I need a name for this thing!

What does one call their toy line, or line of drawings? I could just go with the art of Isaac Marzioli...but that's kind of lame. My first thought for my blog was 'blah blah blog' - but the only reason I had that in my head was because it's a game they play on the Adam Carolla show.

Back in the beginning this blog was dedicated to the penguin pictures I was either drawing or painting - it was a simpler time. I had a name - the boring penguin blog. It sounded terrific to me. I loved penguins (still do) and I know everyone else was getting sick of hearing about them and seeing me draw only that one subject.

There was quite a lull in the production of penguin drawings - and what took it's place was my freelance work. From there I started developing as an artist, and what I was drawing started to vary.

At one point I was thinking of doing a t-shirt line or some form of merchandise - and i drew this picture:

It seemed perfect - and it was a bit of cute (which is what I draw) with a bit of macabre (which is the twist to my cute drawings).

So eventually I changed the name of my blog to Zombie Baby Pictures...but it seems to be lacking. Doesn't it? What I'm afraid of is that people see zombie and will automatically assume it has to have zombies in it. Fleshy decay and brains being eaten. But I was trying to be figurative with the use of zombie.

Anyway - If someone happens to read this - and can think of a word or phrase or something that would sum up my art or a possible toy line based on my drawings, then feel free to share it. I'm working on a couple of ideas, but nothing really screams out at me like Zombie Baby Pictures...or the boring penguin blog...

Eaten: Blob vinyl toy design #2 vector style

I already posted this drawing yesterday. But this version is the illustrator (vector) version. If one is to send designs to a company, it's probably best to have the lines as crisp and clean as possible. This, of course has all sorts of highlights on it, so it too wouldn't work, but I wanted to give the illustrator version some depth, and also make it look like plastic.



I have also been looking at my watercolor versions and really felt they needed some sort of color behind them. So this kind of fixes that problem as well as (kind of) tying it in to the other drawings I'm currently doing - the little kid entertainment icons.

Eaten: Blob vinyl toy design #2

This was the other design I did. I think these things would make fantastic toys. I like the idea of different types of blobs as well as different cute dead animals in their see through stomaches. I'm currently researching the process on how one goes about, not only designing a toy, but manufacturing one. Eventually I'm going to put together a pitch and see about having a company fund my toy designs, but I'll have to struggle through the learning process myself.

I'm going to get some clay and see about sculpting one or some of these toy designs in the next couple of weeks...so stay tuned for that!



I have some freelance projects I'm working on, so I'll have to put this stuff aside for a little while and concentrate on that. But I'm hoping to get to some pretty big things (as far as toys go) in the next year. We'll see how it works out.

Adelia: relaxing in the sun

This is a revised version of a really old rough painting I did in my sketchbook a couple of years back. I was obsessed (at the time) with doing small 5x7 drawings that could easily be framed and sold. I did a bunch of Adelia drawings in my sketchbook and watercolored them. This is the one that turned out the best:



I had always meant to tackle it again and repaint it for real (not in my sketchbook). But I never got around to it...until this last weekend. I printed out the watercolor lowering the opacity so I could see my revised lines easier, and then drew over the printout. I'm going to clean it up in Illustrator when I have a chance, and then repaint it.



It's very similar to the original - but there are key differences - small bits of perspective, and I changed the hands (because my hands were a little weak originally) and I changed her pose so her body is under her head. I just can't wait to tackle it...

Sadly, it'll probably take a little bit of time as I have many (art related) things on my plate currently...

Eaten: Vinyl toy design

I was reading a computer arts magazine at the store on Saturday. The entire magazine was devoted to vinyl toys and their creators. Apparently it's a great way to create buzz for your art and it's cheap and quite possibly profitable.

Now - this isn't something I can jump into right now. But it got me thinking that this was a direction that I would love to go. I have my little character Adelia - who would lend herself quite well to this concept...of course they toy needs to be simplified, to an extent. The more complex the figure, the more the fabricating would cost.

I went back home and started looking up vinyl toys and how to manufacture them when I came upon the Vinyl Toy Network. Apparently it's a convention that's held every year (maybe even twice a year) in Pasadena. And, luckily for me, it was happening the very next day!

