Recently I was interviewed by the Character Design blog. I consider it an incredible honor to be included among so many very talented people, and I am very humbled. You can read the interview here. I put a lot of thought into answering the questions, so I hope I was able to give some advice or insight that will be helpful to someone.

I’ve been comissioned to design a vole character for an animated “Whack-a-Mole” type game. Problem is, voles are extremely cute, and who wants to whack a cute character? So I started playing around with abstracted shapes to hopefully give him a little more attitude. Not sure if it worked. This is my progression of sketches. Feel free to post a comment and let me know what you think, I’d appraciate it.
(Click for a larger image)

Earlier this year I had the honor of inking two issues for the re-release of “Opposite Forces”, a series created by animator/illustrator Tom Bancroft (Aladdin, Lion King, Mulan, VeggieTales). His work is fantastic and he’s about the nicest guy around.

Anyway, issue #3 (the first issue I inked) is finally in stores from Alias publishing. If your local comic book store doesn’t carry it, ask them to order it for you.

Click on the images below to read a couple of sample pages:
(Colored by Josh Ray)

EDIT: I just realized I had the pages displayed in the wrong order. Oops! Problem fixed. Enjoy!

I was recently comissioned by a children’s magazine to create a full-page illustration of the Amazon jungle containing eight hidden frogs. The budget was low and the deadline was a little tight, so I did the best I could with the time I had. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out, except I’m concerned I may not have hidden the frogs well enough (the target audience is 2nd and 3rd graders). But for the budget offered I just didn’t have the time to paint anything more complex. That’s the balance a freelancer has to try and strike sometimes. I just submitted it so we’ll see what the client says. Also, it looks more washed out in RGB than it does in CMYK, not sure why. But it will hopefully print with more contrast than it has when you view it on a computer screen.

I did a few ink sketches over the four-day weekend just to keep my drawing hand loosened up. Some are from life, some from TV, and some from magazines.

Artwork by Dennis Jones

Warm Thanksgiving wishes to one and all! Let’s each pause to remember everything we have to be thankful for.

And then, please take a minute to check out the artwork of Dennis Jones. He’s a fantastic illustrator with a terrific style, definitely worth a visit.