Heroes Convention - 2013

The Heroes Convention folks only this week had up dated information including table assignment information.

This year the convention has grown to about twice its size of the past few years! That means twice the fun!

Heroes Convention
Charlotte Convention Center
501 S. College St.
Charlotte, NC 28202

Fri. June 7 - Sun. June 9, 2013

Visit me at the Monster Enterprises table, Artist Alley: AA-430

Cartooning Mondays

(clock-wise from top-left: Dash the Dachsund, a Chihauhau, Marbols the Cat, intern bird, a pig, Hilarity Hare, Hilarity (again), a sheep dog).

Sketches. ink on paper, 2013

Have I never discussed Cartoon Mondays on Monotonae? Well, then this is going to be a poor introduction to it. My apologies.

Above in the mix of anthropomorphic critters are Dash, Marbols, Hilarity and an intern bird. They were created for my attempt to make a weekly comic strip at work after I was hired at Cartoon Network in 2001. You see, I thought I’d be able to find a few free minutes at days’ ends here and there. I thought I’d be able to do a little work satire to blow off steam or deflate some of the ridiculous aspects of the job, much as I had with BackSTAGE and STAGElights when I worked for Disneyland’s French Market Restaurant, Second Hand Comics at Disneyland’s New Century Timepieces, and mini-poster series at Disney Consumer Products. It turned out that free minutes were hard to come by. The strip died after, I don’t know, maybe two dozen irregularly posted installments.

A few years later, I pitched it to the Network as an idea for a series of two-minute shorts.

Now it only lives in my repertoire of things I sketch at work, I think largely because there’s something about a character by the name Hilarity that just shouldn’t be allowed to fade.

The Parrot Trap

birds, sketches, 

ink on paper, 2013

First I drew a bird that looked like a parrot (top left). THEN I drew it’s perch, whose design became like the ones for the performing audio-animatronic parrots of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. Then I drew the rest. “I may as well stick with the theme,” I thought.

120 [m ] : D.B.D. ID

 In the summer of 2009, Cartoon Network tried a competition show called “Destroy Build Destroy”. On it, typically, two teams of young people competed in a three-stage battle where they 1) destroyed some kind of machine; 2) designed and built some kind of contraption from the remnants; and 3) used what they built to be the first to have accomplished a wild task - all with expert assistance.

They might have framed the competition of the likes of “Math Geeks versus Athletes”. To that end the Illustration group was asked to submit icon ideas for the different teams they planned for the first season. The guidelines were that the icons would have to work displayed small on screen.

The icons most difficult to create were for team pairings defined by age or size differences, say “Kids versus Parents”. I suspect that this was so because they’re contextual descriptors, in that a figure by itself neither immediately describes either kid nor parent, small nor big. It’s similar to the situation where a regular sized drink is not necessarily the medium sized drink, until there’s a small sized offered, and for that matter also a larger sized one.

120 [m ] - Hatter Late Than Never

“Party”

India ink on Bristol Board

35.6 cm  x  27.9 in. (14.0 in  x  11.0 in.)

2011

For the last four Springs, I have been involved with the Mad Hatter event put on by the Young Audiences, Woodruff Arts Center at the High Museum in Atlanta, GA where I volunteer conduct “how to draw” sessions. The characters I demonstrate are characters from Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland books.

For an auction they had, I drew the above inspired by the illustrations by John Tenniel.

120 [m ] - Back and Force

 Conceptual compositions for promotional posters for the launch of Ben 10 Alien Force.

2008.

 Conceptual compositions for promotional posters for consumer print advertisments of Ben 10 Alien Force.

2008.

Conceptual compositions for promotional “tease” posters for the launch of Ben 10 Alien Force.

2008.

Back in 2008, Cartoon Network had in production Ben 10 Alien Force, a spin-off series of its successful Ben 10 animated actioner. In it, Ben was five years older, and teamed up with his cousin, Gwen and former adversary Kevin Levin. In true sequel fashion, so much of it borrowed from its predecessor: a) a basic logo design; b) “kid with a magic watch” set up; c) alien heroes; and d) green.

