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.

Art dumpedy dump...

I had a bunch of random drawings I thought I'd pop up here - just because they don't really belong on their own post and I wasn't really going to do anything with them anyway.  But maybe I'll post some to instagram?

 This was for our stock images site - I thought the idea of two knights facing off would look pretty awesome.  And I was right!

 This is for an undisclosed project I was working on late last year.  I did a version where the kids looked quite young, and they wanted them aged up a bit - so I redrew them as older versions.  I did several styles (with version 2 being my favorite), but they ended up not doing anything with the project, so these drawings just sit here on this blog not doing anything...

 Here's the kid version - they were deemed 'too junior' which could be a death sentence for a show trying to appeal to the older kid audience.

 I was drawing a kid, and this time for a junior show I was trying to develop, who would end up in a monsterous situation.  I wanted him to be as innocent as possible, and maybe have a hint of anime hair.

 Speaking of Monsterous - this was one attempt at the monster that finds the boy above.  As you can see, he's even cuter than the boy is.  Below is version two.  This is yet another project that we didn't get too far with.

 This is for Happy Pantry - Even Mona Lisa was a fan of our aprons.  They're still available on our website at www.happy-pantry.com - and only $29.99!  She's smiling because she's adorable in her new apron!

 At the time I drew this, I was developing a series of cute monster toys.  This was a stitched up doll.  I thought it was rather cute and slightly scary.

 Also for Happy Pantry - Peas on Mars.  Says it all.  It's terrible, and that's why it never made it past the rough drawing stage.

 I drew this shortly after I drew Leonardo deCappucino - I thought it would have been funny to have a silence of the hams...but also, possibly, a little too adult for the kids.  I originally drew his iconic mask as well, but Tracey vetoed that - this cutesy ham was my last ditched effort to get it made, but to no avail.  The boss said no.

And finally - here's the last picture in our art dump.  Another project we were developing - I think this is from 2010 or so, I wanted to have three kids that were kind of reminiscent of Edward Gory/Charles Addams characters and the feel that those guys put into their cartoon/comics.  I won't say much more than that as I still want to develop this into something...maybe...at some point.

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!

Happy Pantry Hot stuff

Don't get yourself a swelled head, there's always someone hotter than you.  Just be happy that you make someone's mouth tingle.  Just not everyone's.  But only because that'd be gross.  Or, at least, unrealistic.

Happy Pantry: Coffee in the Morning

Coffee in the morning is a must.  It's almost a state of emergency when you've run out of coffee filters and all you need is that one cup to get you started.  Will a sock work?  Will an old t-shirt?  How bad would it be to just drink the grinds?  I bet gritty coffee would actually pep you up a bit faster.  It'd be chokier....and it would be a good idea to brush your teeth straight afterwards, to avoid black bits all over your teeth...but love will find a way.  You will drink that coffee at any cost.  I'd probably use an old (clean) facecloth...if I had to.

Happy Pantry at the Anime Expo

Ever since we heard about the Anime Expo we wanted to take Happy Pantry there.  We missed out on last year's just barely - and this year we were wait listed.  We never thought we'd get in, but then they opened up some extra slots in Artist Alley and, much to our surprise, we were accepted!  So now we're going to be showing at this year's Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center on July 1st through July 4th.

Here are the hours of operation:

Friday July 1st: 12pm-6pm
Saturday July 2nd: 10am-6pm
Sunday July 3rd: 10am-6pm
Friday July 4th: 10am-3pm

One of us will be at Table 48H in Artist Alley - where you'll be able to find most of our Happy Pantry merchandise!

Aliens of all colors!

I was designing what i thought would be a cool vinyl toy:

Look at all the colors!?!?  The only thing better would be if it was clear and had something floating on the inside.

I designed these in 2009 after attending Designer Con.  Back then it was called The Vinyl Toy Show or something, but they made it more inclusive and changed the name.  But it's all about the vinyl toys!  And people who are making their own crazy toys are doing some pretty terrific things.  It was just a little dream to one day have my own toy...and it all started way back in 2009...

Of course I was a little off course, and made bananas and cupcake plushes instead...but still - toy!

