I am FAKE SHANE

I wound up drawing this after spending too much time looking at Shane Glines' stuff at his CARTOON RETRO site. Shamelss, yes, and I could never draw like Shane, but when you get inspired, ya just gotta go with whatever vibe got ya there.

By the way, you can now buy Shane's new self-published magnum opus, S CURVES: The Art of Shane Glines at Lulu.com; 400 pages of color hard-cover goodness! Also available from Lulu is Shane's LILLY & FLINCH Sketchbook. Two batches of Shane's amazing illustrations? You know ya gotta have 'em.

(There; Maybe that plug'll make up for me biting Shane's style)

Cat's out of the bag...

People have been asking what I'm working on these days: Since last fall, I've been doing character designs for Rob Zombie's crazy lil' cartoon movie THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO. Written by Mr. Zombie & Tom Papa and directed by Mr. Lawrence (of SPONGEBOB fame), this R-rated flick features the work of a bunch of your favorite cartoon pals from REN & STIMPY, DEXTER'S LAB, POWERPUFF GIRLS, SPONGEBOB, CLONE HIGH, and SAMURAI JACK. When will it be out? Your guess is as good as mine, but for now, you can check out character profiles and sign up for future updates at the official site.

There will be monsters. There will be sexy girls. There will be masked mexican wrestlers. There will also be a sexually frustrated transforming robot. ...and that's just for starters.

Doodles Galore!

What I do when I'm supposed to be working:

These are mainly all done on 2x3 or 1.5x2 inch Post-Its.

.........................................

MINOR UPDATE: Uploaded a higher-res scan so's you can see all the details!

Lil' Hellboy

My hard drive is full. My new external drive is on it's way. Until then, Photoshop is not my friend. The massive doodle composite will have to wait. Until Amazon saves the day, I offer you Lil' Hellboy. I just picked up the new STRANGE PLACES book, and I've had Hellboy on the brain.

Today I ate Hell Chicken. The proof is here.

.....................................................................

COOL ART SHOW ALERT!

Next Saturday night, May 6th, will be the opening reception for Mari Inukai's show "Syun-ga" (Spring Dreams) at Gallery Nucleus. There will be live music and complimentary sake and otsumami (Oishi!), so get there early!

.....................................................................

MORE ON PPG-Z

I guess alot of people hadn't heard about this yet. It was announced a year ago, but I'm not sure if it's begun airing yet. You can find a fan guide to the early promo footage here. A more updated version is here, but it's in Japanese. Still plenty to see, tho. (Be sure to check out the Quicktime movies!)

Odds 'n' Ends (A mini-update)

The biggest art show in LA last week? Well, it was probably still the 8-BIT sequel, but it sure didn't seem that way if you were at Cartoon Network for the Fyn Stec Benefit Art Auction. It was LARGE; A huge night filled with plenty of old friends, and almost all of the original CN gang, most of whom hadn't been at the studio for years! Spirited bidding on an overflowing amount of artwork raised $41,131.00 for Fyn! (For more info, check out the latest post at Fyn's blog here.)

I'm in this picture if you look real close.

(Photos totally stolen from the TAG blog)

Many thanks to my pals Craig & Megan Lewis for their very generous winning bid for my piece! Craig has a crazy new cheezy green-screen puppets 'n' costumes Sid & Marty Krofft on acid kinda show coming up later this year on Adult Swim called SAUL OF THE MOLE PEOPLE. You can check out a lil' tease on YouTube right here:

Be sure to pick up the latest issue of JUXTAPOZ. No, it's not because it's got a Tusken Raider on the cover, it's 'cause inside there's a big interview with my pals Chris Reccardi & Lynne Naylor. Run to your local magazine stand or go here for more info.

