Santa Don't Miss Or Else.

Santa Don't Miss Or Else, or SDMOE, as I like to call it, is a brand new game made just for you by Portland Studios! Just in time for Christmas!

Mark made up the idea, I made all the art for it, Mark made it into a game, and the venerable Ben Kammer wrote and performed the music.

Take the Rudolph 2 for a spin! Drop some presents into the chimneys before the time runs out. Compete for the high score!

And for goodness sakes, don't miss -- or else.

Merry Christmas from your friends at Portland Studios.

Illustration Friday : "Voices"

Wow, what a potentially creepy topic. I mean, voices, just voices? Like the disembodied sort?

Who knows.

I'm currently working hard on what is probably the largest personal project I've done so far. It's around 50 pages, told in a graphic novel format.

Back towards the end of summer I was invited to contribute to the new volume of Flight. I've been at it at nights since late September.

My story is about Larry Walters and it's a mostly fictional adaptation of his life, his childhood, travel with a weather balloon, and what happens in the sky. In a way, you could say that the way some people hear voices, Larry (in my version at least) sees things in the sky. But only when his glasses fall off.

I've begun piecing all the art together so most of them the edges aren't clean, and a few I've had to place into panels, but over all it's going very well and I'm pleased with the way it's turning out.

Below you'll find one finished page, a finished spread that comes a page or two after the first one, and the raw watercolor underpainting of the first page. Enjoy.

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Also! I'm doing a drawing to win a drawing!
Check out the details to enter and potentially win a drawing by me here.
Details towards the bottom of that post, in bold.

vote for my wife!!!

Hey everyone! I'm very proud to tell you that my little wife is currently a finalist in a Holiday Entertaining contest. She needs votes to win.

Fortunately voting is incredibly simple. No registering, no signing up, not anything like that. All you do is leave a comment on their voting page with this :

B. Retro Christmas Favor / Place Card

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That's it! It's fast, easy, and should only take a second of your time.

Click here to comment and vote please!

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Here's a little deal I'll make with you -- if you vote, leave a comment here as well and I'll enter your name into a drawing to win a drawing. It'll be awesome!

Voting ends TODAY Friday, December 19, 2008 at 11:55pm PST

Thanks in advance. I know Erin would appreciate it.

On a side note, I promise to post progress from my mysterious and huge personal project I've been references in the last few posts. I'll get something up over the weekend. Hang in there!

my famous girl [UPDATE]

Erin got a hot mention on Design*Sponge which, I'm told, is the most powerful design blog on the internet. Awesome!

diy project: erin’s winter scene placecard favor


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Wow, as if that's not enough, Erin's also gotten herself entered into a contest here :


They're going to be picking 10 finalists to be voted upon [I'll keep you posted on that as well!]

They at least picked her entry put up as the photo on the "we've got a lot of entries to go through" post.

The above link also contains a link to quite a few more photos of our recent Christmas party.

Check 'em out! I'm so dang proud!

hey look it's a post!

Hey folks, thanks for sticking through in the lean times. There's tons going on behind the scenes here, at work and at home so hang on a little longer if you please.

I wanted to give you a little glimpse of some of what I've been doing at work the last few days. We're working on some shorts (animations) and I've been making the model of Inar, the dragon (from one of my stories) --anyway, here's a look at the rig -- all 50 some layers of it. Each piece of underbelly armor is it's own layer and the neck is made up of about a dozen layers of rows of scales. The idea being that in AfterEffects there's ways to manipulate these layers into a form of animation. So! That's about it for now. Thanks again,

Cory

still fighting

That's right, fighting the good fight. I'm about 10 painted and finished spreads into my project, that marks about a little better than a third of the story completely done. Maybe close to half but not quite. I'm handling all this in the hours after work, so it's all late nights.

Speaking of work, I'm doing something fun between projects right now, we're making little animated shorts for Portland. Below you'll find the storyboards (sans music -- I didn't want to post the temp track I used. Just know it has rushing strings and sounds like the most beautiful music in the world) for my first piece.

You'll also find some of the sketches. Essentially, this is just a little beat of Jack and Inar, one of my stories. It has Jack (the boy) riding on Inar's (the dragon) back in the night sky. Jack stands, walks against the wind to Inar's head. We hope to have this completed soon. I just wanted to post the progress. Enjoy!

