There's something about that R2 Unit...

I've been drawing a lot of R2D2s...but it wasn't until I drew C3PU that I thought about Rtoot...so, of course I had to draw that.

What's nice is that now it's in sticker form!  These are only available at cons that I go to - so they're fairly hard to get.

And his toots stink...in case you were wondering.

Happy Pantry Sale!

To celebrate the holidays - not to mention black friday, small business saturday and cyber monday - we decided to have a Happy Pantry sale - our biggest one ever!

Everything is 20% off!  All weekend long - the sale expires on Monday evening at Midnight!  So don't delay!  Happy Holidays from Happy Pantry!

Long Beach Comic Con is coming! Table R4

My friend Tim and I are going to be sharing a table for our second year in a row at the Long Beach Comic Con - September 17th and 18th.  It's in Long Beach.  The name kind of gives it away.

It's a really good show - lots of great artists - a bunch of big name comic book guys are going to be there - as well as tv and movie stars...if you wanna shell out money to just get their pic or signature (which is kind of lame)...but they're there for that, if you want!

We're cramming into table R4.  It should be delightful.

There might be too much fan art out there - but by looking at the image above, you might see that I've embraced it.  And am enjoying my versions of these famous characters.

What a fork! Happy Pantry

i posted this 4 years ago today!  That's how long we've been doing Happy Pantry drawings.  It's still a lot of fun...I'm happy we've found something we like doing that others seem to like as well.

I was channeling a little bit of myself in this drawing.  Which is weird because I don't wear bow ties, nor pocket protectors...and I would get new glasses instead of taping them together.

Who would tape their glasses together?

Anyone still playing the Pokemons?

I have an addictive personality.  It usually comes out in video games - so I've made a point to not buy any of the new systems as they come out so I play through whatever games I had, and I can put it all away.

The only problem is that then I see phone apps, and those become my obsession.  The first was Bejeweled Blitz, and then Angry Birds, and now I'm addicted to the Pokemon Go game.

It's the worst.  But I can't stop!

Besides Pidgies - I seem to be getting a lot of Cubones these days....

Fan Art: Pikachu

I was at an anime festival this weekend - The big Anime Expo - at the Los Angeles Convention Center - it was an insane amount of anime and cosplay and people....and sweat.  There was so much sweating!

I was in artist alley - and Pikachu was well represented with actual licensed merchandise and tons more fan art depictions.  That inspired me to do a pokaball with Pikachu.  Pokaball doesn't actually mean anything, I just made that up because I've been drawing characters as balls lately, and this seemed appropriate.

Pikachu - I chews you...heh....cause I'm hungry.

Fresh Beat Band of Spies

I worked on a show called Fresh Beat Band of Spies most of 2014 and through the beginning of 2015.  Our first season ended around March and we're waiting to see what happens for season 2.  Finger's crossed!

I did this drawing as my Christmas card to the crew in December of 2014…taking all the fresh beat characters and doing a cutesy kid version of them.  But I didn't want to post it until the show debuted - and then I thought a christmas themed drawing deserved to be on a Christmas blog.

Happy Christmas!

C3PU

I think a lot of artists, when seeing that the new Star Wars movie was coming out, suddenly  needed to draw their versions of their favorite characters.

C3PO, sadly, was one of the more annoying things to come out of the original series - overshadowed in annoyance by Jar Jar - and while he was beloved by many fans, he was broken apart for scraps and thrown away.  That's why I thought it would be funny to draw my version of the character - C3PU.  The old stinky protocol droid where he belongs...in the garbage can.  Maybe he can say hi to Oscar the Grouch for us...

Friday the 13th, starring Lil' Jason Voorhees

Does it happen often that there's two Friday the 13ths in consecutive months?  I haven't heard of it.  I also don't usually care about it...or pay attention.

Usually I might register a "don't step on a crack," but even that I don't think very seriously.  It's a bogus day with no meaning - not unlike Valentines Day.  Only nobody feels like they need to buy anyone a gift.  Sometimes it might be worth seeing a Friday the 13th movie...but even that feels more like a Halloween thing.

So with that said, I illustrated a Jason as part of a gallery show I did back in 2009:

Adorable lil' Jason Voorhees

And today, to celebrate Friday, March 13th, 2015 - I drew this Jason:

 

 He turned out a little more sinister than I originally planned.  But that's the difference between my 2009 and 2015 style.  I still like cleaning up most of my drawings in Adobe Illustrator, but sometimes (like in this recent Jason piece) I'll just do the cleanup with a proprietary brush in Photoshop.

Happy Friday the 13th.  Don't step on a crack.

Fairly Odd Parents: Poof!

Fairly Odd Parents, a show I worked on since 2002 finally called it quits in early 2014.  What's nice about the brand is that it doesn't ever seem to stay in retirement for too long.  FOP is coming back for another season!  That makes....10 seasons?  Something like that.

During season 9 we had a crew contest to design a t-shirt for the crew.  Above is my design.  I didn't win - in the 9th season they were introducing a new character, and mine featured Poof who was introduced a couple of seasons previously...not to mention the winning design was better...

