aL's bRain!

aNother iPhone sketch!

2009-03-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

Another iPhone sketch! 20 minutes while on the busride home. I keep forgetting i have this app.

SATF original sketches

2009-02-22T02:36:00.000-08:00

me, grant, nick, and chris will be including original sketches for a limited supply of spider and the fly books. They'll be numbered and signed. The ones above are my contribution to the stock - it'll be neat to see the other guys! they'll be in an envelope, so you'll randomly get a drawing (can't pick) - but i think that adds to the appeal to it... everyone's sketch will be different if they opt for the limited ones.

we'll be selling these at wondercon this year - we have a booth!!!! but we got a limited supply :( i know a few of you can't make it but want me to hold a copy - i might not be able to do that just because of our low stock, but i'll see what i can do post wondercon in getting you a copy!

here's one of the pages from my section - i think grant, nick, and chris may have posted similiarly on their blogs:

Spider and the Fly

2009-02-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

So this upcoming wondercon, a group of friends and I have put together a book! What started out as casual conversation during our brunches at GoldenCoffee Diner has turned into a really fun project for us all.

Grant Alexander
Nick Stohlman
Chris Carman

these guys are awesome, and a hoot to hangout with. We went through a list of themes and all decided to do something with Spider and the Fly, each putting in our own interpretation.

Here's the book cover! Hope you guys pick it up!

SGN's Skylinks Art

2009-02-02T23:00:00.001-08:00

(above: MechPilot colored/designed by heather messegee, robots colored by Shaun Pendergast, designed by Albert Truong)

(above: UI frame colored/designed by Shaun Pendergast & Nichole Nye, MechPilot designed/colored by Heather Messegee, Mech garage designed/colored by albert truong)

Art for Skylinks Golf!

I've got the A'Ok to post some images :)

this is concept art from a SGN's Skylinks Golf.

another iphone train painting

2009-01-12T10:52:00.001-08:00

iPhone painting of a caltrain dood. Finding painting with the phone quite fun.

painting on the iPhone! on the TRAIN!

2009-01-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

I got this new cool app on the iPhone called BRUSHES :) and it lets you paint and sketch on the iphone. Wow finger painting galore! I took it for a test run on the train to and from work - shakey shakey choo choo train!

Train trip 1

Train trip 2

I love it to death :D but i gotta say - it's hard for me to draw and paint because i have nails (i play guitar), so i cant use the tip of my fingers :( i end up using the meaty part of my finger or my thumb to paint and it's the funniest thing - i can't see where i paint :D and sometimes it just comes out as a big blob in the wrong spot (most of the time :P )

This painting took two train trips to finish (2 hrs total).

I've seen some crazy cool kickass paintings from other artists with this app :) cant wait to do more!

Krisitian in the old days

2008-12-12T21:02:00.001-08:00

ahhhhhh school...

memories...

A couple in class demos

2008-12-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

It was the last day of class so i brought my laptop in to finish up some final work for the students. Happened to demo a couple quick sketches for them in photoshop as well.

It was quite fun - 3 - 5 minutes just to show the students that you can design by just blotting down shapes and pushing and pulling shapes in and out.

*sniff* i gotta admit, i really enjoyed hanging around with them every saturday. all of them improved so much since the first day. am gonna miss them.

Really Roughed

2008-11-18T00:05:00.000-08:00

WIP to something hopefully not DUMB :)

drawing heads - needs a...

2008-10-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

mirror! and feeling the expression!

Tron Glowy Test!

2008-10-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

I'm on my Tron Kick!

:/

Doodle yay!

2008-10-02T03:12:00.001-07:00

quickie doodle!

Portfolio review for Academy Art Students

2008-10-01T21:09:00.001-07:00

Sept. 27th 6pm - 830pm
Bradley Hall
Academy Art University
Event: Nick Stohlman and crew Portfolio Review

Chuck recently invited a group of us to speak with students about our experiences after finishing our schooling at the Art Academy. It was a great experience and I'm so happy that Chuck made this happen. The school listed us as:

Nick Stohlman (Sega Studios, SF) - yay video games!
Grant Alexander (Pixar Studios) - yay tv & movies!
Chris Carman (Multiverse) - yay comics & video games!
Albert Truong (Fluid/SGN) - yay tv and video games!

Aside from giving our school experiences, we also talked about our work experience - what the industry expects, what makes a good portfolio, and the many pluses and minuses it has to offer. We were also living proof that "YES... you can get a job just doodling all day."

