GUERILLAS looks at the nature of war, the nature of man, and all the grey areas in between. It’s also an action-packed thrill-ride, full of jungle warfare and simian acrobatics.

This is the first solo project from writer/artist Brahm Revel.

Check out his work here

I was really excited that I got asked to contribute to the book.   It is a great read, beautifully illustrated and plays out more serious than the overall concept would suggest (definitely more serious than probably my pin up suggests.)  My favorite part of the book was the way Brahm illustrated the monkey fight scenes, so i tried to capture that in my own drawing.  Wild stuff!

Below was my pin up for the book.

Also in other Random Tidbits, I did some work on the Odd Gentlemen’s “Dueling Gentlemen” Game for Playstation home.   I designed the intro character Slap Happy Sam, who runs the Dueling stage you play on.

He only existed as 2D art but I had a blast designing him out.  Here are a few shots:

Slap Happy Sam

His Cameo that appears on the outside of the stage.

That’s all for now,

VP

The cover to the actual Issue (not my design, but a cool cover)

The only directive was “I need spooky stuff”.  Contrary to recent activity i don’t have a ton of “spooky” images.   Most are bright and cartoonish so I had to reach deep in my archives.

Here are the actual Spreads:

The illustration was originally a T-shirt design I was asked to make that never got produced.

There is a good story on this one, it was actually an old sketch I got to redo ( see below.)

They cropped my floating spooky dude for the final page. he was officially spooky

It has been a while since I have done magazine work so it was cool that I was offered the chance from a video game mag.  My worlds are colliding!

Revisitng an old idea.

I like the idea of going back and redrawing an old image. I like to see how I have grown as an artist, and what better way than to cover familiar territory.  However I try not to do this because you have to move forward, no sense in beating yourself over how you could have executed an idea better.  With this new project though, I got the opportunity to go back and play this exercise out.

About two years ago I laid this idea down in my sketchbook and colored it in Photoshop:

I liked this idea, but I was just getting into coloring images digitally.  Looking back it is really sloppy. The ghosts weren’t as well designed and the sillouettes of all of them could be stronger( too many details for a graphic piece). It was only really intended as a sketch for a more polished thing illustration.  However time gets away form us and the idea was shelved.

Skip ahead ,Skip Ahead.  When I was asked to submit “spooky” images to Game Dev. Mag I threw this one at them thinking I could finally polish it off.   Game Dev Mag really liked it but had no time to give me to tighten it up.  This whole assignment lasted 2 days and was a rush, which was why the were asking for existing work rather than seeking originals.

Well i couldn’t let this illustration out the door ( it being 2 years old and unfinished.)

Originally I asked for more time to do this and they said no (“Just send us the Hi-Res files we can work with it”).  I figured I could push an email response by two hours and that might give me enough time to fix it ( with the mission impossible music blaring behind me).  So I took it into photoshop and digitally recreated it in the span of 1.5 hours.

That’s right Mortimer an hour and a half.

I have gotten used to working fast, but this was madness ( in fact at the end of the process there was a big explosion i narrowly jumped away from).  This was an anomaly project, making fast shouldn’t be a mark of it’s quality( that is just gimmicky.) To be honest this was sitting in my head for 2 years i just needed an excuse to strike.  However I think it is a good example of working confidently and reactively, without getting hung up in the idea of a piece. I tend to be very in my head and overly process focused, so it was cool to have that striped away so I could just make something.

Funny how these things work out, I think this is one of my strongest pieces (and favored) to date and it happened in between emails.

till next time,

Vincent

Deedee reclining (20 min) 11/14/09Well hello there.

Yes it has been a while.   I know I said I was going out to get the paper and I didn’t return  …but well that was a test and you passed… hurray!

I have been bothering enough people over at my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/VincentPerea)  with my current exploits So I have ignored this avenue for a spell.  Also I have been working on The Misadventures of PB Winterbottomfor the past year or so in addition to working for Midnight Oil Creative…So I been busy.  I will write a whole long blog about my last year at some point, but for now there is little I can say about the work I have done until the game comes out.

Now that I only have one job, I am starting to get a little restless.  To fill the void    Last week  I attended an event hosted by  Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School .

The lovely ladies Deedee and Click of the Dr. Sketchy Roadshow

The LA Branch ( Run by the kids of Baby Tattoo fame) was at the tail end of their great experiment: the California Dr. Sketchy Roadshow (.  I was lucky enough to attend the last two events at  some  of my favorite arty places Gallery Nucleus and Wax Poetic.

It was a really great time, the show is a mix of flirty burlesque and traditional figure drawing.  The conceit was that it was a show and not a drawing session.   Something about this made it more fun and relaxed than your normal figure drawing session. Also  when you spend an entire year drawing poignant narratives or concepts about a fat man who loves pie, drawing some sassy ladies is not a bad change of pace.

Below  is a selection of some of the drawings I completed there. I am going to try an experiment.  I am going to offer some of these drawings for sale on my Etsy account.   These pieces are very loose and done in one sitting so I am going to offer them up as is for a cheap rate.

