30s of week 12-15

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas. June and I spent some time in suburbia. It was a nice few days away from the city. Tons of home cooked food. Yum! Anyway, on with the sketches. These are my late post from the last week before Christmas. I was in the Christmas mood and did a series of sketches with some touch of Christmas. Hope you likes!


I was a little grumpier side on this day. Who better to represent this than Oscar?


I was in a better mood here. Here's Cookie giving what he loves most.


Prarie in the Christmas spirit.


Here I figured out that more dramatic views take me longer than my allotted 30 minutes. I needed just a little longer to work out the perspective kinks. But, the idea is there.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas and a safe New Years!
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30s of week 12-8

It's been a little bit. I was in Singapore. The food is awesome! It was hard getting back into things when I got back. Not only the time difference, but the work just piled up. I tried to get back into the 30s. I got started, but it was hard to keep up. I did get a couple done. I know, I'm a friggin slacker. But, here's what I got.


I started with this one because I enjoyed the food in Singapore so much that this is how we spent most of our time there. With our chopsticks out and picking up food.


Then, BAM!!! In the middle of the week, I got hit with a spell of vertigo. Holy crap! That has got to be one of the most annoying conditions. I got up one morning and couldn't stand up straight. This sketch was done once I got back on my feet. Somewhat...
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Uniqlo UT Grand Prix 09

Uniqlo held a shirt design contest a while back. I designed ten shirts, but was only able to complete three due to deadlines. From what I saw online, it seems that I could have just entered my rough sketches and it would have been fine. So, here are two of my three shirts I entered. The red one actually made it into the second round. Narrowing from 14,584 designs from 75 countries to 1000 designs from 44 countries. I'm one of 43 from the US. I'm sure there would have been more if more people knew about it. Next round will be narrowed down to 200 designs. I don't think I'll make it into that round. But, who knows. People like what they like. Of my entries, I definitely thought my character shirt had the best chance. So, that shows what I know. Anyway, check em out. Here's the link: http://ut.uniqlo.com/utgp/?lang=us#/search/ There have been a lot of problems with this link. It's hit or miss. I hope it works for you.


The idea was to just create space with a simple shape. Just a circle. I was playing with a design at work and it inspired this visual.


This was my favorite of the three shirts I entered. The character started as just the front view. The back view was created for this shirt. I like this enough that I might have to just make it on my own.
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30s of week 11-17

The insanity continues. But, I managed to squeeze out 3 sketches. They were done in the very simple style I started last week. They weren't as successful as their humanoid friends. Check em out. Next week will be crazy as well. And, it'll be a short week due to Turkey Day. If I don't post by then, have a great Turkey Day everyone!


This is probably my favorite of the week. Still needs work, but at least he's somewhat cute.


This is Grover. Eh, just not there.


This is supposed to Elmo. I turned him to 3/4 and it just all fell apart. I lost my focus and I couldn't catch it again before the end of the session.
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30s of week 11-10

My weeks have been crazy. There is no warm up in the morning. More like hitting the mornings at a all out run. So, its been hard to get the morning 30s out. But, I was able to stabilize a little towards the end of the week and get a couple sketches out. Here they are.


These sketches were based on a cute design I spotted in passing. This is Bert. I was very pleased on how he came out. He has a nice Bert feel.


This is supposed to be Ernie. I felt that he didn't come out as good as I wanted him to. Something about his head shape just isn't working.
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30s of week 11-03

Wow, its been a crazy week. We have a new president! Not only a new president, but a new chance. Hope. The emotions and feelings that the election brought was felt world wide. It really is quite a thing to be alive for. But, life continues as it is. And, as such, here are the 30s of this week.


I didn't do a sketch on Monday. There was just too much going on. So, Tuesday's sketch was my first of the week. This was the feeling of the day. Everyone and their mothers asked if you had voted.


And, this was my feeling on Wednesday. That's sign language for the letter "O". Not everyone got that. I think very little people got it actually...


And, back to the normal. Here's a Super Grover done for a fellow worker.


Ugh, this is how I felt on Friday. From work to personal paperwork. I just felt like I was buried under paperwork.
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30s 0f week 10-27

Happy Halloween! This weeks sketches all have a Halloween-ish theme. It was fun to do some not so soft and cute sketches. Dirty them up a little. Gore it up a little. Nice. These were done on the Cintiq. I still haven't been able to get the lines as fine and exact as a traditional pencil line. But, its nice to sketch loose. Enjoy!


I started with making Bert into a zombie. Thought it was a pretty common straight forward idea.


Someone mentioned Michael Jackson's Thriller. And, this image popped in my mind. It felt good. Elmo Thriller.


I saw a commercial for The Great Pumpkin and couldn't resist this one. Ernie in a Charlie Brown costume. This was my friendlier one of the week.


I wanted to go a little more dramatic on this last sketch of the week. So, I went with Grover. That is actually stuffing coming out of his head. Heh heh... Happy Halloween everyone!
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30s of week 10-20

This week has been pretty insanely hectic. So, only two 30s were done. This week I did some character exploration with Bert. Just exploring a chunkier style and playing with proportions.


This is a much more subtle approach. Slight changes were made to his features.


I pushed the proportions a little farther on this Bert. With the same chunky features, but with some wonkier proportions. I like this one much better.

