palettes.

In short, using the color wheel, you essentially limit the colors that you use by drawing a polygon (a triangle, a rectangle, etc.) and then sticking to the colors within the polygon. What you will then get is a color scheme that is complimentary with each other (as long as you stick within the shape). Below is an example of a gamut mask pulled from the color wheel.

I found a site called livepaintinglessons.com that allows you to create your own gamut masks and you can use that as part of your piece/painting.
Now you can use this same technique when creating your own pieces.

In other news the art book is coming along nicely, and I will posting the Mighty Bomb Jack rework next!

'Til next time..

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Back from Central America (Art Book cover sketches and more..)

Hey gang,

I'm back from Central America after a week of shaping and molding young minds. It was a really great week, and I feel so lucky to have been able to share time with those students.
You can see some of their wonderful photos on the Design 4 Kids Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Design4Kids

While I was there I had some time when I was not teaching class. I managed to start work on some cover designs as well as complete the final list of pieces that will be included in the book:

Here is the final list (in no particular order and not all necessarily Nintendo games:)
-Megaman (2)
-Clu Clu Land
-Pro Wrestling
-Mario
-Ducktales
-Elevator Action
-Legend of Kage
-Ring King
-Mighty Bomb Jack (gonna fix the cover)
-Sonic
-10 Yard Fight (if I have time)---I never really played 10 Yard Fight that much but it seems to ba a favorite. So if I can make it happen I will fit it in.
I managed to complete all of the composition sketches so now it's on to knocking these out one by one. 
I plan on starting that this week, so I am pretty excited about that.
As a quick treat below are some logo and cover sketches (kinda early but this will give you just a quick idea of the cover layout).

Below are some sample logos ideas:

Below are some cover ideas:

I'll start posting as I work through the ideas.
See ya soon!

Design 4 Kids 7!

Hey all,

I wanted make a quick note to let you know that I am on hiatus for a bit (read out of the country).
I am currently attending an overseas program called
"Design4Kids7", which is a great program that takes place in Guatemala Central America.

The program is designed to teach local students about the principles of graphic design, typography, photography as well as using tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator.

I was able to lead a drawing class this week as well, which gave the students the chance to get hands on drawing practice, doing gesture drawings, portrait drawings, memory drawings and blind contour drawings. It was all a lot of fun and gave the kids some hands on drawing practice and trying something new.

If you want to take a look at some of the photos the students have been posting, you can take a look at the Design for Kids Facebook page (make sure you like it):
http://www.facebook.com/Design4Kids

Also to learn more about the organization itself check out:
http://design4kids.org/

I will be back next week with more news and tid bits about the 80's video game art book coming out in April!

See you then!