Halloween 2016: The Arts

It's the time of year again for the annual Karma Incarnate Halloween trip to California, which means two new shirt designs. Yay. I knew what I wanted to do for the Disney one way back in June, but alas I never got around to it... so at the last minute I had to do a little marathon session to make sure both designs were done in time to get printed.

So for the Disney one, obviously I had to go with something for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror because in a few months it's going to be changed into something much, much more lame.

Disney shirt 2016

This one is alright, the balance is all off, but what can I say? I was on a tight deadline. I do like the way the lightning came out (probably the best I've ever done) and I'll be using the technique again in the future. Sadly, it didn't print out as well. I also like the static effect. There's a couple easter-eggs in there too, if you can spot them.

Honestly my favorite part of it is the 'Fearwell Tour' it made me laugh when I thought of it. Also, all the letters in it are customized from the base font to make it look more Twilight Zone-esque. I think I got the look pretty well.

What's that? You don't know what this is about? Well don't worry, I've got you covered.



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And then the Universal one. This was a fair bit easier, but less satisfying in the end. I think the idea just never quite came together. Still, people seemed to like it okay.

Universal Shirt 2016

If you can't tell (and I wouldn't blame you if you can't) that's Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Krampus, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface behind the Crew. Those were the main haunts at Halloween Horror Nights this year, so it seemed appropriate. It was also quick, which was good because -again- time crunch.

I don't like this one as much... usually I do one serious one and one silly one. The Disney one invariably being more silly because it's Disney and more cartoony and fun whereas Universal is more serious. Oh well. 

The backs of the shirts (Universal Left, Disney Right)

The backs of the shirts were a little boring compared to last years, but they did their job and that's all that matters in the end.

Both shirts did perform fairly well this year, people were asking about them both because of the design and because of the Tower of Terror reference, at one point I declared Jake to be the Karma Incarnate Sponsored Tower of Terror Portable Information Booth, so that was good. I don't know if people really noticed the Universal ones all that much, a few did for sure, but that day is kind of a blur.

"One last time, relax have a drink with me one last time" 

Little bumper I did for a client

I learned something new this past year, and it's super simple to do in After Effects, but don't judge me cause I don't know the program that well. It's a little bumper I made for some kind of art gallery show... I don't know. The guy paid cash and I don't ask questions! I should, but I don't! Ignorance is bliss.

The top video is the first draft which I thought came out pretty good, but it turns out was too realistic for what he wanted.

(Also the eye and globe are stock images so don't go thinking I painted them or anything.)

The second one is the final version. It's okay, the client was happy with it so that's good enough for me.

"Gazpacho soup!"

A Joke Too Far...

Hey there,

Short post this time because it's late and I actually just remembered I could upload this here.

Console War, transparent background

Console War, black background

So what's this? Well, some of you may have seen this article showcasing an Xbox One with Stark Industries branding and an Arc Reactor embedded in the top. If you haven't, then click that link and you'll be all caught up. So obviously this is a tie-in to the upcoming Captain America: Civil War movie and the memes began flying almost immediately. I saw someone had made the Captain America: Console War joke already and I thought it was funny. Then I thought to myself, well, lets throw together that logo in Photoshop to make the joke funnier.

Suffice it to say, the joke was not funnier. In fact, I don't think anyone aside from me found it the least bit amusing... and after about an hour of editing, I saw that outcome coming... but I'd gone too far to quit so I finished it and here it is presented with both a black and transparent background. I'm happy with the result and actually it was pretty simple to build, just a huge pain for absolutely no reason. I guess we all make mistakes.

I'm also tossing up the actual logo for reference.

This is that actual logo I referred to literally seconds ago.

Now I'm the first to admit I didn't nail it exactly. I was working from a lower-rez version than you see above so I improvised somewhat and... again... joke. I was just going to capture the feel of it and got a bit greedy. All in all though, I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

"...you should not pick a fight with this person." 

Belated Halloween Arts

Greetings,

So as some of you might have realized, it was Halloween recently which meant it was time for the annual Karma Crew trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios. This also meant that it was time once again for yours truly to make some new t-shirt art. I couldn't post it before we left because we were trying to keep it a secret from two of the people going, and after that... well, I just got really busy ok?! Anyway, here now for your viewing enjoyment are those designs.

Disney shirt 2015

So this is the Disney shirt for this year, and if you're even remotely familiar with the park then you'll likely recognize the imagery from the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. Last year, there were only four people who were going to be involved in this, and so the design had to change a fair bit from what I originally conceived. The trio was going to be the focus, featuring Jake, Rex, and Brock as the singing pirates and yours truly as the donkey.

© http://www.catsafterme.com/

But of course I couldn't just do it in my usual style, no, because I'm a fan of classic Disney and especially of Marc Davis' original drawings that inspired Pirates as well as a host of other famous Disney attractions. Wouldn't it be cool, I thought, to match the look of his original work rather than just the scene like I did last year?

And of course this was all well and good -last year- when I was just thinking about it. When it came time to actually DO it I began to realize what exactly I was in for. It'd been a long time since I'd studied any of Davis' work and his style is not only incredibly distinctive in terms of pose, proportion, and even the type of inking he did, but a far cry from what I do myself. It was going to be a pretty serious challenge for me to get it to look like it did in my head.

The internet, of course, provided a wealth of reference, but in the end I needed to buy this book which I wholeheartedly recommend for any fan of Disney or art in general. It doesn't feature all of his work, or even most of it, but it does provide an extremely broad view of the mans' talents.

Anywho, it took about three weeks worth of trial-and-error as well as teaching myself a new inking style (and digital watercolor) but I'm happy with the results. Check it out:

Jeremy, Rex, and Jake

Ayame

Taylor

The last two are only loosely based on existing pieces, the last one I couldn't actually find the reference for, so I winged it a fair bit. The overall look is good, but it's not as spot-on as the others. Fortunately, when they're combined, you can't really tell too much. 

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Next is the Universal Studios piece. This one was a wild card since I decided what I wanted to do for Disneyland way back last year, but never really settled on anything for Universal. A lot of ideas were swatted about, including one that I liked for Night Gallery. Sadly no one else did, so it was scrapped... until next year. 

Universal shirt 2015

I'm not crazy about this one... I mean, it's not terrible but I think I went a little overboard in some places. I was a little drained after the first shirt and this one was on a much tighter deadline. Still it came out alright, I suppose. In case it's not clear, it's all Alfred Hitchcock stuff... The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo (left to right). 

The 'grain' filter I applied also was a bit heavy on print both for shirts and the poster we did. 

Both shirts, of course, feature the QR codes on the back, and match the front. This year, I didn't make the mistake of off-coloring the QR barcode so it was more recognizable. 

So there you have it. The Halloween 2015 shirts art at last. It was a fun year for these, even if they didn't really get the same result as last years. They were a fairly effective marketing tool and they're stylish. I'm fairly proud of the Pirate one too so... that's something. 

Fancy Shmancy Work Sketches

Hello all,

So this is what I was doing at work the other day instead of listening to the calls... I decided to try and match one of my favorite artists, Drew Struzan, at least in terms of style. I may not have not managed it great, I was using pencil after all, but I think I did pretty good. I like them anyway.

Indy, Conan, and Mike

 I don't know if you can tell, but that's Indiana Jones (that one I used the cover of Genesis Deluge which is one of Struzans actual works as reference) and then Conan O'Brien and Mike Nelson.

I guess I can do a little more than draw ponies.

Update: Not Comic Sans

So just so we're all aware, the title header for my posts is not supposed to be ComicSans. If it's showing that way then it's displaying improperly. Yes, I did need to make a post about this because I'm not one of those people who still thinks it's acceptable to use ComicSans as a typeface.

Some Character Art I finished

So I did some more pony stuff, I know, it's a shock...but I'm posting it cause I finished it and because I think I did a pretty good job of capturing the look of the show on both pieces.

Shine from Equestria Girls

So if you haven't seen My Little Pony Equestria Girls or Rainbow Rocks you probably won't appreciate this one, but it's basically ponies as humans in a parallel universe. It's silly, but the music is great. Anyway, I made this for my friend Winter and I am thrilled with how it came out. The perspective was tricky because of their shape but I think the result was worth it.

Sapphire Night Classic

Sapphire Night Princess

Now these ones are a little more usual. It's Sapphire Night as a basic Alicorn (if such a thing exists, I guess) and then as a Princess. These ones match the look of the show which is good, but also they're both the same picture. I was able to work with layers and minimal editing to make one picture work for both. There's a reason I needed to do that, but frankly it's not interesting unless you roleplay, so I won't bore you. Suffice to say, it came out quite good, I feel.

Green Week logo

Prizes!

And because I'm super generous, I'm uploading some more straight-up Vector art I did. The first is the logo for Fillydelphia.com's Green Week event, which is basically Splatoon except for ponies. It's a week long event and this year they let me make the logo, which is cool. I also made the prize ribbons (above) which are very similar to the work I've done for MLPNWRP site... To be honest, I'm not in love with these ones, but I had to get them done quickly. I did learn more about Illustrator though, so... thats always a plus.

-Bad Seed, Bad Seed what we gonna do? 

Used my tablet today

Spectral Ponies

I did a little digital work today for New Worlds. Nothing special, but hey, this is my blog where I put my art so that's all the justification I need.

"Oh no! I never should have hung out with the kids by the liquor store." 

Some Randomness

So this was a rather interesting week. Among other things, I actually did some art...I liked it at the time, but obviously that couldn't last long. Still, I'm going to post it because, hey, that's what this blog is all about right? 

Karma sign

The first is a Karma project, well, actually it's for the Karma Connection newsletter that I put together every month. I needed a graphic to go along with an article about our group traveling to Las Vegas this month for the food handout, and so I came up with this:

This is a raster image done in Photoshop over the course of a few hours, not really sure how many cause I didn't keep track, but it wasn't too long. It's mostly just simple vector shapes duplicated and slightly modified to give the illusion of depth with a few badly placed shadows. I had some fun with the neon in this one as well as the textures. You can't tell (much) but every surface on this has a texture. Oh, the background is a stock photo (obviously).

Weather Graphic (with snow) 

The next one is this sign, it's a weather graphic for NewWorlds RP site that will be running a special event through Sunday. Those familiar with the MLP show will know what this represents, but for everyone else it's a yearly event where ponies 'clean up' winter and make it spring.

The chat has a somewhat interactive weather system with graphics, and this will be taking the place of them until the event is done. It's fun.

Whole thing is again vector/raster graphics done in Photoshop and Illustrator. A simple graphic that scaled down surprisingly well. The wood texture is a little better than the last wood signs I did in the same style and isn't too intrusive on the text. It IS a little large for what it was supposed to be, but it came out well. There's also a version without the snow. 

Map to Bitter Springs

Map graphic done to show the general location of Bitter Springs in relation to the train station and Dodge City done with raster graphics in Photoshop. This one took me a little more than an hour because I was trying to match a particular style. 

Sample 1

Sample 2

I think I nailed the look pretty well, without making any custom brushes or anything. 

I'll be honest, I'm thinking about revisiting this one. Obviously it's supposed to be more representational than an actual functional map, but I don't know. It seems very plain. It was just something I've wanted to do for a really long time and so now that I have, I'm posting it. If it gets updated, I'll post the revision here too. 

There were others (I know, can you believe it??) but I can't post them here yet. Not until the things they are attached to are farther along. I'm honestly not sure why I care, as literally no one looks at this, but hey, it's my blog and I'll do what I want. 

"Very well, Bart. I shall send you to HEAVEN...before I send you to HELL." 

-Sideshow Bob

Painting

Oh god I did something stupid today. I tried to paint.

Behold the horror

That right there is acrylic paint on printer paper because that's what I have. It's also a shirt. Yes, I've made this into a shirt, because its not enough for me to have made something awful, I have to impose it on others.

Maybe I'll put up the link sometime.

"I want to spend some time with the Wee Baby Sheamus"
                                             -Sterling Archer

Whiteboard Art

So today I had a whiteboard, markers, and some time to kill and I thought to myself, I haven't done any new Newscast work in awhile so...

Hi-yah? 

Not much to say. I drew it, I liked it, here it is. I did some others too, but my phone died before I could get pictures.

I miss Newscast.

"I'm not a bloody jukebox." 
-Sherry Bobbins

Something Old. Lip-Sync!

My eye is almost swollen shut today because...I honestly don't know why. As a result, however, I am cleaning my old HDD today and came across something I did that I am marginally proud of. It's older, and sort of boring but here it is:


Old Lip Sync Video from ayame nelson on Vimeo.

