New Hot Wheels Books Arrived!

I just got in a box of the two latest Hot Wheels books. - Race the World! and Wild Rides

You can order these books from me for $5.00 each along with the other books listed in this post (LINK). Shipping via USPS priority mail is usually $5.00 in the US.

I am not a reseller- I am the illustrator so quantities are limited. I will happily sign the books but only if you tell me to do so. Be sure to include what you want and a mailing address.

I accept Paypal at this e-mail address dwhite@mechazone.com

Mecha design contest on deviantART!

Hi Everyone, sorry there hasn't been much news to post lately, It was getting pretty boring around here so I decided to host a competition over at deviantART.com where I have a mecha gallery.

The idea of this contest is to take rejected concept artwork from Microsoft’s MechWarrior 4 games, which were drawn by me, and mix them into new and cool mecha.

Sound like fun? You bet it does! Please visit my DA account for all the information and rules. The contest is active now and ends at midnight, Nov 29th.

Link to my deviantART account...

And here is a sample image I made to help everyone understand what the contest is all about...
This took me about 45 minutes to make using Photoshop.

- The thighs and hip parts were drawn from scratch
- The chest is one of the hunchback torsos turned upside down
- The legs are from a couple of Arctic wolf legs mashed together with a Zeus toe on the end
- lots of other parts were used too... stuff from the Highlander, Zeus, and Gladiator.

Mecha Specs...
Name: Sanguinox
Tonnage: 60
Weapons: Lots and really powerful too!

Doing some house cleaning

You may notice that I went through and removed a bunch of old images. I'm trying to get rid of some of the old stuff so the newer, better art is what is seen. Sorry if you wanted to see something I removed but it is gone for good.

LEGO Star Wars Clone Wars July Comic

Hi everyone. Sorry I have been absent from posting for the last month :( I have been super busy!!!

Please visit the official LEGO site for more LEGO Star Wars action and fun! LEGO STAR WARS PAGE and don't forget you can get my comics by subscribing to the FREE LEGO Club Magazine... SUBSCRIBE!!!!

Battletech Commissions Part 3

These are the last two mechs I did for the Battletech fan created TRO project. I had a lot of fun with it and really look forward to seeing the completed project. The author has a blog... check it out! The Battletech Reader

Griffin 5S
based on this design... Old Griffins
Thunderbolt (Diesel engine!)
Based on this design... Old Thunderbolt

LEGO Power Miners Comic #3

This comic, the third in the series, printed in the July issue of LEGO Club Magazine.I also want to take a second to thank www.BZPower.com for the link they gave me about a week ago. I only get about 225-250 hits a day here on my blog. You can see the spike I got from their link by looking at the chart below...

LEGO Agents Tech Spread

I just got my new issue of LEGO Club Magazine in the mail and it featured 7 pages of my comics! Here's the original art for the LEGO Agents spread. LEGO changed the background by adding scan lines and ghosting it a bit. I think their changes work well with all the call-outs and caption boxes.

*Image removed by me. Gotta keep the LEGO images down to 3 at a time per LEGO's request.

Bionicle Comic For LEGO UK Magazine

This is a comic I made way back in January/February for the UK version of LEGO Club Magazine.

*Image removed by me. Gotta keep the LEGO images down to 3 at a time per LEGO's request.

I have had a request to show a sample of the upcoming Challenge of Mata Nui book but I don't know if I am allowed to show that yet. I'll ask my guys at Scholastic and see what they have to say. This magazine comic should satisfy you until then. The new book has a slightly different feel because of how I did the colors to synchronize with the new CG movie.

Speaking of the movie. I got to see about 10 minutes of it the last time I was at LEGO and all I can say is WOW! I saw the very first Bionicle movie and it was just so-so but this new Mata Nui movie is really incredible. I can't wait to see the whole thing on Blue Ray!!!!!!

Image removed by me. Gotta keep the LEGO images down to 3 at a time per LEGO's request.

Hot Wheels Books Available!!!!

