Wedding In The Woods.

I am getting married! It is a funny transition to make in some ways because it isn't a huge shift in my sense of commitment or love for Lindsey (we have been together for almost 6 years) but it does make me feel more grown up for some reason. Lindsey asked me to doodle up a wedding invite to send out asap. We're getting married in a state park near where she grew up. The logistics are complicated, but since I am not a church-going man and she likes trees, the woods seemed like the best place to have our ceremony:

She wanted something more simplified and cartoon-like without being a cartoon. I think she was leaning towards a 'folk-art' type of illustration so I tried my hand at that using (ironically) photoshop so I could adjust the colors to match what she was looking at for inspiration. I like the foxes and I hope you do too.

Story boardin'

I have been doing some storyboard work for a bad-ass local production house called Kamp Grizzly. They are a great bunch of guys. These are a few stills from some work I did for them, back in October, on an ad for Adidas featuring a hip hop artist who goes by B.O.B. You can see the full commercial at the bottom.



All colors by Cat Farris
This kind of work is a ton of fun because I have to make a bunch of drawings in a short time with a clear objective. I cuts out a lot of the frustrating ambiguity that can come with other jobs.


I also like the chance to think like a video director and showcase what is cool about hip-hop culture. I have been known to spin the 36 chambers and All Eyes On Me to help get in the right frame of mind.

Monsters (And Dames) Of Rock!

I wanted to make a unambiguously pro-Lady piece this year, for Emerald City Comic Con's "Monsters and Dames," that spoke to my love of rock music, mutants and guitars. I modeled the frontwoman on the girl from 27b/6 because she looks cool enough to shred on a yellow lightning V and I based her band on the two Papo figures I keep at my desk because I always thought they looked like they'd make a bad-ass rhythm section.


The piece in the book will be a slightly cropped version of this image. I'll be offering prints right away in the event that it doesn't get included. If it does: then I'll have to wait until after the book comes out.
The pencils/inks were done analog and the coloring done on a cintique. I like being able to knock figures back in space with a gradient or two because it helps establish another layer of depth. One can do that with line quality too but the effect is more pronounced when the intensity of your inks varies in accordance with the depicted figure's location in space.


Come see me at the upcoming Emerald City show and pick up a copy of Monsters and Dames (proceeds go to Seattle Children's Hospital.)
I think that my sketch had some nice energy. I wanted to preserve that, but by choosing to utilize more detail, which I did in the final image, there's a tendency to dampen one's initial spark. The freedom and fun of unrestrained cartooning is why I tend to prefer seeing the fantastic 4, for example, drawn by Mike Wieringo with his naturally bouncy line. That same context with its' potential for aesthetic quirks is a slightly awkward fit for a realist like Bryan Hitch who tends to put his emphasis on design and details that are based on natural forms. In contrast, I love seeing Hitch draw something gritty and cinematic like 'Ultimates.' I just have to learn to give myself permission 'not to draw' when I can say just as much with less.

I'm slowly working more cartooning into my drawing because my favorite artists have demonstrated that a fusion between the strong parts of realistic drawing and the flexibility of cartooning have great potential for exciting storytelling. Detail can be helpful and realism has uses but I want the sort of energy that Stuart Immonen's work displays and the grace that Terry Dodson's work exhibits. Those good qualities come from their particular (hard won) stylizations, not adherence to strict rules of observational drawing (though it does seem clear that they have both practiced that part of drawing quite extensively.)

Nate Is Great (Cole is too!)

I teach guitar lessons on Thurdays and it is a lot of fun because I get to relive all the excitement of nascent guitar culture exploration vicariously through my two very promising students Nate and Cole. Nate requested a drawing from me for his teacher and I made him pay me back with an artwork trade. I agreed to color it myself as the accompanying notes suggested:

I kind of want one now
I hear that before he delivered his masterpiece of luthiers' design to me that it made the rounds on the internet creating a firestorm of enthusiasm. Apparently all the well-heeled rockers have started to endorse Z-brothers custom guitars...


Thanks to Nate. I hope you and Cole have been practicing your scales!

Goblet Of Fandom

I posted a piece of Harry Potter fan art on the Periscope Studio tumblr and some of the comments have indicated that I got a few crucial details wrong. I know there are some possible points of contention but I did think about the things that might be read as possible errors, at least a little, before I made the image. What follows is all meant in good fun (I want to get in on the nerdiness of being a fanboy too!)

