Left to My Own Devices - John Casey Harris Week 13

I was at the Coffee Bean near Sunset Plaza with my friend Steven; we were out to draw dinosaurs and hopefully see Laura Dern (because, why not).

I started sketching a tyrannosaurus, when I added a rider and from there I added a triceratops. I started sketching a second rider when Steven commented that it sort of looked like Angela Lansbury. STROKE OF GENIUS. Literally rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth, dreaming of the possibilities. Angela Lansbury + Dinosaurs?!? Somewhere, Einstein's ghost was racking his brain with the mathematics of this truly momentous occasion.

A few flicks of the pen and my second rider was officially Angela, but we got to musing and trying to create a story... could we one up Angela Lansbury? A tough order to be sure, but we came up with one better... but that's something I'll have to save for later... because its still a dream rattling around inside our heads and not yet ready for prying eyes :)

Its just a pen and ink sketch, but conceptually its one of my favorite things I've done this term.

Haunted Mansion - A Work in Progress - John Casey Harris

This is a work in progress for a class I'm taking this term; its supposed to be a haunted mansion (obviously). Its no where near finished yet, but I like the way its going so far.

Just Some Doodles - John Casey Harris

These are a pair of quick sketches I did in the corner of a page of notes a few terms ago, but I loved them. The first was inspired by Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl, while the second was just a musing on a 1930's bombshell.




"I am after all, ME."



"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

Just a Few Pages From My Sketchbook by John Casey Harris

Here are just a few quick sketches out of my sketchbook! There's some slight Mucca influence.

More Balloons! by John Casey Harris

A quick study, similar to the Mary Blair studies, of a boy in a yellow rabbit ear hoodie and his balloon (With a phantom Mini Cooper in the back)!

Musings on Mary Blair - John Casey Harris

These are some sketches and marker studies in an attempt to emulate the style and color of artist Mary Blair. Blair was a color stylist for most of the classic Disney films of the early 1950's, as well as one of the main designers on the It's a Small World attraction for the 1964 World's Fair.

These studies were made for a final piece depicting a drive-thru Tea House and play ground

O hai dinasur! - Casey Harris - Week 13

Remember "Where's the Wand," a piece I posted several weeks ago? Here are some small thumbnails of the same t-rex character in different scenarios. first he's found a balloon, then celebration Thanksgiving! Nom nom nom!

Director's Reel!

This was a DVD cover I did for a friend's directing reel. the stripes down the center are the spine, with the blonds being the front cover and the brunettes the rear.

All four characters were women pulled from each of his four short films featured on the DVD (the large blond is actually a man in drag but...)

He really wanted a sort of pop art/lichtenstein feel with that sort of retro comic look and lot of garish color.

Femobtropolis

Also from Color Theory was this sexy fembot I named Allura. I drew inspiration for her design mostly from the original Transformers TV series (especially the character Arcee) a little Beast Wars (See Blackarachnia) some Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a dash of The Rocketeer and a little Alexander McQueen for the heels.

I've always LOVED robots, female ones especially. I find the idea of constructing a woman so intriguing, plus they tend to be the best characters in science fiction.

Scooby Doo 2010

This was a quick piece I did for Color Theory a couple terms back that got a lot of fun responses. Some friends and I were joking about old cartoons and what they might have been like had they been created today.

One of the cartoons that came up was Scooby Doo. I came up with the idea that a modern version, targeted at young adults, would have to center around Daphne, a hot Korean pop star, Velma, a lesbian, a robot Scooby Doo (that also manufactures "Scooby Snacks," a recreational drug), Shaggy, a hipster and pot head and Fred, the openly gay party boy best friend of Daphne.

They basically tour the world solving mysteries that may (or may not) be the negative results of their drug-laden partying ways. Was it a ghost... or just a bad trip? Who knows!

Casey Harris - Please Please Tell Me Now!

This particular character, named Trixis, came from the images that fluttered through my head while listening to Duran Duran and Wham! Particularly "Is There Something I Should Know?" by Duran Duran. Its one of my favorites. Its pure British 80's pop nonsense and I LOVE IT.

I really tried to incorporate more of a sense of the style of the period, more of a caricature of the style, rather than base it purely on existing fashion pieces. I tried to embody the feeling of the music and the imagery it inspires.

John Casey Harris - Where's the Wand?!?

This was an assignment from last term. We were asked, "if we could view any event or period in natural history, what would it be?" Naturally I responded "DINOSAURS! I WANNA SEE DINOSAURS!"

Then the twist. The same question had been given to a group of local first graders and each of us was given one of their responses written on a small piece of paper. Our assignment was to combine the two responses into a series of images.

Mine read "Where's the w**d?!"

Which wasn't that bad. My friend got "I wanna watch Jesus and RoboCop have sex," but REALLY?

Weren't these supposed to be first graders? As in 7 years old? How do they even know about these things. I'm pretty sure RoboCop was rated R... AND CAME OUT IN 1987!

Despite the obvious interpretation, I choose to believe (go denial!) that the kid had been a Harry Potter fan, thus this illustration was born!

The idea for the comic was that the young wizard performed a spell horribly wrong, thus catapulting his wand somewhere into the distant past, where it is found by a precocious juvenile tyrannosaurus!!!

John Casey Harris Week 1

These are a few illustrations I did for the end credits of a short film I art directed. The idea was to give a sort of epilogue to the fairy tales featured in the video; specifically, how the divergences from the traditional stories effected the characters futures.