"Goodbye, My Son" - A Superman Father's Day Painting

This was originally a rough sketch that I had started back in 2010 and just left in a folder on my hard drive. With the release of "Man of Steel" this past weekend, I had decided to take it out, dust it off and finish it. It's a bittersweet piece, and especially one that resonates with the tone of Father's Day and patriarchal sacrifice. In fact, the greatest compliments that I've received so far on it by other internet patrons are those that told me that this illustration made them or their wives cry. It's not usually the intention of my pieces, haha, but the fact that it could touch the parental heart strings of people is a good thing I suppose. I hope you enjoy!

"Our Little Secret"

Just a little something from the old dusty digital archives. I was going through one of my art folders entitled "Random" and found this piece. My little Chihuahua character Seth from my "Small Dogs" story makes a cameo here, even though it has nothing to do with my children's book. I hope you like it!

Batman Animatic: Progress Update #2

I have been working on and off for the past year and a half on a Batman animatic for an original story I came up with years ago. In case you're not familiar, an animatic is a kind of 'film' made up of a series of storyboards edited together, sometimes with voice acting, music and other cinematic effects to give an idea of what the final scene could be.

I'm hoping to finish this by the end of the summer, and have it be ready for uploading to Youtube by end of August (at least that's the deadline I've given myself). Until then, I'm excited to share a few images from the animatic, and I'll be posting more in the coming weeks! 

This has also been a rather interesting project as I've had to explore new styles and approaches to make my art visually appealing while at the same time easy to finish in a short amount of time. So far my animatic is running at almost 200 individual images! This is definitely a labor of love as I'm not intending it for any professional use but rather simply for the joy of telling the story that's in my head. 

If you've been following my other posts, you'll know that I've got several other serious projects in the works as well, and this one just got put on priority simply for the sake of getting it out there. In the past I used it as a break from my other work, but lately I've been so frustrated by its long incubation that I decided to just finish it so I could move on with my other projects. So as a great man once said,

"You either get busy living, or you get busy dying."

The Rijks Museum in Amsterdam - Part II

As I wrote in an earlier post, I had the good fortune to travel through Amsterdam for a day on my way back from a company trip elsewhere in Europe. Here are some photos from that visit that I think visitors to this blog will enjoy. 

I have been incredibly busy and distracted by other events in my personal life more so than ever that I haven't been able to post weekly as has been my usual trend. However, I have managed to keep up with my artistic projects so I will post those very soon. And since this isn't a travel blog, I'll err on the side of having this post be more succinct than verbose. I hope you enjoy!

One of the two entrances to museum. This one I believe is on the south side.

Interior of the hall leading up the main Rembrandt room housing his bigger paintings.

3/4 shot of the main Rembrandt room where "The Night Watch" is showcased front and center.

The other side of the Rembrandt room.

A closeup shot of the painting shown above. I still can't believe he composed so many people, hands, and faces so well, AND then painted them!

A self-portrait of Rembrandt later in his life.

And these are just a few paintings that caught my eye for varying reasons. I hope they serve to inspire you as much as they do for me.

Mama's Kiss - A Mother's Day Gift (also 100th post)

I made this illustration for my mother, and I know in no way can it or any other painting I ever do in my lifetime be enough to thank her for providing a wonderful childhood. Of all the qualities about her that I love, the one that has the most relevance to my art is her unquestioning endless amount of support.

When I first told my mom that I wanted to give up my science career ambitions in favor of pursuing music (yes, at one point in my life I played music regularly and performed in a group), she simply smiled and said, "whatever makes you happy." And when I realized that it wasn't music but art that would be my ultimate creative muse, she simply smiled and encouraged me to follow my heart. I know not every young soul has the good fortune of pursuing their dreams with their parents' full approval, so for that I am eternally thankful.

Life has been extremely busy and distracting these last few weeks, and I intended this post to be a nice summary of my European trip with some cool photos that people might enjoy. That'll have to wait since Mother's Day is fast approaching. Also, blogger tells me it's my 100th post, so I guess that's important too. Hooray? 

Ukraine, Amsterdam, Rembrandt and Moving - All In 2 Weeks!

Hey Folks, I apologize for being out of the loop for the past two weeks, but it has been quite a busy two weeks. I will post a more thorough entry on my experiences as I got to go to the newly opened (after almost 10 years) Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, which is home to Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch (picture above). I was in the Ukraine and later Amsterdam for one week on business for my company. The cool thing about working in the themed entertainment industry is that we get to design and build things not just in the States but all over the world, which means we also have to meet with those clients all over the world. 

