As our prehistoric friend indicates InanePerea has now moved. My blog is now a part of my official website! It has been a good run here at inaneperea.wordpress however in an attempt to fully integrate all of my work through one source, InanePerea is now hosted through my portfolio site. there are two ways to get to the new blog. a). Go through my main site at : www.vincentperea.com b). link directly to the blog( sans website) at: http://vincentperea.com/blog/ There is new stuff up already. See you soon Vincent

A lot of changes have been taking place lately. The first big news item is that I am no longer working for the good old Walt Disney Company. I learned a lot at Disney Interactive, and got to have input and responsibility well beyond my experience.But A few steady gigs came my way near the end of last year. By going freelance I could concentrate on my own work more as well as pick and choose my projects. It has something I wanted to do for a long time so I decided “what the hell” and took the plunge.
One of those projects I am now able to work on is the independent game “The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom”. It is the brainchild of Matt Korba a grad student at USC. My buddy Paul Belezza is helping to produce the project and brought me on to contribute my illustration skills.

Using a silent movie era visual style, the concept is about a man obsessed with Pie. So obsessed that he breaks the space-time continuum by time traveling and generating copies of himself to aid in his journey for sweet tasty slices of pie.

I was in love with the concept instantly. The other great thing about the project is that I get to do most of the work in a visual style I don’t normally work in. Matt chose to go for a French new wave, meets Edward Gorey sort of a look. I have been trying to meet his vision as well as add my own sensibilities to the mix.

The trick has been to take existing character designs in 3d and translate them to look just as good and quirky in 2D. So I created my own rendition of the character based on Matt’s 3D model as the launching off point

“Korba’s world”

“My version”

I started by doing some simple concept sketches of some of the main characters that will be in the game. a few of which are below:

“Winterbottom himself”

“Quick designs for cops and robbers”

“The love interest sketches”
Then they needed a design for their t-shirts. So I created the below illustration to try and capture the quirky charm of the game’s main mechanic.

” T-shirt design”

I wanted the design to be printed really big positioned asymettrically on the shirt. Certain limitations prevented that for the time being.

“Original design proposed”

Hopefully once the project is over we can make some high quality versions. But they still came out cool.

Recently I branched off into designing some of the 2d backgrounds.

The team went up and presented the game at the ’08 Game developers conference last week and got all sorts of kudos. You should check the game out at the official website:www.winterbottomgame.com

Some more drawings and sketches can be seen at the game’s blog. I am going to be helping out moving forward so I’ll keep updating some cool stuff here when I can.

The game is still in progress but should be done by May, and hopefully with more involvement by myself.

I wanted to get back in the swing of things blog wise one step at a time. However, I have a bunch more work to publish over the next couple weeks, as I have been keeping busy and want to share. Coming soon I’ll throw up sketches for my upcoming promotional campaign, figure drawings and even an illustration of a giant spider.

It’s true, all you have to do is believe.

- Vincent

“Stephanie cooking dinner, drawn from life”

After a short break brought about by Turkey intoxication, I’m back. The Holiday was much enjoyed and included a trip up to the Bay Area (trip powered by snacks at the Flying J.

I went to Art school over at CCA(C) up in Oakland California. Oakland is a funny town because the majority of kids up there have some form of affiliation with the school (they either have gone there, want to go there, have a roommate that goes there and on and on). So during your stay you get to know practically everyone in the Oakland social scene. Now when I return and walk down the street I run can’t go a few blocks without running into people i used to know. kind of like George Bailey, except without the need for an angel with no wings.

However, that isn’t what this post is about.

“Sorry”

Here is an idea that I finally sketched out in preparation for a larger project. I tend to have a lot of ideas, but I never write them down. If I think of an idea I like, then I want to let it bake in my brain oven for a bit before working on it. Those ideas that last and can be remembered after a few days, or even weeks, are strong enough to be worked on.

When doing commissioned work I don’t get to work this way. So this is a luxury with personal work that I fully exploit when I can.

In preparation for the above sketch I bought a bunch of piñatas to draw from. I am convinced piñatas are borderline genius pieces of folk art, even thought there sole purpose is to get the candy beaten out them by kids high on cake.

