Wedding Style

 Sometimes I do commissions. Here's a large wedding caricature whipped out for a family friend.

Ink brush with dry pastels

Ink Slinging 2019

Killed it in 2019, all 31 days, plus 2 bonus pieces. See if you can follow along!

As always, the pieces which haven't been claimed get bagged up and thrown into my Art Bin, the one I bring when i table at shows. If ya see something ya like, holla!

Sugar Crash

February was touch and go. It came and went as fast as it's 28 days are short. Still, I have a few things I whipped up.

Hope ya had a Happy Valentine's Day, love.

And here's a bookmark I whipped up for Ms. Cornpoppy. She was sending some books to a friend and thought this would be a nice bonus, a custom bookmark!

Fly high with books.

 ...

Had a big break thru this week: I was able to print some black and white ink work onto watercolor paper for coloring purposes. Many artists these days produce work digitally and I'm not knocking it one bit. Do what you do. But when it comes to digitally coloring my work I find it to be tedious, painstaking and extremely time consuming. It's probably due to my outdated techniques and hardware, yet despite my prolific output I'm still a hold out to drop down the money to update to some decent hardware plus deal with the learning curve of said hardware. So, perhaps digital coloring could be a lot funner. Lotta my friends tell me so, but, here we are. Analog coloring, on the other hand, comes natural to me. I AM a painter, after all. And it's way less time consuming, which is why it was such a big win that I was able to run these pages off in such a fashion. Here's that concept page, now with a splash of color.

Color concepts. Not quite done but you get the idea, and that's the idea.

The way the black print out, as you can see, provide a sheen of sorts. It may look strange here but it should scan just fine. The black ink does "seal up" the surface it covers, so any color that goes over it just sits there, which I wasn't expecting. It's also a very print friendly paper at 98lb, and not crazy porous like other watercolor papers. Still, I needed something that could take the color without buckling and ruining the paper and this is it: 11"x14" Canson Mixed Media 98lb (160g) paper.

Gearing up for my 40 day "coughee" fast. Those that know me know what I'm talking about, and may no I used to do it almost every year, but have slacked off in the last few years. But alas, it's time to clear out the cobwebs; get my motor skills back up to snuff, as well as my equilibrium. Become the clear-headed, fast-talking leaping gnome ya'll no me to be. I've also decided to give up coffee, so we'll see how that goes. You might be thinking "Why the hell would you do that to yourself? You're not even religious." Just trying to be a master of my dominion, and to prove to myself that I indeed can quit any time.

I'll keep ya posted on how that goes. 😵

Con Iption

It's once again time for my yearly Comicpalooza run down.

This year I decided to expand inventory so I bought a handy canvas rack to hold the 50 or so original pieces I recently excavated. Yup, I went thru my archives and dug up 50+ illustrations, drawing, and sketches, bagged'em up, priced 'em and put them up for sale. So much to dig thru you're bound to find something you like. 

Here are some of the sketches/commissions I did for folks:

 Goku and a caricature

 Caricature of a toddler

Here's my piece for the live art auction, it's a helluva mash-up

Just Inks League.

Been reading the Mask Ominbuses. Such an interesting character; anybody who wears the mask is virtually indestructible, and he can summon any accessory needed at a change of a panel. Who wouldn't wanna see him goof off and slaughter hoards of acid-blooded xenomorphs? And it helps that their published by the same label.

My folks that brought over the Batman vs. Jason sketchbook a few years back also came around with their Wolverine vs. Freddy sketchbook for one more round! Loved this iconic scene, but I think I made it cuter than I remember.

 

And of course a new piece for a big fan of mine who comes and hangs out ever year.

 I also debuted those new Bruce Lee styled Symbiote Pride screen-printed posters. They were well received. I'll have them up for sale on here real soon, and I'll throw up some process shots as well. 

This year's show went off without a hitch, and although the convention center was under a bit of construction everybody had a swell time. To wrap up the weekend the handle to the hatchback door on my van cracked in the tiniest spot rendering it useless. I had to load and unload all my stuff through the passenger side door in the sweltering heat. You won't believe how much fun that was!  

Next show for sure is Zine Fest Houston in November. Unless I can snag a table or two before then...

Got some comic projects in the works, not to mention I've been polishing up some developed stories of mine. It's been an exciting if not draining summer. Now starts the last third. Hope ya brought sunscreen!

Propamatic

It's been a fantastic beginning to the year as far as print-making is concerned. Not only have I got two new sticker designs printed (and another designed) but I also have some new poster art, ready for some new posters to be made.

First one, "Delusions", came from a public domain illustration I found in, get this, the New York Library's Digital Collection, host to all kinds of archives on art, prints, photography and other various documents through out time. It's fun to get lost, give it a shot.

 

The characters look very aristocratic and are not giving a fuck. The women has her breasts out, a nod to how we as a culture love "tits" as sexual objects, but get weirded out when we see someone breastfeeding in public. The man is a straight up pig, which denotes anything from (corrupt) cops to corrupt politicians. The phrase juxtaposes a fantasy and reality. Our culture adores opulence and vanity. People will even go into debt just to live a rich lifestyle or at least look like it. People like to dream about being rich, but these characters are here to remind you that you are not and you will never be. As a whole I want to remind the viewer that there is a rich class and how this rich class has a real power that affects you and your surroundings on a daily basis. Stuff like gentrification, income inequality etc. I want to remind the viewer that while you scrimp and struggle to make it in this country, this culture, there's a class of people that have it obscenely easy.

the original illustration by Thomas Fleming, circa 1893-1924

This next sticker I've had for a while, I wanted to release it when he was still on the throne but alas I was too busy being broke and jobless. But even still, it's such a cool design. I updated it to reflect a more current status too.

Pope Been-a-dick, aka Ratz-in-Burger

The update came in the form of the words "Saint Hood", commenting on how some former popes go on to be saints, because of some proof of miracles or some bullshit, and how this guy probably won't make that status. The words are also split to allow the words to work individually. "Saint" sarcastically refers to him as good even though some Catholic church priests have infamously been proven otherwise. "Hood" referring to the gullyness, shadyness and underhandedness that may or may not have been the deeper reason why he resigned.

And finally, the poster! I saw this image in a dream a few years back with the phrase "Symbiote Pride". I drew a picture in a sketchbook and forgot all about it until recently.  Deciding I wanted to bring this image to life I started scouting Bruce Lee photos. I found the stance and I found the arm positioning in two different pieces. Carefully fusing the images together I created a perfect composite. See people, my vector art is not just taking an obscure face and running the Photoshop cutout filter on it. It takes some serious photo manipulation skills to craft the image as you need it. 

This image with this stance with the nunchucks didn't exist before me.

Because I was going with an Eastern type theme I thought I'd scrawl Symbiote Pride on a well-recognized symbol.

Now a famous website! symbiotepride.com

Combine the two with a few other graphic elements, and you got yourself a dope poster!

I'll have some for Comicpalooza this summer. I'm thinking in black and silver, like above, but also a variant color set TBD. 

Stories for Screw Comics #4 has been in the works. This story picks up where "Heavy Duty Judy" leaves off. If ya think that story's nuts wait til you read this one, and if you haven't read Screw #3 what the fuck are you waiting for? I'll even let you download it for FREE. It's in a CBZ format so it'll work in your fave comic reader. It's not the full printed version but dammit, it's a FREE 60 page comic.

Been posting pages and sketches and other nonsense on the 'Gram. Add me.

Yes, it was a good winter. Oh, hello Spring!