The Bad Flip Blog

Roman Lion Step by Step

2012-01-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

This is the exact same process I used for the Predator image, so maybe refer to that for more in depth techniques, but I'm sure there will be some cross over. I had the pose in mind before even starting, but it took a couple of sketches to land on the right angle. Again, I'm still not really blocking out in color, depending more on some sketching (which I accidentally deleted!) to get to the more or less tighter drawing. It's pretty straight forward, I combined a couple of Roman armor looks, from found replica costume pics on the internets - I wanted to achieve a mix of leathers and metals. But I wanted a more gladiator type helmet, and I thought a lion with rams horns is probably going to look pretty cool.

I blocked out the background colors, and then chose material colors for the primary and secondary flat colors, on an layer underneath the drawing, preserving some of the shading to use when I merge color to drawing.

Here I bumped the saturation up, and did an overlay pass with a light golden color, to bring out the lighter points, to use as color picks for the rendering.

So here is the beginning of the rendering - I had merged the color and lines - I start with the face of the lion, as that is going to be the intended focal point of the image, so that gets the most clean up and attention.

So begins the multiple passes of detail, starting out with a bigger brush and broader color strokes, focusing in tighter and tighter as I go.

By the way...that outreached hand was bugging me to death. So I buffed it out, took a photo of my hand, inserted it and did a paint over to match the rest of the lion. I had sketched it more than a few time before starting the color render. But I was feeling pressure to get going on the image, so I called it good enough - I painted that hand at least three times, and it just wasn't dynamic enough. So that's a lesson : If something doesn't work in the drawing, it's still not going to work in the painting.

Those crazy fundamentals.

So this is the pre-final pass. I'm pretty happy with the figure overall. So here I take a break, and then come back with fresh eyes to put the finishing touches and atmosphere blends.

Final! A bit more detailing, color adjustment, and a little bit of foreground haze to tie every thing together. He's in a fighting pose, so I wanted to insinuate something off screen that he's facing down, with the drift of embers...

Roman Lion

2012-01-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

Rawr.

So this is the followup to the fishman image - I took all I learned from that (and the Predator) and threw it into this one. I wanted to do an image with a lot of technical things to achieve; fabrics, leather, metal, hair, along with a more dynamic angle.

Why am I humanizing animals, like the fish and lion? It's fun for me! I like talking animals, what can I say? A huge childhood influence on me was Disney's Robin Hood - give a fox a bow and arrow, and I'm sold. And another thing I like to do is take cartoon-y things and try to give them a realistic iteration. Kind of why I'm loving working on Transformers stuff...

Also, like the Predator, I saved out a step by step as I went along, that I'll post at the end of the week...

Predator Step by Step

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

So this is more or less an new technique for me, building out shapes with color, and then going in to detail. It's a very common technique, but I'm much more of a drawing artist than a painting artist, in that I draw everything out first, then paint it, and add extra details as I go. For this experiment, I chose a subject that isn't a straight concept, (that's next!) but something established, to help keep me honest as I focus on the techniques. I really enjoyed the looseness of the Fishman image, so I wanted to approach something like that again, and not rely on selections and paths to help out.

1) So of course I start out drawing the Predator, on its own layer. After all, I am an old dog. But I just really roughed it out - since it's an existing character, the shape is defined already, so I made sure to get the correct details, before I abandoning the drawing for the color block-ins.

2) On a layer underneath the drawing, I start with the color fill. I just blocked in the main colors, only a few for the core colors, and a few more to define the highlights - the black drawing defines the shading.

3) Now I begin to block in the tertiary colors, using the pick tool to help blend the colors, using a smaller version of the brush, with around a 20%-40% opacity.

4) I merge the two layers to a single layer (leaving the background layer white) and I begin to add in and accentuate the details, going around the image, sharing color picks to maintain cohesiveness. As I add in the detail into the focal points (in this case, I'm concentrating on the head, secondarily the rest of the body, and even less along the arm and fist) I'm still using the same opacity range, but the brush is getting smaller and smaller. Also, I switch to a hard edge point brush for finer detailing on the gauntlet details, and other spots here and there; chest armor, hair bands, neck piece, etc.

5) Here I do a quick color adjustment, a little brightness/contrast, and a soft edge airbrush to help blend color edges, at around 10% opacity. I then go back in with the detailing, decreasing the size of the brush, and increasing the brush opacity, to get tighter and tighter details. I also use the smudge tool a bit, to help redefine edges around the hair and metal pieces. Use the smudge tool sparingly - it's really easy to turn your image to mush - it's always better to use the brush, and pick colors to define and blend elements.

6) Here's the last relatively rough detail pass, getting tighter and tighter with the elements and indications.

7) Now on to the final detail pass, making sure I'm happy how the Predator is reading, and adding final details like the netting, and hot point highlights.

8) Final. After yet another fine detail pass, I make an adjustment on the values, and tweak the colors just a bit. I add a quick background, mostly color faded on top of a texture photo I had taken of a concrete wall. I wanted it to be really subtle, and make this mostly a graphic image featuring the Classic Predator. After I finalized the background, I move back to the Predator layer, and use the blur tool to soften the edges of the arm. Then I do just a couple of quick soft highlights - 10% opacity, white color, soft edge airbrush, to help tie together the figure and background just a little bit more.

Predator! Look Out!!!

2012-01-17T08:03:00.000-08:00

There's that ugly MF'er.

Here's a brief interstitial piece in between the Fishman, and the next image inspired by those techniques. I had a lot of fun on the Fishman, but I wanted to explore a more dynamic armor, and actually paint something digitally from scratch, and leave my usual methods, developed by working on Transformer designs, in my toolbox, and develop some new approaches.

Looming over my monitor in my office, is the Hot Toys Predator, so I didn't look too far for a subject to use as a model. The goal was to paint looser, building up from blocked in colors, rather than build up in grayscale, and color in a separate layer. I also didn't let myself use selections or paths for clean lines and edges, though I may have hit the shift key here and there for ultra straight lines on the gauntlet. I'm pretty happy with the results, I met the goals I set out to achieve, and it set me up for the next 'real' image. But until then...

I actually saved off progress images as I went along, and in a few days I'll post a tutorial on how I created this image. Something far more instructional than the work in progress images I usually post.

Land Shark - Certified Pre-Own

2012-01-12T08:34:00.000-08:00

After college, and I was finally wholly supporting myself, I bought myself a new(er used) car. What I traded in looked a lot like this, except it was colored tan. Beautiful Ford Tan. A 1988 Ford Tempo, missing a headlight, and featuring a dent on every single panel of the body. Including the roof. From the inside. Wobbly steering column, bent seats, and an...'aroma.'

So that's the inspiration behind this version of the Land Shark, with coloring being influenced by my Dad's old '70 Camaro, Bottle Green with Black Stripes. Which my mom made him trade in for a VW van. Orange. Because of too many speeding tickets, and the impending me.

On to the work - this is the same body as the version featured in the 'Lost' frame, just beat all to hell. I removed some panels, showing more mechanical parts, added in a bunch of dents and textures, and some extra cabling, just to keep the hunk of junk going!

All right, that's it for the Land Shark series! I had a lot of fun with these...

Land Shark - Racing

2012-01-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

Since the speeder was so clearing influenced by F1 race cars, I decided to do one full tilt, and deck it out with a racer paint job, in Ferrari Red.

For the body mods, I extended the upper intake, and gave it a bit of a rudder function, trimmed the spoiler wings, added a windscreen, took out that engine bump that used to sit in the area where the 56 is, and curved all the forward intakes into barrel mouths, rather than the squared off corners of the others.

