Ken Capelli

No laughing, I’ll do that myself 

*blowing off some dust

I initially set the site up in preparation for a good long job hunt over a year ago after my studio suddenly closed, and fully expected months of unemployment-facilitated time to catalogue, update, present, and finish work… basically, time to fill + gloss the official portfolio while flexing + demonstrating relevant skills here.

Unfortunately, my post-holiday job hunt lasted all of a week (blast my fortune!).

Before this turns too boring to anyone but me, I’ll add (more as a note to myself than anything) that I’ve been thinking of a personal art blog in too-delicate and too-high-bar ways. Everything has to be great! Perfect! As good as anything out there! What I have up here so far borders, from one of my many points of slices of view, on passable-to-embarrassing (to quote an artist friend of mine, that moment that all artists (who are actually human beings) have when they look at their own work and go “I’m a fraud I’m a fraud I’m a fraud“… that feeling). One truth is that I (am fortunate to) work with many very skilled colleagues: active artists whose work is so good that it rides that edge between being inspiring and wanting to have them pushed into a wheat thresher. What can I do that compares to this, this, this, this, or this? Fuck those guys and their awesomeness.

(Actually, <3 them lots.)

Ok. This got boring.

Anyway: new scratches and old crap and unfinished things that amuse me.

(much time passes) 

Recent (mis)fortune has led to my first portfolio and resume update/ redux in years… since 2004, actually. I have still to do a proper editing, description, tagging, and attribution pass but the framework and content is all up, live.

Teef’s evolution.

“Q“‘s sketch development. Prior to these stages shown here, “Q” went through a bunch of old-school tracing-paper overlay refinements before being scanned in for digital iteration and coloring.

The Killa Beez villain, Dr. Fuggbucker. His vague backstory is: bent on revenge due to horrendous disfigurement from a killer bee attack. I’m pretty sure he has an eastern European accent, and liked to think that under the mask he was just a meaty skull. Not very developed, we just needed a first-pass villain image.

The hot queen bee for Killa Beez, “Q”. Fun to draw, you know.

“Massiv” for Killa Beez. The tats were a late addition, done in the same pass as “Teef“‘s scumminess to give the big guy some distinction.

This is “Teef” for Killa Beez. He went through a few revisions (which I’ll put up soon) but hit his stride when he became seedier. It’s a bit overdone at this stage but makes the point.

Character sketch for another pitch, Killa Beez. Urban bees. You know. Anyway, a rhythm-based open-world flying game (we just can’t keep it simple, can we?) where you, the bee, are trying to cause as much choreographed Rube-Goldberg-like mayhem as possible in a suburban neighborhood.

The prior Art Director and Project Lead went through a few rounds of character designs with a variety of artists without quite hitting the right note. When I came on I got hands on and hit a lot closer to the mark. None of these designs were close to final and would have gone through revisions had the project continued past the early pitch/ prototype phase.

This one is (wait for it) “Ali Bee”.

Some of the first thumbnails for Killa Beez, starting with the original silhouette of a squat, stocky bee (upper left) who became Teef, with the musculature given solely to Massiv for silhouette differentiation.

Massiv’s progress.

Ali Bee’s progress.

For the heck of it, here’s three images uploaded as a tumblr filmstrip. I just like seeing them fade into each other :-)

The pencil sketch for the color image.

Now that I look at it, the right foreleg could have had more of an action bend to it, and the left side arms and legs should have come forward a bit more (for a clearer and more dynamic shape… like, the left foreleg could be extended forward, grabbing).