Story boards for the intro to "Contact!" (the alien story - a.k.a. "Zort and Blop come to Earth")

"... and we must go back!" . .

"any volunteers?"

anyone?

. . . . and no one wants to - except a little purple guy (Blop) who hasn't been able to see what's going on. when the general asks for volunteers, he raises his hand. No one sees him because he's so short - so he jumps up and down. Still no one sees him. So he starts climbing up the guy next to him (Zort), who makes a commotion and they are both assigned to go back to earth. That part is not yet drawn out.

website update

I've been working on my website/portfolio a lot lately. There are a number of never before seen pieces over there. Check it out. www.jasonpruett.com

next caricature - Yukio Hatoyama

another political caricature for The Diplomat - these things are fun!

CTN-X and Don Bluth

The CTN Animation Expo was amazing! I talked with Don Bluth and he told me "I like your line but drawing is less about shapes and character and more about emotion. you're holding back - don't put pen to paper unless you feel it. your drawings will 100 % better. - email me and let me know how it goes - I want to know" -- so I'm working on that - here's one of the first sketches I made after I got that advice.

I was also able to discuss this with Blue Sky legend Greg Couch, who expanded the idea. Everyone was ridiculously nice and there were a lot of industry pros who wore badges that said "speed talent" - which meant they wanted people to come up to them and ask for crits and advice.

There were really too many great people and things to discuss here - if you didn't go - go next year (if you're into making art for animation) - it was like 2 years of college condensed into 3 days - plus all the connections (and amazing new friends) you could hope for. I left exhausted.

caricature of India's Prime Minister

So - I've gotten some work for the Australian-based based magazine The Diplomat . This is the first assignment - a caricature of India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to more editorial work.

you can see the caricature in context here.

digging up old stuff

I dug this old thing up - and made some small improvements
I gave the heroes - earthy colors, villains - blacks, reds, grays

wizard and elf

a friend of mine made an animated short "the wizard and the elf" I designed these two characters 2 years ago. Recently he learned to use flash - he can't draw - so he had me draw all the parts that would change - and he animated it.

here are a few of the things I did. I did oh so many more - if you would like to see the short - go here

environment sketches

some environment sketches

lighting/color options

moving tests

so . . .I recently got CamStudio - a free screencapture software. and I have been experimenting with what to do with it - I started by filming me drawing - but moving between pictures in photoshop was more interesting

try not to puke

Alien talks with the animals

squirrel's eye view

the checklist - aliens come to earth

Aliens come to earth to check on the life here. They've been here before - and they're seeing if what they've seen is still around. Also looking at new life.

Fingerprints

an idea I had a while back that I just decided to throw out here. this could be a fun show or book.

3 bears

gun sketches

new fish

I had a page of fish - very flat and thought I should do some stuff in 3/4 viewyeah - I changed them a bit - but that happens when you start looking at things from other angles - you realize you could make them more interesting by changing them up a bit.

crazy guy house - side and front view

on top of the mountain -

mammoth sketch

Sea Monkeys

Sea Monkeys - "The A-Team of the Ocean."

An idea I had for a TV show - based on the name of those little brine shrimp they sell as toys. What kind of peril would cartoon monkeys get in if thrown in the sea?

cyclops - redone

After talking with Ryan Wood and Todd Harris, I finally admitted to myself that the cyclops was going to have to change - the whole project started out more realistic - and is moving more stylized.

Penelope Turnaround

So - I'm slowly designing for the Odyssey. Here's Penelope - Odysseus' wife

Thank you, Mark Behm for your encouragement and advice.

some animal designs

some sketches

cyclops turnaround

polar bear dressed as grandma

Grizzly Bears

I went to Yellowstone last week. Saw some bears in the wild (Grizzly and Black) but these sketches were drawn from photos taken at a bear and wolf habitat in West Yellowstone.

aliens meet giraffe

circus bear

this bear balances on balls and mauls people. I don't know. it was for http://artorder.blogspot.com/

contact! - whale

so I had this idea - the aliens that meet the crazy mountain man who offers them roadkill . . . . the road kill doesn't mean anything to them - so in order for it to mean something - they befriend the poor thing before it gets killed. - but why are they here in the first place? I thought . . maybe they've come to check up on earth - so there's a montage of them seeing lots of animals - here's them with a humpback whale.

