Star Wars Illustration

I have been playing around with more Illustrator inking tools, so I created this color vector version of an earlier Darth Maul sketch that I drew. After I was done, I decided to create a "book cover" out of the final. Also, I had to create my own "star Wars logo" as well, because I wanted a high rez version. I made this one from a free star wars font I downloaded from the web. However, you really need to look closely at the actual Star Wars logo, because the SW fonts don't match up exactly...I had to go into illustrator and do quite a bit of manipulation with the letters.

Cute Characters

I have been playing with some new tools in Illustrator, and I decided to render some characters I created years ago, but never knew what to do with. These guys were inspired by some stuffed animals my daughter had. We used to play with them and create little adventures. Now my daughter is 19, and I'm still playing with them...

Star Trek Wallpaper Done!

I have completed the next step in my Star Trek comic project---to finish rendering all of the main characters for a promo shot. Below is the that final piece as it looks with all the crew together. I started with Kirk and Spock, then added McCoy, then I had to take a break, then I got back to it and did Scotty, then Uhura. After that was Sulu and Chekov, and the final icing on the cake---a RED SHIRT in the background! I hope to make this available as a wallpaper very shortly for everyone to download! Energize!

Cornelius

I've completed some of the inking on Cornelius, and smoothed the lines with Illustrator live trace. I recreated a weathered POTA log for extra effect...

 

Return to the Planet of the Apes

Early pencil sketches for a classic Planet of the Apes piece I have been working on. I like the idea of Taylor holding the staff with the gorilla skull on it...makes you think what has he been doing? I plan to compose them all together in a poster type scene--I will post the colorized version when done...

Cornelius

Nova

Taylor

Playing in the PLAY area

I was recently accepted to join the PLAY! Illustration website for toy and game design that's run by Serbin Communications. I was pretty excited since they screen all of their applicants to see if your work is up to par for the industry before they allow you to join...and I made the cut! Head over to the site to see my new portfolio space at http://www.playillustration.com/index.aspx.

Just click on the "B's" at the top in the artist finder and it should take you to a list and find my name and click on it...

 

Mark Brayer -

mbrayer@mac.com

www.markbrayer.blogspot.com

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Hey everyone! Here's a piece of art I have been working on for awhile off and on--It's Roddy McDowell  from the original and STILL THE BEST version of Planet of the Apes. I was inspired by all of the hype about a new POTA movie, and now that I've seen the first trailer for the film--it makes wish even more for the original...

Sketch Up at Warp Speed

Just wanted to show everyone what I have been doing in my spare time--when I'm not working on client work that pays the bills. This is a 3D model of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise that I have been building in Sketch Up. I am working on a 6 page Star Trek preview comic to beef up my comic book portfolio, and this will be my "virtual set" that I will use to spin around and export backgrounds for the characters in the book. I have more to do on it, but I think it's coming along well...

Greeting Cards!

Hi Ho everyone--sorry it's been awhile since my last post--I had to stop marketing so I could actually get some work done! Here are a few samples of some of the work I have been doing--Greeting card designs for an online greeting card company ( the name of the company needs to be confidential for now) I have to do 20 to 30 of these for each deadline period--it's a lot of work! Enjoy..

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More Sketch Up

Over the weekend I spent more hours building another model for my graphic novel "Twinkling of an Eye" Here I've posted two views of the police interrogation room--an outside and a view of the inside. As usual, I still have more stuff to add--but I think it's coming along great...I also added a line art drawing of one of my main characters--agent Rick Murdock.

