SPONGEBOB SUPERTEAM!

Hey there-I apologize for the lack of posts around here of late, but I've been pretty busy working on some projects... that I can't quite talk about yet! I'm pretty excited about them so, when I can, I'll be sure and share what I've been working on. Until then though, I can show you....the SPONGEBOB SUPERTEAM!

The good folks at Nickelodeon Magazine invited me to contribute to their special Spongebob 10th Anniversary Celebration issue which comes out next month. (August cover date I believe). For this special issue, several folks were asked to do various takes and interpretations of Spongebob and his crew! In my case, I was asked specifically to reinterpret the gang as a "Jack Kirby inspired super-team". I had a blast previously doing a comic book cover for them of Alfred donning the famous cowl as the "Bat-Butler", so I was thrilled to take on this Kirby inspired assignment!

For those interested, here are a few of the process steps taken towards the finished Spongebob Superteam piece;

I started off sketching ideas for how the classic SB crew might look through the "Kirby lens".. I knew from the start that I wanted Patrick to be the team's "Thing" type character:

With Squidward I was thinking of an "Inhumans" type;


And with Spongebob, I wanted to have enough cues to his already signature silhouette... initially to retain that large square face, I thought of a Modok/Arnim Zola type... but it was just too creepy for me! So I started thinking that perhaps a large yellow "tech" helmet might do the trick, giving him the recognizable shape, but still keeping a more heroic overall feel;


To sew up the JK homage, I borrowed heavily from one of my favorite Kirby covers= Fantastic Four #49 and did a version with the new SB characters (w/ Sandy as the Silver Surfer and Plankton as a Galactus/Dr. Doom amalgam);


and before the final colors (all in close range to the official SB colors), the inks:

On a sad note, if you haven't heard yet, Nick magazine has unfortunately been canceled. I was very sorry to hear this news, as I not only was proud to be associated with them, and truly enjoyed working for Gordon Whiteside there, but I also thought it was an AWESOME kid's magazine.. I can only hope that someone somewhere takes up this mantle as they were a great patron of independent comics art and offered a wonderful alternative to the very few comic offerings for kids today.
I hope you enjoy the piece I did and if you get a chance, pick up the August issue (which may be their last I'm not sure) and check out all the other takes on this great cartoon.

#1!

$68.2 million at the Box Office this weekend!
Go UP Go!

Up is Away!

(The Up crew opening the Cannes Film Festival)

Well as you may have picked up around here, I worked on Pixar's Up, opening this weekend (May 29th), and I'll admit that I'm extremely proud of it.
I'm not exactly impartial, as I was and am so close to it, but I believe we've ended up with a great film that hopefully everyone will enjoy for years to come. I think it has lots for everyone, including action and comedy, but also things that will directly speak to the adult members of the audience as well. Lots of good folks contributed to this, and I was only a small part of the larger whole.

I hope you all enjoy it, and I'd love to hear what you think! (gulp)

Here's a link to a great interview with Up director (and all around swell guy) Pete Docter over on NPR.


Next, are some things that are more specifically "me" related...to show and share;
(Now mind you, this is all a bit surreal for me, to be seeing my work not only in the film, but all over books, and toys and even at the Disney theme parks in walk around characters and on a parade float!)

The Art of Up book is out, I have a few things in it yes...but you get to see some REALLY good art by the folks I was fortunate to work with. There's quite a bit of great artwork shown in the book, but honestly, you'd need about 10 volumes to show everything that we did!
Check it out!As I said, it is odd to see some of the artwork I did for the film in the various consumer products etc.. out there. For example this is a kid's sticker book, that is loaded with stuff I did for the show!;


And this last one is probably the most "surreal"... to see walk around characters at the Walt Disney theme parks decked out in my graphics, as well as a float that's chugging along, with a huge illustration on it that I did as well--Watch it here!

Flying Up to Venezuela

I was honored when asked to create posters that celebrate Pixar's latest feature film: Up. ( In theaters May 29)
It was a dream assignment for sure, and I'm sure you will see quite a bit of influence from both the classic travel art of yesterday as well as vintage Disneyland attraction posters; Two of my favorite genres of art and design.
It was quite a thrill to see them exhibited in the Pixar atrium, as I had admired the Ratatouille and Wall-E posters displayed there previously. Here they are alongside offerings from artists Eric Tan, Craig Foster and Erik Evans.

Congratulations guys, they look great!

Up, Up and Away

Beauty and the Beast:

Last weekend my wife and I were lucky enough to visit San Francisco to attend the Pixar wrap party for their 10th film: Up. We are back home now, but I feel a little bit like an Apollo astronaut that has returned to Earth from a Moon-shot... my body is here, but my head is still "there". What an excellent time we had- saw old friends, hob-knobbed with the stars and was thoroughly blown away by the finished film that I had worked on. 

While I was at Pixar I was fortunate to work alongside some of the most talented artists in the business and I'm eternally grateful for all that I learned from these fine people. What a great experience it was. I have to say that I'm very proud of Up and how it turned out. It certainly is not the standard story that we tend to see in today's animated films... or even non-animated films for that matter. I can't wait to see it again- as well as hear what folks have to say about it!

After the screening we headed over to the party held amidst the art deco splendor of the Fox theater in Oakland! If you get the chance, you really have to check this place out, it's truly magnificent.