I went to the show and had a blast. There are so many talented artists showing off all sorts of crazy toys. From tiny zombies you can paint yourself to cute animals smoking cigarettes - there was even a cute girl toy with a hat made of poo with wings. I was looking for presents for christmas, so I was on a limited budget for myself. But I was able to pick up a Captain Coco special edition from Tokidoki and a Kathie Olivas Scavenger toy. I also bought an art book by Ragnar who had a table selling posters and original art. He's incredible, and if you don't know his art style - you should check it out - http://www.littlecartoons.com/index.html

Anyhow - After the show I was quite stoked. I'm going to go out and purchase some molding clay to sculpt an adelia toy. And, dreaming about the future, I drew and painted (in watercolor) a toy design that I created. It's probably a bit complex considering one has to watch one's budget when starting out in this field, but this is where I'd love to take it, if ever the chance presents itself.


it's still a very simple design, mostly - a big blobby monster type. But what complicates it is that I want the monster to be openable (bisected) and another, smaller, toy is lodged inside. Put together, it'd make quite a cool looking little toy - a see through blob monster who just ate a cute little animal.

Adelia: Happy Christmas!

This year I had it in my head that I should do at least 3 postcards for promotional purposes. The first one I sent out was around February and was Adelia holding a heart - kind of a valentine's day theme.

The next one that went out was around August. I had just finished doing the cover for a children's book called "Zebra Berries For Mommy" and I had to show off that illustration. The biggest reason was that it wasn't a penguin! I was as shocked as everyone else that I could draw another animal character other than a penguin.

But I couldn't give up on Adelia - so for my 3rd postcard (that I would send to children's book publishers) was going to be a christmas themed illustration. This is my first attempt. I'm getting a little worried as it's getting really close to Christmas and I still don't have a final image (This one would work...but I want something more...I did some sketches of Adelia peeking around the bannister of her house on Christmas morning looking at the christmas spread - the tree, presents, fireplace. I'm hoping to get this one finished...). Anyhow - this is just a fun little drawing of Adelia (that probably won't be used for any other reason than to show off how cute the character is).

IF: Similar...The Three Little Pigs

For Illustration Friday I decided to post my Three Little Pigs illustration.



It's a story we all grew up with - and it's the first of the zombie baby picture subject matter I chose. There's the bumpkin pig with the straw house, the flighty pig with the stick house and the smart farmer pig with the brick house. The way I've always seen these pigs drawn was exactly the same - similar in every way except the way they dressed. So that's how I went about this drawing, they're triplet pigs, with each sporting a unique style.

Back home and dead tired

So I decided to add something to the house. I desaturated the red of the chimney (so the other red would shine out) and I desaturated the green of the grass around the house...it get's more vibrant the further it is away from the house though...

So this is version 2 of the house...possibly a little more interesting...



kind of looks like it's in pain...or at least that it's tongue is sticking out...

Home sweet Hell...!

I thought that title as I was uploading the picture. Very lame, I know.

The house occurred to me earlier today and I was annoyed that I didn't have any time to draw it. Since then the picture faded a bit...the idea ended up being very cold...barely in my head anymore. But I had a sliver of an idea...and I wanted to do a quick sketch of it. I'd say it didn't turn out exactly like I wanted it to - it's not terribly scary. But it conveys the anger in the style I was working with. I was getting annoyed as I worked on it though because I like putting in details - and doing it in this style made it very hard to include any sort of detail.

Basically the sketch ended up turning into a painting (in photoshop, of course). I really liked what I was doing (the painting, not necessarily the subject matter)...and I was missing how, when one paints with acrylics, it's more about layering colors than blending (there's blending, of course, but I learned it more as a layering process). Somehow I ended up with a grassy green lawn, when it should have been ugly and dirty and weeded. But I liked the way the texture turned out...so I went with it.

Anyhow - it was as fun little drawing...sadly, since I was doing it as a sketch, it was done at 72 dpi - meaning that it'll die here as a blog entry and nothing more...

Sand people: easily startled lil' sand kid

This is the cleaned up version of the sand kid.



