Carlo Lo-Raso Studios

Bah Humbug!

2009-12-15T07:05:00.004-05:00

Well it's been another busy year for our family and because of it our annual Christmas cards will be arriving a little later than usual! Well, honestly it's more because I'm just slow, oh well. In any event, from our family to yours, we wish you a most Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.
Be safe, be happy, be true.

New Camera.

2009-11-16T14:31:00.004-05:00

I'm turning 40 this week and as an early birthday present I got myself a new Nikon D90 DSLR. It has just been so much fun using this thing! These are just a couple of quick photos I've taken using it.
I've felt like I've always had a camera strapped to me in some way since high school, being a yearbook and school paper photographer. My first real camera was a Nikon N2000 that I bought at a local used camera shop on a lay away plan. That camera got me through high school, college and into my 30's before I was able to afford an upgrade. That was my F100. I loved that camera. It felt like an extension of my hand that was hard wired to my eyeballs. It made me look like a better photographer than I am. But as digital slowly took over the landscape I found myself wanting something smaller and easier to carry to take snaps of my kids so I've had a couple of small Canon digitals and the F100 soon sat lonely on my shelf making me feel guilty, like I've been cheating on it. I kept picking up the abandoned camera just to hold it and to remember what a real camera feels like. I would push the trigger just to hear the satisfying sound of the shutter release but I just had no real reason to shoot with it or spend the cash and time to get a roll of film developed. Now here is the D90 and I feel like I've rediscovered a great old friend.

Logos Conference 2009

2009-08-27T13:56:00.003-04:00

Reverend Tom asked if I'd design a new image for our LOGOS 2009 East conference and I was only too happy to oblige. I tried to take some inspiration from 60's rock posters but still trying to keep it simple and legible. I think it came out pretty well.

Spencer Graduates.

2009-04-20T16:11:00.003-04:00

Our friends Jay and Beth asked me a while back if I'd be interested in doing up a caricature of their son Spencer who is graduating high school this year. I told them that I'd be delighted and I think in the end I was able to get a really fun image together that captures all his interests and his personality. Spencer is a great kid and I have no doubt that he will go very far in life. Congratulations!!!

The Lowells

2009-02-17T21:51:00.002-05:00

This is a little portrait I did of our friends the Lowells and their dogs. The pooches were a bit "poofier" in real life but I am pleased with the final result.

Merry Christmas and Happy Year!

2008-12-29T01:55:00.002-05:00

From my family to yours; may you have a most wonderful holiday and the brightest of New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Wee Kirk

2008-09-26T13:52:00.002-04:00

Our church has a children's ministry named "Wee Kirk". It's name means "Little Church" and, like so many things in our town, has a Scottish heritage to it. So I thought I would keep that in mind when I was asked to design a logo for the program.

Here is the pencil drawing that everyone liked. It has our little guy leaning on a sculpture of a tree stump with a scroll that is a featured monument on the lawn of our church.

The next step was creating an ink line drawing that could be used on stationary, black and white signage and such. The inking was done digitally in Adobe Illustrator using the pen tool with the bezier curves. I could have inked this by hand with a sable brush and scanned it to the computer and then "tweeked" and "tweezed" it from there, but honestly there are days I just don't want to deal with all those steps and there is something to be said for doing it directly into the computer from the get go when that's where the piece is ultimatly heading. It's not necesarily easier or harder inking digitally. It involves a different mindset and it offers you a different set of options while demanding you adhere to the same artistic pricples that would apply to traditional inking.

And here we have the final color of our guy. I took the paths that were created from the digital inking and brought them into Photoshop to use as the basis for the illustration. I mostly used the airbrush tool and standard brushes to get the final look.
I think he came out alright.

Tarzan

2008-07-28T12:03:00.004-04:00

I've been going through some old drawings and I came across these little thumbnail sketches I had done while I was working on the Tarzan style guide at DCP. The image of the professor and the apes was idea for merchandise art work that was never used. The other four were ideas for collectible prints for Disney Art Classics. I believe the one with Young Tarzan and Terk riding the bird was eventually picked and illustrated for the print.
I always liked these little idea drawings. They are fun and lively.

LOGOS

2008-07-28T10:48:00.003-04:00

Sorry that it's been a while since I have posted anything. I've been busy with lots of work but its all stuff that I can't mention because of confidentiality.
But I can post this!
My wife and I are involved in a youth ministry at our church, It's called LOGOS. It's quite an amazing and rewarding program from my perspective both as a participant and as parent seeing my kids learn and grow with God. When I first volunteered with the ministry I thought it was just something small and exclusive to our church. But I recently found out just how big and widespread the program is when my wife and I attended a seminar in Chicago recently. Apparently the program has been in existence for about 45 years and around 3500 churches use it. Go figure! There were so many wonderful folks from different congregations from the south and mid-west and we were all there for a common purpose to help expand and nurture the faith in our children and families through LOGOS. Just before this event, one of my pastors asked me if I was interested in designing a crest for a LOGOS conference he was overseeing that was geared specifically for teens. It needed to be simple and to convey the theme of the conference which was "Dance before the Lord".
So here's the design.

The new website!

