VIGNALI STUDIO

Sadly, we all knew this day was coming.

For a while I remember thinking Amy Winehouse should get her life together so she can get back to singing. But, as she continued to spiral out of control, I remember thinking she should just get her life together so she can get back to the land of the living.

Even the late night jokes stopped when everyone realized how much danger she was in. It's like we were all watching her die right in front of us, but no one could save her from herself.

In her short life, Amy made a profound impact in the music industry. Few singers are able to transcend the medium of their vocals and allow their voice to become an instrument -- Amy did that -- combined with the raw passion and heartfelt emotion she poured into her music, fans loved her for it.

The great Tuna Bora also did a tribute.

This is the first page for the comic I've been working on. It's part of a larger project that the Sony artists are contributing towards. The project is called the Exquisite Corpse, as per an old Victorian parlor game in which people contribute only a part to a larger drawing -- without being able to see the drawing in its entirety. However, the actual title of the comic book remains undecided. I guess we'll have a better idea when all the contributers turn in their pages.

I've already turned in my eight page story, and so I thought I would post page one. Lia Abbate had the story right before me, and she picked the theme with faeries. Since I love the subject of the faerie world, I decided to go along with her last panel. I soon realized I was drawing my own daughters, as they ended up being the inspiration for the characters. The name of my story is Awakening.

My friend and mentor, Fil Barlow, has finally gotten off his bony butt and created a blog, and a Deviantart page.

Ever wonder who created Zooniverse? Ever wonder who created the look for the cartoon version of Alf, the animated Starship Troopers, the animated Godzilla, Tutenstein, Igor, Chronicals of Riddick, Heavy Gear, Extreme Ghost Busters, The Real Ghost Busters, the X Files, Eight Crazy Nights? Look no further than Fil Barlow.

Fil is Australian born, and he is the creator of his own comic books, a publisher of his own magazine, a gallery painter, a character designer, a puppet designer and a puppeteer. Fil is also a 2D animation artist, as well as a CG modeler! He's a literal renaissance man, and perhaps one of the most sincere and genuine people in the business.

When I first saw Fil's Zooniverse comic book, I was hooked, and I knew then I wanted to work with him. However, when he showed up in America, I was surprised to discover he was only a couple years older than I was! Imagine, he published Zooniverse when he was only 24 years old!

We worked together at DIC Entertainment in the late 1980s, and he's been my mentor and friend ever since. Please welcome, Fil Barlow.

Yeah, you heard right, 2012! Just to let everyone know, I'll be at the Radisson LAX on 6225 W Century Blvd this coming Saturday, July 9th, 2011. It's a Sunmesa sponsored event, and it's a prerelease for Magic 2012.

This is a Magic prerelease and tournament. I've never been to one of these events, so it should be interesting to see all the gamers duel it out.

Click this LINK to get more information on this event.

I drew this for a Christmas gift exchange at work. Why? I have no idea. I guess it just popped into my brain that that moment.

Of all the people that could have gotten the gift, it turns out Glenn Harmon (my good friend and carpool buddy) won it! Good thing I didn't show it to him before hand! Sheesh, I would have spoiled the surprise.

I'm sorry for not posting in a while - I guess things have gotten pretty hectic lately. Regardless, here's a recent sketch I did at Sketchclub.

Yep, the temperatures are rising, here in here come the hot-pants. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of this skinny girl to fill out her hot-pants.

Just to let everyone know, I'll be at table 1114 this weekend at the Ahaheim Comic Con! I'll have prints, and a convention sketchbook for sale. I'll also be signing proofs, doing commission sketches, and talking with all of you.

For those of you interested, I'll be appearing at the comic con in Anaheim the weekend of April 29th-May 1st!

Wizard Entertainment has invited me to participate at this year's Anaheim Comic Convention, and I'll be signing my gaming card illustrations, as well as having original art, doing commission sketches, selling prints, and also offering my first convention sketchbook.

In this sketchbook, you'll find thirty-two pages of sketches related to my gaming card illustration work, preliminary sketches, and other fantasy themed sketches - such as faeries.

For those of you that can't make it to the convention, I'll be selling these sketchbooks on-line -- after the event. However, I'm going to be adding a convention exclusive to make it an incentive to come out and visit with me. I haven't figured out what that item will be yet -- but I have a few ideas.

Just to let you know, I don't have my booth number yet, I'll post it when I get it. I hope to see you all there!

OK, here's a couple from an entire series of humorous cat sketches.

After my back surgery, my nine year old daughter and I sat around the table and had a drawing contest. We both started drawing cats, and she drew me right under the table! Her drawings were hilarious (I'll have to post some of her drawings). I was drawing one for every three of hers!

After which, I continued with the theme of cats and filled a sketchbook with ridiculous cat drawings.

