Firefly Ang

Over a month ago, I asked my Facebook followers to make some requests. I asked them to suggest any fictional character put their own spin on it if they wanted, and I would draw it.  I was able to complete one before getting very busy.  I'm still fairly busy right now but I will do them when ever I have some extra time.

This suggestion comes from Elaine, who suggested that I illustrate Ang from Avatar: The Last Airbender as a member of the Firefly crew. This was a fun one.

I figured if Ang lived in the Firefly world then his clothing would consist of a mix of the old west and modern day styles, like the rest of the characters. I thought it would be cool for him to wear a duster because it would flow in the wind when he's bending air. Plus, the top of the duster kind of resembles his robe from The Last Airbender cartoon.  I also gave him a bandanna that he could wear around his face, like a bandit. My thoughts were that the planets in Firefly were usually pretty baron and dusty so he'd need to protect his mouth and nose while using his powers, as it would kick up a lot of dust.  The rest of his costume is more modern. It's basically just  jeans and a t-shirt with boots, much like the other members of the Serenity crew.

I decided to take some time and color this one in Photoshop. I've been feeling like I need to improve my Photoshop coloring skills a bit. Of course, I've done coloring in Photoshop plenty of times but it feels like I do it differently every time  Sometimes I have to figure out a good formula or the right tools to use again. So, I'm hoping if I spend some time and use the suggestions as practice I can develop a good formula for my coloring process and stick to it every time.

Final Jumbo Shrimp

Previously, I posted some concept sketches that I had done for a freelance gig, designing a Jumbo Shrimp character which you can find HERE and HERE. Now, the final design is complete and in full color.

Win The Trophy Avatars

These are some Avatars that I designed for Win The Trophy about a couple of years ago. Since I've got a Characters section on my website now, I decided to add them to that portfolio.

Shrimp Sketches 2

So waaaaaay back in June I posted some sketches that I did for a freelance project, I was doing, in which I was designing a shrimp mascot for a clothing line.  Anyway, I did quite a number of sketches to get the look of the shrimp down.  This is the last three rounds of sketches.

With these five sketches I was attempting to make the shrimp have more of a cooked shrimp shape, based on the request of the client.

 The cooked shrimp idea was the right direction but it needed to be a little more stylized. It needed to be a little simpler too, so that it would work well on clothing.  The client decided that they liked the one with the Popeye style arms but wanted me to work on improving the face a bit.

So, I came up with these final five designs and both myself and the client agreed that #1 was the best.

Next time I will post the final Illustration of the Jumbo Shrimp.

Surpanda

Several months back, I designed this mascot for Surpass Hosting.

 

I kept his color scheme pretty basic, keeping him black and white like a real panda and adding a blue tie to go with the site design.  The dark grey one on the right is the first iteration but I wasn't quite happy with it so I did one that was plain black with some lighter contour lines.  I prefer the black one better but I showed both versions to the client just to give them a choice.  They ultimately chose the dark grey one because they felt it matched better with the website.

These are some initial sketches that I did, just coming up with different designs.  They preferred the cuter more classic look of the ones on top.  So from there I did some more sketches working out the body shape and other details.

After we got the look of the bear down, I did some more sketches giving him various accessories. In the end we kept it pretty simple, just giving him a blue bow tie.

Superhero Penguin

 

A couple weeks ago I posted a rockstar penguin character that I designed for Red Dawn Party.   Several months after designing that character for them they returned requesting a superhero penguin character.  They basically wanted the same penguin but dressed like a retro superhero.

 

The costume didn't change too much from my initial sketches.   I wanted to keep it pretty basic so as not to stray away from that retro superhero look.

 

I did multiple mask sketches.  There were a lot of directions we could go with it. It was eventually decided that the mask would be in the shape of a "W" to go along with the product it would represent, The Wownie, a relaxation brownie.

After  working out the details on the costume I did multiple sketches for possible poses to illustrate him in.  They decided to go with the classic superhero stance with a flowing cape.  In the final illustration I brought the cape down a bit and added some raster dots to tie it into the comic style graphic design on the product packaging.

Rock Start Penguin

 

Back in January I was hired by the Red Dawn Party company to create this rock star penguin character for the branding of their products. This character was inspired by my cool penguin illustration.  The client found it on istockphoto and decided to contact me to see if I could create a similar, yet possibly cooler character for them.

 

These are some of the initial sketches I did.  At this point I was brainstorming ideas. I was just sketching out different elements for the client to choose from.

Eventually they decided on certain elements that they liked which led to these initial design sketches. After seeing these they decided on modifying him a little further.  They decided to lose the guitar and give him some more clothing and stylistic elements that were in line with ed hardy tattoos and rebel spirit or true religion clothing.

Another Cartoon design

About a month ago, I was once again hired to design a cartoon character to be used in a series pitch. The character was to be a 13 year old girl and her look was partially inspired by actress Selena Gomez.

This design was commissioned by the same individual that commissioned me to do the basketball themed characters that I posted a while back. You can see those right here.

Cartoon Character Designs

Last Year I was commissioned to illustrate and design some characters to be used in a pitch for a possible animated series.


The client wanted the look of the show to be inspired by graffiti and street art. He referenced the art of Justin bua as being a being a big influence as well. (I highly reccommend checking out Justin bua's work.)



I took a look at Bua's work and tried to capture some of the visual elements from his paintings. So, I gave the characters large hands and feet, and tried to capture an element of exaggerated movement and flow in their gestures.



The trick was to not get too detailed with the designs. Bruce Timm's theory with Batman: The Animated Series was to keep the character designs simple and stylized otherwise they would become too difficult to animate. There's probably a bit of a Bruce Timm stylistic influence in these designs as well.