For those of you who don't know, I actually enjoy lip sync very much Don't know why...I just think it's neat. Basically, I took an audio file I cut from MST3K and animated this character's lips. It was a simple school assignment, but hey, at least now you know I was doing SOMETHING there.

"He learned almost too late...that...man was a feeling creature"
-Rex Reason

Shine and Cherry, spooked.

This one isn't a big deal, but it's a fun sketch and I like it...and again, art. So up it goes.

It's Shine and Cherry Blossom, two of my friends OC characters being spooked by a 'ghost'.

Spoooooky

Fun sketches are fun.

"Oh ALAN!" 

Trailer Park Boys Shirt Project

I'm going to do my best to be neutral about this one. It drove me crazy for nearly three weeks and the result is...pathetic at best. Oh damn...well, there goes my neutral stance, and we're not even three sentences in! I'll make up for it by making you look at all the sketches, because I scanned them, so you have to see them.

First of all, a little backstory. Some members of the Karma Incarnate team (not me) are going to see the Trailer Park Boys perform live in the coming weeks. As is becoming our custom, they wanted shirts they could wear to help spread the brand. Now, I'm not a fan of the series, though when this began I had seen several episodes, so I was somewhat at a loss at first.

They told me what they wanted - more of the same stuff. Them as characters from the show. Since I didn't have enough of a knowledge base to come up with a scene, I started with how I wanted the characters to look.

Sketches of the look

 So at first I was going to go somewhat realistic with them...well, actually the first thing I was going to do was make them take photos dressed up and then vectorize them...but that was somewhat unrealistic.

So the next step was the sketch on the left, which is somewhat close to my normal manga style of characters (at this point, I was working off memory of what they looked like, so the drawing is far off, but I was working at the time) but after staring at it a few days, I really didn't think it would give the best sort of result for this...

So I came to the style on the right. It's a bit more cartoonish, and somewhat inspired by the Haunted Mansion shirt design I didn't use. I thought maybe it would be a good way to convey the idea...and since time was quickly running out, I couldn't afford to spend hours upon hours attempting realistic coloring which would ultimately turn out shitty.

Next then came the layout design. This was...problematic, again, because I didn't really know enough about the show to make it look natural.

Layout sketches

So I ended up doing something a little simplistic. Sue me. This ended up being a little better than it might have been, because at least I got to use all primary characters which was almost not the case. The trailer in the right image would end up saving my butt in the end since Ricky's car (which is featured in both) ended up being cut.

Ricky and Julian sketches

Once I had the style I wanted down, it was a matter of posing and merging the characters' looks with those of the people going. You'll no-doubt recognize some of the people from my other shirt designs, but two of them were new.

Additionally problematic in this was that those additional two had very similar facial structures to the characters they were supposed to be represented by. This was especially a problem with 'Julian' because essentially the only thing that separated the two of them was the hairline.

Gentleman Jim Layhe sketches

It was at this point that I began forcing myself to watch the show. I made it through 4 complete seasons by the end of this, and while I still don't enjoy it, I was able to get a better feel for the characters which I think ultimately comes through in the final poses and designs for them.

Jim Layhe, the alcoholic trailer park supervisor was the one I really sort of went wild with. his design for awhile and had to pull it back a few times. He's a drunk and an ass, but he's not really a psycho...and even when he is, it's a quieter drunker sort of psychosis which generally means waving a gun around in his underwear.

So how did they come out? Well....

Ricky

Julian

Bubbles (yes those are Jakes real cats)

Layhe

In the end the simpler, more cartoony look worked out for me (and saved the coloring stage entirely). The line art isn't as strong as I'd like, but the inking process was remarkably smooth for a change.

Final design

Custom back

The typeface and look is meant to mimic the logo of the show, which you can find easily enough online. I got pretty close, I think.
The trailer in the background is a quick vector I made off a photograph of an actual trailer...which may be cheating, I suppose, but it makes for a nice background, I think. Simple yet effective?

Trailer vector

Sadly, as I mentioned above, Ricky's Car did not make the cut... the reason for this is that I am something of an idiot. When making this piece, I did each character and background element separate so I could color them more easily. Unfortunately I used the same pen to ink each of them...for consistency...but obviously the characters ended up being much smaller than the car, which meant that the line weight of the car made it the dominant object in the drawing instead of the characters. I could have fixed this...but not in the time I had. While this meant I would need to redraw Layhe, it ended up being simpler in the long run, even if I think the initial drawing was a little more...dynamic.