Next, and last...the Land Shark Pre-Owned Program.

Land Shark - Military

2012-01-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

For all your invasion needs. Here I added more of an armored flow to the body, built around a minigun installation. Tweaked the upper intake, and the spoiler. Also put a canopy and more armor over the cockpit area. Slapped on some desert camo and graphics, and called it good.

Next, wanna race?

Land Shark - Police Interceptor

2012-01-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

So here's a Shark Week of sorts, a few additional models based on that speeder from the 'Lost' frame a few weeks back, which I've been taking to calling the Land Shark.

This one stays pretty close to the original - I added a light bar to the tail, and some spotlights into the fuselage. Then I created some simple badge decals, and gave it a blue and white paint scheme.

For the Land Shark logo, I painted an outline based on a photo of a Hammerhead shark I found online, and then composed around it a series of lines, based on the logo for the B-17 Flying Fortress.

Next, we go to war...

Fishman 02

2012-01-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

BUBBLES!

Final. Lots of tweaking on this one, finding better ways to do things. So much so that I think I'm going to design some more intricate armor in the next few weeks, it was a lot of fun, and used different skills that I bring to the robot designs. Lots of multiple passes with overspraying colors, and multiple highlight layers to get that watery sheen. But I have some other things to get to first.

Next week, I'll be posting some revisits of the Land Shark speeder. I went back and did some alternate models of the speeder from the 'Lost' frame a few weeks back. So stay tuned...

Fishman 01

2012-01-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

Remember this? It's Fishman from last year! Anyways, here's a quick sketchover before we get digital:

I decided he needed a bit more form and construction to his armor. He originally was conceived as having smooth skin, that was accentuated by the smooth armor, but it was looking like the piece was going to turn out a little flat, so I put in some sort of metal braiding, insets, etc, and tried to break up the form a little more.

Now here's the digital paint. Still needs another detail pass before it goes to color...

Star Wars Fighter Pods!

2012-01-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

The site is up! Coming February 2012!!! Just weeks away!

Star Wars Fighter Pods!

Been working on and off on these little guys since last winter. I started off doing a ton of vehicles for Eric Siebenaler, ( a great love in my life!) who had come in to art direct and design the product, after years on the Transformers team, moved over to the Star Wars team at Hasbro. After I wrapped up doing a bunch of vehicles for him, I begged him to let me help out with the characters. He already had some folks going on that while I did the ships, but a month or so later, he found some guys for me to do after all. And now, I've worked on a ton, I don't even have the count any more. Either doing view turns based on his front views, or doing guys from scratch under his art direction, it's been many. I would say a plethora.

Unfortunately, due to the myriad of NDA's and licensing agreements, I can't post any of the art for it. I will say that when I did beg Eric to throw me some characters, it was not just an email, but a little cartoon based on his defined art style for the line. It was a sketch of Vader in a pose suggesting Eric would be force choked if he didn't let me draw some guys. And that is now a Fighter Pod figure, bottom left in the first batch of the page I linked to above! And so far from the released images, my favorite figure I worked on was the Han in Carbonite - can't wait to get my hands on that one!

So thanks to Eric for having me help out with this line, and congrats to the ton of people that it takes to make these little guys a reality, I'm really looking forward to going toy shopping in February!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

2011-12-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

You know what's full. Back in January...

Space Marine 03

2011-12-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

Final! I did do some quick tweaks on the detailing, and revised those ships in the background, then turned on the color.

I filled the character selection with a base color, and then added a secondary color for the armor, but with this one I wanted to use a softer blend of overall colors with the airbrush, so after the two tone was set up, I just airbrushed a few different colors to enhance the tones and colors. The background is a pretty soft blend, starting with the orange rocks, moving up to the lighter mist, with a blue transition color moving to purple, and then the black of space.

Alright, time to get going on the last one of the Three Resolutions, Fishman! And a long with further vehicle explorations from that LOST frame.

But first, a nice holiday break...

Space Marine 02

2011-12-21T07:46:00.000-08:00

So after months of letting the image sit, I come back to it, with some new skills and approaches, and finish up the gray scale paint out. It's looking pretty good overall, but I still need to figure out the design for the shuttles in the background, and work on some of the details and lighting here and there, before transitioning over to color.

Space Marine 01

2011-12-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

Remember this...from last January? Yep, that's another one of the 2011 resolution art type commitment whatever concepts I set up for myself to paint out, that I'm finally getting around to.

Ok, so here's the rough render, that was done probably months ago, I got really busy with work, and getting ready for BotCon, it kind of fell by the wayside, so this is where I left it, before reviving the folder and starting back again with the LOST image - don't worry, the Imperial Shuttles will not be in the background by the time we get to final.

This was also done before I had my minor revelation about form construction, where I was doing everything in a million pieces, like a movie Transformer, rather than approaching it like a car/suit design, creating the entire form first, adding the seam details and painting out from there, rather than creating a bunch of elements, and later trying to tie them together with the lighting. It's ridiculous to me when I think about it, since I do cars and vehicles all the time - it wasn't a new technique to me, but the years of movie bots, and the way create those had bled over into my other approaches, it took a some frustrating days to figure out what I was doing wrong. It was the Baroness armor that did the trick, from last spring.

Anyways, on to the new paintover...

"LOST" 04 *Update

2011-12-16T07:11:00.000-08:00

Final!

And keeping with the Melancholy '70's Theme, I gave the hard surfaces a nice orange-y/yellow color, like a great shag carpet.

I knocked back that background moon a little more, and tried to make the space station look more abandoned, so the whole area comes across more desolate, rather than how it read to me before, like he just moon-hopped to check out the other, unexplored moon across the way. I wanted it to give the feeling that he was LOST lost...

Uh, I tweaked it a little bit. I wanted the blacks to be a little bit deeper, and I wanted to readress the canyon highlights, to help tie the foreground to the background a little bit more. That is all.

K/C, 01/07/12

"LOST" 03

2011-12-13T09:04:00.000-08:00

OK, here it is all rendered out in grays...over the last couple of years, I've been leaving the hot white highlights for the color stage - if the range is 1-10, and the white is 1, I usually go between 2-10, and leave the highlights to do in the color stage, because I use a bit of color - around 3-5% with the saturation under the white for the edge bleed into the main color, and then do a quick all white pass for the hottest parts.

That being said, now on to the color...

"LOST" 02

2011-12-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

To force myself to not dive into the character vehicle design (the fun stuff to me) I started with the background, blocking out the main shapes, then going back in to do details, and then another pass with a variety of texture-type brushes, to give it a little life and energy.

Here I played with the contrast and elements a bit more, added atmosphere, and the planet in the distant background, amongst the starfield.

Well, maybe I cheated a little bit - I did do the line work for the foreground elements, just so I could have an accurate background relationship to the foreground. I had blocked the character in a 50% gray, under the line art, to make the background decisions. Then, after I was done with the background, I added tone to get the Spaceman and Land Shark ready for render...

"LOST" 01

2011-12-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Last year I posted some drawings I had done, that were meant to push my digital skills, and now I'm finally getting around to doing it. Of course, doing all that Marvel stuff pushed this back a bit, but now I'm back at it. This is actually a combination idea, I had posted the speeder, nicknamed the Land Shark, and a futuristic Marine as two separate ideas, but when it came time to do the illustration, it's become clear that I also, probably more than anything, need work on my backgrounds. So I re-posed the marine, and redesigned the costume, and placed the speeder in the background of what will be a space scene.

I wanted to try to do one of those melancholy 1970's sci-fi paperback cover type pics, with the featured character lonely in the vastness of outer space. So I made it literal, and gave him a little digital map readout to push the idea that he's flat out lost.

