James O'Brien's Studio Blog » Personal work

The Ape Fell

J. O'Brien — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:02:22 +0000

This is a personal piece about a man called The Ape, kind of a pulp noir, fall from grace type of narrative, a story about failure and resurrection. “Cursed are you among all.” A tragic villain.

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J is for Jackson

J. O'Brien — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:27:21 +0000

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My shoes

J. O'Brien — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:39:33 +0000

I’m finishing up an illustration that includes worker’s shoes. So I put on a pair of my old bulky shoes as a model for the drawing, sat on the couch, propped my feet up on the end table, and drew while I watched my daughter conquer Mario Kart.

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Grandma drawing

J. O'Brien — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:29:56 +0000

(not my grandma)

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Yves

J. O'Brien — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:47:43 +0000

Another Illustrator doodle that developed into a character study. Yves is a delicate boy with a cauliflower ear and perpetual tears and nasal drips. Happy, sickly, sad; but mostly happy really, with a naive unsuspecting manner.

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The Streets of San Francisco: David Soul

J. O'Brien — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 03:45:02 +0000

Even though we stream Netflix for most of our movie watching, I joined our local movie store, Filmzilla, mostly because they had The Streets of San Francisco on DVD, one of my favorite 70′s cop shows, and of course to support our neighborhood businesses. Plus sometimes it’s nice to just physically wander through a store to pick out a movie.

This is a sketch of David Soul in his pre-Starsky and Hutch days, from The Streets of San Francisco episode “Hall of Mirrors,” 1972.

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John John

J. O'Brien — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:49:19 +0000

This is our Border Collie, John John. He’s crazy about tennis balls!

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Luke Russert with UFO

J. O'Brien — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 21:48:25 +0000

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Angry bear

J. O'Brien — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 04:05:34 +0000

Here’s another Illustrator doodle, beginning with circles and triangles, no plan but quickly developed into a bear. This one has a more finished look than the previous doodle, and is mostly made up of transparent gradients with a bitmap texture. No set rules for this one other then left/right symmetry. Below are the path outlines.

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Longfellow Dunn Bros.

J. O'Brien — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:31:26 +0000

Brush pen drawing of a man studying at the Longfellow Dunn Brothers.

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