Pete's Sketch Blog

Random lot

2011-08-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Ive been working hard animating on Almost Naked Animals. I haven't had this much fun animating since I worked on George of the Jungle. Its just that kind of cartoon that loves to be a cartoon. This is now my fifth show! Time flies.

Besides that I've been working on that aforementioned comic, and its making fantastic progress. So far I'm 35 pages in, and 10 pages inked. Nothing to show you right now regarding that though, its just not time yet. But soon! You've seen glimpses of it here and there already on this blog. Anything with the bear in the t-shirt is part of it.

Today though, I thought I would just post the random sketch stuff that I always do. I never stop drawing even if life is filled with kids, cartoons and comics. This stuff below is just a bunch of doodles on the side. I hope ya dig it anyway.
Take care,
Pete

PS! Don't forget to check out my portfolio blog. It has my demo reel on there if you wanna see some of the animation I've done:

http://balsanoportfolio.blogspot.com/

A MegaMan character my 3 year old son made up!

More doodles

2011-05-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Sir Allen Quartermain sketch inspired by Jean "Mœbius" Giraud`s Blueberry comics.

Just playin around with differant drawing styles in my sketch book.

Cartoon doodles!

2011-05-09T05:59:00.000-07:00

A bunch of Bugs and Daffy and Tom to enjoy. I love tryin to draw these guys. Sometimes I just freezeframe the cartoons when I'm watching them and draw from there.

In Honour of Thorsday, Marvel Doodles Part 2

2011-05-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

THE Shocker!

Mary Jane Watson (and Peter Pan?!?!)

Young Spidy

Slightly older Spidy

Spiderman Roughs Gallery

The Cyclops doodle

Random X-heads

THE XMEN

Random Marvel sketches! Part 1

2011-04-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

The Iron Patriot ink doodle! How awesome was Seige? Very awesome!

The great and mighty Thor, God of Thunder! One of my favorite heros.

Quicksilver, aka fast weirdo. The extra speedlines are courtasy of my son William.

And for some reason I draw Spiderman and his supporting cast constantly. I guess I love the web head.

More to come of my Marvel doodles soon. I'm always inspired by the House of Ideas.

More Sketches

2011-04-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

Heres todays dose of doodles. Enjoy!

Next up: A collection of cartoon characters that I was playing around with. See ya soon.

More sketches! And a new scanner!

2011-04-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

I never stop drawing, even when I'm flooded with animation work. I can't help it, cause I love it. But anyway, heres a BUNCH of new stuff to enjoy. Its mostly from my 2010 sketchbooks. Hope you like it.
Also, a brand new scanner means better quality images to post.

Hop over to my portfolio page if you want to check my new updated demo reel and online portfolio:
My portfolio blog

2009 Sketchbooks Part 2

2010-05-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

Hey there!
So, I'm deep into this next contract, and I just remembered that I wanted to post the rest of 2009's sketchbooks. So, hopefully I will fit most of it in this post, and if not then there will be a part three. I remembered that I wanted to update this when I polished off another sketchbook! So the first sketchbook of 2010 is officially finished. I will try and scan in the better parts of it soon and post it. I'm really happy with most of it. Until then, enjoy the rest of last years work. Some of these I will make sure I scan in and re-post for better quality.

Astro!

My wife!

My son!

No relation!

He is the walrus, coo coo cachoo..

Mr. Layton! Extremely fun game, this was copied from its promotional art.

Disney cow...

Trying so hard to draw like Milt Kahl.

My wife and cat!

Da goof!

And more Milt Kahl attempts. Nowhere close.

Um...more Milt Kahl....

I redraw allot of the same characters from the two story's I've written. I'm always trying to work out different features and trying new things on them. Adding different influences into them. Playing with the idea of them until I am ready to draw the comic. From all my stuff I think you should be able to see two different sets of characters that are from these two story's. One involves that bear, and the other involves the character with the gem around his neck. Wait until you see the pages when the final story's are tied down. The first drafts are done, and I'm just working out the second drafts. I'm just having a blast working on them, and I'm in no rush to finish.

