Rifts Stickers!!

Last year at Palladium Book's Open House, I announced plans to create an animated sticker pack for iOS iMessenger featuring characters from the Rifts® universe (and somehow forgot to post the announcement here)!  After a long wait for legal paperwork, and two additional months for final development, I'm excited to write that the digital stickers are now FINALLY live on iPhones and iPads worldwide!!

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Are you ready to level up your iMessage texts?
From the pages of the Rifts® tabletop role-playing game, come adorable, fully-animated stickers of your favourite iconic characters!

Created by yours truly under official license from Palladium Books®, Inc.

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Note: If all goes well with iOS sales, we will be doing our best to look into finding a way to bring these to Android users as well, so tell all your iPhone friends to buy them now! ;)

Palladium Open House Pre-Order Commissions!!

On April 19-22, Palladium Books will be hosting their quasi-annual Open House convention.

For limited time, I'll be taking character sketch commissions for those that will be attending the Palladium Open House that you can pick up at the event!

This year I'll be doing things a little different. For $20US you can get an 8.5"x11" pencil sketch, or this year I'll also be doing 2.5"x3.5" inked and toned cards!

But, you say part of the fun is getting to watch the artist draw...
Worry not, every Monday and Friday evenings (EST), up until the convention, I'll be on Twitch, live streaming your art commissions!
Come and say "Hi!"

DEMO REEL!!

Over the years there's been a few times where I've been asked about a demo reel. Problem was, I had primarily worked as an instructor, rather than producing content. That's still the case; but thankfully, while teaching, I'm usually drawing more than just stick figures. So, I've gathered up some of that content and compiled it all together into a nice little demo reel. Some of it you may recognize from earlier posts, and others may be newer; either way, I hope you enjoy it!

Anime North 2016

On May 27-29th, I had the opportunity to join Palladium Books at their gaming table at Anime North, a yearly convention held in the Toronto Congress Centre. It was great seeing the Palladium gang after having missed their Open House last year, and it was my first time at Anime North. While there, I even had the pleasure of bumping into some other old familiar faces who I haven't gotten to see in quite some time. Overall, Anime North was a fun show with tons of stuff there for any anime or manga enthusiast.

While not the usual crowd I'm used to compared to GenCon or Origins, it was still cool to see a few Palladium and Robotech fans show up to the booth. Though, because of my injuries (which are doing much better these days), I didn't have much new art to sell; but that didn't stop me from drawing character/fan-art sketches for visitors!

Here's a few I grabbed photos of:

Sylvannas Windrunner from Warcraft

Black Heart from Neptunia

Tracer from Overwatch

I decided to throw on some quick colour on the Tracer sketch, just for fun:

Tracer from Overwatch - Coloured

Is that a Zombie on my Lawn?

I was able to sneak in a couple of art pieces in Palladium Books', upcoming Chaos Earth® Resurrection™  sourcebook.

With all the zombies shambling around in this tome about a post-apocalyptic, zombie-plagued, Wisconsin, you might catch a glimpse of a particular zombie, of the plant-eating variety, amongst its pages.

Chaos Earth Resurrection is slated to come out in December!

Open House Sketches

The Palladium Open House was last weekend, and while I didn't get to go, I thought I'd share a few of the drawing requests that I received. Thanks again to those that ordered sketches!

Sketch Commissions Now Open - For a Limited Time!

As regular visitors may know, over the last couple years, I've been battling debilitating spinal injuries, that have at various times left me unable to draw.

On May 14-17, Palladium Books is hosting what will likely be their last Open House convention.

I'm hoping to attend, but dealing with disability expenses have left monetary funds rather lacking...

So, for a limited time, I'm taking character sketch commissions for those that will be attending the Palladium Open House that you can pick up at the event!

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get enough sketch commissions to cover the costs for the Palladium Open House. Huge thanks to everyone that ordered a sketch!!
All commissions will be mailed out shortly.

Hope everyone there has a blast!!

More Robotech Stuff

So all of my art for Robotech: Expeditionary Force Marines has been approved, but the book's been delayed until probably late Q4. Until then, I'll wet your appetite with my finished Cyclone-Invid illustration. Alas, the other piece with the Alpha will have to wait until later.

 

Also, for any Robotech fans out there that might have missed it, Harmony Gold Productions is looking to crowd-fund a brand new Robotech animated series based on the late Carl Macek's last project during his time at Harmony Gold, called Robotech Academy!

