Fievel's Christmas Tail

Now that the overwhelming juggernaut known as the 'Holiday Season' has finally passed, I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. Believe it or not, my revamped website is nearing completion (a few tweaks notwithstanding), I have some projects in the pipeline that I'm working on, and I have some new stuff to share with you guys!

Every Christmas I always try to make all of my gifts...but this year, I didn't manage to accomplish as much as I intended. I was also working on a commission (more on that in another post) simultaneously with my attempts at gift-making, so naturally most of my energy was concentrated on the commission. I'm actually still tweaking some things that were meant to be a Christmas gifts because, let's face it, I'm the worst friend ever.

Luckily, I did manage to finish my sister's gift in time: an ornament of Fievel Mousekewitz from An American Tail and Fievel Goes West, some of her favorite movies from her childhood.

I made Fievel the same way I made the stuffed versions of Vesuvius and friends -- I broke him down into simplified shapes, made patterns for the pieces, then constructed him out of felt, thread, and fiberfill. Since I was making this with very little turn-around time, I was constantly editing my patterns as I was making it. For example: he originally had a large open-mouthed smile with his large teeth showing, but to save time, I opted for the simple stitched mouth line you see in the image (which I think wound up being more effective anyway).

I'll be posting the commission I was working on and some other things on here as I finish them (and once my website is up and running, I might not even need to make a post -- I think you'll hear my huge sigh of relief all the way from Florida), in the meantime...what have you guys been working on? I'm always excited to see new work, so if you have anything to share, please do!

Down at Fraggle Rock!

So. In case you couldn't tell by the extremely not-subtle clue I left at the end of my last post, I've been working on something related to the old Jim Henson Company show Fraggle Rock. I found out about the contest when I revisited the Talenthouse website (the company I did the Florence + the Machine project through), and even though I promised myself I would stop doing these kind of things, I couldn't help it. I mean c'mon. Muppets. Jim Henson. I had to.

Basically, the point is to design a piece of artwork for Fraggle Rock's 30th Anniversary; if you are selected as the winner you get prize money, a tour of the Jim Henson Co., and your artwork becomes official Fraggle Rock merch. As much of a longshot as it is, good things could definitely come from it -- even if I'm not chosen as the winner. I mean, I get a cool new portfolio piece and my artwork gets seen by someone at the Jim Henson Company. No complaints here.

My basic idea was to fit as much as I could into the piece without overloading the image with information. There are three main races in Fraggle Rock, the Fraggles, the Doozers, and the Gorgs. The Fraggles and Doozers coexist together in the caves and underground tunnels of Fraggle Rock, whereas the Gorgs live above ground and proclaim themselves to be rulers of the universe. I wanted to illustrate a snapshot of a day in the life of Fraggle Rock, showcasing the symbiotic relationship of the care-free Fraggles and hard-working Doozers, as well as the Gorg's discovery of this ecosystem that has developed right under their noses.

I sketched out a couple of concepts to further realize this idea. As indicated in the top thumbnail, I was thinking of having the piece framed by a Doozer-built structure, but I thought that was drawing too much attention away from the Fraggles. I thought it would be better compositionally to have the Doozers working on a structure in the middle-ground to create a greater sense of depth to the cave.

Since the characters were layered on top of one another in my sketch to create an illusion of depth, I thought it would make it easier to draw each of them individually, and then combine them in photoshop so I could play around with position and scale much easier. I was planning on using watercolors for the piece, but I realized my watercoloring skills were pretty rusty while working on the initial washes to create the rocky texture, so I colored the figures with Prismacolor markers and colored pencils for highlights. It was also at this point that I decided to do away with the Doozer structure all together (in fear of the piece looking too clunky and crowded) and instead have a couple spare Doozers spread out throughout the image.

And...voila! After scanning it into photoshop, I created some cool-colored shadowy areas to help differentiate between the layers of the cave and fixed the eyes of the characters since they didn't come out as I wanted them to in the drawing. As always, thoughts and critiques are much appreciated. Voting ends on August 21st at 10 a.m., so if you like it and want to vote, you can do so here. It's the same as the Florence contest, you vote through Facebook or Twitter (or both if you have both).