Ricky's car (unused)

Layhe (unused)

The hell of it is, that's one of the better cars I've ever drawn...yes, I'm aware that's not saying much.

So there you go, I hope you've enjoyed this exhaustive look into something that a competent artist could have crapped out in a few hours.

"It's a shitnami, Randy..."

Five Nights Fever

Hey blog world,

I said I'd post stuff whether I liked it or not, so here goes. Two quick work sketches I did while listening to old people prattle on about their health problems and general racism.

First, Toy Chica from the (slightly less) amazing (than the first) Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Yes, it's the one with the panties.

Yeah, I don't know either so don't ask a lot of questions. The game is great though, all the same and if you haven't played it, you should. The payoff is jumpscares, but the tension is what makes the game scary again and again.

(Wind noises)

This one is from the same day. I promised my sister I'd draw her a Disney-inspired thing for each day we worked together. Not a terrible skull, I suppose.

Anyway, art. Yay. See, I do occasionally keep my promises.

"I'm supposed to be at acting class! I'm letting down my scene partner!"

Universal Shirts - Behold my failure

Okay so I showed you the Haunted Mansion shirts for the Disneyland trip, but on the last day, we're actually going to Universal Studios as well. I had a really simple design for a shirt for it...it was pretty boring honestly. I sort of made it quickly, but the guys liked it. Turned out certain bad habits prevented it from being used and so I had to start from scratch. Coming off a relative high from the other shirts I decided to make something more unique for Universal as well.

It turned out to be a rather serious lapse in judgement on my part.

Here's the lineart...which, I don't know. I still don't hate.

Lineart

Can you tell what it's supposed to be? Yeah, don't feel bad. No one else can either. I'll give you a hint. The Wolf Man, The Monster, Dracula, and The Bride. No, not Uma Thurman. The other one.

Colors...sort of. 

And as you can see in the shading phase, things went tragically, horribly, terribly wrong. I suppose it's my fault. Because I did it and all. Maybe I'm just out of practice with my tablet.

The design

Anyway, as I said, I'm going to post things here that are good and bad. This is the latter, but I posted it anyway. So I'm still ahead in the point spread!

"As 6?"

Haunted Mansion shirts

Hello,

So I managed to make it all the way through September without posting anything. I would have taken this as a failure of my goal at one time, but ah, not this time. No, because now we're only a couple days into October and I'm posting something I actually like. Woo. 

So the company I do volunteer work for, Karma Incarnate, is taking me to Disneyland in a few weeks time and they wanted shirts made. I made a fairly poor showing which I'm not going to post here, because it's terrible and as soon as I'd finished it, underwhelmed as I was (but working with a fairly narrow deadline) I accidentally came up with something I liked better.

Before I show the finished piece, I'm going to post the originals because for some reason, all my best work is done in pencil. I don't think there's been a single thing I've ever drawn in which the inks and colored version look as good to me as the pencil sketches...but who knows? I've gone ahead and added the vector version next to the pencil one for comparison sake. 

Ghostly Rex

Ghostly Jake

Ghostly me

Ghostly Brock

Those are the individual versions. I think they came out quite well, all things considered. Here's what they look like in a set with a background (this is also the image which ended up being on the shirt).

Hitchhikers

Yeah, I think it's pretty great. Don't know about you, but I do. The coloration ended up being a little different than I'd wanted/expected, but it's not terrible and sort of has the look I wanted. 

Oh, hell, okay. Here's the one that I didn't like very much...

Rejection!

Yeah, it's a pretty poor bit of photo manipulation. May have been an off night, maybe it was just a stupid idea to begin with. Probably both. Maybe I just suck at it? Yeah, it's probably that one. Just know that the elements are there for something not quite so terrible. Maybe. 

So that's it for now. Some lovely character and vector art. Oh, and as a bonus, since almost no one ever sees my blog, I'll post some bonus art that I did for this. Enjoy!

It's bonus, so just deal with it. 

Now this one, I did it as an afterthought. I did the sketch first and was like...oh, I have three hours to kill here at work, so I'll just bang it out. In the end, obviously it falls apart on many, many levels...most notably the shadows which...ugh. Went way further than they should have. Still. I got all the way through the inking stage. Go me. 

"It's her own fault I didn't save her." 

                        - Tom Stewart