Over the Hump

But not out of the water just yet! A quick animation study that turned into this. Enjoy!(Click link)

Dead Men Tell No Tales!

Avast you Land Lubbers!

Here be some markers sketches of swashbucklers from the savage event aboard the crazy great Victorian on Alamo Square. Twas a time to remember! Enjoy me chicken scratch, me mateys! Yo ho ho and a bottle of Malibu rum (with just a splash of pineapple).

Street Fighter IV

Cheesy fanart, I know, but I really enjoy the latest Street Fighter a lot! The design is really good, the characters are complex, the combos are fun and the intensity is great! My armpits always get sweaty when I play. Its one of the rare 3d games where I think that the design is exceptional.
Enjoy!

TYE piece

Happy Friday! Its been a while, a lots been going on, but i wanted to take a quick moment to share a piece that I did for the 'Terrible Yellow Eyes' blog organized by Cory Godbey.
It was fun to work on a piece inspired by Maurice Sendak's art, and its really awesome to see all of the great artwork being created for the blog. Thank you Cory and Maurice!

My Studiomates!

I am constantly inspired and thankful to be surrounded by such talented artists here at our small studio in SF. Its truly a great pleasure to be supported by a productive and successful group, so I wanted to do a little tribute. Here we are!
Left to right:
Me!
Andy Ristaino
Lyla Warren
Pascal Campion

Click on their names to see their artwork.

Thanks again, homies!

Meghan wakes up!

Here is how my girlfriend Meghan wakes up! Enjoy

Running

So I have started training for a half-marathon with a small group of friends! It is really fun and somewhat challenging. It is definitely a whole mind game. Your mind tries to convince you of a million different reasons why you shouldn't be running, but you must force yourself to do it. It is part of my new year's resolution this year to run. Last year was to quit smoking, which worked out I'm happy to say. That was also a terrible mind game, where your brain tries to convince you to smoke. I had dreams about smoking and there were a few times when my mind decided to forget that I quit, kind of blacked it out. i don't have anything bad to say about smokers though, a lot of awesome out of the box conversations were had while being stimulated by smokes. I don't think that its possible to ever be fully free of smoking once you're hooked either, but its serves a purpose sitting in the back of your mind as a reminder of how powerful your will can be. Does that make any sense at all? I can't believe that there are so many words here without a drawing.

Anyways, running! Its much easier with some supportive friends who have experience training for a marathon thank you thank you! Its about 8 weeks out and I am running 3 times a week. We ran 6 miles on Sunday and it is going to go up every week! Phew!

-Mike D.

Penguin Animation

Hi all!
No sketch today, something different. I wanted to share some animation sequences that I made with a penguin character that I designed for the good people at Shockwave, who have launched a bunch of new products lately.

Here are a few of the animations that I made for the little avatar penguin! Check it out! Click on the penguin below!


I made these for the game 'Icebreakers' which can be found on their site here:
http://www.shockwave.com/home.jsp

Sign up and play! Have a good one!

Bee King

Bee-ware the Bee King!

Link is hungry!

Happy St. Pattys!

Spring is ALMOST here!

Can't wait for a little warm sun time...

Enjoy!

Life drawings (nudity)

This past weekend I drew at the Bay Area Model's Guild's life drawing marathon, what a blast! I had a great time drawing and catching up with a few buddies that I haven't seen in a while. 25 models on multiple stages for drawing awesomeness! Special thanks to all of the great models and the great talk about drawing afterwards with Michael Mattesi. Thanks Mike! Here's a few drawings from the 5 and 10 minute sessions. Enjoy!

valentine's

giving you all kisses for this weekend!

She Said Yes!

This past weekend was very special one. I proposed to my longtime girlfriend, Meghan Riley (and she said Yes!). Here's a little pic and the story below if you're interested!

The adventure begins when I told Meghan that I was going to take her away for the weekend and that the destination was a surprise. As we were packing on Friday morning and getting ready to leave for the weekend, I kept trying to convince her that we were going to Stockton or Fresno (not her cup of tea). Then I tried to convince her that we were going to Las Vegas because she doesn’t like that much either. Finally I told her that our destination for the weekend was Mendocino, a place on the coast that we love exploring but have actually never spent any time. Here’s a picture: (http://vacationrentalmendocino.com/images/Mendocino_Coastline_Beach_Oceanfront_Vacation_Headlands.jpg)

Mendocino is about a 3.5 hour drive north of San Francisco . It is a small artists’ community with the New England architecture being restored in the 50s. Its just a few streets wide and sits on a bluff sticking out into the ocean. The surrounding shore is very rugged and cliffy and has lots of those beautiful, flat-lying pines you often find on the coast of Northern California . The water is beautiful and blue, but a little too cold for much swimming or surfing. The tiny town itself is chock full of art galleries, jewelry galleries and little cafes. We stayed at a funky bed and breakfast called the John Dougherty house, which makes its own scones and peach jam. I’m a pretty big scone fan.

Although it rained on our drive up to Mendocino, Saturday was surprisingly warm (t-shirt weather) and clear! Sunday was a little cool but still nice until late afternoon when it began to rain again on our drive back to San Francisco .

Saturday in Mendocino we walked through the town looking at the art and walked near the water. At sunset, we took a quick walk down to the cliffs before dinner. The sun was out and the entire cliff-line had that ‘golden coast’ hue that you get with the sunsets here. I had my backpack (I usually have it with me filled with sketching materials) and I acted as if I just remembered that I had some funny drawings that I wanted to show her. I pulled them out and handed them to Meghan. They were drawings of Meghan and I at different little points in our relationship: us meeting, driving together, skiing, reading on the couch, going on vacation together in Europe, but the final drawing was a little picture of me proposing to Meghan. I then got down on one knee and pulled the box with a ring out of my backpack and opened it up. I told Meghan that I love her very much and I asked her to marry me and to be my wife. I can’t decide if it feels more surreal to say it, or surreal to think that I actually said it!

Meghan looked down at me on one knee, then she looked to the ring in my hand, and just like in a lovely fairytale, shrugged and said “Yeah,.. sure.. okay.” Continuing with the wonderful dream I said “What the hell do you mean ‘Yeah... okay...’ What kind of answer is that? The answer is either YES or NO.” And to that she said YES!

With that business settled we walked further along the cliffs until sat down on a log to watch the beautiful red sunset fade to dark. I told Meghan that I asked her father for his blessing a few months ago. He told me that he loves his daughter very much and to take good care of her. I assured Meghan that my parents love her too and that’s when it got a little emotional. We got up from our perch as the night rolled in and we trekked back to the town to dinner and to call our families. All in all, a great weekend and we both couldn’t be happier! -The End