Anyway, now that I have contest-ing out of my system (though I was almost tempted by this upcoming Pendleton Ward-judged Adventure Time t-shirt design contest THAT BRENDAN REGULINSKI SHOULD TOTALLY DO SOMETHING FOR...HINT, HINT), my website is my main focus. The end of summer is nigh, therefore I must get cracking if I want to have the update completed by then. Fingers crossed!

Endings, Beginnings, and Old Memories

On top of the freelance work I've been doing, I have been working on other side projects for the various events that have occurred over the last few months. Here are a few of 'em:

This is a gift for the daughter of an old family friend who died back in May. Since the family is fairly religious, my mom thought a cross was an appropriate commemorative gift. Of the ones she found she liked this one best, but hated the paint job (I don't have a 'before' picture, but it looked pretty poopy -- literally). My job was to repaint it to make it look like a relic and give it more 'character' to better reflect the personality of our late friend.

The daughter of the family that used to like next door graduated from high school this year, so my family's gift to her was a 'College Survival Kit'. Along with a plethora of practical items (i.e. tools and other things that come in really handy, but no one wants to give as a gift because they aren't too exciting), we included this Piggy Bank, hand-painted by yours truly, as a place to keep her laundry quarters. The pig is muddy because he needs to be washed...just like you wash dirty laundry. Eh? EH? OK, fine. All of my jokes aren't winners.

Later in July, my aunt is taking great-uncle on an honor flight to DC for surviving veterans. The program suggests that family members send in cards and letters, so my mom wanted my help in making him a card that is special and unique to him. She picked the picture (it's of him and my grandmother) and the quote, and I incorporated each into design of the card. I wanted it to look like an aged journal, and used some textures from this site to help create that effect (it's an amazing resource for textures, I highly recommend checking it out). Here's a look at the inside:

I'm gonna try and post sketches and stuff more regularly ANNND I have a few cool projects coming up soon I wanna share with you guys, so keep your eyes peeled for some new stuff. My end-of-summer goal is to have my website revamp done, so hopefully I'll have something to show on that in the near future too. 

Chi-wowzers! A Puppy Post!

I've been meaning to make a new post, but since I've been working on some fairly time-consuming projects (branding for my friend's Esty site + trying to wrangle Dreamweaver into submission so I can finally finish the epic and overly-complicated redo of my own website) I don't really have any new 'work' work to show just yet. I have been doodling a lot lately though, so I thought I'd share some of them from time to time (providing they turn out well).

Two weekends ago, I went to Jacksonville to visit a friend and get web advice. I figured I probably wouldn't be able to come back up for her birthday next month, I made her a 'Happy (Almost) Birthday' cake and stuck this in it as a decoration since she and her boyfriend have 2 chihuahuas. It's prismacolor markers and Uni-Ball pen on a standard office note card. Surprisingly, note cards take markers pretty well with little/no color bleed. The more you know, right?

Super Post III -- Christmas in March

I was consolidating/deleting some files on my desktop when I found a folder containing a bunch of images I meant to post to the blog a while back. Since they are all gifts I made to give to people for Christmas, I decided to make it into another big fat super post!

It's become a yearly tradition for my mom to brew some variety of alcohol to give as gifts during the holidays. This year, she wanted the bottle to look a little more 'professional', so I designed a wine label using an updated version of the one I did for Vargo's class. For those of you who are wondering, 'Trois Amis' is French for 'Three Friends'. At least that's what my mom said. I have a limited knowledge of French (a.k.a. none whatsoever).

To further develop the sewing skills I discovered last year, I decided I wanted to try my hand at making hand-sewn ornaments. The moose was for my mom (she's crazy about moose) and the owl was for my good friend. Funny story: the design of the owl is actually based off of one of the designs I created for my application for the internship at Carter's. The difference is that this time, the recipient actually liked it.

Before my sister moved to California, she adopted a kitten from a litter one of her neighbors abandoned. For her gift, I decided to make something she could give to Florence (her kitten), so I made a handmade catnip-filled dead animal toy. My original idea was to make a set -- a bird, a fish, and a mouse -- but I ran out of time. Maybe next year!

