*gasp*

coming up for air. oh my busy.

We're in the middle of our quarterly deadlines at work...things should be dying down in the next couple weeks though and I'll have time to do some art again at home. There's a bunch of new things I want to try and am looking forward to having some free time.

fling.

[click to enlarge]

A quick sketch I worked on recently. It started out as just squiggly lines till i saw some hair and i went with it. I also seem to be on an upward facing camera kick with this and "untitled". This was in Photoshop CS2, I was also messing around with the brush settings to try to get the individual bristles look.

sup

** crickets **

Been super busy with some deadlines at work lately. I just wanted to chime in and say that I'll be posting some things in the upcoming days. Its tough I guess knowing how often to update. I started this as a post whenever deal but things got off to a really good start and I felt like I had to keep posting to maintain the experience for repeat visitors but at some point that starts feeling forced and I think the quality of the work will dip. I also have a ton of email I have fallen behind on, so if you wrote me please forgive the delay in replying.

untitled

[click to enlarge]

I had done this last week and wasn't sure if I should post it or not but I guess thats the point of this blog so here it is. I couldn't decide on a title because anything I thought of was adding a lot more meaning to the image and it wasn't speaking for itself. So here it is unfiltered.

Nico Bellic

Niko Bellic of Grand Theft Auto IV

[click to enlarge]

Here is an image I did for Official Playstation Magazine UK which is in their latest issue. I had a hard time getting it to look exactly like the game model because I started out with an illustration that I realized later was a bit different than the game. So after the fact, I started messing with it to try to get him closer to the game model.

This image involved a lot more illustration on my part than the other ones too since I was changing the lighting compared to my source image.

Anyway, enjoy!

* UPDATE * ugh,.... you'd think after all this time I would have spelled Niko right. thanks Brian.

rEvolve.

couldnt sleep, gettin some drawing done to get it out of my system

randomness.

Been a bit quiet here lately as I catch up on some errands and work. A word about upcoming things; I'll be posting the Nico Bellic image next week probably on Monday or Tuesday as thats when it hits newsstands in the UK. At the risk of losing a bit of my audience I'm going to be taking a break from untoonings as I feel like exploring some other concepts. I'll probably come back to them from time to time as I'm inspired to.

In the mean time, here are a few neat sites I've come across this week.

http://www.notcot.org/
http://www.graffiticreator.net/
http://www.drawergeeks.com/
http://www.vectorpark.com/etc/spider.html

CGUNIT.NET

I ran across this blog a couple months ago by checking referring traffic sources and felt like I had to share it. It seems pretty popular already, but its new to me, so I'm posting it in case others haven't seen it before.

Incredibly amazing collection of art and photography from different artists that I find very inspiring.

http://www.cgunit.net/
(some images potentially NSFW)

check it.

Stewie Griffin Untooned

Stewie Griffin

[click to enlarge]

Gotta run this morning, but I'll post this and talk a bit more about the process later this weekend. One thing I'll say its definitely harder to get that "realistic" look with smooth skin. This seems pretty illustrated compared to Homer and Mario. Anyway, cheers, enjoy!

* UPDATE * I got a date on the Official Playstation Magazine UK magazine of Nico Bellic. It'll be on shelves June 16th, check it out if you're in the UK or somewhere that has it!

randomness.

Ok so I'm about 85% done with Stewie. I know I said it'd be done awhile ago but i only found time to really get into last night. Here is a preview:

I definitely plan on finishing and posting this by noon Saturday the latest. This time for real!

One thing I'm noticing is that these smooth skinned ones are hard to make "real". When you see the Stewie one, I think it will look a lot more drawn than Homer or Mario just by the fact that there isn't that much texture to toddler skin, as was the case with Jessica Rabbit.

On another note I've finished a Nico Bellic (of GTAIV) image that was done for Official Playstation Magazine UK which will be published in one of their upcoming issues. When i know final details I'll let you all know here.

worth1000.com

Someone passed this along. Pretty cool to see a whole bunch of untooning going on.

