2014 Christmas Present Drawings...

So this year there were a few drawings I needed to get done as Christmas presents for people. First were a few commissions I did for Bel's best friend from high school. She now has three daughters and each one of them has a specific handsome celebrity-type who has caught their fancy: Doctors 10 & 11 and Harry from One Direction. So she commissioned me to do portraits similar to ones she has seen me produce in the past. (They all picked guys with MASSIVE hair.) And here's how they came out:

The other three were my bright idea for presents for three of my nephews. I thought they might enjoy being featured as the cover drawing on real comic books. I've done some sketches on blank variant covers and have gathered an assortment of them for this purpose. I've even done quicky portraits of people on sketch covers before at conventions. But this time I wanted to take some time and try to make the portraits really tight so that they would really feel like it IS them on the covers of these real books!

I tried to portray each of them as characters they like, but I couldn't find a Flash sketch cover, so Jacob had to be Ironman instead. (Of course, with his new beard that he's very proud of, that worked out well.) Justin has always been a Spidey fan, so that was an easy one to figure. But I'm afraid poor Brandon though felt a bit cheated that he had to be a villain instead of the hero. Still, I knew he was a big fan of the Joker, so I thought it would be OK. The only Batman cover I could get was a Li'l Gotham book, which I felt was most appropriate anyway, since he's the youngest of my nephews. Of course, without color and without distorting his face with an insane smile, it's a bit hard to tell that's who he's supposed to be. Turns out, it would have been better if I could have drawn him as Finn from Adventure Time. He's become a big fan of that series recently, but I'm a bit out of the loop and didn't know.

ANYWAY, here are the results:

Happy Holidays, to all and to all a good night!

Excelsior! Merry X-Mas 2014!!

This is my annual themed Holiday card! This year's theme, obviously, is "The Big Bang Theory"--chosen because the show has become such a large presence in our household. It literally plays constantly somewhere in our house. Yes, LITERALLY. Every item on the card is related to the show in some way.

I had a lot of fun deciding how to dress the pets. We mere humans were easy to portray--I just used the three main characters. I am Leonard, and therefore get to fly the classic Time Machine--or as it was called in the show, "something Elton John would drive through the Everglades"; Bel is Penny, although wearing Amy's tiara, as Amy is actually her favorite character; and Edmund gets to be Sheldon! My favorite is poor ol' Gandalf who is dressed in Raj's Aquaman costume. Rounding out the "cast" are Gallifrey, who I made Zack (because he's pretty but not phenomenally smart) dressed as Superman, Merlyn dressed as Howard's "tiny Dark Knight" and Lily dressed as Bernadette in her Cinderella make-over costume. Our newest puppy makes a good Bernadette because she combines cuteness and bitchiness in the same way Bernie's portrayed on the show!

Anyway, if you are familiar with the show, please enjoy picking out the various references. If you are not, well, obviously you need to start renting them immediately! ^0^

Happy Saturnalia!
Fa la la la la, la la la laaa!

INKTOBER 2014!

I participated in the phenomenon of "Inktober", where one does an ink drawing every day of the month. I pretty much did the entire month too, for a change. I confess that I missed two days toward the end. But Still, doing 29 drawings over the course of the month isn't too bad. Mind you, some of the drawings were much better than others. Anyway--Here is a smattering of Inktober drawings. I'll post more later!

Zombies of Normandy Park!

Last Saturday, I was asked by my friend and fellow Cartoonist's League of Absurd Washingtonians member, Mark Monlux, if I wanted to go to a small Zombiefest event taking place in the parking lot of a shopping center in Normandy Park (a small city here in Washington.) I could set up a little table under his portable tent next to his table where he'd be selling his merch and I could sell stuff or do sketches for people. So I said, "Sounds great!" The next day I would be attending the last day of RainFurrest, so I was hoping to raise a bit of cash to pay for my one day membership, an artist's alley table and maybe even parking.

Zombiefest took place between 4:00pm and 8:00pm, so I did all my little errands and got my art bag together during the morning and at 2:00 Mark was at my door to pick me up for the 50 minute trip from Tacoma to Normandy Park. We got there and set up his portable tent and got our items out on display--I only brought a few of my little Brillustrator Sketchbooks and two little zombie drawings done on matte board tiles with ink and a bit of color pencil for high-lights. I put them on an easel and started making a sign announcing that I would do monster sketches for $10. I brought a bunch of 5'x7' card stock pieces of different colors on which to do the little ink and pencil drawings, similar to the zombie drawings I had on display. I figured I would get a few takers.

