Bebop and Rocksteady

A warm-up sketch eventually turned into these two handsome devils.
Bebop and Rocksteady were two of my favorite action figures growing up so with the new TMNT movie recently hitting theaters, I decided to show some love to the two worst mutant henchmen in history.

Also, I wanted to play around with colors a bit and really give them a fun '80s vibe, so that's why they look like theyre fresh off the cover of a trapper keeper.

Might do some prints of these two in the near future if people show some interest. I'll keep you posted.

Girl Sketch

She makes her own tea. She smells like the inside of a van. She once met the drummer from Wilco. She hasn’t smiled in 10 years.

Cyclops Warrior

This is a cyclops goblin knight who, apparently, is terrible at his job.

Sleepy Ghost

Koopalings

Here's a group shot of all the koopa kid sketches from the past week-or-so

Larry Koopa

And here he is.
Larry.
Last of the Koopa kids. It's been a hell of a ride.

Wendy Koopa

Koopa Kid Sketch #5: Wendy Koopa

She’s the only female in the koopalings… and I’m pretty sure she’s had some work done.

Morton Koopa Jr.

Koopa Kid Sketch #4: Morton Koopa Jr.
The dude has a star tattoo on his face… so yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s got his life all figured out.

Lemmy and Iggy Koopa

Koopa Kid sketch #3: I took a day off from the Koopa Kid sketches, so today you get a double helping. Lemmy and Iggy coming at cha, double-dash style! Also, I’m pretty sure neither of them can actually drive…

Roy Koopa

Koopa Kid Sketch #2: Roy Koopa

You’ve gotta be a pretty cool turtle-beast to pull off pink sunglasses.

Ludwig Von Koopa

Ludwig: clearly the most stylish of all the koopa kids.

The Devils BBQ

I was experimenting with some brushes in photoshop and this lil freak was born. He wants to wish you all a happy summer or some junk.

Dabbling with Tumblr

In an effort to get some more exposure and hopefully drum up some new freelance work, I've decided to test the waters of Tumblr and see how I like it.

To be very clear, I'm not abandoning this blog.  I just want to branch out and see what Tumblr has to offer. I'll still be updating this blog with everything the Tumblr is getting for now. So if you hang around here you won't be missing anything. The two locations may start to get individualized content as I get more comfortable with the new digs. Who can really say.

You can follow me at http://davearmstrongart.tumblr.com/

Again, no need to worry about this blog becoming a ghost town. I don't plan on leaving just yet.

Inside the Cave of the Ogre Prince

I never really do any fantasy illustrations. Don't get me wrong, most of my stuff definitely doesn't take place in the real world, but I mean in the dragons and wizards sense of 'fantasy'. Typically my stuff is a bit too cartoony for that subject matter, but I decided to take a crack at combining the two, and here's what I came up with.

And can anyone tell me the differences between an ogre, troll, and goblin? Because I honestly have no idea.

Detail Shot!

Bear Knight

 I recently drew a sketch of a bear who found a toy sword in a garbage can and decided to use it to save a princess in hopes of earning a pie. I liked the sketch and decided to clean it up and turn it into a print.

So now prints, tshirts, iPhone cases and what-nots featuring our brave lil bear knight are available on my shop at http://society6.com/DaveArmstrong

Baboon Lagoon

I recently worked with the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and Ron Foth Advertising to create a logo for the zoo's new kid-friendly water park, Baboon Lagoon. The basic idea for the theme of the park is that a peaceful baboon village is being harassed by a nasty octopus bully. The baboons retaliate by dumping a giant barrel of water on him. The zoo wanted all these elements represented in the logo and to capture the fun of the attraction.

The logo started out featuring baby baboons, as the attraction is targeted at children. So we tried a couple different options featuring a barrel of baby baboons.

We reached a decision on the basic layout of the image and made some choices about the font. We then started to play with how realistic vs. cartoony the octopus should be.

