happy birthday!

hey, guys!

so here's something a little different! i'm taking the time to post some ANIMATION! can you believe it? i've never posted any animation in my life, BUT this is a special case.

as some of you know, yesterday was my birthday. not only that, i shared it with some pretty cool people! one of these people is the great Marlo Meekins who is currently dominating the social networking scene with hilarious feeds through her Twitter and Vine account (@MarloMeekins). anyway, so here's a short film i through together just in time for our birthdays! if you feel so inclined, take a look below!



thanks!

Candy Mario!

hey guys!

so here's a quick one i did for my pals over at A Sitting Duck (a studio in the UK who's videos you may have seen on YouTube)! one of their biggest characters is a mega cute dino called Candy the Magic Dinosaur! since they're all about animation and video games at A Sitting Duck, i did a fun mash-up for them! a generous blend of Candy (as Yoshi) and Mario from Super Mario World (on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System)! what do you think??

back in effect mode!

wuddup, y'allz?!

as some of you know, i've been crazy busy lately putting together tons of awesome stuff for your retinas! so i thought this would be a great opportunity to bring back the ol' Sketch & Sniff project studio! so far, i've only got one thing up and running under this umbrella, and that is my new weekly comic blog over at LOLraplyrics.tumbler.com. i'm sure you're imaginations are already putting together what it's about, but in case you need help, GO CHECK IT OUT. be sure to laugh and share as much as possible in hopes to brighten someone's day. (just be sure to tell them some of it is #NSFW..)

anyway, so with all the cool things going on, i've put together this fresh look for the S&S logo! hope ya dig it!

say "hey" to Skratchy!

hey, gang!

so here it is. this is the thing i've been talking about on Twitter for the last couple weeks! it's my new short series that i'm going to be posting on YouTube called Skratchy McPhoochBerry's PizzaTime FunHouse!

hopefully you're intrigued enough to know what the show is about, so here it is: it's about a lovable and excitable dog-puppet who's a bit "rough around the edges" and is the star/ringleader of a pizza place for children of all ages! it's the ultimate dinner theater and arcade that any (sane) parent probably (wouldn't) bring their children!!

here's a look at your gracious host, Skratchy McPoochberry:

think you can handle the hot loads of cheesy fun all in your face?? then get ready because Skratchy's will be opening the doors to his restaurant this Spring!

Bravest Warriors (Danny) prints for sale!!

**amended 01.24.13**

well, by now you've probably seen or heard something about Bravest Warriors on YouTube. this is especially true if you're fans of Pendleton Ward's other show, Adventure Time. but now i'd like to share this little number with you once again as a commemoration of a super fun episode i storyboarded called "Dan Before Time" (check it out here) that just aired today! if you're a fan, take a look below and see if any of these pieces tickles your fancy. since there is a very limited number, be sure to buy yours quickly and share the link with your friends! perhaps if these go quickly enough, i'll have to do another one of other characters :0)

below are two versions of the print that i'm selling. it's a slightly amped up version of the "Pen Ward look" that people have come to know. i really wanted to do something special and fun for this, and to make it even more so, i was fortunate to borrow the righteous coloring skills of Alex Deligiannis:

Black & White (8x10)- $15.00

Color (8x10)- $25.00

now here's the thing: i'm selling only 20 prints of each. both versions will be numbered (#1-20 for b/w, #1-20 for color) and signed (by both Alex and myself for the colored version).

ready to claim yours?? then click the "Buy Now" button below to securely pay through Paypal! "Get down to biz, my ninja!"

choose which variant you prefer!

Black & White $15.00 USD Color $25.00 USD

Scooby sketches

one night on Twitter, i asked the people what i should draw. it's always fun to hear what people think would look cool drawn in your "style". so i got a suggestion to draw the Scooby Doo gang, and i did just that. though, instead of drawing one large picture, i decided to break it up into a nightly themed drawing challenge. it was fun to draw these guys since i never have. here's what i came up with and posted on Instagram as my reditions of the characters. thanks for the great response over the last week or so!

Scooby Doo

Shaggy

Daphne

Fred

Velma

thanks for checkin' them out! hope you like 'em!

Chris & Beth

here's another Bravest Warriors drawing i threw down today just to give myself something interesting to draw. again, i decided to draw these characters with a bit of an off-model take. i'm thinking i may color this one because it looks pretty fun.

since the show isn't out yet, some of you may not know the characters very well. hopefully though, you can tell through this drawing that Chris has a thing for his "friend" Beth.

