Pirates for Auction

There was a time in my life where drawing pirates was a more central part of my day-to-day activities. Here is a sampling of a couple of skeletal pirates along with a piratey monkey character from those richly rewarding days. They are original sketches on separate sheets but framed together at 18 X 22 inches. 

Late last year a hugely talented colleague of ours, Jamie Baker, had the poor luck to suffer a stroke a few weeks before his company health insurance kicked in, and is facing huge medical bills. The proceeds of this auction will help him pay down that debt and continue his promising recovery. 

If you're a fan of any of my old pirate or monkey-related art or know some who is, please bid or pass along word of the auction. But, good cause or not, go browse around, as there are dozens of rare and beautiful works by many well-known animation industry artists. 

In the meantime, I will see if I can find some more detailed scans of these pieces.

Bid and bid often!

Pencil and ink on paper - varied sizes

--Starchie

Dial-a-Pirate Tattoo Sheet!

Happened across this sheet of Dial-a-Pirate ink drawings. The final versions of these heads were painted for the Monkey Island copy protection wheel. With all the Monkey Island tattoos that have been posted recently, it occurred to me that, maybe folks should consider a few of these pirate heads to disguise an unsightly mole or perhaps even to liven up a blank, pasty butt cheek or two.

Pen and Ink 11X14

--Starchie

UPDATE: Here, in case you never saw one or forgot or are making a polite effort to care, is an image (borrowed from KOTAKU") of the actual Dial-a-Pirate copy protection wheel in action:

Peculiar Monkey Island Comp

Here's a strange find from deep in the strata. A pencil comp for the first Secret of Monkey Island package in which the main characters weirdly appear to be played by Doug McClure and Bette Midler.

I don't remember where we were in the production of the game but it seems that the Guybrush we all know was not quite pinned down yet. I have another one of these which I'll post soon unless I'm begged not to.

Pencil 8X10

--Starchie

The Sea Hag

Here's an image I cobbled together in honor of "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Since I didn't talk like a pirate and nothing requires me to write like a pirate I did this instead. It's painted on a piece of thick cardboard on top of a loose sketch. I didn't want to get bogged down in planning it out too much. Just wanted to make a picture.

Acrylic and Prismacolor 11X14

--Starchie

Pirate Contract

So if it was really a contract it probably wouldn't have a bunch of pirate skeletons scrawled all over it. I can't quite remember how this piece came to be. Something about trying to dress up a document with images. I like something about it though it doesn't quite make sense anymore.

Acrylic and Digital 11X14

--Starchie

Monkey Behemoth

It's made from millions of monkeys and creates a deafening squeal as it lumbers through the jungle seeking vengeance. Also some other stuff...

Acryic 4X9 & 3 Pencil 4x9

--Starchie

Pirate Infusion

It's been a month since I posted something about pirates. Here are a couple of character sketches from some random pirate-related effort, created and discarded at some point in time. The top one is derived from a concept by animation artist David Gosman.

Acrylic 8X10 & Pencil 8X10

--Starchie

Monkey Island 2 Now in "ILLUSION-O"

So I heard that some ambitious fan found a way to blow out the backgrounds in Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge. Here's his demo showing how he took my cheesy marker drawing from almost twenty years ago and make it into an immersive environment. I love how he fully realized the little embryonic contents of those jars in the foreground. It's all really pretty cool.



--Starchie

Monkey Bucks

Here's a promo coupon I got to paint, probably for some early 90's LucasArts Adventurer edition. It's actually amazing how much of this kind of stuff I was trusted to do with little or no content notes from above, which made it tons o' fun.
I'll see if I can track down my activity pages with the art lesson and the Guybrush paper dolls.
Watercolor 4 X 9 1/2

--Starchie

Cartographer's Cabin

I have a rough sketch for the Tales of Monkey Island pre-order cover in the pipe waiting for final approval. I'll post it at some point soon.
In the meantime, here's a color test done for Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge probably painted in 1990. In this game we had the luxury of being able to draw backgrounds on paper and scan them giving us a greater range. This was my first background test of a cartographer's cabin painted in gouache. Peter Chan was a fiend with color markers and we ended up doing a lot of the backgrounds in marker as it was much quicker than painting.
Gouache 5 X 9

--Starchie

The Dawn of Monkey Island

So I've been invited by Telltale Games to create an illustration for their Special Pre-Order edition of Tales of Monkey Island, a five episode series of adventure games coming this summer from Telltale. It's fun to get a chance to reconnect with Monkey Island since it was one of my first jobs at LucasArts, and I was fortunate to contribute artwork to various Monkey Island projects several times throughout the years.

I'm sketching the concept right now and I will plan to document the progress in stages. I'll have to wait until we are closer to the official unveiling of the cover to let you know what I'm up to but in the meantime I'll post some ancient concept art from the original games. Here's the sketch for my first Monkey Island cover done in 1990.
Pencil on Tracing Paper 8.5 X 11

--Starchie

LeChuck Lives!

This posting marks two events - ONE; I realized that I have somehow continued to blog here for just over a year and TWO; The first appearance of a human nipple in a post. This amazing tattoo work was created on the living tissue of brave Monkey Island fan Alex Melgarejo who graciously allowed me to share these shots. I sort of recall posting that source artwork here but for the life of me I can't find it (must be the lead poisoning). The Tat was done by Bulgarian artist Ivasha and just goes to show - Be careful what you draw, because someone may choose to inscribe it on their body for all time.

--Starchie