Sesame Bits Pencils

Here are the pencils for the most recent Sesame Bits comic that I worked on. This gag was inspired off the DVD Elmo the Musical which this comic was released to support. Usually, I post up a cleaned up version of the pencils. Meaning its all nicely on one sheet, but decided to post the way it really is this time. Just thought its better to show how it really is.

Saint Paddy's 2B

Here's a little piece I did for my 2B project for Saint Patrick's Day.  This is a little behind the scenes view of the file being built.  All those little points are what makes up the image.  Go to the 2B Facebook page to see the finished piece.  And throw us a like if you haven't already.   

I went back and forth on what to put in his thought bubble.  Pot of gold?  Rainbow with a pot of gold?  Mug of brew?  Cupcake with red and green sprinkles?  Then it came to me.  The thing I look forward to on this greenest of days, a shamrock shake.  So there it is.  Hope everyone is having a happy and safe Saint Patrick's Day.

Sesame Bits: Old School 3

This is the Sesame Bits that I did for Sesame Workshop's Old School 3 DVD release back in 2012.

The Old School 3 DVD covered the 80's.  It was fun for me to look up some of the iconic "characters" that I grew up with and figure out how to incorporate them into one outfit.

Here's a close up of Grover with the 80's gear on.  From top to bottom:  Inspector Gadget hat, D.M.C glasses, Ghostbusters pack and trap, Sesame jersey styled after the Chicago Bull's 80's jersey, Transformers Optimus Prime arm, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle arm, Air Jordans, and Smurf leg.  There was plenty more I wanted to add, but these were my favs. 

Space mercenary

This is a piece I did for a ToysREvil.net event.  The request was for a intergalactic space mercenary that had a specific location on earth to...explore. 

 

So this was my little soldier that I came up with.  Here you can see the the cleaned up blue pencil and inked versions of the piece.  What great city is he exploring you ask?  Do you even need to ask?  NYC of course!

 Here's a close up of a NYPD service piece that he..."acquired" in his explorations. 

Close up of his communication system.  Of course, its on his arm.  Where else would it be?  To you NYers, there's a little something extra in there for ya.  

Chalking: The New Portal

I recently worked on a chalk piece for Sesame Workshop.  It was a piece to help launch their new portal.  They requested Cookie be used.  So, here is what I came up with.  See the process below.  

 

  This is me hesitating to touch a clean black wall.  

 Once I get over the ruining black wall feeling, I lay down my rough lines lightly with white chalk.

Cleaning up the rough lines and putting in an outline.

I didn't know what I was going to do with the fur texture till I started filling it in.  The other option was a flat blue.  I figured I'd challenge myself a little and go with the strands. 

 This is Molly putting in the font work.

 This is the finished piece.  Cookie having fun with the new portal on his new PineApple(yeh, that's what that is) computer. 

 

Here's a time lapse-y video of the process.  Enjoy!

New old piece

Happy New Years folks!  I'm welcoming in the new year with a new post...of a piece I did in 2012.  This was a piece that Sesame requested for a thank you gift to their Bangladesh co-production.  I had done a similar piece for the Indonesia co-pro a little while back.  Check it out here.   

This is the finished piece.  It's a line drawing done in blue col-erase pencil.  Four of Sesame's main characters(Big Bird, Grover, Cookie, and Elmo) and four of the Bangladesh Sesame's characters(Halum, Tuktuki, Ikri Mikri, and Shiku).    

This is a peek at part of the process. This is an image of the clean line part of the process.  The rough sits underneath as reference.  You can also see the start of me exploring the thicker outline. 

 

Here's a close up on the sign and light post.  That's the Bangladesh street sign.  I had no idea what the sign says, so I just had to straight trace it.  I had to be really careful to not accidentally make it say something it's not supposed to.  That would be a problem.  

Here's a close up on the center of the piece.  Cookie gnawing on the light post.  This is further along in the process.  Almost finished.  Just added a few more details after this and it was ready to be framed and presented to the Bangladesh team.  Hope they enjoyed it. 

NYCC - Steampunk Oscar

Hey folks!  Here's a piece I did for Sesame for Mightyfine for NYCC.  Continuing with last years steampunk theme, I went with Oscar.  It's actually one that I wanted to do last year, but just didn't have the time for.  I conceptualized, penciled, and inked this piece. 

This is the "inked" version of the piece.  I used "" because only the outline was ever inked.  The interior lines are all tight pencils.

As you can see this is the color version of the piece.  The colors were done by the talented designer Vanessa.  She put in a little extra grit for Oscar. 

And this is the finished product.  This was given to us by the fine folks at Mightyfine.  So if you want this shirt or just want to see it in person AND you're at NYCC, take a stroll over to the Mightyfine booth.  It's one of the displayed shirts. 

Sesame Bits - Preschool is Cool

These are the pencils for the most recent Sesame Bits comic.

The idea was built on the bit on the DVD that Rosita loves to play hide and seek.  Then, thinking of what would be the best way to hide.  What better than poofing into thin air?  Yeh, that gag.  Enjoy!    

NYCC sneak peek

Here's a little something I'm working on for NYCC.



