sorry you missed us // out of print

Scott Robertson Workshops are designed to inspire and to educate. As we strive to improve upon this mission, we have created the SRW Sketch Collection as something you can refer to whenever you need a little reminder of the rewarding creative experiences that the sketches in the booklet represent.

“Almost all of these 203 sketches have never been published until now. They were selected from my own personal sketchbooks and a few digital sessions represent my design explorations. I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed creating them, and they can provide some inspiration when sketching your own designs.” – Scott Robertson

After a 12 year absence from creating his own art, Derek started to focus on his personal work in 2009.

His first personal project, Born in Concrete, was undertaken to dispel his biases towards expressive art, overcome his own perceived limitations and to rejuvenate his creative spirit. This collision of Soviet inspired retro sci-fi and Jewish mystical and qabalistic symbolism has evolved into a filter, or framework, that emotions, ideas and images are pushed through to be given shape and form. This project has been well received, being featured in numerous exhibits, international publications, as well as book and album covers, it continues to unfold and expand…

This book will feature a gallery section of artwork, a chapter on the artwork created for use as graphics on snowboards, the snowboards and the corresponding marketing material as well as a chapter on the creation of a resin model kit by Industria Mechanika.

A section of the book will also be dedicated to a step-by-step breakdown of how one of the
art pieces was created.

Punch Drunk Moustache is the off-the-clock work of eight animation industry artists with the insatiable need to tell stories. Each artist showcases new ideas infused with unique personal style. Get ready for stunning visual development and never before seen concepts. Giants, androids, strange beasts, brave animals, magic, mystery, and everyday folks collide in these vividly imagined tales. With Punch Drunk Moustache, the gloves are off!

Nuthin' But Mech is the brainchild of Lorin Wood of Gearbox Software. He wanted a place to harbor his passion for robots so he put together a blog and corralled some of his friends and professional acquaintances to populate this nook of cyberspace. A collaborative effort from over 40 artists, this title will showcase various styles of mecha design that the artists create while they are not working on block buster movies, tv shows and video games.

Following in the successful tracks of DRIVE, vehicle sketches and renderings, BLAST takes the readers on a visual exploration of spaceships. The team from DRIVE, Scott Robertson, Annis Naeem, and Danny Gardner are together again for BLAST, with each of the three artists exploring spaceships and sci-fi environments with concept sketches executed in wide range of mediums through to final full color Photoshop and 3D digital renderings.

BLAST also features a guest artist section with spaceship art from Harald Belker, Ian McQue, Thom Tenery, David Hobbins, Darren Bacon and Joon Ahn.

Take off with these visionaries as they launch us out of this world with their captivating spaceship creations.

MetamorFX offers insight into Constantine Sekeris' aesthetic of creature design, makeup design, robot design, and costume design for film. As you flip through the pages, you will see it's a book about process from a rough, loose Post-it sketch, to a more refined, tighter rendering, into Photoshop, with photocollaging and detailing, to a rough ZBrush sculpture model. Chapter one on creatures will showcase examples of practical creatures with digital removal that allow the director and studio the option of having a creature that is designed as a practical suit or to be built completely digitally. The makeup chapter gives some tips as to what to think about when designing a practical makeup over an actor's face. Chapter three showcases robot design from the sci-fi look to the fantasy; covering the range of hard, sharp shapes to the soft and organic. The last chapter on costume design gives tips on what to think about when starting a costume over an actor and designing a complete digital suit.

This book is also a look into what designing in the film industry is like. It's not only coming up with pretty images, but problem solving as well. Constantine has been fortunate to have worked with and learned from the best in the business and in this magnificent book, he is able to share tips from his artistic journey with you.

Moonshine features artwork that is made during the precious little time of day when the contributors are not working on stunning movies such as Puss in Boots, The Croods, Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, Megamind, Guardians, Scared Shrekless and Kung Fu Panda Holiday; these artists amaze us with their individualistically styled images that they create after dark at DreamWorks Studios.

DreamWorks Animation artists featured in this book have worked on blockbuster movies Monsters vs Aliens, Surfs Up, Coraline, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, PowerPuff Girls, Lord of the Rings Two Towers, Bee Movie, Astro Boy, Kung Fu Panda, Prince of Egypt, Monsters Inc., Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Nemo, Ratatouille, Shark Tale, Flushed Away and Monster House – to name only a few. Many of the contributing artists have been nominated for an Annie Award, the highest honor given for excellence in animation chosen by a nominating committee appointed by the Board of Directors of ASIDFA-Hollywood (ASIFA is a French acronym “Association Internationale du Film D’Animation). Each year, Annie Award trophies are awarded within 23 categories including Best Animated Features, Best Animated Home Entertainment Production, Best Animated Short Subject, Best Animated Television Production, and Best Video Game, as well as individual excellence in areas ranging from production design, character animation, character design, and effects animation to storyboarding, writing, directing, music, and voice acting.

