February-Phoenix! (with a side of nudes.)

Hello and welcome back! If you wonder where I've been then read on...


I took January off (unintentionally) because I got into a bind with a project that I'm doing for Oni Press. I am excited about the project but commercial work had intruded a bit too much into the production schedule during the last few months and I wasn't making progress. That, combined with some miscommunication between the writer and I, had me suddenly feeling like I had to play catch up in a major way.


Flash forward a few weeks; I've returned to a proper pace on my Oni book, kept Tragedy Series updated and successfully farmed out some of my commercial responsibilities to studio-mates. I'm really doing my best to catch up but I also want to make a few things just for this blog.


Today's offering consists of these figure drawings/studies I did at Periscope Studio's 'basement salon' session last night. Natatlie Nourigat let me borrow her 'portable' watercolor kit' which was comprised of a yogurt lid and a water brush. It worked surprisingly well. Thanks to the ladies of Periscope for organizing it, getting the model, setting out snacks and making it great!

I'm With The Moose.

Lindsey and I (mostly me) have been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender via netflix streaming at the prompting of several friends from Periscope Studio. I had seen bits and pieces while doing the occasional babysitting gig or hanging with older friends that appreciate good cartoons. My favorite character is Appa. I know he's a 'bison' but I call him "The Moose" because it is funny to me.


My friend Ben Bates told me not to draw him realistic because that is 'an easy idea' and I'm inclined to agree since it was the first thing I thought to do. I just decided to draw him like I draw my comics and do a bit of watercolor. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome you to check out the digital grays in tomorrow's White Pony and give me some feedback on what you think about the transition.

I'm all ears. See you Wednesday!

Paul G. Vs. Scott C.

I am a huge Paul Gilbert fan (as anyone who has spent any significant amount of time around me can attest.) I have been wanting to do some PG fan art for a while and I thought, while I was at it, why not give a shout out to Scott C's greatshowdowns.com. Paul has a song called Paul Vs. Godzilla (off of his Silence Followed By A deafening Roar album) that seemed like a perfect context to riff on Scott Campbell's ingenious trope of famous antagonists.

Here it is:

For the full experience play this tune as you visually wade retina-deep in to my musical and artistic triple homage to a great cartoonist, a shredding titan and the king of all monsters.

A December To Remember.

I promised my girlfriend Lindsey that I will post every other day during the Month of December. Since I love her and I want her to think of me as a trustworthy fellow I'm going to do my damnedest to live up to that pledge. It would also be pretty cool if I could beat out last year's total number of postings.

I've been working with Nathan on some improvements to our website. Some of this experience is a trail and error scenario. Sometimes I end up making things that I can't use and I'll post one of those things here for you to see:


These were intended as a marquee for the top of the site and some icon images. It all ended up looking pretty crappy when the detail was reduced to make it load appropriately so I am altering my plans. We're going to try something more simplistic in design and color it digitally to contrast it with the hand drawn quality of the comic.

Here's another process image:


These are the pencils for the monsters and Dames piece I submitted for the upcoming Seattle Comic Con. Nathan and I will be in attendance and hopefully the finished image that resulted from this image will be in a hardbound book that you can bring over and have me sign when you visit our table!

There you have it. Post number one for December. See you all again on Saturday!