OK, long explanation for the thumbnail drawing above - so that's what I came up with. And here is the tight drawing, that will go to digital paint...

Keith Hargrove

2011-11-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

So, I lost a friend over the weekend. He'd been battling illness for the last few years, and finally lost the fight, leaving behind a beautiful wife and twin girls, who are absolutely darling.

I believe that without Keith, Bad Flip Productions would not exist. So today, any of you TransFans and Hasbro lovers out there that like my work, you can thank Keith Hargrove, for setting me on the path. During the Great Disney Artist Purge, near the end in Michael Eisner's reign at Disney, I was laid off. My friend Keith flipped the F out, and set me up with a contract for another 2 months worth of work, post my end date. Doing that forced me to start my own company, and gave me the start up money to give it a go as a freelancer, instead of just trying to find another office job.

The funny thing was, that after nearly four years of working there, and despite being on the same development team the whole time, we barely ever did any projects together, until that last year, and even then, it was a super rushed outpouring of ideas, that barely made it past the rough pencil stage. Not until I was out of the office, did I really color any image I did for him, and for our projects. Here's samples of the fun we had together:

At the time, Miramax was getting a lot of genre scripts through their offices, and in the spirit of company synergy, we got tasked every now and then to scribble out some ideas. Until eventually the studio would pass, and it would become nothing.

Above is my favorite shot from the Six Million Dollar Man pitch we came up with, basically a game mechanic of 'super leaps' from one moving vehicle to the other. Of course no color. We had one week to design a game, along with maintaining our currently ongoing projects.

Oh yes...Green Hornet, when the Wiensteins wanted Kevin Smith to direct. Whilst he 'scripted,' Keith and I went off on our own story, based on the TV show mythos, with some upgrades. Pre-release 2005 Mustang, I lobbied to use that as the Black Beauty, and we took it from there. A Suit Museum and an HQ establishing shot, also included. Obviously nothing ever came from it for years, and then from a different studio.

Oh look, another movie that went nowhere for years, the most horrible Ghost Rider script ever (yes, different and much worse than the actual but also horrible Cage movie) so again, Keith and I took liberties, and just tried to come up with a cool game. I believe this shot portrayed a limited invincibility.

That's right, Disney Transformers. Keith's idea, that I of course was ALL OVER, when he approached me about it. This was before Crossover's - he was a visionary, people.

And the summer before I left, ideas for a new Pirates of the Caribbean game, in which I went into great detail, awhile back. (Full disclosure now, "Karzappy" was Keith!) Below was his super badass idea for the Black Cloaks, supreme pirate hunters, big bads in the proposed game.

So we weren't quite wrapped on the project when I got the axe. Which is why Keith flipped out, he needed me to finish his art, and we were already talking about moving on and trying to get a TRON 3.0 game going. I'll post snippets, as this isn't exactly cleared to publish, but I imagine it will never go this route, now that there's new movies coming out, Legacy, etc., and this is going on 8 years old, and was immediately passed on...

It. Was. Batshit. Stephan Martiniere was a contracted contributor, and Kurt Busiek was writing some storylines. I took it another step, and we did almost a glass like skin over organic neon piping - TRON but not. In and out of the real world, all kinds of stuff. Tons of colored pencil sketches. At least TRON and Pirates got some splashes of color...

And here and there I helped out with his ESPN projects, and also worked a bit on Stunt Island 2 (which went nowhere fast, but I STILL get emails about it every now and then) , trying to get Marvel to partner up with us ( OH, THE IRONY!) a meeting at comic con with Alex Ross to create a superhero universe, ala City of Heroes - along with being in nearly every meeting together, company function, group outing, etc.; I enjoyed the hell out of being around him, or working on projects together, as infrequent as it was. He would get so enthusiastic about trying to get these projects going, it was infectious, and I started doing my best work in those last few months.

He always believed in me, fought for me, put up with me, and was always a great friend. As we went out separate paths in business and life, we never got to work together again, although we came close, but he trusted me enough to give him a post-mortem on his Ghostbusters game (oh yeah, remember that game? Click the link and watch a video of Keith, reintroducing Dan Ackroyd to the Ecto -1!!!) and exchange ideas on our creative endeavors, both personally and professionally.

Another connection we had was football, me from Washington State, a Seahawks fan, and Keith from Texas, and damn Cowboys fan. That's right Keith, you might be gone, but I'm still going to talk shit about your team. And lately, the Seahawks vs. Cowboys was practically an annual thing, so we often tried to get together to watch, even if that was the only time in a year we saw each other - a great reason to make the effort to stay in touch.

So a few weeks back, our teams played, and it was time to do a bit of hanging out. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite up to sitting through a whole game, and honestly as it turns out, I wouldn't have been up to three hours of his cackling, as his 'boys beat my 'hawks. But I did go over later in the day for a visit, to sit a bit and chat with Keith, his wife, and watch their girls play and play.

Darkness fell, he was wearing out, and it was time for me to go. I had made sure to tell him and his wife that their support meant so much to me; I wanted him to know, even though I told him a million times before, that I owed him so much for the direction my life took since 2004. The support he showed to me at that time still meant so much to me.

He walked me to the door, I told him and loved him, and hugged him goodbye. I found out yesterday he was gone.

I'll miss you, Keith, but wherever you go from here, as always you'll be in my heart.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker combo

2011-11-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

One last thing before Thanksgiving...

Here's the brothers on the combo background - you'll see their personalities showing though on that too - a nice, mint condition box background for the uber-groomer Sunstreaker, and a roughed up and beaten about box background for Sideswipe, not so minty fresh.

All right, have a Happy Turkey Day!

Sideswipe Print 03

2011-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

Final! Sideswipe in his Lambo Red glory, not too concerned with a scrape here and there, as long as the job gets done...

Sideswipe Print 02

2011-11-18T08:09:00.000-08:00

And now here's the raw grayscale image, with the shading and details finished, over the filled in shapes. I looked at pictures of the Lamborghini Countach he and Sunstreaker are based on, and really tried to bring in those specific details, while maintaining the G1 toon model sheet forms.

On to color...

Sideswipe Print 01

2011-11-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

Finished with Sunstreaker, I now move on to his brother, Sideswipe! This is the initial sketch, but when I put it against the sketch for Sunstreaker, the balance was a little off, so I revised:

And gave him a wider stance. Now, with a strong thumbnail image of the pose, I blow it up and put it on the light table, to redraw, adjusting the form and adding details, on a tighter drawing to paint over in the photoshop.

Now I have a good idea of the final, and of course I'll continue to make adjustments and tweaks as I go, but now it's ready to go to the raw stage, the grayscale form render...

Sunstreaker Print 02

2011-11-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

Final! And SOOOOO shiny.

Land Shark Preview

2011-11-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here's an element of a piece I'll be putting up in a few weeks - for now I'm calling it the Land Shark. It's based on the sketch I threw up on the blog at the beginning of the year. That's right, I'm just now getting around to it.

It's a combination of an F1 Racer, Land Speeder, and a Mako Shark.

In other news, I now want a Quantum Levitator...

Sunstreaker Print 01

2011-11-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Remember this...kinda? It's the Sunstreaker sketch from the 2011 BotCon sketchbook, with Iron Man and 3PO, arguing over who was the shiniest. It turned out to be a pretty popular piece, I sold the original, the layout drawing, and did a bunch of Sunstreaker head sketches. So, I thought maybe I should include him in the 2012 print set - and he got called up to the next level.

