New Character Design Class

Hey Everyone, I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaching a 2nd Character Design Class for the Online Design School CGMA.  This 2nd Class will cover what it takes to work as a Character Designer for a Professional Production.  Click HERE for more info on the Class and how to sign up.

Love My Girls

The Best a Husband & Father could ever have!

Character Design Class -Winter Term Sign Up

Hey Everyone, just wanted to let you know there are only 5 days left till my next class starts. So if you'd like to sign up for my 8 Week online Character Design Class for the Winter term, click HERE for class sign up info.

Rise of the Guardians

Several years ago, I was asked to create a few illustrative story murals for each of the main character's for Dreamworks new movie Rise of the Guardians.  Production Designer Patrick Hanenberger had a great idea of establishing each character's background story in the form of a mural.  In doing so we began to not only develop each characters shape and color language, but we had a fun time capturing bits of each characters background story which came from the original story material from William Joyce.  Shown here are just a few of thees mural illustrations I did, you can check out the rest of the murals in the art of book, as well as a few other sketches I did for the film.

Character Design Class Sign Up

Hey Everyone, just wanted to let you know we have one week left till class starts. So if you'd like to sign up for my 8 Week online Character Design Class for the fall term, click HERE for class sign up info.

A Little Hide & Seek

Recently came across this painting I did last year.

Sweet Tooth

Character Design Class - Pirates!

Hey Everyone, my online Character Design Class just did an amazing weeks worth of Pirate Designs for our most recent assignment. The class is really turning out some amazing and inspiring work, so I thought I might contribute! Click HERE For more info on my Character Design Class and how to sign up for the Fall term.

From the Vault - Puss In Boots

A year or two ago, I worked on a really cool trailer project for Puss In Boots. The idea was to create a "Spaghetti Western" style teaser trailer for the film. We wanted to take page out of the Sergio Leone book of film making for this piece, and we had a blast doing so. It was a really funny sequence that Head of Story Bob Persichetti Conceptualized and Story Boarded. Chris Applehans did some Preliminary Design and Layout work, Jakob Jensen created the funny and highly stylized bit's of Animation, and I Locked and Set the Style, Painted the Backgrounds, Colored the Animation and put it all together in After Effects. All in all it was a really small crew, but the end result was something really fun and charming. It was cool because in a way, it was as if we were making a little film, at a really big studio. We ended up not using it as it didn't end up fitting with the tone of the final film, but I think the trailer is an easter egg or a special feature on the Blue Ray, but I'm not certain. Above are some Final Stills from the Teaser Trailer, & A Logo Chris and I Conceptualized which I created with a Two Color Linoleum Block Print, inspired by the great Saul Bass of course. All artwork above Copyright Dreamworks Animation.

Online Character Design Class Sign Up

Hey everyone, the next term of my online Character Design Class starts next Friday, July 20th. If you'd like to take the class, make sure to sign up by next Friday. Space is limited and last term was full with a wait list. For more info on the class check out the class description page HERE

Character Design Class Has Begun!

The first week is underway and in the books for my Character Design Class for Animation and it was a great first week. All of the students turned in great work, and it's already proving to be a really strong class. To learn more about this course or to sign up to be on the waiting list for next term, click HERE.

Heartwork

A while ago I was asked to contribute a painting to this amazing project known as "Heartwork." Heartwork is a project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at the Target House (a wonderful home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude® Children's Research Hospital.) Every year, a group of artists will create a series of posters to raise money for the art room. Each of the posters will feature a different interpretation of the St. Jude Target House elephant mascot, chosen because it represents family, long life, strength and playfulness—attributes with special meaning at a place designed for families to live, play and heal.

If you want to learn more about the Target House, click HERE

If you want to purchase one of the many Heartwork Prints to help support this cause, click HERE

My contribution to the project is shown above, and should be available for purchase on the website sometime soon.

Online Character Design Course

Starting on April 21st, I will be teaching a new Online Character Design 8 week course for CGMW. In this course we will be exploring the various and important aspects that go into designing characters for animation. We'll be exploring how shape language relates to a characters personality, we'll disect how one adapts to designing characters in various artistic styles, and we'll begin to discuss what it takes to mold yourself to becoming a professional designer.

Click this link HERE to go to the sign up page for more info on this character design course.