Happy Pantry: Ice in the Cup...

Like ice in one's veins...so are the days of our lives.  Cold, that is.  So very cold.

Speaking of cold - how 'bout that ice?  Not just any ice - but how about that ice in the cup in front of you right now?  Or whenever it is that you have a cup in front of you, how about that ice?

My niece, Chole, was overheard philosophizing, "I like ice, it's like free refills for your water!"

So we immortalized her words in a Happy Pantry drawing.  Bless her sweet simple little mind.

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!

Happy Pantry: Happy Pumpkin

The only good pumpkin is a carved pumpkin.  They don't serve any purpose other than decoration, right?

Okay - I guess some people like the pie (I'm one of those people)...so two things - and then nothing.  But they do two glorious things.  Once a year.

Jason Bourne or Jason reborn...

I've done a couple of versions of Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.  The first time was back in 2009 for a gallery show and the second was earlier this month to celebrate the second month in a row that had a Friday the 13th in it.

And I thought I got it out of my system when I suddenly thought, "Jason Born."  I thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to draw it.

This might just be the cutest of all Jasons.

Charlie Brown, you Pinhead!

"We have things of such good grief to show you"

My obsession with Hellraiser has reached a new low.  I did my original Hellraiser sketch:

And since he had a round head, I kept thinking about Charlie Brown and how his noggin lent itself to Pinhead's pins…in his head.

And then to further complete the circle (or the very long stretch), all you have to do is change blockhead to Pinhead and boom - instant crossover.

I looked up some Charlie Brown reference and picked out colors that were in his sunday comics - this one I completely ignored illustrator and did the entire thing in Photoshop.

Hellraiser Chatterer

While Pinhead had his addiction to acupuncture, The Chatterer, while not very talkative, had such a cool look.  Inside one's mouth, it's a horror show.  Have you ever looked under your tongue?  It's disgusting!  Well Clive Barker's imagination brings this out by pulling back the lips and exposing how brave dentists really are.

Anyhow - this is my version of the Chatterer from the Hellraiser series.  I got into them recently and have been obsessed with drawing the characters.

This was sketched out in photoshop, cleaned up in Illustrator and then painted in Photoshop.

Hellraiser Kid

This kid is quite the hellraiser!

An out of control acupuncture session…

I saw that Hellraiser was streaming on Netflix…and within a week I had watched 7 Hellraiser movies!  It turns out there are 9 movies!  And another one (that sounds like  a remake of the first) coming soon.

Here is the original sketch.  I opened it in Adobe Illustrator to clean up the lines and then painted it in Photoshop.

Mighty Yeti logo design contest

My friends over at Mighty Yeti are currently in the midst of their Kickstarter campaign to help fund their first two interactive children's books.

Josh and Jennie Book, the creative minds behind Mighty Yeti, started a design contest where all sorts of adorable little kids sent in their versions of the Mighty Yeti logo.  Obviously it's terrible, but it's great to see the little ones try (fail, but at least they tried).  So the Books called out some of their animation friends and I decided to throw a couple of designs their way:

My wife immediately said I was being rude - but the Mighty Yeti logo is the top half of a cute monster head peeking over the name.  Since you only see the top half, it made me think about what if he was that way because he'd been chopped in a gruesome way (not the pleasant way, not that there is one).  I thought it was a funny drawing, but since they're making children's books, it's not very appropriate, so I had to go back to the drawing board:

I have several under drawings where I was exploring whether he'd be sitting or standing, or if he had a big furry tail...I decided against a lot of those and believed a fun little pose would have him reading one of the Book's children's books...

The rough drawing was created in photoshop, transported to illustrator to clean up the lines and then copied and pasted back into photoshop to color.

Lotzi: The big chase

I did a drawing of this for Illustration Friday a couple of weeks ago.  It was for the topic 'hurry'.  And nothing makes a fella hurry more than someone else chasing them with the intention of eating 'em.

It was a simpler time back them.  You saw something that you wanted to eat and you just chased them down and went at it....well, there were a lot of things you wanted and all it came down to was whether or not you were quick enough to catch 'em. 