Whew! I have been working like crazy for months and I FINALLY finished the last of 3 books for Scholastic. The final push was to complete the art for Bionicle reader #4: The Challenge of Mata Nui. You can pre-order it here...
Bionicle #4 on Amazon

I also have some great news for everyone who has contacted me about getting copies of the Hot Wheels books. I have figured out how to order the book club books so I now have extra copies of several books. I am selling them for $5.00 each plus shipping, which will be via USPS priority mail. Here's what I have available...

- Hot Wheels: Monster Trucks
- Hot Wheels: Drag Race
- Hot Wheels: Stunt Show
- Hot Wheels: Street Heat
- LEGO Exo-Force Collectors guide ($7.00)

I accept PayPal only. Please e-mail me if interested. You can get my e-mail address here (my paypal address is different and I will give it to you when I respond)...
ContactI have about 50 of each Hot Wheels book so you can order multiples for your friends and family. I only have about 10 of the Exo-Force book.

LEGO Star Wars: Clone Wars Troopers Ad

This is a full page ad I made for the Euro LEGO Club Magazine back in November 2008. I still haven't seen this in print :( I had a total blast making this piece! It was fun to focus on just one image instead of a bunch of panels so I was able to dedicate more time to making it look good. The colors were tinted to make it look more like the animated TV show.

*Image removed by me. Gotta keep the LEGO images down to 3 at a time per LEGO's request.

Meet me at the Eric Carle Musem, June 13th!

I have recently become a member of the Western Massachusetts Illustrators Guild (WMIG) and I am proud to announce that I will be participating in a group gallery show at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

http://www.picturebookart.org/Programs_Events/Upcoming/WMIG

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
125 West Bay Road
Amherst, MA 01002

June 13, 2009
10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Celebrate, connect and create!
In honor of Eric Carle’s 80th birthday and the 25th anniversary of the Western Massachusetts Illustrators' Guild (WMIG), The Carle is hosting a day filled with book-signings, readings, demonstrations, hands-on activities, music, raffle, silent auction, art sale, and an exhibit of original art by some of New England’s favorite illustrators.

Please stop by and say hi if you are in the area!

LEGO Star Wars: Clone Wars Comic #3

Hi! I finally received the latest issue of LEGO Club Magazine, which featured episode 3 of the ongoing Clone Wars comic. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the clean art from that episode. The writer told me that the online clone trooper cartoons start to tie in with the magazine comic around episode 11 ... just watched episodes 11 and 12. Check them out!!!

Clone Wars On-Line Comics (cartoons)

pages 1-2page 3

Images removed by me. Sorry.

I finished the art for episode 4 a couple of days ago and that was fun. Can't wait to see what happens next!

LEGO Space Police are coming!!!

LEGO just uploaded a teaser site for their new space line, Space Police! Not a lot there yet but you can check out a cool stop motion teaser movie that will have you wanting more...

LEGO Space Police site...

Special thanks to Boris for the heads up! Check out his awesome blog here...

~Boris's Bricks~I grabbed this picture of the new box art from here... Brickshelf

I have known about the Space Police for a while because I created the artwork for the box backgrounds :) The pictures from Brickshelf are the newer boxes that have my art. If you see any images from the 2009 toy fair show then that is the old CG art. The old art was very similar in composition so they are a bit hard to distinguish in these small photos. I'll post better photos when I can find some. These were created using a digital painting technique instead of my normal comic style. You can see more samples on my portfolio web page

More portfolio samples at the Mecha Zone

Hope you like them!

TOYS! An essential part of every artists life.

Every artist I know likes toys to one degree or another. My buddy Sean and I are two of the biggest collectors I know. My toys tend to be robots (oh what a surprise!). The last four weeks has been very eventful with many of the toys I had pre-ordered finally being released. I love getting the new stuff, but man does it hurt the wallet when so many things get auto-billed to your account in such a short amount of time. Ouch!

