Bubble Bobble / Puzzle Bobble Neon Sign art

Pacman, Hamburgers and Shakes, Bubble Bobble, arcades - I tried a bit of everything.

The best thing ever happened.  I made a neon sign.  Well, I didn't do that, because making a neon sign requires glass bending skills, a workshop, and a black belt of ninja art mastery, while I only have a green belt in looking at art.

I designed a neon sign.  Here's how I started.

I built a bunch of sketches around the concept.  I used a bunch of classic arcade/Diner bits and tried to incorporate what he wanted in simple thick elegant line work so the bender wouldn't have a helluva time.


So the guy I was designing for, he liked on in particular, so I turned it into a slightly cleaner sketch, which you can see here.  He loves Bubble Bobble / Puzzle Bobble.

Bob and Bub pictured, because they're awesome and they provided a great color palette

 After everything was built to his liking, I took the work into illustrator to model it perfectly.  It also gave me one more opportunity to play with the size or the glass in comparison to the mass of the sign.

I wanted the thing to look nice and thick/dense with 15mm glass at the size it was to be manufactured.

The sign didn't have that in stock though and we had to go with 13mm.

We picked the sign up the other day and I snapped a few photos of it.  It came out really nice.  In person you can see the colors and they're a bit nicer, but in the iPhone photos, the bloom is a bit impossible to photograph.

Here are my favorite pictures.

A closeup of the neon so you can see all the connective bits.

Obligatory depth of field shot and the colors are pretty close in this one although it's still quite blown out.

The finished sign.  You can compare this to the concept sketch and see that it's pretty close, although if you ask me - I can point out several bits that are off.  I designed the thing of course I'd notice them!

Mission accomplished.  I have a few more neon signs concepts designed / planned and I'm hoping to work few some of them and have them at some upcoming art shows in 2014.

cheers,
&Rew.

Moo-tivational Concept.

I'm going to make some Moo Mini cards

A guy from Moo contacted me to say that he would trade me some free product for some representation on my blog.

Now, if you're like me, you hate being solicited for anything at all... EXCEPT REALLY COOL STUFF.  So I'm going to be straight up with you that moo cards are actually really awesome and don't need endorsement TBH.  I've never gotten them made and I need cards though, but instead of making business cards, I want to miniature art pieces.

Whether or not you make some, I have an awesome idea in mind, so let's get to it.

I want to do miniature drawings on side-scroller video game levels.  Classic stuff, you know, that's been done to death, but at least this time, I will be doing them to death tiny and in a new way.

The cards are double sided, so I might switch up the design on the backside, so that it's one scene on one side and something a little different on the back.

Then when it's done I want to send a set to people who have participated or reblog or tweet/retweet about it.  I don't really know how to do that, but it's going to be an awesome art giveaway of EPIC tiny proportions.  ¿Amirite?

Oh yah - I also want you to participate and share your stuff.  I've gotten a few emails from people following this site lately and it's really cool to see what they do and how they interpret some of my art.  So do feel free to share with me.

Here's a template to get you started:

Here's a blank template for you to use.  I'm painting these much bigger than the cards will come out, so they have detail, but not so detailed that it looks like a blur when I'm all done.  It's a balance.  Also since there are so many to do, I'm sure I'll get better by the end.

There will be around 40 images to make, so I'd better get started.

Here's Super Mario Brothers from the NES.  If you don't know, you must be like....5 years old. :-|

Here's an up-close shot.  The art will not be represented this way, but it's fun to noodle some detail at this scale.
I paint up close but constantly zoom out to see if everything reads well.

This is how the moo card should look in the end, give or take a cm.
It's important to always look at your art at the size which it will be viewed.
If you paint to closely to your piece you may lose perspective.

¿Super Moorio Bros. anybody?

The link to moo cards is here: http://us.moo.com/ 

cheers,
&Rew.

How to Art: painting more Gum.

Ok. So I'm going to take that last bit a little further.

The very next thing I did was push the character around a little. and tweaked some of the proportions.  I also changed the base.  It wasn't interesting enough, so it had to become something from the environment of the character.  You know... it was just lame.  I liked it mind you, but it was lame.  Here's the tweaked Gum with a change of base.

Gum in a slightly more interesting base with some minor proportion tweaks.