Here's the raw render, with all the forms and details defined. I still used the G1 Cartoon model sheet as the primary source material, but I beefed him up a little to match the others I've done so far, and brought in some minor figure details from the original toy. Now he's ready for the color...

Unifrog?

2011-11-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just want to see something, so I draw it.

Turns out I could have just Google Image'd Unifrog.

Happy Halloween!!!

2011-10-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

From one of my favorites, the Exorcist.

Done mostly with the magic of Sharpies...

Unit:E Space Station

2011-10-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

Finally. Finally something I've* done for Hasbro that is shown to the world. And I didn't even know what this was for at the time; done just about a month ago, it showed up as a page in the Hasbro Unit:E giveaway comic at New York Comic Con. I posted it as released, though of course I didn't do the text, and the original art had a horizontal lens flare around the figures, that was felt to be too distracting. I thought it looked cool, but now that I see the text/balloon placement, I can see how it could conflict.

I received the rough outline, and given a day to bust it out. So the space station is about half of what I had pre-visualized in my head before I started, at least in terms of detail, but the foreground characters are as requested, kept in silhouette.

Though this was the only actual art that was done by me, I saw a lot of my other design work with HasLabs sprinkled about the pages, illustrated by other artists - some of the MASK characters, Tonrar, the tree/wood monster, parts of Acroyear...good stuff done by all. But my absolute favorite image was the Jem and the Holograms, done by Peter Nguyen!

Of course I recommend getting your hands on it if you can, though I think you could probably only track it down on eBay...

*Prima and the Optimus Prime Truck mode, found in the Transformers Vault book, released earlier this year!

Microcassettes Print 03

2011-10-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Final! Wow, a lot going on in this one, flying rocks, lasers, glow-y eyes; this one took quite awhile to find the balance for all the elements. So I'm done with it for now, but as with all the work I'm doing on prints this fall, I may tweak again before I begin making the actual prints in early spring...

On to Sunstreaker, but a few things to post beforehand, next week...

Microcassettes Print 02

2011-10-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

All right, here's the Ravage, ready to be incorporated into the image...

...on to the Bad Birds.

Wheeljack Print 03

2011-10-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

All right, here's Wheeljack!

I changed the background, I like how it looked graphically on the original sketch, but I lost a lot of detail and form, trying to keep it white on white - maybe a darker colored character will better with that idea.

Done for now, but I might tweak him before I actually begin making prints next year. I put him up against the other Autobots I've done, and he fits right in...

Wheeljack Print 02

2011-10-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

He's coming along...still need to do quite a bit of finish - clean up the raw gray, matching details, etc., highlights, shadows, textures, the smoke around his feet, some more lighting F/X, but I'm getting there.

Microcassettes Print 01

2011-10-07T08:50:00.000-07:00

Again, here's a work in progress, for our pals, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy. Still not 100% on the composition - one of the robobirds might get changed to fill it out better...and might change the head on Ravage.

Wheeljack Print 01

2011-10-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

So I have a couple of the 2012 prints already started...but I'm slammed right now so I'll put up work-in-progress shots of the images this week. First off, Wheeljack!

If you remember the color comp, the back leg is almost entirely obscured by smoke/steam, hence the very unrealized details on that, and the back of the fore leg. Next in store for him is color, textures, shadows, highlights, and then another detail pass after I place the background and smoke effect.

Later this week I'll post the work in progress of the Microcassettes...

Epic #3 - Predator

2011-09-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Dutch and Team, about to get their badasses kicked. One of my all time favorite movies (got the Hot Toys classic Predator on Pre-Order!) that never really had an epic image for the poster/marketing.

Of course, this is nearly 25 years after the fact, so spoiler, it's about an alien.

This epic series is chugging along in the background, the Road Warrior is transferred to the final 30x40" canvas/board, and is getting drawn, along with thumbnails for the next two ready to go to this comp stage - Superman the Movie (I&II combo) and Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Masters of the Doodle

2011-09-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Good ol' Skeletor. I went to Power Con last weekend, and had a great time. I got to meet the original creators of He-Man, and hang out a bit with my buddy, Emiliano (one of my concept artist counterparts for Hasbro) , who helped put together this awesome book, from the Power and Honor Foundation, a collection of all the concept art for the creation of Mattel's He-Man toyline. It's great! I highly recommend...

Check out this video of the book preview!

My book links aren't working for some reason, check out http://www.powerandhonor.org/ to find this awesome book.

2012 Sketchbook and Prints Preview

2011-09-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm getting started early this year! Still locking down details on my first con of 2012, but it looks to be a pretty sure - I'll make a formal announcement when everything is 100% confirmed, but I'll give you a hint...Yellow Brick Road.

Enough of this jibberjabber, and on to the robots! Here's the thumbnail plans for the sketchbook and prints:

Jeez, that's a lotta stuff to do! A few of last year's sketches that didn't make it in the 2011 book, and hopefully a couple of blueprints for 2013's print set. The 2012 Prints will include the Tapes, Thundercracker and Skywarp - to round out the Seekers - Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe will have a linking background, for anybody who wants to keep the twin's together.

I labeled what was actually going to be what the thumbnails will turn into, though all poses aren't set in stone, just yet. But I am excited for the double page spread, Dinobots vs. Devastator, bottom right!

Dawn of Apocalypse 03

2011-09-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Final!

I'm pretty happy with this one overall - and I love that Cyclops, I want to do a painting of just him. So I don't know if that means the Cable and Apocalypse are weaker then, making it a weak painting. I still really like the composition, but now that it's done, I wonder if I should have spent time more defining how Apocalypse is being portrayed - he's not actually meant to be with them, but is he a spectral figure? A background figure? If so, he's too defined/rendered.

So here's what got sent to Marvel this week:

After scanning in the Strange painting, I went back and added some more glow, with white paint airbrushed on, and then gave it the gloss varnish. It changed so much with those little tweaks, I had to rescan the image.

I got a response back from CB, saying the Strange one was the 'best one yet!' but I don't know what that means - I hope it signals he's passed it on to the editors, or at least Steve Wacker, who I had talked with at SDCC, weeks back. Anyways, it's nice to have a guy like CB enthusiastic about your work!

I'm tentatively scheduled for a comic con in March, so my need to get going on my 2012 prints and sketchbook just kicked into high gear, coming three months earlier than I expected. I may have to put aside my efforts to get into Marvel, (though I have high hopes these last two will hit it for me) and get going on making pictures of robots fighting each other.

Next week I'm out, but expect some Transformers sketches to be posted when I get back - got a lot of ideas to come up with, in a short amount of time!

Dawn of Apocalypse 02

2011-09-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Quick update, still working on this one in the after hours...here's the paint prep, the drawing transferred to the canvas, with the darks painted in black, and some texture.

Here's the airbrush pass, getting all the colors in there. I masked off the figures from the backgrounds, and tried the airbrush spatter technique this time, rather than my old tried and true toothbrush. I think it worked well for this, as the paint spattered out in more deliberate directions than I sometimes get with the brush.

And finally, a quick scan of the work in progress - I nearly have all the pencil work done, now I need to balance the values, and do the f/x and highlights.

Dawn of Apocalypse 01

2011-09-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

Nope. Wait, first let me explain.

Strange and this one are going to Marvel for submission - they HAVE to be the best I can do at this moment with my painting. Apocalypse looks pretty good, and I think Cyclops looks awesome. Cable is jammed in there, in a pose I envisioned originally, but in actuality he looks contorted to fit the composition. I drew, and re-drew the gun hand, the arm details - the angles never came out right ( I don't want the blast angles to be the same) so I finally faced facts, and decided to scrap that version of Cable.

