New Year, New Sketchbook!

 Working in color for this sketchbook.

 This weeks Saturday Morning Doodle is a bit on the personal side that represents a change going forward. A bridge to the future?

I didn't start this doodle with that intension, it just happened to go that way. Perhaps it was subliminal.

Bridges symbolize many things, from overcoming obstacles and reaching new destinations to connecting with the divine and facing our fears and insecurities.

They’re an important part of our lives, both in reality and in our dreams, representing a pathway to new opportunities, growth, and change.

Cheers to moving forward with a different mindset.

SPRING IS HERE!

 For this weekend's Saturday Morning Doodle... Spring feels like a time of endless possibilities. It’s when everything seems to awaken and the world bursts into color. The air carries a sense of renewal, and there’s this energy that almost dares you to create something new.

The tall, friendly robot represents the bridge between the mechanical and the organic, a reflection of my own fascination with combining structure and spontaneity. Surrounding it with lush greenery was my way of expressing the vibrancy and life that Spring brings. it’s a season where growth feels unstoppable, like every corner of the world is collaborating in this grand symphony of renewal.

This doodle feels like a reflection of how I see the season—a reminder to embrace growth, harmony, and the beauty of new beginnings.

Valentine's heartbreak

 Heartbreak happens when you least expect it and that was the case for me this year. So I created this art.

               

Character concepts

 Working for game companies can be so fun when working on concepts for backgrounds, or in this case, for characters.

These were some of the character concepts I did of Alice in Wonderland for a section in the game.

Fishy...

 Even the fish are wondering what's going on with humans.

INKY FRIDAY!

 For Inky Friday... Appearances can be deceiving sometimes. With these bigger than usual monsters, they may look menacing but they are friendly and like looking after their neighbors. Be safe this Halloween season.

Nightmare landscape

 Today's Halloween season post is about nightmares. We've all had plenty over the course of our lives. Weird dreams and nightmares are usually the result of some stress or anxiety we have during the day. Occasionally nightmares can happen without stress or anxiety. Possibly those are a result from seeing a difficult or imaginative movie, show or story we've read.

This drawing was from a dream that had a shape shifting landscape that I remember as being less of a nightmare and just a fascination with the ability of the landscape to do such a thing.

Wednesday Randome Art Post

 A lot of scary things from childhood remain in your subconscious for the rest of our lives and sometimes they can float up to the surface and you see that they aren't all that scary. For creative types (like me), we can use those feelings and images to create something fun and consequently that helps to dispel those old fears. Perhaps that's a cause for Halloween.

When I painted this one (acrylic on canvas) I titled it "You don't know me".

Jolly Roger

 Some years ago while working on a project and wondering what would be a good Halloween-ish ornament for a fence, I thought about the skull and crossbones (AKA... the Jolly Roger) on pirate flags of the 17th and 18th centuries, and what kind of interpretation that I could do. So I came up with a skull that was made with planks of wood with wooden dowels for the crossbones, surrounded with a metal compass with a wood and steel base with an iron flower at the top.

Another seasonal drawing using a ploychromos dark red #225 pencil.

Little Monsters

 Monsters can take a variety of forms, like this one that was based on examinations of bugs/insects, with some liberty taken. Those little critters can occasionally be helpful but mostly we regard them as a nuisance. I can only feel itchy when I think they might be crawling on my body. Which is creepy.

And isn't that what Halloween is about?

Halloween Merch

 Halloween Merch to make you laugh or scare you into the night. Either way, come and get some Halloween Merch before Halloween arrives!

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/4301748

Night of the Bruin

 A new episode of my short story "Night of the Bruin" will be available this weekend.

I'll be posting more episodes this month.
It is about when an old friend passes away, the struggle to get to their memorial, when there is big college football game getting in the way.

https://www.amazon.com/Night-of-the-Bruin/dp/B0D48KGHR9/ref=sr_1_3?crid=14DTOCI5JJ2CZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.D20LmXhdy7X_1_Y9rJXP2sYXwwzwOpLUlGn-V-t_5lXGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.F4OkdQvou8egmNeJdi_2de3ZFeSEtnaYgBtE1npHkhE&dib_tag=se&keywords=kindle+vella+Mike+Cressy&qid=1728052922&sprefix=kindle+vella+mike+cressy%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-3

WRAP

 This week's WRAP (Wednesday Random Art Post)... Another dark blue polychromos pencil drawing from one of my old sketchbooks.

Always loved this drawing and wanted to do a story/graphic novel/picture book, using it. But jobs and concepts kept rolling. I still remember what I wanted to do, story wise.

Summer Concert

 This week's WRAP (Wednesday Random Art Post)... Another dark blue polychromos pencil drawing from one of my old sketchbooks.

Every Summer there are outdoor concerts all over the place and now that we are mostly back from the pandemic, it's time to get outside and enjoy some live music.

Sometimes a background singer hits such an amazing series of notes that you can't help but stop and listen.

Flower from Marymoor Park

From the community garden.

 

Summer Breakfast

 July and August is the time for this breakfast. So amazingly good.

Fresh Blue Berries, which are plentiful right now. On top of smashed eggs with dill, shredded cheese, a hint of black pepper and salt... placed on stove top, lightly grilled tortillas!

YUM!!

IM Game Screens

 When I was working at this big company in Redmond, I was tasked with creating Instant Messenger Games for about 6 months. The first one they wanted me to design, do animations for and to go over the way that all worked together with the one programmer I worked with in China, was the game "GO".

I made a bamboo wood board for the pieces to rest on, made a bamboo themed background and then designed the game parts on the left side.

The screen on the upper left was for a seasonal solitaire game. This was the "Autumn" Solitaire screen. We wanted each seasonal screen to feel immersive and have a natural flow to them. The buttons on the right were the three levels of the game that you could play.

The bottom left screen was for a letters game in which you had to adopt/buy letters to spell words.

The "Blob Alert" screen on the lower right was for a game that didn't get finished but I like how several of the screens turned out.

After that I moved to another project. But I did about 4 other game concept drawings before I left.

I might show those at another time.

Alfred Hitchcock Portrait

Last weekend I was doing a quick line drawing portrait of Alfred Hitchcock, for practice, cause you gotta kept them skills up, and I thought, why not add some color. So I did and this is what the final looks like. Done on my iPad Pro using ProCreate.

Being a bit of life long Cinephile, I got used to seeing certain names in the credits on old movies and new movies. I'm a fan of so many directors and cinematographers, designers, etc... it's a long list.

So over the pandemic I started to revisit old movies and some more current ones. I'll get on a jag and see several from one director or star and then switch over to others as the last few years went by.

Hitchcock was one of those directors that had very long resume of movies. Some in black and white, others in color. Over all he was one of the masters of building tension and keeping the eye of the viewer on the movie till the very end. I don't think he relied on much in the way of special effects until his film "North by NorthWest" which is a stunning movie. Quite the visual treat, albeit static when viewed by today's standards of special effects.

Definitely worth checking out.

 

Munchkins

Love doing character poses. Especially with a fun concept. Here are a few from a game I worked on some years ago. Everyone did great work on that project and it was great to see what others came up with. We each had scenes to work on for the game. These are just a few of the poses for characters that were mostly extras in that scene.