Steampunk girl

Circus Sideshow project

One thing I take pride in is being able to work in different styles. Sometimes I'll take the same image or pose and see if I can apply a different style to it. In this case, on the left, I was going for a comic book/Will Eisner-style and on the right, I was going for an Earl Oliver Hurst style:







Sorry, but I'm particularly proud of this one, especially around the face in trying for a Hurst-like expression.

Miniature Golf Course at night

There are several romantic places in the world... camping under the stars, looking over the city lights on Mulholland Drive, Niagara Falls...and a miniature gold course at night!

Here are some visual development pieces I did for a teen-angst animated musical set in the 80's that takes place at a mini-golf amusement center.

Tinkerbell Fairy Playhouse

Here is a compilation of design sketches for a playhouse for my kids.

Freddie Moore Mermaids

"...but of course these stories have no basis in fact. They're merely tall tales that should be classed as fiction along with the myths of m-m-mermaids?!"

I love the old Submarine Voyage ride...

My friend wanted me to do some concept sketches of mermaids for a collectable figurine. I chose to do it in Freddie Moore's style:






Here are some rough sketches for other ideas:



"...uh, Mr. Baxter...check the air pressure..."

Caricatures

Every April 1st, at Disney, they hold an annual Caricature Show in which they invite everyone to participate by submitting caricatures of their workmates (or "victims" as they refer to them). It was started by 'Little Mermaid' and "Princess and the Frog' director, John Musker many, many yeas ago. John is a brilliant caricature artists and most of the show consists o his work but there are several others that do just as brilliant work.

I hear John works like a madman working night and day churning out caricatures the week before. A few days before the deadline, he'll send out an email to the "usual suspects" (meaning those who are known for doing caricatures - myself included) trying to get us to turn in a caricature. He's like Santa Claus: he's knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you're awake.

I've submitted a few over the years and at the time it seem like a good idea but about an hour before the show, I have my doubts. Funny thing is, you think that you might get some flack from the person you caricatured but actually, you get more of a "thank you". I've overheard people say they were disappointed that they weren't caricatured.


"Anyhoo"...one year I did a set of caricatures of Disney executives mocking teh Haunted Mansion stretching room portraits. Here they are:



(from left to right - first panel: Producer Alice Dewey , Directors Will Finn & John Sanford from 'Home on the Range, second panel Pam Coats, Third panel: Michael Eisner, fourth panel: Assistant Pam Watterman and WDFA President Tom Shumacher)

I actually made a reveal mat that you could pull down and reveal the portrait much like you'd experience in the attraction. Disney published a caricature SHow book and included these but they actually "squashed" the image so it would appear to fill both pages.

Another year, I did a caricature of the "Dr. Facilier" crew from 'Princess and the Frog'. Mostly it was a caricature of Supervising Animator Bruce Smith who likes Jack Davis' work so I decided to do it in Jack Davis style:



the story behind this was that everyone wanted to work on "Dr, Facilier". (clockwise from center: Bruce Smith, me, Frans Vischer, Sarah Airriess, Dean Wellins, Andreas Deja and Tracy Lee)

I also did this one which was a common scene in dailies...



(from left to right: Randy Haycock, Randy Cartwright, Ruben Aquino and Tony Derosa)

I made this one poking fun at the low-budget for PATF, the looming layoffs that would happen at the end of production and what we would all be wearing at the wrap party 6 months later...



(I'm such a brat, I know.)


[I'll include more later]

But besides Disney, I would also make caricatures for friends. This was for a friend who turned 50. I matted the caricature and had people sign the mat.



He was know for buying fixer-upper houses and remodeling and flipping them.

This one was of one of the members of the Foundation at my daughter's school. His kids moved on to middle school so as a going away present, I did a caricature/card and had people sign the mat. He was a really good "idea man" and his ideas were always full of resourcefulness (so I gave him an energy saving light bulb above his head):



I did this one of my friend Mike who is now teaching art class at my daughters school (for some reason, I wanted to do it in a Al Hirschfeld style):

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: THE BLACK CAT

Ever since Disney bought Marvel, I thought it would be cool for the animation dept. to do a Marvel project.

After working on the 'Time Jumper' project, I took a real liking to drawing in what I call "comic book style" and gained a new appreciation for graphic novel illustration.

Despite the studio's current interest, I was looking for a female character protagonist to center a story around and pitch. One that had..."appeal". My friend Javie suggested "The Black Cat".

I did some research and put this is a collage of images together that I found from various websites to use as reference:



Here are my rough drawings:







I don't have plans to pitch this but if they end up doing something like it, I'm ready!

CANDYMAN: The David Klein Story

Well, it turns out that my friend Bert's dad was the inventor of the Jelly Belly jelly bean...no lie!

After all these years, he decided to make a documentary about his dad and his story of how through a series of ill-fated decisions and corporate intimidation, he lost the rights to his invention under duress. It's the classic story of big corporations taking advantage of the little guy.

The film has been screened in film festivals, been broadcast on cable t.v. and is now on DVD and has had good reception with favorable reviews.

For the broadcast premeire, Bert asked me to do artwork to serve as material for the "bumpers" and those annoying advertisements that pop-up as you are trying to watch your show.

