JaPoppa Brand Concept Logo & Pepper

 

After seeing this,

who would not want a bag of JaPoppa brand Jalapeno Popcorn? 

 Seriously! 

 

This concept logo and brand character of Pappa JaPoppa and his special recipe popcorn was created in Photoshop.  Fun characters like Pappa are a real joy for me to create.  Completely by accident, he ended up resembling a beloved and distinguished real-life friend of mine.  The realization hit during the process, but instead of resisting it, I decided to go with it and see whether it worked...and I love it.

Pappa JaPoppa ended up with a monocle much like another beloved brand bipedal legume who likes to wear tall top hats, but I swear, Mr. Peanut was nowhere in sight when I sat in my sister's kitchen designing this dapper pepper!  After some quick and dirty sketches with SketchPro on a penabled screen, I espunged spectables, tuxedos, leglessness, and muscles from the concept but decided on a monocle, moustache and monobrow.

I always find that rough sketching out ideas helps to get a clear picture of what I want to eventually see, and not want to see in the final concept. 

Monster Illustration for Mobile Game in Vector

This illustration was created completely in Adobe Illustrator using all vector shapes and layer effects.  I had been asked to create a monster illustration for a children's mobile game project providing all assets in Illustrator.  I was given several reference images for a variety of monster styles.  Since one of my own monster characters fit the bill, I decided to waste no time designing a new one and just get down to the nitty-gritty Bezier curve handle-ing.

But, before I opened Illustrator to lay down points, I pulled out my Fujitsu Lifebook with penabled screen and made a concept sketch on Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to keep me on track during the production phase of the Illustrator project.  The sketch was done is a 20 minute sitting and the Illustrator project took a Sunday evening to complete.

A little about how this character was created in the first place.  He, or it, started out as a sketch done while living in South Korea using a mechanical drafting pencils primarily .05 for base and .03 for sharp details.  I was just going with the flow on this one and could see his image on the paper (if you can understand what I mean).  I call it the Monoptic Finger Alien because his legs are flexibly jointed fingers with distinct finger characteristics of knuckle lines, finger nails and rounded ends like finger tips - as to distinguish them from the typical non-jointed, point-tipped structure of tentacles.  The sketch below is lightened to clean up the background of the sketchbook page, but the original drawing lines are darker as I don't care for light handed sketches.

The Tournament Poster of Power

 

Tournament poster design requiring lots of photoshop image layers, filters, and 3D rendered images of the US-K logo I created in 3DS Max.  I've been using the Luce filter in my digital image designs a lot lately and I feel that this effect has been the strongest so far. 

 

I especially like how the beams shine through the pagoda-like structure overtop the fighter silhouettes performing on the competition mat.

 

 

The US-K logo shines and maybe almost glimmers with radiance as the weight of that graphic element pulls the eyes downward through the poster's contents.  I created the US-K logo during a logo modeling project with 3DTi (3D Training Institute, New York City, NY) online training courses I took during 2011-12 to brush up on the latest features in the current versions in Autodesk 3D production tools.



Capt. CrawDad

Capt. CrawDad has a secret, no, its not that he has a crustacean claw in place of the standard pirate captain hook.  And, no, its not hidden buried treasure.  Whatever it is (and I know of course, but...), it must remain a secret until his story is published someday.

Capn' C, created sometime in 2010(?) in my life in Korea, was another of several character created in my dreamscapes that managed to be documented on paper before fading into the nothingness mere moments after waking.  The funny thing is not that I remembered so much as that I was able to get a decent memory sketch down with a simple contour line with my eye lids still glued somewhat shut in my groggy state.


That morning sketch is not present at time of post, only these ink lines done in Paint Tool SAI.

Concept Illustration

An accomplished author contacted me a short while ago seeking to enhance the visual aspect of his stories. This is a concept piece for a book cover illustration of a protagonist in one of the author's many writings. Without disclosing the story or other sensitive information I wanted to display the progress of the painting.

In this work, I had the opportunity to experiment more with pre-customized brushes and created some custom brushes for myself.  I needed a special brush to simulate the African hair, and even though it has not gone through the final pass, I am very pleased with the result.  There is yet much to do but this was completed in a couple sittings as sample work and I am enjoying the progress thus far.

 

Disclaimer: Background image is credited to Toni Bratincevic.

Book Design & Logo Design

Front Cover

In early 2012, I opened a Korean sword class in my hometown after arriving back to the States. I studied traditional Korean sword in South Korea for 6 years. Sometime after starting my small class, I prepared an introductory manual to familiarize the students with history and terminologies. Also in so doing, I designed a logo for "The Shining Samurang School of Korean Sword".  

