Analog Toys Tribute to Bob Brechin of Palitoy

5/28/2020

Wow, it's been over a year since I've did my last blog. Sorry guys, I had a lot of personal things I was dealing with in my life.

Anyhow, I was asked by Tony Roberts of  #analogtoys to do a tribute piece for #BobBrechin, the chief designer for #Palitoy, a toy company in England that made the popular #ActionMan and #ActionfForce line in the UK. Head over to Analog Toys on YouTube as Tony does excellent reviews of toys from the 70s and 80s. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVvR_X1TXqUeLDV_hDPA2yA

So there were several teams in Action Force toyline; Space Force, Z Force, Q Force, and SAS vs their nemesis #RedShadows. There was another team that was developed, but never went into production called the Special Weapons Force (SWF). A character in the line was rumored to be Palitoy's headman Bob Brechin and the likeness is very similar to Bob.

I decided to sorta do a Ron Rudat style illustration trying to capture the likeness of Bob Brechin and the first prototype of the SWF scientist figure.

I start off with a gesture of the action pose for the illustration. I often get too hung up with facial details before I develop the entire figure.

I normally try to do three concept sketches, but to be honest, I could think of any but more than two, plus I was eager to get going the project. 

Tony liked the standing pose. I also wanted him to decide if he wanted the character to wear glasses or not. Four-eyes it is!

I was asked to remove the Uzi and replace it with some futuristic tool, kinda like a Dr. Who device. 

Since I was trying to mimic Ron Rudat's style, I used one of his illustrations to sample the color palette he used. Always tone your canvas kids. It helps you develop midtones.

 A little further in development.

 A little #breakingbad joke. I'm not saying or implying they were making more than toys at Los Palitoys Hermanos.

 For the packaging I had traced traditional Action Force design in Adobe Illustrator. Tony also provided me the bio he wanted to use on the back of the packaging.

And here we have the final illustration. Front and back respectively.

Thanks again to Tony over Analog Toys to work on this project. And again, check out Analog Toys and please consider sharing and subscribing to his channel.

The return of clone wars.

5/28/20

Holy smokes it's been almost a full year! Sorry, but I completely for got to share the image.
Here is the final rendering.


5/31/19

Illustration is complete, but I can't show the final product yet. It will be release as an exclusive for #geekypinups. I don't have a time for it's release, but as soon as I have it I'll post it up my blog.

Thanks for your support!

5/23/19

This may be my last entry for awhile. I've got another project that I have to focus my attention on. The figure is coming along nicely. It's a shame that I have to put her aside for now.

5/18/19

Sorry guys. Life just gets in the way. Finally started rendering Ahoska. Decided to do vector on this one. Here's a work in progress.

5/5/19

I think Dave Filoni is the only director who truly understands Star Wars and we thank him for the Rebel series. Now with the continuation of Clone Wars, I thought it would be approerate to do a sketch for Ahoska and what happened prior to episode III.

Initial sketch for Ahoska.

RetroBlasting New Logo

3/7/19

For about a year I discovered a group called #RetroBlasting on #Youtube; a ruthless organization determine to... oh wait, sorry... wrong group. RetroBlasting (RB) is a fun, humorous but very informative group that examines toys and pop culture, mostly (but not limited to) of the 80s and 90s. Along with toy restoration and reviews, RB tries to examine the who, what, and why things were of yesteryears and the decision making process of shows, movies, and toys.

I enjoy their presentations very much, but I always thought their logo could use a makeover, so I reached out to the folks at RB and asked if they would be interested in an upgrade and to much to my delight they said yes.

To keep with the theme of the show, I decided to re-envisioned their character logo to the style of cartoons you'd find in the mid-80s which were some of the most exciting and influential mediums of pop-culture.

You can check them out on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/user/retroblasting or their website at http://www.retroblasting.com.

So I begin my work process with their original logo which is based the show's two hosts; Michael French and Melinda Mock.

 

At the beginning of each show you see this logo with occasional variations depending on theme of episode (kinda like the Simpson couch gag).

I always had in mind to present the characters in 80s style cartoons so I started off with a rough sketch.

 

Once approved, I gather reference material and proceed with rendering the characters.

I'm currently running off of CS6 Illustrator and rendering this as vector images made most sense.
So typically I start blocking in the image.

I spend a lot on the face of my characters first before anything because in my mind the image won't work unless you get the face right.

As the character rending develop, some of the decision making process you have to make is color choices and design handling. Sampling the colors from the original logo was too dark and didn't matched up with the feel of mid-80s cartoons so you have to strike a balance between capturing the characteristics of both source materials.

Many cartoons in the 80s were done overseas in Japan so you get a feel of proto-anime here in the US. Many of the character designs were done by American artists, but the production was done by studios in Japan with a few expectation such as #Filmation. FB touched on this one of their episodes on a #He-Man panel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7OH9YXu_XI

I had to really examine how characters were rendered during this period, which uses quick simple shading and highlights. You have to remember that this was before CGI, so you're producing a lot of episodes by hand drawing/paintings and you're not going to have the tight renderings or crazy anime hair styles you see in the later decades.

 
The last thing usually tweak is the hair. I decided to cheat a little bit and give a little bit more rendering then you normally see in cartoons of the period. And there you have it.

Please consider being a subscriber of RetroBlasting and if you like their content, please support them  at #pateron  https://www.patreon.com/retroblasting.

They're producing great stuff and I look forward to seeing them grow within the pop-culture community!

TOMY Disney Share the Smiles App

2/14/19

Rendered illustrations used for #TOMY #Disney #Mickey and #MinnieMouse 3-in-1 Potty System. It is app for child development.

Roger Andrews proved the line work; I just render them to color/vector.

