Sketch Of The Week: Rabbits

Not much to say about this sketch other than it's a page of rabbit doodles. Plus some other mystery rodents.

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.

Sketch Of The Week: Nosferatu

Recently, for the first time I had the pleasure of watching the original silent film Nosferatu. It was a beautiful film. The visuals in this movie were moody, creepy and fantastically composed. It was a motion picture in the truest sense. Each shot looked like a photograph that came to life. This only served to heightened the creepy factor.

Speaking of creepy. Max Schreck looked amazing as Count Orlok. He is now one of my most favorite movie monsters.

Sketch Of The Week: Coffee Lady

This may look terribly absurd and it is, but I've seen this very image in real life. Working in a grocery store means you encounter a lot of interesting and strange individuals. Working in a grocery store in my home town means they are the majority of grocery store patrons.

One day after work I decided to do a little shopping of my own. I found myself over on the tea and coffee isle perplexed by all the different types of tea. As I stood there trying to make a decision on what flavor of green tea to purchase, I heard a nearby voice.
"Coffee. Coffee.", the voice repeated.
I thought it very strange that somebody would just repeat the word "Coffee." over and over as if it was some sort of statement. Assuming that I was just hearing it out of context, I went back to making my tea selection. Then suddenly the shrill female voice returned,
"Coffee. Coffee!", her voice increasing in volume with each instant of the word.
I still could not imagine why somebody was yelling out "coffee", without even an inkling of a question mark.
"Coffee!! Coffee!!!", the voice came again as if calling for someone named Coffee.
Finally, I just had to turn around to see what was happening. There, dead center in the isle, staring me down was a short heavy set woman, wearing a moo-moo dress and propping herself up with a tiny cane. A look of confident purpose on her face.
"Coffee." She said again, still making no indication whatsoever that she was asking a question.
"A-are you asking where the coffee is?" I stammered, astonished that she had been standing there repeating the word Coffee and not once considering that using a full sentence would be more effective.
"right there..." I faded off as I pointed her in the proper direction. "I'm sorry...I...uh..." I struggled to find words as I was dumbfounded by the situation I had been faced with.
"Don't worry about it, We all have those kind of days." She said as she hobbled by me. I couldn't believe it; she still hadn't realized her mistake. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with me, lady! I usually give answers to actual questions.

Bait298 Logo

I created this logo as a favor to my friend Noel for use on his Youtube channel. I actually completed it from start to finish in about 2 hours. I'm not so sure if it's the greatest logo design I've ever done or will ever do but it didn't turn out half bad for something I did so quickly.

Speaking of Noel and his Youtube channel, I suggest checking out the video he made for his song. The song is called Have Another Mustache Ride On Me. It's a great song that's made better when the Muppets are singing it. Just a word of warning, the lyrics are for adult audiences only.

Coolthulhu T-shirt

Note: The colors are a little different on the Zazzle shirt but not by much.
I'm still figuring out how to design for their printing process on light colored shirts.

This is my latest T-shirt design for the Jeff's Art-On-Stuff store at Zazzle. Make sure to buy yourself several and then tell your friends to do the same. Then while you're at it buy some extra ones for gifts and what not.
This is the original concept sketch. I've had it pinned to my bulletin board for a long time now. The thing that inspired this design was mainly just money! When I cooked up this idea I was just trying to come up with something I would enjoy illustrating but mainly featured a subject that would sell shirts. Of course the demi-god Cthulhu has a cult following and anything with a cult following sells merchandise. Plus, it's mainly geeks like me that appreciate Cthulhu and his cool factor, and geeks love novelty T-shirts... I think.

Now go buy yourself one! http://www.zazzle.com/jeff_art

Sketch Of The Week: Karl's class mates

I'm a big fan of The Ricky Gervais Show and that round headed bafoon known as Karl Pilkington. After hearing about the HBO series, where they animate the original podcasts, I couldn't wait. So I got my grubby little hands on them and listened to every episode. Also, with the help of my good friend Dylan I was able to get copies of a bunch of the XFM radio broadcasts where the whole thing started. Recently, I've gone back to listen to all of those. I really can't get enough of Karl, Ricky, and Stephen.

This sketch was inspired by karl's description of a couple of class mates he had in his early school days. These boys both had over sized heads and webbed hands, but oddly enough they didn't hang out in the same circles.