12th Cat

OK, so I've been busy lately.  INSANELY busy.  Like entering week three of working all day every day, and it's going to last until the middle of next week.

Because of that, I don't really have anything to post, except for some 12th Cat cartoons.  Growing up in Washington State, I'm a big time Seattle Seahawks fan, and of course I still follow them just as hardcore even though I've lived in Los Angeles the last 12 years.

So, the Seahawk's fan base is called the 12th Man, for the insane volume of crowd noise that can literally stop a visiting teams offense from functioning.  It's great.  So I INGENIOUSLY adopted the name, and changed it to Cat, instead of Man.  Get it?

My wife bought one of our cats - Figi, my best mate and full time office cat - a little Seahawks jersey for game days.  To match me when I put on my custom CHRISTIANSEN #56 jersey for game days.  For whatever reason, I took to taking pictures of him and posting them on my facebook wall with captions, commenting on the game.  My friends and family were getting a kick out of it, so I created his own Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/12th-Cat/163118900375480

Well, we were two seasons in, and then the old cat got sick and we lost him in 2011, right after Super Bowl weekend.  It sucked, and I miss him a lot.  But also, I was having a lot of fun doing this, so I decided to keep it going with a cartoon version of him.

The new football season has started, and despite the heavy workload, I have still managed to keep up with the season so far, and here's the first two cartoons of 2012.  If you didn't think I could get any nerdier...

Game One, a near miss loss against the AZ Cardinals.

Game Two, a thoroughly delightful stomping of Dem Cowboys.

A pic of how we often watched the games together, but he drew the line at me yelling at the TV through his face.



If you could care less about football, or your team is decidedly not the Seahawks, please disregard, and we'll get back to Pop Nerdery late next week.  I need to do a color comp for the Predator epic, and I've got a hankering to do some Rocketeer studies....

UPDATE - And since it's relevant, and the only outside work I've done in the last three weeks, here's last nights 12th Cat commentary on the MNF debacle.

And again, I won't be posting for awhile.  I lost my grandma last week, and I'm heading back home to Washington to attend the memorial.  Then, when I get back next week, I'm switching to a new computer, so it might be some time before I get back to the personal stuff.  Of course, when I do, you'll be the first to know!

Yeah, another one.  I can't believe it's October already...

Superman Color Sketch 05

Kneel.

The last illustrative element for the image.  There's probably still composition tweaks to make, but this is the color for sure, I'm really happy with it.  The angles of the Fortress of Solitude create the shape of the Phantom Zone prison Zod and Co. were trapped in.

Now let's put it all together...

There it is!  Now keep in mind that the final painting won't be quite so saturated in color, but it's a great guide for me to mix the paints for the airbrush.  But yeah, I think this one will be pretty cool, it's themed out in blue red and yellow, and I think it will blend better in reality, versus this digital version.

Now it's time to draw it.



But I have something else to do with my free time first, and it's called Empire Uncut...

Superman Color Sketch 04

Clark Kent!  Look out!!!

OK, well here's old Mr. Kent, and the shield.  With the semi-subtle reference that this piece is meant to include both Superman One and Two, though General Zod and gang did appear in One.  It was all meant to be one movie anyways, so there.

I also comped together some NY cityscape to have some general buildings.  But I made sure to include skyline iconography, like the Empire State, and a reference to the Daily Planet.

Superman Color Sketch 03

Mr. Loo-thor, Mr. Loo-thor!  I don't know that I ever expected to draw Ned Beatty in my life.  Or multiple times.  At least he's not squealing.

OK, bad guys plugged in.  On to Clark Kent...

Superman Color Sketch 2

The board for this is prepped, and I expect to do the transfer this week, so every day I'll do a color section, to hopefully have it ready for paint as soon as possible, maybe even by this weekend.

Here's the good guys, so to speak.  They're not color balanced against to whole of the image just yet, so I'm letting them stay a bit neutral at this point.  Though right away I see mostly skin tones, and white and tans.  I know they're going to sit against the red and yellow shield, so I'll just let them be for now, until I get all the elements painted in there, and figure out exactly what I want to do for the background.

On to the next piece of the puzzle...the bad guys.