Green Lantern Family Portrait

I was hired to do this recently as a gift for somebody, a family portrait with full Green Lantern makeover.

Happy Holidays

Well - shamefully my blog has been dead for a month or so. I hate excuses but it has been extremely busy, and also a lot of work that I haven't been able to share.

In an effort to get things back here is a Holiday/turn of the year card I created as a parody poster to the Breaking Bad show with me and my production partner in crime Joe Cookie. Mostly a matte painting over the original in Photoshop.

Graffiti Effects

I was doing some doodling on a graffiti piece, and I decided I would put a background to it. I thought it might be fun to start a series where I did some comps on various photos. If I spent some more time on it I could sell the realism.

Routing for Detroit

I plan on eventually having this avatar wear a hat for every different team in baseball, as it's my favorite sport by a landslide. To celebrate the Tiger's and cheer on Detroit this World Series - this was a good time to toss a new one into the collection.

Rondo Kinetic Text

This was some kinetic text animation I did for the new Boston's Got Wings 2012 Wrap-Up clip, a project where every steal Rondo made during the season contributed to refurbishing parks around the city.

Shots and editing by the man Joe Cookie, while I went to town in After Effects...

iOS Character Designs

These were some sharks I designed for an iOS game. The client wanted a few odd personalities, such as Hillbilly and Sumo, so it was certainly a little outside the box especially for surfer sharks.

Storyboard artwork

Storyboard for one of the Boston's Got Wings clips sponsored by Red Bull with Rajon Rondo.

New Orls skyline sketch

I had done this illustration for the landing page of a website, utilizing some of the city's iconic figures rising from the skyline.

More Design Animation Boards

Have done work on a few animated logos, this was another board of concepts for one.

Mini storyboard

Another treatment for some logo animation work.

Character Designs - Side Scroller

Some concepts I did for a mobile side-scroller game.

More Boards sketches

Another set of boards, just a little looser than my recent style.

Some Animation BTS

I thought I would pop off a screen shot from one of the animated videos I'm currently working on. I'm drawing a lot of the artwork and frames in Photoshop and then controlling them using After Effects. It's great how well the two programs work together. I never really enjoyed the limitations of creating my artwork in Flash, and was always so impressed with the capability of After Effects - so this new workflow continues to really be my weapon of choice for a lot of 2D animation and fx.

More boards...

I'm moving the studio this week - and it's the opposite of a blast. Should be fun when it's done though. Here was another set of boards I did for an on going web series...

Logo Animation

A little swipe animation done in After Effects.

Mo' boards

Here's another storyboard I had whipped up recently for an ongoing project, documentary series.

One Hundredth Post

Apparently it's 100th post time. I wish I could've done something more special, but I've been putting it off and I'm on the road so a quick pencil sketch will do to celebrate. This keeps it kind of O.G. anyways.

So throughout some time, followed by about 99 blog posts and 11,270 visits - here we are. I would've considered myself a mediocre artist at best a couple of years ago when I started this thing, but I feel like I'm at least a bit more serviceable now.

It's funny to think that when I came out of school, I had to eliminate any graffiti related artwork from my portfolio - I was literally losing job opportunities because of it. It's great knowing now that I'm at a stage in my career where I can be more comfortable and choose my own clients. It takes time, but I think anyone can earn the right to make a living without conforming to someone else's narrow minded perspectives...

Ironically last fall I was even hired as a graffiti artist to work on the set of a Reebok commercial.

I want to thank anyone who has stopped by - as well as all the great people I have been fortunate enough to meet along the way. I greatly appreciate all of the interest and support!

Love Letter Animation

This is a 2D animation I had to turn around in a couple of days, thrown together using Photoshop and After Effects. You can see the storyboard I put together for it in my previous post as well.

Animation Storyboard

A board for a new animation I just produced. I didn't feel like breaking it into sheets so it's super-vert.

Sled Character Rehash

After my original sled designs we ended up going with a different style, a little less toony. This sheet gives an idea of the overall transformation I put them through.

New RJ illustration

This was some artwork I did for an RJ and The Imagination album. The band incorporates a lot of puppets, which is what you see there. They combine music with that type of performance, so my character designs are really just based off of their existing cast. (You can picture the Muppets)

Character sketches

Some sketches I had created for a proposal, a big bellied pig character.

Clubbers makes MTV debut

Our music video debuted on MTV last night, which is pretty cool. It should be running across their various other network channels as well. My goal was to focus on more animation work this year, but didn't expect to sneak something like this in. Working with some other great artists right now as well, so stay tuned.

Link to the video below :

Baby Character Designs

Some character designs for a mobile side-scrolling game. This was the first round with no shading, I was ready to push these some more cause I personally think they would look really good on the mobile format - will be going in a different direction though.

Mini Storyboard

This was a little storyboard I threw together when I was coming up with ideas for the video.

Quick sketch

A quick little sketch, for something.

Animated Explanation Video Demo

This was a demo I did since I have noticed a high demand for these types of videos. It was something new to try, gotta keep up with the curve.

Logo Animation

This was a little animation I created for Outset Inc. to be used as a splash in their promotional videos. Pretty much all Photoshop and After Effects for this puppy.