We also eventually came to realize that baby baboons are hard to visually differentiate from other monkeys and apes. Being that the attraction is part of a zoo, they felt strongly that we need to make it clear that these animals are baboons, so we decided to age the characters a bit. We also decided that while the octopus and baboons in the park would look realistic, we should go with more simplified, cartoon versions of the characters in the logo.

For more information about Baboon Lagoon, check out their website at http://www.zoombezibay.com/default.aspx

Photos of the park provided by Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and Zoombezi Bay

Car Hero

Recently, I was commissioned by Car Hero to create a mascot for their company's digital presence. The company works to get customers more money and less hassle for used cars. They wanted something in the vein of Thor and a hero who could slay the practices of shady car dealers and provide heroic customer service. We started out with a few knight options with iPads, showing that tech was their weapon of choice.

The client chose their favorite knight model, but decided he needed some fancy facial hair. So I provided some options and we tried replacing the iPad with a tire shield and a sword.

The client picked a mustache and I rendered out a final version of the character. They decided to leave his hands empty in the final version so that they can insert items as need be.

Sketchbook Pages

Here's some pages from my sketchbook. They include some of my favorite subject matter; like chubby men drinking tea...

...Super Mario Brothers...

...Cowboys who are bad at being cowboys...

...and other assorted goodies.

Skeleton Dog

Here's a project I did for Morbid Enterprises last year. They make Halloween decorations and were interested in having me design a skeleton dog lifting his leg...and that's exactly what they got.

Zelda Sketches

Here's a page of Zelda sketches from my sketchbook.

An image of the new batsuit was released last week so I decided to doodle a lil bats of my own. He's pretty fussy about something... probably just needs a buddy to talk to.

The Smoker

Here's a page from my sketchbook, done as a morning warm-up. There's snow on the ground again so I need to do all the warming-up I can.

Girl Sketch Revisited

I spent another morning noodling around with this sketch and decided I wanted to try to draw a pixie haircut. Eventually, the whole thing turned into an image of a girls night out. Clink!

McGraw Backgrounds

These are some stylized backgrounds I designed for use in animations in McGraw Hill's FLEX Literacy program. The top two are the command room and captains lounge on a spaceship. They were used in a series of animations called Scout Ship 7 which followed the adventures of two space explorers who would travel through time and space to complete missions for their not-so-intelligent commander, Great Leader. The videos taught lessons about Setting and Context Clues.

And this is another stylized background that is an old, abandoned apartment. This was for an animation about two kids left alone to explore an apartment building. They eventually find a book in this old penthouse that has a magic spell in it and they learn about Synonyms and Antonyms.

Girl Sketch

An experiment in drawing a stylized girl as a morning warm-up sketch. I might wind up doing a few more of these.

Consulting the Bear King

This is just a morning warm-up that I played with over the course of a few days. Nothing super polished or anything. Just meant to get the juices a-flowin'.

No one makes a move in the woods without the Bear King knowing about it. He rules from an iron stump.

Spell-Ings

A while ago I worked on some educational games for McGraw Hill Education. One of them was a word game called Spell-Ings, where you played as a character named Charm-Ing and tried to find letters to spell words while avoiding the monster bandits called the Spell-Ings. Throughout the game, King Spell-Ing teases you with hints, guiding you to spell the correct word. The game is part of McGraw's FLEX Literacy Program

Charm-Ing

Grunt Spell-Ings and King Spell-Ing

Premier Allergy Commercial

About a month ago, I did some work with Premier Allergy and Outsider Entertainment and got to help design a 30-second television commercial for them. I designed and built out all the assets for it as well as storyboarded the spot, and am really happy with the finished result. You can view the full video below or on Outsider's Vimeo page HERE. The spot is also currently playing locally, on Columbus stations.

Catpocalypse

 I did some early concept work for an iPhone game about a Rambo-like cat fighting to save kitties from cat zombies in the Catpocalypse (we've all had that dream, right?). The game is currently in development over at StudioCity Games.

I was asked to do some rough ideas for what the main character and the cat zombies could look like. The goal was to shoot for more cute and less disgusting. Needless to say, this was a really fun project to be involved in. You can check in on the games progress and learn more about the company producing it HERE!