30 Characters 2012 Part One Roadies

The 30 Characters Challenge is one which I tackled and conquered head on and daily in 2011.  The concept is that you have 30 days in November, and you are expected to create and post a single new character every day, in addition to whatever financial, employment, spousal, or pet requirements you also have going on at the time.  And also holiday travel and Thanksgiving too...

So, the first year I shoehorned in enough time each day to finish basically every day.  I posted about it with a few of my favorites.  (Here).

During the second year I was working 90 hours a week during November, as an employee, a conceptual / branding designer (here) and an independent contractor (here) and (here).  Early in November I declared on this blog (here) that I was going to participate again in 30 Characters, and I got them all done within about 9 days.  Again as the year before, I set a specific standard to adhere to as per the visual similarities of each entry... this time it was mugshots as a standard.

The first half this year were all based on some of my favorite people who were around in my daily life at the time.  Here are a few of them.

 

During this time of high performance work I also made a large wall mural I have not yet shown online.  I will post a few of the SECOND half of this year's 30 Characters in another article and describe the reasoning behind it all.   If you want to read ahead you can view them all because...

This HERE is the link to ALL of the 30 Character entries I made for 2011 and 2012.

Enjoy!

- J.

Emerald City No. 01 SAGA

ECCC 2012

A lot of great events occurred at Emerald City.  For now I leave you with Alana and Izabel from Saga.

They were my favorites which I ran into.

- J.

Lincoln Continental

This is the car I have been drawing a lot lately.  It will be a long time before I draw it able to be driven.

- J.

Design Process - Poster

I'm proud to say that I always go above and beyond what the client expects.  The clientele whom I work for hire me specifically because of my rate of production, and my heartfelt dedication to their success and growth.  I invest myself into their image and product.

These are rough sketches for an upcoming project I am working on.  The final product will be a larger piece, but for now we are just sampling the "feel" of the client's figure for his piece.

By the time I am finished, it is likely that I will have drawn this single character two or three dozen times, so during this initial design phase, fast sketches full of emotion are what are called for.

- J.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Leonardo

Here is one of the figures in the background of the print I am developing for this coming Con season.

I'm working on it in between client projects, and having fun sort of "tweaking" each recognizable character in simple ways to bring them across...

... I chose to use "naked" turtles for the print, to make the viewer work a little harder at figuring out which one was which.  I recently saw something making fun of the little letters they had on their belts when I was a kid, and thought I would push this in the other direction.

Let's face it, everyone knows who the four brothers are.  It makes logical sense to have "flags" like masks of different colors, or always having weapons, in order to aid in confusion-free storytelling.

Bah!  Who needs it!

Here's the prior sample...

- J.

Cobra Assemble

This is a print I created last con season.  It was received very strongly by attendees at the shows I attended, and now I would like to offer it as a print online.

This print shows the wide variety of soldiers which Cobra has employed over the years in their pursuit of total control of the world's people, wealth and resources, brought about by revolution and chaos. These are the most dangerous men alive.

The characters depicted are from the "bullet catcher" ranks of Cobra... the Troopers, the Vipers, and the vehicle driving specialists. They are the endless hordes of Cobra, as loyal as they are ruthless.

The image is printed on matte cardstock, and you can purchase it here for just $12.99:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/123585256/gi-joe-cobra-assemble

- J.

Art Corrections

This is what happens when a great artist gets sent his finished art back and they say, "Naw, too much for the kiddies..."

The first image is from the digital comic, the second is from the print version.  

Art by S.L. Gallant who's got a blog over here.