Here's Johnny...5!

Here's Johnny 5!

I thought, "Here's Johnny" and thought of the iconic scene from the Shining (that not so good movie from the 70s starring Jack Nickolson, directed by the sorta hack Stanley Kubrick)…and then I thought Johnny 5 - so I had to put them together.

So this is what I wasted this last weekend on.  Enjoy.  Or don't look at it.  Or whatever.  It's here.  It made me laugh.

Jack's character wasn't even named Johnny - so it was a reference to the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson - it was how he was introduced…but now it's been so long since that was a thing.  There haven't even been any sidekicks going, "HEY-OH!" - would anyone under 30 even know about Ed Mcmahon?

Horton hears a Doctor Who

Everyone's favorite little elephant (not named Dumbo) crosses over with Britain's favorite doctor (not named Edward Jenner).

If you could pan out, you'd see that Horton is sitting on a little flower being held by Doctor Who.  Who in turn would be on a flower held by Dr Seuss...

I thought up this illustration as I finished watching the last episode of the latest season of Doctor Who.  The lines were created in Adobe Illustrator and then everything was painted in Adobe Photoshop.

After finishing with that, I decided to add some more elements:

Lotzi is faded...

I drew this for Illustration Friday - this week the theme is 'faded'.  I was toying with the idea of a ghost...and then possibly dreams...but then my wife said that faded would be someone who drank too much...

That made more sense, so I went with it.  This is a character we're developing named Lotzi.  Let's say he's getting faded on too much rootbeer...

 He's a lightweight like me.  Two beers (rootbeer, remember?) and it's time to make best friends with the sidewalk in an alley somewhere.

One thing they've been doing in animation these days is steering the artists to use a cintiq to draw.  The best part is how easy it is to edit your drawings...one downside (and this is why I've been doing more drawings this way than by passing them through Illustrator like I usually do) is that drawing on the screen doesn't have the same feel as drawing on a piece of paper.  It's just a matter of getting used to (as sometimes there's a little bit of a delay...), so I just continue to work at it.

Microstock report for September 2009

Once again the highest earner in September was Shutterstock. It was down a little from the month previous, but I guess the new images didn't generate as much interest as we would have liked...I have a bunch of Halloween illustrations that I'm hoping generate interest, but not so far. But even without a popular image, the site still continues to impress with constant and steady downloads.

Istockphoto - is still impressing me. It's our BME (an abbv they always use meaning Best Month Ever) on this site...and we're also up to 55 images (they are very selective with what they approve as apposed to Shutterstock which will accept most anything...which is why the Shutterstock is almost at 500 and the istockphoto portfolio is only 55.) What's nice about Istockphoto is that while you'll get less downloads per month, each one is worth more...I expect Istockphoto to just continue to grow and I'm excited to see the numbers as the days go by...

Third up is (always) Dreamstime. It was such a disappointing month in August - so it's nice to see it rebound a bit with $34.52. The biggest problem is that Dreamstime was freezing my internet explorer whenever I tried to upload an image - I finally switched to Firefox and was able to get it to work.

Fourth was a surging
Bigstockphoto . We had tons of sales early (3 dollars here, 50 cents there) and then suddenly it dried up...still ended with $18.50 for the month, but the way it started made it look much more exciting than where it ended.

A big surprise this month was 123RF.com. I had written this site off as well as Crestock because we weren't getting any downloads off of them at all. But suddenly this site shoots into 5th place with $13.51! I was quite surprised, but it got me to upload a lot more illustrations to their site. It would be nice if it continued...and if it continued to go up...

Fotolia has been quite a disappointment after a stellar start back in March. We did better this last month ($12.45) than the one previous ($4.55 in August)...but downloads are way down and few and far between. We're still dedicated to them because we're at 99 downloads currently (and when we reach 100, that's when a small pay increase kicks in).

Anyway - this month overall was better than the previous one. We made a total of $318.48 between all the stock sites we are on (9 total)...and I just uploaded some realistic baseball caps to each one...so hopefully that one takes off and I can report BMEs in every one...see ya next month!

IF: Pattern part 2

I mentioned it in my last post - but this is my most successful piece on Shutterstock (a site where one can upload their illustrations and/or photographs and make money if anyone downloads them...):

And what one must do when they upload their work as stock imagery is have a variety of options (such as variation on shape and color and composition)

What follows are the original images I created with these dots that eventually led to the image above.  If I never continued to experiment on this theme, I would have never run across my most successful image ever:

               

I had 6 versions (some were really bad and weren't uploaded) before #7 (which is the good one up above).  Spurred on by the success of all of these files, I continued with these ones (the first one, is my second most successful dot pattern illustration):

          

The third image (just above) with the 3D looking dots was accomplished using the 3d effect in Adobe Illustrator and then applying a warp effect.

And finally I decided that I had jumped the shark when I finished with this image:

  

It's just really really really lame.  But I thought i was creating a really cool pattern with these tube dots.  Turns out that wasn't the case...and it hasn't had one download.  But I don't blame people, it's a horrible looking piece.

