Finally, he has come out hiding...

So, I know you haven't heard much from me in the last few months. I started late last year working on a big personal graphic novel project. Here is a sneak-peek at one of the in-progress background panels..

More to come soon!

some design work from 'Teen Wolf'

I was doing quite a few designs for characters for the Teen Wolf TV show for Almost Human FX last year (sometimes doing numerous variations on a character before approval), here are a few of my favorites.

Vintage Serial superheros re-imagined

Back when they were remaking Superman (the most recent time), I was working on creature designs for a movie called R.I.P.D. My boss at that time was designing for both Superman and Dark Knight Rises, so (being that he had his hands full with those two mega-shows) I was happy and lucky to get a call to do some fun monster stuff.

However, a part of me started to wonder what I might come up with if given the opportunity to design a Super-suit.

 Ever since I was a kid, my favorite Superman was George Reeves (mostly, I assume, because he was the first one I was exposed to), so I thought it might be neat to 'update' his look from the cheaply-made felt(?) suits of that era.

(By the way, People have already complained to me of my that lack of a giant 'S' on his chest already, but I always thought it a bit silly to have a giant Letter or logo on heroes, especially in light of more recent incarnations of the Dark Knight.)

I sculpted in a chiseled, angular Zbrush suit in the style of more recent films, and photoshopped George Reeves into it. When I showed this to a friend, he receommeded that I do a whole series of these, and my next choice was 1949's Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan from the 'Batman and Robin' serial.

I, some time ago, had a dream that I was designing a 'Robin' suit for a film (yes, I sometimes even am thinking up ideas even in my sleep) and made a quick color sketch when I awoke. That idea inspired the ROBIN suit shown here (which I tried to make as badass as possible, since the character's rarely given a chance to shine), while trying to subtly keep in his trademark colors.

Actually, I learned a lot during my research (I had no idea that there was a ‘Captain America’ serial!) trying to find some old-time Superheros of the era, and I have included a few that I ran across in this blog posting.

 

Enjoy,

Michael

Zbrush zombie...more of these to come....

New Skateboard deck

Hi all!

Have been quite busy with a few design jobs, lots going on, BUT....

...wanted to update with this cool skateboard deck a friend of mine in Australia laser cut for me based on one of my drawings. Here are the first pics that have been released.

 

Going to start work on another very soon!

 

New sketches

Hello my dozen lovely followers!
Here's a gew you may or may not have seen....(most of them are reposted from facebook), A couple of comp-sheets with alien/creature sketches, a zbrush sculpt, and a painting I did for a 'Carrie' book...

more recent zbrush sculpts...

Here's a couple of more fantasy-inspired guys that i sculped in zbrush, taking advantage of their new lighting options...

....This week's work...

...

...busy with a few little things at the moment. Nothing NDA, So i can share these with my dozen lovely followers:

The top fellah is a Haunted Mansion-inspired painting that I would like to do more of, and the bottom is a ink drawing for an etched wooden skateboard (which should be available soon). I will, however, probably do some painting and color on this guy at some point...

I try and add whatever misc things I can think of to this blog, as I never know who might be looking at it for portfolio purposes, So more to come soon!

Enjoy!

....Here's a werewolf I'm working on in Zbrush, starting to learn some of the fibermesh tool (being that I have been designing so many werewolves for TV and film lately, THIS will come in handy...), as well as testing some of the cool lighting effects in BPR...

thanks for looking! more later....

Halloween Voodoo Werewolf

....Ran across this old sketch today, from an old idea I've had kicking around for awhile...A Sort of Voodoo Werewolf, being resurrected by an Unholy priest...bones from some of the old corpses rise up from the swampy mire to help form the creature....

Clear zbrush zombies

I have been playing with some of the transparency renders in zbrush 4, testing out some design concepts i have been wanting to do.. The interior forms of this 'I am Legend"/Omega man-inspired creature is sculpted seperatly, the carotid arteries and veins were sculpted with zspheres as a n individual piece, and colored as 'Toy plastic' to give them a bit of sheen.

 

I haven't actually finished the back yet, heh, thus the lack of a turnaround...more to come soon...

Some painted ideas....more to come, when i have some time......

preview of things to come....stay tuned.

....misc creature designs.....

an Aboriginal/Tasmanian tiger werewolf idea i fleshed out a bit....

'House of the Wolfman' makeup design...

some more examples:

...few more recent pieces, some zbrush, etc..

Revenge of the robots!!

Howdy all:
wanted to update some very recent zbrush hard-surface stuff. I got a call not too long ago for some Robots, and was asked if there were any in my portfolio (I guess rusty, blood-drinking robots don't count haha), and decided to add a few to my samples.
Check out these w.i.p's
-michael

Low-rez zombie turntable

Alien VIDEO turnaround

'Creature from the Black Lagoon' remake-inspired concept

The original idea for 'the Creature from the Black Lagoon' actually came from Amazonian legend. In the 40's, Producer william Allen overheard cinematographer Gabriele Figeroa (who shot 'the Pearl' and 'night of the Iguana' for John Huston, amongst others) telling the tale of a half-fish, half-man during a dinner party at Orson Well's home. Figeroa actually claimed that he had SEEN the creature and could produce a photo of it. During my research of Amazonian wildlife, I found that the legend also matches the Amazonian River Dolphin, a pinkish, almost human-like creature, and that the local tribes believe that it is a Shapeshifter. Unlike many of the other 'Gill Man' that I've seen, I wanted to approach it from a different angle, and try to make my Creature more like a Neanderthal man, and make him look more like one of the local tribespeople, but with subtle fish properties.

Back in the 80's, John Carpenter was attached to do a remake (and after his treatment on 'the THING', I was a lot more than excited to hear this..), and this is kinda what inspired this design. In reality, it would never fly...it's just too far from the original film version and would probably piss people off..heh, So I did it on my own, for kicks, and this is the only place you will ever probably see it. Enjoy.

P.S. hope you all had a good Thanksgiving

M.I.A. Mike...

..sorry folks, I haven been on a show for tha last four months...so my updates have been sparse.

BUT, some good news! Cover painting of mine on october's FANGORIA magazine!
Also, the THING (which i did numerous desgin concepts for) comes out in mid-October, so it looks to be a busy month for me..
In the meanwhile, just trying to catch up on laundry and the like after not being at home for a bit.

more later