Merry merry!

Hi ya'll! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Snow Chengs!


Sorry, there hasn't been many posts lately. We've been prepping to move office spaces and home spaces. And, I've been helping out the Christmas elves out in making 2B stuffs. Check out the companion piece to this piece at 2Bnation. Thanks for checking us out. Be safe and enjoy the holiday season everyone! Cheers!

30s

Sorry, for the distant between postings. It's just been crazy. I've been pushing a lot of designs out digitally. Unfortunately, all of which you probably will never see in the domestic market. Someone thinks that the domestic market can't handle that the characters are "too much of a departure" from the original character art. Oh well, US peoples, this may be the ONLY place you'll get to see this art... EVER

If you scroll back in this blog a little, you'll see the sketch version of this Grover. Stare into his eyes and feel the creepiness... heh heh heh...

He's comin to getcha... he's goonna getcha... heeee's gonna getcha...

This is the sketch version of the Count. You'll see him farther down the line. I'm actually excited to color him up. I felt good about this sketch.

30s

Continuing with the Zombie theme, here are a couple more. These seem to look better in vector. I'm working on them at the same time. Will post them later. Stay tuned!

Oscar more grouchy than usual. I think I'll push him even more when I take him to vector.

Big Bird... I think I'll push him too.

30s

These sketches don't take only 30 minutes anymore. They start out as 30 minute sketches, but I get carried away. You know how it is. Here are a couple more "Zombie" Sesame characters.
This is Abby. I think I'll change her up a little when I take her to vector. A little too intense to be a Zombie.

This is Zoe. I'm liking the little bump for a mouth.

t-shirt

Sesame's dodgeball team(what?!?) approached me about designing them a shirt for their team. All they had was the team name. "The Rubber DUCKies" Get it? Get it? I got it, but another vision popped into my head when I heard the name. I immediately envisioned a angry Rubber Duckie.

So, I went with it. You got to run with your guts, you know? I thought the angry Rubber Duckie should carry a strong enough of a visual to be amusing. They seemed to like it. Woot!

This was thumbnail sketched and carried out in Illustrator.

30s

I watched Shawn of the Dead... again. Love that movie! Then, I did some Sesame zombies. I kept the Sesame's guidelines in mind as I did these sketches... I'm sure I stepped over somewhere. But, I kept it gore free. You know, no brains and guts oozing out. Now they're either zombies or just really messed up by some other means...

Elmo was my favorite of these two.

I like Ernie, but there are a few things I would change if I took it to a finish.

30s.... kind of

It's been too long. Busy busy trying to develop the 2Bs. And, working on getting eyeballs to the Facebook page. Also, known as 2Bnation. Wooot! Actually, got a nice little rush of fully custom 2B requests. Sshweeet! That's my official excuse for why I haven't posted as much as I should be. Oooo, also, working on some cool designs for Sesame. I likey. We'll see if it makes it past the walls of my office... If it gets shot down, you guys will be the first... and ONLY people to see them. Anyway, here are a couple of pieces that I was able to pull together. Enjoy!

We were lucky enough to get to go to Comic Con this year with Sesame. This is my little tribute to the craziness. Storm Trooper Bert.


Here's a little piece still running off of the last sketches I was playing with. Its supposed to be Grover... if its not obvious.

30s

Long time no update. It's been a busy couple of months. Work it coming on strong. Even got a fun design project. Nice! Working hard on 2Bs. If you haven't joined us at 2Bnation, its not too late. And, I'll be going to Comic Con this year for Sesame, so prepping for that. Not representing at a booth, but just checking out the craziness and the wonderful works. I'll be sporting either a Sesame shirt or a 2B shirt, so keep an eye out. Anyway, here's some sketches.


This is Elmo. It doesn't look like him without color, but what's the fun if you always follow the rules?


Oscar! This is my favorite of this bunch. And, yes, the pupils were left out on purpose.


I love playing with Bert. I should have left his pupils out too. Maybe, I'll take them out digitally and see what he looks like...

30s

Lots of craziness going on in life. The good and the bad. But, here are some sketches I got off while in the craziness. In following the Kickass theme, I did a couple more of our characters in the Kickass get up. Enjoy!

Cookie as Big Daddy.

Bert as Red Mist. He's a little harder to read. I need to add some color to them... maybe, later.

30s of week 5-10-10

I finally did some sketching for my 30s. These were inspired by Kick-Ass. Comic form. A friend dropped it off on my desk at work and I couldn't stop reading it. That's what usually happens with comics. Anyway, here are a couple of the lead characters.

Here's Elmo as Kick-Ass himself. These took more than one 30 min session. I just couldn't leave these guys super rough.

Here's Abby as Hit Girl. I was thinking of using Zoe, but I thought Abby's features lend themselves to the character better.

Busy-ness

Sorry, for the lack of posts lately. Life has been busy. Good busy. Main busy-ness were honeymoon and 2Bs. The image you see here is from my honeymoon. Crazy awesome. I got a new camera that I'm playing with, so you might see pix from time to time as I play. As far as 2B goes, I've got a few projects lined up that is keeping me busy just building characters. Plus, I'm developing some new items to go into our online store. And, working on bringing more eyes and fans to the 2B Facebook page. Click on the link or just search for 2Bnation on Facebook. Join us! So, as you can see, 2B is keeping me busy. If I'm not working on the 2B characters, I'm thinking of what can be done to spread the word. Anyway, a lot of good stuff going on, so stay tuned.