Painting is the hard part for me, the drawing isn't - and if the fundamentals aren't there with a strong drawing and composition, the painting is going to fail. I think the pre-Strange submissions suffered from that, and the White Queen painting is a transition from that older series of Avenger paintings.

So moving on:

I cropped out the Cable, and did a few quick sketches in photoshop with the Cintiq - this one more suspense, and less action, and the second sketch got deleted, but it turned into this...

...I decided to let go of trying to feature the cyber arm, and just get a cool pose in there that worked with the rest of the composition, and I think it came out pretty well. I found the gun angle I was looking for, and the tone I was originally going for with the piece.

And finally, here's the color comp. Expect some foreground paint spatter before all is said and done...

Dr. Strange 03

2011-09-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Final. I'm really happy with this one, and pretty confident in it, for my next Marvel submission. I spent probably an additional day working on it, about four days total, (the last batch was averaging three days for the painting) and really put time into the pencils in the prep drawing, and in the color pencil details.

And with this one I tried to push my technique for color/light sources, using the green glow for the lighting, and a purple/magenta (hot pink!) back light highlight. I'm still a little weak on my cape draperies, I think I need to set aside some time to do some studies, before I tackle another caped character.

This is where I left it last night; this morning I looked at it with fresh eyes, and decided to try some lens flares on the skull, and the hottest part of the spell letters. So this is another thing I need to do, if time permits, is let the final sit for a day, and then come back and see if I can add to it any more. There's no deadline for this, so I took the opportunity to let it sit for awhile.

I think I forgot to show the thumbnail sketches - I really struggled with finding the pose, until I decided to zoom the camera in a bit, and then I found the framing that looked pretty good, and then worked on tweaking the pose to make it a little more engaging, per my talk with Marvel at SDCC.

All right, one more to do, next up is 'Apocalypse and the Summers Boys...'

Dr. Strange 02

2011-08-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is the transfer drawing, from the tight pencils, to the gesso prepped board. This time, instead of using an 8B graphite pencil for the drawing, I went with almost entirely prismacolors, picking the darkest color I had to put under what would be the corresponding paint color. Red cape? Dark red pencil for the drawing, for example. After all that did I then bring back in the dark graphite pencil, to deepen the darks.

After I settled on the drawing, I painted in the blacks, and did some tonal spatter. And since I wanted to do a glow effect for the lettering, I filled in the outlines with white prismacolor, to maintain the forms throughout the painting process - I didn't want to lose the detail in the blending, nor spend a ton of time masking and remasking them.

I masked off the painting three times, the background, the warm colors, and then the blue and green. Then an overall unmasked pass with the green glow color to bring it all together. And since I filled in the lettering, I can still find the shapes to bring them back out.

On to the penciling...

Dr. Strange 01

2011-08-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is now more in the realm of what I discussed with the Marvel editor - adding some tweaks to the concepts' execution. As a concept artist by trade, I constantly have to show as much as I can in a character design, and that results in some very standard poses...with DrS, I wanted to push the 'lens' and try to get a more forced (semi-fisheye?) perspective, along with the other things I try incorporate for my education in all of these pieces. In this case, glow-y, swirly runes emanating from a glowing magic skull, manifested by DrS's powers.

I also wanted to push my colors a bit, and work with non-traditional light sources - in this case, I want Strange to be lit by the glow of his magic. So this color comp will act as my rough guide to when I start mixing colors...

White Queen 03

2011-08-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

The final. Starting to get all glittered up with diamond skin...

White Queen 02

2011-08-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is the transfer drawing prep for the painting - I brought back the technique from Oz, where I drew in the skin areas with a colored pencil, rather than a black tone, to hopefully blend in the colors with a much softer final look.

I did a lot of matte cuts for this one, and it came out pretty well - EXCEPT, there was some bleed from the fabric color. I got a little worried about it, but I figured I could just draw over the bleed with the pencil and paint, and hopefully cover it up pretty painlessly. I also worked the background a little more, I thought that it wasn't very dynamic, though geometric, so I broke up the large planes with smaller areas, to kind of combine the theme of diamonds and ice.

This is the post paint and pencil pass. Now all that's left is the punch ups, and adding in some diamond skin transformation, and a final balance pass, to bring up the colors, contrast, etc. That's for the next post...

White Queen 01

2011-08-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

So I've done a lot of boys for my Marvel submissions, but I haven't yet done a Lady of Marvel - I had this idea laying around, and I've been wanting to do something a little more graphic with the background, playing off the diamond motif of the White Queen.

So here's a series of head sketches to go with the figure, trying to find a properly snotty look for her Highness.

After finding something that I thought would work, I re-comped the elements for a re-draw of the image for final. I really like PARTS of the the two latest costumes for the character, so I combined those elements, did the new drawing...

...with a few more costume tweaks. Then I quickly did a color comp in photoshop, and got it ready for transfer to the painting surface.

Combaticon Sniper : RotF

2011-08-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

All right, here is the last image I'll post from the sketchbook - a self indulgence, the Combaticon Sniper I designed for the Revenge of the Fallen game.

Quintesson Sketch

2011-08-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Them guys don't play so nice. Especially ones of the 'Mad Scientist' variety.

Cybertron Prime Sketch

2011-08-09T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Just a different take on an Optimus Prime, from his days on Cybertron...very G1 based.

Some Starscreams

2011-08-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

First up is the grayscale render of the Starscream print, out for a fly.

Next is Movie Starscream, in the gargoyle pose I imagined while reading the original TF movie script.

Ark on the Run.

2011-08-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Here's a depiction of the escape that started it all...the Autobot's Ark, being pursued by the Decepticon's Nemesis!

Animated Lockdown sketch.

2011-08-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Here's good ol' Lockdown from the Animated show...looking all intimidating and sh*t.

Road Warrior - the next Epic

2011-07-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

The next large scale painting is up on the table - the Road Warrior. This is a small scale value drawing, for what will be a 30x40" painting.

I had wrapped that Oz painting last winter, thinking that was going to be it, but some plans have changed, and I'll be doing a lot more coming up. Next on deck, Predator, and a Superman I&II combo...

A Bad Day for Captain Solo

2011-07-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

8x10" Acrylics and colored pencil - done as a gift for Star Wars Action News hosts, Arnie and Marjorie, for giving me now over 300 (!!!) episodes of Star Wars podcasts to listen to while working. I finally had a chance to meet them at an SDCC breakfast last Friday, and brought a long a little something to show my appreciation.

This is the paint over the pencils - with this one I used a palette knife to create the underpainted gesso texture, to give some areas that flat, paved look, like the block of carbonite itself. I really like how it came out, I'll try that again!

Avengers Assemble!!!

2011-07-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

OK, time to pack these up and head down to Comic Con, in San Diego! This will be my 12th time going...I've seen it go from manageable to completely insane. In the Olden Times, you could walk the aisles easily, long lines sure...for creators and celebrities (actually related to the industry) but never got overcrowded, really. Busy, yes. Before eBay, it was the place to go to fill in your collections, everything was for sale - now it's mostly a showroom for stuff coming out six months later, in the midst of a mosh pit at a 1989 Anthrax concert...

Iron Man

2011-07-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Final! Red metal is hard. That's what I learned here. Not that I didn't know going in, it was part of the challenge to do this one...but I think it came out pretty successful. I tweaked the current Iron Man costume, and added a little bit of mobility to the suit, that I couldn't see in the comics. The one thing that I need to work from this, the A-10's are a little lacking; I wanted to focus the detail and color on the main figure, so I left off some contrast and detail, and I don't know that the out of focus and shaky cam I wanted really came through?

