Sketchcrawl 17 - Chintatown

Sketchcrawl 17 was held in Chinatown-San Francisco, Ca. The sun was out, but the air was chilly. Here's a sketch of an intense game of cards.
I then moved onto a bridge overlooking the park in one direction and the Transamerican Pyramid Building in another. But the Coit Tower caught my attention. I stayed about 45 minutes before my hands froze from the cold breeze.
I now regret not staying to finish inking the whole sketch, but here's a closer look at what I was able to finish.
I didn't realize how long I was hanging out at the park so I walked onto the main street in Chinatown and looked for a place to eat. I found some food at a nearby corner store. I did a couple sketches while I ate. Here's a few people walking up and down the hill or waiting to cross the street.
Here's the last few sketches on my way back to the park to share sketchbooks.
I missed greeting a few people: Emma, Dice, Amelia and Leeroy (LA). Glad to see Winona, Kevin, Enrico, Ronnie and Nate. Mitch and Jim drove up from Los Angeles. See ya next crawl.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - Day 5 (final re-cap)

Here's the last painting demo for the Expo. I only had time to complete the sea-turtle on Friday and later added a background when I got home.

Thanks to the Axiotron crew, thanks to Emma for bringing the creative promoters together, and thanks to the kind folks that stopped by to say "hi". It was a privilege to meet Sheldon, artist for Cartoon Network's "Foster's Home of Imaginary Friends". Story Artist - Mitch and James from Los Angeles introduced me to a Pixar great, Floyd Norman. It was great to meet a Pixar artist that started with Pixar back when they were still located in Point Richmond. I used to work in one of Pixar's older buildings, but now belongs to a Biotech Co. and Software company.

Thanks to my friends that dropped by to give the Modbook a whirl: Glen, Ari, Daniel, Marie, Anna, Carolyn, Olive, Elizer and Ocho.

I wish I could have done a sketchcrawl every night with the Modbook, but I was so tired by the time we closed up shop, ate dinner and headed back to the hotel. It was very difficult to say good-bye to the lovely Modbook that I got to take with me every night.

On a lighter note...I see that customers are slowly receiving their own Modbooks....that they ordered last year! Can't wait to see all their new illustrations.

Ahhh....the last day of the Expo. I've been on such a creative high everyday this week, but had to wake up a tad early to finish packing - so I'm a little sluggish. I decided to keep the aquatic theme going for today's demo. Here's a sneak peak....looks like a big brown blob for now.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - San Francisco Day 4 (re-cap)

Not sure why I decided to draw birds the other day? I may have subconsciously thought of the roosters & hens that my late grandfather used to raise.

Day 4 - I decided to attempt a fully rendered painting today. I was zipping through photos of tropical fishes and gravitated towards the shark family. They're such an amazing species and are known to hit high speeds, breech into the air, attacking their clueless preys (I watch way too much Discovery Channel/Animal Planet). Nothing is creepier than a shark staring you in the face with water reflections trickling over the top of its body.


With answering customer questions and doing this demo on Photoshop, I finished up the painting around 4pm. Someone inquired last minute if they can have it as a wallpaper for their computer, so I cropped the top and bottom....but I wish I made a more creative background.

Here's a small clip of the Modbook put to work during MacWorld. It's a small segment at the beginning that mentions the pens' 512 levels of pressure sensitivity. It's a glimpse at a unicorn design by Steph...

and a little fishy I started painting on Day4 (Thurs).
The final painting will be posted soon.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - San Francisco Day 1-3 (re-cap)

Just arrived at the MacWorld 2008 Expo in San Francisco, Ca. It took place in 2 separate halls at the Moscone Center. I'll be working as a promoter for the Axiotron booth, whipping up some digital illustrations on the heavily awaited MODBOOK.

(photo provided by Mitch)

The Modbook is a Mac book laptop with the Wacom technology slapped onto the top. It's not a touch screen, it responds to the pen stylus. The feel is very natural when you draw and write (no delyed response). You'll notice that the the modbook does not open to reveal a keyboard?! That's because there's a virtual keyboard on the screen. Yes, you can still plug in a keyboard into the USB port, but you can also use a wireless keyboard thanks to the built in bluetooth feature. Did I mention it has a built in GPS system? How about the "hand writing recognition" ability? Whoa! Louie was right, this is an incredible machine.

Day 1 - had a chance to settle into the hotel and head on up to get a crash course on the specs and usage of the Modbook. I'll be working along the sides of talented artist: Emma Coats, Kevin Hucek, Steph Labaris and Winona (Nonnie) Nelson.

Day 2 - Wake up...I hear on the news that (since 6am) there has been an extremely long line that went around the corner. Many of you may already know that 9:30am - 10:30am was the anticipated keynote speech by Steve Jobs. So the doors did not open to the public until 11am.

I was still adjusting to all the cool features on the modbook and did more promoting than sketching today. There were attempts on caricature sketches of customers...but I disliked any of them.

Day 3 - The morning crowd was a lot slower than yesterday, so I started sketching a tiny quail as a warm-up.

Then continued working on a rooster.

That takes us into the end of the day. Still feeling good and energized from the unbelievable talents all around me.

To see a full re-cap on this day with photos & art, check out the post on Emma's blog.

Life Drawing Session

Acrylic on Canvas 9"x13"

First off, Canvas SALE at Aaron Bros. Buy 1 get the 2nd for a penny.

Just received an awesome Holiday/New Year's gift from my AIS alumni buddy, Josh. A perfect addition to my art book collection. It' s not heavy literature, but I've already gone through the first 10 chapters. It's sort of a "back to basics" drawing for animation type information, but I liked the section about "staying loose". I've seemed to have kept that mo-jo going with this latest portrait painting. I liked the way I was able to capture his beard,without painting in every strand of hair.

As for his necklace, I tried to make the mini cross a different color but it drew too much attention. I probably should have added a slight highlight on his necklace because it's totally lost in his chest hair.

Life Drawing Session

Here's a second take on portrait painting in my life drawing class. I felt pretty good painting the first 20-30 minutes, blocking in the shades and shapes. But then the struggle began around the cheek, lips....all the way down. Layers upon layers later....I was only happy with the hair.

IF: Soar