How cute. Wait...how cute?

I did this today after work. It's me...uh...and it's ME...UH! I mean...Mia.

It's me and Mia. Yes. There. Enjoy.

Safari, so Good.

I did these sketches today. Some days I don't feel like I can lay a line down to save my life, much less the life of a character. But today, for some reason, everything was working really well. These are updated versions of what my group of safari characters will probably soon become (the whole group can be found at brettbrooks.com under the Illustrations section). You can see the progression in the characters from then until now. Exciting!

Ch-ch-ch-Chip and Dale!

Well, I did this yesterday. I was hoping that this would be a future piece of merchandise (a pin, actually) at the parks, but the concept was turned down for a few different reasons. So since this illustration will never go past this stage, I'm free to show off the work as long as I circle-C everything that's necessary and don't make any money off it. So if you were going to send me money anyway, go ahead. But all I can send you in return is an 8x10 glossy of myself...autographed. And kissed.

Chip and Dale as Chewbacca and Han Solo. I really liked where it was going and was excited about it. Unfortunately it will never see production. Colon, open-parenthesis. Ah well. Enjoy!

Do Not Stare At My Jest.

I've been practicing a lot with female figure drawing recently, as can be seen in the post below. A friend of mine at work introduced me to Chris Sanders' art (Director of Lilo and Stitch) and I got really inspired to try my hand at it.

I've discovered that the combination of curves and a really interesting pose can be nearly addicting to draw. I have a bunch of sketches that weren't very good and, thusly, were trashed. But because of the versatility that the female figure can sometimes have over the male figure, a certain charge accompanies the art. I've in no way mastered or even come close with this stuff, but it's really fun to just lay out new poses and challenge myself with perspective in anatomy and foreshortening.

And now...Harley Quinn.

Mark my words.

So I did this thing here for Mark Montgomery as a going away present last week. I'm pretty sure that those are the luckiest two girls on the planet.

Flesh Out Da Kitchen!

They say that too much TV can turn you into a...well...

Anyway, there's this guy...

Is he finished? Well, in the biological sense, he's quite finished. But I was kind of excited to get him up online, so I haven't decided if the art is completely done yet. And my impatience can sometimes get the best of me. So I may add a few more things here and there later on.

The animation is kinda small, so here's a full size still image of Zeke. His name is Zeke as of this moment.

Weird Science.

Hey! I'm a billy goat!

And take a look at my mad ol' scientist. He's just too mad for words.

Lady, have you got your lions crossed.

This is half a drawing I did for a SCHISM piece, so it may seem a little odd as a stand-alone illustration.

The full SCHISM can be seen here.

Ready for Take Off.

So I wanted to do something a little off from what I usually post. And this is what got - a muskrat-ish little guy ready for take off. I really like it. He's fun.

I actually visited Florian Satzinger's blog, and was heavily inspired by his work. You should check it out. Very, very nice stuff.

Under Construction.

So this piece is coming out rather nice.

This is far from complete (I haven't even finished his shadows), but I would like to add a background and some nice environmental elements. So far he's coming out exactly like I want him to. The goal is to render Deuces (and any other characters I wanna add into the scene) and the background image together as if it were a screen capture from an animated film - down to the aspect ratio of the image.

So he and the other characters will have minimal shadow work (maybe one or two levels at most), a major light source, and some rim lighting from either the gun blasts or something unseen on the ground.

And then the background will be illustrated a lot more detailed. Maybe teetering on a more painterly style. Haven't decided yet. Anyway, here's to progress as well as a potential portfolio piece.

Ribbit.

Sketched this guy out last night and threw a quick color scheme on him today. Not completely sold on the colors, but I don't really dislike them either. So we'll see. He doesn't have a name yet. But I was thinking something along the lines of Beatbox. For the time being, I've just been calling him Phrog.

If you feel froggy, jump.

Deuces Wilder.

This is an updated look at Deuces. I didn't explain it much in the last post, but he's part of a story I've been hashing out for just a little while now. An assassin raccoon. Gotta love it.

I really like this sketch, but because of a couple of discrepancies in the drawing - that I will not point out to the viewer ;) - as well as how it was affecting the later render, I've decided to do the obsessive compulsive thing and completely start over on the illustration. It's either that or just fix the problems with this one. But where's the merit in that? It's my way or the highway...and since they're both about as long and stressful as the other, it all works out in the end.

But the whole newsboy look is definitely the direction I want to go with him. Each of his guns are gonna have a nice, fancy spade etched into the mags. So the final picture is going to branch from this idea but probably go in a different direction.

Also, I own that hat. I let the raccoon borrow it for the pose.

Deuces Wild.

I hammered this rough sketch out after work today. I wanna take an image of this guy to color mode (not this image, though) to accompany the images I did of Gauge and Sprocket on my website (bottom row, 5th and 6th from the left). I feel like I can incorporate a few more little details into his design, primarily hinging on 40s gangster/newsboy and steampunk elements. So we'll see.