Anyways, I do like this one a lot, and I think there's growth from Thor last month, then Cap, Hulk, and now Iron Man - I felt they got progressively better.

Here's some in-progress images:

I actually did some matte work on this, and separately painted the figure from the background.

Then I flipped that mattework, and covered Iron Man, and airbrushed the background. There's also a bit of paint in the energy ports...

Captain America 02

2011-07-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Take that, you Ratzis!!!

Captain America 01

2011-07-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Cap is on the board! Here's the pencils, wash, and texture stage.

And now, some color with the airbrush pass. No matting with this one, I wanted all the colors to share each other at the edges, even though it was kind of a pain in the ass to keep the main colors separate.

Also I wanted to experiment with a less opaque coloring technique, and see if if would add anything to the time period...feeling....ambiance?...with letting more of that under-texture come through.

The final tomorrow...

HULK 02

2011-07-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

WHO PUT CHOCOLATE IN HULK'S PEANUT BUTTER!?!

HULK 01

2011-07-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a little ahead of myself in the process archiving - I had done the first pass of green, with the airbrush, before realizing I didn't get a pic of the pencil drawing and wash. Not that it's any different from the original sketch.

Well, maybe except for one thing, the aspect ratio of the canvas is 12x18", with the final frame is 11x16.5", so I had a little more space, that I drew out more of his lower lip, and crow's feet around his eyes. Something I hadn't considered in the sketch transfer, so I kind of winged it, and it's not great. Of course, if anybody ever framed this painting, they could always matte it to the correct ratio. It's not really that big of deal, but it's something I should probably consider if I ever get to do a Marvel cover for real.

Now this is the finished paint pass, there's a little bit of wrinkling that the sun is picking up and making it look more warped than it actually is. Of course all those wrinkles flatten out as soon as it gets cut off the deck...

This is after all the pencil work is done, and I go back with washes (and a bit more airbrush) to blend the mediums better together - in this case the pencils on his brow made it look a little like separated sections, rather than folds and creases over a single form. A quick wash with the base color. and everything blends and softens, making it come together.

Tomorrow, the final...

Bounty Hunters Painting 02

2011-07-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

The final painting, now with stars! I like making stars...with an old toothbrush. There was a good back and forth with the space background, I learned a lot with the Optimus Prime painting, and brought that into this one, and it worked out even better. I did texture passes with the light colors too, not just the blacks, which made it a little more organic.

Again, I'm struggling with getting good photography with these bigger painting - it's 20x30" - too big for the scanner, but this is the best pic I could get. It has some digital artifacting that's messing up the colors a bit.

All right, time to break out the green paint, and get back to the Avengers...

Bounty Hunters Painting 01

2011-07-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Remember this, from a year ago?

Well, I finally made a painting of it...here we go.

This is the drawing, with black acrylic paint to deepen the blacks, and set up the wash for the outer space background.

I masked off the figures, and created the soft light blend of space, with water blots sponged up with paper towels, and lots of soft airbrush, back and forth-ing between the black and purples, offset with a cream color.

This is the color pass with the airbrush - no masking - just blending the edges with overspray, with the plan being to tighten up the forms with the pencils. (Sorry this is so blurry, didn't realize it until I had already started on the pencils.)

And so the pencils begin. This about 50% done at this point, timewise; I see this as the halfway point, the drawing and paints are completed, but picking the colors and rendering with the pencils take a long time, and then there's the give and take between the paint and pencils in the final touch up phase, to be posted later in the week!

The First Avenger!

2011-07-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

America, F YEAH! Happy 4th of July everybody!

And of course, the less patriotic, black and white sketch version.

Yet Another Avenger!?!

2011-06-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

"Let's get the flak outta here!" Called out Iron Man, as he led the still surviving A-10's through a barrage of fire and shrapnel...

Here's just the pencils...

Another Avenger? Now with COLOR!

2011-06-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

A quick color comp to have with me to help with the eventual painting...

Another Avenger?

2011-06-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know I mentioned Cap yesterday, but I'm also thinking about Iron Man and ol' Mean Green here...

Thor 2.2

2011-06-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

...and here's the final painting! I think I like this one better than the digital one - I know I had more fun making it on the drafting table, rather than behind a computer. There are still some things that I achieve digitally that I can't yet duplicate with paint, but I'm getting closer, a lot more than when I re-started painting, 18 months ago.

Here's a detail shot of the mighty Thor. I put a swirl emanating from the Hammer with the gesso prep, to give the power focus from Mjolnir, spreading across the rest of the page.

All right, time to put this one away. Got a lot of stuff coming up, but I may try to squeeze in the rest of the Avengers, got a hankerin' to do Cap knocking out a bunch of Ratzis, in anticipation of the movie...

Thor 2.1

2011-06-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

Remember this? Thor 2.0 has begun...

Well, after BotCon and all the sketchbook sketches (there are still some available!) , I'm back to a bit of painting - trying to recreate my Thor digital illustration in the real world. With real paint, on real paper.

And so there it is, the pencil drawing with a paint layer, time to break out the pencils and finish it up...

Sketchbooks for Sale!

2011-06-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

Leftover Sketchbooks from BotCon 2011 are now available to order! Here are the details:

$15 for just a sketchbook, $25 for a sketchbook with a quick sketch on the inside cover (examples below).

$5 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for the United States.
$12 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for Canada and Mexico.
$14 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for International Locations.

Email me at ken@badflip.com, with 'Sketchbook Order' in the Subject Line, let me know what you want, and I'll create an invoice for you with payment options.

Here's an example of some quick sketches I did at the Con:

Basically a head sketch, and I try to work in some character silhouette iconography as well. You can ask for anything* published (it's not ALL G1!), these are just a few pre-sketches I had left over - I did a little bit of everything over the BotCon Weekend, TF:Prime Starscream, Animated Bumblebee, G1 Ravage...just let me know!

Remember that I'm working on projects full time, and I'm handling all this myself; the plan is to take orders during the week, then create invoices, do the sketches, and fill paid orders on the weekends, and ship out on Mondays. I will get them out as fast as possible! THANK YOU!!!

*Please don't request sketches or recreations related to anything shown or discussed on the toy and IP panels at BotCon, or even a sketch of Prima, even though he's been published. That stuff is still on the Down Low, and it will get me into Big Fat Trouble with my friends at Hasbro - just existing, (old and new) published characters.

I reserve the right to refuse a request, due to trademark infringements and my non-disclosure agreements, but I will absolutely offer an alternative. Example: I can't take requests like a 'Ravage in the Transformers : Prime/Universe Style' - I work with Hasbro on IP development from time to time, I don't want to be held accountable for an idea that someone has, that has the potential to show up later in media or products, whether or not I had anything to do with it. My alternative offer would be that I'd do a Movie Ravage in the G1 cartoon style, or something like that. Thanks for understanding...

BotCon! Recap!

2011-06-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

What a great time! Here's me and my fat face at my table - I had so many awesome visitors come by the table, thank you so much to everyone who stopped by! Three days of good times, Friday afternoon for the hardcore BotCon'er's, capped off by a great dinner with some pals from Hasbro. Saturday was a looong day, but had a great finish at the Hall of Fame Event, of which I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to the Erector reel, providing the 'Movie' version artwork. Congrats goes to Waspinator! We got treated to about 15 minutes of the Dark of the Moon footage - the rumble of the theater alone is worth the ticket price on this one. I can't spoil anything, but there is a shot in the film, that I have been waiting a long time to see - Fanboy Minutia, true, but it's done very well. One other great thing - MULTIPLE standing ovations for Peter "Optimus Prime" Cullen during the event. And finally Sunday was another great day for meeting folks stopping by, and the Hasbro IP panel, where they revealed some of my artwork that's been kept under wraps for quite awhile; some of the 13 Primes, and additional character concepts, thanks to Aaron and Rik for the shout-outs!