I think one of the biggest points we tried to emphasize was portfolio requirements - the do's and dont's. Starting out is hard - one advice was to have a diverse portfolio to show that you can tackle any job out there. But if you really want that dream job, you would have to spend a lot of hard work to tailor your portfolio in that direction. Make sure to get feedback from other artists, particularly ones working in your industry.

Illustrating is great fun, and sometimes at work I take it for granted - the fact that someone is *paying* me to just doodle all day still boggles my mind.

Here's good ole Chuck introducing us all.

From left to right: Little Nicky, the big Bert-man, Chrissy Fields, and Grantsy.

Here I am with my little mouse for the laptop cuz i had a slide show. Rub Rub Rub!

Oh Noes! I did a little Palin and mumbled incoherently for a bit! I didn't expect to see so many students? Must've been at least a hundred of you guys. Thanks to Grant for helping out and asking questions for me to answer :)

Some students took A LOT of notes :o

Others perused through our portfolios we brought.

"hahahaha Chris, you're silly!"

By the end of it, we had a long Q&A and got a chance to look at portfolios. I was really impressed. A lot of them were VERY good - lots better than what I was doing during their time.

Wowie Zowie! Again, it was great experience and loads of fun. Thanks to Chuck and Nick for putting this together. I hope the students found our little shinDig helpful for whatever artistic career direction they decide to go into.

photos by Megan Wolfe

noodlin' noodlin'!

2008-09-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

an hour or so of casual noodlin'

just relaxin' at home. gonna keep workin on this one. i likes snowy space stations!

should it just be a station? or should i put a little air ship thing in later?

here's a sketch of another mountain i didnt use for a base.

Lunch Doodle cuz i'm a dork

2008-09-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

yay lunch doodle!

Meeting Doodle 572...

2008-09-18T14:08:00.001-07:00

another meeting doodle: spaceShip!

Speed Painting 1

2008-09-17T22:32:00.001-07:00

Sooooo i got jealous cuz SOMEONE has been doing some cool speed paintings (stupid Nick!)... i'm just following in his footsteps is all.

1 hour. HAD LOTS OF FUN :)

SGN Meetings

2008-09-14T19:46:00.001-07:00

i'm an artist? what else am i gonna do at a meeting other than doodle????

Our meetings are cool though, they bring in snacks and beer :)

i'm still drawing chicks with huge heavy helmets.

I also still draw coworkers sketching with heart shapes around them. I do that everyday :P

OMFG #2

2008-08-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

OMFG Clothed Figure 3 WITH CHUCK PYLE!!!

when i was digging through these, they were labeled under the reference folder. I was trying to remember who the frak did these drawings, then in the corner i noticed a signature and it was ME hahaha DUR DUR DUR DUR.

These were done back in 2003 in the good ole academy o' art COLLEGE!

CHECK THAT OUT! COLOR AND DESIGN WITH ALANA!!! FUGGIn' MANDALA! :D lol!

OMFG #1

2008-08-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

OMFG

was organizing my external drive and RAN into a CRAPLOAD of old fan art drawings back in 2002 or somewhere rounds there!

HAHAHAHA FUGGIN' ANIME! and boy was i a PERV!

Returning to your roots

2008-08-11T00:17:00.001-07:00

So ends another summer and a start of a new year for art students. For me, it's a fresh reminder that everyone has to return to their roots now and then - this means picking up the old sketchbook and going out and drawing from life. Whatever happend to those days of yore when you're drawing every moment you get?

Do any of you guys remember those days? We would all be sketching - ALL the time. I would sit in at borders just doodling, and out comes another sketch buddy, who would sit down next to me and we would just draw the people there. We would sketch till the sun drops - a 3 to 6 hour session. "Pencil Mileage"

We all tout the "We draw 100 hours a week! Every Week!" - sure sounds like B.S., but I can definitely say we did just that. We would draw from 8 am till 12 am, and then some more on the weekends! After getting outta the academy, I tried my best to keep up with sketching from life.

It's hard to find time and keep that motivation in check. What really helps me is carrying a small 3x5 moleskin notebook. These are a godsend! I try to sketch when i sit down, but as of late, it's been dragging.

