Leonardo Bedtime Sketch (04-05-2011)

The wife and I had to make an unplanned trip to the hospital yesterday to check on the baby, which is never fun. To pass the time, I pulled out the sketchbook. This time it's Leo, and like the Donatello from last week, I finished it while laying in bed watching Conan.

I really like sketching this way. Too often I get wound up about having to draw in the "right" atmosphere. All that does is create opportunities to not draw. Approaching it casually means there's no stress to make a perfect drawing. It's just a fun time scribbling. Whatever happens on the page, good or bad, is ok.

Speaking of ok, the baby checked out great. All is good, and she's on track to arrive next month (yikes)!

Update: I've had to removed this drawing from the blog for now.

Donatello Bedtime Sketch (03-29-2011)

With the baby just 7 weeks away, the wife and I have been doing all the first-time parent stuff, including the Lamaze classes (which are full of some great - and scary - info). I take notes in my sketchbook during class, and try to sneak some sketching in when possible. I started this one the other night, but didn't get too far, so decided to finish it up this while laying in bed last night. The bedroom was dim, so I didn't worry too much about what I was laying down; just pulled out a few pens and had some fun.
Update: Well, this is bananas. This just made it onto Bleeding Cool (with a somewhat questionable headline).
Update 2: I've had to removed this drawing from the blog for now.

Going Green.

From my Twitter page, Friday (yesterday) morning:



I know, riiiiight? I'll be contributing to Nickelodeon's new Ninja Turtles series, and one my biggest childhood dreams will become a reality. More info later.

Now, here's that Krang I finally finished, plus a variant version (I had to do a throwback version for the old school). I have prints of them if your wall is bare.

Makin' Moves.

Two moves: Number one, the wife and I bought our first house. We've only been in for 2 weeks, and much of my stuff is still in boxes, but it's slowly coming together. God is good, man.

Number two, Comic-Con is around the corner once again. I'll be there, along with a few artist buddies, at our new location, booth #1802. We've been in the same spot for the past several years, so it'll be interesting to see how we fare with this new placement. Come through and say hi; we'll have a variety of stuffs, including books, comics, and art prints. I'll also (finally) be adding the Krang print to my TMNT set; the color is not quite done, so what you see here is unfinished, but it'll be ready in time for the show.

Raphael Sketches

A couple of Raph sketches from my sketchbook; the first one was done on my train ride in to Burbank. I used to get frustrated at sketching on the train because I couldn't be precise with my lines, but I've come to really appreciate the bouncy ride. It forces me to stay loose, and I've found that some of my favorite quick sketches come from my morning commute. The second Raph sketch was done for Rutger's huge TMNT autograph collection, which you can learn more about here.

Gallery At Nickelodeon

I and my fellow Fairly Odd Parents/T.U.F.F. Puppy crew mates are exhibiting art in this month's Nickelodeon gallery. If you're in the area and are so inclined, I think you can call the studio and arrange to check it out. It'll be up through Easter or so.

Also, it occurred to me while setting up for the show that, after sharing all the preliminary sketches of my Bebop and Rocksteady, I never bothered to post the final versions. So, here you go, only a year late. (And hey, if the TMNT is your thing, I've got prints of them, and Casey Jones as well, available in my store on crushcounty.com. Krang's next in the series, if I can ever get some time to finish him up).

Krang Remix

Finally found a little time recently to color the TMNT Krang drawing I inked months ago. Unfortunately, when I sat down to work on it, I discovered that I kind of hated it. Not sure what was bugging me about it (aside from the perspective problems), but the design didn't feel right, so I scrapped it. Here are a few sketches from the remix.

Krang's Frankenstein Monster

Here's my design for Krang. Along with my final inks, I've included a page from my sketchbook, so you can kind of see how the design evolved. Looking through my roughs, there were certainly more interesting poses I could have gone with, but I decided to keep the robot dormant, and move the focus to Krang himself, as he prepares to fire up his newly-created body for the first time.

Looking forward to coloring him. On a side note, I've heard that since the Twitter explosion, blogs are being updated less frequently. Mine is no exception. I'll keep posting art here, of course, but I've grown to really appreciate the simplicity and instant gratification of Twitter, particularly for sharing doodles and sketches that might not be "blog-worthy," as well as chatter on comics, animation, and whatever else. If you do the Twitters, you can follow me at @alexdeligiannis. I'm also on DeviantArt now, so if you're a DA user, I'm at alexdeligiannis.deviantart.com.

