Saturday, June 19, 2010

Papa Shango

I felt like drawing a wrestling character that I always liked, PAPA SHANGO. I may keep working at this, refine it, add details, that kinda thing. This rough sketch is just the start.

Friday, June 18, 2010

lightning effect

This is an example of a very easy, yet very effective, lightning effect. Step 1- Take the frame before the lightning is supposed to flash. Make it a png image and bring it into photoshop. Step2- In Photoshop; duplicate the layer. Step3- Use the Image-Adjustments-Threshold, to change the duplicated layer into a black and white image. Step4- You have two options. You can either duplicate the black and white layer and simply do Image-Adjustments-Invert, or you can duplicate the color frame again but adjust the threshold to make it look different than the previous threshold adjusted layer. Step5- Again duplicate the color layer and make a third threshold adjusted layer that is different than the other two. Step6- Export each of the three black and white layers as separate png files, import the png files into whatever program you are using, Flash, ToonBoom, or After Effects, insert the png's into frames, on two's or ones, or a combination, whatever works for the scene.
It ends up looking like THIS EXAMPLE from my earlier post.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

T-Rex front view

We see this T-Rex from two angles, a three-quarter front view for most of his scenes, and this front view for only one or two scenes. I added a bit of brush work to the tree in the background.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

mirrored shades

I like how I designed this angel character, with the tube-like body and simple lines. Here she is wearing mirrored sunglasses, like a cop. Call me retro, call me nostalgic, but I think mirrored shades are the coolest shades ever.

Monday, June 14, 2010

horse back ape

Everyone remembers the shocking ending of the first Planet of the Apes film, when Taylor sees the Statue of Liberty; but the film had more than one shocking moment, another being the first time the camera pans up to reveal the guy on the horse chasing everyone is an ape!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil


In the original 'Planet of the Apes' there's a scene where these three judges strike the classic 'see, hear, and speak-no evil' pose during Taylor's hearing. I like the scene, so I did this.

Friday, June 11, 2010

slave labor



More 'Planet of the Apes' fun, with a recycled old BG I did a couple years ago. I just changed the colors of the BG so that the red jumpsuits 'pop.' One thing I never understood about Planet Of The Apes, as kid, was if they were supposed to look like real apes or a more humanized ape? Were the chimpanzees supposed to be the size of a real chimp? Were the gorillas supposed to be big 300 pound apes? I always figured they were, but special effects at the time were not advanced enough to make that happen. So both chimps and gorillas had the same body size as the humans.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

DO

I just watched all 5 of the original planet of the apes movies. In order, it goes; Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The first movie was simply brilliant, written by Twilight Zone creator, Rod Serling. Of the 4 sequels, 'Escape' was the best one. The others, honestly, are not so good. And the last movie, 'Battle', is pretty awful. The cinematography is not big screen quality, the set designs are bad, it just feels really cheap, like a poorly produced 'made for TV' movie, even by the standards in the 1970's. Even so, there are some great ideas in all of the films, like apes wearing jumpsuits!

Saturday, June 05, 2010

planet of the humans


A classic scene from one of the Planet Of The Apes sequels; who can ever forget the image of the astronauts coming back to Earth, only to reveal that it's the apes!

Monday, May 31, 2010

covered in snot



I could have drawn the snot covering the angel many ways, but I went with the straight palette knife look. One of my favorite shows, 'The Venture Bros." uses this look when they do blood splatter effects. When I first saw Brock Sampson covered in blood that looked like it was painted on with a palette knife with straight edges, I took notice and wanted to use the same effect. So here's my chance...except it's mucus not blood. But what the heck, it's still body fluid.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

simple goats

These characters are small background characters in a long line of animals, so I kept them simple.

Friday, May 28, 2010

brontosaurus close up


I really like the shadowy effect on her, just in her close ups.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Planet Of The Apes!


I think that's enough apes for now. This was just for fun anyway.

Chimps Ahoy!