BATTLE MiLK 2 is the latest collection from several San Francisco based animation professionals featuring personal works and original concept designs. Inside are over 120 pages of full color imagery incorporating a wide variety of approaches, styles and subject matter. Everything from traditional pen and ink to miniature photography to cutting edge digital painting can be found as new worlds and ideas are explored. Each artist provides a step by step guide to their creative process, from inspiration to techniques for realizing their ideas. Fans of all styles of imaginative design and illustration will find plenty to enjoy in this eclectic volume.

Wayne Lo was born on the East Coast, raised in California, saved in Cupertino, nurtured in Berkeley, rewired in Beijing, rebooted in Taiwan, shrunken-headed at San Jose State, discombobulated on Kerner Blvd. and jury-rigged into a VFX concept artist. There he cursed pirates, skinned werewolves, skewered vampires, thawed Neverland and got cluster-f*@ked on Iwo Jima. After about six years with the Industrial Light and Magic art department, he moved on to art direct Factor 5’s PS3 title Lair. Since then he has been creating artwork for Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

David Le Merrer was born in Paris where he grew up and later studied graphic design at ESAG met de Penninghen. After getting his degree he spent a few years in the UK creating art for video games. But after a while he grew tired of the rain and in 2005 the road took him to Northern California where he ended up in another video game company. Now he is working at Lucasfilm on the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated television show where he met all these crazy folks and decided to join the Battle Milk team.

Thang Le was born and raised in Southern California. The youngest boy of seven children, he spent his childhood reading comics, watching movies, and playing video games. After high school, he moved to Pasadena where he attended the Art Center College of Design, majoring in transportation design. Prior to graduating, he decided to switch his focus to entertainment design. After receiving his degree, he began working in commercials, video games, and film. This eventually led to an opportunity to relocate and work on the Star Wars: The Clone Warsanimated television show and film. After several years at Lucasfilm, he decided to move back to Southern California to pursue other creative endeavors.

It’s hard for Kilian Plunkett to believe that, growing up in Dublin, Ireland, he would one day end up gainfully employed drawing and painting the kind of robots, monsters, spaceships, heroes and villains that occupied so many of his waking hours as a pale young geek. He moved to the US in the early ‘nineties when the chance to work as a professional comic artist came along. Comics taught him the value of learning to draw as broad a range of subjects and settings as he could. He worked almost exclusively as a comic artist until 2005, when an opportunity arose to be part of the team at Lucasfilm’s new Animation division. He’s been there ever since, learning everything all over again.

Le Tang has spent most of his years in Southern California, but woke up from a stupor one day to find himself living in the Bay Area. He studied animation and studio arts in Southern California, but on the job is where the real education started. His career so far has been short-lived, ranging from being an animator on small traditional animation projects to a story artist on the 3-D television show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Be it short, it has still been sweet. Now he’s gonna cross his fingers, knock on wood, and hope his good fortune keeps up.

Jackson Sze has always liked to draw and paint. His passion grew as he was exposed to video games, cartoons, and movies. Creating worlds is infinitely exciting. Thankfully his parents were always supportive of his passions. He studied illustration at Art Center College of Design with an emphasis in entertainment arts. Since leaving school, he has worked in advertising, video games, television, and film. With luck, he was brought into Lucasfilm Animation where he eventually worked on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Now he is back in Los Angeles, teaching and freelancing for games and films.

“Daniel Simon has an amazing mind that not only conceives startling designs but has the critical skill to translate those designs into stunning imagery.” – Syd Mead, Visual Futurist

Come explore the vehicle designs of a far away galaxy called Galaxion where futuristic concepts exist in everyday life. Nine different spaceships, pods, race cars, giant trains, warships and balloons from various planets of the Galaxion system are shown from concept to completion.

Daniel Simon is an established car designer who has spent the last several years focusing his talents on futuristic concepts for such automakers as Bugatti and Lamborghini. In his first book, Cosmic Motors, each chapter shows the design process of a unique vehicle, from the first ideation sketches to the stunningly detailed 3-D models to the final photorealistic full spread renderings. Join Daniel in this virtual world of visionary vehicles!

