Alex Deligiannis (Stay Tooned)

Sharp Pointy Things!

2010-02-03T17:24:00.001-08:00

A couple more doodles from this week; Wolverine and a Cylon Centurion from Battlestar Galactica show off what they're workin' with. The awesomeness of BSG not withstanding, my money's on Wolvie.

Michelangelo Sketch

2010-02-01T13:39:00.001-08:00

Started off the morning with some just-for-fun sketching. Assuming time and deadlines permit, I'd like to start doing this more often.

URL Change!

2010-01-15T19:32:00.001-08:00

I've finally gotten around to updating my URL. From now on, you'll find my blog simply at www.alexdeligiannis.com. Feel free to update your links and/or bookmarks. Thanks!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

Happiest of holidays, and only the best in the new year. God bless!

Donatello Sketch

2009-11-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the workload becomes a little monotonous and you gotta take a few minutes to loose up, so here's a quick Donatello sketch to close out the work week.

Krang's Frankenstein Monster

2009-11-11T20:55:00.001-08:00

Here's my design for Krang. Along with my final inks, I've included a page from my sketchbook, so you can kind of see how the design evolved. Looking through my roughs, there were certainly more interesting poses I could have gone with, but I decided to keep the robot dormant, and move the focus to Krang himself, as he prepares to fire up his newly-created body for the first time.

Looking forward to coloring him. On a side note, I've heard that since the Twitter explosion, blogs are being updated less frequently. Mine is no exception. I'll keep posting art here, of course, but I've grown to really appreciate the simplicity and instant gratification of Twitter, particularly for sharing doodles and sketches that might not be considered "blog-worthy," as well as those off-the-cuff thoughts on comics, animation, and whatever else. If you do the Twitter thing, you can follow me at @alexdeligiannis (there's a link in the sidebar on the right). I'm also on DeviantArt now, so if you're a DA user, I'm at alexdeligiannis.deviantart.com.

Morning Train Sketches

2009-10-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

A few sketches from my train rides in to work the past couple of mornings. I want to put my own spin on Krang, but without totally abandoning the campy 80's design. They're quick and dirty, just laying lines down in search of the right shapes.

Wishology!

2009-09-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last year, to wrap up season 6 of Fairly Odd Parents, we put together an insanely large special called Wishology. The show consisted of 3 one-hour acts, amounting to a whopping 3 hour trilogy in which we spoofed a bunch of classic movie trilogies (including Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Terminator, and The Matrix, among others). It seemed like an unending undertaking at the time, but it was a lot of fun to work on. The designs were done by our superbly-talented character designers (Gordon Hammond, Ernie Gilbert, and Mike Dougherty) and colored by me.

Filo Train Sketches

2009-09-04T11:40:00.001-07:00

A few quick sketches I did on the train ride to the studio this morning. Nothing fancy to look at; most are pretty raw, actually. I'm just trying to nail down the head shape for a character my brother created years ago. I've been pressuring him to tighten up the story he wrote for this lil' guy, because I'm itching to draw another comic. Anyway, none of these are exactly what I'm looking for, but there are a couple in there that evoke something I like.

Incidentally, this is what he looked like when I first drew him in 2004.

2009 Comic-Con Rocked.

2009-07-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

In 2006, I had the coolest Comic-con moment of my life when Matt Groening came up to our booth, bought a copy of our book, and asked us to sign it for him. I thought that was the ultimate, but this year’s Con once again reached insane levels of awesome for me.

On Friday night, the wife and I ditched our entourage and hit up House Of Blues to see Bear McCreary and his orchestra perform their eargasmic score from Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I'll wear the badge of "nerd" proudly: It wasn't Bone Thugs or John Legend, but this was, without a shred of doubt, the best concert I've ever attended in my life. Really. And what we thought would be a night of great music ended up being so much more; it became an evening of partying with virtually the entire cast of the show, including Admiral Adama (the incomparable Edward James Olmos), Col. Tigh and Anders (for both of whom I had the honor of purchasing an ice cold Blue Moon), Boomer/Athena (who was already so toasted she declined a drink, but did dance with my wife), Tom Zerek (Richard Hatch, the original Apollo), Admiral Caine, Callie, and Gaius Baltar. I'm not one to get star-stuck, ever... but if you watch this show, you understand why this night was an exception. It was simply beyond cool.