In Lotzi's case...it's not his fault that he's really tasty...luckily for him he has some pretty good cardio.  But with his little legs, it's hard for him to put any space between him and the T-rex chasing him...

Anyway - I did a rough drawing:

And wasn't able to finish it in time for that week...so I let it go - but then I opened it back up and decided to finish it in Adobe Illustrator to see if it'd be worth finishing...and I liked the results...so I took it back into Photoshop to color it.

Pixel Art Pets

I've switched gears a little bit in they style of stock illustrations I'm doing.  I've always enjoyed pixel art (or at least had an appreciation for it) since the time of the original Nintendo video games.  You have a very limited palette in which to convey your illustration.

I started with a page of fruit:

and then I moved on to pets.  First i drew a puppy:

And then drew this picture of a kitten based on Raimi, our little runt of a cat:

Dreamstime contest: Pretty in Pink

This month Dreamstime has designated "Pretty in Pink" as their next contest topic.

I started with this rough that I did in Adobe Illustrator:

There were a couple of directions I thought I could take it...so I printed it out and revised it in red and then blue pencil (the red to figure out my lines, and then the blue to finalize them):

I ended up really liking the little girl thinking about flowers - Once I scanned it back into Illustrator and cleaned it up and colored it, I decided it didn't need the flowers to be pink.  So I submitted it as is:

Harry Potter rough drawing

I was one of the lucky few that was invited to experience Pottermore before they went live in October.

It's a pretty fun site - they're still working out a lot of kinks - the biggest being that the server isn't big enough to handle all the traffic just yet (so the site keeps kicking people out).  Anyway - it's quite nice to go through the books and further experience the world of Harry Potter.  The nicest thing is there are a lot of unpublished writings of J K Rowling about characters (and backstories), objects and scenes.

I was inspired to draw this (on a cintiq in photoshop):

 

And I guess it's not terribly accurate to the story...because Harry Potter was never in his cupboard under the stairs reading his Hogwarts acceptance letter...but I could clearly see it in my head and wanted to draw it...it seemed like a nice reveal - to have this kid who spent the first 10 years of his life in misery and to suddenly have that all flip to become the most popular kid in the entire (wizarding) world with the arrival of a single letter would be mind boggling.

Here's the Adobe Illustrator cleanup:

I was hoping to convey the mix of emotions that would hit Harry upon finishing the letter.

IF: Crunchy cereal!

I had this old drawing from a children's book dummy that I was working on based on my character Adelia.

When I saw the topic of the week for Illustration Friday (Crunchy) I automatically thought of eating crunchy cereal...which is what Adelia is doing here:

I dusted off the old adobe illustrator drawing and painted it in photoshop this very morning. Sure I sort of cheated by having such a nondescript background, but it's only there to frame Adelia eating her deliciously boring looking cereal.

I was told by an executive at Nick Jr (Nickelodeon for smaller kids) that my character Adelia needed a mouth, so I've been toying with what she would look like with one...which is why, when I finished this illustration, I went back in and drew a mouth. I kind of think it's a stronger piece...it shows more that she's eating AND enjoying herself...

What's nice is that there's a website called Foodista - from what I can gather, it's a website that's all about food - and the link above is for cereal. They e-mailed me just this morning because they found my blog in a search and liked the above drawings. I thought that was nice enough that I'd post a link to their website (plus, they asked really nicely). But anyhow - if all that talk about cereal gets you craving some food - hop on over to foodista...and you just might find something tasty.

By the way - I'm currently addicted to Granola - so that's my cereal of choice...especially the Target brand (Archer Farms) ones. There's blueberry with flax (whatever that is) and there's another one with chocolate bits. Terribly good.

Oh, and if Oatmeal counts - that's the only choice one should have (unless, of course, you know someone that's willing to cook a full blown meal) on a cold day. I live in Southern California, which means it's warm most of the time - but every once in a while (like last week) it can get quite chilly. And it's only chilly for someone that's used to the warm weather. Anyway - if Oatmeal counts as a cereal (it's a hot cereal...but when I think of cereal, I usually only think of the crunchy stuff you pour milk over) then I'd like some oatmeal with plump raisins. And that's all I have to say about cereal.