For more information, check out their Kickstarter! As of this post, they've got just about a week to go (campaign ends August 8th) and they look like they could use quite a bit more backers to get funded. So if you're a die-hard fan, I'd definitely head on over to be part of the production and get in on some cool rewards!



UPDATE (August 2nd): With less than 40% of their goal funded, and only six days left in their campaign, Harmony Gold has decided to cancel the Robotech Academy kickstarter, while they explore other options of bringing Robotech Academy to production.

Click here, for more information.

Robotech Expeditionary Force Marines Art Update

Woo, more work in progress art for Robotech Expeditionary Force Marines!
Alas, only WIP for now until art's all submitted and approved.

Cyclone vs Invid Scout - Work in Progress



Alpha - Work in Progress

Invid - Work in Progress



And get this... With this post, I've just doubled my number of posts from last year - Crazy!

Beep Boop Beep Beep

It's been waaay too long!

I had hoped to make it a new year's resolution to update the blog at least once a month; but, I'll spare all of you the gory details. I will say that after two-and-a-half years, I'm no longer working for Toon Boom Animation. I still love their software, but sometimes it's better not seeing what happens behind the curtain.

 

I do have another job lined up, down the road; but until then, I thought I'd take the opportunity to stretch my drawing muscles again after barely touching a pencil during the last few years, and actually do some art stuffs!

 

So what's with the "beeps" and "boops"?  Many of you might know that despite me not being a fan of drawing robots, I tend to draw a LOT of them, and this month has been no exception! Here's the breakdown:

 

• I'm creating my own table-top card game about -- fighting robots.
• I'm finally learning Maya, and the first tutorial is to -- build a robot.
• Finishing up an old piece of demo 2D animation -- of a Transformer.
• And Palladium/Robotech fans might be happy to hear I'll be doing a few pieces of art for the upcoming sourcebook, Robotech Expeditionary Force Marines!

 

Lots of stuff to keep you all updated on!

And for my half-year resolution, I promise to update at least once a month!

 

Until the next post, here's an early thumbnail sketch of one of the upcoming Robotech pictures:



Work in Progress

May Update!

It happened, it finally happened...
After almost two years of teaching freelance for ToonBoom, I've been officially given the job as one of their international software trainers. Essentially, I work both in-house and abroad, teaching individuals, schools, and studios, how to use their various animation applications. I also get to draw, rig, design, and animate, all sorts of art stuff, in-house, for various clients, not to mention constantly meeting new people throughout the animation and art industry, all over the world! So it's pretty exciting, super busy, and a lot of fun!

All this happened though, in the blink of an eye. One minute I'm in Toronto, and the next, I'm in Montreal, literally looking for a place to live the moment my plane touched down in Trudeau airport! I'm still not quite settled in, and there's a 50/50 chance I may be moving again in the fall. Until then, I'm bouncing from place to place, meeting various locals, and getting a lot of walking done in the process, hehe.

I'm hoping once I get my bearings, and something loosely resembling an actual routine, I'll have the chance to do some drawing for myself again (yeah, I know I keep saying stuff like that).

Also, huge shout out to all the fans at this year's Palladium Open House! Wish I could have made it to see everyone, but with everything happening all at once, there was no way for me to make it to down to Michigan. Hopefully, they'll decide to do at least one more in 2014...

Okay, enough talk, here's a zodiac Art Jam pic I drew celebrating all you Taureans out there (myself included).

Ringing in 2012!

2012 has proven to be one heck of roller-coaster of a year so far.

For example, that epic top-secret project I was working on, along with Palladium Books... has been one of the most professionally demanding and creatively rewarding endeavours I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on. For the last four months I worked as a creative director, eating, sleeping, and breathing that project: writing, drawing, researching, planning, meeting... and in mid-February, it came to a crashing halt.

I still can’t go into detail on what the project was or what happened, since the parties involved are still involved. I can say we had the chance to bring something really cool and unique to life, but between a very small window of opportunity, and some unexpected financial risk, we were simply unable to sustain the project. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to go back and work on this project again in the future, but never say “never” as they say. Hopefully it’ll see the light of day in one form or another.

In the wake of that experience, I’ve been travelling and talking to various studios. I’m currently working with one animation studio from home, and in a week I’ll be flying across the ocean to conduct some animation training for a couple places in Europe. With all this travelling going on, it’s very likely I’ll be moving in the next couple months, though the actual destination hasn’t been decided yet.

This also has me unsure if I’ll be able make it to the Palladium Open House in Michigan (May 4-6, 2012). I had originally hoped to be there to unveil my big project, but now I honestly don’t know where in the world I’ll be at that time.

