Shameless Emulation

One of my favorite artists is David Colman.  There's a blend of technical knowledge, bravado, and good taste in his artwork that makes him, I feel, one of the best.  He recently posted a buffalo sketch which I emulated today as my warm-up.  What's crazy is he's only a year older than me, but the quality gap between us is pretty astounding.  I'm getting there!

Vehicle Thumbnails

Just some recent vehicle thumbs.  Just trying to see how fast I can do a full-fledged thumb with colors, concept (yah each thumb has an idea behind it), and character-based design.  It's based on the character classes of Hi-Rez Studios Global Agenda.

Georgia

Miss Sorenson came to visit me in Georgia and here's a little evidence of her stay.  The trip was all I could have hoped for and more.  The only stars that didn't align was our timing on seeing a rolling Georgian thunderstorm, but rest assured it will happen on the next trip!

CTN Expo

Hey Randall Sly at Character Design Blog just talked about the CTN Expo in late November.  I'm going to this and am looking for interested parties that want to share a hotel room for the two nights (around $250 for the two nights).  I am ok with sharing a one bedroom with up to 10 people (did it once at a convention and it's not that bad as long as there's enough floor space to sleep...not that that happens much at these things.)  I will be booking my room within the month so get back to me soon.

Transport Landing

Some people are wary about posting less than professional work but I figure if I'm less than professional then there's no reason to hide.  Who knows?  Maybe it will help someone down the road.

Perspective drawings normally kick my butt but this one turned out...alright.  I have had to untrain my mind from what perspective books teach is "perspective," however.  If I figure it out in the next little bit I'll organize my thoughts and post it, but just go to Rad Sechrist's how to blog for a primer.  The main thing is to think about it in terms of principles rather than mathematics.

Birds

More weight-lifting.  This session was 3 hours.

Ye Olde Sketchbook...

Just weightlifting.  Trying to figure out the whole digital drawing dilio.  Digital sketchbook stuff is always fun.

Ocean spray

This image inspired by an upcoming vacation to Savannah, Georgia.

Spring and Ms. Sorenson

This image was inspired by the wonderful Karen Sorenson and her joyful artwork.  Please check out this image of hers below--yah--amazing.

It might be yellow...

Yah see if you can guess what color this is...

Cold

It's hot in Georgia but still I'm cold tonight...

Traditional Animation

Back in December-January I was working on a few traditional animations.  This is Phil from Hercules.  Sorry, no audio track!


An Animation of Phil from Michael Mercer on Vimeo.

The Beautiful Jillaine

From time to time I'm asked to pick up my camera and push buttons.  I've been doing photography for Jillaine Chaston for a few years now, and a gig back in March had her performing for the Chocolate Extravaganza--a charity auction (Jillaine worked for free and paid her band at her expense) where rich people get together and have fun paying exorbitant prices on relatively normal items to help hospitalized children.

Jillaine's family basically adopted me, and I've always felt like they were my home away from home.  If you ever get the chance to see her, take it!  Not too long from now her ticket prices will go way up!  You can catch her in the Provo/SLC area during the school year, or you can listen to her amazing voice at www.jillaine.com.  But take it from me, you gotta hear her live!

And now for something new...

Expanding the repertoire.  Hi-Rez Studios is located about 30 minutes from my house so there might be more of this in the future.  For friends out there who are interested I think I've decided to settle in Georgia near the family.  And there's nothing like waking up to the songbirds of the South!

Pangea: United We Divide

So I have this idea for a story.  Tribes of cavemen roamed Pangea with early, wacky dinosaurs and other flukes of nature.  The tribes hated each other, and could be united by only one thing: their common hatred. Each tribe chooses its champion and the champions are given the task of finding a way to divide the landmass so the tribes can live in peace.

Here's a conceptual image for characters of a particular tribe...the one that becomes South America.

Ecorche - or filleted man (and yes filleted is spelled correctly)

The French like to make things difficult on Americans by incorporating their cuisine into art.  Ecorche means to filet (or skin, or remove the bones, as in fish, lots of translations apparently) and so when you do a study like this you are really just prepping for cooking.  Eww.

On a side note, this is not the best exercise to learn to draw.  I think this is a great exercise after you've learned the basics of construction...my drawings for a long time have suffered from too much knowledge and not enough basic construction.

Carpentero

This guy's a carpenter.  I thought of a new style I wanted to try and here it is!  Kind of a mixture of everything, really, but I felt it turned out.

Recent Sketch

Just doodling.

Environment Reel

Hey all,
So I've decided to go the world building route.  Looks like there's more job opportunities there than anywhere at the moment, so I figured it would be wise as a career.




Michael Mercer's Environment Showreel Mar 2010 from Michael Mercer on Vimeo.

The portfolio blog moved to http://michaelmercerenvironment.blogspot.com.

And here's a few of the new things I've been working on...got several more on the way!!

PS - if you visit my environment portfolio, you'll get to see some of my textures for Pajama Gladiator I did back in 2007 as a sophomore...unfortunately not all of them made it into the film as there were some props that just got discarded, and I lost the files a long time ago.  I'm not sure anyone but the director and producer knows I did these textures because there was no one on campus that summer.  Have a great day!  Best of luck to everyone in their job hunts!

Witch

Here's a witch painting from my last semester of school...

Demons

And to keep my blog from being too girly from that last post here are some very quick black and white beat boards I did for a local guy awhile back.  While they may look like they could be sequential they all represented different scenes.