But that's not all. This year, I had the extreme honor of meeting a gang of guys that - and I say this with complete honesty - were instrumental in inspiring a young fat kid to pursue his artistic dreams. The Mirage Studios gang, the guys behind the Ninja Turtles, made their triumphant return to San Diego for the 25th anniversary of the TMNT, and while it's a shame that it took me almost two decades worth of Comic-Cons to finally meet them, it was an incredible treat nonetheless. Every one of them - Dan Berger, Eric Talbot, Jim Lawson, Michael Dooney, Steve Lavigne, and Tristan Jones - were beyond gracious, even in the face of my obvious fanboyness (which, I hope, wasn't too overbearing). It's one thing to meet people whose work you've long admired; it's a completely different thing to find them to be outright warm, kind and welcoming (even though Steve did call me out for posting too many pictures of my puppy and not enough artwork). Maybe it seems silly, but meeting these guys means a lot to me (even more than meeting the cast of BSG), and it will go down as one of my greatest SDCC memories ever. My only regret is that I didn't bug them one last time to get a group photo with them all. Thanks to all of them for indulging this guy.

Next Stop, San Diego.

2009-07-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, last reminder. Here's my little contribution to all the goodies we'll have at Booth 1034. See you in San Diego!

Comic-Con Next Week.

2009-07-17T12:22:00.001-07:00

I'll be at Booth 1034 next week during Comic-Con, so come by. In addition to the new "Art Of Hard 8" book (featuring a ton of beautiful pin-ups and art by some very talented folks), my good friend Eric "The Gute" Gonzalez will have some awesome stuff for sale, and I'll be offering a couple of prints as well. Here's a snapshot of one that I was tweaking up last night.... hope to see ya at booth 1034!

Some Fairly Odd Paintings

2009-07-09T14:32:00.001-07:00

Coloring an animated show can sometimes get a bit repetitive, but every now and then the board will call for special treatment on a scene, allowing me to play around and do something different for a bit. Here are a couple of such scenes from recent episodes I've worked on.

Also, I'll be hanging at Comic-Con booth 1034, selling copies of the Hard 8 graphic novel, as well as our new "Art Of Hard 8" issue. I should also have a few TMNT prints available, so please come by to check them out and say hello.

Bebop (Part II: Inks)

2009-06-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

Aside from a half-hour game of frisbee with my puppy, the June gloom kept me indoors most of the day, and I was able to get some inking done this morning. I think I can safely say that this is my first time actually inking a entire finished drawing in a long while, probably since college. I'm definitely diggin' the brush pen; surprisingly, despite the finality of ink, it made drawing more fun again, and I'm look forward to inking more stuff going forward. I'll have colors on this soon.

Bebop (Part I)

2009-06-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

Here are two passes for my Bebop print: the initial Cintiq sketch and the final (pre-ink) Col-erase drawing. Not pictured are the other dozen or so drawings that it took me to get from point A to point B. I often re-draw the same thing over and over, tweaking one thing at a time until I like what I've come up with. Sometimes I can work things out in a couple of drawings, other times it takes a few more. Inevitably, there's always some sort of spark or energy I like in the initial rough which ends up getting lost in the translation, but I've learned to deal with it. There's also a photo of a practice page I used to try out a few different pens. For years I've cleaned up my drawings using a 4B pencil, but lately I've been getting back into using ink. In addition to my trusty Pentel Pocket Brush (the "Master Sword" of inking utensils), I tried out several new Japanese pens I picked up recently, including a Zebra, a Pilot Pocket Brush, and a disposable Kuratake. Some I dig, others not so much, but I had fun trying them out and hopefully I can find some time this week to ink the drawing for real. Ok, Conan's first Tonight Show starts right now, so thanks for looking. I'm out.

Bebop. Splinter. Bebop. Magneto?

2009-05-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

♫♪♫ One of these things is not like the other ones, not like the other ones... Hey'a. A few random quick sketches from the train and whatnot. That is all for this transmission.