Well thats it for 2009's sketchbooks. Next up is the first 2010 sketch book. I'm still drawing everyday. Also, you can look forward to some comic pages soon. I've been taking whatever spare time I have to draw out a story I wrote for my son. So far its about eight pages drawn, and two pages inked. It may be awhile before that stuff gets posted. I wont post it until the first chapter is finished. Anyway, thats all for now and thanks for lookin.

Pete

2009 Sketchbooks

2009-12-17T07:35:00.001-08:00

YAY! I'm all finished working on the Wibbly Pig cartoon. You can catch it here in Canada on TVO KIDS at noon, Monday through Friday.
Over the year I've been really busy animating for the show, and all told, I managed to animate 55 minutes in total! BUT, on top of that I sketched everyday, and managed to fill up 2 sketchbooks. Which I'll be posting here over the next little bit.
My scanner is busted so I took pictures of the pages, so that's why they look like they do. Incidentally, I like how they look this way more then when I scan them in! Anyway, a few of these I'll be cleaning up and colouring and reposting, but I figure why wait to post the raw pages. So enough blabbing, here's the first sketchbook (well the first half of it anyway).
My drawing was getting really stiff so for this sketchbook I decided to do it on line paper, and with a regular blue pen, just to have fun with the drawing and not worry about doing something really clean. That's what drawing is supposed to be right...fun.

Things to come:
The rest of this sketchbook.

A whole other sketchbook.

And an updated demo reel, featuring just Wibbly Pig animation.

BG Commission

2008-09-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,
I guess its ok to post these now. These are a commission I did for my pal Joel Duggan over at Animafax Entertainment. Check out the site at http://animafax.com/ and also Joels killer blog of funny comics and puking dragons at http://www.animafax.com/joelduggan/ . Also, all images below are copyright http://www.deeptrench.com/ .
I thought I would show the progress of these also, just because I really like to see them layed out that way.
They start with the rough thumbnails of course.

Then I do a tighter pencil job. At this point I know that I'm going to be cleaning the images in Flash, so I don't take to long with nice line work. Their main purpose is clarifying the layout and detail of the whole image. You can see that edits were made at each stage to make the images stronger.

I finished them by cleaning them up in Flash.

I don't have copies of the coloured finished pieces, just because Joel did the colouring.
He wanted to colour them so that they would sync up with the rest of the bgs in his cartoon.
I did get a copy of the finished cartoon and was really happy with how they fit in without taking away from any of the storytelling.

I hope you like these, I was happy with how they turned out in the end.

Cheers,

Pete

Demo Reel Time

2008-08-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sketchbook

2008-08-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,
I was just flipping through one of last years sketch books and I thought I would post some of the pages. Hope ya like it! These are good examples of how I break down my animation. The keys were provided in the boards, but I always went in and streighthened them and redrew them. Some people thought this was a waist of time because the whole thing was in flash, but doing this really helped me understand the characters and also gave me time to think and plan out the animation for that scene. Doing these actually spead me up.

This is my pal Rene. I was trying to draw his likeness and then break it down to less and less lines until all that remained was a character with as few lines as possible. Its a fun excersise.

Thats it for now.

Pete

Brand New Day

2008-07-11T18:57:00.001-07:00

Here's some recent sketches. Not much to say about them. Still working on my girls, and the spidy was really fun to do. Hope ya like em. uhh...sorry for the boobs...

Cheers,

Pete

Learning from Masters

2008-07-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

First some work work:

This time I thought I would post some of my drawing studies. For instance, after drawing at least a hundred women for work...I ended up with some women like these...

Here they are coloured and cleaned... And this...yeesh... I realised that I needed more practice drawing my women more attractive, less stiff and just overall more sexy. So, I dug up some masters and started copying from them. That's the best way to learn I think.

Here are two examples and I might post some more later.

The first one is the great Frank Cho...

and my try at it.

And this one is the legendary Frank Frazetta.

