the Haunting...

Having lunch right now...thought I'd post this piece I painted after visiting Puppies and Paint's (Casey Mitchum) great blog...

Throwback Thursdays! Part 2

Kinda hectic week being Xmas and all. Haven't had time to post, and here we are at Throwback Thursday again! Since I got such positive feedback on last weeks' post, I thought I'd paint up one of the other designs I did at the same time I drew the Squirrel. Waaay back in 1996. Still so hard to believe it's been that long. I guess I view my designs as children, I know the exact day and moment they were 'born', and it's hard for me to see them grow up so fast! Anyone else think like me? Or should I lay off the glue sniffing?!?!

Throwback Thursdays!

Welcome to my first post of a series that I am going to call "Throwback Thursdays" . Each Thursday I will post something I did from WAY back. Whether it be from college, or as a kid, I will let it all hang out! See if I've gotten better...or WORSE! SO... I UNLEASH to YOU....."THROWBACK THURSDAYS!" Enjoy! Hate! Both! You decide! First up: a design I did TEN YEARS AGO for a series called "Angry Beavers". 1996

Ronnie Ritalin's house - Night BG design

Here's a colour BG design test I whipped up. It is from the show Avocado Boy. Gonna be busy day at work today, but I had a half hour to kill before starting. I gave myself 30 mins MAX to do this. It was going to be a 'day' colour test, but at minute 27 I realized I was outta time, so with some use of layer transparencies, colour screens, and other FX in Photoshop, by minute 30 it became a 'night' test! Sparse...but I think it works!

Stream of consciousness technique...

I was intrigued after visiting a friend's blog (BLAMMO) yesterday, and reading the post on the " stream of consciousness" drawing technique. It is about keeping the flow of a drawing going, and not stopping to erase or overthink a sketch. I wondered what I would come up with if I took that approach and applied it to a BG design. Here is the result I came up with. I started the BG on the left centre side of the page and just drew without thinking too much! Cool idea BLAMMO!

Another Avocado Boy BG test...

I can't keep away from doing these colour tests. Here's Ronnie Ritalin's living room in all it's sunny glory!

Double O Dingo - TV series idea...

Still fleshing it out...but basically it would be a homage to James Bond al la Sean Connery, done in the style of the late 60's Depatie-Freleng Pink Panther cartoons. Dingo's arch enemy is the evil 'Double-Bagit'(top right). A villian so ugly and hideous, his disguise is only a paper bag over his face! As I develop this more, I will post.

Quick daily doodle...

A warm-up sketch on a crappy, cold day! This drawing comes complete with coffee stain!

Buffalo Bob!!

I couldn't resist...here's Bob himself. Think Mel from the TV show "Alice"...only slower!

Bob's Buffalo Hut Interior- Close up

Here's a close-up for a better look!

Avocado Boy BG: Bob's Buffalo Hut Interior

A few posts back I put up an exterior BG design of 'Bob's Buffalo Hut'. It was from the TV series called "Avocado boy" I co-created with my friend, the very talented Mr. Steve Daye. After visiting his blog site yesterday and seeing his promo art for "The Manly Bee", I was inspired to say the least! I went directly home and dug out this BG I drew in 1997 and slammed it out thru Photoshop! I always wanted to colour this one, but I guess I needed to wait 9 years for the inspiration! Without further rambling...here are a few colour tests for the interior of 'Bob's Buffalo Hut'! Funny what a bottle of Shiraz, an old blues cd, and a computer can do!

World's Greatest Guitarist Series - Eddie Van Halen

Here on the right is another digital illustration in the series I am doing called " The World's Greatest Guitarists". This is of Eddie Van Halen. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a 1998 autograph session. Funny story: Instead of bringing the cd for him to sign, I did this really cartoony caricature of him (drawing on the left). Eddie flipped when he saw it, then asked ME if he could have a copy. I just stood there as the KING of rock guitar asked ME if he could have one of my drawings!! Then Eddie proceeded to stand up, wave his hand, and a Warner Bros. exec in a 3 piece suit immediatley came running over with his business card for me. I will never forget this either...The KING of rock guitar looks at me and says: "Dude...this rocks! I gotta have this...can you send a copy of this drawing to this man here, and then he'll make sure I get it! THANKS MAN!" And then the photographer took our picture together. I was so stunned that in the photo, you can see I'm not even looking at the damn camera!