Here's some new footage of POWERPUFF GIRLS Z that was floating around YouTube:

YAY ME! Last week my lil' blog passed the 10,000 hit mark! (and I've only been keeping track since late January... how many have I actually had since starting the blog back in November??) Since you're my audience, here's what I wanna find out from you:

What do you guys like to see here at Chris Battle Land? I'm trying to keep the mix fresh-- stuff from all of my past shows mixed in with new doodlings & occasional color works. Like the classic stuff? Like newer doodlings? Wanna see more step-by-step "process" posts? Want 20% more Chewbacca, 5% less Rubik the Amazing Cube??? Let me know!

Doodles will be happening next post. Lots of 'em. You were warned.

Art auction for a cause!

All of you out here in the L.A. area should head over to Cartoon Network in Burbank starting April 17, so you can view and bid on cool artwork by all your favorite cartoon pals (even me) in a special silent auction to benefit a very brave little friend of mine, Fyn Stec. Fyn is fighting liver cancer, and to help his parents with the medical costs, all of us are donating original artwork that will go on exhibit in the lobby of Cartoon Network Studios. On the evening of April 20, you might be the lucky one to take said artwork home after the silent auction! So head on out to Burbank and remember to bid BIG! It's for a good cause. Not in L.A.? You can still place a bid BEFORE the auction begins.

For more information (Dates, times, and an image gallery that will eventually show all 180+ pieces!), click on the picture of Fyn on the right, or check out the blog that's been started so friends and family can stay up to date on Fyn's condition here.

Here's my piece for the show:

(That's right, everyone's favorite...& it can be YOURS!)

UNRELATED TIME-WASTING LINK:
Go here to see a gross old picture of me by Dan Krall
that he was kind enough to post on his blog. (Bastard!)

"XIAOLIN" Warriors

Here's some ancient warrior spirits I did for XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN. We had no guidelines, only that they be from different cultures & eras in time. Here's some that I came up with:

This was an extra design I didn't have time to finish. Too bad; she's kinda cool.

Any of you XS fans who also like toys (and there might be one or two of you...) should be on the lookout for the new XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN action figures , available at a mega-store near you. Take it from someone who used to draw them, the sculpts are really good, plus they come with cool little accessories.

...and starring Chris Battle as himself

Cartoon people is funny. Sometimes we get all giddy/bored/drunk and draw our co-workers into the shows. All of our shows for Cartoon Network are chock full of cartoon cameos by their crew members. Witness:


I did some of the storyboards for "Dexter Detention" and as a goof, added a bunch of crew members to this list. The model designer did me one better and stuck me in with the other delinquents.


When an episode of PPG called for a guy who steals some Powerpuff dolls, Stef Choi decided I looked like a criminal & thus my life of cartoon petty thievery began.

Some Post-It Sketches

Believe it or not, those were actually done for work. (Working on an R-rated feature is a totally different kind of animal...)





I did this doodle a few years ago on a little 1.5" x 2" post-it, and it's been a favorite of mine. One of those few times I committed to laying down straight ink.

---

Remember, kids: This Saturday night is the opening of THE UNICORN SHOW @ GALLERY NUCLEUS! It'll be a big, cool group show featuring work from a lot of my pals like Tony, Stef, Anna, Brianne, Jay, Jenny, Mari, Megan, and Shannon. They make all your favorite cartoons, so go support them!!!

GIANT ROBOTS!!

While working on DEXTER'S and PPG, I became known as the go-to-guy for giant robots. (...and if you ever watched those shows, you know there was a LOT of 'em...)

The infamous POWERPUFF DYNAMO:

Ya know when these robots do all their cool transformer shit? Someone has to figure out how all that stuff actually works:

For THE POWERPUFF GIRLS MOVIE, I had to design Kaboom Baboon's BaboomBot, which would be realized in CGI. This required WAY more detailed work than usual: Full turns with no cheats, special drawings for the workings of the hands, etc.