Morning Train Sketches

A few sketches from my train rides in to work the past couple of mornings. I want to put my own spin on Krang, but without totally abandoning the campy 80's design. They're quick and dirty, just laying lines down in search of the right shapes.

2009 Comic-Con Rocked.

In 2006, I had the coolest Comic-con moment of my life when Matt Groening came up to our booth, bought a copy of our book, and asked us to sign it for him. I thought that was the ultimate, but this year’s Con once again reached insane levels of awesome for me.

On Friday night, the wife and I ditched our entourage and hit up House Of Blues to see Bear McCreary and his orchestra perform their eargasmic score from Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I'll wear the badge of "nerd" proudly: It wasn't Bone Thugs or John Legend, but this was, without a shred of doubt, the best concert I've ever attended in my life. Really. And what we thought would be a night of great music ended up being so much more; it became an evening of partying with virtually the entire cast of the show, including Admiral Adama (the incomparable Edward James Olmos), Col. Tigh and Anders (for both of whom I had the honor of purchasing an ice cold Blue Moon), Boomer/Athena (who was already so toasted she declined a drink, but did dance with my wife), Tom Zerek (Richard Hatch, the original Apollo), Admiral Caine, Callie, and Gaius Baltar.  I'm not one to get star-stuck, ever... but if you watch this show, you understand why this night was an exception. It was simply beyond cool.

But that's not all. This year, I had the extreme honor of meeting a gang of guys that - and I say this with complete honesty - were instrumental in inspiring a young fat kid to pursue his artistic dreams. The Mirage Studios gang, the guys behind the Ninja Turtles, made their triumphant return to San Diego for the 25th anniversary of the TMNT, and while it's a shame that it took me almost two decades worth of Comic-Cons to finally meet them, it was an incredible treat nonetheless. Every one of them - Dan Berger, Eric Talbot, Jim Lawson, Michael Dooney, Steve Lavigne, and Tristan Jones - were beyond gracious, even in the face of my obvious fanboyness (which, I hope, wasn't too overbearing). It's one thing to meet people whose work you've long admired; it's a completely different thing to find them to be outright warm, kind and welcoming (even though Steve did call me out for posting too many pictures of my puppy and not enough artwork). Maybe it seems silly, but meeting these guys means a lot to me (even more than meeting the cast of BSG), and it will go down as one of my greatest SDCC memories ever. My only regret is that I didn't bug them one last time to get a group photo with them all.  Thanks to all of them for indulging this guy.

Bebop (Part II: Inks)

Aside from a half-hour game of frisbee with my puppy, the June gloom kept me indoors most of the day, and I was able to get some inking done this morning. I think I can safely say that this is my first time actually inking a entire finished drawing in a long while, probably since college. I'm definitely diggin' the brush pen; surprisingly, despite the finality of ink, it made drawing more fun again, and I'm look forward to inking more stuff going forward. I'll have colors on this soon.

Bebop (Part I)

Here are two passes for my Bebop print: the initial Cintiq sketch and the final (pre-ink) Col-erase drawing. Not pictured are the other dozen or so drawings that it took me to get from point A to point B. I often re-draw the same thing over and over, tweaking one thing at a time until I like what I've come up with. Sometimes I can work things out in a couple of drawings, other times it takes a few more. Inevitably, there's always some sort of spark or energy I like in the initial rough which ends up getting lost in the translation, but I've learned to deal with it. There's also a photo of a practice page I used to try out a few different pens. For years I've cleaned up my drawings using a 4B pencil, but lately I've been getting back into using ink. In addition to my trusty Kuretake and Pentel Pocket Brush (the "Master Swords" of inking utensils), I tried out several new Japanese pens I picked up recently, including a Zebra, a Pilot Pocket Brush, and a disposable Kuratake. Some I dig, others not so much, but I had fun trying them out and hopefully I can find some time this week to ink the drawing for real. Ok, Conan's first Tonight Show starts right now, so thanks for looking. I'm out.

Bebop. Splinter. Bebop. Magneto?

♫♪♫ One of these things is not like the other ones, not like the other ones... Hey'a. A few random quick sketches from the train and whatnot. That is all for this transmission.

Rocksteady 4: Color (Finally).

