Neon Stingrays Rays complete design portfolio

I posted this same video on Instagram, showing a compilation of some of the designs that I have been working on for this story. What you are seeing here is some of the work that I have been working on in the past year condensed into a video that is under a minute. Character design sketches, finished digitally colored character designs, costume designs, logo designs, linoleum block prints, weapon designs and a vehicle design. All of which took a lot of time to complete. So if I'm spending a long amount of time on this, it really means whole lot to me. Thank you for taking the time to view this blog. I appreciate your support.

Neon Sting Rays Jet Ski Design

Its been a little while since I have worked on any designs for my story. My goal this past weekend was to do the research, draw and get this vehicle design complete. So on Saturday, I spent a few hours looking up and drawing jet skis. On Sunday, I tried to take what I learned and apply it to designing a stingray shaped jet ski. After several rough sketch on Sunday, I felt I was sort of getting there. I then proceeded to give it another shot on Monday and finally came to a final developed result.

This is the vehicle that Jimmy Fishbone would ride. In the final color version you can see the area between the seat and handlebars where he would keep his bat. I’m thinking for the other characters vehicles I may have to alter their designs to accommodate their specific weapons to fit properly.

Rosa Laguna Design

Another gang member of the Neon Stingrays, Rosa Laguna. I've been chiseling away at this drawing for the past week and a half. 

This is her weapon. A mace that turns into a morning star whip. The neon electricity from her body powers the neon whip that shoots out of the staff. 

Jimmy Fishbone and his Weapon

This is a very Raw Pencil version of this character colored in Photoshop. It was done very quickly and I feel the new story will fit this raw style. However, I did decide to expand upon this character more. I wanted to define his baseball bat weapon a little better

I decided to zero in on this weapon and create a version where it looked like the axe pieces would come out of the sides of the bat from a glowing green center. The crystal piece would fit in the base of the grip area. In order for Jimmy to electrically power his bat and allow the axe blades to protrude, he would squeeze the grip and his tattoos would electrically charge the bat and transform it into a new axe weapon.

This version was meant to be a lot cleaner and emphasizing the character's electric tattoos in addition to his baseball bat morphing into an axe.

 I took this concept a whole step further and created an elaborate animated gif illustrating how the axe would work. In the process, I learned that in order for the axe blades to come out of the green area of the bat, they would need to be a little smaller. So, in the end the axe blades are really not physical blades that need to fit inside the bat. I think of them more as a green electrically charged central crystal that forms the shape of the blades.

This will be another set of characters that can each be a self sufficient energy source in the Swashbuckling Steve Silverado Universe.

Neon Sting Rays High Seas Biker Gang

Developing a High Seas Punk Rock Biker Gang that will exist in the new Swashbuckling Steve Silverado Universe. I don't want to say too much about this gang only that they also have the capability to power electronics with their bodies. I want to start conceptualizing "Sting Ray Jetski/Chopper Bike Hybrid Vehicles" that they will ride on. Also, I have some ideas about possible weapons they may use.

This Character name is Jimmy Fishbone and he is the leader of the Neon Sting Rays. 

From left to right the member of the Neon Sting Rays are:

Tony Mackarel, Jimmy Fishbone and Rosa Laguna

Captain Blackberry Beard and His Crew

This composition that I decided to work on would sum up all of the character designs that I completed in the past few months. My goal was to draw Captain Blackberry Beard on his ship with his Bluejay "Tweakus" on his shoulder and his crew of the Impazoid's behind him.

                                              This is the first rough sketch that I completed.

This is a tighter version that I light tabled over the original sketch. I also decided to copy the original sketch and reduce the size around 90% so you could see more of the chainsword on the character to the left.

I established that The lighting will be at night with a pale moon backlight and the Impazoids almost completely in darkness. Captain Blackberry Beard you will be able to see a little in the darkness but the main focal point in the composition will be his glowing purple beard and the glowing eyes and torsos of the Impazoids. I attached a small cropped area of what the coloring will look like. 

Captain Blackberry Beard's Pirate Ship

I've been doing tons of drawing the past two weeks to flesh out my design for Captain Blackberry Beard's Ship. I would post some of the dozens of drawings that I did to get to this point but it would probably take me all day to scan all of them and upload them on this site.

First, I researched sail boats and pirate ships and started drawing several different styles. I also found a pirate ship model at a local flea market that aided in this design. My friend Joe Dillon lent me a book on Sail boats, my other friend Chuck Kivlen gave me a motorcycle toy that had a Shark's head on it and my friend Tom Johnson gave me a book about the North Carolina Pirates. These all helped me out.

The design that I had in my head was a pirate ship that would be built using old powerlines as masts and a robot shark head at the front of the boat. Bluish Purple would be a dominating glowing color that would indicate that the ship is powered by Blackberry Beard's "Purple Electricity".

Next I researched sharks, shark heads and how other artists handled designing a robot shark. The main focus for me was to establish a simple shape for the shark's head and figure out how it's jaw would open and close. This was the most difficult of the whole design and took the most research and drawing.

While I was drawing the shark heads, I started studying different powerlines and began to notice them more when I was driving my car. There were several that I noticed such as simple ones made of wood, huge cylindrical steel ones and other ones composed of intersecting steel beams that formed X's. For the masts of the ship I decided to go with those designs simply because they almost completely simplify a ship's mast and cargo nets that a pirate can climb. Basically, by using the X design, the mast head not only serves as the support for the sails but can also be climbed by the pirates without the use of a cargo net.

As I was designing the entire shape of the boat, I came to a conclusion that the fin on top of the Shark's head can serve another purpose in addition to simply reinforcing that the ship is a shark. Traditionally in old pirate novels, there is always a plank that pirates make their prisoners walk in hopes of having them eaten by sharks. Instead of doing that with my ship, I decided that the purple segments of the fin would extend out toward the center of the ship and create a series of stairs to the top of the fin. When someone walks up the stairs to the top, the curvature of the fin can be a sliding board that Blackberry Beard forces his victims down which would land them directly in front of the shark's face. Then the shark would chomp the victim away.