Nightmare Show In Paris

This past weekend, I was one of the many contributing artists to a Nightmare Before Christmas Show that took place at the Arludik Gallery in Paris. My piece was a tribute to Zero, and explored the idea of what he might play fetch with. If you are in Paris, swing by the gallery and check out the great collection of contributing artists.

Fetch
7" x 9"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2012

Something from the Vault

While I finish up various other projects and a few long overdue paintings, I thought I'd post a piece I recently re-discovered when going through some old paintings. This was done for a show I was a part of in San Diego in 2009. It's pretty simple : Floating brain in a robot suit meet's little red bird.

One the way to work
5" x 7"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2009

Jim Flora Tribute

Jim Flora is easily of my favorite artists of all time. His style has been a heavy influence on the animation industry for years and years. I've always loved his amazing balance between graphic design and story telling. His illustrations jump off the page with so much life. Above is my next submission for the Jim Flora tribute on the collaborative illustration blog Illostribute.com . I wanted to play off a big style key often seen in Flora's work. Limited & contrasting colors, and a two sided story of a characters good times and bad times.

High's & Lows
Digital
7" x 7"
Jim Flora Tribute
2012

Art Show Tonite

Tonite in LA, I'll be contributing to an Art Show inspired by classic Kung Fu Legends & Myths re-imagined by Author Ryan Gattis. My Piece is shown above, and nn total there are 16 different artists each contributing one piece to this show as well. The show opens tonite at Gallery Meltdown 7522 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles and runs for a couple of weeks.

For more info on the show, Author Ryan Gattis, and the other contributing artists, click HERE

Painting Above
God Of War
16" x 12"
Black Ink & Paper Collage
2012

Movie Poster Show

A little while back I was asked to participate in a Movie Poster Show where every piece entered into the show is a poster inspired by a feature film. For my contribution to the show I thought I'd put a darker "Saul Bass-esque" take on one of my favorite films of all time, Dumb & Dumber. For my concept, I thought I'd focus on the moment when Harry & Loyd find their dead parakeet Peety with his head cut off.

As for the show, it's in Brazil, so it's a bit too far for me to attend, but for more info on the exhibition and to see some of the other contributing artists, head over to POSTER LAB and have a look.

Dumb & Dumber Poster
18" x 12"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2012

Cereal Box Paintings

Last year I was asked if I would design and paint a couple of Yeti & Sasquatch themed fake cereal box covers. Being a huge fan of vintage cereal box design I thought it would be a fun little project to take on. I referenced and took inspiration from classic cereal box designs for this project and below is what I ended up with. Both paintings are a combination of Acrylic Paint and Paper Collage and measure 20" x 16".



Abominable Frostbites. I had previously done a Yeti Cereal Box design a few years back and thought I'd use the same name, but created a new overall design for this painting.



Big Foot's Camper Crunch. This one was a completely new concept.



There are a few of my preliminary paintings I did when I was just conceptualizing the characters. They are pretty similar to previous Yeti & Sas designs I've done, but I still wanted to mix them up a little for these Cereal Box paintings.

Happy Holidays!!!

Here's the card my wife Crystal and I put together this year. Since we normally dress like elves the entire month of December, we thought it would be fitting to showcase our "Yuletide" fashion on our card. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

Jolly Dragon

The Sound Of Light

A while back I was asked to create a few paintings for the amazing composer Michael Giacchino who did the music for LOST. The concept was to paint the connection that lived between the music and the show. Being not only a HUGE fan of the show, but also a BIG admirer of Giacchino's work the request was a dream job. As the concept developed, I really wanted to showcase the "moment from the show" as if it were a play, with the orchestra filling out the edges of the scene and fading away into black. The music is such an important part of the show, that I wanted the orchestra to feel as though they are part of the cast and set, playing in the scene with the characters from the show. For style I kept the characters in silhouette to create a "likeness" of who was there in the scene, but with the idea to focus more on the "moment from the show" rather then illustrated caricatures of the cast. I kept the color pallet simple, kept the lighting bold and took inspiration from Mary Blair's island paintings from Peter Pan.

The Sound of Light
29" x 12"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2011

Wedding Aniversary Gift

Here is a painting I recently did as a Wedding Anniversary Gift for a couple who met in London.


8" x 10"
Acrylic / Paper Collage
2011

TODAY...Live Demo and Q & A!

