Sushi Pack Premier on Saturday Morning November 3rd on CBS!

For the last couple years a number of us at American Greetings have been in development on a Saturday morning animated show called Sushi Pack. It is based on a way-cool property created by the talented Leo Espinosa, and is animated by our buddies at DIC. But make no mistake, me and my fellow designers at American Greetings Properties have been instrumental in the design of the show. I myself have contributed artwork for backgrounds, props, vehicles, robots, monsters and other additional characters for the show. And it has been loads of fun! My proudest addition was the design of the Sushi Pack's main vehicle, which I affectionately call The Iron-Shrimp.
This post will begin to take you through some of the work that I've done on Sushi. But make sure that you jog on over to the blogs of the rest of the 'Pack' to get a small taste of the talents behind the show. Namely, Saxton Moore and Carlos Villagra. I will be posting additional links as other artists from 'The Pack' begin to post their various contributions as well.
And do not forget...
TUNE IN ON SATURDAY MORNING...AND EVERY SATURDAY THEREAFTER FOR...
SUSHI PACK!

Sushi Pack Designs

Happy Birthday: Jim!

Wow!!
This last weekend was my birthday, (it aint none of yer business how old I am...) and my wonderful wife surprised me with a road trip to East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania to visit the world renowned :
FRANK FRAZETTA ART GALLERY!
All that I can say is this: If you ever get a chance to see a Frazetta original oil painting (or his watercolors, pencils or inks , for that matter...) you have absolutely gotta do it! We are talking images that are hailed the world over as some of the most recognizable and incredible pieces of fantasy art of all time. Though the subject matter he chose was science fiction, fantasy and horror, his color, skill and technique is undeniably world class. I have a long list of artist/illustrators I collect and admire, but none come close to Frank Frazetta. He is truly a master.
I remember a book purchased for me by my mom when I was a kid called: "BACK TO THE STONE AGE": By Edgar Rice Burroughs. The cover had a heavily muscled blonde warrior with spear in hand staggering towards a gigantic wooley mammoth whose head was literally splitting the forest before him asunder! This image simply took me to another realm in my appreciation of paperback book cover art. For the first time I could actually see that this was a painting on the cover. For the first time I felt moved as much by the technique of the artist as the scene he was depicting. I could see the brush-strokes, the underpainting, and even the canvas beneath! And it was awesome!
For the first time I am posting art other than my own on my blog. These paintings moved me when I first saw them in the bookstore as a kid, and move me even more as an adult when I see the actually canvasses themselves. I strongly urge that you go to the official (Frank Frazetta) Website and get more information on the man and his gallery in the Pocono Mountains.
I want to thank my wife Tracy again for this incredible trip. And for the signed, numbered and framed Masters Deluxe art print she bought me of Frank Frazetta's THE MAMMOTH while we were at the gallery.
Shes even gonna let me hang it in the living room...

OMEGASAURS!

Another Kaiju blast from the past...
This was a cover I did for a proposed comic book many years back called OMEGASAURS. It depicts a battle between two of our lead Kaiju characters ICON-REX (the red reptilian menace with horns,) and THE CHRONOSAURUS (the green insectoid beastie).
We had about ten spec pages penciled up by now renowned comic book artist Darryl Banks. Darryl was in college at the time, and I had met him at a convention and was quite impressed with his work. A number of things happened that caused us to abandoned pursuing this property any further, but a look back at the pages Darryl drew and my acrylic cover painting make me dream of what could have been...

Kaiju Krispies

Recently I participated in a project called Cereal Killers for Doktor Victor VonCreep at Creepsville Industries. Alot of heavy hitters are involved in this project, so I was excited to be able to contribute. Anyway, the project involved creating a piece of art that represents an old cereal box illustration much in the vein of Count Chocula or Frankenberry cereals. I did the box for a fantasy cereal called Kaiju Krispies, which appears today on my Blog...

Madball Backer Card!!

Its Madball mania here at the James Groman Blog!
Here is a rough-almost-final version of the new Madball backer card graphics in all it's B-movie Sci-Fi glory! Its hard to see, but I am one of the members of the screaming crowd running in terror from Hornhead.

Madballs sighted at San Diego Comicon!!!

MADBALLS AT COMICON!!
Toy Tokyo was selling the new Madballs at San Diegos 2007 Comicon event!
They were released in preliminary packaging...(different than what they will appear in upon their November release to stores...) and sold 5 balls for $25.00! Kid Robot was also selling the DVD copies of the original first episode of the animated series that ran in the 1980's.
Anybody out there see them at Comicon? Drop me a line!!

DARTH TALON

Here she is...our new Sketch-o-Rama subject for this month....
Darth Talon!!