Thematically, the series was darker and even took place mostly at night. However, the key impression we attempted to communicated was “different” while retaining all the audience’s favortie parts.

Series producer, Glen Murakami, offered some suggestions for poster images in the form of his inspirations for the new series. And then I drew. As an experiment, I tried sketching natively in Photoshop with the Wacom Cintiq digitzing display. A practice helpful when I was experimenting with  resizing and re-positioning elements like logos and iconic images of Ben.

The teaser poster, resembled one of the concept sketches - well, if not for any other reason than we locked the shadowed Ben pose at the start, because it was a pose already being produced for licensing. The consumer print ad turned out pretty faithful to the layout of the first sample on the left of the second row.

I’ll note additionally, that I always seem to throw in tilted layout options for action show posters, and some where in produciton someone straightens them out.


> sigh <

BEN 10 ALIEN FORCE TM and © Cartoon Network.

HeroesCon Commissions

HeroesConvention

May 7-9, 2013
Charlotte Convention Center
 501 S. College St.
Charlotte, NC  28202

I will be the Monster Enterprises table in the Artist Alley area on the convention floor. The exact table number is still TBD.

Poinson Ivy
Commissioned sketch
colored pencil and black ink on Bristol Board

Convention Sketches
Here I will be selling convention sketches in addition to things like my independent adventure comic book, “Unstoppable Tuff-Girl.” For the per-character rate of $25, I will draw, ink and block in color with color-pencil on 9 in. x 12 in. Bristol board or in your sketchbook or drawing pad up to 14. in. x 17 in. Examples of my convention sketches can be found here on monotonae. Be prepared and stop by early to get your order in. Make sure you bring reference if you have an obscure favorite character.

Black Cat

Commissioned sketch

colored pencil and black ink on Bristol Board

Pre-Order Your Convention Sketches
I am accepting a limited number of pre-orders for sketches from now up until Sun. March 4, 2013. If you absolutely know your are going to be there and want to make sure you get your order in, then this may be the deal for you. For the super reasonable per-character rate of $15, I will draw, ink and block in color with color-pencil on 9 in. x 12 in. Bristol board. I will only be accepting pre-orders for 20 characters, and limiting orders to 2 characters per-person. I can be contacted via e-mail at bryanmon@att.net or check the “View my complete profile” on this blog. I look forward to a terriffic time in Charlotte.

See you there.

POINSON IVY TM & © DC Comics.
 BLACK CAT TM & © Marvel.

Write - Draw - Color

Carmine Red pencil on Bristol Board

17.15 cm  x  51.44 cm  (6.75 in.  x  20.25 in.)

As winning an idea as I thought “Eat, Sleep, Draw” was, in typical brainstorming fashion, I explored about other set ideas. This one is more resumé/ portfolio skewed. My marketing brain likes this idea. My creative brayn loves the first set.

I’m still finding the rules for drawing this Monster. I have discoverd with these six drawings that for this character design, that’s a big ol’ nose that gets in that way when I’m trying to squeeze everything into circle.

Eat - Sleep - Draw

Carmine Red pencil on Bristol board.

17.15 cm  x  51.44 cm  (6.75 in.  x  20.25 in.)

This series of Monster is for a set of promotional pin-back buttons. A fourth design to complete the set will an, as of yet uncomplete, logo.

The idea started as a 2 x 2 grid of circles, where quickly one circle was filled with the words “Monster Enterprises”. One done and three to go.

Just three more. Of course, at least one of those should be my Monster mascot. In free flowing manner, I scribbled Monster with a big chocolate chip cookie. If the first is “eating”, then naturally the second should be “drinking”. Instead I scribbled a napping Monster. Finally, “eat” and “sleep” is followed by “draw”, pretty much my daily pattern (minus a goodly portion of T.V.).

Critters

A few humble offering, where in a busy schedule of work, conventions, more work and other responsibilities a pen and the blank pages of a notebook brings forth funny animal drawings.

“fish”
black ink on paper
2013

“critters”
blue ink on paper
2013

These were done by stream of consciousness. Not much construction drawing here, which probably means I was, on a sub-conscious level at least, channeling something stuck in my memory like Peter de Séve.