Say yes to drawing feet. Cropping and convenient fog are not an option.

Where Do You Go...To Rock 'n' Roll...?

I heard the song "Your Mama Don't Dance and Your Daddy Don't Rock 'n' Roll." And then this happened...

Picked a Winner.

So, there's absolutely no reason that I should have spent as much time as I did on this image. Nevertheless, here it is. A friend of mine at work came to me yesterday as I was sketching and suggested that I draw myself as a superhero with the power to...wait for it...wait for it...yes, flick boogers. And as conflicted as I was as to how ridiculous of a power that actually is, my Bretter judgment got the best of me and I ran with the concept.

I'm thinking that he says something witty, and under his breath just before vanquishing his enemies...like, "Bless you."

Awww...

I started this yesterday and finished it up today (drawing and rendering). It's probably the most adorable post I'll ever make. Yeah, this is the girlfriend, Mia, surrounded by songbirds. I can't tell you how many times this actually happens in public. One time while I was trying to eat a creme-cheese filled pretzel, one of the friggin' things kept trying to peck at it. Well since Mia wouldn't stop harmonizing with the bird, it just kept hanging around. So I finally swatted it out of the air. When it hit the ground, it actually exploded into candy - MAGIC candy that made you fly when you ate it. I wouldn't have known that unless this street-sweeping british kid hadn't popped a few pieces in his mouth and shot off into the atmosphere. Shortly after that, a rainbow broke through the clouds and all the trees in the park started waltzing with each other. I couldn't even finish my pretzel.

The mall is even worse.

Me, again.

Hey look...another picture of me.

Nothing but Brett.

Drawing my time away after hours at work. This is what happened.

Duck and cover.

So this is the difference between today and yestrday with the duck. There are obvious improvements in proportions, stance, flow, and just his overall look. So I'm really happy with it.

Tomorrow, they start handing out jobs at the meeting...so we'll see what happens there. Sink or swim. Unfortunately, I can't display any of that work. Still...I'm sure I'll be getting more sketches up as we go along. And someday I'll finish that zombie piece way down below this entry.

Fo' shizzle Walt Dizzle.

Nothing too amazing, but I thought I would add a few sketches to "illustrate" what I've been doing at the new internship. Of course, I can't show anything that will compromise company policy. So actual projects I receive have to be kept to myself. These are just practices, so it's ok.

Anyway, this pretty much sums up my first week and a half here (except that my terrible practice drawings of these characters occupy a third of a sketchbook). Mickey's a tricky one. There are guys that have worked here for a year that still have to use reference on some of these toons.

All in all, I love what I'm doing. Timon and Stitch were done outside of my training (which is just learning Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy). And I plan on broadening that palette when I can. These guys will become more refined as time goes on...so I'll post more later.

Have a magical day.

Braindead.

This is a little past the first steps of what I'm working on. A lot of the line work is going to disappear to make room for more refined Photoshop line work. But the zombie and some of the extreme foreground elements will retain their line integrity. Some of the perspective is a slight bit off, but it's so earthy that tweaking the perspective won't be that hard in the computer.


Essentially, the final piece is going to have the zombie watching a television that you don't see, but the blue glow from behind the closest wall of the grave will illuminate the scene. Meanwhile, I'd like to add some outside zombies wandering around, trying to find some food (sort of oblivious to the kid zombie). I like where this one is going.

And yes, the XBOX controller is inaccurate. I'll fix it.

Ten flips, now.

Well, I think I'm done with this image. I worked and picked at it for a couple of nights, and I'm ready to move onto something new. I like how it turned out, but in a lot of respects this was also an experimental piece for me. I'm eager to see how some of the techniques could be refined in the next illustration. Hope you likey my Mikey.

Let's see what happens when we replace Brett's generic cola...with a Pepsi...

Shell Shock.

Raphael was sort of a test run. I haven't inked in 2 months, and his original sketch turned out decent enough. I probably won't further his image much more than this.

I'm really pleased with the progress of this new piece. I dunno what made me want to draw Michaelangelo, really. I think it was the fact that you can't hide a naked turtle's anatomy, so I'd have to confront it to see how well I could draw it. Anyway, the bottom half of the image isn't rendered yet, so I thought I'd post a little crop to show where it's going. Still a ways to go. There are still a few areas, even in this cropped sample, that I'm not sold on. So...onto it tomorrow.

Robot

So I've been trying to conjure up a project that could incorporate an environment, a character, and a mood. Nothing was happening...so I decided to just hop onto Photoshop and dork around with shapes and lighting until something came along. And this is what I got. It took maybe 2 hours. Thought it turned out rather nice.

New Character Sketches!

Some of these were on a previous post, but I decided to combine them with a few unseen ones.

Maquette!

I would like to possibly add a Miscellaneous section to my site at some point, for pieces like this. But until then, thank goodness for free blogging! This guy's name is Radioactive Rat. He was created with super sculpey and love.

Click for a larger image!