Here's the gorgeous gal that accompanied me, posing by one of 5 posters that I had created to celebrate the film. They had them all displayed in the poster cases outside the theater.
(I'm going to check and see if it's okay to show them here on the blog, so......"Stay tuned.")


...Is she a doll or what? ;)

The Thinker

'One for the road, before I head out the door to SF;


SRM Fun from Paul Conrad on Vimeo.

I had created this as a promotional image back in the fall for my ongoing SRM project. I wasn't too happy with it, but shared it with friend and PopMonster Esquire, Greg Pope--He sent me back this cool animated short that he had made for fun (Using my flat jpg art even). Yep, he's a talented chap that one. He can currently be found in his studio finishing the follow up to his last album PopMonster.

Here's the inks

and colored version:

Orion meets Carl Fredricksen

Hey folks,
'Have been hiding under a rock the past couple of weeks, apologies for the slow updates. Actually I've been working my tail off on a pretty cool project, that I think I can share after May 29 (hint hint).

As I've had my nose to the grindstone, that hasn't kept me from doodling on other things and ideas out on the periphery of my work ....Which used to get me into trouble back in grade school, right mom?

Here's a few more of my border thoughts:


And I came across this on the net.. someone had shot a pic of a pretty cool sculpt of Russell from Pixar's Up, 'sporting some of my work there:


Very cool to see it in three dimensions.
You can see more of the photos of sculpts and development art from the upcoming film here.

AND There's a pretty cool new "featurette" with the film makers of Up posted here.

Next up on the 'ol SRM blog, Paul and Lora's Excellent Adventure to San Francisco and the Up wrap party!

peace,

Paul

Cleaning up Gotham City

A few months back, I had the pleasure of doing an illustration for the good folks at Nickelodeon magazine. The request was to create an old-style comic book cover for the character "BatButler" for a made up line of "Low Value" comics.

I had a blast working on this, not only designing BB's look, but the book's title and LV comics logos too! You can see mine, alongside several other very cool covers from the Low Value line of comics in Nick's latest issue (marked April 09) on stands now. (the magazine is really just chock full of cool illustrations) Thanks to Gordon Whiteside for the assignment!

Below are some process steps towards the finished piece:
First I submitted a few thumbnail roughs on possible layout and "gag" ideas. Like the one they selected shown here:

I also included a rough sketch of a logo Idea I had for the book, drawing from the opening title sequence from the 60's Batman tv show;

Once the initial thumbnail was approved, I moved into tighter pencils including  a rough-in of title and various logo elements:

I then moved into the inking, scanning and coloring process with the character and at the same time created the logo in illustrator.  Then I pulled them all together, adding some dot patterns and "aging" to the faux comic cover and ended up with the final image shown here:

New- Jersey God

Here's my fanboy art of lead character "Barock", from the excellent new series Jersey Gods from Image Comics. Written by Glen Brunswick and pencils and inks by the amazing Dan McDaid. It's got lots of humor, big league action and is kind of a throwback to the wonderful silver-age comics of the day...
And the artwork Hooboy... Dan's work on this is like a wonderful fusion of Kirby and Frank Robbins... luscious inks and Powerful imagery, give it a read!

What a fun character to draw! Here's the pre-color inks;

Android Avenger

Here's that Crimson Avenging Android.... The Vision! (I used to love the old Avengers comics as a kid, and this guy was always a favorite in the lineup!)
More of the ongoing superhero gauntlet slapping between myself and Everett Downing.

Where's HIS huh? ;)

Here's Russell!

He's one of the hero's from Pixar's next film UP, directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, in theaters May 29.

I had the amazing and humbling experience of working on this film, side by side with some of the most incredible artists working in animation today. Too many to list here, but check out the "Art of" book when it comes out, I'm sure they will all be featured there.
You can see some of my contribution to the film in the new character posters ; Here's a link to a higher rez version of this one, plus two more characters!

Yahoo!

SuperLove

For my SuperLady.

S R Maya

From the archives:
About a year ago I experimented with building a 3D SRM model. (I know just enough Maya to be dangerous!)



He's evolved a little since then, but overall he's basically the same lovable big blue robot monster we all know and love.

Sketching

I'm trying to be better about having a pad out and sketching on things as I work (during the savings and sendings...)
Here's some recent doodles, and thinkings....

Random, doodles:
This next page is inspired by (I'm lifting it verbatim) the James Tucker cover art for the comics version of the great new Cartoon Network show "Batman, the Brave and the Bold". Plus some "Vision" head noodlings in there too (he's the latest challenge from Everett Downing):

The New Gods meet Star Trek (now that would be a rockin comic!):
And some Barock inspiration from Dan McDaids' great new comic Jersey Gods from Image comics (pick it up, his art is fantastic):

Mining the Negative Zone

This piece was inspired by the Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four books. It represents a control interface for opening and maintaining a portal into the "Negative Zone", as well as allowing tracking and observation of the "away team" as they navigate an asteroid field in hopes of harvesting/mining energy rich alien ore found at the core of one of the larger N-zone asteroids. IE: Something that would be on a big screen in front of Reed Richards.


Control Detail:


Tracking Detail:


Additional screen focusing on the "away team" as they mine the Negative zone asteroid.