30s

Here are my more recent 30s.

I just made my move into the DSLR realm. Because I paid a lot (what I think was "a lot") I feel like I have to shoot something everywhere I go. Bert is in the pose I feel like I'm in all the time these days. :)

This is Ernie is the style covered in the past few 30s. I don't think he came out as well as the some of the others. Eh, you get some, you miss some.

30s

Happy Easter everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed their bunny day. Here are some new 30s.

Not sure why I chose to do Ernie reacting to what comes out of a choco bunny, but it was what came to me when I sat before my Wacom tablet.

Continuing the series of... not sure what the style is... just continuing the look. Count everyone!

Here's Bert in the same style. Cookie is still my favorite of this series... so far.

T-shirt fun!

Here's a little something I did for a concept to be used on a t-shirt that was to be used "in house". One of the other designs I did was picked to be used, so this is as far as this design got. This was actually sketched off of the puppet. So, the arm, leg,and body are more accurate to the actual puppet and not so much the illustrated versions of the characters. Enjoy!

30 of week 3-15-10

Life has been busy lately. If you haven't heard, I've been working on this project called 2Bs. Visit our site at http://my2Bs.com and join us at http://Facebook.com/2Bnation. I've been trying to get the word out to friends and family. It's pretty time consuming to keep things moving in terms of setting up shop, tweaking the site, and spreading the word. Thanks for all the support from all those that have joined us in our silliness and especially to those that have picked up their own 2B items. Anyway, enough of that, here's a sketch I actually got done last week.

The day job has been busy too. I know, its only one sketch. Weak. But, its in color...sort of. And, its Cookie!

New Venture

This last week I started on a little business venture with a friend of mine. Our site is my2Bs.com. It's a design style we've played with for a while. They're called 2Bs. I've done some full custom work with it and thought that it took on likeness pretty well for a design that is quite limited in detail. So, we actually developed the line to work more towards toys at first. But, a business partner flaked out, so the idea sputtered. After some time and some more custom work with the design, the idea for doing custom products came about. We had some great feedback at craft fairs, so we decided to take it up a notch. And, here we are. We're still working the kinks out, but its moving. Stop by for a visit if you like the design. See what you think. Let us know what you think. And, if the mood strikes you, buy something. The piece you see above is our opening image. Something I threw together at the last minute because I didn't want to start the site off with a bunch of text only.

30s of week 3-2-10

Here are some designs inspired by the Inuit art used during the Canadian Olympics. The medals looked like someone ripped them off of a tin can, but the patterns on the medal and on the graphics used throughout were inspiring. I don't think I did it justice, but I tried. Here are a couple of my attempts.


I worked Cookie out in pencil form first. In the end, I liked the pencils more than the digital version.


Then, went to Illustrator to throw some colors on it.


Elmo was actually the one I did first. I did a quick thumbnail sketch and went straight to Illustrator.

Best product EVER!

Well, as far as my designs for Sesame go... This is a product we got in from Japan. I was super excited about these stickers because this is the first product where I felt that the company "got it". They understood how these designs were to be used. And, the quality of the product is on point.


From the packaging...


To the product itself.


This is my favorite line on the sheet. Just the heads.


They're puffy! How awesome is that?


This is the sheet that sits behind the sheet of stickers. They even did a good job on that.

I know they're just stickers. But, they got everything right. From the use of the designs to using a matte finish to making them puffy, everything was done just right. To see a company understand what I had rattling around in my head for these designs is quite amazing. Surprisingly, I don't see that much. Well done, Sun-Star. Well done!

30s of week 2-9

It's been some time. Struggling to keep up with these sketches, but I'm still truckin. I, like many, was caught up with the Late Night wars. Personally, I'm on Conan's side. He moved his whole crew out to LA. Come on! I think he should come back to the east side. It's where he belongs. His show lost its edge on west. Anyway, here's my Sesame take on the hosts.


Here's Bert doing Conan's famous "String Dance".


Ernie as Jay. Imagine his head bobbling a little. Heheh.

More streamlined

These are a little something I've been working on. The idea was to make the characters more animated and energetic. And, since "they" don't like the characters to be too much of a departure from the original, I kept it rather close to model. Just streamlined the details a bit.


Ernie was my favorite. His features are the easiest to smooth out.

Cookie was fun too, but I took him a little farther.


Elmo took me the longest. The way his eyes work into his head gave me trouble. Just one of those days.


Ernie was pretty straight forward. I need to work on him some more.

1st 30s of 2010

Happy new years everyone. I actually got a couple of 30s off even with all the learning how to function again that happens after a week and half off. Well, this year has started off with a new venture. Well, actually, it started end of last year. For some of you, you've already seen what I'm talking about. And, for others, you'll see soon enough. Nothing big. Just a fun little project I've been working on with a friend. Got to keep yourself laughing, right? Pics to come soon. Now, here are a couple sketchy sketches.


Bert as a new year's baby!


I traveled over our break from work. As some of you know, I have a Canon G9. I'm quite pleased with it. But, as I traveled, I saw more and more people with these huge cameras. Most of them didn't appear to even know what to do with them. But, I'm finding out that there is a image quality difference between my camera and the DSLRs. Simply due to the lens and sensor differences. Damn! Now, I'm working up a healthy big camera envy. Is it worth it?