Sagan Leopard.

Did this today for an Auction at Emerson school here in Portland. It hits the cross-over audience for fans of Leopards and Carl Sagan. Enjoy!

Pacific Rim!

I neglect my blog because I am working a lot of the time but I want to make it a place where you can see the things I make that aren't a part of my Tragedy Series comic or my other output and a place to talk about process. For Now I'm going to post an image that I did just for me that represents my favorite movie. I love Pacific Rim. I made 30 valentines to rep for that love that I will also make an attempt to post here, in the next few days,but that wasn't enough. I give you this:

You can obtain a print of this poster (available in in two sizes) from my etsy shop :)

Scott Barkan: Hero to all and master of the six-string

My dear friend, Scott Barkan has put out a new record and recruited me to draw the album art! I love to play guitar almost as much as I like drawing and he has been a great hero of mine, as a player, since I met him fifteen years ago. I'm glad we finally collaborated on a project; he had the story of the sad penguin in mind and I just transcribed it as I saw it in my head.

Some Sketches Of Buffy

Here are a few test drawings of SMG as a tryout for some work on Buffy The Vampire Slayer comics. I like SMG's face but it is really hard to get consistently right; give it a try, it's more complicated than you think. I'm working on some more sketches of Angel and Faith that I will post when they are complete.

Cats, So Many Cats!

I had a lot to do in the last 6 months. I just finished a project I've been working on for the past 3 years (on and off) for Oni Press, written by Paul Tobin. It is about a cat, he has cat friends and the story jumps around in time and space while featuring a wide variety of cats. I decided to celebrate this finish-line crossing by drawing my favorite cat on the internet: Lil' Bub.

I'll returning to my poor neglected blog, over the coming weeks, to revitalize it with updated content and notices of all sorts. For a while there I was juggling wedding logistics, Tragedy Series, commercial illustration, my first trip out of the country and a full length graphic novel; I've checked a few of those off the list and I'm ready to share again.

Thanks for waiting. Watch this space!

Paul Gilbert and I made a video!

Here is a music video that I did with Paul Gilbert, my favorite electric guitar player on planet earth. He is a great communicator, has a sense of humor and is an all around cool guy. He had written the lyrics of this song with his Mom when he was four and asked me to interpret them. I just went with what I saw in my head, based on those lyrics, and this was the end result:

Keep a lookout for the godzilla poster and old ibanez 'rocket roll' flying V that I snuck in there.
It was great to work with him on the project, He and his band were really open and communicative in the process. I had never created assets for animation so it was a learning process for me too; I got a bunch of worthwhile new tools out of the project in addition to receiving amazing ibanez fireman guitar! He ended up using images from this video for the tour merchandise. I now have t-shirts, stickers and a cup with my illustrations on them in association with the work of an artist I greatly admire.It was a ton of work but it was a blast.

Working For Monday!

That's right folks! The mystery project I alluded to in my previous post has been announced at San Diego Comic Con during Mark Waid's panel on Digital comics. In case you missed that event it is called 'Working for Monday.'

It is the story of a long suffering assistant to a super-villain who may just be trying to take him down from the inside! Lori Matsumoto is writing it (and helping me narrow down my designs to get just the right look.) It is really fun so far; I've thumb-nailed the first two installments. I love the story, the characters and the scenarios. It's going to be great! It will start coming out soon via thrillbent.

Nostalgia Cake!

My Fitness trainer Paul (yes I have one) asked if I could draw a design/scene for the top of a cake, to be served at he and his sister's shared birthday celebration. It didn't have to be fancy because it was going to be printed in edible frosting. He sent me a little rough sketch that featured a few golden oldies of the 80's which represented their shared childhood fun.

I did my best to elaborate on that sketch in the shortest possible time-frame; I used the same technique for the final image that I do for storyboarding which involves composting of carefully chosen imagery and then essentially tracing out only the right lines. It took about 4 hours to compose it, draw all the characters and color it. It was a ton of fun.

New (Semi-Secret) Project!

I'm working on a project for Thrillbent with Lori Matsumoto that will be announced more officially at San Diego Comic Con but I thought I might preview a bit of it here. I am designing characters based on real people so that I can draw it more like the Tragedy Series and use reference to speed up my process. I won't tell you too much about it now other than the fact that I'm excited about the story and the format where it will be published.

This is a series of haircut ideas for the main character based around an actress that she will resemble

This will be a butler/confidant character and I wanted to see if a different ethnicity (other than white) could work in the part but you run the risk of falling into stereotypes and I don't want to piss people off when I'm trying to be inclusive.

