Guillermo Del Toro Art Show - Gallery Nucleus

I am excited to share some step-by-step process for my new piece, "The Asset", part of the Guillermo del Toro art show - "IN THE NAME OF THE MONSTER, THE ROBOT, AND THE BLEEDING GHOST" - Curated by Chogrin at Gallery Nucleus.

"The Asset"

Paper

7"x9"

Having just come off a visual high from seeing "The Shape of Water", I knew that the amphibian man was going to be my subject for this tribute show. Exploring the design of the creature was what I first started with - and in my sketches I was toying with boxing him into a cage with geometric shapes. Seemed appropriate alongside that thick chain neck-leash they placed this poor creature into.

At this point I'm thinking either digital or acrylics - but after a while of pondering (or was it procrastinating), I was excited to try this out in paper form. After an successful excursion for supplies, I felt even more stoked to move forward with paper. I printed out a line only image from my Procreate sketch and planned it's use as shape templates. 

The main "skin" is a textured cyan paper - which worked out really well as the amphibian man's base tone and texture.

Using the line art as a template, I cut out the main shapes and used Mod Podge to glue the base layer to a thick card layer. as a precaution and to keep the layer stiff, I secured wood to the back of the card so that it would prevent curling. 

A combination of flat and other textures, the additional layers are glued on one by one. The shimmery ones were left at the topmost layer since they were sketchy at best in terms of a layer that could be covered. I reserved those layers for the eye and some shimmery scales pieces. 

I abandoned the background geometry idea for s single golden pattern. I did try a few attempts, but in the end I felt that the interest of the creature itself was enough, and other background shapes were not really needed. I had a palette that included much more orange, which gold replaced and provided a regal feel for the creature.  The underside of the creature art was separated from the background with a thick foam block. I was encouraged by how well it all came together - I have a great respect for folks who make this look easy! And...off to LA it goes!!!

Living in Chicago, I can only experience most shows through social media. This opening proved to be a very special one - attracting crowd of Guillermo Del Toro enthusiasts! So honored to be invited to participate in this show! Thanks to everyone who posted pics on Instagram - you make me feel like I'm there! Image credits - Al Ortega and Winifred

Doug Jones - the Amphibian Man himself - made an appearance and was extremely gracious at the show opening. Image credit - Galley Nucleus on Twitter.

The show runs January 13-28 2018, and if you are not in the Los Angeles area, you can see all the pieces online. Some rediculously stunning work!

BoJack Horseman - Gallery 1988

Hi Everyone!

I am pleased to announce that I am part of the Official Netflix BoJack Horeseman Art show with Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles! The show is now up to see and artwork is available on their website for purchase.

Here is my piece, "The Dark Truth", which explores the dysfunctional relationship of young BoJack, and his parents Beatrice and Butterscotch Horseman.

"The Dark Truth"

Acrylic, Pencil, and Ink on wood board

6"x12"

Painting in progress in this picture - working from the digital drawing as a guide. 

The Show runs from September 8 to September 30, 2017 at 7308 Melrose - Definitely check it out if you love the show!

Squared Co. Podcast

Hey Everyone! Today I am featured in The Squared Co. Podcast that is just starting up on Sound Cloud - hosted by Mark Morris, Creative Director of Squared Co. and co-hosted by freelance Disney artist Jerrod Maruyama.

I had a great conversation with these guys, ranging from my early years in the Animation industry, working on Animaniacs in my Startoons days; to my current work with licenses at Scientific Games and illustrations for Galleries.



I've started doing a few movie specific pieces for Squared Co. pop-up screenings and gallery shows with Cinepolis Theaters recently. You may have seen my pieces for the Aliens 30th Anniversary last year, and this year's art for the 30th Anniversary of "The Princess Bride".

 

In this podcast, we tease the next Squared Co. Show - "Tasty Real Estate", which opens on Saturday July 8th at Rose City Pizza in Rosemead CA. Here, I and 4 other artists have done a series of pop-culture eating establishments. A super concept by Mark and what is sure to be a great show. More reveals to come on this but here are some sneak peeks!

Also of note - The Now|Then Childhood revisited book is fully funded on Kickstarter (Thank you Thank you), and you can still get in on this preorder for 4 more days! Ready to ship in July!

If you have any questions for me after listening, or just want to have a conversation on anything about the art/animation biz, I'm super happy to discuss!

Stephen King - Gallery 1988

A Spectacular new show has just opened at Gallery 1988 - a tribute to the works of horror author Stephen King. Be sure to check out all the pieces on G1988's site, and if you live in LA, be sure to check it out in person. Show runs through the May.

Gallery 1988 

7308 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles CA 90046

"It's That Damn Road!"

11"x17" - digital

My piece is inspired by "Pet Sematary" - the road that no one in their right mind would choose to live next to - and the cause for many a critter to get the life squished right out of them. There is a way to have them live on, but as you know, "Sometimes Dead is Better."

