More Running Kids

This is an addition to the drawing of "Little Sharman" running. I drew this for my sister, who was giving it to a teacher friend of hers. From what I understand, the teacher liked it, but wanted a boy on it as well, because this image would be put on t-shirts that would be given to boys and girls.

On a side note, I need to apologize for not posting for the last couple of weeks. I have been crazy busy, and haven't been able to do much of my own art. I'll keep trying to post every week, but it still hasn't slowed down enough to be able to fully commit to it.

Spider Programmer

I didn't have time to finish the 3D thing I was working on this week, so I'm posting this image that I did about 7 years ago, when I first started on Microsoft. The challenge was to draw an arachnid programmer.

I wish I would've had time to color it tonight. Hopefully, I can color it soon. I've got some fun things I want to do with the lighting on this.

Balloon Wizard

Woooh... just barely made the deadline for this week. I need to get a lot better posting every week, so that I'm not doing it at the last minute, or even being late.

At any rate, this is a balloon wizard I did a couple of years ago. It was a randomly drawn character that I drew when I was working at Microsoft Games.

New Year, New Challenge

My brother, Shawn, and I just challenged each other to post a new piece of art on our blog every week, this year. I'm excited and am going to try really hard to do it.

I just finished this up for my sister's friend. I guess they're going to make t-shirts out of it. They haven't seen it yet, so I hope they like it. :)

Baby Skeleton

I did this for my awesomely artistic brother, Shawn, and his good wife, Lindsie, when I found out they were pregnant with Owen. Owen is over a year old, so this has been sitting idle for awhile.

I know this may seem a bit morbid for a baby picture, but at the time it went along with the cross bones fashion that was going on at the time.

2010 Baby

This drawing has a couple different meanings for me. While I actually started this many years ago, I finished it up for my sister, Stephy, and her husband, Chad, to celebrate the new bundle of joy they are expecting in the summer. The bird on the diaper represents Steph's maiden name, and the teddy bear represents Chad's nickname (Bearclaw). I couldn't be happier for them.

The other meaning this picture has is for a hope that this new year will be a good one. I'm not saying that 2009 was absolutely horrible for me (there were some nice things that happened), but I just really hope that 2010 is a lot better. I've faced a lot of challenges last year, and I'd really like this year to be a lot better.

Little Birds

It has been waaaaaay too long since I last posted. I have been in a stupid funk and haven't done anything creative for awhile (stupid economy getting me down).

At any rate, I did these several months ago for Christmas presents that Jen and I gave to our parents. When Maggi Quackenbush did our family pictures, we had her take some of the kids posing with imaginary birds. The kids had a lot of fun doing it, and I had a lot of fun drawing them in.

Halloween sketch

I feel bad that I haven't posted in a while. I've been super busy with other projects, and haven't had a lot of time for extra art. I've even been neglecting the CG Character Challenge that I swore I wouldn't neglect.

I drew this during conference. I used only a pen and drew it in a dark room, so it's pretty rough. I was going to color it, but it looks like I won't have time to do that, either.

Purple Dragon

It's sad that I couldn't think of a more interesting title to go along with this. Come on... the mocking potential for a purple dragon has got to be pretty high. Maybe I'm just tired.

In other news, I should probably announce that I'm working on several freelance projects this week, and may not be able to post that much. I'm hoping to be able to have some time to work on this week's CG Character Challenge, but there's a good chance that I won't have a lot of time for it.

Parakeet

Sorry I haven't posted for the last couple of days. I haven't been feeling well, and everytime I sat in front of the computer, I felt like my head was going to explode. So, I thought it would be best to take a little break.

Now, on to the story of this image. This is definitely not my best work, but I posted it for good reason. Awhile ago, my daughter, Kensie, got a childrens' how-to-draw animals book. One day while she was learning to draw from the book, she asked me to draw the parakeet image with her. Though this is not how I would've drawn a parakeet, it was how the book taught you how to draw it.

I ended up giving the drawing to my daughter and didn't really think about it again. Over the next several months, she used the drawing that I gave her to create many variations (by tracing it and doing some freehand copying). I think she ended up doing around 25 different versions - naming each of them and coloring them with different designs and colors (similar to the dolphin image that I just posted).

Yesterday, she asked me to ink in that sketch that I did for her several months ago. Being so close to Father's Day, I think I felt obligated to be a good dad and do it for her. After I inked it, she asked me to color it. I didn't really want to, but she is so cute, I couldn't say 'no'. I had her bring in her pet parakeets and colored this image similar to the colors and designs that were on her birds. The result is this image.