Ok.  After that I get straight down to business.  I start painting over the picture above.  I'm not going to worry about the base.  It will go through the exact same steps, but it's not interesting now.

Brushes - this is an important part of the process.  Use the brushes YOU're comfortable with.  If you use my brushes, it may drive you f_cking nuts!  Having said that, feel free to use my brushes.  I mean, they aren't anything special AT ALL.  It's all about a workflow that you are comfortable with.

I mostly use the hard round pressure to opacity brush.  That's my favorite thing.  I blend with it - go from one patch of dark to a mid-tone to a light.  It's super easy and messy.  Don't worry about the mess just build up from sloppy to clean over time.

Here are the brushes I use in order of important/order of workflow.  I don't go straight from 1 down to 7 in order, it's back and forth, but mostly it happens like this:  Start with the hard round and finish with the little tight one.

Always paint with a brush that's one size too big for what you're doing. (^___^) Too small and you're F_CKED.  Trust me.  Save tiny stuff for details at the tail end.

This is my current set of brushes.  It's usually smaller, because why waste all that time looking at a list of bad brushes?

Oh yah - CANVAS SIZE!  I like to paint zoomed in a little bigger than how the final will look, but constantly look at the thing at the final size and a little smaller.  Painting closer than it will be seen will allow you more detail.  I won't tell you how close to get, but I will warn you that getting too close will lose your focus and waste strokes.  Get comfortable with your own process/zoom level but keep in mind the final size.  I care about silhouette and some little detail here and there.  I over render stuff, but I like it.  Get a feel for your style and nail it.

The next step if blending color over everything.I'm super sloppy about it.  This is going to look like a mess but it's all on a layer above, so I will eventually carve the silhouette back out, but I just want to get a better feeling for some of the shapes and colors I'm going to be using.

WHAT A MESS! Gum, you're one sloppy bitch.

A couple hard lines are in there.  You can get those by using your hard edge and coming in super tight with your tiny hard edge brushes. You can also mask stuff off, but that takes allot of time.  There are a hundred ways to do it.  Finding those hard edges important to make the piece not look like it's falling over or a puddle of color.  And that's one of the next steps, finding more and more of those to exploit for shape as well as noodling detail. 

It's insanely easy to add in details like little fabric bits and or that letter print on her clothes, screw holes, frill, etc.  The important part is hitting the general shapes and having your paletter.

Immediately after this I'm going to cut the silhouette of the character our as clean as I can, then I'll start finding edges and adding tiny details.

Some of the highlights I added are greedy.  Save those for last.  I didn't need to waste time on those yet, buuut you know, it's a process.  Have fun.  If you're not having fun it will show.  Also if you're not having fun, how the f_ck are you going to be motivated to make hundred of these?  You're not.

I hope this is helping somebody out there!

be seeing you,
&.

Gum work in progress and how to paint her

I decided to put some time into gum today and also do another one of those shitty How To Paint lessons. (^_^)

Ok. Let's see.

So you've got your line art drawn? GREAT. Now color it. How? Alright, so if you're using photoshop, let's pretend you are, you need to use a multiply on top of the lineart.

Flat colors.  It's just the palette, no real shading or lighting. This part should be easy.

I'm painting an established character, but that doesn't mean I can't inject my own style.  Colors are subtle.  They work together in lots of ways.  I like warm colors.  I actually beat them to death, but.. so what.  I like them.  So this character is all about the warm green  and a little bit of orangey yellow.  <3 that.  She looks like a can of 7-up! Werd?

Alright, so lay down your flats as a multiply.  Be messy, this part if fun.  If you're all conservo, then it's not fun.  Fuck around and try some things.

Then you'll want to give yourself some lighting indication.  Pick the direction that works for the piece and on a new layer, start painting over top of it, MESSY! Get your hands dirty.  Pick the colors and paint lighter and darker versions around those patches to indicate where you want lighting to be.

I added a layer on top of the last one (the multiply flat colors one) and started painting lights and darks.

I usually save a level of lights and darks for the end - the tail very end. That's so the shapes can pop.  This is looking a bit dark, but It's ok, it'll work for those light colors I add at the end to pop it all out.

