Sunday, April 29, 2012

teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Once upon a time in November 2010, one of my best friends approached me about painting an arcade cabinet that would soon house Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I said yes, but the details on that whole conversation are fuzzy. It was quite a big project to take on, plus I had never actually watched the show! It wasn't really my thing when I was a kid. I remember seeing bits and pieces of the movies at my next door neighbor's house though... so I guess I had seen a bit of the Turtles.

The project ended up taking 9 months to complete, due to both of our hectic schedules. The game was at his house, so we needed to plan out when I could go over to paint.

We started the project by first deciding what he wanted it to look like. He told me his ideas and I started a few rough sketches. He wanted Bebop on one side and Rocksteady on the other. I was totally unfamiliar with these characters, so I did some google image searches and he brought up some YouTube videos. I did a few sketches of them to get used to drawing them and some possible poses they could be in. Later on we stripped the cabinet of some stickers that were on it, sanded it down, and then primed it with some white spray paint.

...why is there so much text? You're here to see some pictures! After all, this is an art blog. So here come some pictures!


The first day consisted of working on one side. Sketched out everything, and painted the bricks in the background. 


The finished background. Now to paint the character. 


Bebop without the line art. 
Next I drew out the other side. Rocksteady with a Mouser. 



Rocksteady without lines and the Mouser awaiting to be painted.


Simultaneously, I had the control panel at my house to work on. I also got to take home the marquee as color reference. My friend had made notes on which controls were where and I added the respective turtle and their weapons near their controls. 


The finished sketch. 


The finished painting. 


The finished Mouser. Complete with lines.


The control panel all cut out and put together! 


The finished game in my friend's house. 


Bebop.


Rocksteady. and Mouser.


The front of the game.

Even though, I don't know too much about Ninja Turtles, this was a really fun project to work on. It's kind of like my baby (it did take 9 months...). I like odd canvases to paint on and this definitely proved to be a challenge. (Oh and I used Acrylic paints for this, by the way.) It was a really fun challenge though. Would I do it again? Maybe, but you'd definitely have to pay me a ton of money. Or at least more than free. It's a ton of work!



Monday, April 16, 2012

Sketching the Grid

Farewell Flynn's Arcade.

Last night I visited California Adventure to say goodbye to elecTRONica. Now I'm not the biggest fan of TRON: Legacy (However, I am a HUGE fan of TRON), but I loved the vibe of the event. It was always such a fun and upbeat place whenever I visited (and I was there since day one) and last night was probably the best night I've experienced there. Everyone was dancing and having fun and enjoying the last night. There were even people dressed up, which makes me wish that I had thought of that because I have a perfectly good old school TRON costume. Oh well. I went to the party to sketch, and boy, did I sketch! A whole 26 pages worth! So here they are below! It's really quite a challenge to sketch dancing, but I find it fun. 




























...
I miss elecTRONica. :(