Maybe a father/daughter book?

Here's another faerie image.

I'm currently putting together a short comic book story with faeries, and I'm also compiling a bunch of faerie development sketches for a small sketchbook.

I just want to let everyone know, my father Luis Vignali, passed away on February 12th of this year. It's one of those inevitable days every child dreads, but arrives nonetheless.

Dad was born in Buenos Aries in 1935, and then moved to the US in 1959. But, in 2004 he moved back to beloved country of Argentina.

I want to thank everyone for their support during this difficult time. For those interested, you can see a photo montage of my dad's life on Vimeo. And, yes, you can see me in a few pictures. There's a few baby picturess, and a picture of me sleeping on his back, way back in 1967.

Click this LINK to check out the 10 minute video.

Oh, by the way, this picture was taken of my father in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1959.

Yes, I'm doing a short comic book story. And, this is one of the panels from my story.

The artists here at Sony Pictures Animation are doing a comic book project, much like the books the other studios are creating, such as "Who is Rocket Johnson."

This is not a Sony sponsored idea, but rather put together by the artists -- with each of the artists putting together their own eight page stories. So, my story is about a little Pixie.

I'll have more information for you as we get close to the publishing date. So, enjoy this sneak preview!

This one is from a while back. I was drawing the figure from life, and adding watercolor, all within the five minute mark. And, I was trying to create some distorted proportions to see what would happen.

Yes, I know, the JPG is also very small, but this is all I've got left of these images.

Graphite on ledger paper, circa 2001.

I was poking around some old artwork and I found this one. I don't have a larger file of it, or I'd post it. I remember the detail in this piece was a lot of fun -- especially the table with all the food.

The original for this piece was drawn on velum, for a project that went no where -- from my drawing table to some dusty old vault in some undisclosed place in Burbank, I would imagine. I'm guessing I drew this about ten or eleven years ago.

I've got some other files from this project I can post, but unfortunately they're all about this size. These small jpg files are all I have left in terms of copies.

Merry Christmas, on the glorious birth of Jesus of Nazareth! Hallelujah!

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased." Luke 2:14

Have a wonderful holiday and a wonderful new year!

Topper Helmers is a friend of mine, and we used to work together at WDI in the early 1990s. As customary for those days -- as the young man in the studio -- I was prone to doing joke drawings for my coworkers. What ever was happening that was current was usually fodder for me. I loved sending these via interoffice mail -- this made boring interoffice mail fun.

Some of the drawings are just roughs I would use to create some of my designs, and some are just doodles I would give Topper when he showed an interest in a particular sketch. And, some where just inside jokes. (Gosh, I had completely forgotten about most of them till I saw them again.)

My friend Topper has posted some of the drawings I gave him on a web site/auction site. And, if you twist his arm, I'll bet he'd even sell a few. He's a huge collector of art, and he's got some amazing artwork in his collection.

You might be wondering why all the red-head jokes, heh...well, he had a thing for red-heads. Topper also kept pressuring me to do a comic book, so I teased him with this sketch.

Go to Topper's Page to check out these sketches from nearly 20 years ago.

This poor kid was working hard as a house painter, but who could resist such an opportunity to draw him? He was covered in white paint!

Go to Sketchclub to check out my latest memory sketch. I've got the full image posted there.

Heh-heh, you know it's getting cold in California when the scarfs come out.

OK, maybe I didn't find this image in an old book, but it's fun to create images I'd like to find.

This is a rough sketch of a faerie that I superimposed over some textures. I imagined it was an old book plate.

Here's a new sketch from my sketchbook. It's similar to the sketches I have on my Sketchclub app.

For those interested, I don't have a sketchbook for sale, but I do have my Sketchclub app, it's pretty affordable at $2.99

This particular sketch isn't on the Sketchclub app -- since it's new. But, it's similar to the ones in my app. Maybe it will make it into a Volume Two?

I was talking to my daughter about marsupials and she mentioned wombats. I told her that in 1988 I designed a wombat character for an animated TV show for DIC Entertainment -- looked it up on Youtube...and there it was! I designed Wombat Man and the love interest in this clip.

I was the lead character designer for this show, having designed many of the main characters. Although, I only worked on it for the first season. As was customary back then they would lay everyone off after the productions ended their season, and in-between seasons I landed a job with Disney.

My friend Fil Barlow also did some of the main characters as well. He was instrumental in getting the contract from Nintendo with his humorous character designs, the difference being the show was going to be about a Paper Boy. Back then there was a video game that featured a paper boy delivering papers, and the Paper Boy was going to be the lead character for the show. Somewhere along the line the Paper Boy idea was dropped and Kevin, as Captain Nintendo, was born. Fil was living in Australia at the time and wasn't around during production as he was with Alf and Alf Tales.