World's Greatest Guitarist Series - Billy Gibbons of ZZ TOP

Here is a digital illustration from a series of posters called " The Worlds' Greatest Guitarists". The idea was to pick a main colour that I felt went with the guitarist, a famous quote they have been known for saying, and combine the 2. I have done other famous guitarists and will post them in future. We start with Billy because, as those of you who know me, he is my favourite guitarist and the reason I picked up the guitar way back in 1987. I had the priveledge to personally meet Mr. Gibbons this Nov. 16th and present him with a copy of this design. Upon him seeing it he drawled in a deep texas tone: " Dude...you have GOT ta surrender one of these ta ME!" I will never forget his face when I gave him his copy. Enjoy...

Various Character Designs - animals

Here's a bunch of kids' colouring book style animal designs I was playin' with. Rendered up for your satisfaction!

Bumper design sketches page2

Here are some more character design sketches done off the cuff with marker....gotta love drawin in marker!

Bumper design sketches...

Here's a few quick designs for a TV channel, where a Boar transitions into a Ram, which is part movie camera. These were used to flesh out just how this would happen once these characters were modelled in 3D. Lotta fun...

Eek! The Cat prop sheet

Man we had some laughs on this show! Here's a bunch of props I coloured up...hard to belive it's been 12 years!

Manly Bee Props 2

Some more props from this show. Steve did a great job with this show.

Manly Bee Props 1

Here are some super fast Manly Bee props I did for my pal Steve Daye! Love this style...fast, easy, downright sleazy!

Jimmy's wine!

I told ya Garner was a class act....here's the wine he sent me as thanks!

Avocado Boy BG: Earl's house

This one came out pretty close to what I saw in my noggin too. The character who lives here is an inventor named Earl who resides in a run down railcar, which at some point was a diner, and now serves as his home. It is in front of a scrapyard, which is where he finds the junk to build his crazy inventions out of. The best part is, the former restaurant was named " Early Bird"..but since some letters have burnt out...it only flashes the word "Earl"!

Avocado Boy BG: Bob's Buffalo Hut

This BG is one of my favs...I love photoshop mainly because I suck at painting and photoshop allows me to QUICKLY correct any mistake I make colourwise. I think I have a *decent* eye when it comes to colour designs, but I am still learning. This BG is important to me because when I did it almost 9 years ago, it was the first one I did that came out as I saw it in my head. Many times since then I have revisited this one in Photoshop, changed things, yet keep coming back to how you see it here. Now I just leave it alone....

more Rockford book art...

Did I mention how much fun this was? Oh yeah...I did...sorry.
But c'mon...Rockford is the coolest cat!

MY FIRST BOOK COVER!

This was the coolest gig ever! I was hired to design the front/back covers, and all inside artwork for a 30th Anniversary book on the slickest detective show ever: " The Rockford Files". James Garner himself loved it and signed a bunch of copies for me and included 4 bottles of his personal vinyard wine called " Chateau Jimbo"! It's all downhill now...

Dan Druff and his arch nemesis Cyde Burns...

Here's a different take on our friend Dan Druff, and a design of Cyde Burns. If the show was to be written in an more adult fashion, I could see it looking this way. The Beavis and Butthead 'boiling' line thing would work well for a show about a flakey sheriff living on someones head!

Series Concept 2 - Moo Thai and Lamb Chop: Ninja's for hire

Still in development....I saw it as a ridiculous concept, yet drawn and written to be very serious, and overly violent. Almost a barnyard remake of Power Man and Iron Fist....more to come! YEAH BABY!

Headin West..The Headventures of Dan Druff

Welcome to the Chaotic Canvas!!
A showcase of design, animation and all things art! Were thoughts from my head transfer through lead! Thx for stopping by!

Our first post is a promo poster for a animated tv series about a sheriff named Dan Druff, who unbeknownst to him, lives atop a human head!