When trying to figure out a gift for another one of my friends, I remembered how taken she was with Lizard Wizard, one of the abandoned toys in the Toy Story short that proceeded The Muppets. What's significant about this drawing is that I used markers over top of my rough pencil sketch, and then added stronger values with colored pencil. I didn't do any ink outlining -- which you all know I am so prone to do. You can scrape your jaws off the floor now.

In addition to moose, my mom has always been an avid collector of nutcrackers. So every Christmas, my sister and I make a custom nutcracker to add to her collection. This year, we decided to do a matched pair -- a tamborine player and a trumpet player that were supposed to be Salvation Army workers...but we lost the Salvation Army scarf and badge accessories, so we decided to made them into a police band. My sister knit mini-scarves for them to replace the ones we lost.

...And that's what kept me busy during the holidays. I'm currently working on some more projects now, so expect some updates in the near future!

Adventures in Freelancing -- Part I

As I have mentioned before, I have been picking up some freelancing jobs here and there. Some of my contacts are local, but they are mostly people from L.A. because Steve is awesome and throws my name out to anyone who needs design work. One of his friends wanted me to design an identity for his massage therapy business, Modern Massage; this included making a logo, business cards, a letterhead and a website.

This is my immaculately trimmed thumbnail. Oh yeah, and his business card design (these are roughs I printed out on my computer and cut out myself, so the actual cards probably look better). Jade stone massage is one of the specialties at Modern Massage, so I only thought it would be appropriate to reflect that in the business card design.

This is the home page for his website, which you can visit by clicking here. Everything was designed to be simplistic and user-friendly as well as being consistent with the color scheme of the business card and letterhead. My favorite part: on the contact page, I made a facebook link button out of the same texture as the logo. I'm really proud of that for some reason. Don't judge me.

And finally, since my website was pretty janky-looking, I made a little 'Under Contruction' page to replace it. I mean, my website looked like it was made out of construction paper and masking tape, so I didn't want people to think it was a fluke that Modern Massage's came out looking pretty decent. It's not much, but you can click here to see it full size.

I have some other freelance projects I'm working on, but my main goal is to get my full website up and functioning withing the next few weeks. I'll let you know how that goes.

An Owl, a Hamster, a Fish, and the World's Cutest Vacuum

Yesterday when I was cleaning my room, I came across my Game Boy cartridge for Kirby's Dreamland 2. While looking at it and recalling the hours I spent playing it over the years, I couldn't help but think that the Kirby series has a very children's book-y aesthetic in terms of tone and characters. Naturally, my next thought was, "Hey, why don't I make a children's book-styled Kirby piece?!", so I made some rough sketches...

I would being doing the final in watercolor because I realized I haven't touched any medium aside from ink and markers since graduating. I don't have a particular favorite of the three, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Part of me thinks that they are each different enough that I could make them into a series...if I find the time. I am still working on some commission work, so these would just be a side-project for now.

Update on the Secret 7"/Florence + the Machine project: I am 99% sure I am not a part of the finalists. Since it is supposed to be a "secret", the winners are e-mailed individually as opposed to be announced on their website, and I haven't received an e-mail. I'm not bummed out at all; once I make the last few finishing touches, my entry will make a pretty rad portfolio piece. Oh, hey there silver lining.

Super Post II -- Booktastic Boogaloo

Oh, hello there. As you guys probably know, one of my main focuses post-graduation has been marketing the heck out of my children's book Vesuvius -- The Jet-Pack Bat. In October, I was in a reading festival hosted by the local newspaper and in the few weeks prior to the event, I made a bunch of new stuff to go along with my book.

It began with an attempt to fix the book's interior type since it felt a little thrown-on-at-4-in-the-morning-so-I-could-get-the-book-printed-in-time-for-my-final. I then got it reprinted at this local print shop I found and they did an amazing job...but I'm not posting shots of my new book, so I just made you read this exposition-laden paragraph for nothing. Nyah!

Following that, I figured that kids have walls and probably like to put things on them, so I made posters of each of the characters featured in the book:

Vesuvius! A surprising amount of children asked me why he is wearing his little aviator helmet/goggles since he doesn't have his jet-pack on. Clearly, I fail like a whale with no tail.

Chickadee in all her pink pinky-ness. You can't really tell, but her talons are pink as well. Too much? Nah.

