Sakura Who?

Hello all,

so yeah I've put the previous 'Evil Sakura' piece on hold for now to focus on new subject matter. Why? Well it's just one of those artistic situations where I'll look at a piece long enough and spot one or two problem areas that I wanted to tackle. And over time those one or two small areas wound up giving birth to a problem with the whole piece. I may just wind up scraping it and doing another rendering of the character, that's how off put I am about it.

Painting is one area that I just don't excel in. In high school I dreaded having to do paintings with oils, acrylics, water color, etc. With the mixing/consistency of the colors to the different blending techniques, canvases and don't forget the plethora of brushes you can choose from...bah humbug!

As for digital painting, however, all those headaches are a distant memory. With my buddy Photoshop, I have an infinite amount materials at my disposal. I've dabbled with Photoshop painting in the past but was put off by the lame results I was getting. Fast forward to recently where I've acquired a neat set of brushes thanks to a fellow colleague of mine. Having them along with a lot of patience things started to come together.

Naruto (above) started out as a real quick sketch I did to get myself into the character. At first it was supposed to remain, just that, a 'quickie' for me to throw some color on and post, but after two days it wound up being more than that as you can see.

In the end I'm semi satisfied with the results. Considering most of my line art quality from the original sketch was stodgy at best. It was a great learning experience and I look forward to future paintings.

Back once again...

Hey there guys,

Spring has sprung upon us here in the western hemisphere, so it would behoove me to get with the updates around here.


The 'Evil' characters in the 'Street Fighter' lure have always fascinated me. They've taken characters such as Gouki (Akuma here in the U.S.) who I might add is already pure evil ...and make him MORE EVIL! Hah!! How does that work exactly? I dunno and frankly I don't care. Pure genius those heads at Capcom are.

So anyway, back in the heyday of fighting games we were introduced to a little gem called 'Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter ' my life was changed shortly after having sat down with this game for a few hours. I could blabber on and on about how scrumtrelecent it is but I'll spare you the geek speak and just digress for now. This game introduced us to 'Evil Sakura' or 'Sunburned Sakura' as she was also known. This was the only time she had in the entire franchise (to my knowledge). Her character being so rare it always stuck out in my head to do a piece dedicated to just her. Seeing as how I'm a sucker for doing off-beat subject matter. I wanted to take it just a step further and give her a Japanese goth/punk look. When the colors are finished on her it'll bring the look across more.

This will be the final 'Street Fighter' piece I'll be working on for a good while. Reason being? It's already the middle of May and I'm not close to where I wanna be with my work, gah! Plus, there's a wide range of fun subject matter out there to explore.

Be seeing you!

Stalking the Dark

So as of late I've been on a very short hiatus from working on portfolio stuff. The main reason is above. This was my submission for Udon Entertainments "DarkStalkers Tribute" book slated for release this summer. Udon calls upon artists from the far reaches of the globe to submit pin-ups of their favorite DarkStalker characters and out of over literally 2000 submissions only 200 some odd pieces are chosen. So I had heard about all this a week or two before it was due and raced to finish my entry. Anywho, I guess my expedited efforts showed a little too much in the final product cuz my work wound up not geting picked.

O well...( >_< ) sigh*

Sooo I took about 2 weeks off to cool off and recollect myself. I'm currently working on just 1 more Street Fighter piece then I'll be done and good for awhile regarding anything Capcom. I think I may go on a Naruto binge for a minute. Who knows.

Thunder Thighs

With all the hubb bubb in the air caused by the eminent release of Street Fighter 4 I've been on a bit of a Capcom binge.

I've noticed that with every new Street Fighter Game Chun Li's hips just keep on inflating. I mean at times it looks like she has 2 other people down there carrying her torso.

No other Capcom designer has done this better than Daigo Ikeno whom did the character work for SF 3rd strike & SF 4 as well as the Onimusha series and a few others.

So 'why the heck not'?, let's make light of those thick man killing thighs. I have no qualms what-so-ever with them, frankly I think they're sextastic.

Style wise in this piece I was experimenting with a more varied line weight with my inks. It works well for my pin ups and I may try it on my sequential work in the future.

Traditional pencil and inks w/ Photoshop color parts.

Vee Day

Yea, it's been a few since I last posted anything, don't get me wrong I've been on the busy side of things... no really I have! For example last week I was in NYC for the NY Comic Con. So i needed to prep for that. But now I'm out of excuses and ready to head back into the studio. Here's a quick doodle I did just for Love day:


I'm also working on a piece to celebrate the eminent release of Street Fighter 4 on the 17th. Actually I think I may wind up doing 2 instead seeing as how rare it is that Capcom releases a fighting games these days. I mean when was the last time? 10 or more years! Good grief, I mean a NEW Street Fighter Game??!! For fighting game fans this is like the second coming of Christ!! ::climbs down off my nerd soap box::

Sorry.

Stay tuned:)

Resolutions!

So yea, 2 and a 1/2 weeks into the new year and I'm doing pretty good with sticking to my resolutions. I've been on a Anime binge as of late, mostly due to the fact that I recently acquired a 1 terabyte hard drive for which to store massive amounts of whatever tickles my fancy. In this case it's mostly entire series of shows that I've been missing out on ( I can't reveal the methods in which I obtain the stuff, I'll leave it up to you to put 2 and 2 together >_^). Anyway, expect more in the way of Anime related work from me in the months to come. I'll try my best to keep the subject matter lively. The above piece is a tribute to a series I'm following: "Gurren Lagaan". From a Anime studio I love: GAINAX. They so awesome...

Traditional pencily parts w/ Photoshop colory parts.

Things to come...

Here's a sneak peak of a piece I'm working on. When it's all said and done it'll be in full color but I'm leaving it un-inked. I've noticed that some Japanese illustrators don't bother with ink and go straight to color. When done correctly it can be almost unnoticeable. It's important that I make all my lines as clean and dark as possible so I make less work for myself in Photoshop. I usually work with 2h lead which gives me more control over my line quality and cleanliness but can be hassle scanning cuz the contrast of the final penciles can be very light at times.