What happens when an artist can't sleep?

Well for this artist, fanart! Since I've always been a HUGE fan of Disney's the Lion King... It was time for a little Simba & Nala fan-love :)

School Zone & Digital Painting

I haven't made a lot of posts, because I've been working full time at School Zone Publishing. We've been pushing out a lot of Apps, I've worked on Design, and graphics processing for many of the apps including our Start to Read apps

And most of the apps listed here, we've also worked on some for iPad, some are educational games, some are just fun. But I've tried to get back to my art too. So I'm working on redrawing (or in this case painting) a piece I made in 2007 based on my niece. Here's the WIP

Well... So ends a nice, short, sweet blogpost that is poorly written by a NyQuil-influenced artist at 9:30pm which feels a lot later tonight than it really is :)

URI and Random Doodle

So amid an upper respiratory infection, I made a Mickey Mouse drawing! Because I realized I hadn't done a good picture showing my love for one of my favorite characters! So here he is, in all his rodent glory...

Mickey Mouse!

Pink Kitty - An Experiment with Texture and Color

Meet Pink Kitty (it's such an original name, I know, I am certain all who see it will bask in my brilliance and originality), Pink Kitty is an experiment in texture and color, a blend of purples, pinks, and the use of overlaying a single texture at different angles for different effects, I rather liked the overall look.

Busy Busy Busy

Well life after college is certainly busy! I've got a full-time job at the amazing company Schoolzone where I work on children's interactive games and occasionally some eBooks. The job is amazing, with just enough to keep me busy while I'm there, but not enough to be overwhelming-scrambling-never-going-to-make-it-heart-attack work, which is just the way I like it! Besides. They have a dog! At work. Charlie is the company mascot kind of ;) He's a sweetheart golden retriever who likes to make his rounds to get pet by the employees. He's really a ham!

On the Powerpets side I've also been keeping busy, at first it was quite a challenge keeping up with my full time job, plus Powerpets but I'm starting to adjust. I'm no longer coming home feeling like I just want to go to sleep so that's definitely a plus!

Just last month I redesigned the minis to be cute/chibi/wee minis. (Minis are little creatures you can collect on Powerpets). I did more then 1 a day last month for a grand total of 33 minis!

(Click the image to see them larger)

The most challenging part was making each of the dinosaur/reptilian minis look different, I was constantly looking up new photos of reptiles to try and identify what made them unique. I think the rat is my favorite.

While I try to refocus on my blog, I'll be attempting weekly posts, and maybe include some updates on my writing.

Wish on a star

Last night I saw my very first shooting star. I've been dying to see one ever since I was a kid, I used to stare out the window at night hoping.

Even though I no longer believe in wishes, it's one of those things you never quite give up on.

So last night, when I was taking my dog out, I stared at the sky like I do every time hoping by chance to catch a shooting star, when I finally saw one.

I quickly made a wish and quietly pretended for a few minutes that I still believe in magic. :)

King Cobra

Check out the newest character I made for Powerpets!

New Feature for Powerpets

So the last few days I've been working hard with one of the owners of Powerpets (Tony) who is also the programmer for the site. We're working on a totally new feature and it's coming along so nicely! It seriously looks so great I'm so proud of it :)

While I can't show any sneak peeks yet, I can say it has to do with the current plot, and it's kind of huge :D

On another note, the other day I did a livestream, and took random requests from the 7 people who showed up (I was so psyched to have so many people show up!)

I ended up drawing toothless & puss and boots!

I want to try and do a weekly livestream, it was so much fun, and a great challenge taking random characters I've never drawn before, spur of the moment, no practice, and trying to draw them with a live audience watching! Talk about pressure! If I start a weekly livestream, I'll post here about it and what time it is.

Powerpets & Writing

While I've been working hard on the new Powerpets plot, something that is a little less known about me is I also love to write. I have 2 novels I have started, and a small collection of short stories, and I'm going to start working toward becoming a published Author. I've been looking specifically for a magazine that may publish one of my best short stories (titled "Kaylee", and "Arctic Whispers") with no luck, so I will start writing some stories targeted at specific magazines while continuing to work on my novels.

Meanwhile, the work I've been doing for powerpets has been fun. It turns out there are Pirates attacking the cities of Powerpets! Because of this, the October/Halloween giftpack has been themed toward the pets & characters dressing up as pirates.
Here are some of the pirate dressed pets. There are 80 total!

You can view them all here.

The characters were also dressed up.

Digital Painting Practice

My practice digital painting I've been working on, on and off, for the last few days, it's actually got a lot more than this, but the face is the most fully rendered ;) So I'm only showing that as per my 'fear of people seeing my incomplete work' syndrome lol My bosses see incomplete work all the time, and quick sketches and that doesn't ever bug me! So I wonder why personal stuff does?

The model in this is Courtney Simonds http://www.reddpheonix.com/ :) I'll credit the exact picture when I post the fully finished work. Although it is looking farther and farther from what that photo looks like!

Here is another WIP :) Btw she isn't nekkid, she's wearing a corset-type top, with no straps, so it only looks like she is nekkid right now but she's totally decent!

Captain Tobias Pain

Character Design/Illustration for Powerpets, this is Captain Tobias Pain and his Skeleton Bird!

Bubble Bounce

This is a game I made for Powerpets.com. This is the version I made exclusively (programming, art, and animation). You can play the full version (with updated programming by Tony from Powerpets) on Powerpets.com it has levels and some features that surpass my programming skills :)

Pirate Comic for Powerpets

Pirate Comic for the Powerpets plot. :) Hover your mouse over each panel to read the story. It could be too small to read here, but you can check it out full size at Powerpets.com, click "About" from the top bar, than "October 2011" than click "Page 2" :)

Herman Map App Animation

Herman Map App Plot Animation for www.Powerpets.com, very quick animation :)

Wow...

I have drawn 2 of these little chibis a month for Powerpets Players since May 2007. These are the September 2011 stuffies. (Which means a total of 106 I think?) And this doesn't include the ones I've done for Powerpets staff; which is about 100, give or take 1-2, which means I've done over 200 of these little things!

Which probably explains why I'm sick to death of them, because the average request is "Hoody/Tshirt and Jeans with my Cat/Dog". So most of these that I've drawn are little people in boring pants, with a boring shirt, and a tiny little cat/dog.

Then every now and then somebody says "Make mine a mermaid" And I am totally inspired and just love it so much! I really enjoyed making the mermaid one.

A couple of my favorites are...