Disclaimer: All images belong to TOMY and Disney.

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chI1OX1Hh9w

The Judge YES Network Promo

2/13/19

Awhile back I help rendered the illustrations of #RogerAndrews for #NewYorkYankee's #AaronJudge for the #YESNetwork which won an #EmmyAward.

Disclaimer: Images and video belongs to the YES Network.


Check it out.

http://www.warshawblumenthal.com/emmy-award-winner-program-promo-sports-judge-superhero-spot/

Independant film "KevCoin" poster

2/10/19

Awhile back, I was hired to create a poster for an independent movie called "KevCoin: The Movie" back in 2018. Basically, it's about a director trying to create a comedy film about cryptocurrency.

They wanted a style similar to #InvaderZim.

 Here's a link to their website. https://kevcointhemovie.com

Disclaimer: All rights and ownership belong One Light Productions.

Works for Hasbro

2-10-19

Thought I'd shared some work I did for #Hasbro a few years ago for their #MighyMugs line. These were concept works that were never put into production. I work with an artist #RogerAndrews and help render these.

There's plenty of other cool stuff I did for Hasbro, but unfortunately I can't show them just quite yet.

Inktober 2018

 10/27/18

Continuing #inktober2018.

I'm surprised #funko never made figures for #gundam or #speedracer.

10/24/18

Day 3 of #inktober2018.

10/23/18

Day 2 of #inktober2018.

10/22/18

Hi guys. I've decided to join #inktober2018 (a little late to the party, but better late than never). Lately I've been feeling that I wasn't being creative and I wanted to get back drawing in my sketchbook so I decided to do my first #inktober.

No plan or structure; just plan to be silly and spontaneous so let's see who crazy I can get!

Enviroment study "Breath of the Wild"

10-21-2018

Starting to add color to the image. Jeremy states after using a overlay layer for a warm tone he directly applies paint (separate layer). I'm finding this counter productive as I thought the intent was to have the undertone was still suppose to show, however I'm going to try to reproduce using his method. I'm already discovering a lot of new approaches to painting through his tutorial.

10-20-2018

Minor adjustments to the vegetation. I'm thinking Jeremy using a combination of scatter in the brush presets as well as disabling the brush pressure sensitive next to opacity on the to toolbar to get the more opaque look he achieves.

Now adding warm tones to unify the piece (plus this is what #JermeyFenske did) on a overlay layer. Next is adding color directly to image.


10-18-2018

For some time I've been meaning to do a environmental study using the undertone method used by may concept artist. I'm using #JeremyFenske painting to understand the coloring process.

Here's my work in progress so far.

Funko "Dragon Maid' Package Mockup Excercise

10/7/18

Hi guys! It's been awhile. I just came back from #NYCC2018 and was able submit my concept design to a rep from #Funko of my interpretations of #misskobayashisdragonmaid. I asked if he could share it with his art department for critique and tips as I want to make it up to professional standard (not to mention potentially getting a job with them).

Here's a look of the concept art (remember this is not official artwork, just me messing around):

Mega Con Star Wars Rebel drawing

5/22/2018

Hey guys! Wanted to share with you my contribution piece for Artist Initiative (aka #geekypinups) for MegaCon 2018 in Orlando, FL. They'll be located at booth 216a from May 24-27 at the Orange County Convention Center. Stop on by and say hi to the guys!
My contribution piece is #Hera #Syndulla and #chopper from #starwarsrebels.
Also, for more cool stuff, checkout Geeky Pinups at http://www.geekypinups.com

Cheers! And may the force be with you!

5/19/2018

Sorry guys for not keeping in touch. There's been things going in my life that's been keeping me from doing art. Anyways I'm back baby and I hope to do share more of my art with you guys.

I'm working on something for a friend at #geekypinups for #megacon in Orlando, FL. If you're in the area, stop on by their both; they got some great stuff!

I'm contributing an artwork of #Hera and #Chopper piece from #Starwarrebels.

Here's a work in progress.

Breath of the Wild Study

4/7/17

Finally done! #Nintendo really did good by hiring whoever did this design.

4/6/17

Was really hoping to get this exercise done in one day, but unfortunately life gets in the way (stupid life). Anyways, one of the simplest, yet important thing when drawing is to flip you work. By doing so, you can see all the "flaws" of your work and make the necessary corrections.

I found that I needed to adjust #zelda's hips, legs, and arms. The beauty of Photoshop is that you can use two great tools for manipulating images to place objects where you want them. The first is Liquify under the Filter menu. The other is Puppet Warp under Edit. Both are life savers!

4/2/17

I'm having a blast this morning with Photoshop using #nintendo 's #breathofthewild princes #zelda character study. I'm trying a whole range of brushes and filters as well as a loose painterly approach to the figure. So much fun! Oh, and the game is awesome too!

New Photoshop study

3/7/2017

Finally finished! Took 43hrs. Not good, but it's a good baseline.


Now to work on the next project!

3/1/2017

Work is progressing slowly, but nonetheless progress is being made.

Now to work on the next project!

2/22/2017

Happy Birthday to me! Just realized today's my birthday. One day closer to expiring (lol)!

Anyhow, sorry guys for not posting anything for awhile; had some personal things to take care for the past weeks. But I'm on the drawing board again. Here's what I've been working on lately. It's #Winston from #Overwatch.

Still in the rendering phase. I wanted to challenge myself so decided on an animal character since I rarely draw animals. Not so bad as long as you have reference, but the other aspect of this study is to determine how long it takes me to render in Photoshop. I've been logging a time sheet every time I'm painting and right now I'm slower than a snail. However, this is a study after all, and there's plenty of more coming down the pipe and the more you do something, the faster you'll get at it (at least I hope so...)