Star Wars Uncut: Empire Strikes Back

Howdy folks!  I hope everyone's Holidays are gearing up to be great.  I'll be spending mine here in Texas, with warm weather and dirt, but the family always makes it seem like a perfect Holiday Movie.

Anyway, I had been attempting to clear out some projects so I would have time to do this, and thankfully the boat didn't sail.

So, officially, I have picked up a scene for the latest iteration of 'Star Wars Uncut'.  This doesn't mean I actually get to have my scene in the feature, but I'm just happy I have the time to throw down for the spot.  The scene I chose is the part where Luke slashes open a hatch on an AT-AT and then throws a thermal detonator or something in it to make it go boom.

I will be attempting to keep a pretty detailed account of how I go about doing this scene, from character designs, to set pieces, and story boards to animation.  So you folks will finally get to see some of the crap I do...  Yay!

So, day one... morning one...  whatever, I scraped up some time between animations for the upcoming Jack Reacher review on Spill.com and sketched out my version of Luke, for the animation.  More is coming soon!

Thank you dummy

So, a buddy of mine and all around incredible artist, Matt Frank(of Monster drawing fame), posted a meme lampooning a photo of a Stegosaurus with a sign denoting that Stegosaurs are only 5,000 years old.  Hilarity ensued as one of his facebook friends pointed out the possibility of...  Wait for it... Egyptians riding Stegosaurs!!

F@#$IN' A', Egyptians Riding Stegosaurs!!!!!!

And now this happened...

Bond. James Buh... Oh, wait...

So it has been a while.  Too long I think.  I had quite a computer meltdown and lost quite a bit, but I am back and here is some more artistic drivel.

This started as a piece of art for the Spill.com carousel as part of the find 'em challenges we sometimes have.  Unfortunately the challenge got tossed to the way side, so the artwork was never seen.  So, here it is, in all its unseen glory!  I present, the spill crew in 'You Only Spill Twice'!

I know, I know.  Damn, I'm clever.

Professor Jeff Meets Gears of War

Started this quite a while ago and now its finally finished.  I did this for a buddy of mine who runs "The Loading Bar" over at Spill.com.

3 Dollar Bill

This is strip #150 for the webcomic 3 Dollar Bill.  It was a fill in strip for my buddy Eric Matos and I had a lot of fun doing it.  Go check out his webcomic, its worth the trip.

Chuck 'E' Cheeeeeeese Meets Raccoon City

I never played Raccoon City and I have never been to Chuck 'E' Cheese before so imagine my boss' surprise when he asked me, several months ago, to draw a character from Raccoon City killing the "beloved" animatronic characters from Chuck's only to have me say, "Have who killing the who from what now?"  So I did my research pumped out a picture and this is what came out.  And after doing the research I have come to the conclusion that I never went to Chuck 'E' Cheese as a kid because my parents loved me.

Freakazoid

I made it mo' betta'.

 

X-ThunderMen

Just fooling around.  

Eesta Me! Ah Mario!!!!

This is actually off of an old picture I dug up from 5 or so years ago that my brother and I combined talents to draw on a plane trip to California.  I say combined talents, but the genius of baby goombas wearing chucks is all him.

Ironically I found this picture while trying to figure out what to do with old art so it wouldn't take up so much space.  Instead I ended up with a new warm-up project between work and insomnia.  So I threw on some inks and some colors and tossed in the BG I did for spill.com that was never used and voila!  A bucket full of sleep-deprived, Richlen-family awesomeness!!  ...Or something.

Martial Arts Throwdown

Another commission I did recently.  Karate Kid vs Judo Master!  As fun as it is to draw the Spider-Mans and Batmans of comics, sometimes drawing the goofballs is far more fun.  This was definitely the case with this piece.  Being able to escape my digital bonds and getting to do more traditional work is always wonderful.

Jungle Action!!

This is actually a lot less sexual than the title would lead you to believe.  A lot.

This is a commission I just got finished with, for the terrific Mr. Andrew Allen.  The commission is a cover recreation, based on the art of the legendary Gil Kane, of Black Panther #25.  Mr. Allen has several more such recreations on his page Andrew Allen @ Comic Art Fans.  He was kind enough to provide a little collection of work through shots, starting with how he laid out the titles, to my initial layout.  And then from Pencils to inks and inks to added titles for a preview of the finished work.

I had ton of fun doing this and it was a welcome break from all the animating and digital artwork.  Putting pen to paper is very challenging but far more rewarding when it comes out well.  When it doesn't, I am often left wishing I had command-z on my paper. Thankfully, this was smooth sailing.

I hope you enjoy taking a peak as much as I did doing the piece.

Punishernaut

As unimaginative as this is, I wish I could say had enough imagination to come up with the idea. Unfortunately, some drunk on Ten Ton Studios did. As part of their sketch challenge, each artist had to mix a character with the Stone of Cytorak(sp?), creating any number of strange and exciting combinations of Juggernaut! Mine? Imagine this... Frank Castle, the Punisher, gains the stone, turning him into the unstoppable force known as the JUGGERNAUT and uses these powers to more easily get at bad guys through big doors and shoot them! You may be asking why he still has guns. Well, venom has body armor and a rifle right now so I blame stupidity passed on to me by unimaginative writers at Marvel. ZING!

The Escape

Last Weekend, I got to escape my common bonds and travel with my sister to go see my brother for a family break of sorts. During my break I got to put pencil to paper, something I have been neglecting to do lately because of my job. All of my art is digital at Spill.com, so going commando with no undo button to rely on was a little weird. The transition was rocky at first. The art obviously got stronger as I drew and I realized how much I missed the tactile. So here is some art from the weekend, the good with the bad, with much more to come in the future.

Marvel Mash-Ups

So, a dude on digitalwebbing.com started an art thread doing mash-ups of Marvel and other characters. He started off with Dr. Doom and Skeletor. http://digitalwebbing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159927

Anyway, it got me in the mood and since my wife is a fan of Thundercats and I'm a fan of drawing them...

More to come soon.
(Added a fixed version of the Jackal Man pic. The messed up version is left for posterity lol)

Juggernaut/Slithe
Vultureman/Nimrod
Apocolypse/Mum Ra
Jackal Man/Omega Red

Nerd Rods

I felt inspired this morning to do a take on my friend's new logo for his car shop. Formerly Hot Rod Jim's, Nerd Rods combines old classics with all the advances new cars have without compromising that classic feel you get from that old Muscle Car you have adored since you were 16(or dreamed about since you were sixteen, like me).

Hope you enjoy it!

Darkness II Challenge

Apparently, deviant art has decided most people aren't old enough to view the gore in this sequential. But I think its good for you. Ya know? It builds character.

And now, a new version, that is hopefully better than the original. The simply story behind this sequential is that after a god 20 hours of work into it, Adobe Flash Professional(the shittiest software on earth, go fuck yourself Adobe) decided that my work was worth destroying. I had a myriad of random lines added, and a ton of lines and shapes removed. My work was destroyed and I had a little over 6 hours to the deadline. So I started over and did the best I could with what wasn't destroyed. So now I have added a few things I had planned to from the beginning and fixed a few others. There is a line of obscenities hanging over Lake Austin that may simply never dissipate. It's worthy of its own dirty book, written by me. However, I am fairly happy with what came out, regardless of the insanity.