B&W Dog Portrait

Did this for a friend as a memorial piece.

Bopper

A little illustration I did for DJ Creativity's new single.

Band Logo Design

This was a little logo work I did for a band in GA that goes by RJ and The Imagination, they seem like great bunch.

Storyboard Art

Some storyboard art thumbs for a portion of a filmed web series.

Clubbers Music Video

My newest video just released, the official link is below. You should be able to catch it on national broadcast soon - keep an eye out for those of you who still tune in to the networks.



It is DJ Creativity's track "Clubbers" featuring Fame Cohen and Aubrey Mikel.

I did this one with my usual arsenal of Photoshop, 3DS Max, After Effects, and Premiere.

Quick Storyboard

Did a quick set of panels recently for a tv spot to help with some prop staging.

Logo Illustration

This was a logo design/illustration for a Kids Club feature of a water park.

Semi-future Soldier

This was a quick sketch I as an art demo. Supposed to be a soldier in the future, where a lot of the armor and weapons are still being recycled from the past. My assumption here is that it wasn't too far in the future - so the design is based on more traditional gear with a few things like the plated armor and other details being more advanced.

DJ Screenshot

A quick teaser still from the new video in production.

Background Design Concepts (Futuristic)

Some rough scenes I clocked up for the newest animation. This time I used a combination of cel shaded 3D models and illustrations, to "cheat" since the overall look for the video is 2D. This should make general execution easier throughout development being able to render things out at different angles on the fly without having to redraw them every time I want to play with a new camera shot.

New Character Designs 2

These were some of the other cel shaded 3D Models I designed based on my concept sketches in the previous post. Might give the outfits a few more looks and tweek the ink shaders before I start animating. Another real quick turnaround on this so I've been trying to design everything accordingly, keeping things pretty simple.

New Character Designs

These are some character concepts for another animated music video I'm doing. Quick and dirty to get the design down so I can build them in 3D and develop the real look.

Walker Bot Music Video

Wrapped this puppy up recently, a quick 10 day project. I've been trying to get heavier animation work, so I had a good time making it. I have another animated video project launching today, with others starting to shake out in the queue... can't wait!

I'll probably do a brief breakdown in the following days on this one. Sets and all artwork were created in Photoshop, the character was created in 3DS Max - but painted in Photoshop. Character animation and some of the explosion effects were done in 3DS Max. Scene animation, compositing and most other basic effects were done in After Effects. The color grading, off-tracking with noise and waves to give an older film look was a technique I came up with animated all by hand in Adobe Premiere. I plan on providing a tutorial for that soon also.

Background Pan

I threw together a background pan from an animation scene here. Used After Effects for the setup, artwork painted in Photoshop.

Walker Bot Set Design 2

So I ended up expanding on that previous set, and this is the glorious After Effects work file. Can pan sideways for over 3 full 1080 frames (as you can see by my blue box still there) as well as 1.5x vertically... with a whole lot of layers as you can see. This is where all the fun and magic really happens! I  should be able to shoot the virtually my entire animation using different shots off of this scene.

Walker Bot Set Design

This was a set I created for the main shot of the Walker Bot animation. This shot was set up in Photoshop, but Walker Bot is actually a rendered 3D model that I plan on compositing into the scene when I build it up in After Effects. When I wrap up completely I'll probably do a full break down.

The blue box allows me to see what I have in frame, I like to work with a bleed or paste board so I can test the parallaxing and any other background animations that move in or out of camera as I work.

The Walker Bot

A character design for an animation I'm working on. You could say I did this really quick, but I think that makes it kind of fun. Sometimes rough lines just feel good.

Team Lineup Color

I don't think I've had to do a lineup this big before, looks much better with colors though. Just did this one all in photoshop.

Character Sports Lineup

This is a lineup of characters I had done for a sports safety activity book that's being designed in anime style. I needed a break before throwing the color on!

Big Shug

A screenshot from an animation I'm working on - Big Shug in Punch-Out!

Boston Skyline Cover

This was a quick illustration I did for the cover of The Real Reporter's annual edition. This is the raw image, with a thumbnail of the projected layout. Boston skyline likeness, with major Real Estate transactions throughout the year called out.

Redman sketch

I'll probably render this at some point, might do a series of characters like this.

Whitaker rehash

I had an old Forest Whitaker portait I did when I was in school a few years ago, and had been meaning to touch it up. I whipped it out and basically just did a quick remix rather than a touch up, including original thumbnail.

Self Portrait (Akira)

I had been wanting to do a cartoony self portrait of myself, and out of the concepts I drew one was reminding me of the character designs from the Akira film - so I took that and went all the way with it. I took a few liberties but I think I stayed pretty true based on the animation cels I was referencing.

Dustin off

Gotta pile that dream dust into the sack before you hit the streets if you know what I'm sayin.

Flyin around the world

Zooom.

Happy New Year!

So I started off the new year extremely busy, good for me - very unfortunate for this blog in the short term. It looks like I'll be making up for it going forward though. Look forward (or don't) to what I have in store for the near future!

With the wrapping up of my first children's book The Tooth Elf, which you have seen a couple clippings from by now - here is another snippet of one of my favorite scenes.