HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Vegetable orb and sharp implements 10X14

--Starchie

Devils

Here are a few super quick character sketches from a couple of years ago when Telltale Games was thinking about Satan designs for the Sam & Max series.

Each 8X10 Digital

--Starchie

Phantom o' the Opera

My nervous habit is drawing the Phantom of the Opera. I have hundreds of drawings of him from times when I'm in meetings or just sitting idle with a pad. Though I'm also fond of drawing Frankensteins, apes, devils and clowns the Phantoms currently dominate by far. I'm assembling a hundred of my favorites to put in a miniature book.

Prismacolor and Marker 5X7

--Starchie

Tales of Monkey Island Roughs

When doing an illustration I tend to do three concepts for the client. I usually have an idea right away, a sort of gut reaction to the assignment, and more often than not that is the one I want to do. When I create the subsequent two roughs I have to make sure they are ideas that I would be just as satisfied to take to finish since the client won't always pick the one you love the most.

In this case Telltale was interested in which one I wanted to do the most. Based on the pitch of the story and some early looks at the artwork they were creating for the game I was leaning toward a kind of eerie feel in the first sketch. Since I had already painted LeChuck for the Monkey Island 2 cover I was more interested in featuring Guybrush for this one. And since I was never quite happy with my Elaine in the first Monkey Island cover I was happy to include her in each of the concepts.

These were done quickly on a Cintiq tablet to get an impression of the composition and potential color palette. My final painting had less of a green cast to it. As I work on a painting sometimes I go off on a different path than I had planned. I still like the green of the sketch but I also like the variety of background colors that grew out of the process of making the painting.

Digital 8X10

--Starchie

Tales of Monkey Island

This is the cover I did for The Telltale Games Tales of Monkey Island pre-order slipcase. I stuck it in the pirate frame for your viewing pleasure. Telltale Games is selling a print of the image at their online store. I'm currently signing a stack for their inventory. I will follow up soon with some in-progress photos and notes.

Acrylic 16X22

--Starchie

How 'bout a Monkey?

Character design from an unmade something or other.

Acrylic 6X9

--Starchie

Shameless Promotion

Thought someone here might care about this Ebay listing. It's a crew jacket from the Sam & Max animated series. Not mine but was my wife's who I don't think ever wore it >snif<. Size Large.

UPDATE: The jacket is on its way to a good home in southern California. Thanks for playing!

Real post soon.

--Starchie

Tragedy

I tend toward using candy palettes so I was pleased that I was able to drain the color out of this one.

Acrylic 4X9

--Starchie

The Leviathan

I have a few more of these little production paintings.

Acrylic 4X9

--Starchie

The Curse...

Submitted for your approval - one random piratey concept painting depicting a moment in a speculative piratey piece of potential film entertainment - circa AD 2000. Stop me if I'm repeating any of these.
More to come.

Acrylic 4X9

--Starchie

Can't Show it Yet...

Something I've been working on. Should be able to reveal in a couple of weeks with a little journal post of the process.

--Starchie

Sam & Max and Stuckey's

I'm writing this perched on a box of Stuckey's Pecan Log Rolls. YES, Stuckey's is a real place and has paid tribute to Sam & Max in their corporate newsletter. In the first of a series of articles on Stuckey's contribution to pop culture they have called out Sam & Max for their multiple interactions with the iconic roadside America gas and gift shop. Whew! And I thought they were calling to sue the crap out of me!

--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

The Aftermath

ComicCon always makes me think I should be making a new comic book.
Let's see if I can keep that pilot lit for awhile.
Will post some new artwork soon.

--Starchie

Off to ComicCon...

I'm traveling to San Diego any minute and will be around to sign stuff at Telltale Games booths #5364/#5365 from 2:00 to 3:00 on Friday and Saturday and at Symbiote Studios booth #4533 from 4:00 to 5:00 Friday and Saturday.

Traveling light but will bring along some original artwork and out of print copies of The Effigy Mound Sketchbook. If you're in the neighborhood come and wade through acres of brash, unrepentant geekflesh to say hi. I'll scrawl you a Max or a Guybrush or some damn thing. See you there!

--Starchie

On the Subject of T-Shirts

Though I'm too late to create any new T-shirts in time for San Diego's Comic Con I'm tossing ideas around for the next round of Sam & Max shirts for the Fall.

My last shirt was a skull Max and crossbones in green and cream. I liked that it was not a literal rendition of the character and so it doesn't come off as an ad for something.

I liked my first Telltale shirt and and I'm not opposed to plugging the characters into these sort of nostalgic motifs once in a while,...

...but more like the skull shirt, I would like to try and get a bit less specific about the characters and try to think of a few cryptic images that are fun to look at even if you don't know Sam & Max. The rat idea at the top of the post is a new one. As I try some others I'll consider posting them here for your opinions, because I think I heard somewhere that people on the internet are more than happy to express their opinions.

--Starchie

Just a Few More...

On the "Tales of--" front, Telltale, a while back, put up a little "in progress' post for the Pre-Order cover art I've been working on. Ultimately I'll post a series of shots showing where it went from start to the finished cover. It should be done shortly. In the meantime, the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island has been released to great acclaim and rejoicing.
And today, here are a few more character concepts from Curse of Monkey Island. Larry Ahern was thinking hard about the Guybrush design and had been pushing his proportions. The one shown here was me enjoying the freedom to stretch Guybrush around like silly putty.
Pen on Paper 8 1/2 X 11 each

--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

The Curse

I have a buy off on my rough for Telltale Games "Tales of Monkey Island" cover. Still too early to post any of it as I'm in early stages of the illustration. In the meantime, here's part of my tiny contribution to Curse of Monkey Island. I believe Larry Ahern and John Ackley pitched me their idea of a LeChuck with a flaming beard so I was thinking his skull could be silhouetted in the fire. I think my Elaine is a variation on a design Larry had done, but I do sort of like something about my slender version of the Voodoo Queen.
Pen on paper 8 1/2 X 11

--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