And if that weren't enough, right when I got back I had to pack to get ready to move in two days. Technically I'm still in the middle of moving, but at least I'm transplanted into my new place. But if you were to look in my apartment right now, you'd see boxes, boxes everywhere!

So until I get my bearings straight, I hope everyone's keeping up on their projects, enjoying life and staying safe.

"Suddenly, A Wild Pikachu Appeared" - A Pikachu Pokemon Painting!

Several posts ago I shared with you all a painting I did of the character Momo from the Nickelodeon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender." It was a lot of fun interpreting that 2-dimensional character in a more 3-dimensional way that I decided I'd try it again with another one of my favorite cartoon critters. This time it's everyone's favorite yellow-furred rodent Pikachu from the famous Pokemon animated series.

But wait, there's more! 

I'll also throw in the rough sketch that shows how I started this painting. It's interesting because it was originally a very square composition, but that made it feel too claustrophobic for me. So I expanded the canvas but pretty much kept the original lighting and color scheme.

"Calvin, Oh, Calvin!" A Cat Sketch

Calvin, Oh, Calvin 

Why are you afraid of ants?

The simple sight of them 

Makes you a scaredy pants

You're a regal beast

If only you could see

So don't be scared

It betrays your majesty

From the Pen of L.E. Fant (my 19th Century British Naturalist alter-ego)

A curious site to see an elephant play

Splashing and dancing

In such an elephant way

A thunderous stomp, a trumpeting blow

Such joyful revelry 

That only she can know

*****

A heartfelt shout out to Ces whose request for an elephant at first had me intrigued at the idea, then panicked because it wasn't turning out well, and finally glad because it serendipitously led me to this latest animal piece. Hope you enjoy!

Average Dan the Great Dane Sketch

This is Average Dan. 

He's a Great Dane, but unlike that name,

He's actually rather plain.

** EDIT: The above were simply three lines that spontaneously came to me when I was uploading. But since then, I've been inspired to take these animals and craft little poems for them based on what they tell me. Here's my second stab at this one for "Average Dan"

Dan was a Dane but thought himself plain

Not like the others who shared the same name

Stuck in a rut and feeling quite low

A good boy he was if only he'd know. 

THE GIFT - Children's Book Character Development

I've been spending the last week and a half really experimenting with style for my book. This character painting is the result of my many attempts at playing with texture, graphic shape and line work. I've really been trying to channel a bit of Al Hirschfeld, which is hopefully evident.

I've been incubating this project for a while now, and have had the characters developed since the Summer of 2011. The image below represents early development sketches for this accordion player, which is taken from an earlier post that you can see here.

http://mauartist.blogspot.com/2011/08/gift.html

It's interesting looking back at this older work because I feel I've improved upon the design of the character so much. I elongated his pose, widened his belly and tapered some of his features overall. Looking at the evolution of my thinking and abilities is always fun (and hopefully encouraging), but it always makes me think - "How would I do what I just did one year from now? Two years from now?" It's a vicious cycle, I suppose :)

Hope you enjoyed looking! Happy weekend, everyone!

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 2

As I mentioned in my last post, the next step in my process for creating this next book of mine is to lay out the color script. What I do for this step is I take all my thumbnails and lay them side by side in photoshop. Then I create an equally sized window below it and start laying in some color based on some pre-meditated choices I've already made. This isn't by any means final, but more of an 80% work in progress :)

The best way to imagine a color script is to think about it like a visual soundtrack for your project. Just like a good movie utilizes music to accentuate the highs and lows of a story, so too must the color help serve the emotional weight of your story at any given moment. 

Think of your favorite sad scene - now imagine listening to the music without the context of the movie or dialogue. Chances are you'd still be able to tell that the scene to which that music belongs to is sad. It is the same with color - taken alone without the context of a layout or drawing, the color of any given piece should (hopefully) resonate the emotion behind the overall illustration.

I apologize for the overly censored image above as I am not usually one for obtrusive watermarks or highly edited images. It's not that I'm afraid someone's going to steal my art, it's more that I don't want to give away too much of my story before it's finished. Also, the color script may and probably will change as the process continues, so I don't want to commit to something so forthright here in my blog. Like I mentioned before, this is my first time really documenting my process, so I'm still learning how, when, and what to share. 

If anything, I hope this inspires you all to really think about your color choices in the future. I'm by no means an expert in the area, but it's always helped me make better choices when I'm weighing them against what my narrative intent is.

Happy Weekend!

