Two Frozen Girls
In case I don’t post anything else before the end of the weekend… Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! I’m thankful to have all of you following and encouraging my nonsense for a couple of years now, and I wanted to take a moment just to say thank you!
So, I already established that I’ve been watching Disney’s Frozen a LOT this Christmas with my nieces and nephew, which inspired me to draw Olaf recently. While watching a recent new episode of the CBS show, 2 Broke Girls, I suddenly had a warped thought… Oleg… Olaf… and then THIS happened!
A mash-up of Frozen + 2 Broke Girls that I can’t believe I couldn’t already find having been done by anyone else online. Kat Dennings’ Max Black becomes Anna, while Beth Behrs’ Caroline Channing becomes Elsa… and, strangely Oleg becomes Olaf AND I suspect both of them do enjoy the warm hugs. 🙂
I like the way this turned out, and I hope it is as funny to everyone else as it was when I thunk it up in my brain. Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
Santa Clauses!
Continuing the Christmas theme… Santa dropped by early for an extreme closeup portrait but couldn’t decide whether he wanted traditional or digital illustration work… so I did both! First, the completely hand-drawn version (pencil sketch w/ color marker finish) on a 7×10-inch comic backing board:
I followed that up, using the above baseline, to create a completely digital rendering in vector format:
Typical for my illustration work, I like the cleaner lines and sharper colors in the digital version. I must say, though, that aside from lacking a good match for skin-tone in the hand drawn version… both of these look remarkably similar for a change. Basically it’s a testament to my liking the hand-drawn one enough that I didn’t feel like I needed to make major tweaks or corrections in the digital re-render.
Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
Twice the Olaf for Christmas!
And now… for something more warm and friendly 🙂
I’ve watched Disney’s Frozen more times than I can count recently with my nieces and nephew… so I was finally properly inspired to try my hand at some new Christmas illustrations. For Olaf I actually liked him so much I drew him twice! First, a completely hand-rendered illustration from pencil sketch to color marker finish on a 7×10-inch comic backing board:
Then, using the above as a baseline… I re-rendered completely digitally as a vector illustration:
The lines are cleaner in the digital version, and the colors are sharper. I also was able to more easily add in some shadows and a few snowflakes to complete the image. I personally like the digitally finished one better, but starting with the hand-drawn one allowed me to hopefully carry over most of the organic nature of the character.
Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
Donny the Snowman
Profound apologies to Frosty the Snowman… but last month I had this idea for a Christmas mash-up… inspired by true events, ripped from the headlines as they say. 🙂 I wanted to get this one up before the holiday weekend and in honor of today being the day the Electoral College casts votes for the presidency.
The little things please me the most. I like how the magic twinkle effect around Donny is bringing him to life after the magical toupee is placed upon his head… and I like how disturbed that little girl truly looks. Her look in particular was referenced from the actual proper cartoon where she is cold and shivering while Frosty is seeking to save her from the cold at his own peril. I though that expression worked well here in this context. Meanwhile, Donny’s dialog is a riff on how Frosty always exclaimed, “Happy Birthday” every time he was brought to life. Donny says something far more tragic every time he comes to life. 🙂
Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
DBS Satellite Dish Technical Illustration
For people who know me or who have been following the blog for a while… you know my professional background is in Technical Writing and Illustration. I also have been a forum moderator at the DBSTalk Web site for many years now. As part of some recent logo redesign for that Web site I wanted to recreate the previous logo design as closely as I could to have a baseline for comparison purposes. I needed to do this because the original high-resolution source was lost and I did not create that previous design.
Long-story short, the previous Web site logo design for DBSTalk used a Dish Network Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) dish as a cornerstone around which the rest of the logo was created. Before working on any actual logo work, I first created this vector illustration of a Dish Network 1000.4 DBS rooftop dish assembly.
Even though I didn’t end up using this in the new logo redesign, I was pretty proud at how this turned out. I may even upgrade the satellite dish on the ‘Sects cave-teepee at some point just to see if anyone notices! 🙂
Please let me know what you think and remember, if you are interested in requesting my services as a Technical Illustrator, please use the Contact page and provide me with as much information as you can about your request.
Facebook Reaction Icons Logo Recreation
Back in October, for something in my ‘Sects comic strip, I wanted to parody Facebook a bit. I had a plot point where the Internet was down and one of my characters was so ill-equipped to handle being disconnected that he was running around putting these little stickers on everything the same way he would like a Facebook post. 🙂 So that meant I had to create these emoji…
Fairly simple logo recreation work here. Nothing complicated, but there is genius in simplicity sometimes… and now that I have these clean vector renderings I can use them all over the place!
I Have A Peach… I Have A Pear…
That’s it. What were you expecting? Some kind of Peach-Pear Pineapple-Pen parody? 😉
For those who remember the apple I drew back in July… and then used in my ‘Sects comic strip… last month I added a peach and a pear for some really bad puns in my regular comic strip. If you follow the strip, you’ve already seen small versions of these.
As much as I like the peach… I really feel like I nailed the pear. I like the pear better than my apple I think, and I really liked that apple. The leaf especially on the pear, I’m particularly proud of that.
Let me know what you think and, remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
Doctor Who, Lucky Thirteen: Peter Capaldi
Last month I created another entry in my series of Doctor Who portraits, based upon the actors who have played the title role in this long-running BBC science-fiction series. I time-traveled to the year 2013 this time, for an illustration of the current incarnation of the Doctor, as played by Peter Capaldi. Some people will quibble over the numbering, but I’m counting him as number thirteen and that’s that! 🙂
The thirteenth actor continuing the role of the Doctor is Peter Capaldi…
Peter Capaldi is a proper fan of the show too, having grown up watching it and even famously writing fan letters! With the ever-younger modern casting of the role, he had feared perhaps his time might have passed him by before being cast. Maybe it is his look, but he reminds me a bit of Jon Pertwee (the third Doctor) but if I close my eyes I can almost hear Tom Baker (the fourth Doctor). I guess what I’m saying is that while he is absolutely putting his own acting talents and spin into the role, he is evoking classic Doctor vibes as well, and that is a part of what makes this whole regeneration thing work for the show.
This is actually my first color illustration in my portrait series. My earlier illustrations of the first Doctor and the second Doctor were in black and white with shades of grey as a homage to how their episodes were shot and originally aired that way. All of the other Doctors have been shot and broadcast in full color, so that’s how they will be drawn by me.
Who will be next? Only time will tell! 🙂 Meanwhile, please let me know what you think of this and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
April O’Neil… but Probably Not the One You Were Expecting
I actually drew this last month, but various rounds of illness have put me behind in some of my intended blogging. One word of caution up front, if you’re not familiar with this woman, please be careful searching online because you’re going to pull up some images of adult situations.
April O’Neil is an adult film performer and, yes, she did take her performing name from a love of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character of that same name. She is also equally well-known for her love of all things geek and you are just as likely to find her cosplaying or geeking out over Doctor Who or Star Trek as you are anything else you might normally want to associate with adult film performers. Take note, for example, of the bad wolf tattoo on her left arm. 🙂 As a result, she challenges your perception of what a person is like based upon their chosen profession.
I found a nice image of her from an industry awards appearance, and that served as reference for my illustration here. I liked her look here in general, but especially the glasses. I was not able to completely capture the golden gleam of the dress she was wearing, but I think the overall effect still works here. As an aside, you might be surprised at just how difficult it was to find source images online of an adult film actress in clothing. I realize I’m probably in a weird minority group of people actually executing that search, but still!
Please let me know what you think and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.
i.e. Sequential... Journal... Visual... 
Recent Comments