. . . the mammoth is no longer around (they haven't been here in a while)

rocketeer redo - the plummeting father

the new versionthe old version

it needed higher stakes, more tension, more motion and depth. It has one focus, lots of diagonals and points and a sense of "will she make it?" - with the old one, the cloud and swoop really soften the tension, so does not knowing how far he has to go before he hits the ground. and it's a bridge - he'll probably hit the water (not that that's any less deadly at that hieght - but I guess it could look like a crazy team high dive).

creature sketches

nickelodeon-style props

At the Academy of Art Spring Show I spoke to some folks from Nickelodeon. They liked my stuff - just wanted me to redo my whole portfolio in their style (hey, they have a bunch of styles). They recommended I apply for either a PA (what?!) or prop designer. I've been busy with a bunch of other things - but here's the beginning of some props in "their style"

graduation today!

A sketch I did at graduation. Someone said "do a self-portrait." So I threw this down real quick. You know how I do.

where the old crazy mountain man lives

kinda Dr. Suess-ish - the mountain, anyway. above the clouds.

old cars

some cars and motorcycles from a few years back - when I was finishing up an industrial design (product) degree at BYU. I wanted to try some trans stuff. so I worked it into a toy I was designing.

the fish version wolf as grandma

boxer

not very intimidating - but at least he doesn't have a "glass jaw" (mostly because he doesn't have a lower jaw)

1800s portraits

some "photos" for Holmes' wall

sherlock's study

here is it with right angles
and here it is with lines that aren't so perpendicular

taking my own advice

I was giving someone advice on overlapping forms - don't look like you're avoiding certain things - this will make the illustration more interesting and give more depth. and then I looked at this piece and realized I had been avoiding the beard. so I took my own advice and moved the wrist up, overlapping the beard. and it's now a much stronger piece. and it no longer bugs me (that mountain man's left arm had always bothered me). - I also dusted him a a tad and gave him a better hole in his pants - that was also bugging me

pagoda

Underworld of Illustration

This is a story I came up with after watching Greg Manchess' demo "Above the Timberline" - he mentions ninja training and I got to thinking, "why does Greg Manchess need ninja training?" This is where my mind went.

I just had to get it down - so it's pretty sketchy, but the story's there - enjoy.

note: I got the permission of those depicted before posting this

Wonder Woman

this week's Artjumble subject was WonderWoman. I've been drawing Know-it-all Nancy pages - finishing that up - and I wanted a change - do more realistic things. Mix things up a bit.

She has this rope thing - I didn't know what to do with it - so I had her jump roping.

baby hellboy

this week's Artjumble topic - hellboy. I was going to use a picture of a baby as reference and just paint it - but then after altering the photo to make it usable I said - "what the hey" - looks good like this.

movie sketch and inspiration

I took a frame from Forest Gump and I sketched it. - then changed the hue (in photoshop) and got inspired to do a zombie sketch. fun stuff!

self-portrait - digital additions

suburban house

evening and night

some trolls

I hadn't drawn with markers in a while - and hey - it's a lot of fun! I need to do this more often!

me and my world

a self-portrait. oil. 24" x 30" - I don't know if you can tell - but I'm painting fish and creatures.

cooking

here's "cooking" - that you could call this cooking is funny to me.

orange hair

so here's the 2nd week of the 2 week pose.

doggy

a quick doggy

a new head painting. This is more rendered than I usually like to go, but I thought I'd try it out.

Duck Man

here's a drawing from last year.

first color head

new head

Dada Fish

drawing fish for conceptart.org's "Deep" challenge - it reminded me of the ol' Magritte painting

Ruppert the Squirrel

Just wanted to kick this thing off real proper like