Godric's Hollow, Halloween Night, 1981
The first complaint I saw was that Voldemort didn't look as I've shown him at the time the Potters were attacked but Lindsey looked it up to try and confirm my initial conception that creating the Horcruxes deformed him:

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

As for James having his wand it seems like I can be allowed a little creative license in that he is described as 'going for his discarded wand.' I like to think he could have picked it up for a second before he died or that it wouldn't have been that far from him because it was a dark time full of uncertainty and he'd need to be able to protect his nascent family. It certainly adds a little spark of drama to the image and for that, I hope I can be forgiven even if I'm not perfectly on target in the end.

Mutants Mutants Everywhere.

I love mutants when they are benign and contained to the pages or flickering screens of pop culture. In nature they can be (and almost always are) detrimental. In this happier case we can see an example from my childhood that sparked many drawings and flights of imagination; The TMNT. I loved these characters in all their incarnations:

I made this on a whim for my pal Ben Bates after a conversation we had about the differences and virtues of the gritty original comics variety and the more playful cartoon series of the 80's.
Anyone who reads this blog regularly may remember that I did a banner a few weeks back. It was based on a vague idea that I (and surely many others) have had of a Gorilla Fantasy Warrior. My previous post features one and many other examples could be found easily. this weekend though, I found an example that blew my mind with specific overlaps; Behold the might and glory of Gorill-zar...

His cybernetic arm doesn't match up but you can see how his shoulder piece, sword and neck tendons are all pretty close. Crazy stuff!
I don't often buy 'toys' but I couldn't help it. He is just too bad-ass
I am happier than I look that 'Gorill-zar' has joined my forces. His mutant brethren (all from Papo Toys) will be enlisting soon!

Mad Men and Hot Ladies!

A while back Periscope studio decided to start a sketch tumblr and one of our early topics was "Mad Men." I like the look of the show and I enjoy the themes they explore in the series (culture clash, sexual politics, doomed chauvinism, identity, creativity, etc.) I decided to draw the most beautiful people in the cast and tried to pull my color choices from actual frames of the show.

I'm thankful that a woman with Ms. Hendricks' curves is considered 'hot' by the rest of you too now. I've been saying it for years;ask Lindsey.
I used a lot of little pictures to help including some posed for by my friend and fellow Periscoper, artist Erika Moen. I wanted a lady to stand in for Joan and Betty.

Having friends who will pose for you is great because it really allows you to determine what sort of compositional choices are realistic in real time. You need not rely on stock Internet photos or your imagination alone. Sketch out you idea and then pose it; it is like scientific verification!
Here are the inks if you are curious. Joan/Christina's mouth is a little too big (but Steve Lieber caught it before I finished the colors!) There are a few little things here and there that are worth changing on the next one but I had a lot of fun. The color in particular really brought it together (I think.)

You can see patterns and gradients in the piece above and all of those were added digitally by me! I haven't really tried much of that before and I think it worked well this time. I love learning from my mistakes and modest advances on a piece like this.

World War Doodle.

Happy post independence day post! I like to celebrate the formation of my nation (and its' subsequently brilliant secular constitution) as much as the next guy but I don't do it with fireworks. I like to show my pride by doing what the sacrifice and efforts of many unsung American heroes allow me to do as a job each day: draw a picture!

I gave the dinosaurs American gear but you shouldn't read too much into it! The Mammals aren't any specific opposing power either.
I hope you all enjoy this poster. I encourage you all to find a way to show your gratitude toward all the public servants that make our country what it is. By that I mean teachers, public employees of all stripes, troops, emergency service personnel and every American who makes a point to embrace the pluralism that makes me proud to live here. Thanks to all of you!

I am depicted here in Oklahoma at the wall of Patriotism they have in 'hobby lobby.' It was not yet June; I was amazed.

Monsters And Dames Maybe?

Hello Dear readers...

I am in the midst of working on a painting project that will consume most of my weekend (if not all of it.) In lieu of some fan art I wanted to post this time around, I've opted to give you a sneak peek at the piece I did for the "Monsters and Dames" book that is often published for Emerald City Comic Con. I'm not certain that it will get in. If it does then you can purchase it (in book form) in order to have Nathan and I sign it at the Convention. If it isn't included then I might make prints of it to include with whatever printed edition that Nathan and I land on.

Apparently other people who submitted have posted their images already so I might as well. Without further adieu:


Loranna's outfit was given approval by Lindsey as more supportive than her previous garment. She has that pendant now and, as such, technically, she designed this. If you take issue with the lack of modesty you can take it up with Her!