Motivarti has asked me to be a apart of their on going "An Afternoon With" artist Lecture and Demo series. Join us as I'll be discussing my career in the animation industry, my personal projects and children’s books. I'll also be discussing approach to character design and visual storytelling.

The event will take place at Gallery Nucleus on Sunday the 16th of October at 1pm and will run till 4:30 - 5pm. To Pre-Purchase your tickets to this event at a discounted rate click HERE . Tickets will also be available at the door at full price.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this type Motivarti event or would like more info on the event you can visit the event page HERE

The four-hour event includes:

- a one-hour lecture with Q&A on my career, my thoughts on creating art, and my approach to storytelling

- a two-hour collage demo, in which I'll be creating an original fine art piece

- a raffle of the original artwork created during my demo

-an opportunity to purchase a limited-edition, numbered and signed print, which I've created exclusively for Motivarti for this event

- an artist meet-and-greet, with print signing

So there's the run down on the whole event. Come out if you can, it's gonna be a lot of fun.

**The Piece shown above will be available as a limited edition print for this event. The print will be signed and numbered.

Forstbite Blues

Here is a limited edition print that's going out with the Frostbite toys.

Online Workshop with CGMW

Hey Everyone,

I wanted to mention that I recently recorded an online demo / workshop for the website CGMW. The workshops runs just over two hours and in it, I go through my process of how I go about designing characters for animation. From start to finish I show my process, from starting with doodles and character concept sketches to final paint. If you wanna check it out, or dig up more information on this workshop, you can visit the site HERE and check it out.

I should also add that there are other really cool workshops and online classes taught through CGMW, so if you have a minute, take a look HERE to see what elese they have on their site.

As for me posting more artwork here on this blog, I'm officially back from vacation now, so I'll get to posting stuff ASAP.

LOCALS : New Artwork

Hey Everyone,

The last few of my pieces for my solo exhibition LOCALS at Gallery Nucleus are now online. If you wanna have a look, you can find them HERE .



Pieces seen above are Local Neighborhood Watch & Local Upper

New Print - Sasquatch Summer

Hey Everyone, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came out to my show this past weekend, and to everyone who checked it out online. The show was a blast and it was great getting to meet all of you who turned up. If you haven't seen the show yet, you can check it out HERE On Gallery Nucleus's Website.

"Sasquatch Summer" is a new print of mine that debuted at the show, and now you can find it HERE , it's also avaliable online and in the store at Gallery Nuclues.

I'll also be debuting a few more pieces from my LOCALS exhibition. These were peieces that were not finished in time for the show, but are making their way to the gallery this Monday, so if you are interested, contact Nucleus, and you can see these pieces before they go online.

And lastly, My new limited edition toy "Frostbite" will be making his way here to the blog and my online store on Monday, so there will be more information on him then, so stay tuned.

Gallery Show Opening - Tonite!

Hey Everyone, Just wanted to put out a final word on the opening of my solo exhibition : LOCALS. The opening is tonite from 7pm to 11pm. Included in the show is all new artwork, plus I'm debuting my brand new limited edition toy : Frostbite. I'll post pics of him here tomorrow, but if you wanna see him tonite, come on out to Gallery Nucleus, he'll be waiting.

Local Poet and his One Man Band
12" x 8"
Mixed Media on Wood
2011

For sale now at Gallery Nucleus

Gallery Show Update

Hey Everyone, sorry for the slow posting season, been sooooo busy it's been crazy, but there is a lot coming up so I'll kick off the first of many posts with some info on my up coming art show.

Gallery Nucleus has put together a "Catch A Critter" contest in support of my up coming Solo Art Show : LOCALS. Basically the cards you see above have been specially created for this contest. Each card has a number on the back, and on specific dates next week leading up to my show, Gallery Nucleus will announce 10 winning numbers on the Nucleus Blog, Facebook, and Twitter promptly at NOON (PST). If one of the winning numbers matches your Critter #, contact Gallery Nucleus immediately: 626-458-7477. The first person to call us will be awarded the prize of that given day. The prizes include some of my prints and other things too. You can get these cards directly from Gallery Nucleus, you can also find them at select places throughout Los Angeles such as Golden Apple on Melrose, Meltdown Comics, and the Secret Headquarters while supplies last.

