My newest tattoo is finished! I cant thank my cousin enough for the amazing job that he did. An up and coming tattoo artist that everyone should look out for! Check him out over at http://robblognigno.blogspot.com

Graduation

This past weekend was my graduation ceremony from the Savannah College of Art and Design. It was a longg trip down, 16 hours from Buffalo to Savannah, but the time spent in town was a blast. Hanging out with all my friends from college was great and I can't wait to see where we all end up in life. It was also great to have my mom, cousin Jessica and my grandparents there as well :)

#4

So I got tattoo number 4 today, created by none other than the man himself, Robert Beningo. One more session for color and she'll be finite. Stay tuned :)

Website

Hey guys, so I finally got my first website up and running. I designed it a little less than a year ago when I was still in school, so it's been a long time coming. Feel free to look around over at tdumpleton.com :)

Stylin'

So this is what I've been working on for Carousel Pediatrics. The bottom one is my first attempt at an example for a style for the childrens books I will be working on. They liked the image a lot but are looking for more of my style to show through. This is too exact to the characters they already have developed. So the top image is showing more rendering and will prob even incorporate some hatch work which is also a representation of my style. The final image will also be a little tighter than this example. I am anxious to get started on the books and grateful to be working on such a project :) Stayed tuned...

Just some things

Just some recent sketches/diddlys i've done. The first few are for a Childrens book project my cousin had to do for her grad class, so she asked me to help her with the illustrations :) The Doctor one is just a character study for a set of Childrens Books my good friend Rachel asked me to illustrate for Carousel Pediatrics in Austin, TX. Stick around kids...

CUBE

So about 3 weeks ago my 97 cavalier took a big dump (no pun intended) on itself. In short, the whole exhaust system had to be replaced which is around 600 bones to fix. The car wasnt even worth that much so I had no choice to sell it. For the following couple weeks I was on a mad car search, and starting to become quite frustrated. Then I decided to look into leasing. So I went to a local Nissan dealer to check out lease deals that were going on and they had a promotion for their 09' sentras and cubes. Going in there I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would fall in love with such a weird lookin vehicle. But much to my surprise I did. I couldnt be any happier with my decision cuz boy is this baby sweet! It's got the luxury of an astro van and the convenience of smart car. I give you.....the DumpleCube.

Dance Party

So the other night I was lucky enough to see the band Passion Pit with openers Mayer Hawthorne, for free at the Rapids Theater in Niagara Falls. What a show it was indeed, full of dancing and laughter...much laughter. The Rapids Theater was recently renovated and this was their first sold out concert. I'm sure there will be many more to come, this has become one of my new favorite venues. The stage is pretty much in view from wherever you are in the theater. Complete with a V.I.P. section on the balconies to the back with a full classy bar. All in all it was a great night and will def be returning for concerts in the future.

The Volcano Bazaar

Sup kids, so this is a last minute piece I did for one of my good friends Natalie and her band The Volcano Bazaar (check em out on myspace!). She came to me needing a banner of sorts for a recent show her band had. The actually image is a sketch I did a long time back when I was still in Savannah. I never ending up using the sketch for anything but I've always really liked it, so I figured this was a good opportunity. All in all im pretty happy with the way it turned out for an extremely last minute commission. Lemme' hear your thoughts folks

Portfolio Book

Hey boys and girls,

So a new posting has been lonnnngggg overdue, I guess there just hasn't been much going on Art-wise worth posting. That's probably a bad thing, I guess it shows that I should motivate myself more! I will report though that I have recently completed my portfolio book which I will be sending to Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios in hopes of possibly obtaining a summer internship. I doubt I'll get it considering there's a gajillion other folks shooting for the same thing as I am, but I guess you don't know unless you try. Can't win the lottery unless you play right? So anyways, above is an image of what the book cover looks like, I think it's pretty savvy lookin. I ordered the books through a company called Blurb, and created the actually book with a program that you can download from their website called "BookSmart". This program is actually really awesome and completely user friendly. It allows you to pick from a bunch of different templates depending on what kind of book you are trying to make. There are also loads of different styles to choose from. If you are considering creating a book I highly recommend using this program. Originally I was going to use InDesign to create my book, but I've never been the greatest at using that program. You also have the choice of getting soft cover, hard cover with book jacket, or hard cover with image wrap (which is what I got). Anyways that's what I've been up to, not to mention updating/redesigning my resume and all that good stuff. Working at Pixar would be an absolute dream and I probably wouldn't believe that is was happening if it does! Wish me luck everyone!

Paying a visit

So I was recently a special guest for my cousin's class of 2nd graders that she teaches. The purpose of my visit was to show the kids how I use pictures to tell a story, much like every illustrator does. They learned how to take the only the important parts of the story to illustrate. In class they were currently reading the "Wayside Stories", and my cousin will be giving them an assignment in the future where they have to illustrate one of the many stories from the book. It was a great experience and the kids were a lot of fun. I will say that it is difficult at first adjusting to their level of understanding. I really had to "dumb" myself down I guess you could say, being mindful to use a vocabulary that they will understand. The kids really enjoyed it though, and I'mhoping they were able to take something from it.

The Legend of the Cricket Mask: Vol. 2

Here's my final for my Intro. to Sequential class. This is also the last project I'll have to do for school, because I am DONE with college. I cannot believe its finally over, it has been a long, hard, and very interesting road. It still hasn't hit me yet that it is over and the next chapter in my life is about to begin. Yeah I know that sounds really cheesy but it's true. I can't wait to start working professionally, and anxious to see just what road I will travel down. The world of storyboarding has been on my mind non-stop, and I'm praying that I will be blessed with the opportunity to work on some great projects in the future. Alright that's enough jibber-jabber, keep posted people, I'm gonna try my hardest to keep it interesting...