 

Building a waffle house

Since I began using Google Sketch-up about a year ago, I can honestly say it has changed the way I approach my art, and how I plan my art. For example, before these tools existed, artists had to hand draw every single element on the page--that sometimes meant struggling with perspective on buildings, extremely detailed machines, etc. I have been working on a graphic novel, and one of the scenes takes place in a diner type restaurant. When I began drawing the pages, I had to draw the room, the booths where the characters sat, the windows, the tiles on the floor, and on and on. Each time I changed angles, I had to redraw those elements from a new perspective, and there were many times I wasn't happy with the way things looked. Now, I can just choose what type of building that I want my action to take place, and I can go into Sketch up and build that structure. Below is a Waffle House diner that I built for my comic. It took me 8 hours to get to this stage, and I have more work to do, and more pieces to add. But the fact that it gives me the ability to turn and twist the model around in a 3D environment, and export different angles into photoshop, is truly awesome! Now I can go into photoshop and place these shots of my "Waffle house set" into my pages, then I'm ready to draw my characters, put in lighting effects, and whatever other action is needed. It's like being a director of a movie---you dream up your story, build your sets, bring in the actors, and ACTION!

Dinosaur!

Here's a sketch I began while I was listening to an audio file about dinosaurs and the bible...It seems so difficult for people to accept the fact that dinos were created with all the other land animals during creation, and they were on the ark as well. I imagined a T-Rex crashing through the doors with his bible in his hands, (or whatever he calls those poor little claw things hanging under his huge maw) just about to set the record straight...RAAAAAAAAAWWWR!

Live long and prosper...

I apologize for the weird text colors today--Blogger is having all kinds of errors...

The Star Trek project continues...here is the final rendering of my Spock character I began a couple weeks ago. This on e was made to go along with the Kirk figure created earlier in this blog. It took some time, but I think he turned out pretty good, from expression to body shape...It's very satisfying to capture the likeness of a character. No disrespect to a lot of great work being done out there by some talented artists, but in my humble opinion, many animation, and comic book companies falter when they churn out story after story, and don;t really pay attention to the look of the characters. It's almost like you're reading a story where another actor is playing the part. A certain Vulcan might say..."Interesting."

 

Baby, it's cold outside!

When I was finally able to bend my frozen fingers around my pencil, this is the most recent newspaper editorial cartoon that I drew for the Daily Journal of Johnson County,...it pretty much depicts what winter has been like in Indiana this year. If this keeps up, the poor guy might see the Titanic floating in his cup tomorrow...

Logos!

I thought I would post a small sampling of some work that I do other than cartoon or illustration, but it can be as equally creative and challenging! LOGOS! Here are four samples of logo designs that Lightspeed Studios has produced in the last year...

Mr. Spock I presume...

As any Trek fan knows, that if Kirk is there, Mr. Spock can't be far behind...Here's a preliminary sketch of Spock...

Star Trek work continues

Here is the final for the Captain Kirk character model. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It was fun adding the other elements to flesh out the layout—especially the "beaming effect" on the other figures behind Kirk. While I was working on it--I felt like I was bringing the characters back to life...who knows, maybe new adventures are waiting...

Happy 45th Anniversary-Star Trek!

For those of us sci-fi geeks that like Star Trek, it's hard to believe that it's been 45 years since the series debuted on television for the first time. Being an artist, there are times when you just want to draw something because you like it. Lately, for me, I have been into drawing my favorite Trek characters. I don't know if it's just me, but Captain Kirk is one of the hardest guys for me to draw. Can I get a witness out there? I have seen many artist depictions of the Star Trek crew over the years, and some get the likness right, but more often than not, they don't. I have been playing around with the idea of a new Trek animated series. Since the original cast members have gotten so far on in age, and we no longer have DeForest Kelley, (McCoy), and James Doohan (Scotty), the only way to bring the series alive again is through animation. Filmation did a pretty good job back in the 70's, with Star Trek-The Animated Series, the art and design of the characters and environments were faithful, but they were plagued with the time restraints of churning out a new episode every week, and some of the animation suffered.  Below, I have posted some of my sketches and drafts I have been working on. Hope you like them!

I like the angle of this one, but Kirk's likness is a bit off.

This is an earlier one that I inked--the likness is there, but I wanted a different angle.

This is my favorite--it has enough likeness, and a good style for animation.