Hint: it's a continuation of a set I worked on for last year. Stay tuned to see the progress.

Sesame Bits - Elmo's Alphabet Challenge

Here's the pencils to the latest Sesame Bits comic strip.  This was done for the release of the Elmo's Alphabet Challenge DVD.  

I really enjoyed work on this one because of the gaming aspect of it.  As soon as the idea came to me I knew that Ernie had to be playing the original GameBoy.  If I could add sound to the comic strip, I would have had the Tetris music playing or Super Mario Land or Double Dragon.  The strip was great fun to draw because of the different versions of Bert that I was able to explore.  But, I got to say, drawing Ernie playing the GameBoy was the highlight.  I know that pose well.  See, all that time spent playing GameBoy did come in useful!  Game on! 

Sesame Bits sneak peek

Here's a sneak peek at the next Sesame Bits. Gaming!


You might recognize the hand held system. I went old school and borrowed from my past.

Sesame Bits - Elmo's Magic Numbers

Here are the pencils for the new Sesame Bits just posted yesterday on the Sesame Facebook page.  

For this strip I designed a new character style to be used only with the Sesame Bits strips in order to give the strips their own look.  So new that I'm still tweaking the designs.  Deadlines are deadlines, so I had to use the designs before they were totally tweaked to my liking.  Well, Cookie and Bert were done.  Still working on other characters.  I'll post character lineup later.  The strip seems to be getting some good feedback.  Go check it out if you haven't yet.  Enjoy!

Zombies on NewEra/Sanrio caps

When I found out this was happening I was quite excited see my work on New Era caps.  Then, to find out that Sanrio pushed the zombies, I was beside myself.  New Era teamed up with Sanrio teaming up with Sesame to bring you these zombie caps.  Unfortunately, I think these are exclusive to Japan.  You may be able to hunt them down if you check on New Era's Japan site.  I think Cookie and Oscar may be sold out already. 

 Cookie

Bert

 Elmo

 Ernie

Oscar

Character names raised on the back of the caps. 
 

With matching New Era logos on the sides of the caps.

Chalking - Grover MJ

I was asked to work on a chalk piece for Sesame's health and wellness Broadway dance program.  I'm not much of a dancer...at all.  But, when I think of dance, one individual comes to mind immediately.  MJ.  He had many iconic poses, but this one was always one of my favorite.  So, I decided to put Grover into this iconic pose. 

This is the planning stage.  Sketchy sketch.  I always have to work out a sketch before I actually put chalk to surface.  Got to get my head around it before actually attempting it. 

 Here's me "rubbing" the chalk into the wall as my "sketch" stage.

 After rubbing in the rough, I went in with white chalk to clean up the lines. 

Added some dashes of color to finish off the piece.  Fellow artists, Molly Hein, did the lettering and texts. 


Here's a time lapse vid of the process.  Short and shweeet. 

Sesame Bit - Singing with the Stars - Strip #1

It's that time again.  These are the pencils to the most recent Sesame Bits strip. 

I changed up the layout a little on this one.  Playing around and seeing what works.  I did pencils and colors were done by Mark and Diana(staff artists at Sesame Workshop).  

Sesame Bits - Big Elmo Fun strip #2

These are the pencils for strip #2 for the Big Elmo Fun DVD promotion.  This time Telly and Elmo are checking out bugs in front of 123 Sesame. 

More copy than I would usually want, but it was necessary.  The bugs and magnifying glass were the fun parts to figure out on this one.  Enjoy!

Art of - Sesame Zombies

Here's a little look behind he scenes of creating the Sesame Zombies.




This is where I'm building the digital version over the scanned blueline sketch version of zombie Count. If the project allows for it, I like working out my characters in pencil first.

Sesame Bit - Big Elmo Fun strip 1

Here's the latest Sesame Bits comic strip that I penciled.  This one was based off one of the segments on the Big Elmo Fun DVD.  

BAAWK BAAAAWK!!  Love those chickens!  Enjoy!

Sesame Bits - BG

Hey there folks, here's a little "behind the scenes" view of the most recent Sesame Bits.  This is a look at the background.  11x17, copy paper, and blue pencil.  Nothing fancy.  

This is the full background before characters, props, details, speech balloons, and dotted path were added.

Here's a closer look at Mr. Hooper's store.  On the finished strip there is a tree added in front of the store.
 

This is the 123 Sesame brownstone.  Also had a tree in front of it in the finished strip. 

Sesame Bits - Pencils

Here it is folks.  These are my pencils for this edition of Sesame Bits.  This time around I was inspired by the dotted path stylings of Bil Keane's Family Circus comics.  Loved these when I was young, so it was fun to create my own interpretation of the idea for Sesame.  

 

This was a beast to pencil.  Now I have an idea why we didn't see more of these.  The addition of the detailed background is a lot more work than adding hints of a background to a regular panel comic layout.  Which I did in the past few Sesame Bits.  I used Illustrator to create the balloons and the dotted path.  Everything else was pencil to paper.  This one worked my drawing hand out thoroughly.  Sore for days, but well worth it!  

Hope y'alls enjoy!