Hey, remember me? I used to draw stuff. If you're still with me, I'm impressed, and I thank you. I finally got around to slapping some color on that Rocksteady drawing I posted ages ago. I could tell you it took forever because I've been swamped with the day job, but really I've just been playing Wii. Also, I wasn't really feeling my first color pass, so I just walked away from it for a while. When I finally came back to it, I ended up redrawing the entire lower half on the Cintiq to fix wonky anatomy (that's what I get for ditching life drawing classes). Anyway, it's nice to post something new again.

Other stuff:
I got a new puppy, and she's the bomb. Also, I swore I'd never join Twitter. That was a lie. If you're into this social network thing and you care to follow my nonsense, my feed is to the right username is @alexdeligiannis. Peace!

Rocksteady 2: Clean-up.

I like my lines like I like my work area and my bed sheets - clean and crisp. I'm not particularly good at clean-up, and certainly not as good as I'd like to be, but I really enjoy this part of the process - I look forward to it even while I'm still working out the rough sketch. That seems odd, since I mentioned before that I sometimes find the sketching process to be stressful. I would imagine that, ordinarily, one would find the clean-up process to be more stressful, simply due to the precision and control required. But most of the time, I have a lot of fun doing it.

Originally, for a split second, I thought about arming Rocksteady with a huge, over-the-top X-Men/Cable kind of weapon, but I quickly decided that an Uzi was more his style. He's definitely an automatic weapon kind of rhino. However, the Uzi was too similar to his head in both size and shape, so I decided a longer rifle would break up the composition better. The version on the right also has on a helmet, but I haven't decided if I like it enough to keep it yet. It goes with the rest of his get-up, but I think it makes him look less menacing, more stupid (but then, that stays true to his character, I suppose).

Casey Jones Part 4 - It's out!

I took a trip to the comic book store on Saturday, which always makes me happy, and was greeted by a nice surprise. Tales Of The TMNT #49, the one featuring my Casey Jones pin-up, was staring me in the face. I wasn't expecting the book to hit store shelves until this week, so this made me extra happy! Eric gave me the OK to share the final version a while ago, but I wanted to respect the book and hold off until it was offically out. Since it's out, here ya go, the final version in glorious color...

Man, I still get all school-girly at the thought of being in a TMNT comic. Incidentally, next time you hit the comic shop, pick up an issue of Tales. It's the only TMNT book still published regularly, and not only do the guys do a kick-ass job every month, but they also use the book to spotlight new talent, which is awesome.

Casey Jones Part 3 - A dream come true!

Everyone regain their composure after that little tremor we just had? A 5.4, I'm hearing...and centered in Chino Hills, where I reside. I bet my Justice League toys will be all over the place when I get home. Not cool.

Anyway, Comic-con was awesome, despite the fact that Hollywood has bastardized it beyond recognition (did we need a booth for The Office? Really?) and I couldn't find the comics I needed. I'll post some Hard 8 updates when I get my pics uploaded. In the meantime...

One of my childhood dreams has come true. The Casey Jones drawing that I posted down below is going to run as a pin-up in the August issue of Tales Of The TMNT, #49. Can you believe that shiznit? As a kid, all I ever wanted was to draw the Turtles. They're the reason I chose this career path, so I couldn't be more excited to have a piece of my art published in an actual TMNT comic!  That said, I'm going to hold off on posting the final colored version until the book comes out. A HUGE thank-you to the amazingly talented Eric Talbot, and to the entire Mirage crew for allowing this to happen.

I'm giddy.

Casey Jones Part 2

Here's the "rough clean" and "final clean" of my Casey Jones sketch from the other day.  I generally clean up my drawings with 3B or 4B pencil right on top of the red line sketch, and then polish it up a bit further digitally (though, I suppose "final clean" is a bit of a misnomer, because I usually continue to tweak the line throughout the color phase, too).  Anyway, hopefully I'll find some free time to finish coloring it this week.

Casey Jones

Over on The 5th Turtle Blog, there's been some debate about a recent re-design of Casey Jones for the new season of TMNT. As far as the design itself goes, I can take it or leave it. The debate rises from the fact that it's veering away from the traditional Casey character as we know him (they've got him armored up like he's a Teen Titan or something). Yeah, he looks pretty cool, but for me, Casey has always been about the elbow grease. I'd rather see him in torn jeans and blue chucks than a polished superhero get-up. He doesn't need "gear" when he's got his golf bag.

I've been home fighting a mean cold today, so I sketched up my take. Still needs some work, but good or bad, I'll paint in up and post the final when I get a chance.