I'd love to color him now - but I have work to do. I should be able to get to it by this weekend, at least.

Tusken Raiders: Lil' sand person

I can't believe I forgot to draw the sand people when I was doing my sandman series. I have three separate drawings devoted to different characters named Sandman - but didn't draw a sandman from Star Wars!

So, once I finally figured out my mistake - I went about trying to rectify it. Here's my sketch...I still need to clean it up (it's very rough...I drew it on the computer using a cintiq! All of the other drawings I've done in this series have been done in my sketchbook and scanned into the computer for cleanup), but it's a start!



Obviously I'll be posting the final illustration when I have time to work on it.

Illustration Friday: Balloon, an Adelia drawing

This Illustration is from my first children's book (currently shopping it around, which, as we all know, means that I'm mailing it to publishing houses and crossing my fingers...oh, and waiting months). So far I've turned it into Chronicle Books - but since that was over a year ago, I'm currently researching another company to send a dummy book to.

The version I sent to Chronicle books didn't have the cover that I recently illustrated. I doubt that had a terrible lot to do with it not getting published, but with the addition of a cover, I have higher hopes this time around.



Obviously it's an illustration with a balloon in it - which is how it fits this week's topic of balloon.

Dr Manhattan: Who Watches the Watchkids? in watercolor!

On an aside - watercolor blocks are the best (in my opinion) thing to work on, when doing watercolors. I learned how to watercolor back in college and it was a miserable job. You had to find a board to lie a soaking sheet of watercolor paper down on (and we always worked big, so we had to use a giant, hard to carry, board), then you wet these gummy strips of paper to glue the edges of the watercolor paper down to the board. And finally you had to staple or pushpin the areas that looked like they needed help staying down. All of this work went into just getting a piece of paper ready to work on (to prevent bowing and warping). It was ridiculous. So anyway - watercolor blocks are sheets of paper that are tape bound together. You work on the topmost sheet - and you have to cut it out (I use a palette knife, it's been the easiest to cut the tape without being too sharp and cutting into the paper) - and then you can start working on the next sheet. Because all of the sheets of paper are taped together, they never bow or warp. It's the greatest. The only problem is that they don't come in terribly big sizes....

I spent about 2 hours at the bookstore cleaning up the lines and then starting my color (I use Dr. Ph. Martin's watercolors, because they're the best. You don't have to work too hard, if at all, to make the colors vibrant (which is a problem I've had in the past with other watercolor brands). It took, about, another hour or so at home (later that night) to finish up the color.



This was the first of the Watchmen characters I painted. I was sitting in the Barnes and Noble in Glendale and was flipping through the 'art of' the Watchmen book when it struck me that I would really like to do my version of these characters. Lacking a computer to do a digital color job, I did a couple of thumbnails of Dr Manhattan (the first one was too stiff). Based on the second thumbnail I redrew it on my watercolor block (that I always keep with me).


I had previously scanned in this painting a few weeks ago. I hated the way the colors translated. It was so washed out and desaturated. I rescanned it this morning at work, and it turned out quite nice - the colors are a lot closer to my original painting. So, of course, I thought I'd post it.

Illustration Friday: Opinion - Lil' Roarshach

I finished my lil' Roarshach painting yesterday, but I wasn't happy with it. There was something missing from it, and other things that were just off. In my opinion (see, this is how it fits into the IF) I needed to make some changes. There were too many light sources (in the original painting) in the alleyway. There needed to be more of a defined shadow under the garbage can. And the words "Who watches the watchkids" needed to stand out more...I did the words in three different colors (previously) and didn't like any of them...well, I liked them okay, but they weren't working out as well. I toned down the texture on them (because that was one of the biggest problems in making them readable) and I think the piece works a little bit better. And it always bugged me that the buildings in the background didn't have any lights in them.

I also put it up on my blog at a bigger size (the original size of the piece is 9x12 and when I posted it last time I shrunk it down to 7 inches). So...I really like how it turned out - I feel that it's a stronger piece now.

Roarshach: Who watches the watchkids? Finished painting

This is the finished painting.

I'm still wondering about the words on the wall (is it the right color?)...I've recolored it several times...I ended up choosing this one...