That's all I've got right now, but I'll go alt-tab right now and work a bit more.  Doubt I will finish this on the weekend as I'm super busy, but I wanted to get started and see what happened.

cheers,
&.

Dia De Los Muertos X Super Mario Brothers

It's time for another Mashup.  This one is Princess Daisy and Dia de los Muertos.  "Daisy de Los Muertos"  It's clever enough for me to illustrate, ok? You want more clever, go visit a g_d damned writer's blog.

At any rate, I want to start doing some "How to Art" posts.  This isn't incredibly in depth, but it shows my process as it happens.  All of this took place over about a night and a half.  One night to get the idea and start a sketch, the next to finish it and then do this write up and post it.

Step one is always the same - if you're going to need reference, go get your reference.  This can come in trillions of forms, but usually that means searching on the internet.  I like to use webcrawler.  Har har har, sorry, bad joke from the 90s version of the internet...  Ok, so yah, go find your ref.  Here's a hint, STOP AFTER ONE OR TWO IMAGES.

Sh_t, I forgot the real step one that's always the same: Put on some dope music.

Step 0. Put on some dope music.

If you go onto a search engine and start digging for the perfect ref, you will take too long.  You will get lost in ref. You will save too many images.  You will lose.  How am I so sure? Well, in many cases, I'm probably wrong, but in more cases than just a few, I know artists/humans - we start looking and it becomes a never ending spiral of BS.  Anything to not start, right? Any reason you can find to keep searching for that perfect pose, profile, hand, foots.  Too low rez? Too grainy? Not pretty enough? You get the picture.

1. Don't be a slave to your reference.
2. If you find something just good enough, stick with it.
3. Don't copy, be inspired, but if you copy, consider the dude/entity that made it.  If it isn't obvious, credit them

In this case, I'm raping nintendo ip.  What's new? Everybody knows who daisy/peach are, so I don't think I'll offend anyone but not saying it.  Oh wait, I did say it.

Step 1.  Ref:

This is the ref I used for the pose. It's not princess Daisy, it's princess Peach but whatevs.

Now that you have a ref pic.  Trace it, draw next to it, close it and do your sketch - it honestly doesn't matter, just get something down.  The quicker you get away from the white blank page, the quicker you'll get to the good stuff.

Tracing is totally not respected, so don't tell me if you do it (kidding I honestly don't care), although SO MANY "REAL PROS" LIGHTBOX SH_T.  Don't beat yourself up if that's how you feel best starting, it doesn't matter if you're happy with your art and it comes out good.  It can be a crutch though, so keep that in mind.

Having said that, I put that peach up there on light opacity and drew over it.  I knew what I was going to do with it and it just seemed perfect.

 Step 2.  Thumbnail or simple sketch:

SUPER duper rough.  I hate rough sketches, so I like to do just a quick proportion check.

After that I just started doing my thing. I left peach under the art but after I got the important bits down, I turned it off and just enjoyed myself.  This part is the best.  I really love these gritty rough sketches.  I care allot about silhouette and payed attention to balancing my black and white areas and detail in good spots.





Plenty of artists do this part better than me, but I'm getting better at it all the time.  Balancing your detailed areas and your black to white masses really makes a drawing look pro or dumb.  Now there are drawings that look rad that are just thin line weights and total consistency, but I like to drip pixels like I was painting with a sloppy brush.

 Step 3.  Do your drawing:

This is my favorite part, the sketch.  I usually go all black and can't be bothered with gray at this point. Gray, you little bitch. Die gray die.  Eat death.

When you're done with the sketch, put that on as a light opacity and go to work.  I like to zoom in WAY TOO MUCH and draw crisp lines.  Some of it's a bit sloppy like that little flag around her legs, but it just seems in character, so I left it.

I added more and more and more SMB (super mario brothers refs) and tried to use them in a Day of the Dead sort of way.

Pipes and mustaches, and piranha plants, and question mark eyebrows, and boo, and fire flowers... you know, all that stuff.

 Step 3.  Finish your projects:

Daisy de Los Muertos.  I added some texture to fit.  I may do some more tweaks on it but she's 90% of the way done. 
(Done enough to post at least)

That's all I got.

Please do drop comments on how it helped you or ruined your life.  I like to hear about those sorts of things.  If there's something you'd like to know more about or whatevs.

cheers,
&Rew.