For all the details and prize selection dates for the "Catch a Critter Contest" check out the Gallery Nucleus Blog Post HERE

&

For more info on my upcoming show LOCALS, check out the Exhibition Page HERE

Stay tuned as next week as I'll be posting more info and details about the show right here.

Monster Parade Print Set

A while back I was asked to be apart of a special edition print set, honoring and including the ever amazing Ed Emberley. As I've posted here before, Ed Emberely is one of my biggest artistic inspirations of all time and once again he kicked ass! His contribution to the print set is both charming and spectacular! The driving force behind the whole set was the awesome David Huyck and this special edition set can be purchased over at the one and only Cloudy Collection . The cast of contributing artists is top notch, so check out the set if you have any intrests in spooky monster parades!

Above is my conribution to the collection.

Working, Working, Working

I'm currently working on two really fun paintings right now that I'll show here in a week or two, but for now, I'll brush the dust off this blog a little and give a sneak peek of something else I'm working on that's coming down the pipeline. More to come.

Concert Poster - Guster

Here is a concert poster I recently did for the band "Guster."

Come Home Soon

Here is another commission painting I recently finished. This is a concept that's been kicking around in my head for some time now, in fact, I had originally intended to include this idea in the Ancient Book of Sex and Science, but thought the horizontal format wouldn't work to well with the book format we used. Anyways, since we'll all be living and working in space sometime in the next few years, I thought I'd explore the concept of how in the future, one might try to distract their lover into coming home early from work.

Come Home Soon
19" x 15"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2010

Store Closing...for a little while

Hey everyone, my artwork and print store will be closing for a few weeks starting in the middle of this month. The store will officially close down on the morning of the 18th of November and will re open on the 1st of January in the New Year.

All orders must be placed no later then Wednesday night the 17th of November if you would like to receive any prints / artwork before the holidays.

Thanks everyone for stopping by, sorry for this boring note, and now for more artwork!

Best,
Nate

Art Blocks For Ghana

Here is a piece I recently did for "Art Blocks for Ghana." Presented by The Picture Book Project Foundation and The Hopkins Foundation, "Art Blocks For Ghana" is a Charity Art Auction Created by the Top Artists in the Animation and Illustration Community to help build a Children's Home in Ghana. Below is a little more info about the Picture Book Project:

The Picture Book Project Foundation is a 501 c3 non-profit organization that gives artists and art enthusiasts a way to help and inspire children in need. Our mission is to bring continued resources and support to orphaned and underserved children around the world, while extending the talent and good will of the artist community to communities of children in need. see www.picturebookproject.com for more info.

The theme for this particular art auction was "Home." I've always loved the fact that Trolls supposedly live under bridges, so in keeping with the theme, I thought I'd paint up a little Troll home.

If you wanna check out the rest of the Art Blocks that have been painted for this charity art auction, check out the BLOG showcasing all the artwork that's been created so far.

Under The Bridge
6" x 6"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2010

Illostribute - Norman Saunders

Here is my next submission for the collaborative illustration blog Illostribute.com . The idea is to honor master illustrators and fine artists by investigating their work, through interpretation. After researching the chosen artists work, each contributing illustrator is to respond by creating their own piece of art, inspired by the work of the referenced artist.

The master illustrator that was selected for this months submissions was the amazing pulp cover artist Norman Saunders. His work is fun, dangerous, and a bit racy, and you can read more about him HERE. My thought process behind the piece I did, was first and foremost to try and capture the spirit of what Mr. Saunders did so well in his work, showcasing an intriguing preview of the novel as cover art. I wanted to layer my piece with compelling story elements including danger, lust, conflict, romance, murder, espionage, ect. Pretty much everything that you could find in Mr. Saunders work, I wanted to try and include in mine.

As far as style went, I wanted to keep my piece strong and bold. I chose a very limited color pallet and simple graphic style. I didn't want to get bogged down with multiple color choices for clothing, hair, and background elements, I wanted it to be simple. Lady in white (hero) man in black (villain) and a messy textured red background to help showcase the feeling of the blood and danger encompassing this illustration. This piece was painted with a combination of acrylic paint and paper collage. The piece shown above includes typography and printing effects created in photoshop. The piece below is what the actual original illustration looks like. This original painting is available for purchase in the store HERE. .



Original Painting



Human Sheild
8" x 10"
Acrylic / Paper Collage
2010

Below is a collection of some of Mr. Saunders work, which I referenced for my painting inspired by his work.