And my attempt at his greatness.

Anyway, that's the name of the game. Never stop learning, cause you can always get better.

Cheers,

Pete

PS: Here's a quick doodle I did for my pal Syd.

PPS: Somemore work work...

Wolverine Sketch

2008-06-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

Just a quick Wolverine sketch I did last night.

I liked how it turned out so I added some colours to it today.

Hope ya like it!

Cheers

Pete

Optimus Prime Part 1

2008-06-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hey folks.

So here's the sketch of Optimus Prime.

And I cleaned the lines up in photoshop.

The colours should be up soon, stay tooned!

Cheers!
Pete

Milo and Redo Part 2

2008-06-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. Here is the final picture. It just needed some small tweeks here and there. Hope you like it.

Milo and Redo Part 1

2008-06-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

Hey folks!

Here is the next picture I'm working on. Its not finished yet but I thought I would post some of the stages like I did for the last one.

First the pencils...

I cleaned the lines right in photoshop unlike the last picture. I'm just trying out differant things all the time. I think I like the line work from the last picture better. Then I added some base tones...

And finally some colours. Its not finished yet. I still have to tighten some spots up (like the colours around Redo, the little grey thing) and fix that damn fire. I just didn't know what to do with the fire, so I'm going to look some referance up and fix it. Anyway, part 2 will have the final picture.

Cheers!

Pete

Pans Gator Part 2

2008-05-23T07:26:00.001-07:00

Hey there part 2!

Okay, so here is the final Pans Gator picture. Hope ya like it! There's going to be alot more pictures from this series coming up.

Pans Gator Part 1

2008-05-10T09:19:00.001-07:00

Hey there!

I thought you might like to see what I'm working on. This is the first piece that fits in it.

I started with the sketch that I scanned in.

Then I brought it into Flash and cleaned up the line work. This is great because after, when I bring it into Photoshop, there's no messing with sketch lines and junk. Just a nice clean line that has weight to it. I'm still working on my line weight in Flash, so it's not quite as good as it could be.

Then finally I coloured it in Photoshop. I'm still new at doing this so I don't have too many tricks to work with, but every time I do it I experiment and figure more out.

Anyway, this is part one. The final has two more characters and a background to complete the scene. I hope it turns out as cool as I see it in my head.

Wolverine!

2008-03-26T16:17:00.001-07:00

Alrighty. Here's some new sketches. Random comic type stuff. Hope you like it.

The gallery of floating heads! LOOOOKKK OUT!

Next up: Some BGs...background funtime

Pixel dust

2008-03-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

Howdy. Here's some more fun stuff.
This ones Pudgy, my favorite cartoon dog of all time. He's from Betty Boop. Classic.

Good ol' Fred. I love the design of the Flintstones. From the characters to the bgs, everything about it. It just makes you feel good to watch it. I drew these while I was watching.

Some Jungle book shtuff.

And here's a picture of my wife adapted from one of our wedding photos.

Next up, some more comic stuff.

Random fun

2008-03-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

Some more sketches.

This ones from me copying Frazetta:

These are inspired from Ditko and Kirby:

Preston Blair Lessons

2008-03-13T05:35:00.001-07:00

I copied these out of the Cartoon Animation book by Preston Blair. Just some practice drawings.

More Bugs!

2008-03-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

Man, he's just the best. Anyway here's another shot at drawing bugs from a screen shot. These are tough to do and you can see here I didn't get it in the first try. I still didn't nail the way the head is tilted.

The Echo

2008-03-06T14:55:00.001-08:00

Here's a design I'm sketching up for a giant machine that will appear in a comic that I'm making.

Its called the Echo and its the size of a small city. It moves using those grinders at its base. I'll keep posting stuff about the new comic as it comes. This still isn't done, but it's coming along pretty good so I wanted to post it. I've had this damn machine in my head for years and couldn't figure out how to get it on paper until I started looking at some Yoshitaka Amano stuff. The man is amazing. Anyway, hope ya like it.