These were my first attempts at a main character, the villian and ideas for his mask. He isn't themed (like 'the scorpion' or something) so I wanted to keep it simple and iconic if possible. I want it to read really small- as a good tag.

I went a bit crazy with mask ideas but I kept seeing new ones in my head and I wanted Lori to have a bunch to choose from.

This is a design for the hero/nemesis of the bad-guy. I asked Lindsey what she would want to wear if she were going out to be a superhero and she said 'something supportive.' I thought that was an interesting place to start so I started with a full bodysuit and went from there. I kept thinking about that scene in 'The Incredibles'... "No capes"
If you are going to SDCC this year be sure to Check out Mark Waid's panel, on Thursday at 12:30 in room 24ABC, and tell me how it went. I'm working on a piece of promo art that should be featured on a big screen (I assume) at that panel.

This is taken off the SDCC website.

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.

Chicago For A While

Lindsey and I went to visit our friend Michelle Alba in Chicago last week. It was great! We went to the Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium where I took many photos of historic astrolabes, armillaries and orerries; if you read my web strip then you know I'm that sort of guy. I am also the sort of fellow who LOVES pancakes. There is no better place to get pancakes, in my opinion, than The Bongo Room. It is highly recommended; it make what most people call 'pancakes' unworthy of the name.

I fit in a few sketches. Otherwise we were having too much fun and absorbing the great sights and company offered only in the Windy City.

This sculpture, located in in Millennium Park, is officially titled 'cloud gate' but colloquially it is called 'The Bean.' there is a constant swarm of people around it because it is beautiful and irresistible. The construction of this fine object is really worth reading about.

This was a family eating at Giordano's Pizza. One of the kids was busily mashing buttons on his gaming system, the parents not acknowledging each other and the other two boys just stuffing their faces with famous stuffed pizza. It seems quintessentially American so I did what I could to capture it. I was drawing while enjoying my own stuffed pizza with green peppers and, a rare treat, a root beer; it was wonderful.

The Spoils Of Stumptown

This year I got a last minute table at Stumptown Comicsfest. It was a good time overall but, my hasty preparation, throwing poor Lindsey into the deep end of assisting me on the show floor, a diet comprised almost exclusively of doughnuts and coffee, appearing in the comic art battle, the inconsistent traffic of day 2 combined with my exhaustion from work and being fresh off the energy of ECCC made for a near-breakdown by the end of the festival. I did make some nice commissions (mostly on day one) and here they are:

I make T-Rex red. Maybe it is a latent affection for devil dinosaur that I'm not paying attention to.

This was for a 'super-pets' themed sketchbook. I like the Green Lantern and I love cats; this produced Meow Jordan.

I think this might have been done on day 2. The theme of this sketchbook was batman villains. I always liked Killer Croc and Poison Ivy so I did a quick doodle of them both.

I had a hard time deciding on a pose and I don't know the Sandman characters very well but I get the impression it is a really enjoyable series. The people who like it show a rare devotion to the stories and the characters. I like drawing fish even though I'm not great at it.

Here is my darling Lindser and me posing in a rare moment of mental composure. I think she is a gem.

What's My Name?

A few weeks ago I did a bunch of live drawing for the Dove Lewis Animal Hospital blood-drive at the Lucky Lab. People would bring up their pooch and I'd do my best to get their likeness in the limited time that the noble creatures would hold still. A few of them were better at it than people. Most of the pet owners were very nice and appreciative. I would do it again. It helped me get used to the idea that not all dogs want to eat my face off.

The First Family Of Comics

I've done another hero initiative cover. I'm not sure when the auction will be but I'll be sure to let people know via twitter and Facebook once I find out. It is a great cause (one I might be in need of someday) and I love the opportunity to try for the most fun and dynamic image I can make as a physical art object:

I used gouache, ultradraw ink and prismacolor colored pencil for this image. I like the way Galactus turned out and, as Jeff Parker pointed out, it looks like Johnny Storm has decided that he has better things to do.

Here is a picture of me painting it before I cleaned up my area of the studio, hence the rumpled paper bag behind me.

This is the sketch I did. It may have been posted a while back but there are things I like about it more than the finished piece (in some ways) so I'm going to hold onto it for a while until someone wants to offer me mad cash!

