Drawergeeks Dinosaur

Georgia Dino

I was setting up my new copy of Painter and testing a bunch of brushes... this guy was the result. Who doesn't like a fleshy dinosaur?

Once again I am sorry for the infrequent posts, but my life is in a weird limbo right now and blogging takes a back seat. I am really enjoying my new job, but living in a new city without my family is not something I am used to. We should be reunited soon, thank goodness! And this evening I fly back to spend the weekend with them, so I am really psyched.

Enjoy your Mother's Day!

Cartoon Dreams

Dear Blog,

I am alive and well. Things are nice here in Atlanta. My new job is going great, and I find myself surrounded by talented people. I am sorry for not writing you more often, but I am very busy. I don't mean that in an "I'm too busy for you" kind of way, I just mean to say that my time has been occupied by settling in to my new job and finding my way around an unfamiliar city. I still love you, and hope to start writing again on a regular basis.

Warm Regards,

JV

Off To Fight Robots

This weeks Drawergeeks topic is "Samurai." I wasn't going to do one due to an overbooked schedule, but as usual I fell prey to the call of the sirens. And there are certain topics you just can't stay away from. Pirates. Cowboys. Robots. Samurai. There is a magic there that must not be denied.

I also want to take this opportunity to announce a new chapter in the Vanhoozer chronicles. I have accepted the position of Art Director for Cartoon Network Game Studios. It is an amazing opportunity to join a very talented team, and not to mention work on video games based on cartoons. Does it get any better? The next few weeks will be action packed as I relocate to Atlanta, so my blogging may slow to a crawl for a while. This will be an adventure for me in many ways, and I look forward to getting started with my new team. Wish me luck!

Martian Pack Mule

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I have been extremely busy. More news soon!

Drawergeeks "Game Shows"

It is time for Drawergeeks once again. This week's topic is "Game Show" and I of course had to draw from the greatest game show known to man. Celebrity Jeopardy on SNL, featuring the amazing Sean Connery.

The Cleaners

I decided to color up my last ink doodle, and as usual I got a bit carried away. The composition is a bit off, but I sketched all of these characters together by accident so that is what I get.

The Cleaners (Formerly posted as The Scrubbers) are a team of un-registered robots that are hired to do "dirty work." You see, in the future, robots are everywhere and all must be registered. After all, if they aren't registered, they would be... untraceable! These guys are like a robotic underworld swat team, working for the highest bidder. Some are obviously robotic, while others hide their mechanics quite nicely. All are talented at dishing out death... and all have robotic skeletons in the closet.

So there.

The Scrubbers

Doodling with ink again. I started drawing and ended up creating this motley crew. I picture them being some sort of rogue team that gets called in as a last resort. Using everything from alien powers to brute strength, these guys don't always play by the rules but they make your problems disappear.

I hope to throw some color on this later.

Get The Robot Fixed Quick!

Today for my down-time doodles, I attacked my sketchbook with a Sharpie and a Pitt Artist Pen. Not sure exactly what's going on here, but my random doodle madness became a scene of space adventure. All I know is that the astronauts had better get their robot fixed before the alien creature turns them into snacks. That's all I know.

I think this was my inspiration.

Drawergeeks Tarzan

Happy Friday. It has been one heck of a week, so I am just happy to make it to the party with this piece. I ended up taking my sketchbook page, laying it over a paper texture, changing the ink color to brown, and painting in some rough color on an overlay.

As a special gift to all Vanhoozer Studios Blog viewers, I have a Drawergeeks Tarzan reject to share! I just thought of it this morning so it's too late to submit... and besides it is pretty bad. Hah. I wish I had been able to finish.... it would have been so sweet. Imagine the fury that is gator wrestling in FULL COLOR. I know I am, right now.

Pencil and Brush Pen Tarzan

I had hopes that I might do a more finished piece for Drawergeeks this week, but as usual my hopes were dashed. My schedule is just too full. So, I threw down some old fashioned pencil and brush pen in my silly style, and the best I can hope for is to finish it out in color. There are some major issues here that I would like to go back and fix... but in typical fashion... I won't. It's a doodle. I am ok with that.

If you want to see a truly top notch Tarzan entry, check out Sarah's Blog.

Doodled Note Page... AH HAH!

Doodle Page Of The Day

I usually keep a sketchbook on my desk, and as I work at the computer I doodle. Saving a big file? Doodle. Re-starting your computer because it crashed? Doodle. Doodling while you should be working? Doodle.

I thought this week I would try to put a few of those daily pages up. They won't make much sense, but hey they're fun to do. And I use pencils and a brush pen on real paper! Yesssss.

And yeah, those are my real notes. "Email everybody" is a typical message to myself.

Drawergeeks: Monsters Under The Bed

This week's topic is "Monsters Under The Bed." As usual, I didn't have much time to really flesh anything out, so I stuck to my normal routine of doing a quickie over the last two nights. I am going to try to show you how I go about that in this poorly put together tutorial!

Above you see my rough doodle. I had the idea to reverse the "monster" role, and make the seemingly icky monster, afraid of the fleshy child. As I always say, if you don't have any good ideas, rip off Monster's Inc. At this stage things are a mess, but I can at least tell if it is gonna suck real bad.

This is the brush that I use in Photoshop for pretty much everything. I use a small version of this for sketching, and various sizes for my "marker comps." It gives almost a "wet pencil" look and allows me to keep things loose in my sketching stages. I know you wanted to know that.

At this stage I start laying in color under my rough sketch. Keep in mind, this is my method for handling a Drawergeeks piece that I have an hour and a half on. I actually am able to get a cleaner sketch than that... I promise. No really!!

Boring brush shot! This is the awesome "Pastel" type brush in Photoshop that I use for.. well... a pastel look. I have messed around with the controls and I have it set to give me thicks and thins based on the pen pressure. All very scientific stuff. Possibly even magic.

And after skipping ahead several steps because I forgot to save the stages, we arrive at my "final" product. Super loose, but it gets the point across. I hope you enjoyed the mess!

A Boy And His Monster, In Color!!!