Funny thing, I remember Mike Maliani, our executive producer, came by with photos of child actors to play the part of Kevin Keene. I shuffled around the pictures and settled on Dorian Barag. I don't know if I helped his career or sunk it!

Once the show went in production I worked with character designers Ed Lee and Mike Goguen.

Sadly, the character Wombat Man was only featured here as the character Simon Belmont was switching TV channels. One of the production coordinators named Kurt Weldon did the voice for Wombat Man.

Yesterday I was having a conversation about caricatures with my friend Glenn Harmon , and I had mentioned to him that Marlo Meekins has some of the most vicious/hilarious caricatures out there right now.

Glenn suggested we give that a shot -- you know, meanness -- during our Friday Sketchclub get-together. Although no one comes close to Marlo's talent, it was fun to step on the gas pedal and see what viciousness we could come up with on our own.

I typically try to design my characters with appeal and an overall simple shape. I still kept my simple overall shape goal, but some of that meanness seeped into the drawing. This drawing was one among the drawings I did in my sketchbook.

Here's a three minute figure drawing drawn on newsprint with a magic marker. It is untouched, just as I scanned it. The scanner copied the image really rich, and I liked the way it turned out.

Sorry for the watermark/huge signature, but with the recent copyright problems, I gotta paste these on the images to protect myself. Hopefully, you all can look past that legality.

On the last post there was some question to the inspiration to these sketches, I thought I would go ahead and clear things up a bit. The Muppets were the inspiration for these sketches, not Ronald Searle.

I love Searle’s work, but I believe Searle’s work relies heavily on the 2D medium. Nothing wrong with that if you are doing illustrations, but if you’re doing CG animation it can become a stumbling block into a 3D translation.

Having started my career in 2D animation, and now working in CG animation, I've witnessed a learning curve that is taking place with this industry -- and within my own commercial work. I’ve really been learning to appreciate the simplicity of the Muppets for that reason.

There’s another general question regarding “inspiration” versus “copying.” Although I think there is much value in copying when you’re starting out, at this point in my career I think it’s better to learn a lesson and apply the understanding, rather than copy a technique.

Blah blah blah, and then I blah blah blah, with graphite and blah blah blah.

My good friend Ted Blackman has finally created a blog.

Ted and I go waaay back. When I first started in animation he was already a star talent, but I quickly discovered that Ted was also easy to get along with, versatile, and funny.

Ted was a crack-up to have at the studio, he was always making caricatures of his fellow artists, and drawing funny studio situations -- like when the air conditioner was stuck on FREEZING. He did a cartoon of himself trying to warm himself by using several drawing lamps at his desk.

Ted really opened my eyes about how a cartoonist should see the world. Meeting him had a profound impact on me, thanks Ted!

Please welcome my friend by paying him a visit at Crotchety Comics and leave him a comment.

We have to go back a few years for these. When I first came to Sony Pictures Animation, I started working on Open Season as a character designer. My job was to develop the Boog character's design -- before the script was set. I did a series of sketches trying to figure out who this nine foot, 1,100 pound grizzly bear was.

Boog was raised as a house pet, and he's sort of a naughty child. The idea here, as Boog attempts to raid the cookie jar, is that he is completely unaware of his size and power.

I did a lot of exploration with the designs and attempted to move him around to get a feel for the way the character would move.

Once I had gotten a good feel for the character, I did some turns. In the end, I gave him fur-like pants that gave him a britches-feel to his fur, and large forelimbs with tiny paws and delicate claws that act like fingers.

Ultimately, my friend Carter Goodrich came on as the character designer, and I took the position of art director on Surf's Up. Despite the changes in the style and design for Boog, I was glad to see the ideas remained the same and made it into the final version.

When I was a kid there was this toy called the Jolly Chimp. It was a frightening chimp doll that would bang its cymbals, then bare its teeth while, with eyes bulging out of his sockets. It didn't seem like a kid's toy, and I think that's what the allure was. I never owned one as a kid, but my cousin had one, and I was mesmerized.

This toy has now become sort of iconic in that it's been featured in various movies, Close Encounters, Monkey Shines, and now in Toy Story 3. Ironically I drew this before watching the movie.

(OK, a side note, I'm such a fan of this nightmarish toy, as an adult I've collected and refurbished several of them and have two, mint, still in the box. There, I've said too much already.)

On the Fourth, I was sitting out by the hotel pool while my kids were swimming. There were a lot of families, the pool was a full of screaming kids.

Then two young ladies, about 17-18 years old, came out to the pool. I over heard one say to the other, "This is boring, there's no one here!" That comment struck me so funny, I guess the mobs of families and screaming kids didn't count.

