NICK JR/ NOGGIN CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN INVENTORS

All this month you can catch a few black history month spots I did on Noggin and Nick Jr. I had the great pleasure of creating commercial spots showcasing African American inventors. When I get the green light from the network, I will post Hi res versions of the spots on my blog. In the meantime, you can get a peek of them HERE on the Nick jr website. Feel free to post comments below. I would love to get some feedback.

Here is my original character design lineup of all of these wonderful inventors.
From (L to R) Lonnie Johnson (Inventor of the Super Soaker), George Washington Carver (Inventor of Peanut Butter), Garrett Morgan (Inventor of the traffic signal), Alfred Cralle (Inventor of the Ice cream scooper), George Crum (Inventor of the potato chip), Jack Johnson (Inventor of the wrench)

This project gave me the great opportunity to experiment with a style I've been doing for some time. These are a few examples above. It's a real simple style that is a mix of my own with a little Abstract and a few other inspirations.


BTW, You can also see an additional spot I did for the network Celebrating Barack Obama and some of his favorite things.
Be sure to leave comments below.

JOHNNY 2X4 DOWN BY LAW

I stumbled upon an old animation clip in my files of Johnny 2x4 that I animated some time ago. It actually loops and I added a little music to it. Enjoy!

PIXEL PIRATE T-shirt

PIXEL PIRATE is my new brand. Everything I do from here on out will be produced through PIXEL PIRATE STUDIO. Childrens books, prints, toys and limited edition art. Support the brand and represent by purchasing one of these new T-shirts. Profits go towards the production of other merchandise. They come in all sizes(Kid sizes too!) and different color choices as well as the option to print on American apparel tees. More cool designs to come every month. What are you waiting for?

REX marks the spot book

Here's the cover illustration I did to a new Sushi Pack kids book. Go to your local book store and ask for it, or click on the banner above to buy your copy NOW!


HERE'S AN ACTUAL CLIP FROM THE EPISODE...

NOTHING WRONG WITH A LITTLE CHANGE

As many of you have noticed, I haven't been posting much lately . All due to taking on tons of freelance work. GOOD NEWS is, most of that work is off of my plate now and that I am planning on starting anew. I'm changing the look of the blog (this is only a temporary template for now). I promise to have tons of new art to share as well as the occasional Throwback. Just keep checking back for updates or sign up for a feed update. A lot of my projects throughout next year will be animated, so updates wont be as frequent as it is for sketches. So please bare with me during this positive transition into 2009. It's time for a CHANGE. My joyful congratulations go out to our new president and his wonderful family. I'm fired up and ready to go for the next few years.

9/25 Sketches

I really want to start sketching more often. Mostly without too much thought. I started off my usual way by making random shapes with a brush marker, then turning each shape into a character. Below is a character collage from an older sketchbook.

SAX Jr ROCKS GH3 "DragonFOREST"

Lil' Sax wanted to try out Guitar Hero, so I had him try out the hardest song on the game to see what he would do. I captured his performance and speed it up for fun. All his moves were made up on his own from his tiny little head.

Zombies

Here are a couple of Zombie concepts from my sketchbook.

Finished unfinished

Pushing 2 deadlines so I grabbed an unfinished character from my laptop and fished him up. Falling asleep as I tyyyyppppppp.........zzzzzzzzzzzz

THROWBACK THURSDAY "I got no strings"

I have a new addiction called Guitar hero. I've tried to play real guitar and thought it was really difficult to maneuver my fingers on the strings. When my niece stayed over for the summer, she brought this game over and I was hooked. It became an all out battle between she and I on the Wii for top score. When I began to get the true hang of it, I began to crush her in points (I'm really competitive) I started talking trash and for some reason I yelled out "I GOT NO STRINGS TO HOLD ME DOWN!" Later on I realized that this was a song from Pinocchio, so I quickly did a rough sketch which ultimately turned into today's Throwback Thursday.

This song is pretty fun to play....


(Not me btw)

OH! I forgot to drop this little bit of animated knowledge on ya about the Guitar Hero 3 game. There is some really cool 2D animation throughout the career mode of the game done by a great animation studio out west called Titmouse. The head of this outfit is a great animator I've had the pleasure of chatting with off and on by the name of Chris Prynoski. You might be familiar with his work if you've seen things like MTV Downtown, the opening credits of Afro Samurai, The opening animation of Avatar on Nick and Adult Swim's Metalocalypse. He's bean around in the animation biz for a while and I love his work. Peep the clip below....

This is why I like Bakshi

I've always loved the work of Ralph Bakshi. I came across this video of him at SD comic con over on Cartoon Brew. It's a MUST SEE. Bakshi tells it like it is, blunt and to the point. Make your own film.
Go out and get this book while your at it.

Kid stuff

This is an unused kid I designed recently for a new project of mine. He's got the moppy haired Marty McFly look going on. I think I'll store him away for another project.