Sketch Of The Week: New Years Baby

So, the idea behind this sketch was to depict a baby celebrating the new year in the same manner as irresponsible adults, by drinking tons of booze and firing guns into the air. After drawing it I realized there's not much about it that seems like New Years. Instead it's a slightly troubling image of a cute little baby with a revolver and a bottle of hooch. It seems more like some kind of a social commentary about our youth.

So, you might notice that this and my previous Christmas related sketch were done using colored pencil. I'm not sure what it is about sketching with colored pencil, but in my opinion my sketches turn out better and I seem to learn more from them. I haven't quite figured out what it is. It might be the softness of the pencil and the ability to vary the shades more. Also colored pencils don't have that reflective nature like graphite pencils do. Well whatever it may be, I know I'll be doing more sketches with colored pencils. Plus, It's really fun to draw in different colors.

Shy Guy

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Here it is everyone, a screen-shot of Shy Guy from the upcoming live action Super Mario Bros. Movie. Nah! I'm just messin' with ya. I made this in Photoshop. I kind of have this obsession with the idea of Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom being interpreted realistically. As does the rest of the internet I assume, based on the various realistic paintings and illustrations of the famous plumbers.

Shy Guy in his cartoony video game form is not much less creepy

I've actually been working hard on another photo manipulation featuring Mario and Luigi which I hope to post within the week. Before I started on the Mario and Luigi one, I had the idea to do one of Shy Guy. I figured it would be relatively easy to find the photo components online, and it was. It was also sort of a good way for me to warm up my Photoshop skills in preparation for Mario and Luigi.


I guess inspiration hit me when I remembered seeing that creepy mask in the Franklyn movie trailer and realizing that it looked a bit like the Shy Guy mask. From their it was only a matter of finding a photo of somebody wearing a hooded robe which would be an easy task considering the popularity of Star Wars. Sure enough I found a photo of an emperor palatine costume that just so happened to be red. I envisioned the image with Shy Guy lurking around a creepy forest, so I found the perfect picture brought to you by Five-G on deviant art.

So there you have it, folks. A realistic, creepy looking Shy Guy. Stay tuned for more Mario madness.

Quick comic: Scrooge Didn't Learn A Thing

Sketch Of The Week: Nice Is Nice

Happy new year everyone!

Around spring, summer, and fall here in the County of Lake there's a ton of street festivals in all the small towns. Vendors from all around come to rent spaces and sell there wares made in the orient. This year I'd like to be one of these street vendors and peddle some T-shirts adorned with my own designs. Along with some existing designs, I'd like to create and sell some new ones based around the surrounding towns. This concept sketch is based on my home town of Nice (pronounced "Niece"). Nice is stationed on the shores of Clear Lake where there is an indigenous population of Heron birds like this. I'd also like to have the shirt say "Nice is nice", with the words reflecting in the lake. So what do you think, If you are a local or somebody who might be visiting, would you buy this shirt?

Fantasy Illustrations

A while back I did a post about some fantasy illustrations I was doing and showed the creation process from one of them. I had refrained from posting the other illustrations and giving too much information as to why I was doing them because they were involved in a Christmas surprise. Well Christmas has come and gone so I can reveal to you what it was all about!

My cousin Kelly, who is a very talented writer, decided to collect a bunch of short stories she had written into a nice book and give them away as Christmas gifts to the family. She asked me if I would like to contribute some illustrations to the book and of course I said yes. And The Mists Of Kalador was born...
Below are all the illustrations I did for the book excluding the one that I posted previously, which you can find here: http://jeffmorin.blogspot.com/2010/11/trying-something-different.html






Something I learned in my early days when I illustrated an album cover, was that when something is printed it always comes out darker than it looks on a computer screen. So, with these illustrations I made sure not to make my shadows too dark, knowing that they would be darker when they were printed in the book. Because I kept this in mind they came out just how I imagined in the book.