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where the heck --

have I been?


I think these last few weeks have been the longest in a while where I have left my blog untouched; my thanks to you who have stopped by while the lights have been off. I am sorry. At least I did not sit on your house. And I'm not a giant.

Erin and I came down with the stomach flu over Thanksgiving and that knocked us out for a couple days. When we got back I had two deadlines to finish that week and my harddive at work died on me, practically in my hands (fortunately I had most everything important backed up) to boot, I'm in the middle of the largest personal project I've ever done.

In a few weeks I'll be able to post some about it, but until then, and to thank you for your patience, I'd like to leave you with one page. One page out of about 50.

This is just the watercolor and pencil; I haven't applied the digital process yet, color, more values, etc. Just the raw watercolor.


Thanks for waiting.

st. george

Here's a quick doodle I wanted to toss in before Thanksgiving. It's been sitting on my desk here for a while staring at me asking to be posted.

Have a good Thanksgiving!

Completed tree mural.

This afternoon I painted a mural for a couple that are having a little girl.

Behold, the steps of the project:

The approved rough.

The wall with nothing on it.

You can barely, barely see the light pencil I drew on to guide the shape of the tree.

The grass.

Another view of the grass.

The trees in progress.

A badly comp.ed photo of the whole wall, just the trees and grass painted.

Wide view of most of the leaves painted.

The completed mural.

In the end I gave them two extra trees, rather than just the one. The wall had the space for it.

I enjoyed painting. I think the project took about 5 hours total, from the roughs to the last leaf.

Congratulations again, Will and Alison!

Beatrice Portinari

Beatrice Portinari.

detail.

Illustration Friday : "Opinion"

My opinion, and it is just that -- what people ought to do is work hard and make things instead of watching TV.

But if you need to commission a giant portrait of yourself, well, who could blame you. At least you have a high opinion of yourself.


Sorry for the drought of postings this week, I've been embroiled in a fairly large undertaking for the past two months and won't be done with it until about mid-January.

As I'm able I'll let you know about it. Until then, you can check out Justin's killer Hobbit pieces over on his blog. They are the best thing he's ever done. And I have accepted no money for saying that.

Except this $5 bill I just found.

Cheers.

painted tree mural r.2

Alright! We've got an approved design (the one on the left) with a sponge-like painting technique similar to the one on the right.

I'll likely begin work in a week or so. I'll keep you posted.

Tree mural

In a few weeks I'll be starting a mural for a couple that are having a little girl. I'll be painting a tree on the wall in her (future) bedroom. The tree itself will be flat brown, the walls are pink, and I'm interested in painting white leaves and white grass.

I'll be blogging the progress and we'll see what happens!

Sagittarius

By popular demand -- Sagittarius!

Sagittarius is the ninth astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Sagittarius.

In western astrology, the sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes. Sagittarius is classed as a positive or masculine, extrovert sign; its element is fire and its quality is mutable. Sagittarius is ruled by the planet Jupiter. Individuals born when the sun was in this sign are considered Sagittarius individuals.

Under the tropical zodiac, the sun enters Sagittarius around November 22-23 and exits around December 21. Under the sidereal zodiac, it is currently there roughly from December 16 to January 14.

Virgo

Virgo is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Virgo.

In western astrology, the sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes. In astrology, Virgo is considered a "feminine", negative (introvert) sign. It is also considered an earth sign and is one of four mutable signs. Virgo is ruled by the planet Mercury, but Ceres has been strongly suggested as the ruler of Virgo for some modern astrologers.

Individuals born when the Sun was in this sign are considered Virgo individuals. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Virgo roughly from August 23 to September 22. Under the sidereal zodiac, it is currently there roughly from September 17 to October 17.

Virgo is the only zodiac sign represented by a female.

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According to one interpretation, the Virgo constellation depicts Astraea, the virgin daughter of the god Zeus and the goddess Themis. Astraea was known as the goddess of justice, and was identified as this constellation due to the presence of the scales of justice (Libra) nearby, and supposedly ruled the world with her wise ways until mankind became so callous that she returned to the skies, disgusted. Virgo is also identified with Persephone, daughter of Demeter (goddess of agriculture and guardian of marriage). Persephone was the goddess of innocence and purity, then later on became the Queen of the Underworld, when she was abruptly snatched away by Hades.

