Friday, October 30, 2009

It's A Start

I ran out of time this morning before I could really flesh out a decent color job. My goal will be to make it read a bit better, and clean things up in general. For now, I will probably put the penciled version in the corner of my upcoming concepts. Speaking of that...

Thanks to everyone who voted in the "What Theme Should He Choose" poll! It looks as if next week I will start out re-imagining the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" story with a "Steampunk" theme! It may be slow going, but I promise to stick with it until we have a cast of characters. (I may take a Christmas break if things go that long.) I also understand that many many things have been done as "Steampunk" so I will do my best to bring something new to the table.

Have a great weekend, and thanks again!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Many Moving Parts


I have a lot of work to do if I want this to actually be readable, but for now it is at least fun.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Yippee Aye Aye


Tis Monday once again!

I want to thank everybody for voting in the poll over the weekend! Very very cool of you to do so. There are a few days left, but it looks like we may either have a tie, or at least a very close finish. If we do have a tie, I will probably decide to combine the two themes... Three way tie? I guess I would have to combine the THREE themes! Western Steam Punk in Space! Whooo. Either way, I look forward to it.

Thanks again.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Now For Something Completely Different...

Happy Friday to all!

Today I thought I would kick off a little project that I have wanted to do for a while now. I kept putting it off with excuses like "I have no time" or "I'm not quite ready." Well, no more excuses.

Doing this blog has been great for me. It gives me a reason to draw every day, and it also makes me available for questions and comments. One of the most frequent comments that I get from art students around the globe is "What should I put in my portfolio?" While there are many different answers that all depend on your desired position within the art field, I do have several stock responses:

1. Throw away your school work.
2. Don't rip anybody off.
3. Take a well known story, and "re-design" it.

For today's post, I will focus on point number three. In my opinion, the best thing you can do as a prospective character designer/illustrator/concept artist is to take a story that the Art Director is familiar with, and put your spin on it. Push it as far as you want, but be sure you keep things clear and easily explainable. (Because believe me, you will be explaining them.) Character design is an obvious choice, but you could also explore environment and prop design.

Also, if you wanted to get extra bonus points, you could push things even further. Set the story in a completely different location or time period. Make all of the characters squirrels. Perhaps your version of Robin Hood takes place in the refrigerator. You never know...

So why am I talking about this? Well, I have decided to put my money where my mouth is, and do this myself. It may take a while, but each morning I will sit down and push toward my goal. the story I have chosen is "The Wizard of Oz." Why that story? I like the possibilities. Varied characters with very unique personalities. Fantastic locations. Magic. Fantasy. Good. Evil.

Here is the twist. I am going to let you (my loyal blog readers) decide what direction I go with this. I have chosen three different settings for this re-telling, and you get to pick where you want me to go. I have set up a poll over on the right, and you can vote.

Setting 1: The Wild West

Setting 2: Space

Setting 3: Steam Punk

Sound good? I will set the poll to run for a week, and after that I will get started. Please pick something good. (In all reality, any of the three would make me happy.) So vote!!!

This should be a lot of fun, and I look forward to getting started. Thank you all for humoring me.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Spooky Ballinger

This morning, I took a shot at doing a piece of fan art for my friend Bryan Ballinger. His characters "Frank and Stein" inspired me to draw something up. Unfortunately, I feel I have sucked all of the life and style right out of Bryan's poor characters. His line weights and energy are things of beauty, and hard to capture in my sloppy style.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Flapjack TKO

The face smashing robot version of Flapjack!

And a bit of "behind the scenes" with some of my first "blue sky" concepts.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Carver


I would like to finish this one out a bit more.
I think this guy might have a story...

Friday, October 09, 2009

Dee Dee Bleep

Moving fast today! A quick sketch of what Dexter might look like as a TKO Bot. I actually have a much cooler idea for him... but I am holding out hope that he might eventually sneak into the game, so I will keep that one under wraps for now.

Have a great weekend, and thanks so much to everyone for checking out the blog.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Just so you know...


I have been out of the office for a couple of days due to my wife having strep throat. I got to play Mr. Mom and take care of the kids. I discovered that Candy Corn is a terrific motivator.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Robot Wishlist

I must start out by stressing that what you are seeing will never happen. (Which is why you are able to view it on my blog.) I have thrown the challenge out to the studio here to mock up characters that they WISH were in TKO. A "wishlist" of sorts. So no, don't expect Aku.

But he makes a great robot.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Bot Buddy

Every kid needs a robot. It makes homework a lot easier.

Also, the post yesterday marked 500 posts on this blog! Wow.
I really appreciate all of you who have checked out my scribbles and made this so much fun.