So, while this isn't something I would show off in a portfolio, it reminds me of some fun memories I got to have with my daughter.

Dolphins

I drew this for my daughter because she loves dolphins. By adding the baby dolphin, it just increased the 'cute' factor for her.

I ended up giving her the original drawing for this. She liked it so much that she traced over it and made several different versions. She then colored all of these versions with different colors and markings, and then named every single one. She is so adorable!

Daily Drawing Challenge 020

Well... this is the last of the Daily Drawing Challenges that I did. This was a lot of fun when I drew them several years ago, and just as much fun to color them over the last couple of months.

I like doing art challenges. Hopefully, I can keep the CG Character Challenge going, as well as start up a new one here and there. I should really get my family's art blog started up again. That was a lot of fun.

Speaking of family, it's my Dad's birthday today. I'd like to wish him a very happy birthday today, but I don't think he knows about this blog. So, it looks like I'm going to have to give him a call.

Daily Drawing Challenge 019

This one was a lot of fun to draw and color.

One of the first things I ever built in 3D was a haunted tree, that I built in Ray Dream Designer. One day in the near future (hopefully), I plan on rebuilding another haunted tree in 3D (now with almost 13 years of experience under my belt) and posting along side my original rendering. Hopefully, it will be an improvement.

Daily Drawing Challenge 018

I'm not sure if this monkey is more crazy for driving sideways, or for not using his hands to drive. Either way, I think it's crazy to even let a monkey drive. What was I thinking?

Daily Drawing Challenge 017

This is another one of my favorites from the challenge. I also have it in my demo reel - although, I re-colored it, tonight.

When I was coloring it again, I was going to paint in fur, but I thought that it would take away from the 'softness' that I thought this baby monster should have. All-in-all, I'm happier with the way this turned out, than the first time I colored it.

When I originally drew this, I used a lot of inspiration from my son, who was a baby at the time. I think that's another reason why I like this so much.

Daily Drawing Challenge 016

I'm not too proud of this one. I hurried this one really fast, and it shows. I was hoping that when I colored it tonight, it would make it better, but I don't think it did the trick.

Daily Drawing Challenge 015

For some reason, I forgot to add a hard hat to him. On every other one of my challenges that involved a construction worker, I've had a hard hat with a happy sunny face on it. I must've been in a hurry when I did this one.

Daily Drawing Challenge 014

The lunch hour that I drew this, Mike and I just sat there for most of the time saying, "I can't figure out what to draw for this one!".

When I finally drew this, there wasn't much time, so I just flew threw it. Fortunately, I think the coloring job that I did on it today covers up a lot of the lack of effort on the drawing side.

Daily Drawing Challenge 013

My apologies for missing yesterday... which I believe would go out to the 3 people who actually watch this blog. :) The reason that I missed posting yesterday was because I tried to help my wife catch up with some yard work. I'd like to be able to say that the yard work took up most of the day, and I wasn't able to work on my art, but I can't. Unfortunately, it's been awhile since I did some serious yard work, and the years of sitting in front of a computer reminded my body that I'm a soft, weak, dough boy, who has no business trying to impress my wife with how much work I think I can do. Needless to say, my arms felt like rubber and hurt too bad to do any art.

Which leads me to today's image. This challenge was really fun for me in several ways. First, this character is the mascot for my side business. For the last several years, I have been building him a little bit at a time in 3D. I've got all the modeling and UV work done, but there are some things I want to get and learn before I finish up texturing and rigging. I know how to do both, but there are some cool new tools that I want to get familiar with before I tackle it.

The second reason that this was so much fun is because this image symbolizes me. For those of you who know me, pretty much always see me with a hat on. My favorite color is blue, my last name is Bird, and I am a total computer nerd. I wouldn't say that I'm generally angry, but when I'm having computer or software troubles, I can definitely blow my top.

This image is also in one of my demo reels, but it wasn't colored until tonight. I can't wait to put it in my new demo reel, with some cool effects I want to try out.

Daily Drawing Challenge 012

Although I had a bit of a difficult time figuring out the color scheme that I wanted to go with, I liked working on this one. It was fun playing with the colors and I think they add to the reason why this guy is a bit confused. :)

In other news, I got to go to all-you-can-eat sushi tonight with Adam (my brother), Bear (my brother-in-law), and a couple of my brother's brothers-in-law. It was a night of brotherhood.