Month: October 2008

Monsters of Breakfast (5 of 5): The Bite Stuff… PLUS WALLPAPER!

~ J.Ho ~ 3 Comments
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.

The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.

It’s Halloween, and here’s the dude everyone has been waiting for–Count Chocula! Okay, maybe not everyone has been waiting for him, but the handful of people interested in this series of sketches have been waiting. Probably.

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Naturally, my interpretation of Count Chocula is based on his vampiric Darkstalkers counterpart, Demitri. This one was a lot of fun for me. I couldn’t tell you why exactly… it’s possible that I just enjoyed it more because it came together pretty easily. In particular, I’m happy with how the purply-brown color scheme and billowing cape turned out.

The pieces in this series were designed with a group composition in mind, so I’ve whipped up some wallpapers. For your convienience, both fullscreen and widescreen versions are available below. Happy Halloween!

click above for 1280 x 1024 (Fullscreen)

click above for 1920 x 1200 (Widescreen)

Monsters of Breakfast (4 of 5): Keep ‘Em In Stitches

~ J.Ho ~ 4 Comments
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.

The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.

Now we’re finally getting to the heavy hitters–I present to you, Franken Berry! He’s alive… HE’S ALIVE!

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Rather than ramble on about whatever, I’ll let you all go about your business–you probably need to finish the last minute touches on your Halloween costumes. I’m dressing as a weirdo cartoonist who barricades himself in his apartment drawing obscure nerdy characters while watching cartoons and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I guess it’s not so much a costume as much as on-going performance art. On-going for the past 31 years.

Monsters of Breakfast (3 of 5): Ghost of a Chance

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.

The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.

In terms of recognizability, today’s subject probably falls on the median–surely many of you must be accquainted with Boo Berry. In terms of back-story, I imagine Boo Berry was a jazz singer (something of a dandy) from New Orleans, who got involved with some criminals and was killed. His ghost can be seen haunting the New Orleans night, singing mournful jazz ballads, and battling supernatural creatures with his powerful super moves and combos. I’m not sure where the blueberries enter into the equation.

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I’m unsatisfied with how Boo Berry’s ghostly aura turned out… it doesn’t really read.

Is anyone sick of my punny non-sequitur titles? I know I am, but I’ve set a precedent, so my hands are tied.

Monsters of Breakfast (2 of 5): Fur Real

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.

The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.

Today, I present the most obscure of the General Mills monster pantheon, Fruit Brute. You will note that I maturely refrain from making any jokes about his name.

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I basically drew Fruit Brute as a palette swap of Jon Talbain wearing overalls. Horrible, multi-colored overalls, as per the source material. So, yeah… werewolves are cool.

._.

Monsters of Breakfast (1 of 5): All Wrapped Up

~ J.Ho ~ 2 Comments
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.

The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.

The Reason: I love Capcom’s character design style. Capcom’s art direction is amongst the most influential in video games in general, and particularly with 2-D fighting games. I often find myself looking at a random character and wondering what it would look like as a character in a Capcom fighting game. So, fusing that mode of thinking with breakfast cereal and the Halloween season, here we are.

First up, Yummy Mummy:

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I kept Yummy Mummy’s basic colors, but rather than giving him multi-colored bandages, I redistributed those colors to parts of his re-designed costume. The added accoutrements are based loosely on those of Anakaris (the mummy character from Darkstalkers). The ceremonial thingy (i think that’s the technical term) draped over his shoulders looks awkward–I was trying to emulate the geometric, almost blocky quality of Anakaris’s design, but it didn’t quite work out.

Something for the Season…

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment
I’m very excited–Dear Dracula, a 48-page hardcover children’s book, published by Image Comics, and created by my dear friends, Josh and Vinny, will be available for purchase this Wednesday (October 15, 2008)! If you can’t find it at your local comic book shop or book store, you might try Amazon.com.

The book tells the story of a funny kid named Sam, who’s obsessed with Dracula, and decides to write him a letter–honestly folks, a fantastic all-ages book, especially for the Halloween season.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I was inspired to cook up a little Dear Dracula fan art:

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I promised something more substantial today, and I delivered, right? I mean, come on, background, multiple characters, what more could you ask for? A better composition you say? Yeah, okay, this composition is a little weird. Bah, forget my fan art, just go buy the real thing. Seriously.

Laugh it up, Fuzzball…

~ J.Ho ~ 2 Comments
I was playing with a sepia colored brush pen, and this is what happened:

That’s the not the actual piece of paper that I drew the wookie on, I just complusively felt the need to dress up this otherwise simple sketch. I confess, this is a somewhat lazy post. Let’s see if I can cook up something substantial for my next post.

Going Green (Part 4 of 4)

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment
When I was kicking around this impossible-in-reality idea for the Green Lantern Corps, the idea of using alien species from non-DC Universe franchises, was really just for flavor–I had some actual plot ideas as well. The biggest plot point was that Sinestro would be reinstated into the Green Lantern Corps (as he had been during the events of Emerald Twilight). The key to this idea was that it wasn’t a short term turn of events to be quickly undone, rather it would be the new status quo–whatever his intentions, Sinestro would have been working with the good guys for an extended period of time:

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Believe it or not, I drew this sketch some time ago, long before the Rebirth storyline–so the resemblance to Sinestro’s current uniform is actually just a coincidence. Of course, as a result of the aforementioned Rebirth storyline, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to write a credible story rehabilitating Sinestro in any way, shape, or form. I’m okay with that, because not only do I dig Sinestro’s current uniform (I even drew it once… sort of), I think the storyline of the Green Lantern(s) has been hitting all the right notes in recent years. But if Geoff Johns ever gets sick of his job, I’ll be glad to take over.

Going Green (Part 3 of 4)

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment
Today’s post is probably my favorite of the set (I know, I always seem to shoot myself in the foot by posting my favorite sketch in a set second-to-last, but there’s a good reason the next post is the last in the set). Anyways, here’s a rookie Rodian Green Lantern:

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For my first take on this guy (left), I gave him the traditional Green Lantern insignia, but on the second take (right), I gave him Kyle Rayner‘s insignia, to emphasize his rookie persona. The next post is NOT a Green Lantern whose species originates from outside the DC Universe.