I also want to give a big thank you to my wife Keri, who helped me out and held down the fort while I was out playing around, and bringing me food (and even to Marcelo, who had a table next to me, who was without a helper on Sunday) and chatting with people who stopped by while I got lost in the zone of doing sketches - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I could not have done it without you!

This was a gift from a BIG Sunstreaker fan, who goes by 'Brain23', (on deviant art) a very kind Japanese woman who stopped by my table many times, and kept throwing money at me, and at the end of the con, she gave me this, a Starscream fan - how cool is that!?! It will find a place of honor in my studio.

Here's a pile of some of the awesome swag I got from the con, of course the comic, (which, like a dumbass, forgot to ask Marcelo Matere to sign, but he did sign his sketchbook for me!) and we traded some prints, I got his two impeccably awesome TFA prints, some of my favorite Hall of Fame giveaways, the Matrix Prime Kre-O giveaway, and some stuff I bought, a Nightbird, Spike & Sparkplug, and blue Rumble figure items, along with the fan from Brain23.

I had a great time, and would love to do it again, thanks again to everyone who stopped by!

There ARE leftover sketchbooks, I'll be posting worldwide order details in a few days, if you were unable to go to the con and wanted one, stay tuned...

BotCon, is ON! UPDATED!

2011-06-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

All right, I'm packing up my last bit of stuff, and heading down the road to Pasadena!

Including this gem, my first published Transformers effort, from 1985, or '86, Autobot Frys. I was 11. Enjoy the riveting adventure...

Hope to see some of you in Pasadena!!!

Update - I'm at table 87, right on the other of the Optimus Prime movie truck!

BotCon! 10

2011-06-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's getting close, going to be at BotCon tomorrow!!! Here's a couple pieces of artwork I'll have for sale with me for the event - not Transformers, but Hasbro related...

GI Joe's Scarlett cleaning some smudge out of her crossbow, and...

Mr. Fussy Pants himself, Cobra Commander!

Both are 11x14", Marker, Pen, and colored Pencils.

BotCon! 09

2011-06-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Another sketch I'll have on hand for sale - Wheeljack!

11x14", Markers and pencils. And I'll tell you, this might be the one that gets me into trouble with myself...I'm pretty sure he's going to start off the next round of my G1 inspired renders to go along with the prints I'm selling this year. Wow that's going to be a lot of work! But I really like this design and pose, and I think it deserves to go to the next level.

BotCon! 08

2011-05-31T08:12:00.000-07:00

So along with the sketchbook and prints I'll have on hand for sale, I'll bring some original artwork as well. Not all of it will be Transformers, or even Hasbro related, but the bulk of it sure will be!

Here's an 11x17" marker and pen sketch of ol' Buckethead.

BotCon! 07

2011-05-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

The last of the sketchbook images I'll post, including an example of the quick sketch I'll provide if you choose that sketchbook option.

BotCon is awarding hourly door prizes during the show, and this is one of the items I'm donating, my sketchbook with an Animated Prime sketch on the inside cover. And then, of course is the first page of the book, Optimus Primal breaking through with some whupass.

First time EVER, for drawing Prime as either of these two versions in the canon.

The other door prize giveaway I'm donating is a print of my Animated Ironhide. Now you might say, big deal, I can just get one at your table if I don't win - but no, Transfans - I'm just selling the Red version of Ironhide. The door prize is a special 1/1 print of the Silver Indestructible Animated Ironhide! I ran a single print, specially for BotCon.

All right, that's enough images shown from the sketchbook, now you gotta come down to Pasadena and get one! Next week I'll post some other goodies I dug up from the flat files, to have on hand for sale next weekend...

BotCon! 06

2011-05-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

More Ninja? Allow me to put my chocolate in your peanut butter, and feature over a crossover match-up from the sketchbook. Snake Eyes vs. Ravage.

BotCon! 05

2011-05-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

Look out! Ninja!

Another image from the sketchbook...

Botcon! 04

2011-05-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

Another sketchbook image, Movie Sideswipe. To date, probably my favorite movie character design...

BotCon! 03

2011-05-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

This week I'll feature some of the sketches from the sketchbook...starting off with one of the more strange ones. I'd already done an Arcee, and also a Nightbird, and I wanted at least one more female character to have in the book. I know there's more out there, but I figured I'd try something a little more conceptual - what if? style.

What if Transformers was a girls line, and Cybertron was like an Amazonian type planet, ala Wonder Woman? I give you Soundwave and Shockwave - the Wavettes.

BotCon! 02

2011-05-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Prime. Optimus Prime.

This is the painting I created for the cover of my sketchbook for BotCon - I had posted the sketch for it a couple months ago, one on a pile of many scribbled out when I was kicking around the idea of actually getting a table at the convention. Like I posted the other day, it's acrylic/airbrush and colored pencils, 12x18 inches.

Of course, this is a work in progress blog, so below are the gory details...

This is a shot of the under drawing, blowing up the original sketch, and getting a paint pass, with black acrylic to deepen the blacks.

I wanted to try something wispy and ethereal for the background - as always I try to do a little experimentation with every piece. I got it to a black and white stage I was happy with, and prepped it for color.

I had matted out Prime from the background, and painted both separately, and then when back for a third pass with the shadow colors to help bring the whole thing together. And then it was on to pencils and paint touch-ups for the final, posted above.

BotCon! 01

2011-05-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Hey TransFans, I'll be appearing at BotCon, in the Artists Alley, June 2 - 5! Pictured above is a smattering of what I'll be selling at my table; prints, a limited run sketchbook, and original art.

This is the price guide placard I'll have at my table, here are the details:

Sketchbooks - I have a limited run of these, selling for $15, and if you want a quick sketch (I'll post an example in the next week or so) on the inside front cover, that's $25. It's a color cover, with 20 pages of B/W sketches done over the last few months. I tried to include a wide range of the last 25+ years of Transformers, hopefully there's something for everybody in there. I'll be posting some of the images over the next couple of weeks, leading up to the event.

Prints - My takes on the classic G1 versions of Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Soundwave, Jazz, Starscream and his Seekers, and also Animated Ironhide. They are $20 each, printed on Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper, sized at 11x17 inches. It's the paper I use for my own print portfolio, the print quality is fantastic.

Original Art - I'm bringing all the art I did for the sketchbook to sell, plus various other TF items, pencil work for the Transformers Continuum Cover, some of the drawings for the above prints, plus some other random pieces that have been hidden away in the flat files. Prices will range from just $25, up to the painting for the sketchbook cover, priced at $600. That's an Optimus Prime painting, acrylic paint and colored pencils, 12x18 inches, with a glossy varnish, framed in black.

What else? I'll have some of my portfolios to flip through, including the Transformers : the Game(s) artwork, if you want me to sign the one and only comic I ever did, come up and ask about the making of the first two movie games, or just stop by and say hi - I'll be there!

This is the first time I've had a table at any con, I'm pretty excited, and hope to see you there!!!

Don't forget, there's a Facebook page! Bad Flip Productions; still building the galleries, but starting with all the Transformers games images first, and most of them are up now!

Bad Flip Productions, now serving you on Facebook!

2011-05-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

So now there's a Facebook page.

Bad Flip Productions; still building the galleries, but starting with all the Transformers games images first.

Visit, Like, Propagate.

Thor 2.0 has begun...

2011-05-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

...just so you know.

While I continue working on this one, I need to put it aside in the blogosphere....the robots are coming.