How about some show-n-tell? I'll start with this amazingly huge Gundam. I have wanted one of these for a couple of years and just recently saw one on eBay for a price that I couldn't resist. It is HUGE- see my hand down there? My hand is pretty gigantic too! This guy measures in at 21" tall. I LOVE IT! He even has articulate arms (with extra hands you can swap) and came with a shield and gun.Linebarrel from recent anime Linebarrels of Iron. I watched the anime and it was pretty cool. All the mechs are CG and looked better than most CG mechs (I usually hate CG stuff when it is mixed with 2D).
H.A.B. or Hyper Armored Block. A decent looking original mech design that was made into a limited edition figure. The quality of the figure isn't all that great and one of the joints was broken when I opened the package. Still cool though.
Falguen from an old anime called Dragonar. I also have the Dragonar figure. This toy is really well made with an all metal skeleton and double joints for the elbows and knees so it is super articulate!
The VF-25F from recent anime Macross F. A GREAT anime series so check it out! This is the 1/100 scale plastic version. It is fully transformable. The process is really complicated and you have to remove, then re-attach the legs. There's a better , larger version with metal parts and a cooler transformation method but it costs $250! I won't be getting that version until I win the lottery ;)
Some super deformed (SD) versions of the mechs from Macross F. How cute!
Transformers Masterpiece Grimlock. Now this is a toy! I like him better in dinosaur mode. You can see the trailer for the MP Optimus Prime in the background. The foot claws are metal... I hope they don't scratch my display case :(
Nendroid Yoko from Gurren Lagann. OK, so she's not a mech, but she is from an anime about a mech.
The only bad thing about having all these mechs is that they get dusty and they are hard to clean. I keep al the original boxes too and I'm running out of space to store them.

Happy 3rd Freelance Anniversary to Me!

I just realized that last month was my 3rd anniversary for being a full-time freelance illustrator! Of course I was doing freelance illustration for years before that, but it was just something I did in my spare time. It was really tough at first but things have been going great for the last couple of years and I really like the freelance life! It helped a lot when I finally moved to my current studio and got a big monitor so I don't have eye strain anymore.

Here's a picture of my work station when I was coloring the most recent LEGO Star Wars: Clone Wars comic... episode 3. I have a PC and MAC networked. I'm a PC guy at Heart but I needed a really powerful system and the MAC was just too convenient to pass up. I still prefer Windows XP over the MAC OS, but life is all about compromises.I have a wireless mouse and keyboard for the PC (Left) to cut down on the clutter. The MAC is my main system. You can see my Wacom Intuos 3 drawing tablet to the right. I had to buy a new tablet when I got my MAC because it only has USB ports and my old tablet had a serial cable. Those things aren't cheap and I wasn't too happy about that, but the new Intuos 3 is so much better than my old tablet that it was worth it!

I have been keeping an active business plan for the last few years but I haven't had a chance to update it this year. I met all of my past goals and now I'm not sure where to go. I've been turning down some good work so I might try to get an intern or someone to help me scan, etc... it's so hard to find extra time to even research the possibilities! I've been focusing on improving the quality of my art and that usually means dedicating more time to each project, but I know it is worth it in customer satisfaction. It is a really competitive field and it takes a lot of hard work to get clients to notice you.

Well, I have a ton of work to do, so I should get back to the drawing board. Been working long days and weekends just to keep up and there's lots more still to do. I like being busy so I'm not complaining!!!

Cheers!

Battletech Commissions Part 2

Super busy right now but I thought I should take a sec to post these other two Battletech mechs. Hope you like 'em!!!
Left = Nimravus
Right = Stealth Griffin

Battletech Commissions

Hi Everyone. Some of you have noticed that I changed the title and text of this message yesterday. I had to change it because I made a very stupid assumption. The TRO that will include these mechs is not an official product and is not affiliated with Classic Battletech- the CBT people contacted me and were not pleased that I had listed it as such. The person who hired me never said he was with CBT- it was just an assumption I made based on the nature of the product so I take 100% of the blame for the error. I hope no one was inconvenienced by this and I apologize for the misinformation.

