Kirsten Lepore - "Bottle"

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Christmas Panda

Even more signs!

Included in this recent signs update is the finished sushi wall I recently did. As well as a separate sushi sign I drew to go with the new sushi overhaul. Also included are some great holiday signs and an awesome giant crab cut out I got to do! Very fun stuff.

BFBC FTW!!

Check out this amazing game play video of the upcoming Battlefield Bad Company 2 expansion set in Vietnam. This video pretty much sums up why I've been such an avid fan of the Battlefield series. Awesome sound, great visuals, cool guns and so much going on you don't know whether to be excited or terrified. This is going to be soooooo awesome!

Recent Signs

I have a couple signs up in the store that I really enjoy. I haven't had a chance to take pics of all of them so here are a few to start. I've just finished a huge sushi wall that you will see started in this post. I really enjoyed it and have been drawing sushi for about two weeks now!

I really wanted to avoid just slapping a normal little crab on this on calling it a day. I imagined a huge

crab holding the sign in his claws and doing that weird frothy bubble mouth thing crabs do. I had to tone down my original vision...

I had so much fun with this. In total there are six sushi rolls, I have since finished this and will post the final. For now check out how it all started!

Lastly is the new December calendar. I really enjoy Christmas time and it's been great to have to draw so many holiday inspired signs.

Happy Halloween!

Signage 2.0

I have done a few signs at work that I have forgot to photograph. Here's the new collection. I had a lot of fun doing some of the Holiday related signs, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Where it all started...

I've recently had a bit of a creative block. Not really a shortage of ideas but rather motivation and focus. This must be broken!

I decided to go back to a very dear subject to me. This small series is a homage to the original Super Mario Brothers. Think of it as if this is how I recall the game and my many adventures through this classic. I have many fond memories of this game, for now I have about 5 or 6 of these planned but I hope I can eventually have tons of them all splayed out next to each other, creating my own spin on the game that inspired my love for games and art together! Here are the first two with more to come

 The original. I did this a while ago and have been sitting on this idea. I'm very happy I'm working with this idea again.

The second I've done. Really fun. I always felt like the squid was one of the worst bad guys in the Mario series. You were already thrown off because you were swimming and then you had this guy with his unpredictable movements zooming around the screen.

Someday soon...

I love video games. It's no secret to those that are close to me that cartoons and video games were and are my largest inspiration. I'm always up on video game news and with the Tokyo Game Show going on I have been treated with a few of my favorites comming to me in awesome forms. These are a few trailers of upcoming games that I adore and I truly hope I can be working on stuff like this someday soon...




Battlefield!!!! Perhaps my favorite game series of all time. This is going to be fantastic! A throw back to one of the original Battlefield games married with the glorious Bad Company 2 Frostbite engine. That was a pretty nerdy sentence, this is one of those games where I can't hide how much of a dork I am when I talk about it. Needless to say, I'm very excited for this one. Awesome trailer too.





Devil May Cry, made by Capcom a company I admire and highly respect. They have really made some of the best games ever. I love all video games but there is something about the charm and style of Capcom games that really makes them one of my favorite developers. They say that this is a reboot for one of my most cherished game series, super exciting! Working with Ninja Theory should be awesome for this type of game. And again another super sleek, awesome trailer.





Another game I'm really excited about. Mostly because my wife wants to play this one with me! This adorable new Kirby game had me front the start. It's yarn themed? Yes and it's truly awesome. I love adorable round creatures and this game seems to have them by the dozens! Plus it looks really fun. Nice job Nintendo.

Hello my name is...

While we were having a meeting at work one of the regional guys had made a comment about how lame our name tags are. By the end of the day there was a contest announced for anyone to design a new name tag for the store. Here is my submission!

 I've lived in San Ramon for quite a while now. The toughest part of this design was trying to figure out how to capture "San Ramon" or just the "Cali" feeling. I remembered a year ago when my folks picked me and my wife up from the airport after returning from Japan. The first thing I noticed coming back into town was how ridiculously gold the hills looked. I know we live in the golden state and all but seeing it this way really gave me a new look on my home town. I mean they looked liked pure gold! Anyways I went with this bit of life inspiration for the name tag. Win or not this was a fun piece.

