Arrested Development

Hey guys!  It's been awhile since I've posted anything so I figured I'd put up this mural I worked on for Arrested Development with my buddies Mike Lockwood and Kirk Shinmoto.  If you've seen the new season, this was in the background during the airport sequence in episode one.  There's a lot of easter eggs hidden in the image that we hand picked ourselves.  It was all done digitally in Photoshop and then printed out wall-sized.  Enjoy!

Random Practice Update 3/23/13

Hey guys!  Here's some recent figure quick sketches from the Friday night workshop at Art Center.  Trying to learn to loosen up.  The models were Leslie and David.  Take care!

Character Sketch

I'm taking a Vis Dev class at CDA with Mike Yamada and Victoria Ying.  It's been a lot of fun so far!  Here's a character moment I sketched for our project: redesigning Snow White.  I decided to set my version in the 80s.  I'll post the rest as I complete it.

Palos Verdes and Classwork

Here's a sketch from our last trip!  We went to Abalone Cove, in Palos Verdes.

Plein Air Materials

Hey guys!  A couple of my friends have been asking about materials to get if you're just starting out with gouache landscape painting, so I thought I'd pass along the materials list I got from my teacher, Jackson Sze.  You can see nearly all of my kit here:

The only thing missing is my artists' tape, which I just ran out of, and my portable camping stool.  Anyway, basic ingredients are (from left to right):

Paper towels.  My friend Kirk recommended Viva because they're super absorbent.  They feel a lot like those blue disposable shop rags.

Brush roll with different sizes of brushes.  I just wrap my brushes in a dirty rag which doubles up as a rag to wipe the brushes on when they're too loaded with paint/water as I work.  You can also use an old t-shirt for that.  My brushes are all cheap red-handle Winsor Newton University (student grade) synthetic brushes.  I've got a couple rounds from 00 to 6, which tends to cover everything but the initial wash at the size I work. For the wash I've got a size 10 synthetic sable round.  I just picked up a couple brights the other week too.  I really like using those for big planes of color, and splaying the bristles apart to get interesting patterns, but I'm still just beginning to learn about that stuff.

Some kind of water container.  I use a fancy rubber-sealed container that was designed for oils/turpenoid, but it works just fine for water, and seals completely if I don't want to throw my dirty water out where I'm painting.

A spray bottle to keep your palette wet.

A palette.  I just switched to a Sta-Wet palette, which has been working out well for me.  It forces me to put out fresh paint, or at least keep my last batch of paint wet, instead of picking at hardened paint at the bottom of my dirty old palette.

Paints.  I just stick to primary colors with white and black.  I know you aren't supposed to touch black because it kills your saturation, but I really have trouble getting my darkest darks without it.  Anyway, the primaries I always put out are pretty cheap: Flame Red, Spectrum Yellow, and either Ultramarine Blue or Cerulean, depending on what I'm looking at.  Usually I'll put out both blues.  I've also got some other colors on hand in case they help me get somewhere faster, but that'll depend on the subject.  For example, we painted a coastal cliff earlier today, so I put out some earth tones to help me get the colors I wanted a little bit faster.

Something to paint on.  I've been painting in my cheap sketchbook from Kinokuniya for several weeks now, but I recently got a Cottonwood cold press sketchbook to take for a test drive.  The pages are basically illustration board, so they hold up to the water pretty well.

The items off screen are pretty important too: a portable stool/chair to sit on, and some artists' tape to keep your painting masked off.  Other than that, you really just need a sturdy backpack, some sunscreen, a decent hat to shade your eyes, and something to paint!

I hope this write-up helped someone out, but in any case, if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Plein Air Update

Hey!  It's been a long time!  We started plein air painting again... here are a few small updates.  Hopefully I can post some new backgrounds soon.  I've been working on a lot of smaller projects that should be coming out soon.  Stay tuned!

Plein Air Update

Hey guys!  We're starting up the plein air group again after a brief hiatus.  Here's a quickie from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  If you're interested in joining us, let me know!  There's always room for one more.

Updates!

Hey guys!  It's been awhile since I've updated, so here's some backgrounds from one of the newest episodes of Motorcity.  As you may have heard, we're back on the air on Friday nights on Disney XD.

And here's a semi-recent plein air painting from one of our outings.  This was in Echo Park.

Until next time

Gouache Class Update

Here's a snapshot of the latest gouache project in progress.  Glen and Laurel's class is over for this term, so I'll be finishing this one up next time around.  I have everything laid in for the most part, so it's just a matter of finessing and rendering some areas that I haven't spent enough time on, and adding some fun effects on top to make it sing.  I'm looking forward to trying out my airbrush in a couple spots to give it some glow.  Until next time...

Recent Work

Some visual development work for an unreleased project.  Hopefully I can fill you guys in on the details later, but until then, enjoy the art!

What is that?

Hey guys,

Here's my submission for the upcoming B-Movie themed show at Ltd. Art Gallery in Seattle.  It's based on the John Carpenter movie, The Thing.  Thanks to Clarke Snyder for hooking me up with the gallery!  He'll also be in the show, which opens October 5th.

Here's the Facebook event if you're out in the Seattle area!  https://www.facebook.com/events/283086905133280/

Updates 8/20/12

Hey guys!  Here's some plein air stuff from the past few weeks.

And here's some progress from Glen and Laurel's class at 3Kicks.  I decided to pay homage to one of my favorite movies by attempting to give it a Struzan style poster treatment.  Here's the pencils and color comps.

Updates 8/02/12

Updates!  Here's two digital studies I did for myself.  The first study was to try designing with line, the second was to practice designing with value.

And here's some plein air studies I did in Butte Meadows.  My friend was nice enough to let us stay at his family's cabin for the weekend, so we all went painting.  These are gouache, as usual.  The color end is making more sense to me... I think it's probably time to work on shape design some more.

Until next time...

Painting in Los Feliz

Hollyhock House in Los Angeles.  Painting a little larger again, and focusing on getting values to work.  Griffith Observatory next week!  Contact me if you'd like to join us.

Recent stuff

Here's a few of my background designs from the more recently aired episodes of Motorcity.  My favorite episode (excluding the two-part season finale) airs this week on Thursday at 8:30.  It's a good one, so check it out!

And here's a fan art piece I did to sell at some anime conventions next year.  If you aren't familiar with the Neon Genesis Evangelion series, now is a great time to start.  The third rebirth movie comes out next year.

Yosemite Gouache Sketches

I went to Yosemite with a few painter friends and did these gouache sketches.  We tried to give ourselves limited time frames to work within so that we'd be able to check out more spots.  Most of these are from the main valley area.  Still figuring out a couple of basic lessons the hard way, but the process is starting to feel more natural now.  I'm open to suggestions for awesome landscape artists to check out.

Glendale 6/10/12

I tried painting smaller this time... seems like the initial block-in goes faster, so I get to play around with the color a little more.  Anyway, I had fun!

Updates

This weekend we painted at City Hall in Pasadena.  This one was a struggle the whole way, but at least I had fun playing with all the different colors in the shadows.  Next time I will probably tackle a smaller area and really work it out.

And here are a few background designs I did for Motorcity early on.  These were all interiors for Kaia's hut in episode 4.  I'm really looking forward to posting stuff from the next two episodes, so stay tuned.

And finally, here's a Zone of the Enders print I've been working on for an upcoming convention.  If you're near Anaheim in mid-June, come check us out!  I'll be tabling with two other Motorcity artists selling fan art prints.  http://am2con.org/

Dear Diary

Today I painted something in Pasadena.

Pasadena Plein Air

Dappled light in the Pasadena area...  mostly just figuring out how much color I can jam in there.