Working on some new art for Longhair and Doubledome

I hope to be producing a graphic novel of Longhair and Doubledome.  The above art is for the announcement of the Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the endeavor which will launch soon.  Have been working on the story outline and it continues to grow into a very fun project.

Designing and Working

Well over the past few weeks, I have been designing characters and working on, yes, an actual job.  Here are some of the designs I have been doing.  Some fun with elves and imps.

Besides getting ready for the Holidays

I have been working on a digital painting for my niece, her hubby and their little guy, Owen.  An obvious shout out to Game of Thrones.  This painting depicts my grand nephew Owen proclaiming "Winter is Coming".  Work in Progress, hope to finish today.

Longhair and Doubledome

As I continue to look into avenues for these two cavemen, it is always fun to play around in the Photoshop sandbox trying a variety of tools and little tweaks to their imagery.  Here trying a little more contrast and saturation.  Nothing earth shattering, but fun.

Working on Fiasco Lab

Over the past, say six months, Mike Parker (web developer) and yours truly have been working on a design lab and merchandise store, Fiasco lab.  I have been designing nearly every opportunity I can and have been enjoying the challenge of designing engaging T-shirt designs.  Here are some of the more recent attempts.

Hard to be interestng online as an artist when all you have been doing lately is writing.

I love being a an animator, and an artist.  I love the physicality of drawing, painting and doing what I do best, making the visual come to life.  But there are times when pre-production has to take precedence and writing is a huge and necessary part of it.  I tell many of my students to concentrate on writing and continue to work at it.

For me, writing can both clarify and even create the visual.  It can give you a direct and valid direction and it helps you avoid trying to jerry-rig a concept to make your character work.  It is like drawing to painting or sculpture, you cannot create a a great painting or sculpture without the ability to draw it.  Drawing allows you to try your idea, twist your idea in a variety of poses and shapes and so does writing to concept.

So for now, I will keep writing, and getting things right before venturing into the visual realm.

Frankenlincolnstein

Occasionally, I think of fun mash-ups to make my artistic life a bit more interesting for a couple hours or two.  For some reason, anything with Abe Lincoln seems to work really well.  Here is an entry from this month's Inktober 2016.  Haven't done many inks for this but here is one of my favorites, still have to tweak it, but here is a preview.

Here is my Flat Top Dracula from inktober 2016

Flat Top Dracula-Intober 2016

Tweaking the Knock Knock website

When you don't have a twenty year old, geekified millenial working to update your website, weekly, monthly or yearly, it may be one of the jobs that is most daunting.  It would be great if content could magically appear as you think of it, but it has to be organized, written and rewritten.  Just another job, I don't get paid for but is totally necessary.  Oh well, it's a crappy rainy day anyway.

NEW SKETCHES

More Sketches

New Sketches

Have been challenging myself to do a new sketch of some sort every day and post on Facebook.  Here are some from the last week.

Just fooling around today

Quick illustration...Trying to get a simple satisfying style, that might be surprisingly weird to animate.

Some Thugs

I have been designing the "Thug" section of the KKC website, here are a few samples

Strategy

Today, I am in the process of building a strategy for the launch of the new Knock Knock Cartoons.  I find that it is always a useful process to understand, explore, and enact solid focus and business design into the objectives I truly seek.  I mean what is a business worth if is not created with all the hopes and goals of success.

A background in Photoshop

Getting digitized

In the process of digitizing all of Knock Knock's previous work.  Cutting the vids and getting them posted to my new Vimeo Pro account.  The website is in the process of early development and I hope to have the bare bones site up and running in the next couple of weeks.

Getting the Studio up and running

Spending the day at the studio space in MindMarket building at CCAD.  Have to get some more stuff moved in, paint some walls and clean a floor or two.  Will post pictures soon.  I plan on opening the "Let's get physical" plant on Monday.  WEEEEEEEE!

Know Your Rights-complete

Knock Knock Cartoons Ltd., LLC has recently completed a 20+ minute video for USCRI (United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants) and ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) teaching undocumented children their rights in navigating the maze of our immigration system.  This video was produced in 5 languages, English, Spanish, Haitian Kreyol, Mandarin, and Hindi.  More news to come