Another possible myth is one about Asclepius the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek mythology. He was the son of Apollo and Coronis. His mother was killed for being unfaithful to Apollo and was laid out on a funeral pyre to be consumed, but the unborn child was rescued from her womb. From this he received the name Asklepios "to cut open." Apollo carried the baby to the centaur Chiron who raised Asclepius and instructed him in the art of healing and hunting.

The astrological symbol of Virgo is said to represent the arms and torso of the virgin holding a sheaf of wheat.

paper studies

We got in a stock of paper samples the other day.

I spent a little time messing with them this morning. I really liked the BFK Rives 400 gsm. It took the paint in a way that felt good. They all felt good but the 400 was great.

A point for you if you can name the movie that the bottom left study came from.

Leo

Leo is the fifth astrological sign of the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Leo.

In western astrology, this sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes. In astrology, Leo is considered to be a "masculine", positive (extrovert) sign. It is also considered a fire sign and is one of four fixed signs.

Leo is ruled by the Sun.

Individuals born when the Sun was in this sign are considered Leo individuals. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Leo roughly from July 23 to August 22. Under the sidereal zodiac, it is currently there roughly from August 17 to September 16.

Gemini

The star twins.

This was one a little challenging because the only reference I came across seemed to imply that Gemini should be represented with two long haired dudes hugging or holding hands. Twins indeed.

In the end I found a solution that I was pretty pleased with.

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Gemini is the third astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Gemini. In western astrology, this sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes. In astrology, Gemini is considered a "masculine", positive (extrovert) sign. It is also considered an air sign, and is one of four mutable signs. Gemini has been closely associated with the planet Mercury and is considered to be ruled by it.

Individuals born when the Sun was in this sign are considered Gemini individuals. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in the sign of Gemini roughly from May 21 to June 21. Under the sidereal zodiac, it is currently there roughly from June 15 to July 15.

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The constellation is associated with the story of Castor and Polydeuces. They were the brothers of Helen of Sparta and traveled with Jason on the Argo. In the myth the twins shared the same mother but had different fathers which meant that Polydeuces was immortal and Castor was mortal. When Castor died, Polydeuces asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together and they were transformed into the Gemini constellation.

dragon : reprise.

Remember when I was hung up on dragons for a while? Me too.

Here's one I never got around to finishing. It's got a dead baby dragon in it and somewhere along the way I lost steam. I was on my 6 or 7th piece and had been at dragons for over a month.

Probably an OK time to lay off.

Aries.

Aries, the ram, is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac. Originating from the constellation of Aries. In western astrology, this sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes. In astrology, Aries is considered a "masculine", positive (extrovert) sign. It is also considered a fire sign, and is one of four cardinal signs. Aries is ruled by the planet Mars. Being the first sign in the zodiac, Aries is associated with the astrological 1st house.

Individuals born when the Sun was in this sign are considered Aries individuals. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Aries roughly from March 21 to April 19, by definition beginning at vernal equinox. Under the sidereal zodiac, it is currently there roughly from April 15 to May 15.

The mornings' post brought to you by Wikipedia.

ursus arctos horibillus - illustrated.

My friend Ben recently wrote a list full of wisdom over on the Portland blog,

"Top Ten Things to Never Do With
or Without an Ursus Arctos Horriblis."

I decided to illustrate it. Enjoy.

Capricorn, the sea-goat.

Capricorn.

I recently completed a series of Zodiac signs for a project here at work. Unfortunately for my poor sea-goat, that portion of the project fell through but fortunately for you dear reader, because now you get to see a few of them.

I'll be posting them through out the week, peppered in and amongst regular postings.

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Unrelatedly, Justin has begun a series of posts on his "Hobbit" pieces. Hop over and check 'em out!


Cheers.

Cory

robo suit.

That was last night.

boo! -- 5/5 !!!

Frightful, vacant pumpkin eyes!

Click the top banner to see my entire week of Halloween posts.

Or, if that's too much work, I've got them all archived here... with thumbnails! :

boo! -- 4/5

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boo! -- 3/5

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boo! -- 2/5

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boo! -- 1/5