I know for some of you, you guys keep it up easily (GRANT! you jerk!) - I'm just glad to be able to do it when I get the chance. I feel like if I dont sketch from life at all in a day, a little piece of me dies. Hmmm... at this rate, I shoulda been dead long ago :D

So today was nice, where I got a second to actually sit down with the wife, and we both pulled out our sketchbooks and went at it. It's nice to go back to our roots and just doodle. Maybe we can make a zoo run one of these days!?! That would be awesome!

if anyone cares to know, I carry no pencil sharpener with me. I draw with a 6B pencil, not sharp. It's a giant super dull 'nubby end. Makes it fun to do these quick 2-3 minute sketches like what you see above. at the same token, since it isnt sharp, it's hard to lift the pencil and draw accurately, so most of the time i'm just dragging it around until it makes a shape. loads of fun!

SpaceMovers Art

2008-08-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

So Space Movers finally launched today and is racking up the daily active users on facebook. I worked with a couple awesome people, one namely a Shaun Pendergast (monkeyspin.blogspot.com) in creating this neato game with neato characters. Along with the help of Mr. Game Designer Marc Wilhelm and the rest of the design team at SGN, we all outputted something we are proud of.

There are lots of characters to pick from, with individual powerups to play on. It's a nice simple addicting game that I hope most people enjoy (I hope people like the designs more!)...

Shaun mainly handled all the awesome art assets and UI design and layout of most if not all the pages.

I handled the first pass mockups and character designs.

There's a lot more designs, so if you're interested, you can check out the game on faceBook. I can't remember the UrL off the top of my head and I'm a bit lazy to look for it... :D

Fluffy!!!!

2008-06-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delays!!!

I recently found new work with a company called SGN, providing artwork for the facebook applications and games. I am thoroughly surprised at this thing we call "the Internet," and "facebook."

I didnt know there was that much money invested in it? that's crazy!!!!

Anyways, hope to be posting more soon. This is a fluffy little girl i made a month ago. Am looking for more opportunity to doodle and sketch! Picked up that mass effect book so i'm totally stoked about doing sci-fi art :D

WTF? Let's Elf it up byyaaaaatttch!

2008-04-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah that's right foo' - it's an ELF with BIG FUGGIN' ears! Yeah? say what? THAT'S RiGHT foo' - she got some BIG fuggin gloves on too! Those damn elven man hands!

mmmmm yeaaah, yummy! and she's like "Hey, is that elven bread i smell? *SNIFF* SNIFF* Mmm mmmM mmm"

now she pull her sword out, and she gonna get some o' dat bread! YEAAAAAH Das right! Cast lvl 1 magic missile! MMM yeaahh, now she can nibble some o' dat! yeah... nibble away at that you crazy elf b****!

Valkryie Grayed up!

2008-04-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

being uncomfortable with just a line drawing, i grayscaled up the valkyrie a bit!

she just didnt look finished standing next to the other two.

Yay chicks in armor!

2008-04-01T02:12:00.000-07:00

wooooo!!!!!!!!!

I R have blast draw chicks in armor!

So i have a 4th chick in armor not posted, but i was thinking - welp i have one barbarian chick, i got one valkyrie, and i got one that is sorta goth'ish so i says she is the Sinister warrior. with the forth one she's like a pirate ... sorta....

so i was thinking, warrior of the north, south east and west... the valkyrie protector of all goodiness, the goth chick lives like in a volcano castle or something... the barbarion in the forest... and the pirate chick is in line at the optometrist because she's lost stereo vision.

ehhh ok i include 4th warrior here. I didnt include her to begin with cuz she wasnt that great - i dont like her much. She kinda like a chinese mongorian "gole damn schitty wall" pirate chick:

Welp, time to put that port together.

2008-03-29T01:29:00.000-07:00

YUP!

Rough times, and i dont blame my company for any of it. this sorta thing happens and all you can really do is look up and hope for the best.

Hate the big L-O... but what can you do?

here's a piece i was working on today.

Diggin' through the old 'bin!

2008-03-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

rummagin' around the old bin looking for some additional portfolio material and i ran across a couple old norman rockwell studies! WOW these were large pastel studies i found just lyin' about on my hard drive :)

no new drawings as of now :( been mostly retouching old ones most have seen... man... i was a lazy ass back in the day. Look at all those nonsolid blacks!

***IT LOOKS SO GOOD SHRUNKEN DOWN OMG! i'm gonna print stamp sizes of these!***

This lecture is great. thank you randy pausch

2008-02-22T16:14:00.000-08:00

A university professor is giving his last speech because he is dying from cancer. It is a great lecture, 1 hour long.

this lecture for me hits close to home.