Random stuff sitting in my sketch folder

2008-02-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

These are some of my sketches from the sketch folder I keep on my computer. Just thought they were gonna gather pixel dust so why not share them. Theres no real time frame on when I did these. I'm drawing everyday and scanning in the ones that I like. These could be a day old up to 6 months old by now. Anyway, hope you like them.

yes...thats Jim Richards, haha

These last ones are from a cartoon I'm doing in my free time. Theres a couple differant cartoons I have on the go. This one is called Gueseppe's Toy Shoppe. I haven't completed my own cartoon since school, but if anyone wants to check them out here are two of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbcRavR0yo
Camping 101 with Lenny Gerrits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lM6fewGIng
Frankenflops Monster

Conan VS Raccoon

2008-02-24T19:09:00.000-08:00

Conan Obrians having trouble with a raccoon. These are some of my suggestions for him to get that raccoon down. Sorry about the spelling.... The wrestler is for a monthly drawing thing I do with some friends of mine.

Some new stuff

2008-01-25T19:24:00.001-08:00

Here's the rest of the Avengers page, and a picture of Iron Man.

Also one just for fun, haha.

More to come!

Avengers BG

2008-01-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Here's panel 1 of my next Marvel submission. This is a shot of

Avenger's mansion.

First Ink job ever

2007-12-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

So here is that hulk picture inked. I'm not very good at inking because I just started, but I sure learned alot doing this. Like not to brush ink overtop of blue pencil because the blue pencil led is waxy and the ink does set in nicely like it should. But anyway, thats how you learn right? I didn't think I would enjoy inking this much. It was actually really fun.

more sketcheeeeeeeeeees

2007-12-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

Alright, so here's some more BGs from that last thing I did at work, not to interesting but I like the colours, and the style of it. Again inspired by that Tweety bird short.

Also I'm gonna ink this up and post it soon. I'm not to great at inking so we'll see how it goes.

some Disney stuff, and a bg

2007-12-19T11:59:00.001-08:00

Heres some drawings I sketched of Disney characters right out of the Illusion of Life book. I like doing this because its good practice. Though sometimes, as in the tiger drawings, I really mess

ed up some of the proportions. Man, I am constantly reminded at how great Milt Kahl was... Also my scanner was on the fritz so I just took pictures of the stuff.

Anyway to mix it up I thought I would throw a BG I did for work today. Its reallllly inspired by the Jackel and Hyde Tweety Bird cartoon.
Next time I might get some more comic type stuff on here, we'll see. I'm really having fun doing this blog thing. It's giving me somewhere to put all these sketches instead of in a pile next my desk, haha.

Comic Sketches and shhhhtuff

2007-12-18T07:30:00.001-08:00

Hey! Here's a bunch of comic type stuff I've been sketchin. The Residant Evil one I did last night. My best friend and I are beyond addicted to that game....its just perfect, thats all there is to it.

The Leon is sketched from the book that comes with the game, and the Ashley is mine...room to grow, thats all I gotta say about that. The punisher pic is for another Marvel submission, but I'm thinking of starting that over because man, he is just looking stiff as a board...

and the spidys were quick sketches while I was warmin up the drawing hand for work.

Hope ya likes it, whoevers watchin...haha

Next I'll put up some disney characters I've been sketchin out of the Illusion of Life book.

More John K stuff...

2007-12-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

I promise that this whole blog wont just stuff drawn from the John K blog, but, ha ha, it's been really helpful lately.

Anyway, these are some drawings I did from some videos he posted a while back.

P.S... I have a really bad scanner...sorry

John K test

2007-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a test that was recently posted on the john K blog, http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/ thought I would give it a shot. These kinds of tests really show you were you need to improve your skills, haha.

Heres the pictures I used to draw from.

drawin

2007-12-14T10:09:00.001-08:00

These are all skeches I did from freeze framing some great Loony Toons cartoons. I read about trying this on the John K blog and its really a blast.

Here are the bugs images I used, you should give it a try!