From my flat files: part 1

I thought I would start digging around my flat files for things I usually pull out for class discussions or for fond old memories.
The yellow palace interior is for " The Prince of Egypt". I did it shortly after joining DreamWorks back in '96. It was a quick study for prop and technique design. The assignment: Could we paint directly over a line drawing instead of tracing the layout onto the board? Yes, of course! You can do it with Watercolor painting, but can you do it with an opaque painting? Yes, it just takes patience and the ability to correct the shapes and perspective as you go, if you do lose the drawing. This image was painted over a xerox of the line drawing, which was first glued to a piece of board.

Detail of shapes for our world.

My typical nightly practice sketches from around '94.
I would make up little scenes after a full day of work at Disney. I was in the Layout dept. at the time and designed backgrounds, but we handed them over to the background dept. for final painting. I have many extremely talented friends who were background artists. Many of them have made my layouts look spectacular! But, I was frustrated because I trained as an illustrator, used to painting my own layouts. The problem at that time was that I could not really paint that well... Other than my illustration rendering classes, I never took a formal painting class during my school years so I had to teach myself, with the guidance of a few very special friends, how to paint! Thus I did hundreds of these little scenes as a way to both study film design and how to express those ideas in paint. Incase you were wondering, yes there is a huge difference between painting and illustrating. These sketches were done on Masonite wood board in acrylic. The idea was to paint them very fast with lots of energy, without the tight rendering. Basically indicative painting. If you nail the correct value, color, and temperature of each shape, and of course put that shape in the right place, you can describe everything with the fewest strokes possible. Those of you who know all of this stuff please excuse the basics I am covering here.

Jump ahead several years... almost ten, and here I am sketching from imagination for my gallery oils. These were used as a guide for the larger final paintings. I always used Gouache for these sketches. Titled "upper Level",the final oil sold thru one of my galleries in Houston Texas in '02. I am still sad it sold because I had a great time painting the this and the final. Bye for now and best of luck with your image making!

Sam

Sinbad vis dev

Some Old school Vis Dev when we used real materials like markers and Oils. We had to draw and paint our images very large so the execs would notice them on the pitch walls. We did not have the luxury of large scale printers! These were 30"x40". Lots of fun!
Sam

sam

MegaMind Vis Dev

MegaMind.
I wanted to show the benefit of doing studies before the larger piece. In this case the Facade details for the BG city.
I love playing with abstract shapes and buildings always have lots of opportunity for just that. When designing anything, try thinking of the bigger underlying ideas, not just the surface details.
Sam

Sam

Little comps for film

The comps were done in black ink on illustration board.
The color image is a 5 minute class demo showing the power of the free form pen tool in CS5.
I love drawing with this tool and then using the locked layers to paint within. You can create some very bold stylized BG's and light them in literally minutes. The sketch could be taken to a very finished state but I liked the quick impression.

Sketches from mexico

Hey Everyone,
We had our latest family vacation and this time it was on a Disney Cruise to Mexico! I must say Disney does a fantastic Job of spoiling everyone during the cruise and there was tons of great reproductions from old Disney shorts and films hanging throughout the ship!!
Here are a few of my travel sketches from the trip. All done in water color and just to serve as memory postcards from the great places and wonderful moments.

Enjoy,

Sam

Moonshine Show at Gallery Nucleus

Hi everyone,

Some of us here at DW had the opportunity to be part of an exciting new book, which features our personal work created outside of the studio. To kick off the book we also hung some of our art, mainly originals, at the Gallery Nucleus! It is a great collection of original art done by some of the most talented people I know, so don't miss it if you are in the area.
The book should be available in Sept.

These two paintings were literally done the same week I had to ship them to the show and both were done in my favorite medium of all time, Gouache. I haven't had the time these days to work with actual good old fashioned paint so these were a wonderful break from using digital means. I hope you enjoy them and please let me know if there is interest in prints as I might be able to hook you up. The first image is entitled "Abandoned" and the other is "Hollow Stand".

Best,

sam
www.gallerynucleus.com/

MVA Vis Dev

Well, it's been too long since I posted but that seems to be my trend.
Here are a few things from MVA.
These were used to establish the initial look and ideas. More to come,I promise.
Enjoy,

Sam

urban oils

Well it's been too long since the last post but better late than never I guess.

I finished up on "Astro Boy" with Imagi Studios late last year and now I'm back at DreamWorks designing on one of the upcoming films. I'm not sure how AB is looking but our design team came up with some very cool art last year so now we need to cross our fingers that it makes it to the screen....

