Starting Superjail today!!!

Finally, after being pushed back 2 weeks for some reason, I started my new job today. I am totally excited to get back to work doing what I love and what I do best... Making Cartoons! Before i took the Superjail test, i sketched out some "like" characters in my sketchbook to mentally prepare myself.

Dude Sketches

Presenting.... More Sketches from my Moleskine

this time, some dudes...

first a couple of characters you might find in prison..



and next a couple of guys belonging to the Bearded Society.

VB BG

As an intern on the Venture Brothers, I was lucky enough to be exposed to many facets of the design and production phase of a cartoon show. It is something you CAN learn in school, but doesn't quite make sense until you witness it first hand. (One thing that didn't make sense is, as an intern, not being given credit for the artistic contributions, however, I digress...)

As an intern, I was given menial tasks, such as paneling story boards into a template (to help the production artists), to more important tasks, inking characters for the character designers, and creating "tonals" for the background artists (which in my opinion was the most challenging and took forever). However, at the time I was one of a few interns charged with creating these "tonals".

Incidentally, the first episode to air from the new season of the show was not the first in production (actually, the 3rd). The "Butterglider and the Diving bell" episode was the last one I had contributed any BG assistance before my internship ended and was officially hired onto Robotomy as a character design artist. (I did work on some later episodes, inking characters and props...)

This is how I fit into the pipeline of Background production...

First off, the background designer is charged with designing a bunch of BG's per episode and is often biting off more than he/shw can chew. consider all the revisions they might have to make to meet the creators vision. The artist usually does sketches to be approved first.

This first image, designed by Background Supervisor, George Fort, was the approved sketch (it might have been the second version submitted???)



Sometimes, when George knows his workload could use a little easing up, and trusts the interns skills, the artist will ask for help.

Given the above sketch, I began to build the BG in flash using grays to give form, and eliminate all the outlines.

The result is the following image.




This version is then passed on to the BG Painter and they turn this gray thing into an amazing looking piece of finished amazingness!

I believe this image was painted by the Color Supervisor, Liz Artinian, who added so much superb detail and color it blows my mind.




Every step is a refining process from the previous. So much hard work and talent goes into the show, it is quite astounding, yet no wonder why this show has garnered so much success.

Let it be noted that all these images are on loan and are the copyright and property of Cartoon Network.

Venture Brothers Season 4.2 Arrives Sept. 12th

Well, the long-ish awaited return of the rest of Venture Brothers season 4 premieres on September 12.

I believe I had a hand in this first episode. Actually I was all over the place on this episode, if memory serves correctly.

I participated in paneling for the storyboard team, inking for the character/prop design team, and built some of the flash "tonals" for the background design team.

I hope I can post some of that stuff once the episode airs.

Here are some sketches i did last year to commemorate my time as an intern on Venture Brothers....