Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Unless you've been on an island somewhere in middle of the ocean with no internet access for the last few years, you should be aware that in a week, Sony Pictures Animation will release Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse into theaters. I had the great pleasure to work on this super cool film! Not as much as I would have liked, cuz I was on another project when Spidey ramped up. But I got to work on it in it's final stages, right up to the finish line. Actually, past the finish line...I'm still working on it, helping out with marketing images. As always, I can't post much of my work yet, but I can post this...one of the posters. I painted it! OK, I painted a lot of it. The layout was a rough CG render, but most of what you see in this final image is paint. My humble apologies and gratitude to the legions of CG artists who contributed to this poster before it arrived on my Cintiq;-)

Go see the film. See it in a theater. See it twice!

Storks (part 2)

Been super busy at Sony Pictures Animation, working on several projects in development, as well as their upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Can't show any of that stuff yet, but here are a few more Storks paintings in the meantime.

This is an environment that, due to story changes, was never used: the Tiger Cave, which later became the Wolf Cave, when the location changed from a jungle environment, to a snow environment.

STORKS

Here are a couple of my favorite pieces from Storks...Warner Animation Group's second feature! I was the Production Designer. The film did just OK in the box office, but I'm super proud of how it looked!

STORK MOUNTAIN
This is the first design I did for the film: the secret outpost where the baby factory was located.

THE BABY FACTORY
This is the final design painting I did for the interior of the The Baby Factory. A bunch of people worked to help design this location. I spearheaded the design, but a lot of work was done by Simon Dunsdon, Amanda Jolly, Roy Santua, Sunmin Inn, Ben Nelson and Chris Riccardi...and of course, all the geniuses at Imageworks who built the thing and brought it to life.

The Boxtrolls Color Script

I just realized I never posted the color script I did for The Boxtrolls. Here it is! Via this script, I designed all the color and lighting for each sequence of film. It's a combination of paintings I did specifically for the script, as well as some of the set design paintings (painted by the amazing August Hall and Ean McNamara...and myself) that I tweaked to fit into the script. Most of the layouts were done by Michel Breton, Tom McClure, and Mike Smith (also amazing!)

The Boxtrolls

Here are a few pieces I did for The Boxtrolls.

When I joined the project, a lot of exploration had already been done by a number of great designers to try to find a look for the film that the studio and the directors were happy with. Tom McClure and Michele Breton were doing the most interesting work and ended up as the two senior designers on the show. The layout for this first painting was done by both of them working back and forth over the same drawing. I then did the painting, and our style was born.

Tavern Street

The Boxtroll Cavern.

Market Square.

Originally, there were five Redhats. This guy, Mr. Gristle was cut from the final lineup...though his name was adopted by the short Redhat whose name was originally Mr. Crabs. The character was designed by Mike Smith and this painting was based on a sculpt by Kent Melton.

(Original) Mr. Gristle

Castles

Here are some Witch's Castles I was developing for a project at DreamWorks that got shelved. It was a cool project, and sadly it'll probably never see the light of day.

This is the interior of the room below the central dome, from the first image.

Abstract Environments

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Been pretty busy on a bunch of projects. Difficult to post that stuff for obvious reasons. But here's some new stuff...

Puss In Boots

Finally...some stuff I can show!
Way back in 2008, I worked for a few months helping to develop Puss In Boots. Here's a couple character concept paintings I did.

KITTY
Credit for the design of this character, goes to a lot of people. This early version was designed by Patrick Mate, Sylvain Deboissy, Takao Noguchi, and myself. At that point, we were going for a much more dynamic look for her. Stark black and white; clean lines; smooth, shiny fur...the cat version of Emma Peel. It was important that she had a very different look from that of Puss. We didn't want her to look like we cheaped out and just used the model for Puss with a different color scheme.

Funny note about this painting: It was leaked a year and a half ago by someone at DreamWorks (not sure if it was leaked or "released") as a sneak peak at Puss's new counterpart, and it ended up all over the net. Ha, ha!




HUMPTY
Humpty was designed by Character Designer, Patrick Mate. I did this painting over an early model done by Modeling Supervisor, Tony Williams.



Sometimes, I'll bring these kinds of paintings to an extremely high level of finish and detail. This was done as a design for the finished look of the textures for this character, and I didn't want there to be ANY questions as to what it should look like. Yes, there's some photo collage.

Metrocity Burning

Finally... a movie I worked on came out so I can post something!!! Yes friends, I worked on Mega Mind, and did one whole painting....which for some reason didn't end up in the Art Of book. Thank goodness for the internet, because that's the only place you're ever gonna to see this one.

The Wreck of the Albatross

This is an illustration from a personal project I'm developing. Shhh....it's a secret. If you recognize the BG, give yourself a pat on the back...you have good eyes. Yes, I "borrowed" it from one of my Surf's Up paintings. Hey, I designed the original...I can steal from myself if I want!

Death Valley Sketch

I finally found a couple of my paintings from the Prince of Egypt Background Department painting trip to Death Valley. Here's the best one...

We were painting in the middle of a large patch of sand dunes, when the wind started blowing. It whipped up the sand into a mini sandstorm. The sand went everywhere and got into everything...including our paint. If you run your hand across it, the painting feels like sandpaper. It finally got so bad that we all ended up wearing out sweatshirts around our faces to keep the sand out of our eyes. We looked like Bedouins.

Valentina

I painted this portrait of my wife a few years back to be used as a prop in one of my many Halloween setups at our house. I was a projected ghost painting the portrait. Sadly I don't have any pictures of the final effect. But you can see a similar effect I put together of a ghost playing the piano in our front window. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EntsUMlHAzs

Alien Project

It's been a while since I posted any professional work...mostly because I can't post work from films that haven't been released yet.

A few years back I did some early development work for a film I'll call it the "Alien Project". I worked on it for about a year, then I left the studio. Last I heard, they'd shelved the project...so here's some of my work. Sorry, I can't divulge the story...just in case they decide to start back up again.

ALIEN HEADS
These utilize a cool mirror image technique developed by Scott Robertson. Check out his new book Alien Race, published by Design Studio Press. It's awesome!!! There are several examples of alien heads done using the same technique. Thanks Scott!






CREATURES



This one was inspired by a sketch by John Bevelheimer.

ALIEN GEAR ASSEMBLY


CRASH SITE


CITY CONCEPT


TRANSFORMING BUILDING (Don't ask.)


POD ARCHITECTURE
Architecture made out of giant seed pods (WTF???) (^-^)





SALVAGE ARCHITECTURE
Architecture made out of salvaged spaceship parts. (See "Crash Site" above.) Sorry, I can't explain the connection...but it was a story point.
The basic design for this was inspired by the early work of visionary architect, Lebbeus Woods.


SALVAGE CITY