Here's hoping I still get paid for the work!The mechs are not to scale... I think the BK weighs bout 2X as much as the Spector. I'll post the other mechs next time!

LEGO Exo-Force Comic: Step-By-Step

I'm not allowed to show any of my recent work yet so I thought it would be cool to post a comparison of all the different stages it takes to create each comic page. I tend not to scan in my pencils very often since I keep them fairly rough, but I was able to find an old Exo-Force comic that had decent pencils!

1) Layouts: LEGO gives me a script which includes a panel by panel breakdown of the action they want. I make really rough sketches to show how I will compose the page. You can see that I roughed in the word balloons too- it is important to make sure you have enough room for the text!

2) Pencils: LEGO reviews the roughs and provides me with comments about things they want changed or fixed. I take those comments and create the pencils, which are drawn larger than the intended print size to help make the images sharper and more detailed. This is when I make sure all the characters and products are the right size and really look like the LEGO sets.

3) Inks: I am provided with more comments from the pencils, usually minor things like product inconsistencies. I incorporate any changes and then trace the pencils with ink pens and brushes. I usually add a little more detail and try to tighten up the overall drawing. I then scan the drawing into my computer for the final step...

4) Coloring: This is the last chance LEGO has to make any major comments because it is time consuming (expensive) to make changes after the image is colored. I start by filling in flat colors and then I add shading and textures to give some dimension.

That's it! LEGO takes the final color art and overlays the word balloons with text and sound effects. The whole process takes me about 3 days per page.

Blue Sky Studio and New York Comic Con '09

I got an extra special treat earlier this year... a tour of the famous animation studio, Blue Sky! My old pal Michael from back when I made video games was nice enough to take me on a tour while I was in New York for this years comic con. Michael is a super awesome animator and was working as a temp on Ice Age 3. Here's Michael inside the lobby. There was a lot of artwork and character maquettes hung on the walls. Very exciting! Michael's girlfriend Kwan came along too and we all had a good time.Most of the studio was dark and crammed full of animators working quietly to meet their daily footage quota. Everyone was in super crunch mode and had to work CRAZY hours. I was really jealous of the creative atmosphere but not the workload :/Scrat's maquette. There was a whole room full of these things that I wasn't allowed to photograph. Maquettes are used to help create the 3-D models and also as inspiration for all the people involved in the project.Horton's maquette. I just recently saw 'Horton Hears a Who' and it was pretty good. Loved the vulture character! Everyone at Blue Sky kept asking me if I had seen the movie and what I thought of it. They really gave me a hard time when I told them it was "in my netflix queue..."!The next day Michael, Kwan, and I went into the city and spent most of the day at the NYC con. Next years con is in December 2010, which means that it is almost 2 years after this years! What are they thinking??? This years con seemed to be set up a bit better than last years and had more anime stuff so I was pretty happy. I didn't buy much but it was cool to see all the sights.Speaking of sights... I was greeted by a life sized sleestak statue. Look out kid... I think it's hungry!!! AWESOME!Oh the cosplayers! Baroness, Porkins, Chewy, Baroness. The Chewbacca guy was on stilts so he was about 7' tall and it was pretty intimidating. I'm 6'3" and I'm not used to people being taller than me, especially big hairy people in masks.There were organized activities for kids in the upstairs area. Here you see younglings preparing for their struggle in the upcoming apocalypse. Honestly, is it really a good idea to teach your kid how to use a sword? I think not....aaaand finally, here's Michael and Kwan's cat, Toby. What a sweetheart. Aghhh... he is burning me with his laser eyezzzzzz.

LEGO Star Wars: Clone Wars Comic #2

Here it is, episode 2 of the Clone Wars comic! This issue has a 3rd page for more Jedi action :)

Images removed by me. Sorry.

The third installment of this comic is already finished and ready for printing, pending approval by Lucas, of course!

LEGO Power Miners March Comic!

