Loads of Logos

Like logos? You’re gonna love this.
My friend Sherwin Schwartzrock is a super-talented illustrative designer. One of his specialties is designing logos, and he’s very good at it. Several of his logos will be published in the newest edition of the Logo Lounge series, Logo Lounge 5.
To celebrate, Sherwin recently created a poster showcasing nearly 200 [...]

Thoughts on Life Drawing

The human form is one of the hardest things for an artist to master. It is incredibly complex—the hundreds of bones and muscles in the body can twist and pull into an infinite combination of expressive poses. In addition, people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It’s important for an artist to study [...]

Sketchbook Update

Here’s a few recent doodles from my sketchbook, including an attempt at caricaturing Norm Peterson from Cheers. (Caricature is not my strong suit.)

“3-2-1 Penguins” Character Designs

This past Saturday morning NBC aired another episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! which I had the pleasure of working on. There were only two characters who needed to be designed, Admiral Sowmaster and his assistant, Cash. Both were to be pig-like aliens.

Here’s an early rough concept. The Admiral is on the left.

After turning in the first [...]

Disney Legend Ollie Johnston Passes Away

Animation legend Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of Walt Disney’s famous “Nine Old Men”, passed away yesterday (April 14, 2008). He was 95.
Johnston was a phenomenal artist and widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest animators. In 1935 he was hired to work at the Disney studio alongside his pal Frank Thomas. They [...]

Memory Sketch Video by Stephen Silver

Last year I took a character design class online from Stephen Silver at Schoolism.com. One of the lessons dealt with memory sketching, which I’ve written about here.

Here’s a video of Stephen Silver doing a memory sketch and discussing it as he draws. Fun stuff. If you have an interest in character design I’d highly recommend [...]

Mascot Contest!

As a character designer I’m fascinated with product mascots. A good mascot, when combined with a strong ad campaign, can be an enormous benefit when promoting a product or service. My favorite freelance projects are when clients hire me to design a mascot or character, either for advertising or animation.
To help illustrate the power [...]

Fleas and Ticks

Recently I was hired by a publisher of Christian music curriuclum (Praise Hmyn Inc.) to do a spot illustration for a children’s song, “The Tick and the Flea”. My instructions were to depict a tick and a flea having a picnic on top of a Shitzu’s head.
Here’s the final illustration, sketched, inked, and colored [...]

“3-2-1 Penguins!” Character Designs

On Saturday NBC aired another episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! which I did some character design work for. This was a funny episode (directed by Tom Bancroft) with a lesson about the importance of inner beauty and character as opposed to vanity.

One of the characters I was asked to design was a cheezy George Hamilton-type alien [...]

DrawerGeeks: The Monster Under My Bed

For a few years now I’ve had the privilege of being a member of DrawerGeeks, a fun website for artists. Each week a different character or topic is assigned and we each take a shot at illustrating it any way we’d like.
This week’s topic was “The Monster Under My Bed”. Ninety percent of the time [...]