30s of week 10-13

This week was a hectic week. That's why these are so late. Just hadn't had time to post. Anyway, this week I did poses from Heroes. I had some trouble picking the series back up after the writer's strike, but its getting good again. So, here are the poses.


Here's Bert doing the grab and throw.


Ernie doing the mind read.


Ernie doing the celebration after traveling through time.


Ernie doing the skull cutting. Heh heh, I like this one.

30s of week 10-6

Okay, this week was a rough sketch week. It started off okay, but it just all fell apart. I almost didn't want to post sketches this week. But, I didn't want to show just my successes. I thought it would only be fair if I posted my failures as well as my successes. So, here it goes.


This is my only success this week. Grover as Dhalism from Street Fighter. I enjoyed figuring out the perspective of his leg.


This is Oscar as Blanka... not a great success. I was more excited when I started this piece. It just got away from me and I didn't have time to go back to fix it.


Okay, this is not a Sesame Character. I decided to attempt a puppet version of Barack Obama... I was okay with this one, but it could use work.


This was my nightmare piece of the week. It was supposed to be Mccain. Supposed to be. I didn't want to quit on this one, but time was running out. Sigh, you win some you lose some. On to the next sketch, right?

30s of week 9-29

This week's inspiration came from a blog post that I happened across. It was a post of Dhalism from Street Fighter. It conjured up memories of mastering my first hadouken at the neighborhood 7Eleven. And, the feeling of defeating another person in head to head digital fighting glory. Hells yeah, nerded the hells out. And, to top it off, the Capcom SF art was great. Very inspirational. So, here's my Street Fighter inspired poses.


Here's Bert as Ryu. Still one of my favorite characters. Got to love the originals.


Ernie as Ken. I hate this sketch. Pose is weak. Effect is weak. I just hated the pose, but I said I'd post everything. So, there it is.


The last sketch left me feeling horrible, but I knew this one would work. Cookie as E.Honda. I realized afterwards that I should have made him grabbing cookies. It would have been much more amusing. Oh well.


I had a few more ideas, but I wanted to get a girl up in there. So, I made a Chun Li Zoe. I was a little hesitant at first. I wasn't sure I could cover the details in just 30 minutes. But, I think it came out aaaight.
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30s of week 9-22

This week, as in many weeks, I was trolling the interwebs. I happened across an awesome design. Nanospore. They seem to have been around for a couple of years already, but I've only just happened across them. And, it seems as tho they've fallen off the face of the earth since 2007. Everything I find on them hasn't been touched since 07. If anyone finds any more updated info on these guys, please let me know. I found their art very inspirational. So, this week I did a series of some of the Sesame characters as Nanospores. Enjoy!


Bert was pretty easy to translate.


Ernie too. Tho, I'd play with his proportions some more if I were to refine him.


Hmmm... I don't know if this works so well. This is supposed to be the Elmo version. Maybe, if he were colored up, it would be more obvious.


I decided to try a different form with the the Big Bird design. I just couldn't see the eyes and beak on the top of the structure.


The Count definitely needs more work. The essense of the spore is almost lost.


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30s of week 9-15

Whao, I forgot to post my sketches from last week. It was a busy weekend. It just slipped my mind. So, here they are. This weeks sketches were done on the Cintiq. I'm still gettin used to the thing. I still greatly prefer my pencils!


My flight back from San Fran inspired this Ernie. My girlfriend and I got upgraded to business class off her points. All I got to say is that business class is ridiculously nicer than coach. It just doesn't seem fair.


This Elmo was inspired by the art of David Flores. Not quite enough time in 30 minutes to fine tune the shapes, but the idea is there. Check out the awesome works of David Flores at davidfloresart.com


I was drawing a blank this morning. That seems to happen a lot. So, I just started sketching and this is what I ended up with.


I felt that I was spending too much time with the cute friendly ideas, so I just did a little angry Bert. Hope you likes!

30s of week 9-8

Last week I was in San Francisco. Taking a little vacation. It was my first time in San Fran. It was fun. Jam packed days. Too many hills. But, still fun. So, this weeks 30s are inspired by my trip. Here they are.


This one was inspired by our up hill treks. There were a lot of hills.


And, there was a lot of picture taking. Funny poses and all.


Lots of good eatin.


Some souvenir gettin.


Our days were pretty packed out. And, there was a lot of walking since we did San Fran by foot. So, this is how our days ended. We would get back to the hotel exhausted. And, that's about how our days went.

30s of week 8-25

Here are last weeks 30s a little late due to me being on vaca. They were inspired by the gold medal ping pong (table tennis) match that I watched late one night during the olympics. The number one and two seated players battling it out with an entire nation cheering them on. Awesome! Anyway, I love myself some ping pong, so I wanted to dedicate a week to a ping pong sequence. Enjoy!


I always thought it was funny how the pros serve.


This image I did in Sketchbook Pro with a Cintiq. We got them for work. So, in order to force myself to practice, I started using it for the sketches. Needs a lot of refinement, but it was fun.


Still figuring out the basics like as adjusting the preferences so paper resolution is what I like.


Here’s Bert taking a shot to the head. Those are always funny. I really liked using the marker effect.


Knocked out. This doesn’t really happen in ping pong, but I had to stop the sequence somewhere.