Admittedly, with everything going on, I've fallen quite behind in my Art Jam drawings, so here’s a couple to make up for it!

Inspired by the development art of Nico Marlet from How to Train  your Dragon.
I wish I had the art book for reference before working on this piece, but it was still a blast to draw!

The theme for this was to draw a super hero or villain  as their opposite gender.
Here's female Shredder of the Ninja Turtles series drawn on my iPhone using Sketchbook Mobile!

End of Year Art Post

Looks like another one of those weeks that turned into a month...

This new top secret project of mine seems to just keep getting bigger and bigger, not to mention taking up almost all of my time. Not that I'm complaining, since I think it'll all be worth it; course I'll let you all be the judge once it's done!

Okay, to make up for lost time, here's a huge art post for you!

The first is a preview of some of my all new interior character art from the Robotech®: New Generation™ Sourcebook, published by Palladium Books and written by Irvin Jackson.

From left to right: Lunk, Annie, and Lancer

Next up, Art Jam pieces! The theme for this was favourite cartoons vs other people's favourite cartoons, and of course my pick was Transformers!

Omega Supreme vs TMNT's Krang

Insecticon Bombshell vs Pokémon's Mewtwo

Bumblebee vs Metabot's Metabee

And last, but not least, here's an art piece I did a few years back as a Christmas card for Palladium Books.

That's it until January.
Here's wishing you a festive holiday season, and all the best in the new year!!

Apollo

The New Robotech Cover has been Released!!

Took some time, but got me a snazzy new computer and I'm now fully up and running!

For the next while I'll no longer be teaching or freelancing, as I've started a HUGE Top Secret project which I've only so far spoken to a few people in the industry about (not telling which industry). All I can say is that as much as I can't believe what I've gotten myself into, it's super exciting, and can't wait until I can say more about it (hopefully early in the new year).

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to post up my Art Jam pieces, starting next week; because this week, the cover of the Robotech®: New Generation™ Sourcebook has been released!

Limited glossy prints are available (other Robotech cover prints are also still available). I'll post up a link soon, or if you're interested, you can send me an e-mail directly.

This cover was a bit of a departure from the rest of the series, so I'd love to hear what you guys think of it!

Glitter Boy Banner!

Unfortunately, with the new design of Palladium Books' website they weren't able to make use of the animated Glitter Boy banner I created; which means, I get to play with it myself. YAY! So, for the next little while I'll be using it as my own title banner (above). Alas, Blogger is a little finiky when it comes to working with SWF files, so if you want to replay the banner from the beginning, simply hover the cursor over the banner and it'll play again. I figure that might be better and less distracting than having it continuously loop over and over.

What do you think of the banner, drop me a line in the comments below and let me know!  :)

Happy Belated New Year!!

Okay, so it’s May already... Happy New Year, all the same!

The past few months have been crazy hectic. I’ve gotten sick twice, ran a secret workshop, drew some interior art, worked on some animation, and started work on the cover for the Robotech® New Generation™ Sourcebook. Of course, all this while teaching my regular classes.
I did mention animation... although that will also have to wait until the next update. There’s a couple things I’m waiting on before I can show them to you. So, until then, here’s art for Rifter #54, the last chapter of the Hammer of the Forge, and likely my last contribution to the Rifter.

The picture was a collaboration piece between myself and another great artist, Nicholas Hendriks, who’s wonderful artwork can be found here: http://nicholashendriks.com/ .
We were both rushed a bit due to many different factors, but suffice it to say, I think it turned out alright. Nick designed the composition/layout, while I drew up the details, and Nick finished off with the tones. Despite not getting to put in as much time as we hoped, it was a lot of fun, and I hope I’ll get to do it again some time!

Anyway, here’s the pic below:

Kassy and Abbot square off against Geryon, the Kreeghor commander, while a wounded Caleb looks on, in the final chapter of the Hammer of the Forge's 14 year long saga.



Heroes of the Megaverse

The first few weeks of school are always a hurricane of activity, and as such, I don't often get much art done during this time. Rifter #52 got finished up last week and I was just barely able to squeeze out a single piece of artwork for the ongoing Hammer of the Forge™ series.
That said, Heroes of the Megaverse® has just been released. Not only is it filled with all new character powers, for use across all of Palladium's settings, it's also a nice little tribute to many of the dedicated Palladium fans that helped see the business through some very tough times.

Below is the cover art I created last year for Heroes of the Megaverse®.
UPDATE: Ultra glossy prints available are sold out!