Before I had finished my sign, I had two teens who wanted sketches of themselves as zombies, and I thought, "Oh good--that cover's my artist's alley table at RF!" So I worked on getting those drawings done making good use of my beloved Pentel brush pen. By the time I got done with the first one, I had a line! And it NEVER let up! For the next four and a half hours, I did 16 zombiefied portraits of the good citizens of Normandy Park, about half were kids. The more messed up I made them, the better they liked it. I never took a bathroom break, or even stood up from my chair until Monlux was ready to pack up the tent around me! At about 7:00 it started getting dark, so that the last 4 or 5 drawings were done in progressively deepening gloom--to the point where it became hard to see what I was doing!

Even though he didn't ask for it, I was able to cover half of the booth cost and a little of the gas expense. Plus I had money for my fees at RF the next day AND money to put in the bank! All in all, it turned out to be an amazing event! ANYWAY, here are some pics I took of some of the happy recipients with their twisted little portraits! (The big round single zombie eye turned out to be universally desired by the models. Go figure.)

The next day I went to RainFurrest, and had a good time and did some more art--although not at the insane pace of Zombiefest! But that's a different story...

Wet Paint: Do Not Touch

Last night I finally got around to painting my new thrift store "up-cycle" monster painting. The original seems to have been painted in 1927 and was in really bad shape! In fact I spent more time repairing things and Bob Rossing the hell out of it trying to make it presentable than I did painting in the sasquatchian "guest star"!

It was supposed to go with my Godzilla piece and all the thrift store monster art created by members of my cartoonist's group The C.L.A.W. to be hanged in a showing at the Old Tacoma Post Office building as part of some sort of art appreciation celebration. Now, here's where the story takes a sad turn. I goofed!!

Because of the surface and all the damage, I decided I needed to paint it using an old set of water soluble oils I had lying around. I haven't actually touched them since I used them to paint a Magic: The Gathering card several years ago. ("Agonizing Demise"--the only card I did in oils.) I thought that since they were water soluble that they would dry quickly, like acrylics. maybe not as fast, but at least much faster than traditional oils. But BOY was I wrong. they dry like oils. S-l-o-w-l-y. So "Bigfoot in the Park" will not be joining the others at the art show because it is still wet.

On the brighter side--an interesting thing about this painting is that it has an entirely different painting on the reverse side. Now I will have time to paint monsters on that side too!

Birthday Drawings!

Just a quick post of a few birthday drawings done for July--and actually, there's still another one or two to go! A LOT of birthdays in July...

First is a sketch for a friend of mine. I'm working on a short "Super Mouse" comic with him (which is WAY over due, of course) and I thought he'd enjoy a sketch of the mouse in question wishing him a happy natal day!

My nephew's birthday is today, actually. For his brother I had drawn Mario playing football against Bowser, but since Brandon likes Batman I decided to do Bats and the Joker playing soccer. I didn't want to do football twice. Happy Birthday, kiddo!

My niece turns 20 this year and is venturing out into the world. She likes penguins and I thought a cute little fluffy penguin, longing to "fly away" would be a neat little drawing for her. Of course penguins can't fly, but they swim as if they were flying, so much like we humans, they adapt their dreams to suit their abilities. I think though, unlike the penguin, she WILL fly!

Finally, here's one I did for my nephew Max. He likes Doctor Who--my fault! I got him started. Mwa ha haaaa! I thought he'd enjoy a little TARDIS joy ride on his birthday! Since I can't give him a REAL one, unfortunately, this will have to do. I should have drawn a fez on him, but I forgot. :P

Rocket Raccoon #1...sort of!

So I bought a couple of copies of Rocket Raccoon with the variant "sketch covers" at my local comic book store and created this artwork over the weekend. Overall I am fairly happy with the way it turned out, but it is creating a bit of confusion after I posted it on Facebook. People keep thinking that I did the actual published art for the book and not just a cover piece on a blank-cover copy of the book.