1980s Villains week!

So like last week, I decided to generate a theme for my daily sketches. I find it keeps me focused and responsible to keep posting fresh drawings that are unrelated to work stuff. However, unlike last week, I decided to save the daily posts here until Friday to share. Although, I did post them everyday on Instagram and Twitter (both @optik2010). Here's what I've got for ya:

Monday
Gargamel from The Smurfs

Tuesday
Mumm-Ra from Thundarcats

Wednesday
Magica De Spell from Ducktales

Thursdaybr> Skeletor from He-Man

Friday
King Koopa from Super Mario Bros.

90s Chicks 05

And to conclude my theme for the week, I decided to draw Gadget from Rescue Rangers!

90s Chicks 04

Patty Mayonnaise from Doug!

90s Chicks 03

Carmen Sandiego!

90s Chicks 02

Sailor Moon!

90s Chicks 01

Decided to start up a theme to draw to this week. Gonna draw up some classics cartoon girlies from the 1990s. First up, I decided to go with Angelica Pickles from good ol' Rugrats! Hope ya dig my take:

Boy Wonder

so somehow it may be possible that this is only the second Robin I've ever drawn in my life. I'm not sure how true that is, but I can only remember one other time specifically that I drew him. Generally, I spend all my time drawing The Dark Knight (being the huge Batman fan that I've always been). Anyway, I hope ya dig it:

Bat-doodley

Quick sketch on my iPhone whilst I waited:

Aquaman

My first Aquaman drawing. Never thought I'd draw this guy. Thanks, Geoff Johns.

Danny

wow! so sorry i've been away for so long. as many of you know, i've been working on a new show (created by Adventure Time's creator, Pen Ward) called Bravest Warriors, which is slated to come out this fall. it's been a blast and there's a pretty exciting buzz growing about it. in fact, there's already been some fan art posted on the Bravest Warriors blog! but that got me to thinking that i haven't had the time do to a quick fun drawing of my own, of any of the characters (other than the storyboards i've been drawing nonstop), so i thought i'd do a piece on Danny. he's kind of awesome. he's been on the brain lately too because my current episode is about him. a little of his backstory, even! so here's what he looks like in this show:

and here's my late night piece for today:

ok, that's enough. thanks for coming back to see what's new!

g'night!

Avengers Week Drawing 04

FINALLY! tonight's the big night and i get to watch the Avengers movie in all of it's glorious awesomeness (so i've heard). i thought i'd end my drawing challenge with The Hulk for the week. simple characters are always harder to make "your own", but here's what i came up with. this is The Hulkling:

Avengers Week Drawing 03

i never thought i'd see the day that i would bang out a Thor drawing. he's generally not on my top favorite superheroes to draw, but staying true to Avengers week, here is my version of Thor as a wee tot! hope ya dig it!

Avengers Week Drawing 02

welp! here's the second installment for the week of drawing Avenger kids. hope ya dig it as much as you all did the Kid Captain America. today i went with the legendary Ironman. of course when designing him as a kid, what else does one call him other than Iron Lad?

Avengers Week Drawing 01

today i had an idea to draw up some of the Avengers for everyday leading up to the movie coming out this week. i'm sure every artist out there has the same idea, so to make mine a little different, i envisioned the way my friends and i would play them when we were kids. today i felt it fitting to start with Marvel's first avenger: Captain America... as a kid. "Kid Cap" if you will! hope ya dig:

Ace Grizzle piece

hey ya'allz! workin on a piece of "press art" of sorts for Ace. a blogger has asked to feature the Ace Grizzle blog on his own, but needed an image he could use to link with. here's what i've come up with so far, but obviously not finished yet. just thought i'd share as i move along..