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!!!

We'll talk more next week...

The Mighty Thor! 1.3

2011-05-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

This Thor has gone through many iterations, but this is the one I like the best. It's still a bit of an ongoing story, so I'll save the whole thing for the Thor 2.0 series, where I try to do something more...painterly, with this image.

Here's the first pass, and then a color revision, with some minor tweaks with the hammer, hammer hand, bigger eyes and a more robust cape, made on advice from a valued and experienced friend.

So this whole Thor thing was a sample request from Marvel, whom I'd met with at WonderCon last month. The meeting went great, the portfolio I showed was mostly made up of the stuff from the last few months, Fantastic Four, Black Manta, etc. and I was asked to do this Thor the week after.

I then worked with an assistant talent manager (or something), and the whole thing died with him. First it was rejected for not being colorful enough, and after a rejected color revision pass, I did those tweaks after talking to my friend about what I was doing wrong. It finally devolved into a it just not being 'painterly.'

I do and I don't know what that means. I realized that this style is more 'slick' and clean, and is maybe more closer to packaging type art, versus illustrative art, but my portfolio was all the same thing, consistent in style, so why have me do a sample in the first place, when you're going to act surprised by what I turn in?

Like I said, this was not done for the person I met with at the Con, and haven't heard anything from him, during or since this mini-ordeal. But guess what? I love to paint, and I think it's a great image, so look for the Thor 2.0 series, The Painted Version, when I hopefully can continue this story with a happy ending. Marvel has been a tough nut to crack, but it's really one of the last 'dream projects' I have on my artistic bucket list...

The Mighty Thor! 1.2

2011-04-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

Grayscale render for ol' Thor. Again a mix of paths and selections, and freehand sketching and blocking, to build out the render.

The Mighty Thor! 1.1

2011-04-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

The pencil sketch for a couple different approaches going to be taken with this subject...it's a bumpy ride.

Destro and the Baroness 03

2011-04-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

Final!

I'm pleased with the main goals of this image, the chrome and armor technique development. The secondary goal of getting better at organic stuff is just ok...still needs some work to get a more natural feel, distancing itself from the other aspects of the image, but still remaining stylistically coherent.

Baby steps, but overall this one came out pretty cool, I think.

Destro and the Baroness 02

2011-04-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Prom night, work in progress image...

This time I did the armor as a whole piece, and used the line art to make the segments. It's how I do cars, and ridiculous that I haven't used the theory on armors yet. Chromed up Destro's bonnet as well...pretty happy that I got a good metallic look, but kept the main features from the 80's cartoon model.

All right, on to the colors.

Destro and the Baroness 01

2011-04-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

At the prom.

I don't nearly do enough GI Joe, personally and professionally, I think. I have tons of figures and vehicles from the last few years, the 25th anniversary line really pulled me back in. Anybody seen the upcoming revamped Sky Striker? So I decided to finally delve into the property on my own, after doing a very little bit of work on it for Hasbro from time to time.

Two things I wanted to address with this one, chrome, and explore a new rendering technique for armor. A lot of my armors come out a little disjointed, because I render it out piece by piece - a technique formed and now hampered by doing Transformers so much - so I wanted to try to come up with another way to approach it.

And chrome is tough. I did a character a few months back that had a lot of chrome, and I wasn't happy with it, I just didn't have enough time to develop it, but chrome is something that comes up again and again, and while I think I have a great handle on it to do pipes and other geometric shapes, doing a chrome over an organic shape is something else entirely.

So those are the learning goals, along with trying to make an awesome Joe piece...!

Vader. 02

2011-04-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

Whaaaaa? Where'd he go?

Lame caption aside, that's it for Ben Kenobi.

And here's the completed grayscale, before highlights, f/x, and punch-ups. A little color goes on long way on this one, despite being mostly made up of near black to near black tones.

Vader. 01

2011-04-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

So I've been doing some Star Wars lately. And I've been wanting to do a Vader, and there's a (I think) Mondo print out there of Luke falling off the outcropping after Vader chops off his hand in Bespin, and it's a shot from below the scene, and I thought that was an awesome idea, to see such a familiar scene from such a different angle. So I decided to theme this out as after Vader cuts down Kenobi, the point of view being as the robes fall away as Vader looks down in astonishment, but before he kicks around Ben's robes trying to figure out what the heck happened.

So I forgot to save my pencils again, but here's the almost complete inked version of those pencils, but with the robes starting to get the initial rendering. The hip armor and the neck of the helmet also have the first gradient pass, but other than that, that's pretty much the penciled version.

And now here is the grayscale render, primarily mid to dark tones. Because Vader is made up of polished armor and leather in all blacks, I needed to take a different approach with the light tones and highlights...

Dr. Decker....telephone, please.

2011-03-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dr. Decker from Nightbreed. Small painting for a friend; the usual, acrylics and colored pencils...

How to Flame On!

2011-03-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

Or, at least how I did it this time. There's probably a couple extra steps I took, because I was experimenting as I went, and built it up in layers. But it created a great foundation for the next time I have to do a man completely on fire....

*That last instruction was a lie. The overall color layer is set at the Overlay Layer setting.

Fantastic Four 03

2011-03-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Final!

Got everyone's powers on display, Sue's shielding and invisibility power, Reed's Stretchtastics, Johnny's flames, and Ben's....power? Pretty happy with how this one turned out, I sent it in to appear the 2011 SDCC souvenir book, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Fantastic Four. Guess I'll find out in July if it gets in...

All right, I have a crazy busy day ahead of me, so not a lot of time to talk about this one, but tomorrow I'll post the steps I took to get the flames on for the Human Torch!

Fantastic Four 02

2011-03-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

Here's that pencil drawing all rendered out. At this point, three of the four can continue on in a conventional way, but I'm not sure how to create the fire and represent Johnny Storm as a guy on fire. I've done a burning visage of armor before, but that came across more like the LOTR Balrog monster, in that there was some sort of shell containing the fire. This guy is total fire (as least as how I want to represent him) but I started with this non-powered version of him, and then I'll build the flames up around him.

I'm pretty happy with how the Thing turned out as well...;)!

I took maybe a not-as-popular approach to Sue and Reed and tried to portray them not as hyper-beautiful hero/gods; they're both kind of nerdy scientists, so I tried to make Reed a little on the dorky side, handsome and fit, yes...but not thick necked squared jaw powerful. And Sue, I tried to make pretty, but not fashion model pretty. That was the intent, at least.

Fantastic Four 01

2011-03-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Here's the pencils for the next one....

Spidey and the Green Goblin 02

2011-03-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's Green Goblin, look out!

So here it is. I used my usual coloring recipe, but this time I went back and did color touch-ups, something I've never done before. I usually settle for the layers doing the work to provide the value and color punch-ups, but with the background being so complicated, I was losing some of the character details and forms. The background is painted in rough, and then really blurred, but I was still losing edges on the characters/foreground even though they are meant to be quite clearly stories up in the air.

Anyways, I liked how it turned out, and I'll probably go back and do similar touch-ups on the Black Manta and Flash images, and add that to the 'recipe' moving forward....

Spidey and the Green Goblin 01

2011-03-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

This is OLD. It even pre-dates the blog by a couple of years. It's been on the website since I started it, and I've always liked it quite a bit, but never got to coloring it, or rendering it out.

Well, now I am. I need to push myself on the rough render build up, as well as start working on some environment stuff too. That's a bit of a cheat, since I plan to add a lot of lights (night scene) and blur the background...

...you can see the cars in the far background are little more than three shades of blobs, so it's really just placed there for mass. Got just a little bit more clean up to do, then on to color...