Baseball in the Bedroom Book Trailer

 

We recently did this quick book trailer for our client. Bringing some life to all these static images that we've been working on for months is really exciting! We used After Effects CS5 and Modo 501 on the project. So far, we've received nothing but praise on the book and the trailer! Peter Gammons, the famous baseball announcer, did the foreword to the book--which is awesome. I always love seeing the process--so, I attached the storyboards. There was some deviation--we added a background to the beginning to give it life and color AND we placed the book on a bed to give it the "bedroom" factor.

Our Character was in a Parade!!

One of our evil-doer characters was in a Denver, CO parade. This is him getting loaded up. And that's him above in our masthead for this blog. The trailer behind him has a few more of our characters printed on the sides. Those propped-up panels on the top of the trailer are actual solar panels...these characters were created to teach children about "green" technologies.

Children's Book Sneak Peek

A sneak peek illo going into a children's book that we just completed. It'll be in bookstores in about one month.

Creative Biz Note #26

Should You Build Your Own Computer?

"Build it and they will come..." I had to put that line in there. For the past 10 years I have always built my own computer. On the other hand, I will gleefully purchase a brand-new  Mac and watch it achingly chug next to my one-year old PC--wondering why the heck I needed the Mac in the first place. Of course, the answer is because our industry thrives on Macs, the color is more precise, they're user-friendly and most of us grew up on them. But an off-the-shelf Mac doesn't cut it in the 3D world (in our opinion). Though Mac's are slowly changing in that direction--the forums are always full of Mac-users complaining about 3D software not working correctly.

Vampire Bug

We can finally show this little guy. He's an addition to the Renewables campaign (an on-going project with one of our clients). I did 24 concepts and then 8 alternate sketches for the selected design. From there we did 24 color options. The wings open up and a jet engine is revealed--this sucker flies! We'll most likely be animating him soon for the Renewables website.

Touie the Toucan

We were creating promo postcards displaying a group of jungle animals and Touie is an addition to the family. It took not quite two days to make him. 3D was done in Modo 501 and then retouched in CS5 Photoshop.

Sketch Pad 09

Here are some more sketches from the character dev project discussed in the Sketch Pad #08. The initial idea was to make the "iconic" figure into 3D art. We all thought this would add flavor to it for sure and make it stand out. Originally, the character was going to be an animal but that wasn't what everyone had in mind. Then the top sketch (shown above) almost made it but got killed by upper management. A concept was finally chosen after 3-4 weeks (not shown). After the process of getting color schemes approved, etc. I created a tight psd color comp and a vector version of the character at their request. The client loved the color comp so much that they decided to go with it instead and scratch the 3D direction. (Click to Enlarge)

A quick color sketch I did for a character in a book project we're currently working on. Lee's 3D model is a mirror image of the sketch--though we can't show that artwork quite yet.

Sketch Pad 08

This week's scraps from the sketchbook. These preliminary sketches were part of a character development project. I believe I sketched out at least 20 different directions before one was agreed upon. I burned the midnight candle on this one! In every phase, the art director and I always agreed on our favorite picks but there seemed to be conflicting direction with the upper management--not unusual. I own the copyright for the concept work since the client was only interested in the purchase of the final character. I had to hire a lawyer to make sure the situation was fair--everyone was happy in the end. The final character will be used as a branding icon for a series of books sold worldwide. I'll post some more later...(Click to Enlarge)

Dinosaur Magnets!

I can finally show these! Last year, a client came to me wanting the one thing I've been dying to do...dinosaurs! I did 12 dinosaurs and a background. These were magnets that went onto magnet board. The client told my rep that they can't keep the product in stock--they're flying off the shelves!

NEW Pixel Boy Website is running!

Click over to the Pixel Boy site and see the major improvements. The latest blog posting is updated on the site to pull more readers over and our entire social network is at the viewers fingertips. The viewer can use pull-down menus or go quickly to one of four categories by clicking a thumbnail--no digging and they get instant visuals. The portfolio section has larger thumbnails so an art director doesn't waste time on unnecessary imagery. Everything loads like butter. You can even get a closer look by clicking the main visual...though I still need to implement some imagery. A good friend of ours coded the Flash site for us and I highly recommend him to fellow artists--Richard O'Donnell .

New Logo for Pixel Boy...Website coming soon!

Somehow we squeezed this "rehaul" project in among the many other projects that are currently going. I thought I'd share some sketches during the process and the new final identity. I designed our last logo in a hurry and frankly, it didn't read well when it was small. It was too iconic and didn't say "illustration"...this one does. The website is looking real slick and will be up sometime this week--hopefully.

Astronauts Are Kewl

One of the small spots that I did for a publisher earlier this year. I'm pretty sure it's alright to show this now. I had fun doing this little guy. I did it in Adobe Illustrator CS5 within four hrs. My sketches aren't the greatest or tight but I think it always makes it more interesting to see where it began. I always change things slightly from the sketch anyway, so I don't need it too tight.

Alien Trio

A few alien character concepts I developed in Adobe Illustrator for a project not too long ago. The client really liked the color schemes and thought that I had hit on target. But certain aspects of the project became an issue  (scheduling, money, etc)...so I had to pull the plug before it got too far along. I usually stay away from competing projects with multiple artists salivating for the "holy grail"--and I should have listened to that loud voice in my head. Cool project though. These characters (and a couple others) still need some tweaking BUT are available for licensing.

ZBrush Head in Progress

We've been real busy lately and I can only show a tiny peak of one project---a character's head in the works and in it's default state. Lee created the base model in Modo and then I did the detailing in ZBrush. The model could have been pushed further, as far as detail goes, but we usually refrain since we're not trying to go for a realistic "look".

Look for the finished version of this dude real soon.

Creative Biz Note #25

Do You Include Royalties on an Estimate for an App Project?

I came across this interesting question on Illustration Mundo and thought I'd share..."Should an artist ask for royalties when estimating for an app project?" 

My Response:
Good question...we've done art assets for game apps. Our experience has been that the budgets are low and it's usually work-for-hire (even with substantial companies). Maybe give them a lower pricing deal with the royalties added on if you truly believe the app will do well? And an addititional estimate without royalties. But on the other hand, then you have to deal with trusting the client to give you the royalties and/or accurate quarterly sales. We're currently working on two app projects and each collaboration has a joint venture agreement. Obviously, if you're a large part of the project, then yes, try to get royalties. Most small companies are looking for a deal and will be hunting for a hungry artist to do it for almost nothing. As the saying goes...'you get what you pay for'...

Maybe others have had a different experience.?