“Ready and Willing”

A lot of the ideas I have been working on recently involve someone finding them selves in a world much bigger and usually stranger than they realize. Like the below illustration of our Blog mascot.

“We know a place where no cars go” (thanks for the inspiration Arcade Fire!)
I have big delusions of grandeur little prickly guy and his balloon friend. But I don’t want to spoil it just yet; the idea isn’t done baking yet.

Till later,

Vincent

I have an unhealthy obsession with drawing ghosts. Some key features to keep in mind when drawing your very own Perea ghost are: the long swirling body, Large amoeba shaped eyes, big train wrecked crowded teeth. It is how I want to be depicted when I die. My long serpentine body gliding across the night sky searching for the windows of celebrities so that my transparent visage can view them as they sleep in the nude.

Ghost hunting is an interesting profession. Based on the brief research I did before drawing this thing out, it seems very suspect to me. I went poking around a bunch of ghost hunting web stores looking for good reference material of appropriate equipment for this cute little tart in the drawing above. Scrolling through these pages there are a lot of big words that get a nerd like me titilated.

In particular the idea (not the reality) but the idea of Electric Voice equipment and Electromagnetic Field Detectors got me very excited. That is until I clicked the link to buy the recommended EVP equipment and was directed to a fairly standard Olympus Digital Voice Recorder.

WHAT! I can hear ghost noise having only three sound quality settings and forty bucks at my disposal. Needless to say it broke my heart. I wanted knobs and precarious cables flying everywhere. I wanted this equipment to looked jerry-rigged by some mad genius. I don’t want my ghost hunting equipment to look like it came from a half hour trip down to the local Wal-Mart. Based on aesthetics alone I am willing to brand the whole affair as bunk.

But I digress…

In the end this idea isn’t about accuracy of equipment, or even ghost hunting for that matter. But it is fun that in the effort to make a drawing you can research some ridiculous stuff.

I opted to use an old land camera as the reference for the inept ghost hunting equipment. I bought a while ago because I thought it looked cool. However I can’t get the damn thing to take a picture of a well lit stationary bowl of fruit, so to me it’s funny that someone would run around trying to capture ghost activity with it.

I really like this sketch as an idea, and want to eventually blow it out into something…however what the future holds for this concept only time will tell.

(Insert spooky noise)

A while back I tried to bring my brand of ghostly goodness to some skateboard designs for Foundation Skateboards. I have done a design for them already for their rider Corey Duffel( based on an illustration I had previously done of Tim Burton.) We were happy with the result, so I pitched a few more ideas .These designs weren’t quite right for them at the time but I always liked the basic concepts.

These ghost may not be the most original thing on the planet but I like to pepper my sketchbooks, meeting notes, and my heart with their slithery designs.

I also pitched a design of skeletons too that I always liked.

I never get too down when people reject my concepts. I’m honestly just lucky right now people even want to see what I have to offer. It isn’t the ultimate goal, but it sure is a step in the right direction. Plus now I really want to use these designs for myself , in what capacity though again only time will tell.

I did these a while back and it is always cool to see old work I forgot about. I recommend pulling out “old stuff” to any artist because it shows you where you have come, and reveals a truth about the identity of your work that you aren’t conscious of while putting pencil to paper.

(Insert spooky noise again)

Till next week,

Vincent

Since begining this blog I have been getting some good responses and a nice number of blog hits. So thanks for stopping by!

Below is a pinup I did for a comic that just came out called “The Clockwork Girl” . It was created by my buddy Kevin Hanna, who asked me to be a part of his amazing line up of pinup artists ( like Barnaby Ward, Bengal, and Jeux Janovsky).

The story is described as :

“A nameless robot girl has recently been given the gift of life from her creator, while exploring the wonders of an ordinary world she meets an amazing mutant boy and they share a friendship that must overcome their warring families. “

It is a cool project and I am really happy Kevin asked me to be a part of it. He just told me it has been selling out too, so i (and you) should run out and track it down. Most of the pinups include the Clockwork Girl, but I wanted to focus just on Huxley the monster boy. Something about his character got me very excited. One would think robots and girls, perfect combo and flood of inspiration. But I so rarely draw monsters,so I had to give him a go. Go figure!

I was at Disneyland yesterday for a work function titled: Mandatory Fun Day.

