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^