2008-05-14T06:17:00.003-04:00

Well everyone my new website is finally up and running. I would like to thank Guy Michael and the staff at Sync Creative for putting it all together for me. I'm sure glad they did it because, web-wise, I have no idea what the heck I'm doing!
Check it out here: Carlo LoRaso Studios

AV123

2008-02-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone.
I've always had a thing for stereo equipment. I remember hanging out in the local Hi-Fi shops as a kid and well into my teens, listening to beautiful music coming out of all these great speakers and gear that I could never afford. I spent hours listening, reading and asking questions of store owners regarding all things audio. It was all great fun. In the last couple of years in my search for new speakers for our home theater I came across an internet direct company called AV123. They had a nice little website with beautiful looking speakers, a very reasonable customer return policy and, when I called their office, spoke with a really knowledgeable and swell guy named Sean Parque. Talking with Sean for about half an hour reminded me of those great, informative conversations I had in my Hi-Fi hangouts years ago. It was also clear that Sean wasn't blowing smoke, he knew what he was talking about. So I went and took a chance on a whole home theater package from this little company and I was rewarded with a truly great looking and great sounding system. If that wasn't enough their customer service has been really outstanding. They've been always available to answer questions or concerns and when I had a minor issue with a speaker and the wayward foot of my 4 year old, AV123 sent me a replacement speaker driver under warranty no problems. Now Sean has gone on to do other things at AV123 like getting their new website up and running and I was very surprised and happy when he asked if I would like to do an illustration for their home page. So here's the illustration and here's how to find AV123.

Color.

2007-11-26T13:14:00.001-05:00

And here is the card in color.
Tis the season!

Christmas Card.

2007-11-01T15:03:00.001-04:00

Yep it's time to start working on our annual Christmas card and as usual I'm getting to it later than I'd like. Here's the pencil drawing.

Frankenstein

2007-10-31T13:47:00.001-04:00

My friend John Quinn invited me to be contributor to a sketch/character design blog called "Gum or Mints". The objective is to produce a drawing based on whatever the particular theme of the moment is. Currently it is Frankenstein. Go check out the blog yourself to see some of the other excellent pieces posted by all the contributors.
Thanks again John!

Speaking of Buzz....

2007-09-18T15:43:00.001-04:00

This was also done for Hasbro's Toy Story line but it is the illustration for the the actual toy packaging. There's a lot of work that goes into putting a toy on the shelf and we're not even talking about the actual "piece of plastic" yet!
This was done in Photoshop.

Product Concepts

2007-09-18T15:21:00.000-04:00

These were product concept sketches that were done for Hasbro on the Toy Story property. They are more to illustrate what the function of the proposed toy would be as opposed to the specific details or final posing. They all made it into production a while back and I ran across the actual toys at the local Target so thats what prompted me to post them. I love drawing stuff like this.

Oddities.

2007-09-16T01:01:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself; "What do you get if you put a big head, button eyes, a huge shnozolla, diapers, a safety pin, bunny ears, a cotton tail, lots of wrinkles and a dainty travel purse all together"?
Yeah, I can already hear my old character design teachers screaming and running for the tall grass on this one!

It's fun though!

And even more Critters!

2007-08-21T11:19:00.000-04:00

These bunch of animals are from the same assignment as the penguins and gators a couple of posts back. I did a ton of these for Hasbro and these are my favorites of the group.They may be a little "cutsie" for some but I like them.

Sculpts.

2007-08-01T10:07:00.000-04:00

My good friend Alvaro Cervantes who is an awesome sculptor (check out the Puro Sculpture link) and probably first inspired me to mess around with sculpting asked that I post some pictures of sculpture that I've done in the past. These were all done on spec in the hopes of some day being limited edition bronze pieces. Nothing really came of them but I did get an artist proof bronze of the Tarzan and the Ratigan so I can't complain. The Ratigan was done with Roma Plastellina while the Hunchback and gargoyles were done in Super Sculpie and Tarzan was done in Chevant. These were great learning experiences and taught me much about sculpting and on a more basic level visualizing the form in three dimensions.

Critters 2: Gators

2007-07-12T10:30:00.000-04:00

These are from the same batch of animal concepts as the penguins. They were all done for Hasbro Toys as character explorations a couple of years back. I enjoy doing stuff like this; messing around with shapes and proportions. I was looking at T.S. Sullivant's work as inspiration when I was doing these. The way he caricatured animals was masterful. My drawings are very pale "dart throws" in comparison!

Critters 1

2007-07-10T17:35:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of character studies of penguins that I did recently. Black Prismacolor.

2007-07-10T07:45:00.001-04:00

I did this illustration of Hades (from Disney's Hercules) a number of years ago for fun while I was messing around with a painting program called Deep Paint. The program was a bear for me to use but the result was interesting. I always loved the character so I had this printed up on some canvas and it's hanging in my studio.

2007-07-10T07:34:00.000-04:00

I've been fortunate enough to illustrate several My Little Pony projects over the years from packaging illustrations to story books. These particular ones were done for packaging and are some of my favorites.

2007-07-09T11:53:00.000-04:00

I've taken the odd pilates class at our local YMCA. It reminds me a lot of Tai chi. One day after a particularly painful series of stretches I made some crack about "my ass feeling like it just fell off". It inspired this card to the instructor (thankfully a good friend). It's a miracle that she puts up with me!
The image was done with brush and black ink and colored in Corel Painter.

2007-07-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

I did a drawing demonstration at a local school about 2 years ago and it was during Dr. Seuss' birthday I believe. In any case the faculty asked if I would do a little "Seuss" style drawing that could be printed onto some bookmarks that they handed out. I came up with this. Done with a #2 brush and black ink.