T.U.F.F. Puppy "A Doomed Christmas"

Here are two assembled pages of designs I did for the recently-aired T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "A Doomed Christmas". (Shout-out to super-awesome storyboard artist Fred Gonzales!)

Santa Dude

Based on a real guy my wife and I saw standing on a Burbank street corner wearing a bright red zip-up sweatshirt, matching jeans, brown socks, brown shoes, and a Santa hat...while taking drags on a cigarette.

1950s Stewardess #3

I finally got around to coloring the third and final stewardess in the series. I went back to the line-less, sponge-painting style of #1, which knocks #2 out of continuity, but oh well.

Animation Award Nomination!

http://www.annieawards.org/consideration.html

Wow! I came into Nick this morning to happily discover that I received a nomination for the 2011 Animation Awards (Annies) in the "Character Design In a Television Production" category for my work on the T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "Iron Mutt"! I'm incredibly excited and humbled to be a first-time nominee. Thank you to my wife and family, creator Butch Hartman, art director George Goodchild and board artist Brandon Kruse. Best wishes to all my fellow nominees!

Race Car

Here's a piece of "pro bono" development freelance I did a year ago which was not accepted. I had a lot of fun designing and painting my first race car.

Red Sweater

Just another fun exercise in color styling and digital sponge-brushing.

The Duke

The Karate Kid

Listening to Bill Conti's score to The Karate Kid (1984) inspired me to do a quick sketch of Mr. Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso doing his famous "crane technique". I did it in one pass, without overlays, in about three minutes. The impromptu drawing surprised me and I thought the likenesses of the caricatures were pretty good, so I spent an hour coloring it. It might have been a good idea to have Mr. Miyagi holding a small Bonsai tree, but 'oh well.' This one was a lot of fun to do!

1950s Stewardess #2

Stewardess #2 is less painterly and graphic than #1; I took more of an ink-and-paint-by-number approach...more like a character design for 2D, TV animation.

1950s Stewardess #1

Just for the fun of it, I'm designing and coloring a brief series of three 1950s airline stewardesses. This one will be a little more painterly than the next two, which I will post shortly. I really like removing the line art, focusing on shape design and color styling, and painting with these chalk and sponge brushes in Photoshop. Stay tuned for more...

T.U.F.F. Puppy "Santa Claus"

On occasion, I am assigned to design a particular character (usually, one that is prominent in the script) before the storyboard artist works on the board so that he/she can use the character as reference. We call it "preliminary design", or "pre-design". I really enjoy these assignments because I get to design a new character from scratch and it's an opportunity to draw a bunch of fun variations. These are just a few variations I drew of the polar bear "Santa Claus" from the T.U.F.F. episode "Mission: Really Big Mission Part 2".

Walkin' the Dog

Inspired by a funny moment my wife and I witnessed a few days ago.

Lampooned Lyrics

My wife and I were driving in the minivan on Saturday when we heard on the radio that cheesy '80s love song by Paul Young: "Every Time You Go Away..." Then, I remembered my older brother, Thomas, many years ago making fun of the lyrics, changing the next line to: "...you take a piece of meat with you." My wife thought it was a funny mental image, so here's the cartoon image.

White Dragon Martial Arts "Christmas Poster"

My brother-in-law, Sifu Ming Lau,commissioned this piece as a Christmas advertisement for White Dragon Martial Arts, a chain of Kung Fu/Tai Chi studios in San Diego County. He requested the company logo, a Chinese white dragon, chasing after the "Pearl of Wisdom", tugging Santa in his sleigh. You can view my thumbnail sketch and color comp below. I had a lot of fun painting the finished poster in Photoshop.

Ron Paul

Physician, Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. My wife suggested I do this caricature/portrait.

Bicycle Shop Mascot

I was asked to come up with a new mascot/logo for a bicycle shop: a wacky, adventurous duck holding a bicycle wheel. So, I did a duck wearing aviator goggles and a bomber jacket. The final logo has yet to be accepted but, if and when it is, I'll post it. I did the ink phase in Sketchbook and the colorized version in Photoshop.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

One of my favorite rock albums (and I have few as I'm not a huge rock fan) is The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". While listening to the album for the upteenth time a few weeks ago, I decided to do my own take on the Yoshimi album cover illustration. I separated Yoshimi from the background in image 2 to showcase her a little more. Drawn and inked in Sketchbook Pro, colored in Photoshop.

Frog

Here's an advertising character (or mascot) I did recently for a new client. The frog was designed to be able to hold different signs, so I painted the entire figure in the necessary pose so that he could accommodate any signage. I added the "ribbit" sign just as an example to show how the frog would appear holding a sign. I dusted off some old rendering skills and painted this one Photoshop.

Anne Shirley

My wife recently re-watched Kevin Sullivan's productions of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, inspiring me to do this piece. This one isn't necessarily a cartoon of Megan Follows, but is just my cartoon version of the Anne character. I really enjoyed painting this one in Photoshop.

"Farm Pit" Title Card

 

Here's an opening title card I drew for the Fairly OddParents season seven episode "Farm Pit".

T.U.F.F. Puppy Designs

A few character designs from the T.U.F.F. Puppy episode "Iron Mutt".

Girl

Maybe she's looking at a prom dress she really wants to buy. Painted in Photoshop with a chalk brush. I've keep my basic color palette in a margin so I can use the eyedropper tool to key all the colors.

T-Rex

I love noodling. The initial drawing took no time at all, but I spent the next few hours hatching and wrapping value around the forms which, for me, is the most fun part. Done in Sketchbook.

Hotdog Vender

Git yer red hots! Git 'em while they're hot! I sketched and cleaned this one in Sketchbook, bucket-filled some color and used a chalk brush in Photoshop.

iPod girl

My first post in a long time! I dug out a post-it sketch I did a few months ago, made some changes in Sketchbook, then colored it with a custom chalk brush in Photoshop.

Lumberjack & Forest Ranger

It's been two months since my last post and that's because I've been incredibly busy finishing up my work on season one of T.U.F.F. Puppy. I will upload some season one T.U.F.F. designs soon but, for now, here's my most recent personal work: more paper craft! Lumberjack and Forest Ranger are currently on display at the Nickelodeon group show. Though the small-scale cutting and pasting may be too tedious and patience-taxing for some, I enjoy doing intricate work. The hardest part, for me, is coming up with a good character design. Once that's done, it's just a matter of spending many hours of doing the cut and paste work.  

Big Time Rush

Here's the main character line-up from the Big Time Rush animated segment from their Christmas special. The guys appear as pajama-wearing squirrels and sing in squeaky voices -- a lot like Alvin and the Chipmunks. This assignment was quite a juggling act: I had to capture recognizable likeness and funny caricatures of the BTR guys and make them look like cartoon squirrels. The final 90-second segment ended up looking awesome, thanks to the prop design skills of Jennifer Wood, the stylish backgrounds of Jim Worthy and the beautiful paintings of Kaz Aizawa. It was an honor and a pleasure lending my help to this episode and having my work appear --for the first time-- in the context of a live-action TV series. More designs to come...

Snoop Dogg

I had the pleasure of designing the characters for a brief, animated Christmas segment of Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush series in which the one-and-only Snoop Dogg made a cameo. I was told that Snoop approved my designs and thought they were great. I'll always remember that as one of the highlights of my animation career.