Roarshach: Who watches the watchkids?

I've already done a version of Dr Manhattan. I have several sketches for the remaining characters, but one of my favorite character designs from The Watchmen was Roarshach.



I finished the cleanup this morning (before work) and will be trying to finish up the painting part of this piece as soon as possible. So far I have the brick wall of the alleyway and a garbage can - but I really like how they turned out, so I'm going to post them up here. My next post will be of the finished Roarshach painting.

Illustration Friday: Pretend #2

I have this image that I did back in August. I originally did a watercolor version, but because I want the book to be consistent, I had to redo it as a photoshop painting. I did the original lines in Illustrator and then imported it into photoshop (keeping the lines as vector art).

I need to start submitting my book "Adelia" for publication - and what the book needed most of all was a cover. This way I could not only make a complete 'dummy book' to submit, but I could also add my contact information in case the query letter was lost.

It's been a long time in the making - I finished "Adelia" last year and sent it out at christmas time to Chronicle Books. I always meant to send out more submissions, but freelance jobs distracted me.

I decided to put my cover for "Adelia" up on Illustration Friday because this week's topic, Pretend, is what my book is all about. Adelia and her balloon spend an afternoon enjoying life the way any child does - by using their imagination and pretending.

Illustration Friday: Pretend

This is for the 11/14/08 Illustration Friday topic: Pretend.

It seems appropriate, seeing as how Halloween just slipped by (all sly like). Of course, it might have been more appropriate on the actual halloween weekend, but it's close enough. Pretend obviously will mean different things to different people - but the first thing that came to my mind was halloween costumes. I've always wanted to dress up as Freddy Krueger or Jason from Friday the 13th (that movie where they battled was pretty awesome for a horrible horror movie)...so this halloween I was doing these drawings where I took a movie or entertainment icon and drew it as a stuffed animal or small child (depending on the subject matter)...and it was appropriate to do horror icons during the month of October.





I should put these two in a drawing together....maybe next halloween.

Lil' Darth Vader

This was one of the first drawings of this sort that I did. It almost got lost in a page of character drawings - but I was going back through what I had drawn and I really liked the death star behind Vader.



Last week I cleaned it up in between my real job (during any downtime)...



I tried to simplify the computerized mechanical elements of the death star by adding some lines. When I was finished with the cleanup I felt like it was missing something...sure it had Vader and a death star behind it...but I felt it needed something else. I drew one tie fighter and copied it (for the back two tie fighters)...originally it was three of the exact same tie fighters...but I changed the wing lines on the front tie fighter because Darth Vader always flew in a different vehicle from the storm troopers (and possibly it helped the audience to identify which one was his).



So I added that to the drawing, and it was ready to color. This is actually the biggest one I've worked on so far. I had to enlarge it to fit in the tie fighters. Usually these pieces are about 8 1/2 x 11 - but this one ended up at 11 x 13. The only downside to it was the slowdown the computer had when I used a bigger brushstroke or when I was applying a filter (which I did very minimally - I just added a little noise to the mechanical elements of the picture to add some texture). And that's it. Darth Vader was done.

Dr Manhattan: Who Watches the Watchkids?

I finally had the chance to read the comic "The Watchmen." I've always heard a lot about it...and, most recently, because of the talks of a movie adaption, I had to see what all the fuss was about. Was this going to be another horrible take on a movie like The League of Gentlemen was (I never saw that one, because of how bad the reviews were)...but there have been good things said about The Watchmen movie.

So I read the comic - started to anyhow - I'm about three quarters of the way through. It's quite a good story. And I hear the movie is supposed to be quite faithful to the book.

I got the idea to do the Watchmen this last Saturday while I was at the bookstore. I didn't have my laptop with me, but I wanted to get started with it, so I this first version with pencil and watercolor. The colors turned out quite a lot nicer than the scan lets on...but even still, I wasn't going to be satisfied with it until I could get the drawing into my computer and do it for real.



This version I changed a little bit - I actually got some reference for the earth, so the world looks a little more realistic. I would have done stars in the watercolor, but lacking salt, I made do with a starless sky.