The name didn’t sell me( as it sounds like some strange Orwellian activity) but it turned out to be fun, based on who I hung out with. I was in a silly mood and while waiting in the requisite theme park lines I developed a new character who I am hoping will grace this site very soon. Unless we have met in person you may not know that aside from coming up with inane visual characters, I also create a slew of characters as voices that I use at random to pepper any conversation.

The real gag is that all these voices sound nearly identical, but I like to believe it is the delivery that sells the performance. Suffice it to say that the humor is the same brand of abstract and weird randomness that I dump into sketchbooks. Although I believe some people would use the term “Dumb” I like to think that my childish humor is a higher form of art, avant even, because it’s appeal is purposely aimed so low. Such Characters include : The Solemn Indian , Fake George Takei, “I just want to dance!” party girl, stuttering fan boy, and now Love-Bot the mail order love-machine.

Speaking of random characters here are some Pinata riding skeletons:

and some other characters who I will tease but not quite talk about yet:

Till next time,

Vincent

An old idea I finally put on paper.

…speaks for itself.

Have a good one!

- Vincent

For your consideration I have a lil’ thing I did in Photoshop the other day.

I’m in love watercolor paper texture, so i try to use it even in the computer. Also I was really inspired by an artist named Gustaf Tenggren. I first saw his work on some illustration blogs but then recently found out that he was a concept artist for Snow White.

His work is really stunning, and I love his muted parchment tones and want to do some more of that stuff in my work.

Whenever I sit and doodle, i usually gravitate towards a few types of animal characters. Squids and octopus top the list, but caterpillars are a close second. Things are just better with an over abundance of limbs.

My favorite part in fantasy stories is when the hero has to visit the wise sage who has all the answers, and knows exactly what the antagonist needs to complete the journey. It’d be nice if sometimes when we get stuck with the big decisions in life you could just walk through a murky swamp, through an ancient forest, up a snow covered mountain past legions of goblins into a cave where a giant catepillar will just tell you what to do.

But…maybe that’s just me. I mean, you’d have to listen to a giant caterpillar right?

So it has been a whole full year since my last official post. For a fresh start, I decided to move over here to wordpress. I have been keeping busy filling sketchbooks but not without updating the blog. Still working at Disney, I haven’t had as much time for extensive painting like I used to, but I’m still drawing everyday.

I got a great Moleskin Watercolor sketchbook and have been working in that for a while now. It is nice because the format is very versatile. It is a manageable size if you want to knock out a quick idea and carry it with you, but the paper quality is so good you could spend hours on a page.

The title image above was done in that book with Purple markers and gouache. It is kind of how I have been feeling lately, stuck and thirsty.

I was going to write more about process and how i paint each piece and all that boring nerdy crap. But i have decided against it. There isn’t enough room in this blog for both my neurosis, clever quips, sketches and my pretentious ego.

“I painted this real doozy of a masterpiece with a number 4 Isabey 6223 Brush. Traditional ink is for lazy sissies and the criminally insane. I made mine from a the spit of a squid I caught while doing a few laps off the coast. Oh and that’s not paper…oh no that is dried humus pulped together with back issues of X-men. Specifically those issues pertaining to the Dark Phoenix saga. I was very upset by the third X-men movie. This painting it is about how Hollywood produces rubbish from good material. The dog….. oh that’s just Pepe….”

I think it is because I have an iron trap for a mind, and I constantly crave love, that i just want to describe minutiae to people. It’s what I care about, why should everyone else? Just the other Day I was at the Dali exhibit at LACMA with a lovely woman. A woman who had the poor misfortune of asking me about gouache.

Good ole’ freaky Dali had some nice ink and gouache drawings up and she had never heard of gouache. The easy answer was opaque watercolor. But fifteen minutes later I arrived at the climax of my master’s thesis and described how light effects gouache differently than normal watercolor. Just then I had a thought: Why am i still talking? Sadly, this is a thought i have often.

“Hey Baby, you come here often? I love me some gouache!”

I’m going to keep this post short as a nice start. Although I cannot guarantee I wont say the word gouache again. I just love it, gouache!

Come back soon for more updates on gouache.

If you want to review the old blog (now with less gouache) check it out here.
brb

Vincent