Rocksteady 4: Color (Finally).

2009-04-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember me? I used to draw stuff. If you're still with me, I'm impressed, and I thank you. I finally got around to slapping some color on that Rocksteady drawing I posted ages ago. I could tell you it took forever because I've been swamped with the day job, but really I've just been playing Wii. Also, I wasn't really feeling my first color pass, so I just walked away from it for a while. When I finally came back to it, I ended up redrawing the entire lower half on the Cintiq to fix wonky anatomy (that's what I get for ditching life drawing classes). Anyway, it's nice to post something new again.

Other stuff:
I got a new puppy, and she's the bomb. Also, I swore I'd never join Twitter. That was a lie. If you're into this social network thing and you care to follow my nonsense, my feed is to the right. Peace!

Fairly Odd Title Cards.

2009-02-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly getting adjusted to my new specks. The initial prescription was wrong, which is why I walked around like a drunk every time I put them on. Now that I've had them tweaked, I walk like I'm just mildly buzzed. Peeing is still interesting, but otherwise, it's better.

I haven't posted artwork since Thanksgiving (!!), no doubt due at least in part to the Wii my beloved wifey gave me for Christmas. I'll try to rectify that. To start, here's some stuff from the ol' day job. I've had the privilege of painting many of the Title Cards for Season 6 of Fairly Odd Parents, a job that I quite enjoy and am very grateful for. Seeing as they have all aired and are available on DVD (and some have appeared on other blogs), I thought it safe to showcase a few here. I didn't draw them (that honor belongs to our superbly-talented designers), but I did do all the color work. And of course, this stuff is all © the fine folks at Nickelodoeon/Viacom, Inc, whom I love.

Change Is Here.

2009-01-26T22:44:00.000-08:00

Wow, blogosphere, it's been a minute. Happy new year.

"Change" arrived in a big way last week, and I'm not just talking about Socialism. I finally got around to getting myself fitted for glasses. This is a big deal for me... Sometime in the late 1990's, I developed a severe (and completely irrational) fear of anything remotely related to hospitals and medical offices. I have no idea why it happened or what brought it on, but as a result, I've avoided doctors of every variety for well over a decade. But in the last 3 weeks, I've forced myself to make it through 2 painful dental visits and an eye exam. That's change you can count on.

I don't really "need" glasses. Technically, I should wear them because my left eye is bad, but my right eye compensates for it so well that, for all practical purposes, my vision is perfect (I can read the smallest line on the eye chart with no problem). So needless to say, I was rather irked to find out that the glasses actually make me see worse. I'm told I need to let my eyes "adjust." That seems completely backwards to me, like breaking my legs so they can fit into crutches.

A Little Holiday Spirit.

2008-11-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

Last year I wrote and illustrated a story for the Hard 8 Vol. 2 graphic novel titled, A Little Holiday Spirit. Its a Christmas story, and with turkey sandwiches on the dinner menu and December firmly in our sights, I felt like sharing it with you. I've posted bits and pieces of the artwork here before, but now I'm posting it all, in its entirety.

If you've got a few minutes, put on some warm slippers, pop in some Vince Guaraldi, and give it a read. You can click on each page below, or you can scroll thru the whole thing > here. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas!

FOP Season 6 on DVD.

2008-11-19T11:56:00.001-08:00

Just a quick one for my 100th blog post... Season 6 of The Fairly Odd Parents was released on DVD yesterday. In addition to being the first ever FOP season on DVD, it also includes my first-ever animation work. Pretty cool, pretty cool. I'll definitely be picking this up. You should too, so they can make more and I can continue to have a job to pay for bread and milk in the coming months.

Rocksteady 2: Clean-up.

2008-11-10T00:40:00.000-08:00

I like my lines like I like my work area and my bed sheets - clean and crisp. I'm not particularly good at clean-up, and certainly not as good as I'd like to be, but I really enjoy this part of the process - I look forward to it even while I'm still working out the rough sketch. That seems odd, since I mentioned before that I sometimes find the sketching process to be stressful. I would imagine that, ordinarily, one would find the clean-up process to be more stressful, simply due to the precision and control required. But most of the time, I have a lot of fun doing it.

