The Panda has landed - revised

This was originally going to be the back of the postcard (that I'll mail out to publishers and clients)...but now I'm thinking that it's better than the front of the postcard...

I printed out my adobe illustrator cleanup to add in a background...but the more I added, the more in depth the drawing became...and I thought it might be more impressive as the main image. We'll see though...because of the amount of detail, it'll take forever to paint...

Before you go crunch on the ground...

It's probably better to end up in a tree. Of course, I think in this story's case, the panda would have been fine wherever he landed...but he seems pretty thrilled that he ended up stuck above this nice couple in their backyard...

This is a much more involved illustration than some of the previous square animal but I want to show that I can draw scenes, and not just characters (as this is going to be sent with the other skydiving illustration to different children's book publishers).

This illustration still isn't done - I'm still debating on whether or not the panda should be on a telephone wire, or a tree limb...and there still needs to be a house or some sort of background nonsense...my first thought is to put a field back there, but that doesn't really show off too much skill...so I'll be adding a full background...

I did a quick color fill just to make it easier to see which direction the illustration is going. I am definitely leaning towards putting a tree there for the panda to be stuck in...

IF: Crunch...on the ground...!

So I'm working on a followup to the skydiving animals I did a couple of weeks ago. It's been really tough trying to figure out what the outcome to that illustration should be. It's taken me all this time and countless drawings trying to work it out.

I've finally decided on this:

It's, obviously still in rough form...but I'm going to clean it up today in Adobe Illustrator and then print it out and revise my lines in blue pencil (which is just how I always work...the above illustration was the original drawing scanned into the computer - you can sort of make out perspective lines trying to line things up and correct wonky directions...I've already printed it once and gone back over it with a blue pencil).

Originally I kept drawing the panda bent over a branch of a tree and the other skydiving characters around him...or slamming into the ground with a big crunch (which is probably too graphic for a children's book style illustration)...but the idea of the panda stuck on a telephone wire (that part isn't drawn yet) and surprising some folks who were just sitting in their backyard sounded like a better idea).

Hopefully I'll have this drawing done later today and it'll be ready for color.

IF: Crunchy....cereal!

I had this old drawing from a children's book dummy that I was working on based on my character Adelia.

When I saw the topic of the week for Illustration Friday (Crunchy) I automatically thought of eating crunchy cereal...which is what Adelia is doing here:

I dusted off the old adobe illustrator drawing and painted it in photoshop this very morning. Sure I sort of cheated by having such a nondescript background, but that's not the point of this illustration...it's all about Adelia and her deliciously boring looking cereal.

I was told by an executive at Nick Jr (Nickelodeon for smaller kids) that my character Adelia needed a mouth, so I've been toying with what she would look like with one...which is why, when I finished this illustration, I went back in and drew a mouth. I kind of think it's a stronger piece...it shows more that she's eating AND enjoying herself...

Christmas kids

I did this for Shutterstock. One could say that I'm entrenched or even entangled in the world of microstock imagery. I've been at it since March, and the best thing is that I don't have to focus that much on it, and the images still sell...mostly on Shutterstock and Istockphoto, but also on some of the less popular sites. It's something that I can't stay away from and even after all these months I check the download status every day (well...twice a day on Istockphoto and probably 8 or 9 times on Shutterstock).

The original idea was to create some 'doll' cutouts that one could place different clothes on. These are the first of such things...only there are no other clothes, just what they have on their backs. But I'm going to redraw them with minimal clothing (just enough to keep them decent) and then have a variety of options on the side that people can add.

It's an idea...we'll see if it works...

This was the original version...just a bunch of kids in winter garb...

On both of these, my wife - who is an amazing color stylist and is currently working as a texture artist at Nickelodeon - recolored them. She always does an amazing job!

Also - I had to start a new blog counter because I changed the way my blog was laid out. That means that the 28,000 views I had previously are no more and I'm starting over today (december 3rd) with a 0000000 counter...we'll see how high it gets before something happens and it too has to be replaced or restarted.

lil' thumbnail of a dog and livingroom

This is just a little doodle I did during the thanksgiving holiday (as well as the Adelia drawings from the previous post. I'm just trying to think of different areas like a living room - where it's just normal and sterile and boring...and I want to put my characters into that to liven it up. The reason why is that I was at an illustrator event at the beginning of November and did a portfolio review with an award winning illustrator (and one that is constantly working).

He told me that you can't just have drawings of fantastic action...in your portfolio you should also show that you can take someone's script (children's book or otherwise) and create all the scenes from the book...and, in a way, make the mundane bits interesting. You're not always going to have the characters skydiving or having a pig pull a skunk in a wagon through a field... You also have to have them in the quieter times.

So my current idea for my next postcard (after the skydiving one) is to have the square characters sitting around their living room and reading.

