Pretty Colors!!!

Well, here's the next step in my little dragon character. Color schemes!



Enjoy! If you like any of them in particular, please let me know. I will be in your debt. I'll be working on colors for his female companion soon. Stay tuned! Thanks!!!!

29 Dragons

I couple of weeks ago, I came up with this little guy.



I thought he was kinda cute, and his design is a new direction for me. For the longest time, my character designs were aimed more towards the young reader/teen market. This dragon was more of a children's book design.

So I gave myself a job. Do 29 sketches of him by the time I turned, well, 29. That's today. Yikes!!!



So here's the fruits of my labor. I wanted to paint them too, but that's going to have to wait another day.

Yes, I hear you scream "Piya, do something besides dragons!!" And I say "Well, I just came up with this design, and I loved it, and it would be stupid of me to not use it just because it's another dragon! When I'm inspired to do something else I will!"

PS: You'll note that there's really more than 29 dragons. A lot more. I just counted the male dragon I initially created. I came up with his female companion pretty much on the fly (hence the lame bow ribbon on her head, which I blatantly ripped off Webby from Duck Tales-remember that show everyone???). Also, I haven't come up with names for these characters. Anyone got any ideas?

The Life of an Illustrator

Phew!! Man have I neglected this blog!

In all fairness, I'm readjusting to my new job as an illustrator at Amscan. I'm doing party decorations, mostly for Halloween. Sorry, can't show you any now.

In the meantime, here's a little cartoon I did for a Graphic Artists Guild Newsletter. The topic is what the life of an illustrator is. I've shown this to tons of friends also in the field, and they all say 'yep, that's my life too', so I'm really happy that so many have found this relatable. I'm not a cartoonist by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm glad with how this strip turned out. Enjoy!!

Vampire

Been doing a lot of Halloween stuff for work, so I just thought I'd do my own spin on it. So here's a vampire. Enjoy!

I Will....

...Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons, I Will Draw Something Besides Dragons.........


D'OH!!!!!

Three Dragons

Yes, I'm still on the dragon kick. Aren't they cute?

Thai Anyone?

A couple of weeks ago I got a small gig for a new Thai Restaurant in upstate New York. It was simple but a lot of fun. Here it is.


Here's the menu.

The website can be found here.

So if you're around the Carmel, New York area, and in the mood for Thai, be sure to stop by!!

Subway Digital Paintings

A while ago, I got the parts needed to use Colors! on my Nintendo DS. So here's some paintings done on my way to and from work using Colors! What a simple and fantastic program! The first truly portable (and very surreptitious) digital painting platform.

Clockwork Army

Phew! I started this for Illustration Friday's theme of 'Multiple' for last week, but I finally finished it. It was a rather ambitious piece, and I'm not 100% happy about it, but for now, I'm going to call it done.

It was inspired by a video game I played over 10 years ago (makes me feel old). Most RPG fans will remember Final Fantasy VI (although it was called Final Fantasy III at the time). It was probably one of the best Final Fantasy games storywise in the series, and one could argue it was in fact the best. Anywho, there was a little enemy called the Pipsqueak, which was basically a really cute little robot knight.


It was an insignificant enemy, just meant to be another evil little guy to run over on your way to saving the world, but somehow, the concept stuck with me. Even back then, I knew I'd do something inspired by the image of the Pipsqueak. So, 13 years later, I finally did!

His Everything

As much as I love the fantasy genre, I'm getting sick of all the end-of-the-world battles. Seems that every fantasy series, even great ones like Lord of the Rings, is about the End Times, the Great Battle of Our Time, the World Will End if the Good Guys Lose, you get it. Come on guys, Armageddon can't happen every other day!!

My big challenge to all you would be Tolkeins , Weiss and Hickmans or whoever else is write a story in a fantasy world where it's just the day to day. In the fantasy world, elves live for hundreds, if not thousands of years. What is their day to day life compared to our real world of rush rush rush? Give me a story like that.

I don't believe fantasy only speaks to geeky kids who can't get girls. It should speak to all of us.

So here's my latest painting. I chose an Orc, the big warmongering monster in fantasy and tried to place him in human circumstances. What parent can't relate to the pride, love and hope that they have in their children? Their children are their whole worlds, and I tried to capture a bit of that very human experience in a monster.


Here's the color rough.


Here's the original drawing. Obviously, I decided to flip the piece halfway through. I believe this flows a bit better (Well, for us English speakers anyway. The Japanese probably think it's nuts.) This is the first one I've ever done in Sketchbook Pro. Very nice and easy program; I recommend it if you want to draw digitally without killing your computer's hard drive with memory hogging Adobe Photoshop.


