FCBD / Labyrinth

 

Here is a terribly exciting (and massive) announcement. Friends, I get to do Labyrinth. Indeed, Henson's Labyrinth.

I'll be talking more about it in the coming months but suffice it to say I get to work once again with the extraordinary publisher Archaia (you may remember my Fraggle Rock work for them a year or so back).

You can read the entire press release about the Free Comic Book Day.

For your convenience I took the liberty of highlighting this one part I really liked:

 

Ok! Well, I'm still floored by the news, glad I can finally mention it!

Can't wait.

FaerieCon 2011

 

I really didn't know what to expect from FaerieCon. I was an invited guest at the convention and asked to speak about some of my experiences in animation. There were a lot of really awesome people going to be there (Charles Vess, Brian Froud) people that I look up to and admire their work immensely. So hey, why not!

Well, it was an absolute blast! We had a great time, everyone was so kind, and the whole thing was so much fun. From getting to hang out with some of my illustrative heroes to awesome concerts, FaerieCon delivered. A huge thanks to Robert Gould for inviting me.

Here's a little look at our time there.

My booth. Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures of anything else. 

Nearly sold through The Hidden People! If you want one, act fast.

I brought several of my originals.

The costumes were pretty great.

And the nightly concerts were out of control fun.

Post-FaerieCon we visited family as well as traveled to the Brandywine Museum.

This is the path that N. C. Wyeth built and walked up every day.

The Brandywine itself.

I must be done with the river. Time to go.

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Here are a few pictures from Erin's blog post about our trip.You can read Erin's post here.

Erin got her face painted. Aw yeah!

My great uncle and I being hilarious.

I also sat on a giant chair at one point.

This concludes my FaerieCon, family visit, Wyeth trip post.

9/10ths

Over the last year or so I've worked on a project for a couple of really great guys who work in the British film industry, one is a producer, the other is an editor.

It's been a great experience and I love that I've gotten the chance to help them bring it to life. They're starting to release some of the work. Here's a look at some of it.

 Above. Some of my work from the Prologue section of the book.

Below. Some of the actual pages and panels of the graphic novel.

 

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You can find out more about them over on their Facebook page. Also, you can see a little more of the work I've done for them over there as well.

And you can also check out their main website, Reality in Dreams and see some of the other projects they have going on (and maybe find some more of my work hidden in there!)

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Alex and Greg have been some of the best people I've ever gotten the chance to work with and I look forward to many more projects together!

sign & doodle

I sign and doodle on the title page of each copy of The Hidden People. Each is unique though each is usually some variation of one of the tree people, some old tree man. He's quick to draw and I have fun.

I particularly enjoyed a couple with my last order and took some pictures.

Enjoy!

You can pick up The Hidden People from my shop.

Breath of Embers

My humble dragons are in some mighty company at the new Gallery Nucleus (@gallerynucleus) group show, Breath of Embers: Art of Dragons.

How I wish I could get out there are see this show! Nucleus always puts together the best shows and I'm so pleased to have been able to join in again. (Huge thanks to Wade!)

Here are my three pieces in the show.

 

I regret that due to projects and scheduling I wasn't able to complete the new pieces I had planned for the show. At some point I'll bring them to life but there's just too much on plate at the moment.

Fraggle Rock giveaway!

[Update] Ok! The giveaway is won, congratulations Ryan!

Above. The pen and colored pencil doodle I have made for one lucky winner.

Ok! Fraggle giveaway time! 

To enter the contest to win this autographed, doodled hardcover edition of Fraggle Rock Vol. 2 simply comment on this post! For fun you can comment with your favorite Jim Henson character.

I'll only be counting the comments placed on this post (not Twitter or Facebook).

Commenting will be open all weekend so hopefully anyone that would want to will be able to enter. I'll cut off the comments Monday morning. I'll then randomly select and announce the winner.

Thanks everyone, have fun!

To see a collection of blog posts detailing my experience with Fraggle Rock click here.