The Macabre Man-Thing

When I was a kid, Marvel Comic's "Man-Thing" was one of my favorite characters. I would dig through the comic book racks disgarding "Spiderman", "Captain America", "Fantastic Four" et all in search of the new issue of "Werewolf by Night", "Tomb of Dracula", "Monster of Frankenstein" or "The Macabre Man-Thing". Mostly because I dig anything with monsters, but partly because I loved the work of the one artist who worked on all 3 titles at one time or another: Mike Ploog. Mike could draw monsters, and his style reminded me a bit of Bernie Wrightson (another favorite of mine...). Seek out some of Mr. Ploogs work if you get a chance. You'll find that Hollywood discovered his talents long ago and he has worked as a storyboard artist and production designer on many a Sci-Fi/horror film. (most notably Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards, John Carpenters "The Thing" and "First Bood" to name a few...)
But remember this one thing as you look at the awesome array of monsters and beasties that flow from Mr. Ploogs fingertips...

"Whatever knows fear, burns at the Man-Things touch!!"

THE LIZARD STRIKES!

Here is my rendition of Spiderman's arch-nemisis, Doctor Curt Connors.
Alias: THE LIZARD!
I have read that Sam Raimi originally approached his pal Bruce Campbell for the role, so I decided to do my piece as if it was a film concept for Bruce playing the character, (with all due respect to Dylan Baker).
My goal was to complete this image entirely in Photoshop using textures, photographs (thats me in the lab-coat...) and brush tools. Though I toiled many hours on this piece, I would still like to noodle it a bit more. I feel it has not yet met the point of realism that I would prefer. But all in all, a great learning experience.

DEAD OR ALIVE, YOUR COMING WITH ME!

Heres my sketch for Sketch-o-Rama.
ROBO-SLOP!

Ben lookin' Grimm

This was done for Sketch-o-Rama.
My second attempt at Mr. Grimm as a full-on, photoshop critter.
Kinda like it. Just about 2 hours in Photoshop during lunch at A.G.
May do a clean-up, and more finished pass at it.
Or move on....
we'll see.

Thark Portrait

Here is my final Thark image.
If you take a trip over to Sketch-o-Rama you'll see it there too. With a different background.

Thark Sketches....

Awesome news from the world of entertainment.The rights to Edgar Rice Burrough's (The man who invented Tarzan) novel: "A Princess Of Mars" have been purchased/optioned by Disney/Pixar. Having read most of the books in this John Carter of Mars series, I am totally jazzed to see this project underway.(well, almost underway...) Hollywood has been trying to make this property into a film for over 60 odd years or so.
We here at Sketch-o-Rama have decided to do drawings of one of the lead alien races in the books. They are 15 foot, four armed creatures called Tharks. This particular Thark in my sketch is named Tars Tarkus, and he is John Carter's most trusted friend throughout a number of the books. Can you imagine one of these guys animated on the big screen?
Here are a few of the rough sketches that led up to my finished pencil (displayed on the right of the image.) I have posted a stand alone image of my finished sketch on the Sketch-o-Rama blog.

Emperor of Frankenstein's Planet!!

Here is a drawing I did of the omnipotent Emperor of Frankenstein's Planet. He is flanked by his two most trusted bodyguards, and has in his possession hero Artemus Axel's flight helmet, which is the astronauts only means of communication with the world he used to know.

I created a triptik version of this illustration as well by combining it with my two earlier freak warriors.

"Spontaneous Embellishment!"

Check out my previous post to see the rough pencil drawings from which these inks sprang. Once again, I did these at lightspeed, not wanting to over-think or over-render them. By the time these were concepted, penciled and inked, I figure that I must have spent about an hour and a half a piece on them, tops. In alot of ways, I am quite impatient with my art...(or is it my extremely short attention span?). I guess it stems from my background as a toy designer, churning out drawings as quickly as possible to convey a given concept, then moving on to the next. I think in some ways these two guys benefitted from the limited time I spent on them. I kinda like their choppy, spontaneous treatment.
Color comes next, and I'm gonna do it quick!...

More Freaks!!

Recently unearthed!
I found this lobby card for the 1967 production of Sergio Leone's "War of the Collossal Freaks of Frankenstein's Planet" in a folder in the basement of a local theater here in Cleveland. Long thought to have never existed, this rare find is even signed by Clint himself on the backside!! Amazing!
( Uh, really this is just a lobby card I pieced together from existing WOTCFOFP art. I am in the midst of gearing up to start creating some new artwork for this concept, and thought I would wip this up to help get in the mood.)
P.S. Check out Carlos Villagra';s way-cool four armed freak on his blog. I think there will be more coming soon from him as well.