And my reference. Yep. There's no dignity when it comes to photo reference. The scary elf is a leftover from my Fortunoff gig.

PS: I you want to leave a post saying I painted Shrek, DON'T.

Happy Birthday Frank Frazetta

Today, February 9, 2008 is Frank Frazetta's 80th birthday. Happy birthday Frank!
I was lucky enough to be invited by Imagine FX magazine (check them out here) to do a piece of work inspired by Mr. Frazetta. I thought a lot about what made Frank who he is: his amazing knowledge of human anatomy, his storytelling and his sense of design and composition. I decided I wanted my piece to emulate that final quality most, because that's the one everyone forgets, but Frank uses very well. I hope I can do some justice to his legacy. Here's to you, Mr. Frazetta!!!

PJ Lynch

Anyone interested in childrens books and/or watercolor should check out PJ Lynch.

http://pjlynchgallery.blogspot.com/

I've been a huge fan of his work since 2001 (before I even went to art school!!) and I still collect his stuff now. (In fact, I got two copies of his Christmas Carol book for Christmas from two very special ladies in my life:-)...yes, I know I'm so damn lucky!!) His credits include Ignis, When Jessie Came From Across the Sea, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, Grandad's Prayers fo the Earth, The Bee-Man of Orn, and the aforementioned Christmas Carol.

Oh yes, and artwork. A preview of what I'm working on.


Cute huh?

And just for the heck of it, some sketchbook pages. Enjoy!!!

Night

Thought I'd try a night scene. I can hear you gasp: 'Piya didn't paint a dragon!!???? The end of the world is nigh!!' Yes, I know I've done a ton of them, but believe it or not, I like a break once in a while! And yes, I know, painting a griffin isn't too different, but what can I say?



Anywho, I've had a bee in my bonnet about griffins being depicted only with an eagle head and lion rear. Yes, I know, that's what it says in mythology, but for heaven's sake, there's such a rich diversity of raptors and cats out there in the world; how can we not try something different??!! I'm starting to work on redefining other mythological and fantasy creatures, and I'll certainly post them here. New ideas are always welcome of course!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Old Farts

Here's my latest painting. Yes, more dragons. Hopefully this will make you chuckle a little though.



Here's the color rough. Yes, I know I barely did much on the rough stage, but I was on time crunch!!! (By the way, I usually do a full rendered pencil sketch here, but I simply didn't have that time. So I went from rough sketch straight to Photoshop. It was a bit of a roller coaster but hopefully the results speak for themselves).



And the rough sketch I did while sitting on the subway a while back. Funny thing is, it seems my best brainstorming for new pieces is done while I've got a pocket sized sketchbook. On the 11'x17' sketchbook, I can come up with character designs, but never full compositions. It seems I do better with less room. Curious.

Some New Sketches

So I did a few character design sketches based on those silhouette studies. What do you think?



I've already done a painting based on these, but you'll have to wait a few weeks to see them. I'll explain everything in due time....

Look at All Da Pretty Colors!

So I thought I'd try a new spin on thumbnails, just to make it a bit more interesting. In the end, they're still just silhouette studies, but hey, I hope they're more fun.



I'm trying to come up with some sort of demonic knight characters. Let me know if you have any favorites!

I Like My Women Just a Little On the Trashy Side

Thought I'd try a character design. I find something cool in a woman in armor. Hope you like it!

I'm offering a prize to whoever can tell me the name of the song that the title comes from! And I want the name of the song AND the artist!

Death on Black Wings....

Here's my latest painting based on Margaret Weis's and Tracy Hickman's classic fantasy tale, Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I know it's been forever since I last posted, and I hope this piece makes up for the delay.

Believe it or not, I only started reading those fantasy novels about a month ago. Given my work, most people would expect me to have practically my own library of this stuff. Problem is, I know most of it isn't very good. I only want to read the best stuff, and I heard the Weis/Hickman books were good (and not much else) so I took a chance. Well, it turned out well! If anyone knows of any books they'd like to recommend to me, please let me know. I'm really looking for the good stuff; books that have everything needed to be a good book: a good and believable plot, compelling and dynamic characters and a sense of discipline and restraint in storytelling.

Of course, I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on my latest piece. Don't be shy! I'm always trying to get better, and honest opinions are necessary! Thanks all!!

Update: 12/10/07

I've retouched the painting a bit per suggestions from some very helpful artists. Thanks everyone!!!

(Lots of) Heads Will Roll

I finally finished this painting. This has probably been one of the most challenging paintings I've ever done. Tons of detail and texture. I painted it for probably over 20 hours, including a few redos and false starts. Hope you like it!

It's Fall!

Went pumpkin picking with the family today. Got this photo of my nephew and I'm rather proud of it. What d'ya think?