More soft ball sketches

Been extreme busy with commitments, but here are the last of my softball sketches.

Some quick sketches

I have been pretty busy between work, volunteering , obligations and working through crappy art work. These are sketches done in a park, which I was looking for a long sword bout/practice to sketch and could not find them.

side project

Here are a couple of images from my side project. Please excuse the lighting in the shots,
they were roughly thrown in to illuminate the scene. I can't wait to get some real presentable
material. It's a combo of simple to more complex models, simple uv projections, and uv layout.

Sketchs done when I passed by the zoo for a couple of hours

Oh a Getty court yard quick sketch, and one coffee house sketch :)

Life drawings studies

Longer studies




Quick sketches with sharpie

Quick sketches in Charcoal

Studies I kept from previous life drawing sessions I kept for reference and study

More sketches from my pad

Character and lighting observations from different cafes. Many design and character observations by sitting around studying, and sketching. I hope that my observations will work their way back into my work to create great character moments, or lighting and composton ideas.

From Starbucks

Priscilla's cafe

Stir Crazy and Peet's coffee

Last Priscilla's cafe once agian.

Benhur thumbnail studies

The camera pans as the soliders on horses pass by a little shop of a carpenter, which is cleverly used as a motivation for the camera to frame the villager in the window. A great silhouette of the figure is frame in the middle of the shot for the audience to immediately focus. There are strong darks and cools which help enforce the silhouette of the man, by further staging his body within another window, to get the contrast of dark against light. The edit uses the Soldiers in the foreground to not only establish scale in the shot, but as a wipe, as the horse were used to motivate the pan for a wipe.

The wipe and staging help bring the audience to focus on this new character introduced into the plot. The Light setup (possibly a kicker) to highlight the actors face to establish a connection to the actor.

Cut back to a wide shot, utilizing silhouettes to establish design in the shot, by use of space and to initiate the scene between the two villagers. The soldiers are contrasted with the light from the sun, while the carpenter is in silhouette to help reinforce a sense of space and separation. The device effectively moves the audience to the point of view of the carpenter, but helps relay the story of the marching soldiers without causing confusion by just haphazardly focusing ion this new figure in the story. A third figure is established in the shot by super imposing him in-between the carpenter and the soldiers, a visual cue to draw the audiences attention to this figure. Great blocking with in this sequence for establishing character blocking, and moving from a large over view of space for the soldiers marching, to a more intimate setting within the carpenters shop. The tree cuts have effectively moved the viewer away from the marching soldiers, to the story of this carpenter working while this huge event is happening within his village. There is no time spent establishing the interior of the carpenter's shop, so as to not have the audience become to invested in the characters. The moment serves as a story telling device to help establish the era the film, by the iconic reference.

Except for the close up shot,all the shots thus far are more outdoor established light. There is a difference when comparing the light set up -vs- the natural light from out door, In terms of temperature captured, but extremely effective lighting to get the audience to look exactly where the director,cinematographer and production designer wanted the audience to look.

Grand Marnier commercial

Here is a commercial, which I had contributed some animation to a couple of shots. Some shots were done traditionally, and cleaned up in flash. The majority of the shots were animated using flash, and photoshop.

Pretty Swamped, but I wanted to post some sketch book drawings

I have been pretty busy... but I found a minute to post some sketches.

Yes, I sketch some times during life drawing breaks,( in reference to the 1st drawing) but I try not to be that anti social, but I like to get a quick sketch in or two :)

I had started to play with Painter

I have started to play with painter to compare it to photoshop. So far I like the intuitiveness with painter compared to photoshop. The only advantage with photoshop is the length of time which I have been using it.

More Sketch booksketches

I am glad, these people stuck around at the table long enough to get a good study for myself.

The two sketches below, I seized the moment and used a Tombo brush marker, as well as other rendering marks to indicate shadow,depth and texture at Stir Crazy cafe. This could go good or bad all the time. It's different than adding the tone in Photoshop under a controlled environment.

I was more comfortable with my pen this day. I always try to add indications of the environment, and to get a sense of the feel of the place.

For anyone visiting my blog, thanks for checking out my stuff. There are more sketches to come in the future.

Doodle Page from sketch group meet at Coffee shop

Page sketch at coffee shop meeting with sketch group. I posted it because it''s done on a loose leaf paper, and I would probably just end up loosing it.

Ben-Hur studies

In an attempt to make this more interesting , I am now going to explain some of the observations I am making while studying the shots from Ben-Hur. I definitely encourage feedback and/or input from any one taking the time to read these entries on my blog.
I have drawn these as thumb nails as opposed to screen grabs, in order to exercise my problem solving while sketching the shot. In order to practice little techniques for drawing cinematography, lighting and staging of actors and objects in the shot. I am posting the previous thumbnails to finish talking about the shot, so I can move on to new thumbnails.


The shots are a continue to build up the vast size of the Roman Empire through a succession of shots. The use of deep space within the shots are used as a tool to help support the armies size. As the shots proceed, we as an audience are being drawn in closer to the shots by the order of the shots. These shots were all outside, so there is less control of the lighting for these shots versus a stage environment.
The last thumbnail represents a panning shot with the horse being used a wipe for the shot in a way (very clever).
These shots do not get into the meat of the story, as we as a viewer are still being acclimated into the world.

I love this packaging design

I really dig this packaging design for the box cover art and Logo for these games. I am a big Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead fan. This design captured the essence of the two films. The shape of the fingers lead right into the logo, the color contrast directs my eye right to the hand, and right up to the fingers. Great use of Repetition with variation. Personally I would love to meet the designer/designers responsible for this designs. Great job!!!

A couple of Quick sketches

These are a bunch of quick sketches I complied together from standing on line to sitting drinking coffee and reading, taking a the time to capture some real life. I am trying to maintain a level of consistency,while trying to experiment with graphic results from the various lines put down.

As I make time to scan more sketches into photoshop, I will post more observational sketches.

My Website

I have published my website, although alot of it is under construction, but it's up finally

Click the Website link on the sidebar for viewing pleasure.

Cg pics

Here are some pics for little project I have been trying to finish on the side. It started as a assignment I wanted to finish, but I have to split duties between other things, all of which take up a massive amount of time.

Guy I had a conversation with at a coffee shop

I ended up talking to this guy, while sketching at a coffee shop one weekend.