08.30.2011

Hi there, friends!  

Thanks for coming by the studio.

  It's been a  while since I posted because, tragically, my hard drive crashed, taking with it two weeks worth of work.  A tragedy but in the end an easy enough fix.  The worst part was losing the work!  I've been spending the last week re-doing a lot of stuff.  Now that I've finished all that I decided it was time to post again.  here is more story art for Atalanta's Race:

I also finished up my poster design for "The Wizard of Oz".  If you scroll down you will see that the last time I posted this image I had finished the colors, for the most part.  Since then, I've added a lot of detail, highlights and low-lights and I changed the black lines to color.  I also removed the titles because I wasn't totally happy with them.  I really am happy with how it turned out:

I've also been drawing more directly into PhotoShop with my Wacom pen.  I work a little bit on my sketch of Ondine, a character from my comic "Hero's Journey".  You can see the original post if you scroll down!

I really like how the leaves are turning into a pattern.  That is something I am going to push more as I start to add in color.  And speaking of color, here is a sketch of Disney's Cinderella I drew a long time ago but I redrew it in PS and  colored it.  I like how the digital image looks sitting next to the hand colored drawings.

I have a lot more I want to so with this one.  I will keep posting it as it evolves.

It's time to start closing up this post.  Here is a post of our new kitten, Napolean Octavian, sitting with his new buddy, Christopher Robbin.

Thanks for stopping by the studio.  Check in next week for more fun stuff.
Till then, enjoy the interwebs.

Love Beckaroo!

08.08.11

This week has been very quiet in the studio.  I've been spending more time working on story art for the myth of "Atalanta and the three Golden Apples."  If you have no idea what that story is check out this site:  http://www.paleothea.com/Myths/Atalanta.html
   I've been very inspired by all this story art I've been doing and I've decided to develop "Atalanta" into a longer, more in-depth story.  But for now I'm trying to tell the basics of the story with sock monkeys (from my series:  "Sock Monkey Theatre Presents") just to work with composition, color and other story-telling elements. 
   Here are a few panels from it:

Here are two panels that show the luminescent nature of the golden apples:

So the other thing I'm always working on is color.  And I'm also working creating posters for The Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.  This week I'm working on "The Wizard of Oz"--based on the film, of course!--Here's where I'm at with it (in process!)

So, the next step is to turn the lines from black into color and also to smooth them all out.  This is an image from the coloring book I made for them this year.  I really like how this one is going.  The colors are all working really well for me and I'm anxious to get to work on the lines.  (that's what I'm going to do when I'm done with this post, btw!)  AND speaking of OZ......I'm a huge fan of the musical "Wicked" and I've been playing around with it in my spare time.  Here's a sketch of Elphaba as a young student at Shiz:
 

  And I've been messing around with color on her but I'm not really into it.......maybe i need to play with it a little more:

I think the green of her skin is not quite right, yet.  What do you think?

Well, that's it for this week's blog.  thanks for stopping by and enjoy your internet travels, friends!
I will leave you all with this image

This is an image of Saturn's Rings, taken by NASA's Cassini!  The photos that Cassini has sent back to Earth are so mind-blowing!  Some of them are so incredible it's hard to believe they are actually photos.  If you have time today go to its official site, here:  http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm     --you'll be so happy you did.  They will show you what Cassini is seeing RIGHT NOW!  it's so cool.  I love space.  I love NASA, too! 

SIGH. now that I've professed my love, I will get back to work.

Beckaroooo out!