I did revisit the theme a couple of times more, with color changes (because I can't ever stop)...

     

So when I say I'm done with this theme, I really only mean that it's on hold until I can think of another way to apply the dot pattern in an interesting way.

IF: Patterns on stock...

I've been uploading images to Shutterstock since March...and I've had my share of hits and misses.  One of my best pieces on Shutterstock is this dot pattern:

A smart way to go about working in stock illustration is to have a variety of options within a particular subject matter. I did several dot patterns that eventually led to the above illustration (which is our highest earner on Shutterstock). What follows are two more variations (although there ended up being quite a bit more...some sold well for a while, but nothing replicated the success of the original image...I still consider it worth while though as those new images did lead to more downloads).

This one was a combination of the original image, a quick change of color, and a 'grunge' pattern that I created. Apparently grunging up a picture is very hot on stock illustration, although I don't believe I've fully grasped the concept.

This image kept the color, but I attempted to change the dot pattern in an interesting way by having it do less of a waterfall look, and more of a swooping motion. I thought it added a lot more action to the piece.

Anyway - here's another way in which I expanded my Shutterstock portfolio:

I started with this quick image:
Obviously these are very (VERY) simple colored eggs. It sold a bit around Easter (which was when I created the image). At the same time I did a rose illustration that I turned into this seamless rose pattern background:


Then I took those roses and the eggs and combined them to create Easter Eggs with a very complicated rose painted on:I have a lot more illustrations on Shutterstock - you can search under my name - or sign up yourself and sell your own illustrations, just click on anywhere that I said Shutterstock (except for that one) or at this link - http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=325258

Anyway - thanks for reading! And I'll try to do less of a stupid ad for the next Illustration Friday...but the topic of pattern led me to my stock work...

July Art Gallery at Nickelodeon

On July 10th I finally had my art gallery open at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank. I interned there on Dora the Explorer (in it's first season) in 2000 and have been working there full time since 2002.

It's an incredible place to work...and one part of that is the art gallery they maintain in the main hallway. It's the hallway everyone walks through (from production, to artists, to celebrities. As I put my illustrations in the gallery Alfonso Ribeiro asked me for directions to the security desk to sign in) and I've always wanted to have a solo show there.

In 2007 I came back to Nickelodeon after a small hiatus (between the cancellation of Danny Phantom, the non pickup of Splattapus, and the renewal of Fairly Odd Parents, which had been originally shelved in 2005), one of the first things on my mind was to schedule a gallery. I figured in the few months between signing up for it, I'd have plenty of artwork to show off. They like to plan things very far in advance which meant the gallery was booked up through the end of 2008...and the first date available was July of 2009. It seemed like forever away, but at least it would give me plenty of time to work on my art.

the oldest piece in my gallery - from 2006 - it's a watercolor of a chinstrap penguin

Cut to April of this year - I've had the gallery on my mind on occasion, but I usually didn't think about it - and by April it was the furthest thing from my mind. Luckily for me, I happened to wake up one morning and it struck me like a revelation. Did I have a gallery still? I hadn't heard anything in all these long months, so I figured I'd better check into it.

The very last piece I did for the show (finished on Thursday morning)

What's nice is that I haven't been wasting my time. I had two different areas of interest that I wanted to explore - vinyl toys and children's books. I switched back and forth between ideas and when I checked with the person in charge of the gallery, I had over 35 pieces that I was confident I could use in the show. And since it was only April, I still had three long months to draw like mad.

The gallery right before they announce the opening

The next thing I knew it was June, and instead of drawing and painting (digitally) I had to turn my attentions to finding a color printer place and finding matts and frames for all the art. It's quite a daunting task to accomplish, so I'm glad I had my wife there to help me out. Some time in the next week I'll upload each illustration individually, and you'll see how much of a help she was (everything not in a black frame and black matt is her choice...I can do the art, but I'm terrible at being creative with frames).

Here's me in the gallery after having finished putting up all the titles and prices.

Here's the food spread (thai food and fruit)

The full gallery - wine on the right and thai food on the left

Zebra Berries for Mommy (cover) and other children's book art

A few of my early Adelia pieces

Igor Penguin and a couple of (older) penguin watercolors

Some of my early Penguin watercolors (from 2006-2007)

.

Some of my square animal children's book (style) illustrations

Some of the newer Adelia pieces I've done (between late 2008 - early 2009)

It was a pretty great show. I spent half the time leading up to the show wanting it to be over and then in eager anticipation. On one hand I just wanted the art up but didn't want all the attention, but on the other hand I was looking forward to seeing people enjoy the work that I've spent the last two years producing. The thrill part of it won out and I had a good time.

Drawn by all the free food and the chance to hang out (as well as all the nice art, or so I was told) - there were a lot of people. The food was all gone before 6 (but there was alcohol until the very end...so they had the important stuff covered). It was a lot of fun and I was completely flattered by all the positivity and compliments.

One of the pieces that sold on Friday night.

.

It was nice to see it all come together after all this time. I ended up with 52 paintings - between my watercolors and digital illustrations.