Here's the result:

...All that hard hand-drawn work probably just went to further the myth that 

all cartoons are just "done by a computer". *SIGH*

Dan Krall's Blog

In case you didn't know, this week my pal Dan Krall quietly started up a blog. Don't know the name? You know his work: Aside from designing backgrounds for DEXTER'S LABORATORY and THE POWERPUFF GIRLS, Dan helped Genndy Tartakovsky create the world of SAMURAI JACK, for which he won an Emmy for his Art Direction. After lending his magic to FOSTER'S HOME FOR IMAGINARY FRIENDS, and MY GYM PARTNER'S A MONKEY, he's now working for LAIKA on their upcoming feature CORALINE.

While Dan's website has been around for awhile, this is the first chance you all have to see sketches of his travels near and far. From Budapest to Burbank, Dan can't help but notice the beautiful ugly people out there and share them with us all.

Get yer geek on

This began as a color study for a marker drawing I was doing for an art trade and turned into... well, this:


The recipient asked for a Paul Rudish style SW pic. Nobody's better at being Paul than Paul, so I went for a Glenn Barr inspired design. (Not that I think I make for a better Glenn)

The TEENAGE ROBLOG

If you haven't checked it out recently, the good folks over on MY LIFE AS A TEENAGE ROBOT have been posting an avalanche of amazing work on their show blog. The latest post features stunning paintings of Prof. Wakeman's youthful adventures done in an old pulp magazine style.

MLAATR is one of the best designed shows around; Rob, Alex, and the gang definitely created something truly special throughout it's 3 seasons. Sadly, Nick passed on a 4th season, so we'll all have to look elsewhere for our weekly design fix. We can only hope for a DVD set someday...


Last year, Frederator published THE MLAATR SKETCHBOOK, available from Cafe Press. It's chock full of great pencil art from the show. Order one here while you still can!

I like it rough!

The best part about drawing has gotta be that first, rough blast of creativity. I always wind up doing my initial roughs on little bitty post-it notes and then enlarge the drawing for a final pass to clean it up a bit.

Here's the final product of one of those post-it drawings:

...and just 'cause everybody's pal Lambey is proudly flying his STAR WARS geek flag, I figured I'd to post this one, too:

New Year's Karma

In the interest of creating some positive karma for myself and also to help out a great bunch of kids, I'm turning my blog over for a moment to my friend Nile. She's got a great local organization to tell all my fellow Los Angeles residents about. Take it away, Nile:

OK, all you cool artist cartoonist people.... please check out Inner City Arts @ http://www.inner-cityarts.org. This is one of the coolest places on the planet. Situated in the heart of Skid Row (downtown LA) it is a place that inner city kids can change their life through art. My friend Kate Park (she is 13) is taking Animation there. Lots of inner city kids got into Cal Arts after spending time at ICA - and their lives were changed forever. Check out the website - but better still GO THERE and check out the place. They will give you a tour. It is AWWWWWESOME!!! And you art farts have so much to offer these kids!

PEACE,
Nile (a friend and fan of Chris Battle)

COCONUT FRED

One of my more recent gigs was Character Supervisor for Kid's WB's COCONUT FRED'S FRUIT SALAD ISLAND. It was my first time designing for a Flash animated show, and it turned out to be a fun gig! I was able to draw even looser than ever before, eventually developing a style that emulated one of my favorite MAD Magazine artists, Paul Coker Jr., and famed children's book author Jolly Roger Bradfield.








You can check out the work of some my friends/co-conspirators from CF like Matt Danner, Aaron Simpson, Mindy Allen, Tony Candelaria, and Gerald DeJesus by clicking on their names.

Random doodles

Ya gotta give me props

Some people think I'm just a character designer. Some people think I'm just a prop designer. The real answer is I'm BOTH. While working on DEXTER'S and PPG, we would design characters, props, and effects. (One or two of these is from JOHNNY TEST, which I freelanced while supervising characters on another show) Here's a sampling of some of my prop designs:

Simple props like these are fun, too:

BOOM.

Coming soon: GIANT ROBOTS