Been a Little While...

It's been a little while. I have been drawing a lot though. Last Saturday I received my new tablet, the Wacom Cintique 12WX. Let me tell you, if you're an artist and you're still using an Intuos or a Bamboo tablet, put the funds together and pick up a Cintique! This thing is freaking amazing. It's like drawing directly on paper thanks to the LCD screen, but much faster and controllable thanks Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter! It's helped me feel more inspired and look forward to drawing all over again. I've got a few projects in the works to show you all in the next coming week or 2. In the mean time, I do have something new to show you.

I was driving home today when I noticed a robin on the side of the road greedily digging a worm out of the ground. This made me immensely happy because it means winter is over and spring is finally here. Any way, I got this image in my head and couldn't wait to get in the door and get it on paper. I've received some good comments on it, but also some crits I may need to think about. For instance, I was told animal lovers may hate this concept. I can't control what gets in my head and what makes me giggle. I don't care, I'm determined to finish this. I think my favorite comment was from my girlfriend Natalie, "Why?" The answer is I have no idea.

I look forward to finishing this illustration and the other piece I'm in the middle of coloring. Let me know what you think of it so far or if you got any critiques. Thanks as always and have a good one!

Breathing new life into a dusty piece.

I drew this piece about 5 years ago when I was working at the local mall in a kiosk doing wrist watch sales and repair. I was an assistant manager and worked in a pretty dead mall so I had a lot of time to doodle and I created this entire piece in a shift. I've decided to dust it off and breath new life into it.

I've always wanted to do like a Pulp style comic cover. I will be hand drawing and updating the text into something far more dynamic, moody and exciting. I will also be changing the pupil style of the giant eye and giving this piece more of an underwater feel. One thing I've always loved about this drawing is the way the pupil bends and contorts in the rounded surface of her bubble helmet. If you look to the right side of her head you will see that the dome shape of her helmet is creating like a magnifying glass effect on the iris behind it.

I picture this being a full front tee shirt with BIG impact. A sci-fi/horror themed non-existent comic book cover with a 1960's flare to it. If you read my blog you also know that I LOVE larger than life monsters.

"Pulp" by Aaron Hogg

One of my inspirations for this piece is the tee shirt by Aaron Hogg titled "Pulp." I think his bold use of color, text and line work combined with his 1950's / 60's flare is fantastic and flawlessly done. Plus he's using a martian octopus and we all know how crazy I am for octopai (see avatar for my tattoo.) Aaron did a great job and I plan on purchasing his tee to rock along with my take on pulp comics hopefully one day.

I'm usually afraid to show people where I'm getting my inspiration from because I HATE being accused of stealing ideas. I am not stealing an idea here though, but being inspired. I drew my piece 5 years ago and have always been inspired by pulp comics ever since I was a kid watching Tales from the Crypt and reading their comics. Should Aaron read this blog I would hope he would be encouraging and flattered at how much I love his piece.

I will post updates as I get them. I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to attack this piece. I am buying a Wacom Cintiq 12WX next weekend and may wait till I have this advanced piece of equipment to really dive into this piece as the tablet should make this much easier to accomplish and I suspect will boost the quality of my work exponentially. If you have any other references you think I should see or any advice or comments on this idea please let me know! Thanks for reading and as always, thanks for your 2 cents.

A New Concept In The Works

I had this idea that made me chuckle. Nearly every year we see on the news some poor schleps at a parade in distress when one of their floats collapses, catches a pole or building, or just plain gets away from them and wreaks utter havoc. Well I thought to myself how funny it would be if they were doing it on purpose!

That's what this concept is to the right. I did a little doodle of 3 maniacal Macy's Day Parade (or generic for copyright purposes)  floats terrorizing the city as dozens of terrified citizens run away. In the background we see ominous plumes of thick dark smoke and a look of both madness and exhilaration in the eyes of the evil parade floats. The main float holds a screaming citizen in each fist.

I want the "camera" to be closer to the ground with a slightly off kilter horizon line. What was supposed to be a happy day of celebration quickly turned into a nightmare. I think it's cute and funny. I did this preliminary doodle and you all may see a completed drawing, inking and colored final in the following month or so should I decide this idea worthy of my time. In any case, I haven't updated in quite some time and I thought I'd give you folks a peek inside my brain. Let me know what you think of this idea. Thanks for stopping by!

The Latest Project

If you know me personally, you know I love Octopi. I think they're very cool looking, very alien, and extremely intelligent creatures. On my back left shoulder I have an octopus drinking beer and eating sushi tattooed. It's my avatar image.

Any way, this design has been an idea of mine for years. I did a water color and ink sketch of it 3 or 4 years ago and sort of left it at that. Well, from out of retirement comes this:

My idea was to have the giant octopus attacking the Empire State Building much like King Kong. He will be encircled with attack helicopters and wreaking havoc on New York City.