Lots going on nowadays and I've been keeping super busy. Starting to feel pretty tired but there's so much to do over the next two weeks that my only option seems to be loading up on a LOT of caffeine and working as fast as possible!!! That's the life of a freelancer :)

Images removed by me. Sorry.

This comic wraps up the events of the first installment with the promise of more adventure ahead. I don't know if there will be any more comics but it would be fun to draw the Power Miners again.

I just finished the comics for the next issue of LEGO Club Mag an now I'm moving onto a Bionicle book for Scholastic. I'll be out at LEGO tomorrow taking reference photos of the new products and then it's back to the drawing board.

LEGO Clone Wars desk shot + other news

Here's a shot of my desk last week when I was inking the next installment of LEGO's Star Wars: Clone Wars comic. You can see practically every tool I use to create the line art for a comic including a small rolling ruler, bendable curve, and lots of minifigs for reference.

Last week was pretty busy and I think this week will be more of the same. I'm working on the tight pencil for a new Hot Wheels book cover and then I have to get working on the interior pencils for the same book. I'll probably have to ink a 2 page LEGO Brickmaster comic along the way. I just finished coloring a book cover that has been on my back burner for a few months and it feels good to finish it!

Great news! I was accepted into the Western Massachusetts illustrators Guild! I've been waiting to join for along time so I am honored that it has become a reality. The group has a lot of EXTREMELY talented artist, writers, and designers. I've been to 2 meeting so far and thoroughly enjoyed both of them!

I've also been somewhat active in helping raise funds for a local event, The Easthampton Bear Fest. Sort of like cows on parade but with bears :) You can see some pictures and get more info here. You can even donate if you want to help out my community!

Easthampton Bear Fest

Lego Power Miners Comic #1

I remember the first time I saw some prototype shots of Power Miners while I was out at LEGO taking reference photos for another job. I loved the colors and designs immediately! I was so psyched when they asked me to create some comics for them. This is the first story of 2 so far. The second story should be out in the March comic.

Images removed by me. Sorry.

The first page may be unfamiliar to anyone that only gets the free version of LEGO Club Magazine because it is a Brickmaster exclusive page. Just one more reason to pay for the full Brickmaster experience!

Images removed by me. Sorry.

My wife and I are both fascinated by crystals and minerals and we have a beautiful collection of specimens. The little rock monsters were an instant hit with me and I enjoy drawing them quite a bit. I love coloring translucent and shiny things!

Gleaming Scythe Mecha

I had the honor of working with Gleaming Scythe Publications over the last 2 years and managed to create quite a few mecha designs for them.

Gleaming Scythe Publications Link

I was looking around deviantART.com the other day and happened upon a mecha illustration that looked oddly familiar. I couldn't quite figure out what it was... then I suddenly realized that I had designed the mecha featured in the illustration! It turns out that the artist had been hired by Gleaming Scythe to create the illustration for an upcoming book! Good news- the illustration looks great! Click below to see the image on deviantART where you can also check out other works by the same group of artists at Robekka Art Studio, a Chinese based illustration firm.

EXETER mech image by Robekka on deviantART.com

The actual Robekka web site seems to be down or some reason.

Oh, and here is the original Exeter front view the Robekka image is referencing...

LEGO Star Wars: Clone Wars #1

If you subscribe to the LEGO club magazine then you have probably already seen this, but I know there are a lot of people who like to see the comic without all the word balloons. The original layouts for this comic were drawn by Greg Hyland. I did everything for the second comic but there was too much of a time constraint for the first one so Greg had to get the layouts done before I was even on the project.

The scripts for the Clone Wars comics have a lot more action and panels than the regular LEGO comic and so they take A LOT longer to draw and color. I would say they need about 5 extra hours of time per page than the noorm. Ughhh! Well, I shouldn't complain because they are still fun to do!!!

Images removed by me. Sorry.

The next comic has lightsabers!

