Slacker...

In case anyone was wondering about the lack of updates around here you can just blame this game :D
Do yourself a favor and play the game! Extremely fun and addicting! I was lucky enough to score the last copy for the gamecube from the EBGames down the street. Woohoo!
You get to hop on speeder bikes, pilot chicken walkers, take down AT-ATs on Hoth = SWEEEET x 1231247689273578971891!!!
Oh and for the haters out there, the ewoks are cool in the game and not so annoying like they were in the movies.
Drawings on the way...

Red Thumbs

The Lakers vs. Rockets game last night was sick! A weird game all around with the Lakers being down by as much as 21 points in the first half before they dig their way back out to win it in double-OT. Sick! I just hope they don't fall in love with the idea of come-from-behind wins.
These are some thumbnail sketches of "Red" (guess I'm gonna call her that since I don't have a name for her yet)
I'm just trying to work out the main shapes of the costume design

Girls and Guns

just a random quick-sketch of a girl with a big gun...you can never go wrong with girls and guns *sarcasm*

Red

a quick sketch for the female character

I'm finally getting back to work on the short story I was on a few weeks ago. It really seems like its been ages. Anyway, I'm working on the design for the female character in the story. I didn't really get too far with it this morning but I'll probably come back to it at some point today...maybe later tonight.

Internet Explorer sucks!!

argh! i stopped using internet explorer a while back and i usually use safari and firefox. i was quite happy with the way this place looked with all the tweaks i figured out. well today i thought i would use IE to open up the blog and to my shock the thing looked like ass!! it turns out IE has trouble rendering .png files and IE just renders everything else like crap...so now more tweaking. just as well, i was making a mess of the code.
drawings will be coming, i've just been so busy at work but the game is looking great!

Pimp!

I got a little too happy doing tweaks to this blog :D...special thanks to Chris Wahl for the tips and inspiring me in the first place to try and clean up the joint.
Go check out his work...mind-blowing! and he's done some sweet stuff tweaking his site and maximizing his use of Blogger.
This piece here is a character by the name of GTBlitz. I designed him a while back when I worked on the game JakX for NaughtyDog.The in-game character came out pretty close to this design with some minor changes and minus the pimptastic textures. I thought the game came out quite cool too...although, getting blown-up as many times as i did gave me a headache after a while.

utopia?

a futuristic city sketch before i head for home...happy friday!

hooooolah girls

one day it'll be nice to sit on a beach on an island somewhere painting hula girls with a bottle of corona next to my easel...one can dream

color study

ahhhhhhhh...got a chance to do a quick color study
i really enjoy doing these, i just don't know how its going to read since the calibration on my monitor at work is a bit off

"The Daily Grind"

this 9x12 in. illustration was done in ink and acrylic on a wood panel
i forgot how satisfying it is to actually use "analog" tools to do paintings/illustrations
this was supposed to be part of a series, hopefully i can find the time and do the rest

quick sketches

a couple of quick sketches this morning to loosen up my hand
lately i've felt that my work was getting a little stiff and so i'm trying to stick to a morning quick sketch regimen
its brutal trying to get your hand to work while you're still half asleep :D


this was the first warm-up sketch and it's evident with how "controlled" the sketch looks

i think i'll sketch up some girls tomorrow

warm-up sketches

broke out the people magazine and did some warm-up sketches

Shaun Of The Dead

Some sketches of zombies inspired by the movie

good kinda busy

too much going on lately, hopefully i can post something later today

and yet another caricature...

I seem to be on a caricature kick today. I don't really do caricatures, but these are extremely fun!
This caricature is of an artist named BigAl over on the drawingboard.

caricature exercise

A quick-sketch caricature i did of John Goodman for a thread over at www.drawingboard.org

funny piece

Here is something i just finished coloring for a friend of mine named Jason Johnson. I found it hilarious so I decided to post it. I had to do some minor editing to it but I think Jason would agree with that decision. :D

commissioned piece

this is an inking commissioned piece that i just finished.
i don't have the stamina to ink full books these days but these one-offs are fun especially if its over a penciller i like
the pencils underneath are by Michael Lopez
i worked with him on several comic book-related projects
Michael Lopez is one of the most gifted artists i've had the pleasure of meeting and he continues to inspire me every time i see new material from him and i always dig what turns out from our collaborations
the dude is a monster talent!

more werewolf sketches

here are more sketches of werewolves


i'm still trying to find a body type that i like
well, that's my excuse to keep doodling but i know i have to settle on one of these pretty soon

Werewolf

These were sketches I did over the weekend for a werewolf/creature design.
Its really tough doing one of these and have a fresh look since werewolf designs have been done to death.
These are for a short story I'm working on that was written by Neil Druckmann.
I didn't get too far with the design and I'm not too happy with these early sketches. Ah well, good enough for a first pass i guess

Ronin

a value study i did from the movie Ronin.

kong breakin' it down

wow...been neglecting this poor blog
i managed to track this video clip down from my archives...might have to start a separate blog and upload these
this was the night before super thursday at ACCD in 2001...sorry, camera had no audio
this was late one night when everyone was tired and loopy

zombie madness

just finished watching the Mavericks/Suns game 3. mavs won it and they're now up 2-1 in this best of 7. Suns must not win.


this piece was done in photoshop as is most of my digital work. just a little practice sketch.
i'm supposed to be in a gallery group show in october and the theme is zombies so this was a little warm-up.
the thing that gets me nervous is that i haven't touched actual paint in ages...unless you count white-out.

art dump

time to update!
after about two years of working for NaughtyDog, i left and got hired by Sony Online Entertainment to work for a new project they're trying to get off the ground. they have me doing concept designs on a completely new property which is great because nothing has really been set in stone in terms of art direction, so i get to do a lot of visual development for it, which to me, is really the best part.
my experience at NaughtyDog was great overall. getting a chance to work around a bunch of really talented people was very educational especially because up until then, i had never been a part of a game studio before and so getting a chance to witness first-hand what it took to produce top-notch quality games was priceless.
it seems NaughtyDog has always had a knack of picking up the best people working in the industry, from their programmers to their artists. i've always been a fan of that studio ever since they churned out Crash Bandicoot and i continue to be a big fan and i look forward to their upcoming projects. and besides all that i met some good friends. go check them out: NAUGHTYDOG,Inc.

that being said, this new gig with SOE has been amazing so far. it required that my family and i relocate to San Diego.
its a huge pain in the ass but its not so bad. i mean, how bad could it be to have to move to paradise, right?
SOE is a huge studio but the team i'm with is still pretty small which is great because it has an indy feel to it. there is a good vibe to the team and the people there are very talented as well and have a good energy about them. it must be the San Diego weather...SOE

i'm feeling guilty for not updating for so long so i'm posting a huge art dump to make up for it. some of these pieces are ancient and i'm almost embarrassed to post them.....almost.
ok, enough yakkin', here's some art:

this was the cover to one of two sketchbooks i put out last year, i really enjoyed this style, i think i'll try to do some more

this was the inside cover to the other one

the following were just abstract brain fart exercises, very fun to do
i used adobe illustrator, i always like how crisp everything is with that program






and these were studies i did using photoshop





and that's all for now, updates might be a little erratic in the next month or two but i'll do my best to keep up
- e