Also - the scribbles on the page are from my 3 year old niece who saw me drawing and wanted to draw me a picture.

Adelia thumbnails...

I work at Nickelodeon - and while we do all (or most) of the regular cartoons in our building, the nick jr stuff is mostly taken care of elsewhere. And the headquarters for Nick Jr (programming like Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer and Olivia) is in New York, so we almost never see the people who work on them.

Why that matters is that all the big executives for Nick Jr are in New York, and if you want to pitch something to them, you have to go to them. What's quite nice is that the Vice President and the production manager came to our little studio in Burbank a couple of weeks ago and sat in a meeting room for an entire day taking our pitches....

It was great meeting them, and I showed them this character that I've been working on for the last couple of years named Adelia (you'll see her all over my blog and/or website - www.isaacmarzioli.com). They loved the character but probably won't use her because of how I designed her. I intentionally drew her without a mouth because she started off as an adelie penguin and that pointy nose was originally a simplified beak...somewhere in the design process, the character became more stylized. The beak became an upturned nose. My thought was always to have her as a character that has a narrator, and while she isn't a mute, she doesn't have to say anything to get her story told.

This is the original picture of Adelia


Concept art for the original Adelia Design

One thing you have to be able to do when you pitch a character or a show or whatever is be willing to adapt. While it's your job as a designer or illustrator (or, more broadly, a creator) to come up with the original concept - it's their job to hone it and refine it into something that can be watchable and hopefully successful. I'm trying to redesign Adelia with a mouth to get the VP's attention that maybe this character is still a viable option for them, but at the same time I'm hoping to show that I am willing to revise and that I can work with critique.

I expect nothing to come of this, of course, but it can't hurt to try. If things don't end up working out then I can always go back to my original design of Adelia.

I'm still trying a couple of different ways to incorporate a mouth with the character. Do I make the mouth a full part of her head shape? Or should it be more stylized and appear on the one side of her face (which I like more because it's smaller and cuter and stays out of the way of the rest of the head design). Anyhow - I'm still working at it...

Microstock report for November 2009

November was kind of a down month for all of the vector sites. And while I did finally have time to upload a couple of new images, there was nothing that really clicked with the stock buying public.

Shutterstock is still the highest money maker with almost $147. This site has been pretty consistent for the last few months - each time around the 140 dollar range.

Istockphoto was a little bit of a disappointment after a $70 and a $106 couple of months. This time around it dipped significantly to $60.

I'm hoping to add more christmas images, but once again, I don't know if I'll have time. Also - with it being this close to christmas, I might have missed my window of opportunity....maybe I should focus more on valentines day.

Skydiving

I previously posted the rough drawings for 'unbalanced'. And, here it is, in all it's colored glory.

Prints are available at Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34594454

IF: Unbalanced...in the head.

You'd have to have some sort of brain imbalance to attempt sky diving (or bunjee jumping or deep sea diving)...but yet people do it all the time. In this case it's four little animals. And they're all crazy.

This is my second pass at the illustrator clean-up. I still need to print it out (for a second time) and revise it before I can set about coloring it.


The major difference between this one and the previous cleanup is the addition of the fox character being yanked back up from opening his shute.

EDIT: the finished illustration is in the next post...

Falling with style

I don't know why I keep drawing this character falling...

I did this quick sketch about two weeks ago and I really liked how it looked...the angle and such...it looked quite nice. And I guess he's diving rather than falling...but it amounts to the same. I should probably do both drawings because they sort of relate. He could be hanging out in the park with friends, and thinking about doing such dangerous and fun things...while the actual skydiving could be a dream sequence. Or something.

This is the quick cleanup of the above drawing:


The way I usually work is that I do a thumbnail (or, at least, a really small drawing) in my sketchbook and then scan it in and do a rough cleanup in Adobe Illustrator. I print that out and make revisions, rescan it and re-clean it up (and sometimes, if it's still not looking right, I"ll print it out a second time and have another go with revisions)...and then I color the hell out of it in Photoshop. Anyway - I'm still at the beginning stage of this illustration....

Rock out with your ---- out...

I've never understood that saying. I guess it rhymes with rock...it doesn't sound like what one would be doing if they really were rocking out. It's more the stuff of sickos and perverts...but everyone has their own passions, so if this one is yours, at least make sure the women and kids are at a safe distance before you start whipping it about.

Anyway - this is for a client - they wanted a rough color drawing to go with a pitch. I can't talk about what the project is, so as to maintain the integrity of the idea. It does kind of blur the line between reality, exaggeration and cartoon.

It was kind of strange working so rough...and a bit hard using a wacom to trace line art in photoshop (I'm used to doing it in Illustrator, or at work on a cintiq)...but while there was a lot of ctrl-z action, I did manage...