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 1

Some of you might already be familiar with my first picture book, SMALL DOGS, which I am querying and is currently being reviewed by an agent. Since finishing the artwork for that book a few months ago, I began working on my next picture book - THE GIFT.

THE GIFT is a different kind of story altogether. Whereas my first book is about dogs and the idea that you should never let a physical quality limit your potential, this book is a more poetic story about the relationship between a mother and her son, and how that relationship affects each of their lives.

I'd like to share a bit of my process with this project and see how that differs from my first experience, where I didn't share anything from my book until I was finished with it.

One note about this post: these steps are a general outline. I don't always do everything in this exact order as the creative process is never linear, but it certainly helps when organizing a big project such as a picture book. 

STEP 1 - STORY

It always begins with story. STORY STORY STORY! I remember when this story about a boy and his mother came to me. I was sitting listening to music, and all of a sudden, the story began manifesting itself in my mind. This was years ago! I kept that little seed in my mind until I finally had time to flesh it out, and once I did, I spent several months working on it and letting it simmer. Finally I had a working "draft," something that I could tackle and reshape where necessary.

Here you see how I generally flesh out one of my projects. After writing some drafts in MS Word, I draw very loosely on sheets of paper and I arrange them on a wall (or in this case my closet doors), so that I can see the story progress in front of me. It is as this point that I can edit and figure out my pacing, and what scenes I really need to tell my story.

My biggest obstacle wasn't what the story was, however, but in how I was going to tell it. I wrote three different versions of the same story and finally settled on the one that struck the biggest emotional chord with the help of some very talented friends who read my work and gave me their feedback.

STEP 2 - LAYOUTS

What I do next is nail down my layouts for each page, making sure that the compositions are right. This is one of the funnest parts for me, admittedly. Sorry for the blurriness on the first one, but I don't want to reveal the entirety of the book just yet. You can see what one of the sketches looks like in the next image, which is done very small. The thumbnail you see here is about 1.5" x 1.5" All of the thumbnails fit on one regular sheet of printer paper.

STEP 3 - REFINE LAYOUTS

After I've worked out my entire book in a very rough, simple format, I then begin to refine the layouts that need refinement. Sometimes I'll just paint straight over a rough sketch as I don't need more than the basic shapes. Other times, though, I might want to change a pose, or I might need to add more information to the piece in the drawing stage, in which case I'll refine the layout.

This is an example of the refinement from my thumbnail above. I changed the pose of the performers to improve the composition and made sure my text placement will fit accordingly. Since I'm going to paint over it, I'm not worried at all about doing a nice, pretty drawing. I just need enough of the information in the sketch. I also start accounting for the extra space I'll need for printing bleeds.

STEP 4 - COLOR SCRIPT

That'll be in the next part of this post. I hope you've enjoyed looking at a bit of my process. I feel a bit weird showing this much as I've never done so, but I do it in the spirit of inspiration and sharing that makes the blogosphere so awesome. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Just as well, I'd love to hear about your processes and what works or doesn't work for you. Thanks for looking!

THEME PARK DESIGN: Pirate HARRRbor

Welcome to PIRATE HARBOR, where you can live out your funnest pirate fantasies without the risk of actually walking the plank!

This is a concept piece I did for both fun and practice a little while ago. It was during a time when my work duties involved more art directing and less art making, so it was a way to keep the muscles fresh. Since moving to the theme park industry, I've been learning a lot about how stories are translated into experiences designed for people. More importantly, I've been learning how different the art dynamics in this industry are versus the other ones in which I've worked.

Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for looking :)

More Daily Drawing, More Practice

Usually when I'm practicing, I'm not mindlessly doodling because I'm actively trying to improve or refine my skills or knowledge of the human body. With these sketches, I was focusing mainly on the connection between arm and torso, as well as the connection between arm and forearm.

I think most artists are familiar with enough anatomical knowledge to use shorthand techniques to imply certain features. However, with these drawings I wanted to push myself and see how much I could indicate without going overboard and still make it an aesthetically pleasing sketch. 

What's interesting is that even if I'm looking at parts of a photo or an anatomical diagram, I  still need to edit and articulate that information in my drawing with respect to my pose. Sometimes just a line will do, other times, a combination of lines or even broken lines are necessary. So far, it's been fun trying to figure out WHAT lines will communicate which muscles are doing what.

I've been keeping up with my New Year's goal so far, I just have way too many sketches to scan than I have time to scan them. Hopefully I'll do a massive post soon and just get them up here. Until then, hope you enjoy!