For the record, I did not draw the art for this comic. This is a specifically published blank cover version produced so that artists can draw original sketch art on them. Nor am I in any way affiliated with any Marvel publication at the moment...unfortunately. (I haven't done work for Marvel since the last of the DS9 comic covers I did back in the 90's when they took it over from Malibu.) I certainly wouldn't mind being the artist for a book like Rocket Raccoon for Marvel. Maybe when the amazing Scottie Young gets bored with it they'll look for a new artist and I can apply! ^0^

Godzilla With Lighthouse Bits

OK, so here was a fun project. My cartoonist group, The C.L.A.W., decided to acquire several landscape paintings from thrift stores and paint monsters into them. We had seen examples of this kind of re-purposing on Facebook and we just thought it would be fun to try it. Above is the one that I did.

It sat at the top of my stairs looking at me reproachfully for several months as I struggled to ignore it. Last night I finally figured I'd better get it off of my plate! I started at about 9:00pm...stupidly. I had no easel, because mine is in storage. Half of my paints were dried up because I haven't painted anything in maybe a year...or more. (I had no blue at all.) The brushes I dug out to use were mostly terrible. Fortunately I found a couple of serviceable ones. The painting itself is about 4 feet tall and 2 and a half feet wide, so it was awkward to prop up and work on without an easel, but I persevered.

All in all, I think it came out pretty well. I spent a bit over 3 hours on it altogether and was finished by 12:30am (slightly past my bedtime)! Since I had no blue I used purple for the reflected light/dorsal spine glow, but I think that worked better. The lighthouse isn't quite as well defined as I had hoped, but it was sort of a nod to Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury who used a giant lizard destroying a lighthouse in one of their legendary collaborations!

Anyway, it was a nice challenge and I'm glad it worked out as well as it did! In fact, I kind of like the end result. A shame I can't keep it. ^0^

Sketching in Public!

So here are a few fun sketches done at public events for people. One event was a mini comic show at the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale a few weeks ago, and then yesterday I as sitting outside of The Nearsighted Narwhal indie books, comics and zines store for their Grand Opening. There is also a shamelessly narcissistic shot of myself posted next to the cotton candy machine during the GO event.

A PLATYPUS OF MARS!

A couple of years ago, I decided to experiment with a "sketch comic" for lack of a better term. I was getting geared up to participate in 24-Hour Comic Day and was trying to work out a faster style that was loose and interesting, yet would seem sophisticated...ish. The key point being that each page had to be created in under an hour. I ended up doing something different, but I had these 6 pages on hand so I used them to make a little single page folding 'zine that I give away to kids at comics shows. It has instructions on the back about how to fold the zine and a little how to draw a superhero, and of course, my website info and such, so it became a little promotional item. I also experimented with fast and loose coloring techniques in Photoshop. So each page was drawn and inked in an hour or less and the color was added later with 15 minutes or so spent on each page for that.

Anyway, I haven't posted them here before for some reason, so I thought I would go ahead and share them. Especially since I am planning to embark on a similar, but far more ambitious "experiment" shortly! Stay tuned for details on that.

^0^

And now, here is the 6-page 'zine: "A Platypus of Mars!"

Dragon Gold Playmat

Just wanted to share the actual scan of the Dragongold playmat that I finished (and promptly sold through posting it on FaceBook) while I was doing a small comics festival in Olympia last weekend. I got a bit carried away with it and it ended up taking a good deal more time than originally intended. The "gold" was actually done with a gold gel pen. Ah well...it was my first one. I will probably use a different style on the next one I do.

Long Overdue Update!

Just thought I'd better post a few recent sketch things I've done so people don't think I've entirely dropped off the planet!


This was something I completed over the weekend while I was attending Olympia Comics Festival. It's a playmat for card gamers.

Here is a birthday card I made for one of my nephews. If you can't tell, he likes Mario and football. Next is a sketch card I did on the back of a "Mine Layer" MTG artist's proof card for a fella all the way down in Australia!

Finally I have included a new little cartoon of my furry side (a chubby little koala bear--but with a snow leopard tail because he has delusions of grandeur!) I was inspired by some amazing ink-brush work by an artist named Robb Mommaerts! He does beautiful drawings and it compelled me to take up my brushpen again and get back to practicing with it!!

Finally, as an added bonus, here is a cartoon I did for one of our CLAW meetings. I was given a specific theme and had to draw a cartoon strip based on it. It all had to be done in an hour!After that is a cartoon I did for one of our CLAW meetings. I was given a specific theme and had to draw a cartoon strip based on it. It all had to be done in an hour!