Deedee seated recline (20 min)  11/13/09

Reading Deedee (10 Min) 11/13/09

Sassy Pirate Deedee (10 min) 11/13/09

Deedee Hand on Hip #2 (10 min)  11/14/09

Deedee Hand on Hip #1 (10 min)  11/14/09

Thoughtful Deedee (10 Min) 11/14/09

Click with Parasol #1 (20 min) 11/13/09

Click with Parasol #2 (20 min) 11/14/09

Till next time ,

Vincent

This week’s theme was the Howard Pyle Pirate.   Here is my offering:

The pose was for a full 3 hours, and I was really happy with the results.  I have done a good amount of figure drawing since I was a teenager, but not a lot of figure painting.  Especially since I work with watercolor, and my method with the   medium isn’t conducive to painting spontaneously.

However I love the quick decision making process that a time limited pose forces upon me.  Water color and ink are so fluid mediums it is nice to work fast with them because the  drawing feels more playful as a result.

Til next time,

Vincent

Here is the prelim sketch for such a whimsical display of rage.

I came up with the new painting after doing a rather weird job.  Actually it wasn’t weird it was like a dream come true.  I met this guy named Mike on the  interwebs.  He was looking to get a HUGE tattoo of a T-rex on his side panel( left ribs).  I enthusiastically agreed, loving all things dinosaur, T-rex especially.

I thought I would have fun with him and maybe draw a giant Marc Bolan face as a first submittable.

” What you don’t like riding white swans?”

However when he sent me pictures of his side panel, I noticed that he was ripped!  He had full blown abs, and defined intercostal muscles. No lie, he could have been a stand in for one of those guys in “300″. He also had already mailed me the money, so I decided that i didn’t know him well enough to joke around and risk a severe beating.

Anyway below are the various sketches I sent.

(Round One: Pump it up!)

(Round Two: Where did I leave my car keys?)

( Round Three: Bark at the moon!)

I liked this one the best so I co-opted it for my main page painting.  In regards to the actual concept, I have been feeling the same as our young costumed screamer since becoming a freelancer.  A little fish screaming in a big damn pond.   I have to be very loud to get noticed, since there is so much good work out there by some very talented artists.  Yet it is hard to feel like a big bad illustrator when you still crash your Mama’s house for food (but dammit I can’t help it her enchiladas are ridiculous!)

(Final Round: One bad mammajamma!)

Unfortunately he never sent me photos of his side panel again.  I know he got it done and they kept all the sketchy lines, so I am really anxious to have recorded proof. However he flaked on getting me photos, so this could all be a myth or lie or fable i have just written for your eye pleasure.  I also know that he surfs, so if anyone down in Long Beach sees a pair of sculpted abs rise out of the water with this Prehistoric jaws smiling at you, please do me a solid and grab a cell phone photo of it.

Man I wish you could catch a case of the full blown abs.

- Vincent

I in a bit of a lurch and was looking for more consistent work. So I thought I would put a portfolio together to try and get comic book coloring work.   The specific opportunity I was trying to chase fell through, and eventually more work came my way and kept me busy.  But I had a lot of fun in during this time by just working on my chops.

During the middle of the summer I didn’t have a lot of projects going on so I focused on my own paintings( which I have been updating when finished to the main site).  It is nice to have to freedom to just play around sometimes, and as I am freelancing it becomes important to stay fresh and practiced.   Also a lot of my coloring recently has a warm nostalgic storybook quality palette.  So it was a good opportunity to try and color outside of my comfort zones.

This first image however is well within my comfort zone.

( A cheap excuse to draw a girl in her underwear)

I painted this on this crazy material called Aquaboard.  It is a hard Masonite board with a gesso type surface on it that can absorb Watercolor.   I saw it in the art store and wanted to experiment with it.  So I pulled out an old ink drawing I did almost two years ago and used that as the starting off point.  It is interesting stuff to work with. The line quality suffers a little, but I was surprised how close this felt to painting on paper. plus it accepts stain effects nicely.

(The Previous drawing used for the recent color test)

It is interesting working on a drawing I did a few years back.  I have grown as an artist since then. So much so that I felt I had to completely redraw certain parts of this, like the face and hands.   The whole time I kept thinking “why did I draw her face that way”.  But back then I thought this was one of the best drawings i had made to date, or at least one of the sexiest.  To make this stand on it’s own I also added other fun bits like the mask which I left out in the original.

Below is a splash page from a comic my Brother Dave and I have been kicking around for a few years.   He got another artist involved to pencil the thing, because I have always been too busy to devote time to it.   But I designed all the characters and since I was setting up stuff for potential comic work i decided to color up on of the pages.

The pencil’s were done by fellow artist Brad Lacke.  I inked this splash page and colored it.  After trying desperately to be poignant throughout the summer it is really cool working on a drawing where a ninja tries to skewer a dinosaur.

Finally I have this western themed color piece.   Done just for the hell of it.

I never draw dead guys, or girls in their underwear.   That should really change…I think I am missing a prime demographic with all my whimsical trees and monsters stuff.

My next series is going to be all dead guys next to cute girls in their underpants.   I will make a million dollars and retire on my own island.

I will post some more color sample in the next few posts, as this blog is getting a little big.

Till then,

Vincent