I re-drew this pencil sketch yesterday morning. I took my time and used many references to get the anatomy right. There are a few anatomical issues that are getting corrected as I progress.

And speaking of progressing, I have some progress on the inking:

I've been inking this guy most of the weekend. I'm known for my love of crosshatching in inking. I'm looking for a certain edgy level of detail in the finished piece. I want the building to be un-deniably the Empire State Building. i also want to do a feathered skyline in the back.

I see this on a light blue tee. The building will be a cream color, the octopus will be a pinkish color. The image would dominate pretty much the whole front of the shirt. I think it's gonna be really cool when it's done and I would love to wear one. I'm sure others would too. What I'm really trying to say is I think I have a marketable design, and in my current financial situation, marketability is important.

As usual, click any one of the designs for a larger image with more detail. Drop a comment and let me know what you think, if you have an suggestions or if you would wear this shirt upon completion.

As always, thanks for reading and coming back. I hope I can post a finished piece this week! Till next time...

Derby #180: Complimentary Colors

Some things just GO together, y'know? PB & J, Bert & Ernie, and New Year's Day and 4,000 college bowl games no one cares about and will continue to refuse to care about until they get off their stupid corporate welfare and implement a playoff system. Oh and colors. Complimentary colors. So for this week your design must be made of two colors paired up in the list below. Before you freak out: no, the shirt color doesn't count. So yes, Mr. Smarty Pants cracking your knuckles in the forums, technically it could be a three color Derby And we don't care, because we make the rules up as we go, so get over it. Now for the rules:

* Your design MUST be comprised of ONE of the following color combinations: blue & orange, yellow & violet, or red & green. No black & white, Mr. I'll Just Make It Look Classy.
* No video games.
* No Star Wars.
* No text.
* You MUST use two ink colors, and ONLY two ink colors. It can be a shade of blue and a shade of orange, though. Don't sweat trying to perfectly match the standard "blue."
* Yes, your shirt can be a third color.


So after a 2 week hiatus from the derby world of WOOT!, I'm back. This was a challenging derby, as they all seem to be. It's tough to only be able to use 2 inks to get a point across; especially if you like working in a simplistic cutout style.

Believe it or not, this isn't really my style but I feel like it's more marketable so, here I am selling out. Oh well, I like the art anyway.

This was the original concept for this derby. I decided to go with purple and yellow as my 2 colors. After banging my head into a wall for about 2 hours, I couldn't get the words, "Purple Mountains Majesty" out of my head. So I decided to take the phrase super literally and here's what we ended with:

I've actually been a little busy this week and seeing how hung-over I am right now, I plan on being busy with art and promotion the rest of the weekend. I've also got my cloud design waiting approval on Threadless.com before it goes up for voting. On top of that, I have a cute monster shirt I've been doodling with. I have an awesome looking monster, but no concept. It's really a design that doesn't say anything yet so I'm waiting till I have a stroke of genius on that design before I blog it and submit it.

In the mean time, I need your votes! If your reading this, and you've purchased from WOOT! in the past, then follow the link and vote on my design! Thanks in advance and have a happy New Year.

http://shirt.woot.com/Derby/Entry.aspx?id=48581

I've Been Doodlin'

I've been sketching around and just having artistic diarrhea in general. I've got a few pages of indecipherable pencil scratch and a notebook full of ideas I'm not ready to commit to. That being said, I'm not all unhappy about this.

One doodle I hope holds some sort of promise is this guy:

The basic premise here is John Goodman as the exterminator from Arachnophobia. I see him ready for one final fight against the ultimate arachnid, Spider-Man. I'm picturing a cartooney, bubbly, cute Spider-Man in the foreground, from behind. He's in shock at the unexpected scene and perhaps his Spider-Sense is tingling. In any case, it's just a doodle. I know I shouldn't be coloring this until I pick a background color, and in the back of my mind I'm trying desperately to keep this down to a max of 8 colors (Threadless) or 6 (pretty much everybody else) which means I should be planning on a red shirt. Maybe I shouldn't be planning on a shirt at all though. I think part of the issue behind lack of ideas is the money and consequences of the money behind each design. That being said, I made a commitment to utilize these t-shirt contest sites to force me to draw, build a portfolio, network and break into the illustration industry I wanted so badly to be in when I was just a bright eyed 18 year old going away to school for my first time.

Wow... that was almost TMI but what's a blog without personal information?

A new Derby!

I'm not starting this post with the official derby rules as this isn't my official entry. In any case, the theme is basically what you love about the Arctic Circle. So, I'm drawing baby polar bears building a sand castle in the snow.

Here is my concept sketch:

I'm hoping to get vectors done and this piece submitted by Saturday afternoon. I'll update with the final later.