They only stayed a moment, but not before I blocked in this sketch. Obviously I had to finish it in their absence, but what a moment!

I just love those little paperback Moleskin sketchbooks. I was going to a fancy banquet and stuffed it into my blazer's inner pocket -- it's so small and flat, no one was the wiser. And, sure enough the moment presented itself and I bagged this beaut! Oh my gosh, I would have kicked myself if I didn't have anything to sketch him with.

The sketch is untouched, other than my added copyright.

Go to Sketchclub to check out my latest memory sketch. I've got the full body posted there.

This was the first image I ever saw by Frank Frazetta, only it was painted on the side of a van in the mid 1970s.

By 1978 I found out who had painted this image when I stumbled across a Betty Ballentine book that featured much of Frank's artwork. I was about 13 years old, and didn't have the eight dollars to buy the books, so I would memorize the subjects and attempt to draw them at home.

Years later I had the privilege of seeing Frank Frazetta at the San Diego Comic book convention, but he was swarmed with fans so I couldn't get close enough to thank him personally for his contribution to Sci Fi art and his influence on me. It was one of those pinch-me moments, and I said to myself, "There he is."

Not only was Frank an amazing storyteller, painter and designer, but he had a tremendous imagination that always provided a unique perspective about the worlds he was envisioning. Most of all I believe was his imagination that set him apart from his contemporaries.

RIP Frank Frazetta.

My buddy Israel Martinez has set up a drawing studio inside Graphaids in Westchester. It's uninstructed, so you just show up and draw.

Manchester Space
7280 Manchester Blvd
Westchester, CA 90045
Thursdays 7pm-10pm
$15.00
Israel Martinez 310/702-7163
imartinezis@aol.com

I drew this image in my usual magic marker, but then used photoshop to place it over this aged paper. I think this was a five minute sketch.

I've been invited to the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in Canada this weekend. So, if you're in the area, or are making the trip, please come by and say hello.

I'll be at the Expo talking about animation related topics, such as Creating a Portfolio, on Saturday April 24th. And then on Sunday, April 25th, I'll be talking about Character Design for Animation.

Most of all, I'll be walking around enjoying the Expo and meeting all of you.

My longtime friend Paul Wee saw my drawing of Hellboy -- and was inspired enough to do an ink and color. I just had to post it.

Both Paul and I went to art school together, and it was he who turned me onto Mike Mignola. We started collecting a comic book title called Rocket Racoon waaay back in the day, and were impressed by Mignola's design sense -- even before Mignola discovered his distinctive graphic design look that he is now famous for.

Paul is an amazing talent, and he's teaching again after a four year hiatus. If you have a minute, go check out his blog.

On special request I'm posting the sketches from last week's Sketchclub outing.

We went to the dog park in Culver City last week, where the Sketchclub crew laid down a flurry of dog sketches. Kendra really enjoyed my dog page and requested that I go ahead and post it. I hardly ever post my sketches, but on special request here it is in all its glory -- uncut and uncensored -- right out of my sketchbook.

I'm also adding a couple of the sketches blown up so you can see them in a little more detail. I really had fun drawing these little dogs more so than the big ones.

There was the little mean walleyed dog that wanted to pick a fight with all the dogs coming to the park.

And, a small skittish dog that looked like a Weasel.

If you are interested in seeing the "mark" for that day, go to Sketchclub.

OK, I feel terrible about this, but still trying to protect my images with a watermark. It probably won't make that much of a difference to someone with photoshop knowledge -- an easy fix -- but rather a nuisance to would-be bootleg printers.

OK, that disclaimer out of the way, here's an image of a figure done with marker on paper. I like it when the marker starts to dry out just a bit, because then it allows a little bit of modeling. I'm not as bold as Marcos Mateu! who can knock-out his beautiful sketches with a fully loaded marker. If Zorro had a drawing counterpart, it would be Marcos.

Over a year ago I did some packaging art for World of Warcraft. The package was released last summer, but I never got around to posting this. I was flattered that I was asked to do the cover illustration for the packaging art. It was very much like a jacket illustration. I had to accommodate the type, do a front and back cover, and added an image that would show up on the spine.


I ended up seeing the final printing of the package but wasn't that crazy about it, the knight's colors seemed blown out. Maybe it was just my print. That's the thing about printing, unless we're there to supervise it, we never really know how it's going to show up in print. Still, it was fun.

The characters are not my designs, but rather I was given game resolution-images of their existing designs to use as reference and embellished them in this illustration.

I've never drawn Hellboy before, but have always been a big fan. I had a commission request -- and so I took a crack at it.

I didn't want to do go the Mignola approach, so I thought I would approach it from the aspect of, "What can I add to this character in order to make it recognizable as Hellboy, but my version of Hellboy?"