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March 20th, 2008This week’s DrawerGeeks was Game Shows. I don’t know why I decided to go with this, other than it was fun frying an egg and flopping it on the scanner. Click “more” to see some making of stuff.

This week’s DrawerGeeks was Game Shows. I don’t know why I decided to go with this, other than it was fun frying an egg and flopping it on the scanner. Click “more” to see some making of stuff.

Well here he is. I tried some new shading stuff and it worked out pretty good I think. Click “more” for a lil’ bit of making of spiff.
I did this for the latest drawergeeks. Hit the “more’ button to see a bunch o’ making of crap.
I did this for the latest DrawerGeeks. Click on the “more” link below the pic to see a whole buncha making of stuff if’n you like.

For this clown illustration, I wanted to try something different. Click on “more” for some of the process I used to create this guy.

The latest Drawergeeks topic was “hotdog stand”, proposed by my chum, J. Vanhoozer. This illustration’s for you good buddy. Click “more” for some making of stuff.

Well, I’m launching my new toy design site, taterbot.com. So, in honor of that, here’s a hirkin’ taterbot step by step post! So buckle up and click on “more”.

This week’s drawergeeks was Indiana Jones. Since I’ve been sketching so many robots lately, I figured, why not? Click on “more” for a bunch of step by step stuff.

Well, the Old Spaghetti Factory that is. This is a freelance job I did recently. It’s a menu cover for the Old Spaghetti Factory chain of restaurants. Click on “more” for a little making of info.
As promised here’s a little of my process from another illustration I did for the children’s book Hot Chocolate for Sale. Click the orange “more”.

For the latest Drawergeeks. The topic was “Grrrrr Face”. So naturally I thought of a pig. Click on “more” for some nifty making of stuff, including the super exciting piggie grrr face sketch!

I just finished this illustration up for none other than Meow Mix! Wheee. They commisioned several illustrators to do new versions of their character. Unfortunately mine didn’t make the final cut, so you won’t be seeing it on any bags of kitty chow anytime soon. But it was fun to make anyways. Click the orange MORE to see some sketches and modeling extras!

I know, I know, this isn’t really too artsy, or heck, even fartsy, but I’ve been having so much fun with my new digital SLR camera that I had to share. Here’s some tests I’ve been doing with creating my own HDR (high dynamic range) images and using them to light scenes in Maya.
I was just playing around with an idea for a new technique for me, where I layer a bunch of old photographs and then using layer masks slowly reveal different parts of the illustration until it’s a complete image. Click on MORE to see some, well, more.
Here’s the full illustration of Igor the monkey, as well as some of the riveting steps involved with the creation of the background.

This was a character I developed for a healthy snack type treat for the Canadian equivalent of Hostess. His name is Igor. Not only was he used for the packaging and displays, but they actually made the little cake in an Igor shape as well. I have finally made the it to the confectionary height of 3d illustration! And it only took me 15 years! The closest I’ve come to this in the past was a GIANT illustration of a cream filled, golden snack cake, that was printed wall sized and put in the lobby of an ad agency in Seattle.

Anyway, here’s some of the steps involved in creating Igor.
I created this for a digital illustration awards contest. Here’s some of the process I used to create RoBird.
First a little sketch action. I was going for that classic “friendly, deadly, and dazed” look that is all the rage with the kids nowdays.

I did a bunch of character designs and a couple illustrations for Pantelope.com, and since none of them got used (at least not yet anyways) I thought I should put them here for the general edification of humanity.
Here’s my version of Benjamin J. Grimm (of The Fantastic Four Fame). He’s my favorite, cuz he’s done made with rocks. I like rocks. Keep scrolling, cuz I gots me sum step by steppage comin’ right after!
Here’s another illustration from Drawer Geeks. The assignment was Iron Man. I ended up doing an Iron Boy, cuz I thought it would be nifty. Here he is, followed by some of the process I used to create him.

This week on Drawergeeks, I got to pick the assignment! So I chose my all time favorite superhero, Chickenman. Jeezum Crow, did the drawergeeks ever rock the house on this one, wow.
Chickenman was an awesome radio serial from the 60’s and 70’s. I used to listen to Chickenman reruns all the time growing up in Vermont. You can listen to a sample episode here.
So, here’s my Chickenman, and some step by step stuff on how I created him. Click on him for a bigger version.
This was our last assignment on Drawergeeks.com. Here’s some of the steps I used to create this:

Starting with the sketch. I wanted him to have a nice strong jaw, and big swooping hair. I thought replicating the curly motif found in his hair, in his cape would give the image a sense of symmetry. Plus I just like swoopy hair and curly capes.

Next I modeled him in Maya. This is a side, orthographic view of his wireframe model.

And here’s a shaded view of the model with the clouds.

And here’s the final rendered illustration. I used image-based lighting for this, my first time trying that. That’s where you use a high dynamic range image to generate the lighting in your scene. There are no actual lights in this scene. Kinda nifty huh? Click on the image for a bigger version.