Intergalactic Dance Party

Here is another commissioned painting I finished a little while back. The theme for this piece was to showcase the retro dance moves known as the "Batusi" in a painting in what ever way I wanted to. So, seeing as how the "Batusi" was popular back in the 60's, I thought I'd explore a Sci-Fi / GoGo Dancer concept for this piece. Ultimately I ended up with one sweet intergalactic Batusi dance party. My guess is these Astronaut GoGo Dancers were looking for a nice planet or asteroid to practice their space dance moves on, and while doing so, they encountered some aliens looking to bust-a-move too.


Just above is a small comp I did to help plan the colors and textures for the piece. The Aliens suits are made with Aluminum Foil collage while and the GoGo Dancers space dresses are collaged from Glitter Ribbon. To mix those two elements, with other paper collage elements and acrylic paint was a fun challenge, and in the end, really added some fun texture and depth to the original piece.

Intergalactic Dance Party
11" x 17"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Aluminum Foil / Glitter Ribbon
2010

Mini Comp Painting
4" x 4"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Aluminum Foil / Glitter Ribbon
2010

Ray LaMontagne Concert

Last month, I surprised my wife Crystal with concert tickets to see one of our favorite singer / song writers of all time, RAY LaMONTAGNE . To say she was excited to go to the show is a huge understatement, and to say I was excited would be another understatement too. We had a great time, and like most amazing performers, hearing his music live was truly inspiring. I think both Crystal and I could agree that his music is definitely in our all time top 10.

And while I love attending concerts, I also really love concert poster design. I've always loved seeing artists interpret other artists through different artistic mediums, and concert poster design takes the cake for me in that department. So I thought I would throw a little something together to help remember the show (just like I did for the "She & Him" concert we went to earlier this summer) so I made this little "mock" concert poster. I let my self be inspired by the music, and the experience at the show to better help me create the artwork for this tribute poster. The original painting for this is also available in my online art store HERE . The piece does not include any of the type/text, just the art used to create the poster.

Sasquatch Strum
14" x 9 1/2"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Burlap
2010

Currently Working On...

A project involving these two. More to come soon.

Process : Dinosaur Train

Started the piece out with this little thumbnail sketch. At this stage I'm mostly thinking of shape, concept and composition, so I keep things really rough to maintain a simple, easy read.



Next I cut the illustration board to size, tape off the edges, and lay down the base color for the background.



Next I painted the base color for the main ground. If I can't find the exact color I'm looking for in paper collage, I'll paint the color I need on water color paper, then cut it to fit the BG. That's what I did in this case to make the hill.



Next, before I cut out and glued the train tracks to the base hill, I painted the rocks in that are usually below train tracks. Then I glued on the paper collage train tracks and added two more levels of hills with more acrylic paint on watercolor paper.



Next, it was time to begin laying in the different levels of flowers and plants. I cut these out of Acrylic on water color paper and magazine pages. I then did a light color wash over the hills to darken them a bit, and to add a little more blue to them. Plus I painted in the small flowers covering the hill the train will be on.



This is just a photo I took of the collection of paper scraps I gathered to begin to construct the train and the dinosaurs ridding in the train.



beginning to glue and lay out the shapes for the train.



Next, adding more detail to the train, adding in the sun, and a little hobo snake friend cruising through the grass, maybe looking to hitch a ride.



Next, a combination of painting in the various Dinosaurs on the BG with Acrylic paint and some paper collage elements, while adding more bits and pieces of detail to the train.



Almost done, adding on the eyes and various detail to each of the dinosaurs like hankerchiefs, conductor hats, and smiles.

Lastly, the finished piece. I added the little boy last. He was also a combo of Acrylic paint on the Background and paper collage elements. Added in the birds, the train bell, and smoke coming from the trains engine.



The piece above was done as a commission a little while back for a little kids room. The little guy loves Dinosaurs and Trains (who could have guessed right?)

When I was growing up, I LOVED Dinosaurs, so getting the chance to paint some Dino art for a new fan of Dinosaurs was really fun for me, I had a blast with this painting. I also documented a bit of my process on this one, below are a few scans and photos I took in various stages of completing the piece.

Dinosaur Train
8" x 12"
Acrylic & Paper Collage
2010