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Special thanks to Archaia, Tim Beedle, and Joe LeFavi!

Fraggle!

Hey you guys remember when I got to do a Fraggle story? You can find the collection of posts detailing my experience here.

Well, I was recently sent some copies of the book, the very nice hard cover edition, and I decided to do a giveaway!

This FRIDAY (I'll do another post actually on Friday, early Friday morning.) I'll be giving away an autographed, Fraggle doodled hardcover edition of Fraggle Rock Vol 2.

Don't bother commenting now (unless you just can't help it) because I'll only be counting the comments actually placed on the giveaway post going up Friday.

Commenting will be open all weekend so hopefully anyone that would want to will be able to enter. I'll cut off the comments Monday morning and announce the winner!

Aw yeah, Fraggles!

One Quarter Ninja

Recently I got the chance to work on a really cool iPad book called One Quarter Ninja (@1quarterninja)

I've gotten permission to post some of the art and I'll do that over the coming days. Most of the work I'll show however will be nearer to the app's release so you can be sure you'll be hearing about OQN again.

Here's a look at one of the more dynamic shots of the "one quarter ninja" himself.

 

Rough.

 

Final.

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Since this is for an iPad book, most every element in the collection of work is layered. My experience with the animated projects I've gotten to do has been invaluable in learning how to work not only layered but quickly and not sacrifice any of the quality.

This was a super fun project to do since one of my biggest thrills as a draw-er is getting to do figure work. For the most part I'd rather draw people (or creatures) and organic things over industrial objects any day. I got to do many, many poses of the ninja who is simply a dark, knocked out figure on a white background so there's no hiding imperfections in the drawing or anatomy. The silhouette is what's most important.

I loved the chance to bring this book to life in this way and I can't wait for you to see the finished product.

Bit.Trip contest!

Update! Here are my winnings! Thank you again, @tinycartridge, @aksysgames, @GaijinGames, and @BitTrip!

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If you've read this blog for any length of time you know that I love Nintendo. I admire the company itself almost as much as the games they produce.

For the most part I really only stick with the major Nintendo developed and published titles (Mario, Zelda, Pokémon) for several reasons, one of which being I simply don't have that much time to enjoy video games and with a Nintendo game I'll have a solid experience that I'll love. Everyone once in a while though, I'll happen upon a game developed by another and fall in love with that as well.

One of my favorite new series like this is Bit.Trip. The games play like love letters to the classic video games of the past. Each game in the series is almost elemental, they abstract and distill the building blocks of classic games into a fresh, new experience.

My favorite one in the series is Bit.Trip Runner. It's a terrifyingly challenging game. It also has some great music. See below.

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Recently a game site, Tiny Cartridge, had an art contest to win the new collection of Bit.Trip games for the Wii and 3DS. I thought, man, I got to do something if for no other reason than to show my love for the series. Well, hey, I'm happy to report I won one of the grand prizes!

 

Here's a better look at the piece I did for it:

 

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And here's the moment from the game that inspired the piece. I wanted to do a more "realized" version of the blocky, pixelated scene. (Not to try an improve it in any way, mind you, there's not really anything to improve with pixels, they're perfect. I love them.)

 

Though actually I did another version of the piece too, one where CommanderVideo (that's the little fellow) was developed kind of along the same lines as the skull-monster. I made him more of an astronaut, or something. See below.

In the end I couldn't decide and sent in both to let the judges figure it out.

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Well, thanks again to Tiny Cartridge and Gaijin Games for picking my piece! It's an honor and I'm really looking forward to another Bit.Trip!

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PS If you're interested here's my original thumbnail for the piece. 

The booth

Here are some shots of my booth at Indie Craft Parade.

It was such a fun show; I'm sad it's over. Probably why I keep posting pictures of it.

If you're not sick of hearing about it yet check these out.

Photos by Peter Crane.

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 Photos by Eternal Image Photography.