Back Cover / Front Cover

Chinese symbol means "Light" and has a cutting technique significance

Counting in Korean and Korean phrases

Personal photos 

Shining Samurang logo design denotes Korean
flag design and a glimmering burst of light

 The book was designed and printed through Blurb.com, and a preview and be viewed here.

Demo Poster Ad Designs

I'm currently employed at USK Martial Arts and besides being an instructor I am also the creative director of media communications.  This work includes things like graphic advertisements to promote events such as these four posters down below in four colored themes.  

I whipped it up in a short time with little creation work other than placement of design elements, and application of visual effects and color fills.  I fulfilled the requirement and the result was definitely satisfactory.  The demo has already taken place which also had positive results in potential new students.  Good work Demo Team!

Colors! Majin's Character Sketch

Character concept painting sketch for Majin and her friends (chingu dul). Majin's character is fleshing out more and more with every painting, but this is one of the early concepts of the other characters in Majin's adventurer crew:  female and male friend and schoolmates, and younger sister.

Painting created in Colors painter program on the touch screen of a Nintendo DSiXL screen - my poor man's digital touch screen pad.

To see it stroke by stroke:

http://colorslive.com/details/695927

I Pray For You

 This past summer of 2012, a musician-vocalist friend of mine produced his third solo album, I Pray For You, and had asked me to assist him with the graphic design of the CD cover art.  So after playing around with some concepts and a little research, I came across an image of an ancient etching created by one of my favorite artists of times past - Albrecht Durer.

I didn't hear the tracks until later, but made the design concept from his description of the sound themes he was putting together.

The final result was a professional looking product to help distribute his music which had received pleasant reception from purchasers. 

A caricature of Ninja Turtle, Donatello, in black and white as he sits on his swivel chair at his desktop work station in the underground NYC sewer home.  He turns and leans back as Master Splinter approaches the doorway behind.  The desktop framed photo denotes the father son relationship I wanted to express in this illustration.

In this piece, I wanted the freedom to explore cartoony contours that would somewhat liberate me from concerns with proportion and perspective accuracies because in a cartoon world, these are not necessary boundaries.

I wanted to see the soft, rounded Ninja Turtle in B&W.  Removing the element of color that is often associated with the cartoony incarnation of TMNT, I wanted to see a deeper and perhaps somber aspect as a contrast to other portrayals of this series.

This illustration was created entirely in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.  It was a test project for the software to get a glimpse at some of the capabilities of this software.  I really enjoyed Sketchbook Pro and have added it into my repertoire of visual graphic tools.

Please enjoy this alternative depiction of the ninja turtle world. ~Dan

Sir Benny

 



Although he is not an example of an advanced 3-dimensional model, Benny has a lot of charm and a very likeable character with an honest face, if not slightly grotesque.  Benny was made back in my college art era and a fellow student, a Polish immigrant, praised Benny's style, design, and color theme by making comparison to European-styled work.  Although I grew up an American, I endeavored always to branch out beyond the stated domestic culture I swam in.

An earlier incarnation of my online art portfolio featured the above animation of Benny's angelic conscience being poked and skewered by his red velvet jacketed alter-ego...although, at that time, the motion had to be activated by rolling the mouse pointer over the image.  A former college roommate and now professional colleague mentioned at that time how much he enjoyed the playful sight and I wanted to make it available somewhere in connection with my work...regardless of how dated it is.

Being dated aside, I believe that Benny has a lot of branding potential.  I see him on mugs or greeting cards, or even as little statuettes in various poses, scenarios and costumes.  Benny just needs a voice and a platform.

Sometimes I imagine Benny sitting at a cafe being waited on with a coffee mug in hand, or I've imagined him in an authentic and atmospheric Japanese alleyway sushi restaurant with a pair of chops digging into a perfectly arranged plate of raw fishies.  Other times, my mind's eye sees him in a steamy bathroom after a shower with towel tied about his waist jogging in place and hands held high in a victory pose and hopelessly flexing in the mirror as he listens to the Rocky theme song, or moonwalking suddenly in the park with headphones on as he jives along with Michael Jackson.

I don't keep Benny around because he's the best model I've ever done, or even the best character design I've ever put out - no, I keep him around because of his charm potential - and this is what makes me think that despite the lack of technical modeling prowess, his visual concept is very marketable.

Yeah, someday I'll get on that.  Him, and the thousand others lying dormant in my sketchbooks and mindscape.

Majin Lee

Character concept portrait painting for original story I created and developed while living abroad in South Korea and other Asian countries for several years.  Picture drawn by hand on paper, painted with Pixarra TwistedBrush with post work done in Adobe Photoshop.