I'm watching this very slowly - it's an hour long, so i'm gonna take my time to really listen to the lecture.

it is really interesting. My parents have pushed me since childhoold to be a doctor. I had zero control of my life. Everytime i picked up a pencil and tried to draw, they would rip my drawings to shreds - said it was evil and a waste of ftime. i was miserable.

Eventually i got a degree in biology and chemistry and went to optometry school for a year. I have always thought "if i die tomorrow, what would i change right now?"

so I quit optometry school, and rather than going home, tried to make my dreams come true and left to art school. I got completely disowned and financially cut off.

Currently, i'm happily married and 5 years in the industry as a concept artist. heck, my stuff is on TV. Never been happier. my dreams are there

for those who are interested in changing their life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Kudos to Grant!

2008-02-19T13:56:00.001-08:00

Kudos to you buddy!

patty found your name in this article! :D

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=49822&mode=thread&order=0

Sketch Fever!!!!

2008-02-05T00:20:00.000-08:00

So i finally get a free day to doodle some... and thought it would be a hoot to do some sci-fi illustrations/drawings. You cannot imagine how hard it was for me to get back into the groove of things. I guess that's partially my fault for not keeping up with it. I'm so used to the everyday tasks at work and constantly doing the same style all the time.

my first sketch came up as a large blobular head with the nose pointing one way and the eyes the other. Bummer! Welp, select-all, and DELETE DELETE DELETE.

Sketches!!!! Bus :?

2008-02-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

I've fallen into a rut since xmas. I've been sketching a bit less, posting even less art, and have been hooked on Halo books :)

Some good came of it though: I've mailed Eric Nylund, writer of the Halo series books and writer for Microsoft Studios (writes story bibles and backstories for many games) and he wrote back to me very quickly! said thanks for the kind words but also said "Great job on Lucy!"

that's cool, i said nothing about lucy so that was nice.

Also i got a surprise email from a colleague WAAAAAAY back in 1st year of optometry school. He's a doctor now, and mentioned that he had to wake his wife up when he saw my name in the credits.

Thanks my friend! meant a great deal to me and is a big booster for my morale in this hectic world of "dog eat dog" art world.

These are the sketches i've done in the past week or so. Thanks Piya for posting on my blog, pushing me to post some art :)

Nick Stohlman

2008-01-15T17:00:00.001-08:00

... is the greatiness...

of greatness...

http://nicholasstohlman.com/

i hope i get free games now!

concept reel

2008-01-14T15:08:00.000-08:00

here's a work reel that contains most of my work. it's a company reel so there are 2 or 3 images from other artists, but it's mostly my work in here. I wish i could seperate it out somehow.

Being married...

2008-01-05T16:12:00.001-08:00

... is the next best thing that's happened to me since transformers :)

happy new year!

First time 3D modeling w/ Z

2007-12-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Fluid's going into some downtime now with the holidays coming up, so it gave me some chance to monkey around a bit with Zbrush.

It was pretty fun :) i started monkeying with a sphere and sculpted this old guy's head out of it. 1st 3D model ever! It took like 2 hours, so i'm looking forwarding to spending more time and seeing how well things are if i spend more time on it. Hoping to learn more about zBrush - right now i'm only fluent with using it for texturing :( maybe a little bit about displacement maps but we havent found a use for Disp Maps with any of the projects currently going on.

Sorry for the lack of updates :( with things around the office, at home, and a new xBox 360, finding time to post anything worthwhile is proving difficult :P

My typical illustration process

2007-10-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Everyone has their own process, but a majority follows the same basic formula that is pretty much engrained in most of us either from a natural progression or formal training.

I'm taking an illustration i've done at work as an example. The fundemental process is a no brainer: Thumbs -> rough or polished work -> color roughs -> final

The current illustration i'm using as an example is for a development project years ago. The simple art direction was to take heroes and villains and put them in a Rockwell like thanksgiving pose. It wasn't hard to find reference as this particular painting from Norman Rockwell has been spoofed numerous times for comics.

I first started out with same basic roughs, trying to get what each character is doing or how to make the composition flow better. I find myself usually detailing up the roughs i really like, while others i tend to just jot down quick info to see if that composition worked. I even tried to see if the composition could work horizontally in a landscape. I found myself leaning towards the lower right design the most, and once it was approved, went in to detailing it more.

Some artists can skip the detailing stage and go straight into painting. I find myself needing the extra detail, otherwise i just get stuck painting. Once detailed, i normally go through a black and white value study (here is done slightly in pencil) and color roughs, exploring different pallettes.