The Princess Bride - 30th Anniversary

The Princess Bride is a film that has captured the hearts of so many (it's a movie about the power of true love, so how can it not)! If you are into fairy tales, sword fights and people in giant rat costumes, this film is for you!

SquaredCo - a company set on creating high quality art and events, celebrates the 30th anniversary of The Princess Bride in a big way, with film screenings and an art gallery, featuring great giveaways and some fantastic artists such as Andrew Kolb, Cassie Hart Kelly, and Leire Martin.


I am so excited to be part of this show with these other talented artists. You can see the whole gallery of offerings on their site. Such wonderful pieces - be sure to take a look and pick up some of your favorites! If you are so inclined, my piece can be purchased here.

Now a little bit about the creation of my contibution to the show.

 

"He's Gaining on Us"

12"x36" print

I love working in vertical dimensions. When I was watching the film doing my research and getting inspired, the Cliffs of Insanity scene came up I said "That's It. That's what I need to do". It came very easily.

The question was how to portray it and what rules to break. In the movie Fezzik wears a harness that Inigo, Buttercup, and Vizzini attach themselves to as he climbs the rope. For the sake of seeing faces, I re-positioned everyone and concentrated on just making a fun silhouette. 

Here is my initial sketch on the iPad (using Procreate). Not much changed in the pose from the initial drawing. This shows 2 levels of refinement - I worked in a loose black color and then refined the idea in red. The biggest amount of noodling happened with Princess Buttercup, where I tried an option where her hands were tied together before going back to this. 

Here is a view of the initial cleanup line - still working in Procreate. The "brush" I use is custom made and simulates a felt pen. It has a slight fade on the edges and a smooth clean look. I prefer to work the lines, giving it a more hand-done quality rather than constructing the lines in vector. I have done a lot of pieces in vector for linework (using Flash), but lately I have settled in on simply enjoying the process and not worrying too much about exact line perfection. Also - if I can draw on a tablet, I push that pipeline for all it's worth!

On to color. Everything is manually filled as I also generate self-color lines. I tend to pick the palette based purely on my instincts rather than selecting from reference. The beige colors mixed with muddy greens and vivid oranges and reds, gives that feel of classic fairytale book mixed with royalty. The Princess being the prize in this case - you can't pass up an opportuity to showcase a red dress.  

The self color lines offer a cartoon look with softness. I didn't place shadows everywhere, but they do offer a tad of dimension and help with those big Fezzik arms. In the image above you can see the flatter stage before some of the self color and shadows are added. 

The color decisions are made pretty quickly, but for some reason, Westley, with the black robes, threw me for a loop. I went back and forth on his line color about 3 times, coloring everything before changing my mind and doing it all over again. 

The colors and costumes are loosely referenced from the film. I didn't force myself to stay too true to those verbatim, especially on Vizzini. Speaking of which, he was the biggest challenge of me out of all the characters. You can see here if you compare the images, I changed the shape of his head quite a bit and moved around the facial features well after finishing the coloring. I made him look more creepy than goofy. The idea was that he was indeed angered by noticing "The stranger" climbing the rope and challenging his plan. He's really more of a little monster here than a smug genius. 

The image above shows progress further along. I'm working in Photoshop at this point because layers are beginning to add up and texture comes into play. I added bit of a "stained" look over the characters, and used it even more on the background. The background plan was to place the feeling of rock cliffs made of graphic shapes, and just enough vegetation to add interest without overtaking the characters. I added airbrushed areas of "mist" to tone back areas, and even more-so at the bottom of the art to promote the feeling of climbing up into the clouds. The bottom could be endless - this is a dangerous predicament.

The ornate frame was a last touch to cement the "storybook" feel - choosing colors on that was also tricky - about 10 or more options, balancing the line color and base color against the background with different tones. Also, because of the frame design, characters got slightly repositioned, offering a tad more distance between Wesley and the rest. 

Here are 2 alternate ads created for the event. The Fezzik one was used, but I did make 3 just for fun and variety, utilizing the SquaredCo layout provided.

That just about wraps it up. Special thanks to Mark Morris (@emm_squared) for selecting me to participate in this great collection of art, and of course Rob Reiner for making such an epic film!

I hope you enjoyed reading! 'Till next time.

-Dave

Welcome 2017

Since I don't get around to doing blog updates as often as I used to, I figured i'd compile a few late 2016 update post. So... going backwards in time, here we go!!!

First of all, Happy 2017! 2016 has been a great year for me artistically. Finished lots of personal art goals and I was happy to have gotten a few mini animations completed. I've gotten back to doing animations just for fun, taking only a day or two to crank something out. Not sure if I will ever go down the road of a film project like Alien for Christmas again, but who knows!