New Mecha Designs Part 2

Here are two more new mecha designs for you to check out. These are the medium and heavy class mechs that go with the light mech from the last post. I always try to use some common themes for mechs from the same faction as can be seen in the leg designs and layered armor.
Drawing these really made me wish I had more spare time so I could make some mechs for myself!!!!

2 New Mecha Designs!

I was given permission to post some mecha designs from 2008. I actually did quite a few mecha designs last year and I will try to showcase some of my favorites here on my blog.

I'll start off with these two, which were created for Phoenix MacLeod. Phoenix let me do whatever I wanted as long as the designs had the right armaments and fit into a certain weight class.


Light mech:Medium Mech:

I think I have come a long way since I worked on the MechWarrior 4 games. Working with MechWarrior really helped me learn how to plan for joints and allow enough space in and around the limbs for them to actually move accurately. Building Gundam model kits also helped with that.

These drawings are just concept art really. They are the first and only drawings I made for the designs so I had to work out everything as I was doing my under drawing. The deigns you see for anime and movies have been through numerous revision cycles and refined to the final version. I'm sure that these designs could be even cooler if I had the time to refine them, but that's not the way it usually works.

I have more designs to post, but I'm spacing them out into multiple posts. Check back next week for more!

4 New Scholastic Hot Wheels Books!

I recently received samples of 4 more Hot Wheels books that I illustrated last year. This time around I even got to illustrate the covers for Drag Race and Monster Trucks. Covers are always fun! I drew the fire ring for Stunt Show but the car is from a Mattel artist.

I think all 4 of these books look great... much better than the first few did. It took me a while to get my drawing chops back after making video games for so long but I'm finally back in the groove and constantly working to get even better (it only took 3 years...). Cars are so hard to draw that I had get my brain wrapped around the whole concept. Drawing the ellipses for all the wheels is a mega challenge but templates help a little.

Download the LEGO Pirates Comics!

I was just informed that you can download 4 of the Pirates comics form the official LEGO pirates web site. They are nicely formatted and ready to print.

LEGO Pirates Download Page

These downloadable comics actually include a new page for the shipwreck set that wasn't (as far as I know) included in the instruction manual. I htkn the Pirate ship comics ar ea little different too.

LEGO Exo-Force Final Story

I got an e-mail this morning asking me where to find the last two Scholastic Exo-Force books (#6 and #7). the bad news is that the Exo-Force line of toys was canceled so those two books were never printed.

I fully illustrated book #6 and you can see several of the images in a previous blog post...
Exo-Force: The Lost Images

That was the bad news. The good news is that I just went to the Exo-Force web site to look at some of the web comics and noticed there was a new one! The new comic, #39, is my eight page comic I created well over a year ago and is the very last bit of Exo-Force art I did. This comic may have been uploaded some time ago but I rarely check their site so it is news to me. I am very pleased to see the artwork get released. Here is a link to the comic...

Exo-Force web comic: Jungle Mission

I hope this helps resolve some of the questions people have about what happened to Sensei and the rest of the team. I have no idea what was supposed to happen after this, but I am definitely curious about the secrets hidden in the jungle!

LEGO Clone Wars Comic... Is Coming!

Anyone watching the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series on Cartoon Network? Of course you are!!! The LEGO Clone Wars sets are awesome and I recently got to assemble the Twilight set. The Twilight is the main ship that Anakin and Ahsoka fly in the new series as they encounter different aliens and have adventures.

This set was ALL gray and was pretty hard to put together because I couldn't tell which parts were which. It took me about 5 hours to finish it. The set is large as well. Here's a pic of all the pieces before I started. Christmas cookies sold separately...

... and here is the Twilight completed.
... and here is the Twilight in a new comic that will be out in the first LEGO Club Magazine of 2009!I am really excited about this comic. I hope you like it because there's more in the works and it is shaping up to be a fun humorous adventure. This Star Wars stuff is hard to draw and the review process is meticulous so I have to make sure the designs and everything else are spot on.

Happy 2009 and may the force be with you!