Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Artist Trading Cards

(From left to right; Splinter, April, Shredder, Michelangelo,Casey Jones, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Krang, Slash, the Rat King and Foot Soldiers).

This was a personal project and labor of love that started about a year ago in an effort to go back to a time when I really enjoyed drawing. I still enjoy it, but something (at the time) felt "lost" and I wanted to go back to that time as a kid, sitting at the dinner table in the evening and not worrying about what a client wanted. Plain and simple; drawing for the fun of it.

I'm finding that there are many benefits to creative side projects. I learned a lot along the way; about art and about myself. I would also like to say a big THANK YOU to my awesome girlfriend, Heidi for her honesty and encouragement. Her thoughts, feedback and just listening to me talk (and blab) about how much I love the Turtles means a lot.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you're Holiday season is a great one.

Cartoon Monster Designs

This was an embroidery design assignment from work and I wanted to share a little bit of my process. The top image is the sew out of the design after being digitized, the middle image is the vector art and the bottom image is the pencil rough. My job is making the drawings and the vector art. You can find the machine and hand embroidery files at Urbanthreads.

I usually start with a pencil sketch to get approved before going on to Adobe Illustrator and drawing it again on the computer. The process seams to change depending on my confidence with the subject. Sometimes I use thumbnails, sometimes it's really loose and gestural drawings. In this case I stayed pretty tight and clean and also tried to keep each monster unique. I get so much inspiration from animation and character design artists and am always looking for ways to plug that into my drawings at work.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out the art. And thank you everyone out there for making your own creations and sharing them with the world! Cooking, quilting, designing, crafting... everything. It's a treat to share art on this blog and a treat to experience what everyone else it making in the world.

:)

Lil' Death Paper Model

Happy Halloween! 

This is my first paper model based on the Grim Reaper himself. It was fun to try something new and think three dimensional for a change. You can get your own Lil' Death paper model here! For best results, print on card stock or heavy paper. 

Thank You

This was a recent typography design done for work (back to school series). It made me think about how important teachers are in every one's life. I also thought about the teachers that really helped me through the years, including my mom who was a first grade teacher. The art teachers though, really come to mind as a few of them really helped me find my way over the years. Even if it wasn't about art, they always had an ear ready to listen about things that weren't even related to art and always sound advice and encouragement that was so generously given. There were a few nights my roommates and I would talk to our instructor Ron about art, life, career, etc. well past an hour or two after class. They were more than teachers; they were friends, mentors and sometimes therapists. And so this blog post is meant to be a gesture of gratitude to all the teachers of the world that give so much love to their students.

Thank you.

Lil' Death Cartoon

aww  :)

The MAD Scientist

and his faithful companion... Professor MeowPurr

Christmas at the Beach

Here's a series of cartoon Christmas characters I did not to long ago. The theme was Santa, Mrs. Claus and the gang relaxing at the beach and enjoying the off season. The art was created for machine embroidery and the designs can be found at Emblibrary.com

I really worked hard on these and tried to have fun with them in the process. While drawing the roughs, I was looking at a lot of character design blogs for inspiration. Lately, it's been a lot of about silhouettes and shapes for me. The computer has been a huge tool (sometimes a crutch) in my creative process. In Adobe Illustrator, I'm constantly using the mirror tool, flipping back and forth to find wholes and week spots. Also, filling in all the shapes with a dark value helps me get a good read of the silhouette and adjust/tweak where needed.

I'm due for some beach/outdoor rest and relaxation time as well. Too much going on this summer, but it has been a fun one to say the least. Looking forward to playing some golf this weekend and hopefully getting out to do some hiking soon, too. Best wishes to you and hope you have a good rest of the summer :)

Robo Kitty

Superheros and Villains!

The first image are some character designs of superheros for kids. This was sort of like a dream to get this assignment for work. Definitely would like to do more cartooning and character design art in the future. 

The bottom image is a drawing of my favorite Marvel villain/vigilante, Venom. It was drawn today over my lunch break. The goal was to do a 15 minute sketch but it turned into 30 minutes. It was exciting; giving myself a time limit really made me think about how I was going to make what was all ready created in my head, and then actually do it on paper. The drawing was made with an ink brush and white out on blue construction paper glued to the back of computer paper.

Ninja Squirrel

Flying Monkey

Another drawing that makes me happy :)

Attitude

by Charles Swindoll

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on my life. Attitude, to me, it is more important than facts. It is more important the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gifts or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.