Here is my New Years animation called Burst out of Your Shell. It's a simple statement that we should all shed our skin each year and start something new!

Burst Out of Your Shell 2017 from Dave Pryor on Vimeo.

Right before Christmas, I updated Alien for Christmas (which you can watch on Vimeo) with an all new HD version of the short. It was really starting to show it's age with the 640 format - so it was overdue for an update.

Alien for Christmas from Dave Pryor on Vimeo.

Now that I'm using Instagram much more than the blog, I put up a widget at the top of the page that shows the latest posts. This way, the blog stays a little fresh, even when I'm not updating it here.

In early December, I was part of 2 gallery openings at Gallery 1988. One was "The Coen Brothers show" (which you can see more detail on in the previous post below), and the other was "Another art show about Nothing" - a show dedicated to one of my favorite shows of all time, Seinfeld (which, coincidently, we have been working on a slot game at work for Seinfeld for the past year!)

"The interview"

Ink on paper

I chose to do an homage to one of my favorite episodes to a bit where Kramer and Newman work up a scheme to have the homeless pull a rickshaw cart around New York City. A fun moment when Kramer and Newman perform ad-hoc interviews with the 3 candidates that shows up - one of which wanders off right at the start, and another that ends up just running off with the cart!

I was using a new ink stain technique on this image - so if you now own it from the show, a fun fact that this is the first time I worked in this medium. I really wanted this to have a personal quality. 

Here are a few more images of the process:

At thanksgiving I had a chance to work up a couple fun bear-eating images. Who doesn't love a good guilt-snacking furball? 

After seeing "Fantastic Beasts" - I worked up this Bowtruckle image below - loved this little guy and how he would hide under Newt's lapel in the movie!

On November 19, I was part of an art show at Creature Features in Burbank CA dedicated to "MYTHBUSTERS"! What a treat. The show, curated by Chogrin, and featured a select group of artist works that featured portraits of Jamie and Adam from the show.

"Cheers!"

11x14 - Digital

My piece showcases, from what I was told by the curator, something that never happened in the shows history - Jamie and Adam dining together. Another thing it showcase is a drink that Jamie created called 444 - a mix of 4 fruits, 4 veggies, and 4 grains. I thought it would be fun to have these 2 cheering each other for their awesome success! The art is now on tour as part of a Mythbusters exhibit. Check out the review of the show on Nerdist

On November 18 and 19, I had the chance to experience CTN and DCON for the first time. Both conventions were fantastic, and I came home with more that a few bags worth of artwork and artist cards to enjoy.

CTN gave me a chance to talk with many folks that I normally only get to see online, and a chance to rub elbows with may of the industry professionals that I admire, and worked with on previous occasions. 

DCON was a real artists show - independently produced works (art, shirts, toys) from a wide range of passionate creatives. The price was right - only $10 to get in, and just about anyone who wasn't at CTN already was located here. 

In November, I took part in the Back to Bits project, a multi-animator effort that collected GIFs from animators and showcased them as an homage to the games of yesteryear. This is the first "volume" of the show with (hopefully) more to come. This effort is curated by Jerry Liu.

My animation - The Life and Death of a Marble - based on the Atari game Marble Madness, ended up being a little long for the GIF format - but you can see my directors cut here

The Life and Death of a Marble from Dave Pryor on Vimeo.

On November 5th, Gallery 1988 feature "Postcard Correspondence" - a show entirely dedicated to postcard art that you could buy and use as cards to display  - or better yet - mail to your friends! My piece featured "The Blues Brothers" at christmastime, and was aptly title, "Let the Good Times Roll". I was inspired by Elwood's tiny apartment in the movie, and I loved the idea of the brothers sharing that space at Christmas.

"Let the Good Times Roll" 

5x7 Postcard

And one of the biggest moments of 2016 - Cubs winning the world series! It doesn't get better than that for a Chicagoan. 

Geez - I have more to get to - Inktober, the Wonka show, SDCC... I'll need to do the rest in a post update when I get more of that precious time! 

-Dave

Coen Brothers Art Tribute Show - Gallery 1988

A first of it's kind show for Gallery 1988 - a tribute to Joel and Ethan Coen, directors of films such as "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski", "True Grit", and "No Country for Old Men". Check out the show at:

Gallery 1988 West

7308 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles CA 90046

Show runs December 9-23, 2016

My Piece is titled "Civilized Conversation", and depicts the scene in "O Brother Where Art Thou" where the jail-breaking Soggy Bottom Boys (Everett, Delmar, and "Toad" Pete) encounter Big Dan Teague, wonderfully portrayed by John Goodman. If you have not seen the film, I strongly urge you to give it a view and enjoy this little masterpiece from the Coen Brothers collection. 

The entire show is viewable online and artwork is available for purchase through Gallery 1988.

http://nineteeneightyeight.com/collections/coens