I realize I've already posted the lady on the right, but she now has a companion sketch on the facing page of my sketchbook. Also, I darkened the linework on her--the previous scan was a bit light. Both of these characters are bound to appear here in a final, polished form soon.
Yet again, a drawing excerpted from my sketchbook. It's not the best sketch I've ever done (those hands feel a little lazy)--but he's just so passionate and so happy, it's hard not to like him.
Another page from the ol' sketchbook. I don't know how I feel about the lady yet, but the geometric face of the waiter (or is he a maîtred'?) makes me happy, makes me feel like I'm onto something.
Things have been busy. I recently finished a spot for Sesame Street and have moved on to doing some work on another PBS show. I have been trying to find time to complete several of my character designs. I also have been frequenting the library, checking out their huge photography books in search of inspiration for characters and ideas.
The above is something quick I did in my sketchbook last night while the film "Lenny" played in the background.
Something recent from my sketchbook. I really love the loose gestural quality I get when using a China Marker. Very interesting and almost abstract forms emerge when I draw that way, and I love building on those forms.
This is something else from my sketchbook that I like. (While it doesn't play with abstraction or graphic forms in the same way as some of my other recent work) it is indicative of my recent incorporation of and experimentation with pattern.
Just wanted to post what I'm currently working on. Here's a sketch and a rough color version. I want the whole thing to have the sepia tone of an antique globe--still working on it though. Feedback welcome.
I like this guy--I plan on using him in a larger piece, though I haven't yet decided whether to do it digitally or in traditional media. Perhaps a combination of the two.
A sketchbook is always full of notes, scribbles, and often drawings that you wouldn't want to reveal to the world. But I have a few things in my sketchbook that I feel confident about, and so the next few posts will be glimpses into my sketchbook. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
So I was going through some drawings I did--and I realized I never posted these on my blog.
One late night last year, when I was living in Atlanta and working on "Squidbillies", I was playing around with Alias Sketchbook Pro. I wanted to draw something, but that particular evening, I wasn't feeling particularly inspired. So I turned to the show I had worked on for 2+ years for inspiration...besides, I figured it would be fun to see these characters (some of whom have such strange designs) fleshed out in a more realistic manner.
It is actually because of these drawings that Jim Fortier, one of the creators of "Squidbillies", asked me to create this drawing of Early Cuyler for the show.
I've been playing with pattern a lot lately--exploring how it can be used as a device for abstraction and composition. In this piece I even tilted the perspective of the floor a little bit in an attempt to make it one more patterned element.
I have begun a small series of designs featuring women in winter clothing. I am going to try integrating graphic and detailed textural elements, as a way of emphasizing certain pieces of clothing. Fashion illustration of a sort. One piece, still in progress, is shown above.
Art Spiegelman's Be A Nose! is about to hit bookshelves and to announce its release McSweeney's Quarterly asked me to put together a trailer. And, after much hard work, it has arrived, making its debut on the internet!
(To view this at its best, click play. Then click the arrow at the bottom right of the You Tube video, and select HD. Next, be sure to start the video over at the beginning, and pause it while it loads--You Tube's HD tends to skip and stutter a little if you don't do those two things.)
I would be remiss if I did not offer a huge thanks to Aaron Hawkins, Jason Shwartz, Hanna Bliss, and Brian Ellis, the four brilliant animators who helped out on this project. I would still be roughing the animation out...or storyboarding...if not for your efforts.
I posted a tiny version of all the boards in an earlier post, but intentionally made them a little hard to see (I really just posted them to prove that, though I hadn't blogged in awhile, I was working) as the project was not yet complete. Now that it is, I thought I would post one of my favorite sections from the Be A Nose trailer.
This is a tiny preview of some storyboards I did for a book trailer for Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern, a wonderful literary quarterly that also publishes novels, short stories, art books, and other odds and ends.
I am an animator and illustrator. My work can be seen on Sesame Street, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, Discovery Kids, and PBS. I am currently working as an artist and animator for social and mobile games.
.jpg)