Link: Worth1000.com RealToons

Looking through it looks like someone beat me to Stewie, and used the exact same pose I was using :\ Oh well, I think I'll pick a new Stewie image to start from. I can reuse about 90% of what i've already done, so it'll be fine. I'm not gonna say when its done since i missed the last deadline ;)

* UPDATE * I think it's important to remain encouraging to those who are trying new things. Considering the amount of time people had to do these (2 days) its fun to see and some of them are pretty good :)

Stewie...

I've been quiet for a bit but just wanted to update and let you know that I'm about half-way done with Stewie Griffin. The head is pretty much done but i'm doing a fullbody one this time so the clothes are taking longer than I want it to. I'll probably post it sometime this weekend. If not then Monday the latest.

cheers.

* UPDATE * I didn't end up recording the process this time around. It was pretty simple for the head though so i dunno how interesting it would have been. I'll make sure to record when i do a Popeye one.

* UPDATE 2* Oh man, i didn't have time to finish it up like I hoped. Maybe in the next few days. sorry!

Liquify my love

Just a real quick note, a lot of people have been asking what tool in Photoshop I used to smudge parts around without losing clarity and blurring the whole image. Answer to that is Liquify with a brush density of about 25. If you work a little higher resolution than your final image no detail is lost. Cheers!

Intervoo

*UPDATE*
Here is another interview that went up today at 1up.com: Gaming Culture: Untooned Mario
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the curious there's a short interview up at a Mexican website. Here it is in the original Spanish:
Interview de Pixeloo
And here it is with Google working its translation magic:
Interview of Pixeloo
(skimming over the translation, its relatively accurate)

Jessica Rabbit Process

For those interested, here is the first hour of work on Jessica condensed down to 10 minutes. It's a tad long to watch, but any faster and it was hard to see what's going on.

You'll notice one of my main reference images was an Angelina Jolie picture. I'm curious if that's why people think she looks like her or if she would have looked like her no matter who I used.

Jessica Rabbit Untooned

Jessica Rabbit

[click to enlarge]

So this ended up taking quite a bit longer than the last 2 even though I had expected a pretty easy time with it. I was able to complete the face relatively quickly but the real challenge was everything from her neck down. Trying to piece together parts of a body from multiple photos on top of a highly disproportionate body was pretty difficult. I considered only doing the face but I predicted pitchforks and torches if I chose that route. Creating the sequins took a bit of time too. I recently saw some camera effects in a music video I tried to duplicate too with the streaked brightness which I gave a shot here to add to the whole realism.

Anyway, I recorded the first hour of the creation of this one using Camtasia which includes all the face elements and the hair. It's not the complete process since this ended up taking a few hours longer than anticipated but I think it will help the curious get a general idea of how this was accomplished. It's sped up a bunch and so it only takes 10 minutes to view. I have to edit together some of the footage but once I get that done i'll post it here in a few days. (*UPDATE*: its posted here now)

Since Stewie Griffin was second in the poll, I'll work on him the next time I make an untoon.

*UPDATE* Hey all, I just wanted to clarify a bit. Perhaps "untoon" is the wrong word for this but the exercise here was to take the exact cartoon proportions of Jessica and create her with realistic lighting and textures. As was done with Homer and Mario. I think because of her smooth skin the cartooniness definitely still comes through a lot more than Homer. Here is a side by side of the source image I started with.


Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far!

Jess...

I got started on this sooner than I thought and its 95% done. I'll probably post it Saturday morning the latest. It was a lot harder than I thought it'd be. Fun challenge! Anyway, just a heads up.

Here's a teaser:

Hand-Eye Coordination

look what i found in the basement.

[click to enlarge]

Not really sure what to say about this... I started out wanting to do something way less disturbing than the final result but it was too hard to resist a little bit of horror. Originally it was just lots of fingers. Comments and feedback welcome. Enjoy!

w3rd.