I Practice All The Time

Many of my studio-mates are natural cartoonists in the sense that cartooning was the first drawing language that they fell in love with and subsequently made concerted efforts to master. I was always more interested in 'realistic' or observed drawing for the same bravado-laced reasons that many aspiring young (typically male) artists often have. I assumed that because cartooning involved fewer lines and a distortion of visual norms that it was easy; I have learned just how difficult it actually is to capture the heart of a gesture, expression or setting with the perfect line. I have, after being inspired by the brilliant work of my many cartooning fluent studio-mates and comic art heroes, set about the task of revisiting the fundamentals of both construction and cartooning.


One way that I practice is to focus on an area I have trouble with like hands, mouths, placement of features on a face, torsos, feet etc. I go through issues of comics drawn by artists I like and copy their solution as closely as possible. In this case I took an issue of avengers and mimicked as many Stuart Immonen mouths as I could for about 2 hours. I learned a ton. I don't use that sort of thing when I'm making my own drawings because that would be plagiarism; it is totally fine to do it as a practice exercise in the same sense as learning a great Eric Clapton solo when you're trying to master blues guitar. It is worth trying to step into the shoes of your hero and get things from their perspective.


Michael Hampton's book on structural drawing has become a favorite of mine and I'm going through it bit by bit and trying out all the systems that he has developed. I highly recommend it to any of you that are experiencing a similar internal or external prompting to reexamine your stylistic leanings and tendencies. I plan to fill this sketch book with practice drawings and get as good as those artists I admire so much while simultaneously avoiding clear imitation in my final work. I'm only a little way into the process and it has already been a huge boon to me.

Time Well Spent

I'm grateful to the very cool people who asked for the image below; I am glad I could make this for them. It was commissioned by a lovely couple that met in Seattle during the convention. They were great: they paid in advance, the got a pre-paid mailer and they brought reference. I also learned a valuable lesson from doing the piece so I can thank them for that too!

Before ECCC I had read Chris Samnee's guidelines for commission work and I was surprised that he wouldn't do likenesses or non-licensed characters and clearly lists 'some background' amongst his bullet points. I found it curious but I now understand why.


Once I finished the painting on this piece, on Tuesday, I knew it would be difficult to take on similar jobs in the future; It was a ton of fun but it took a crazy amount of time. It ended up being two full work days of trying to match likenesses, put together a pose that would work with the faces I found in the pictures they provided, nail down the complicated details of the characters costumes, work out appropriate full/divergent themed background worlds for each side and lay in the colors so that each side was balanced without competing excessively.


I now understand that I have to put constraints on my commissions (and on myself) from this point out or I'll end up taking precious time away from deadline-dependent projects. If I were to charge my normal commercial rates no one would want to pay; I want to make sure I can offer something people will enjoy without compromising my own financial and scheduling needs. Freelance work is full of these moments of learning and that is a good thing. I also think that the final image turned out pretty cool!

Commission Missions

I love being down at Periscope in the morning before anyone else gets here. My studio mates are dear to me but there is something fun about being in a 'bat cave' of my very own for a little bit. I suppose Batman would be drinking something a little less flowery than vanilla flavored coffee but that is probably the only difference between the two of us. On a different note, here are a few of my ECCC commissions:








Lindsey loves to play various Iphone games and surprisingly 'drawesome' is one of them. Every now and then she lets me play a round when there is something fun to do or she needs a break from her 1,000 app-game commitments. I love Zelda; I know Link is not Zelda but he is most closely associated with the game franchise (along with the triforce) so here you go:

Game Of Thrones Post 2

I've been enjoying the new season of G.O.T. so far and listening to the first book on tape, via audible, while I work. I had read the the first book in of 'a song of ice and fire' in 2010 and enjoyed it. When the show came out I was excited and pleased with how they adapted the first book; now I'm in the reverse position of seeing the second season without having read the second book. It's just the thrill I thought it would be; this time around I've been surprised.


I thought it might be a fun little exercise in speed to draw the whole main cast of the first season on sketch-cards. It has been choosing and mashing references up. In some cases I find a great image and just go for it but I like to fuse disparate sources to make something new when I can; add a head to a body, put in a background element, equip them with new weapons or armor etc.


I should mention that I'm taking pre-stumptown commission orders too. I'd like to be able to have a few done before the show because I almost wasn't able to fit in the list I had at ECCC. I don't want to leave anyone hanging so contact me ASAP if you're interested. I'll be working on my upcoming Oni project and book proposal for Tragedyseries/TCBW. I hope your weekend will be full of sun and icecream.