In The Future… showcases the first student work created in the new Entertainment Design program at the prestigious Art Center College of Design. Entertainment design requires strong industrial design, architectural and illustration skills, as the designers create characters, environments, vehicles and props. Examples of class work from such courses as Originality in
Design, Character Design, Architectural Design, Visual Development and Color Theory are presented.

This stunning collection of sketches, renderings, and models created by the inaugural class of entertainment design students is a “must-have” for any fan of entertainment design and for those who have enjoyed the first Art Center student book, The Skillful Huntsman.

“…her style seems to be the point where manwa meets Brendan McCarthy. It’s beautiful, beautiful work.”

Warren Ellis, comic book & graphic novel author

What do you get when you combine a frozen chicken and a ballerina, or a cat and a bagpipe, or an insect and a beautiful lady? No, this is not a riddle—it’s the surreal imagination of Daphne Yap. Prepare to be amazed! The illustrations in Daphne 01 are unlike any seen before. This book contains everything from bizarre carnival creatures to ornate royalty inspired by a deck of cards to fanciful fashions. With brilliant line work and exquisite detail, this young artist conveys her characters and creatures with every element necessary to bring them to life.

One of the few female artists in the field of concept design, Daphne is accomplished beyond her years with delightful images that range from as small as a quarter to as large as a door.

From the creative director of Over the Hedge & Shrek 2.

“You find yourself drifting when you become aware of the arrangement of trees behind a freeway sound barrier, when you wait for the container ship to disappear beyond the horizon, when you sit and listen to the ambient noise of distant traffic, unconcerned that most people would consider this a waste of time.”

From the moments described above, emerges a captivating sketchbook from Christian Schellewald. Art Director Schellewald has taken time away from the world of entertainment design to create vignettes that capture his everyday observations of living in California, specifically Los Angeles and San Francisco. When viewing such delicate yet compelling sketches, one feels as though Schellewald’s memories are his or her own traveling between these two cities through his eyes and artwork.

Vampires!

“The artists who have created and visualized this world developed their imaginative creativity with such fertile cultural elements as Star Wars, Blade Runner, Aliens, Tron, and The Terminator to name but a few of individual inspirations. From the bucolic to the terrifying, these artists all share a common sense of exhilaration that is the signature characteristic of genuine creative facility.” –Syd Mead, visual futurist.

The Art of Darkwatch book showcases the concept art that went into creating the video game, Darkwatch. It demonstrates the process and development of the concepts, as well as the evolution of the game itself. Steal a glimpse into the true talent, perseverance, and collaborative spirit of the concept artists that contributed to developing Darkwatch.

“When I grow up I want to be an astronaut!” declared a six-year-old Stephan in 1968, a year before man walked on the moon. Not surprisingly, his first doodles featured blazing rockets and spaceships. Growing up in France, and not permitted to watch much TV, Stephan spent a lot of time at the corner cinema. There he was introduced to the likes of the Werewolf, the Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein and King Kong. He traveled on the Voyage to the Center of the Earth and experienced The Day the Earth Stood Still. The fantastic creatures and worlds in all of these classics were overwhelmingly cool. As Stephan’s doodles of astronauts became doodles of monsters and aliens, he found himself enjoying drawing more and more—and the dream of becoming an astronaut gradually evolved into becoming a visual artist.

Quantum Dreams: The Art of Stephan Martinière is a collection of his scifi book paintings, video game designs and personal art. Stephan takes others’ descriptions of faraway, imaginary realms—and makes them real.

“Beautifully presented and filled with wonderful art and designs, this is the book that I've wished I had years ago. I think students and professionals alike will find this book inspirational.” – Doug Chiang, design director, Star Wars Episodes I and II

In the Fall of 2001, a group of seven conceptual designers gathered together in Los Angeles to begin work on a new creative experience. At the heart of their coming together was a desire to create and explore new images and ideas in a creative environment apart from their normal design jobs. A presentation of the efforts of this group is available in the form of the first Concept Design art annual.

Concept Design contains nearly 300 original color works by the seven contributing designers. In addition to the 84 Concept Design pieces, support sketches and roughs appear throughout the book. Each piece is accompanied by text detailing the design ideas and/or illustration techniques used. Concept Design is printed with quality as our primary focus. The book is 9”x12” in a vertical format with eight fold-out pages which allow for the printing of sixteen large horizontal images. No images cross the binding of the book, breaking the image.