Because the original art direction was "spoof much as possible," i didnt do too much color roughs and went straight into color. On the left panel, you will see me splashing in quick color just to get an idea of general/local color. The progression after that is just me working into the painting on a single layer - literally painting it up (I dont do this anymore, as i'm finding more often than naught that people always wants changes last minute. Now a days, I use quite a few layers to make my job easier in the long run). I start detailing and rendering like mad trying to get to the final look.

The final touches ( logos, text, etc...) are added after finish - and there you go! a finished illustration that suits the needs of the client and fulfilled art direction clearly. Overall, i enjoy this process because it's predictable and systematic - i can easily gauge the time required to do a finished piece and how polished it can be. Rarely do i jump in and do an illustration straight up; more times i find that way leads me to go back and do some arduos fixes.

anyways, this piece is now a large poster hanging in our office :)

We're Sober!

2007-10-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

OHHHHH how funny it is. I totally thought we were sober. Here's some pictures of Patty (the assistant director), Me, and Loren Bouchard (Ther person patty is assisting) at the Lucy Premiere party. I could have sworn we were sober? I could have sworn Loren was drunk? I guess we were wrong :( and Loren has the pictures to prove it :)

ZOO!

2007-09-24T09:39:00.001-07:00

Ref Images!

Chuck Pyle's blog!

2007-09-05T09:39:00.001-07:00

dept director (dean?) of the illustration department for Academy Art University.

http://chuckpyleart.blogspot.com/

Great teacher/mentor/director/person/moustache?

Him and many teachers at the academy is what makes the illustration dept kick-arse.

LUCY

2007-08-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

SEPT 9th!!!!
12:15!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

edit to add: OOPS!

it's LUCY: The daughter of the devil, airing on cartoon network's ADULTSWIM @ 12:15 am on sunday'ish (monday morning technically), September 9th.

Tune in and check it out. I was responsible for most if not all the character designs and art direction for the BackGround Plates. ALSO check out Grant Alexander's and Justin Martin's handiwork (their efforts intto creating the environments for lucy to play in). Grant and Justin did a great job painting up the matte/bg plates for Lucy (They also had some handy work with Character designs: JUSTIN for his awesome MEAT LUCY and Grant for his disgusting SATAN TUMOR). They also did a wonderful job poking fun of me (YOU BASTARDS).

and to ANSWER CHRIS'S QUESTION: "IS this the pilot?" - this youtube commercial should say it all!

I MISSED COMIC-CON

2007-08-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

YOU lucky bastards that went! heck, even my boss went. But i heard it was sold out friday and he was there on wednesday, thursday, just going in everyday and paying the fee for the day pass. Couldn't get in on friday!

Ohhhhhh the books i would have saught out for. Ohhhhhh the toys i would have purchased! OHHHHH all the robot-sie transformery goodness i would have been in.

Congrats to those who went, congrats to those who brought their ports and got good reviews and not so good reviews (hey, it's all part of the process). Congrats to those who picked up MP-5 Masterpiece Megatron :)

MAYBE next year, maybe.

anyways, you know, still doing the same thing, sketching on the bus... workin' at the same place doing the same thing :) LOVING every moment of this crazy thing called work :)

anyways, doing some doodles, did some car doodles too. these were fun way to pass the time while waiting for the Harry Potter line to dwindle.

I MUST SAY - finished the book in 3 days. I've heard others doing it in 8 hours flat. JEEEEEBERS that's crazy! But now that THAT crazy thing is out of the way, i can return to my collective hobby of just doodling and dwadling and buying toys :)

Something to Share

2007-07-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Bus sketches!!!

Meg and I are getting married soon! She's set a date already... OCT 24th, city hall...

My parents scared her good, what with my brother's wedding topping at 550 people! So we'll be doing some wedding ring shopping on the weekends and she'll be looking for her simple summer dress for city hall.

Now on the lucy end, it looks like Lucy's got pushed back a bit to better promote the show. Airdate sometime in September... Sept 9th? Who knows, [adultswim] keeps me in the dark :D

If there's one thing to say about work, it's that I'm grateful that I have a wonderful, flexible team that can self manage things on their own and follows art direction (most of the time ;P ) - w/o them, the show would be nothing.

On the personal obsessed level: I want that new Leader Class Optimus prime now! ARrrgH! that new Transformers movie rocked!

me DailY doodles...

2007-06-28T21:51:00.001-07:00

on 'de BUS or waiting...

I have not had any chance to do any photoshop paintings/sketches :( AYE YAH!

nO updates!

2007-06-19T23:08:00.000-07:00