Copernicus, a.k.a. The One That Started It All. Interesting fact: this is the very first time I have drawn him with his mouth shut. Seriously.

Sassy Hydrangea. She's a whole lotta hippo. You didn't hear this from me, but I'm pretty sure when I get around to actually making a follow-up book (which I really want to do), it's gonna be about her. Sorry Drummond.

And finally, Theloniussss. Unfortunately, he is another instance of my no-tail-whale-fail seeing as he is a totally different snake in this image than he is in the book. Don't judge me.

I then thought that maybe it would be cool to hand out character bookmarks with my information printed on the back rather than business cards. I created three different versions:

I will probably make one for both Sassy Hydrangea and Theloniussss at some point in the future, but these three seem to generally be the favorite characters of the group, so I'll stick with them for the time being.

I didn't really feel like posters and bookmarks were quite enough, so in an attempt to create other things to sell at my booth, I picked up a needle and thread. These are what happened:

I think Copernicus came out best, but considering I had never sewn anything before in my life, they all look decently endearing in their crudeness. I made two different Sassy Hydrangeas, but they are both AWFUL, so I shelved her stuffed form for the time being.

Clearly posters, bookmarks, and stuffed animals were still not enough, so I had t-shirts made as well:

With all this shiny new merch in hand, I was ready for the festival and aside from the fact that I was put next to another children's book booth with an overzealous lady who would swoop around and steal costumers from me as I was talking to them, it was a success! I sold stuff, people reacted really positively to the book, and I even have my own mailing list going.

Since then, I was in another show in December, recruited a 'street team' (i.e. four awesometacular high schoolers volunteered themselves), and I have read at two local elementary schools. I have another show coming up in April, and I might apply for two more, so I really need to crank up the production of the stuffed guys. I kinda wish I could make like The Prestige and clone myself endless times, but I think the moral implications would prevent me from actually going through with it.

To break up the monotony of just working on one big thing for an extended period of time, I have been trying to randomly draw and sketch as much as I can, so I will probably upload some of that stuff in the near future.

Brendan, draw more.

Princesses & Puppies (a.k.a. a faux-Christina post)

About a month ago, I replied to a listing on Craigslist in which a woman said she wanted someone to illustrate a book that she was writing. Even though Craigslist is mega-sketch, I decided to reply anyway because I figured, since there was nary a penis to be found in the post, this woman might be for realsies.

Well, she actually replied back saying that she liked my stuff and wanted to give me a 'test run' to see if she liked the ideas I had for her characters (a girl who dresses like a princess and a golden lab puppy). I got really excited that I had actually heard from someone for once, so I replied the next day with what I thought would be the cutest friggin sketches ever.




I think they kinda look like I tried to mix Bill Watterson and Chris Sanders' styles with my own, resulting in something that looks a little like creepy muppet babies. But they're still cute. Right? Sorta? . . . Maybe if you squint.

Anyway, I heard nothing. She couldn't even offer up the courtesy of an "Oh hi, thanks for the sketches but YER STUFF IS RANK, SMELL YA LATERZ POO-BREATH" e-mail. Maybe she thought I had to have been a big ol' weirdo because I said I imagined her character as someone who would watch Eureeka's Castle. Her loss.

The (much delayed) start of something beautiful...

No, your eyes do not deceive you. I am making my very first post. It only took me what, a year? More? Whoopsie.

I have not been so successful on this grand job safari, so to keep me from slipping back into a comatose state of misery and my brain from hemorrhaging any more than it has already, I decided to make fun fun fun projects for myself. Projects such as: redesigning book covers that I hate, reworking old pieces that I thought turned out unsuccessful (so, uh, everything from Portfolio amiright?), and revisiting things that I drew inspiration from during my artistic development.

But before we get to any of those, I thought I would give you guys a present. You know, because I've been so bad with keeping this updated. I guess I'm like a workaholic father who thinks he can buy his children's love with gifts. Anyway...



Yes, it's 100% amazingly accurate depictions of us. Why? Because you are awesome and I miss you guys. Souper Coollective indeed.

Keep your eyes peeled for more stuff in the near future.

P.S. Brendan, your T-Rex with a bazooka is magnificent. Stop making me love you.