More Metroid Illustrations and Sketches

As the title suggests. Nothing super innovative, but full versions below.  

Was original a throwaway sketch with Colerase pencils on a Moleskine while I was working on a commission for a friend (yup, the same one from last time). All the inking and color is Photoshop. Cheated a bit and threw an image in the background as a color palette, worked the coloring up from there. Knowing the surrounding colors early on not only helps with choosing how intense your base colors and highlights are, it also helps give ideas for secondary light sources. 

More workup sketches, both Moleskine and digital, which got a color treatment much later. The ones below were from more than a year ago. I think I approach character faces a little differently now.

This was just me playing around trying to get a feel for general shapes of facial features, how far I wanted to push or simplify them. It ended up turning into figuring out how the Metroid Fusion Samus suit would actually work if it had to move.

Metroid Illustrations and Sketches

My versions of Samus Aran. Full image below.

 And a few older sketches and illustrations I did of Samus, based on a friend who asked for an original. Goes without saying that she likes her her video games, so I played around with making her the star of the show. The first set were work up sketches for the pen & ink version, the latter were for prints for a charity show we were both a part of. So in effect she's famous now, at least for the half dozen homes where this art is framed on the wall (hopefully).

 

Forget Me Not - Art Against Alzheimer's 2019 Print

One of several prints made for this year's Forget Me Not - Art Against Alzheimer's, held in downtown beautiful San Luis Obispo by Allan Hancock Animation alumni Mr. Brandon Tokunaga. More closeups and full print image below.

First Gen Nintendo Mashup - Part 1

Another potential print for next year's Forget Me Not: Art Against Alzheimer's charity art auction, run by former Allan Hancock animation alumni Mr. Brandon Tokunaga.

Guest appearance by world traveling photographer @karasushirow, who requested herself drawn as Samus. Her atmospheric and introspective photos of Japanese provincial towns and countryside are also featured in the show, so give her stuff a look.

Animation Hellhole Memories Part 3.2

Side by side comparison of day / night lighting treatment. The first one is how I tend to remember it since it was late afternoon or sunset when we'd stop by either Chopstix or the next door Gamestop or coffee place (also since gone), before we all drove back to our sleepy suburban towns for the night.

- Cleaner cropped version from the last post:

Animation Hellhole Memories Part 3

Several pieces that are still in the rough stages, revolving around my scattered memories of the cheap Chinese place we used to hit after animation class over at Allan Hancock, way back during the pre-CalArts days. It's long since gone, but like the old animation classroom or the courtyard next to it there's a bit of nostalgia and comfort for those places which colors my memories. Hence the inclusion of 8 or 16 bit characters and time traveling supermodels in these pics.

No photos that I know of exist for any of these places other than the few I have or of what there is online showing what they've become the meanwhile. Which in some ways makes them more special, not least of which is that it forces me to create the rest of what I can't remember.

In any event, sketch pages showing my thought process. In Pinterest form.

Animation Hellhole Memories Part 2

Colored versions of the Allan Hancock Animation Hellhole crew playing Worms: Armageddon at my old place, and the Calarts Cube 5 crew playing Halo at the ever leaky Woodglen Venture apartments.

Below are more WIPs / beatboards of the Allan Hancock College days. Some liberties were taken with the cast of characters, in case anyone was wondering if I went to school with a salamander, capybara, Samus, or a witch. Which is still uncertain with at least a few of those, truth be told.

But again, the whole exercise was to try to recreate the Fine Arts Department from memory alone, especially the courtyard outside of Buildings E and F, since there's next to no reference for this other than Google Maps and my own hazy recollections.

There are more images and details posted over at my Wordpress page.

Obligatory Retro Game Post - What I've Been Playing

Posted this already over on the Instagram and (don't laugh) the Deviantart page.

Anyhow, a visual representation of GBA games I've been playing recently. Was a little too late in getting this done to enter into this year's Forget Me Not: Art Against Alzheimer's charity art auction, but next year will prove to be a challenge since stuff apparently flew off the shelves and raised over $5k. Not bad for something homegrown by Allan Hancock Animation Hellhole alumni on the Central Coast.

- Official Facebook page for Art Against Alzheimer's.

Forget Me Not - Art Against Alzheimer's 2018 prints

For archive purposes, some pieces from this year's annual Forget Me Not - Art Against Alzheimer's. Ended up having about a dozen pieces to contribute this year, as well as plenty of other talented artists, photographers and more.

Some additional pieces not featured in the flyer:

And an updated flyer from the 2017 show:

Character Design Sketch Pages

Roughly 3 sketch pages, formatted together vertical-wise, moreso for Pinterest than anything else. Good luck ever seeing it there though. As always, some of these can be found on the Instagram account.

Am sure my tens of viewers could care less about whatever progress I may or may not make on this front, but I need to be able to gauge for myself where I'm at in terms of simplifying shape choices, or just having a better shape and line rhythm that isn't sacrificed for the sake of belting out story ideas, and vice versa. Is a fine line between actual productivity and spinning one's wheels in order to feel productive. If the animation industry's taught me anything...  Well, there's a whole tier of management dedicated to extracting the latter. Which I think explains more than a few end results, in things far beyond our own profession.

And then we see it in the wheels,
the wheels!
Which never like to rest,
the wheels! . . .
How heavy are the stones themselves,
the millstones!
They dance in merry ranks . . .
The millstones!

Obligatory Retro Game Post

As always, you can hop over to my Instagram account (for as long as that stays a viable format) and see the easter egg for this pic there.