Had a pretty busy week at work. Workin on some stuff on the side that i'll post here soon. no untoons for those waiting :) i'll start on Jessica next week sometime, after i finish some other things.

Animated

Heh, somebody emailed me this...the last two of my posts animated. Pretty neat :)

http://boundless.fileburst.com/mario.html
http://boundless.fileburst.com/homer2.html

check it out!

Untooned Poll

Although an untooning isnt the next thing i'll be working on I thought I'd throw up a poll while i still have some traffic to get an idea of what people like to see most. I narrowed it down to ones i think would be interesting and a challenge to work on. Make you pick on the upper right corner there. The reason I am avoiding certain suggestions is that some were too similar to what I've already tried (such as more Simpsons or Futurama characters) or some weren't human (sonic, spongebob) and some where already untooned if you think of it (like Shrek, or the Gman). I'll leave this poll up for about 10 days and see which is the most popular. Have a neat weekend.

darn.

Looking at the Homer pic, and after seeing a comment about it, i agree, i think i shoulda done more with the hair. he pretty much looks fully bald.

oh well :\

What's next

I've gotten a lot of requests for untooning some other toons. I appreciate all the interest in what i've done over the last couple week and am glad people enjoy it. That said, it'll probably be a few posts before I get to another one. There are some other things I'd like to try here before doing another untoon. When the time comes to make another one though, I may put up a poll and see who people out there would like to see most.

d'oh!

Here is a quick blend between the original image i used as my outline (click on the image to see the animated version). I noticed some comments wondering why i made the pupils so small and slightly off, it really was just because i was trying to stick to the original proportions of the cartoon so much. All Simpson's characters do have somewhat of a lazy-eye but its not as noticable when they are 2D.

On another note, does anyone have any recommendations for good free screen capture tools that will allow me to record what's going on Photoshop into a video? I thought it might be helpful to show the whole process next time I do one of these.


Also here are some of the texture sources I used for Homer. Hopefully these people won't mind me posting their pictures:

Homer Simpson Untooned

As promised, if our beloved Simpson patriarch wasn't a toon.

[click to enlarge]

This one was a bit more difficult in that i wanted the light to come in mainly from one side with a bit of back light. So all my reference had to be lit from one side. For textures i needed but didn't have this lighting situation, i had to darken or light a bit to give the same effect.

For clarification, these aren't studies of what Homer would look like if he was a real person, its just what a cartoon like Homer would look like if he kept his toon proportions but had realistic texturing and lighting. I find this slightly less disturbing than the Mario one. :) Some might feel he looks too old, keep in mind he was in his 30's 20 years ago when the show first started. ;)

I saved my texture reference photos this time and i'll post those up in the next couple days for those who are interested.

Making Mario

For those curious ones here is the render i found online that i based the Mario image off of:


As you can see, the hat texture was the part that i kinda got lazy on. :) I didn't save any of the reference pictures I got the textures from but I was able to track this one down again, I used a bunch from this photo I found from a costume store online:



Mainly around the ears, some from under the eyes. The stubble on the chin was from a picture of John McEnroe and the nose texture was from some old guy, i forget where.

So yeah, basically this is just glorified cutting and pasting :) I admit it.

thanks!

Thanks for all the feedback and comments :) I'm glad so many people enjoyed this latest pic and it got me excited to start on my next one. I'm about 90% done with the "real" Homer Simpson and will be posting it as soon as i have some more time to work on it and finish.

Super Real Mario World

[click to enlarge]

If Mario was real, thas one creepy plumber. Created with Photoshop CS2 and a bunch of random faces pasted over a 3d render of Mario from Nintendo. View one of Homer Simpson here.

welcome.

hi. welcome to the pixeloo. i like photoshop and making photoshops. i use a wacom intuos. enjoy, i don't know how often i'll update. but i randomly get ideas in my head that i want to see and i will share those ideas here. i might share anything else i find too that i like.

please share this site with others. please don't link directly to any images. please enjoy your day.