The Breakfast Monkey Gets Colored

Color rough I did for the lovely people at The Breakfast Monkey's Facebook page. I promise I'll get you guys a nice cleaned-up version soon. The blue-line art is in my very first post.

Happy Birthday, Gerard Way!

Just a little sketch wishing a very happy birthday to my buddy Gerard from me and the Breakfast Monkey!

The Rescue Racer Crew

I did mention that it was an unhealthy obsession, right? So after posting my Pufnstuf sketch, my girlfriend suggested drawing his little deputies (I think they were also his nephews?), Cling & Clang. That was really all the incentive I needed to want to draw them. Well, that and another slow day at work with time for doodling, and voilà! They were fairly simple to do, there's not much to them. It's all about expression with these guys. But now that I'm looking at them, I think I could've pushed them a little more. Since they are little dragons, maybe add an indication of a tail? Maybe they can have cute little rounded fangs growing in? Food for thought when I actually have the time to do the whole Pufnstuf crew.
For now, here are my blue-line and color roughs. Let me know what you think...

Who's Your Friend When Things Get Ruff?

This started as a doodle that I did at work yesterday. I was totally inspired this weekend by Todd Kauffman's Pufnstuf blog, and out of boredom, I started drawing Puf. I drew him completely from memory, and I was surprised to find that it came out pretty accurate when I checked later online. Which probably means that I have an unhealthy obsession with the show. H.R. Pufnstuf was my favorite tv show when I was a kid, and I still love it today.

I've always wanted to do something with an animated version, and to be honest I was super-jealous when I saw Todd had not only already beaten me to the punch, but he had an entire website devoted to it! Great stuff, Todd! So, this is my take on Pufnstuf. I gave him little fangs, an indication of some scales, and a little wisp of fire coming out of his mouth, because he IS a dragon after all. I thought in animated form we could make him a little more dragon-like but still stay true to the Krofft's original design, and keep him cute and cuddly and kid-friendly. Eventually, I'd like to take a stab at some of the other characters, especially Witchiepoo, but that will have to wait til I have a little more free time. I'm already being completely irresponsible by spending my morning on this. But I really love it and wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think.
Here's the blue line sketch and the color rough, and just so you can see the progression, here's the doodle that it came from. I wish I could do a finished color version so you can see the FULL progression, but that will also have to wait. Not enough hours in the day...

*UPDATE 4/15/2013: I've added the final digitally-colored version to show the full design progression. For a better look at the final design, visit this POST.

Lunch-adores and a Nervous Goldfish

In this post, I'm wrapping up the last of my redesigns of the Breakfast Monkey characters that you've seen in the animatic. Here's my redesign of Lucha Lunche, the world-famous Mexican wrestler with a passion for grilled cheese. This new version takes Lucha in the curvy direction that I originally wanted to go with him, as opposed to the sharper Bruce Timm-like version that we used in the animatic, which I was never really happy with. AND I've added a little bonus: Lucha's ex-tag team wrestling partner, Señor Sloppy Moustache. For the full story on Lucha & Sloppy's partnership-turned-rivalry, and to find out where these ridiculous names came from, watch this week's YouTube video. 

Here's the blue line sketch and the color rough:

 And finally, as promised in my first post, here's the redesign of Tinklefish. He's just a little more stylized, not as much a drastic difference as Lucha. I wanted his head to kind of have a Krofft puppet quality, like H.R. Pufnstuf. And I got rid of his goofy buck teeth, which never made sense to me.

Again, here's the blue line sketch and the color rough:

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions!

Breakfast Monkey Gots a Brother??

Yes, the Breakfast Monkey has a brother. In fact, he has about fifty siblings. They all live together in a tiny house in Northern Wafflonia. Of course, there's always one rotten one in the bunch, and his brother Spanks is it. He's rude, obnoxious, and an all around pain-in-the-ass. And he likes pie. He's also my favorite BM character. This is an updated design for me, but most if not all of you are seeing him for the first time. Let me know if you want to see more of Spanks. I know I do! And again, if you want more info on BM's crowded house, I'll be putting new video up early next week.
Here is the blue line sketch and the color rough:

Hard Boyle'd Christmas Minion

This is a character study for a personal project that I've been working on for a while now. For those of you not familiar with Gruss Vom Krampus: in some European countries he is Saint Nick's demonic little helper. He's the one who doles out the punishment for all the bad children at Christmas time, poking them with his pitchfork, whipping them with a switch of hay, locking them up in chains, and stuffing them in a basket to take them down to Hell. AND he steals their presents and replaces them with potatoes. (Those European parents really want to instill pure fear into the hearts of little kids!) I find this mythology completely fascinating, and I'm incorporating him into an animated story that I'm doing. Usually he looks like your typical Halloween devil. But in one old postcard that I came across, he was wearing a blazer and short trousers, and I like the idea of a somewhat sophisticated Krampus as opposed to just an evil goblin. So that's the way I went with him. And I needed to make him a little more kid friendly, so he ended up looking like a cross between Nightcrawler from the X-Men, The Count from Sesame Street, and Malificent from Sleeping Beauty. I'm pretty happy with this design, and I'm pretty sure what I use for my story will be close to this, if not this exact design.
Here is the blue line sketch and the color rough: