Busy Bee, Busy Me

Tragedy series and a veritable cornucopia of commercial work have kept me very busy. This is mostly great yet, also, a bit overwhelming in other ways. In the next few months I'm only focusing on a project for Oni Press written by Paul Tobin and the Tragedy Series. Everything else has to wait!

My friends at the studio, in response to the very kind reception my daily strip has received, have prompted me to start an Etsy store mostly focused on Tragedy Series and it has been doing very well; thank you to those of you who have purchased prints! Below is a host of sketch cards that I sent out with those first orders as a bonus to show my appreciation for my initial customers' patience with my inexperience in E-commerce and shipping logistics.


More work including prints of images seen on this blog and tee-shirts are coming soon to the Ety Store.
Here is an hour-long study of poor Lindsey who was feeling sick and watching movies. She was wearing a slowly fading cosmetic-cream facial mask and doing crosswords part of the time. I love her and I really enjoy having her sit because she is patient and, to my eyes, very pretty.


This was done with a limited palette and some clunky brushes but I like studies (even more sometimes) when I know they are done under less than ideal conditions. This reminded me that I miss painting and that doing it from life is where it is most exciting for me.

Hear Ye Hear Ye: More Sketches!

These are some recent pages from my observational drawing sketchbook; it is mostly drawings of Lindsey! I also keep a sketchbook that is for working out more complex images in a rough, nuts and bolts way. My next post will be some of those more clunky sketches and the (eventually) more streamlined results that follow from them.


This is Lindsey on the day I proposed (August 19th) and getting her hair cut in proximity to a girl who had raccoon/tiger stripes in her hair.

These are the food carts right across from where I work. The one on the left is everyone else's favorite but I go to the one on the right because they are 98 percent as good and 60 percent faster.
I have been working very steadily on a host of commercial projects lately. Most of them unfortunately, come with an NDA that prevents me from sharing that work here but I have been sketching in my little observational journal when time allows. I thought I might post a few of my doodles until I can get some of the flashier work approved for public consumption.

Tragedy Series Breakdown

I thought it might be fun to do a walk through of how I make my posts for the tumblr I started in recently. Hopefully this won't ruin your enjoyment (if you do enjoy them- I shouldn't assume) of the 'tragedy series.' It would be a shame to ruin it for you like when I found out that Rivendell is a bunch of foam and Christmas lights and now I can't stop seeing that.


If you want to preserve your neutrality on their development and execution you should stop reading now!

Number 222 is a good example of how these little notions I get can become a thing I was proud and surprised that I made. First I try to think of a subject I haven't done yet that falls within the parameters I've set for myself (that I will spell out more clearly in a bit.) As I progress it gets a bit harder but generally it can prompt something unexpected, since I'm trying actively to avoid clear repetition.


In this specific instance I had thought of a news story Lindsey and I saw while we were in Lincoln city, for our anniversary, about a safari park here in Oregon where they have lions that like to play tug of war. That image is enough in and of itself! once I have a self evidently odd or funny situation then I try and compound that comedy if possible. In this case I tried to imagine what sort of opponent would be funny. It occurred to me that a group of kids in a scout troop might do but they had to be capable or else it would be too close to something genuinely sad (the first of the tenents I try to uphold; No genuine tragedy) At that point I write it down to be addressed later.


I generally do a little drawing (like the image of #57 seen above) if I can't fully imagine it but in this case I had it pretty firmly in mind. It is at this point that I will do an image search to find good refrence that coincides with what I have sketched. I lucked out and found these two images:


Even though I had the elements of the final image, the phrasing wasn't quite there yet though and I went through several iterations of what would work best. I often ask Steve Lieber for advice; this questioning runs the gamut from 'should I buy a house?' to 'what sort of pen do you use to ink nostrils?' He is also a super funny guy who gets how to translate humor into drawings because he has studied it extensively for his own development so I go to him first for comedy.


I had written out a bit about 'ragamuffins' challenging a hungry lion to tug o' war but that seemed too plain. It struck me that a 'rematch' would be funny but it didn't quite fit yet. Steve said "Rematch is funnier if there is evidence of the previous encounter...make some of them amputees." I was hesitant to go there but the more I thought of it the more I realized that he was right about the necessity for notes from the first lion vs. kid showdown. I put a few shoes and scraps around the lion and Steve added the cherry on top the sundae by suggesting that I wrap the ragamuffins in bandages and give a few of them ragged clothes. He was so right! Once I did it the whole thing came together and I got this:


There you go. Thanks for sticking with me through that description. Also much gratitude to all of you out there who support my tumblr and read this blog. I am a lucky guy.

Help Fight Humanity's Greatest Foe!

Dear fellow comics fans and artists there is a fellow creator in trouble and we can help!

Dylan Williams has cancer and no insurance (my own worst case scenario) and Periscope studio has organized and ebay auction to help him pay his hospital bills. There is some really nice work available.

I did a Nightcrawler piece for the benefit but it has not received much attention. It would be great to see more bids on it. I think it is a worthwhile cause and a fun drawing. If you want to be a real hero to someone in need, and if you like any of the following: nightcrawler, me, periscope, Dylan or comics, then you won't get a better or more worthy opportunity to share the love than this!


Ebay auction link here
Please spread the word and/or bid if you feel inclined.

Aang And Friends (And Foes)

Periscope sketch challenge has been a great source of fun for the studio. Sometimes I step past fun into tedium because I try to take on more than I should. It didn't seem like it would be a hard thing to make a mash-up montage between Star Wars and Avatar but it ended up being a lot of work for a somewhat unexciting image. Not enough of either to make something more than the sum of its' parts.


My original intent was to try and throw down a few characters and tip my hat to Luke and the gang in a way that was fun and fast. I used the same ink-wash technique that I used in my ninja turtles picture hoping for similar results. The trick to making a good illustration rather than an OK illustration is not to lose spontaneity or excitement. In this case I was too concerned with the aesthetic of Avatar and I didn't trust myself to make a wholly original composition. Oh well, You draw and you learn eh?

Villains and Rockers.

Last year Rich Ellis and I were tasked with illustrating some stories for Zakk Wylde's soon to be released book "Bringing Metal To The Children" and I didn't want to put these up until the book was announced. I saw a blurb in 'Guitar World' so here you go:

Zakk and Dimebag hang out after a particularly antics filled weekend
Black Label Society takes the stage while the lightning strikes!
Around the same time a bunch of us in the studio were approached to contribute work for Ben Thompson's "Badass" series of books. Here are two of my illustrations from that project:

This little Ragnarok is only measures about 6" by 4" but I like the way it turned out
This was a chapter break for the 'villains' section of the book; it's about 18.5" by 15.5"
Get yourself a copy of both and you'll never need anything else to boost your Radness/Metal quotient.

Well that is all for now. I'll be blogging more again but I had to get my new tumblr off the ground so August was a bit of a dry spell. I'm going to try and do a few more process related posts and add a few more pictures of my day to day for those of you who are interested.

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!