Some Fun Stuff I'm Doing

Something I'm Working On...

Details soon to come... but I'm loving the direction this is going so I thought I'd post a teaser!

Christmas in ... June?

OK... so last Christmas I gave my wife, Jenny, what she's been hinting at for years - Peanuts lawn characters (to put in our yard at Christmas-time)! Like a throwback to the 70's I drew these guys out on particle board, cut them, and painted them and gave them to her for Christmas! These guys are roughly 4 feet tall (with the exception of Snoopy being a little smaller). Jenny's way more saavy than I am regarding stuff like this so she ended up weatherproofing them recently while I took the opportunity to photograph them. My neighbors were impressed that I didn't trace or stencil these guys, and I assured them that's not my bag... nor is weatherproofing evidently. But yeah... if you're gonna make your wife something cool for Christmas - never, ever, EVER trace them ... jeez, really?? I will say, though, that mine are not the only hands that touched these guys... my son, Forrest helped me cut and bondo the rough edges, my 7-year-old, Willy, and my neighbor friend, Joe, "helped" me paint them, my daughter made sure mama was out of the house long enough for me to work on them, and my son, Dylan, helped me hide them all winter long! (so yeah this one was a team effort.)

Animation Mentor Stu Poses

As you many know I'm currently attending Animation Mentor and am now in the last week of class one! (Woohoooo!) One of my favorite things we did this term was "Stu Poses". It's where we're assigned an emotion or a physical state of being and we have to then sketch the figure in 10 or more quick gesture drawings... then we select our favorite and put our character, Stu, into said pose. It's a really fun exercise and although there's no motion involved, it's a HUGE building block for what we're about to be getting into from here on out in our classes and in our animation careers. So here's a couple of my favs from first term. Hope you like! Oh - and later this week I'll be posting my Progress Reel from term one here for all to see as well, containing more Stu poses and a bunch of animation assignments I've finished... so check back! (Sketches by hand - obviously - and Stu poses done in Maya using AM's character and rig.)

Some New Art for Art's Sake

While waiting for a render at work the other day I decided to get out my pencil pouch and do some doodling. I ended up with a nice little superhero character and decided to clean him up this weekend in illustrator and photoshop. Check him out!

Happy Birthday, Zoe!

Zoe's 15! Happy Bday, Zoe! (I think she likes it!)

NEW! Handmade Custom Wooden Characters

I started making custom wooden characters for friends and family this winter! I'm really happy with how these little guys have turned out. I attach the head and arms with simple small dowel rods so the arms and head can move/turn. For Ryan's - I also included some finer detail with the little tattoos peeking out of his sleeves. I dig these guys a lot and plan on making a bunch more! (Contact me if you would like to have a one-of-a-kind wooden fella made just for you.)

Holiday Cards!

This year at Real Art we took a laid-back approach to the festive season. No crazy websites or high-end print projects... instead we decided to go hand-made and heart-felt with our holiday mailings. Each of us came up with our own messaging and made our own cards and letters to clients and friends. Pretty cool idea! So here's a snapshot I took of some of my favorite ones I made. Simple little "rough" pencil and pen drawings of reindeer on notebook paper spray-mounted to brown paper cards I hand-tore and folded. I liked how they turned out and hopefully our clients will dig them too!

Here's A Reason to Take More Vacation Days!

I took a vacation day and was wandering around the craft store last Thursday looking for some stuff for another project I was working on - and ran across a cool canvas. The concept for this painting hit me as I was standing there in the aisle, so I grabbed it up and rushed home to get started!

(I need to take a random vacation day off work more often... especially if I continue to fill my dwindling "spare time" with painting!)

Acrylic on canvass.

Hope you dig.

Nude From Figure Drawing Class

I've been taking a figure drawing class on Saturday mornings at the Dayton Art Institute this fall, and I love it! It's really helping to open my eyes and expand my abilities across the board as an artist. I'm starting to really see results in all my illustration work - and am noticing a difference in the way I think through a drawing, a design, a tattoo... etc. Here's one of my favorite pieces from my last Saturday morning session.

It's ALIVE!!!!

Rob Anspach always throws one helluva good Halloween bash! And it's become a tradition for him to tap the shoulder of one of his fellow designer pals to create each year's invite postcards and posters! Well... this year I had the privilege of doing so! I figured I'd design this year's invite with the feel of the old horror/suspense comics - and I'm really happy with how it turned out! (I've included my rough sketches below, as well, to show the process I went through to get to the final end-product.)

A Happy Little Character

I like the simple sculpted "line" of this little fella. Some lazy Sunday coming up soon I plan on animating this little character, but for now - I thought I'd share a simple sketch of him.