Won my very first trophy for animation today!

Im excited tonight because I won my very first trophy for a concept design I submitted. I attended a discussion with our guest speaker Fred Crippen. After his lecture, he chose the best concept design out of 8 other entries and he chose mine!! The assignment was to come up with a concept design for "Ninja Pets."

I decided to use hamsters as my characters because everyone has hamsters as pets. I came up with some poses of the hamsters in action. For the background, I wanted to do something dynamic and what better than a sun, a japanese sun that you see on flags or banners. I sized and placed my characters and added shadow. I didnt have too much time to complete this design but I think it turned out pretty well given the time allotted.

Here is the finished product...

Killer Hamsters

This is the trophy I received from ASLN

Little Dragon

The movie "How to Train your Dragon" was a very inspiring film for me... specifically the character designer Nico. The following little dragon was designed in Nico's style.

My Little Leprechaun

So ever since I completed the illustrations for the Shel Silverstein poem... I really wanted to do something with the little leprechaun character I came up with....

I plan on doing at least six action attitude poses with him.... He is just soooo cute!!!! Im having too much fun with him.

This is the original sketch I did for the poem illustration.

This is the first action attitude pose... more will come...

Here are some fun concept pieces I finished with my little cute leprechaun.... :)

MAGIC by Shel Silverstein

Last week I opened up for the millionth time one of my favorite books... Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I happened to come accross the poem MAGIC which I thought was very visually stimulating, but it just so happens that he did not illustrate it. He illustrated most poems in the book but not this one.
So I decided to illustrate it myself.

Here is the poem

MAGIC

Sandra's seen a leprechaun,
Eddie touched a troll,
Laurie danced with witches once,
Charlie found some goblins' gold.
Donald heard a mermaid sing,
Susy spied an elf.
But all the magic I have known
Ive had to make myself.

Here are the illustrations...

Maybe you can guess which illustration goes with which verse...

I originally painted these pieces using guache then tweaked them in photoshop.

You think Shel would approve??

New Version of Monkey Man

After some critique from a professor... yes I know I love reworking my pieces... I have redone my monkeyman fight. I published an earlier version a little while back so I will post artwork on the process of the "monkeyman."

 After working it and reworking it and re working it again... I came up with the last one. I think its affective. What do you think???

dyptic self portrait in oil "The Two Raquels"

A couple years back, I painted a self portrait in oils. It took me a couple months but I think it was worth the time. Its done on two canvases and inspired by the painting by Frida Kahlo which is named "The Two Fridas".

I think in the back of my mind I was painting a version of me that I see now and another as an older version. The bubbles around the heads I did unconsciously but I think they symbolize a type of sainthood. Not that I think of myself as righteous, but  I was always stricken with the gothic or religious paintings that had the halos around the heads of people or saints. I think another message I was trying to convey was that of how pretty soon humans will need to breathe through sometype of respirators in order to survive on earth, if we keep treating it the way we have... All in all I wanted to keep the painting a little surreal.

Anyways... all of that is pretty deep... here is the piece. Enjoy!

Something I enjoy but many others dont...

I remember that one of the first things I learned about painting or drawing is that you need to let something go if its not working and solve the problem. In my very first acrylic painting... I did not feel the composition was working so I decided to completely paint the subject in a different way. I hear time and time again that when something is challenging many just leave it and forget it.

Unfortunately, I cant leave things undone and I work and work with it till I can't any longer.

The following is a digital painting I did last year. It's of Dorothy and The Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. After a critique from a professor, I decided to go a totally different route with it. I think its an improvement but you tell me. 

This is the original painting...

The improved painting of Dorothy and the Witch.