A Swing and A Miss...

Gobber's New Drinking Mate
Based on "How to Train Your Dragon".

The Noodle Dream
Based on "Kung Fu Panda".

Not the Gumdrop Buttons!
Based on "Shrek".

Back in late January/early February I was invited to submit artwork for a show with DreamWorks pictures. I was asked to do rough samples first. Using inspiration from three well known movies. I would then offer these samples up for judging, to see if I would do finished images for the actual show.

I comped out three images, which is really hard to do when you have such great source material, and you also wanna do right by the artists and actors that made the films.
Did the rough drawings, ported them to Photoshop and colored it to convey my ideas before sending them off for the screening. I was then busy for the following few weeks and didn't think too much about the outcome of the images.

Some time after sending the work I'd gotten word from the show organizers that only one of the three images I'd submitted met approval. So, I wasn't gonna participate in the show. I liked these images and I'm sorry they didn't meet approval, perhaps I'll revisit them on my own time...

I'm posting these now because they've seemed to haunt me little over the past few months. They've even kind of hampered my work in a new set of show images that I'd recently sent out. Thankfully, I feel like I'm starting to come back out of my shell now with my work. Frequently, I too closely identify my artwork as "ME" and when work doesn't go over well I take it a little too personally. I've got to constantly remember, to move forward in the future, dwell less on the past. There are many years of image making ahead of me and I'm sure to create some unsuccessful images in that time. But, would like to continue believing that the work will ultimately end up improving and gain positive recognition.

But for now I'm going to share them with you. I'd also like to further acknowledge that these characters are property of DreamWorks pictures, and thank them for letting me take a crack at submitting for the show. These are great movies, and i was honored to be involved..

I warmly invite you to check the stuff out and lemme know what you think... feedback/critique is appreciated...
And as always, I hope you dig...

P