Here are a few more of my gallery oils from my 2005 Howard Mandville Gallery show. I also included a pic of how I start these paintings. I usually cover the board in pure cad red light and work like mad to cover the brilliant color before all the cones and rods in my eyes go completely crazy. Not sure if you guys have tried to stare at something that bright, but man is it hard to do. I tend to be bolder with my color when keying off of this bright red.

I am scanning more of my outdoor guoache sketches so I'll try and post those next...

Sinbad Visual Development

I thought I would share a few of my early Sinbad sketches with everyone. These were done between 99'-01' and were such fun to create. Most are marker dye and a few are even oils! Only at the end of my time on this film did I enter the world of digital art. I really was a hold out and prefered traditional methods. Most were very large as I was working next to one of the true masters of design.... Darek Gogol. Man when that guy draws, he draws BIG!! Most of his pieces were at least 30x40 inches, and to just be noticed next to him I had to draw just as large. He taught me too much to list here.... thanks Darek!!

Around L.A.

I thought, after looking at my own blog,how neglectful I have been with new posts. All I can say is we have been crazy on our film!!
I thought some of you might like to see some of my around town guoache sketches.
Sorry for the long delay.
Sam

El Dorado

I Thought it would be helpful to post some of the color keys I painted while working on El D. with Ramone and Scott. Ramone and I did the entire color script, which was then shot down on Christmas Eve of '97... fun times. Among the failures are these little paintings. These show the turn in my painting and design sensibilities thanks to Ramone and Scott.
We did over 100 of these paintings and then started over. Here's a few showing spain contrasting El Dorado.

Sam

Vis Dev

I made a departure about a year ago with my film work and I had a blast experimenting out side of my normal range. I am, by nature, more tuned toward classic matte painting, which is what I always wanted to be when I was a teenager. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work with some very talented artists who have greatly infuenced me. Among the designers I greatly admire are Scott Wills (who did Samurai Jack) and Ramone Zibach (who is one of the most talented Production Designers Dream Works has at the moment. I met both these guys on El Dorado while I was Art Directing and their approach to painting was 180 degrees to mine. They both came from TV, and their palletts were bold and graphic. One of their heroes, and mine too, was Maurice Noble, who was one of the greatest desingers ever to work in Animation. Well, after years of working for DW, 10 to be exact (1995-2005) I left and began to put some of these bold stylized design ideas to work and out came hundreds of paintings. These three are among those paintings. I made some custom brushes and really tried to push my shapes to be as simple as possible within the envelope of the show. I then lit the shots to be more naturalistic isntead of flat like the Noble art. I have posted a few of these type of images in the past but I thought it would be helpful to give the history for the shift in styles. To para phrase the famous Ken Anderson; "the artist who desires to work in Vis Dev should be able to change styles, 7-8 styles, depending on the needs of the film". I have tried to live by this idea and not get stuck painting in only one style. Just when I figure out how to paint one way, I try to change for the next round. Plus I have so little patience and get bored very easily, usually with my own work. Sorry for the long winded rant.
Sam

it's been too long.... is anyone out there?

Oh I am not good about posting regularly, we all know this by now. Thanks to anyone who is still coming by waiting for new art, I really do appreciate the support.
I am currently Production Desinging on a new feature animated film and this keeps me very busy these days. We have a crazy schedule and no time to do what we are setting out to do but I am having the best time of my career and the team I am privelaged to work with is exceptional!

I just had to post something, so I looked through the my gallery images and decided to show a few of my past favorites.
The train image is recent and similar in technique to the last post. They are textural and finished in glazes. The other two images are from the early part of my gallery career and are painted in one sitting. They are all about capturing an emotion and energy very quickly. During these days, I could not figure out how to capture the initial energy in several sittings, so I just tried to do the entire painting in only one. I had a great time creating these as they came out of a part of me that was locked away at the time. I hope you enjoy them. I wont make the mistake of promising more posts right away as my schedule is just killing me at the moment. I'll do my best to keep new art on the page.

Sam

gallery oils

We'll I can't believe the last time I posted was back in Feb. It seemed like a month at the most. I am in the beginning preproduction stage of another feature animated film and my life blurs past.
I thought I would post some of my gallery paintings from a show I had back in 05. I had a great time creating them as the theme was the 40's. I love that era for the fashion, design and strength. My dad was born in 1925 and through him I would hear of life around WWII. I thought I would take one of my favorite subjects, Trains, and create scenes as I would have imagined them. All of these were researched but ultimately I imagined them as opposed to copying any specific location. When I paint I try to capture an emotion or a memory from my past. I hope you enjoy them. More to come very soon.

Sam