So, I did a caricature of his dad when he was younger and on the Mike Douglas show appearing as "The Gumdrop Kid"



On the Mike Douglas show, Bert's dad would come out and do a funny dance so I screen grabbed the images from different shots, re-sized and cut them togetehr to look like this:



Because of legal reasons, unbeknownst to me at the time, they could use footage from the Mike Douglas show for advertisements so it basically was a waste.

Bert aslo wanted to do some animation of his dad being overtaken by a tidal wave of jeely beans. So I made a caricature of his dad, again but this time in a Rankin-Bass/Paul Coker Jr.-style (don't know if they used it or not):



I also did a poster design based upon a sketch that Bert did that was inspired by artist Saul Bass.



I was asked to come up with an idea the DVD cover, so I came up with this concept of Bert's dad "up to his eyeballs" in jelly beans and did this quick mock-up by doing a quick screen grab of Bert's dad off of a burned DVD copy of the movie and a low-res stock photo of jelly beans:



Everyone loved it...for about 5 minutes...until the director Costa Botes saw it and thought this was the final. Of course, it wasn't intended to be but yet that didn't stop him from coming up with his own ideas.

I also did a peice where Bert's dad had "candy on the brain". They did, however, use this and someone at the cable station actually animated the candies swirling around in his head.:



Anyways, its a good documentary. If you have a chance, its worth checking out. You'll never look at Jelly Belly's the same way again.

Bert's dad is a character! On his birthday, every year, he rents an ice-cream truck and drives around and gives away free ice-cream.

You can check him out on Facebook, here.

or on the official film website, candymanfilm.com.

OUR CHRISTMAS CARDS

Every year, we make our own Christmas cards. We try to summarize the past year in one single image. My wife comes up with the ideas and I draw them up then I pass them in front of her in a vendor/client relationship. I get revisions (usually on how I draw my wife and her hair) and have to turn them around quickly. Don't ask me how but somehow we mange to come up with a concept, write a letter get them out before Christmas.

Also, every year that I see a CG film (in 3D) doing really well at the box, I have to wonder if anyone appreciates anything that's hand-drawn or crafted anymore. I keep thinking to model my family in the computer and do a lifeless CG Christmas card (and include 3d glasses) but our friends say how much they love our cards and the hand-drawn aspect of it and it gives me hope to carry on.

1996- It was the year my wife (then girlfriend) and I first met and we got a dog. This was before Photoshop. I would draw it in pencil, xerox it, color it in Prismacolor markers, color copy it (at work), cut it out and slip it into a photo greeting card.



Somehow we skipped 1997...

1998- It was the year I took up golf and we got engaged.



We skipped 1999...we were married earlier that year (I guess we were "honeymooning")...

2000- It was the year of the election between Bush and Gore in which there had a to be a recount because of Florida's faulty voting process and the "hanging chad" on the ballots. (It was Christmas and we still didn't know who was going to be president...or at least the Democrats didn't).



2002- Our first child was born and all we could worry about was making sure the baby stayed sleep! (Note: our jealous dog)



2003- Our daughter was almott one and she was saying her first words. We also had to put our dog to sleep (due to a broken back) earlier that year on Halloween of all days!



2004-Our daughter was 2 years old and talking in full sentences. (The situation depicted actually happened!)



2005-My wife was pregnant with our second child.



2006- I wanted a dog, my wife wanted a night out, my oldest wanted a bike, and all my youngest wanted for Christmas was her "two front teeth"!



2007-The girls were really into ballet and I was making an editorial comment on technology vs. traditional methods.



2008-Despite that, I discovered Photoshop! No more second generation copies for our cards-adjusting color copy settings, etc. I could print directly from an image file. My youngest (age 2) was also talking full sentences.



2009-Disney's 'The Princess and the Frog' just came out and my oldest was reading at an advanced level.



2010- Our kids were flower girls in my sister's wedding. My wife and I turned 40 and everything's going A-okay!



HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

ROTTEN APPLE 907 presents 'HOLIDAY NIGHTMARE'

Well, my friends at at it again!

They've set up a walk-through Christmas display based on Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.




One Staurday morning (about 2 weeks before Christmas) I get an "emergency" email form my friend Jason asking if I can help put up their display. It turns out that their neighbor, who is like a "Mrs. Kravitz" from 'Bewitched' called the city on them (as she does EVERY year). Originally, they had approval in the form of a permit from the fire marshal, the mayor and the neighbors to leave up their museum haunt through the holidays to double as their Nightmare Before Christmas display but because of a complicated set of politics between city officials and the fire marshall, the fire marshall made them take the whole thing down and start over. So, I helped them put up walls.

Here is the exterior. It would have been twice as large but since they had to start over, they only would have tome to put up half of it. It would have been an incredible display but still, impressive none-the-less!

This is the exterior meant to be the town hall from Halloween town:






Here's the detail above the door:



You would enter Halloween town and be greeted pumpkins singing "This Is Halloween":





Then you'd see the Pumpkin King:



You'd also see Jack's plans for Christmas:



Then, you'd enter a hallway with presents and a pop-up jack-o-lantern...



...leading to "Making Christmas"





(on the right, you can see one of the "Cast Members" dressed as the "clown with the tear-away face" holding a present. The present was on a...what do you call those things... that would extend out at you.)





The attraction would not be complete with "oogie Boogie"!



Here's me and my friend Jason along with good 'ol St. Nick:




A few blocks away, there were some other incredible Christmas/light displays:





(I like the "Ditto" on the neighbors roof.)