Daily sketch

It's really hard to draw something some days. I have many ideas and projects going on right now so sometimes I'm just feeling burnt out and I don't want to worry or work on any current stuff. When this happens I find it comforting to fall back on what I naturally enjoy and what comes easy to me. I don't have to focus on pushing myself or making sure I try something new, I want to avoid making it frustrating and just go with what's natural.

While I really like graphic detailed drawings, I must say that cute, round stuff has always been my favorite stuff to draw. For some reason I have no shortage of ideas when it comes to making something cute. This one is a little robot, I imagine him to be about 4 inches big. I thought it would be cool if you plugged him in and he just hovered around your desk or work space hanging you pencils and different tools that you needed. Maybe he would tell you the time or be a little alarm for you as well!

Anyways, the moral of the story is, if you REALLY don't feel like drawing just relax and do what comes naturally. Ignore all the stress of ongoing projects or whatever may be bothering you and go back to the basics. Just have fun!

Signage!

Here are some recent signs I've done...

I've had to do a bunch of menus lately. I usually don't enjoy the text heavy signs but these ones were really fun. Especially the 2nd one below. It's really big, about 4ft by 4.5ft, so I'm glad that everything come off so clean and crisp. This one really looks like a good menu to me!

This was a fun weekly sale sign I did for seafood.

I love this sign! I may have to cut this one in half to fit in my car but once this one has run it's course I'm definitley taking it home. I'm not even sure what it is about it. I think it's a combo of things really. I really like the font, I like the German flag colors, the foam and the beer cups were fun to draw. And lastly I think the pumpkin looks great!

Doggy Walk

I recently finished an art test for a job that I'm going for. This was great, I had to create a dog, draw it at a few different angles and create a looping walk cycle. Here's the result!

Chalk it up

I think I mentioned that I work at Whole Foods and may have referenced my cash register. I am indeed a cashier but the other half of my week I am the store chalkboard artist! I feel truly lucky that I can go to work and draw all day long. I must also admit that Im usually painting and drawing on black poster board. There is no real chalk involved. I do have experience with chalk art but I must say Im happy that I get to use paint, something I'm much more comfortable with. Ive done many signs and really haven't photographed any so I went back and snapped a few shots of some signs that are still up, some that have been retired and then some that haven't been used yet. Enjoy!

Here are a couple shots of my work space! My own little artist loft in the store.

I really like this one. All the writing was sort of a pain but these were things that I would have never drawn on my own so each fruit was fun.

Here's a newer one. We're trying to reach 7,500 bucks to put a salad bar in a local school. I like this one but think it will look better when it's all filled in. And I'm not just saying that because I want the salad bar in a school, I really think it will look better colored in.

This is a fun one. It's a huge calendar at up in the front of the store. This is cool because I get to do a new header each month and it's fun to come up with different themes.  Back to school for August!

Obviously another back to school sign. I really enjoyed doing this one.

 Gotta like this one. This bus is actually huge. 8 feet long by about 5 feet high. I had a blast doing this and I think everyone in the store likes it too!

Each week our meat and seafood departments have a different item on sale. It's always fun to come in and see what I have to draw this week. Yum yum, rock fish!

I like how the bag looks in this one. I don't think I would like this one as much if weren't hung in such a cool spot under the ivy.

Tada! This months calender header. It's Whole Foods 30th bday!

And last is the June header, easily one of my favorite signs I've done.

Check me out!

I've been working in collaboration with Orange Moon Studios to put together these "how to" videos for a new product. The product is for tennis players who want to improve their serve technique. This first video is the initial commercial  and I'm currently finishing some animation in the actual tutorial video. Check it out! My animation is used about half way through, all the little lasers and gizmos!

http://www.thetotalserve.com/

ALWAYS time to sketch!

Here are a few sketches I've done while at work! Working at Whole Foods brings many types of people through your life, I'm never short of inspiration while working. These were done on lunch breaks and any other time I was able to duck behind my cash register and jot something down!