Originally, for a split second, I thought about arming Rocksteady with a huge, over-the-top X-Men/Cable kind of weapon, but I quickly decided that an Uzi was more his style. He's definitely an automatic weapon kind of rhino. However, the Uzi was too similar to his head in both size and shape, so I decided a longer rifle would break up the composition better. The version on the right also has on a helmet, but I haven't decided if I like it enough to keep it yet. It goes with the rest of his get-up, but I think it makes him look less menacing, more stupid (but then, that stays true to his character, I suppose).

Prismacolor Sketches

2008-11-02T22:50:00.000-08:00

The wife needed my Powerbook for a Bible study presentation last night, leaving me without the distraction of the internet (and without any means of drawing digitally). I sat down with a brush pen and some old fashioned Prismacolor pencils and spent a little time drawing - just for the fun of it. I had no intentions of creating anything pretty - and to that end, these sketches are really not worth posting. But I'm posting them anyway, in light of my previous post, because I had a few moments of great fun drawing them. I really enjoyed playing with colored pencils, something I haven't done it a long while. It felt much like it used to feel when I was a kid.

Rocksteady 1: The Process.

2008-10-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

Every time I sit down to draw, I'm reminded of a painful truth: drawing is hard. And because its hard, I don't do it often enough. And because I don't do it often enough, it remains hard.

When I was a kid, I drew all day long. I just picked up a pencil and got right to it. The finer points, like composition and anatomy, didn't matter back then. There was no thinking, just doing. Drawing was always fun, never stressful. But somewhere along the way, that changed. I became aware of those finer points, and they became stumbling blocks for me. They took some of the fun out of drawing, much in the same way a clean line strips a rough drawing of life and energy (all of this is evident in the drawings below).

This is not drawing's fault - it's mine. Like I said, I don't draw enough, and so, I remain weaker in the areas that intimidate me and keep me from sitting down at the table and just having fun with it. The hardest part for me, specifically, lies in taking my initial rough and making sense of it, anatomically, in a final, clean drawing.

As Rocksteady here illustrates, I usually start with some horribly ugly sketches. Then, I draw the same thing over and over and over again, each time trying something different. I chip away at it, drawing and re-drawing, until it starts to come together. I know I'm not the only artist who works this way, but at times it feels less like exploration and more like trail and error. Sometimes I wonder if it's supposed to be this... tedious. I enjoy the process, but I just wish I was better and faster (especially when I see the work of peers I admire, and it looks like they're banging out masterpieces with no effort). Obviously, I'm sharing my flaws here, which isn't easy, but I suppose the only way to get better is to face the problem head-on, apply directly to the forehead, and break the cycle by drawing more. I've got some more tweaking to do on this one - the silhouette was clearer in original roughs - but it's getting there.

I plan to do a whole set of TMNT illustrations. It's odd, in a way, that I haven't done that yet, considering that these characters are what first inspired me to begin drawing so many years ago. I suppose it's fitting that I'm using them to push myself farther now.

Time Off...

2008-10-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Man. Have I been MIA or what? I had an wonderful month off in between seasons of The Fairly Odd Parents... I had dinner with friends whom I haven't seen in over a decade, took a houseboat trip with the guys, was a groomsman in the wedding of one of my best friends, cleaned my entire house from top to bottom (I'm a clean freak), and re-organized my garage. The only thing I didn't do was draw. Maybe I should feel guilty, but I don't. It was nice to "live" for a bit, and the time off was all too fleeting (I've been back at work for three weeks already). I'm currently working on a new show that I probably can't talk about yet, but I'll be back on FOP in a month or so.

Speaking of FOP, here's some stuff I did for last season (I'm the colorist - the designs are by our talented prop and character designers), and a couple pics of my garage (I'm proud of my garage - must be a guy thing). I like to change the posters from time to time - this time around, I took down the Incredibles set and "Made Mine Marvel." And yes, this is just blog-filler until I get some new work done... I've got another Ninja Turtle itch to scratch, so I hope to have more TMNT-related illustrations soon.