the magic

before he regained the magic, he'd lost it. for more years than i'd been alive, cartoons were not for my dad. he'd rather watch ANYTHING else than watch "kid stuff". as you can imagine, growing up wanting to be in animation, we were often at odds. he always wanted me to be in medicine, but i just wanted to draw cartoons. we could hardly even watch television together on the weekends. he wanted to watch boring, old, black & white cowboy stuff and i wanted to watch brightly colored, fast-paced cartoons with funny sound effects. after some time, i finally gave in to his well-intensioned wishes and steered my educational path toward psychology. this was acceptable to him. as excited as he was about my decision, there came a time where i thought it would break his heart to tell him that it's no longer his decision for me, but i needed to set my own career path and it was to be in animation. by that time though, he agreed that i was old enough to make my own informed decision. through college, he saw my childhood passion (ever so slowly) blossom into a fully-functioning set of artistic skills. he was amazed at what i could do. even though i knew i had miles and miles of drawing to go before i was career-ready, in his eyes i was there. he began to grow an interest in what could be done with an art career, so he started to ask questions and spark up conversations about the industry. he was often times way off in his observations about movies coming out or the latest trends in animation, but i was just happy that a stubborn old man could have such a change of heart and was actually making effort. then, imagine his face when i told him the day i was offered a job at my dream animation studio working on one of the biggest shows in existence. it was an expression i'll certainly never forget. one day, my mind was blown even more when he'd told me about the different cartoon shows he started watching. most of them were prime time shows, but still, he was watching and enjoying. he had rediscovered the magic that i had defended for so many years. i knew he'd remember the joys of animation that he loved as a kid if he'd taken the time to watch good stuff. it was just hard to get him to sit down and see how far along animation has come since The Flintstones and Top Cat. These were his two childhood favorites.

unfortunately, there was one thing in our conversations that we didn't get to discuss. i didn't get to tell him that a large part of the magic started for me when i was about four years old. somehow, he'd managed to find a drawing that he had done when he was a kid. he showed it to me and i was amazed. he was very into the bible when he was younger, and he'd drawn Moses. i thought he looked familiar, and later i came to realize he'd used the design of Fred Flintstone and altered it for the look he wanted, but as a kid i was thoroughly impressed. i never got to tell him that i wanted to draw as good as that drawing was to me, but the pride he grew to have in my abilities is a huge payoff.

some of you already know that i lost my dad a couple weeks ago. i really miss him. it's been pretty hard to draw anything, which is the explanation for my lack of posts lately. so, i thought for today in an attempt to regain some of the magic, i'd throw down a Fred Flintstone for my father. i'm sure he would've loved this drawing despite my design tweaks. here's to a great father!

no drawings today..

an excerpt from a conversation with someone very important to me:

"the thing i think people forget is that we move through our daily routines with many, many meetings and partings with other people. those interactions shape who we are individually and the role we play in society. much of our outlook on others comes from our interactions with people everyday: someone wouldn’t let you get over in traffic, a lady behind you at the cashier gave you the 17 cents that you needed, someone answered a phone call in a movie theater, a guy in his BMW let you have the parking spot you waited 7 minutes for someone to back out of (even though he could’ve swiped it). one of two things happens from meetings like this: we loose a little more faith in humanity, or we discover there’s still small doses of good out there. but what’s more important is realizing that WE have that same responsibility in everyone’s life around us at all times."

so here’s my thought for the day: what if we spend today keeping this idea in mind and acting on it accordingly? maybe remember to look behind us after walking through the door to see if someone is coming in after so that the door doesn't slam on them. how about NOT posting a rant on facebook about how someone supremely wronged us to see how many people side with us? what if we wait for someone to get all the way onto the curb before flying around the corner through the crosswalk? it’s true that small things like this might not make an immediate difference, but maybe they will. realize that not putting someone in a bad mood unintentionally can be just as effective as putting them into a good mood intentionally. once we've effected one person with our mood, IT WILL SPREAD. i feel like we should try to be conscious of what we emanate because it directly correlates to how people view each other. sure misery loves company, but company does NOT love misery.

i think that more often than not, effecting someone's day/mood/perception of humanity takes only seconds out of our life, but will contribute to a ripple effect larger than we can imagine.

Custodial Kenny!

hello, dear friends, followers, and patrons of my art!

thanks so much for being supporters of mine over the last few years. i'm really excited this morning because i have something a little different to share with you than just another sketch or doodle! this time, it's much bigger!

as some of you know, i got my humble beginnings working at a MAJOR local theme park. there is where i met my best friend, Sean. we went on to both end up working at Nickelodeon (him on the new Avatar spinoff, Korra, and me on SpongeBob SquarePants). but next week, on Thursday, Sean and i are pitching our very own show to Nickelodeon and we really want to share it with YOU first! if you have 5 minutes in your day, please hop on over to the blog for Custodial Kenny to take a look at this show we're developing!

as if i haven't asked you for enough already, please also take another 4 seconds to become a follower on the blog (the reasons are noted on the site), and then another 20 seconds to post about it on your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and blogs of your own! (please note, there is no money involved or annoying emails everyday!) also, feel free to post away any comments on your favorite designs or thoughts you have about the show! all your feedback is extremely welcome and valuable.

thanks SOOO much for your time, energy, and support :0)


k.w