I HAVE MOVED

I moved to TUMBLR awhile ago. Sorry I forgot to warn you guys.

Check the new place out here.

Safeguard-Character Feature #1

Hello everyone! I'm going to start doing posts highlighting each of the main characters in Safeguard; explaining who they are, what they do, where they come from, etc... Mostly to help myself figure their stories out while I finish the art, but also for your enjoyment!

First up is Charley:

The initial full-body design for Charlie.

Charley is a brawler. He began prize fighting when he was 12, and never looked back. Since there are no longer any human opponents that interest him, he has taken to fighting the nastiest and biggest creatures he can find.  Often more than 10 at a time.

6 months ago, Charley disappeared without a trace. Leaving his manager, fans, and opponents equal parts confused and frustrated. Some outlying towns have reported sightings of Charley wandering the wilderness with a pair of gigantic mechanical constructs. But nothing has been confirmed.

Some in-progress artwork of Charlie doing what he does best

I originally came up with Charley because I really loved the idea of a character that fights only with his fists. I had this image in my head of Charley going up against a monster easily 10 times his size, grimacing and swinging his bloody knuckles with manic abandon. So I knew without a doubt that he needed to be a part of this world.  

His frame and design are meant to evoke that classic "strong man" vibe, complete with moustache and striped shirt. I really want him to stand out as a larger than life character.

Some Future Ideas I have for him:

-Different Tattoos reflecting his most prized "kills"

-A variety of championship belts that he has won throughout his career. 

-"The One That Got Away"- maybe a sort of nemesis-monster that Charley wasn't able to defeat, and haunts him to this day.

Hope you guys enjoy these little character bios! They are by no means complete, so your thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

-Jason

Paranorman: The Making of a Fan-Poster

Hello everyone! I spent most of last week working on a fan-poster for the upcoming movie Paranorman.

I posted the final image along with a little history of my weird-ness over at Jeb Kennedy, but I thought it might be nice to post a bit of my process here. I am by NO means an expert at drawing or coloring in Photoshop (i've only been seriously coloring in photoshop for about 6 months now, but here's how I usually do things:

FIRST, I start off with a very rough sketch (usually on paper, but in this case i just started on the computer)

After playing around with the sketch for awhile I "ink" the lines:

Next, I lay down the background and some flat colors. this helps me figure out an overal color-palette for the drawing (I also re-drew Norman in between this stage and the last one):

Now it's time to add the details (shading, lighting, etc...)

For the final version, I added the moon and title as well as a nice green glow coming from the ground. I also added some paper texture to add to the poster's character:

hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes journey! I'm not even going to show you my layers for this piece because they are INSANE. I really need to get better and labeling and organizing those suckers.

I'm back!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been so long. I spent all of July working on Batman art with the dudes over at Jeb Kennedy, and that took up pretty much all of my free time. Now that The Dark Knight Rises has been out for a while and i've had time to rest, i'm finally back to working on my own personal projects.

First, I've completed all of the designs for the main characters of Safeguard:

there's still some work to be done, but this is more or less how they will appear.

I've also started sketching out some monsters that our heroes will battle:

AND FINALLY: I have agreed to participate in an alumni-only art show at my Alma-Mater. There isn't a theme (that i'm aware of), so I've decided to create a poster that perfectly illustrates my artistic journey since graduation.

I won't give it all away, but I WILL say that it definitely features a dude punching ghosts:

Alright! That's all i have to show right now. I'm also working on a fan poster for the upcoming zombie-film Paranorman, so look for an update on that sometime next week.

Safeguard Update: More Characters!

Hello everyone! I am in Boston enjoying the wonderful HOW Design conference (expect an update on that later), and I just remembered that it has been awhile since I posted Safeguard artwork.

Below you will find some of the first illustrations for the main characters featured in Safeguard. Enjoy!

I'll be sure to do a post explaining each character once all the drawings are done. So keep checking back!

Batman Buildup Preview!

Hello! I'm taking a quick break from posting Safeguard updates to give a sneak preview of an awesome project i'm working on with my partners over at Jeb Kennedy. Starting next wednesday we are launching our Batman Buildup; a whole month of Batman-themed artwork leading up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises! We are all huge Batman fans (comics AND films), so I'm sure it will be great.

Here are some tiny previews of the pieces that i'm working on:

Keep your eyes on the Jeb Kennedy blog to see the finished versions soon!

Safeguard: First Character Preview

Mini-update time!

I'll have some really cool character concepts to show you all by the end of the week, but for now here's a tiny preview of one of the first characters:

hope you like him so far! be sure to check back soon for the next major update.