Ho-Oh Unborn 🔥 & Alakazam EXE 🔪

The week of May 19th gave me two special projects in one day.

It began bubbling - the stir of of a new way, a new brand, a new style: EXE. The horror version of the Pocket Monsters we know and love, but with a twist. Ho-Oh Unborn is what happens when your dreams don't surface they way they were intended. Alakazam EXE is symbolic of the mind that now devours instead of understanding fruitlessly. 

Out of the blue

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Finished

Alakazam EXE

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Two horror renditions back to back, long and happy days in the studio.

A Saiyan Among the Stars

This one started as a completely black canvas. I wanted the cosmos to come first and SS4 Vegeta to come after.

Nothing but nebula, blues and violets swirling out of the dark with a red planet hanging above. Then I drew Vegeta right on top and spent the next few hours building him up until he stood out against the stars. My wife says "he looks like a sticker pasted atop a painting (in the best way possible!)"

Building the cosmos

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Vegeta arrives

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Finished

Starting on black changes everything. Every color you put down glows.

Mario Power Ups! 🔨⭐🍁🔥🐸🥾🪽🍄‍🟫

The raccoon suit is pure nostalgia, so I had to paint it.

Flat teal ground, a rough red shape, and then Mario slowly stepped out of it, tail and all. Once he was done he needed some company, so a blue friend joined him in the corner.

Suiting up

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A classic for a reason.

Spyro Takes Shape

Spyro got the full treatment on this one.

Clean micron first, then wave after wave of marker until the wings, the horns and that cocky little smile all came alive. I remember the cheat code where you could change the color of Spyro, so I made him rainbow here!

Pen to color

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Close-Up

Purple dragons will always have a home in my sketchbook. 

Kupo!

A little moogle to brighten up the week. I started with a few loose blocks of color, found him hiding in them, and then let him get loud.

By the end he had his own comic book burst behind him, shouting his favorite word.

Finding the moogle

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Finished

Kupo! That is all. That is the post.

Two Birds and a Plumber

March 10 (MAR10 Day) was a marker marathon. Three pieces, one day, and two of them were the same bird drawn two completely different ways.

In the afternoon I worked on Luigi (to make Mario jealous) in bright greens and yellows, then moved on to 2 versions of Black Ice Articuno that ended up flying over a fiery yellow sky. That night I couldn't let the bird go, so I started it again in bold black ink with just a touch of mint and finished it soon after.

Hammer Bro Luigi

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The bird, take one

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Close-Up

The bird, take two

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Same bird, different mood.

Drawing the same subject twice back to back is one of the best exercises I know. You learn something new every time.

Rainbow Mega Garchomp Z, Sonic, Chip and Dale

I started with an explosion of loose marker color and let the speed come out of the chaos.

Over a few hours I kept pulling them forward out of the background until they finally broke through.

Out of the color storm

Rainbow Garchomp Z

Chip and Dale

Sonic The Hedgehog

This style approach permits me speed while keeping the quality high.

Winged Guardian of Eatos 🦅

Yugioh's winged warrior crowned in feathers, with Mario 3's blazing sun keeping watch over her shoulder.

I sketched her out loosely, tightened the linework, then let the color take over. The feathers were the real fun on this one, every single one of them got its own shade.

From sketch to color

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Finished

I genuinely love how this one came out! Reminded me of a "shiny" variant of her.