Bad Good Not Bad

At the beginning of the year frequent collaborator and friend Lee Lawson asked me to illustrate and art-direct his latest album release cover art. He filled me in on this project that has been in the works since 2012, a video-game-music-sampled beat album, and he wanted me to create something that spoofs the  iconic as the cover art for the US version of the NES classic Mega Man. Like, the first Mega Man, Mega Man 1. I looked at him and asked, Are you sure? Have you seen the original art to the first Mega Man? 

 

That's the one. I actually had a copy of this as a kid.

 He proceeded to egg me on to just do it and see what I came up with. Well, after some sketching and then the adding of color to paper I have to say it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Take a look:

This is gonna go right in the center of the spoofed cover, just the like in the art above. I  intend to match colors and a similar design to hopefully capture the feel of that old box art, one that raises the question Just what in the hell is going on?

Lawson tells me he's in the post-production stages of this project, mixing and mastering, and he said he's gunning for a an Autumn release. You heard it here first! I don't think he's even leaked this to his followers yet. He said he's gunning not only for a digital release, but one on vinyl as well. Imagine a design like this on a 12" sleeve. I'd love to see that! Stay tooned.

#Inktober Run Down

Here we are folks, the glorious 2017 #Inktober Rundown. This year I stuck to my drawing board like clockwork and it paid off. I only missed the first two, and since I don't like to look back I just left them unfulfilled. So, we pick up at #3 and ride the wave to the end! Most of the pieces are on loose 8.5" x 11" illustration paper, unless where noted. These are actual scans of the work, as opposed to what was posted on Instagram, just photos. They will soon be bagged and priced and will join my stack of original art I sell at my appearances. If you find you absolutely must have a certain piece tweet me @toonzday or better yet leave a comment under the piece on da Instagram. Xmas is around the corner, wink wink.

submitted for your approval, the checklist of prompts

Day 3: Poison

Day 4: Underwater. I love otters. This is the only one in my sketchbook.

Day 5: Long. As in a long road. 1 of 3 of the travelling ronin samurai.

Day 6: Sword. Everyone's favorite emo anime soldier and his trusty Buster that he swears is not compensating for anything. 

Day 7 Shy. One of my faves, a bullied Shy Guy at Koopa High.

Day 8: Crooked. As in The Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang.

Day 9: Screech. As a vulture. Cuz vulture's also Screech.

Day 10: Gigantic.

Day 11: Run.

Day 12: Shatter. As in these young adveturers shattered the evil crystal golem.

Day 13: Teeming. As in I hope you're Friday the 13th is teeming with as much fun and excitement as Jason's is.

Day 14: Fierce. When you want the Fierce Deity Link but accidentally put on the Deku mask.

Day 15: Mysterious. Rorschach on the case.

Day 16: Fat

Day 17: Graceful

Day 18: Fithy. As in "Keep the change, you filthy animal."

Day 19: Cloud. Texas icon/ HEB President Scott McClelland as a cloud.

Doesn't he look like a cloud, like the smiley background cloud from Super Mario?

Day 20: Deep. Rapper Freddie Gibbs, who has a track called Deep.

Day 21: Furious. As in Furious George punches Nazis. Shoutout to Evan Dorkin who drew a strip that inspired this one.

I'm a HUGE fan of Dorkin's work. He's a big influence on my comics.

Day 22: Trail. As in, a new adversary blocks the trail. 2 of 3 of the ronin samurai.

Day 23: Juicy. From the PJs.

Day 24. Blind. Hold up, I scanned it but forgot to include it. I will soon.

Day 25: Ship. General Summer Solstice on her flag ship. Read her story in Screw Comics! #2.

Day 26: Squeak. As in, Techno-Squeak, the Exterminator Terminator. For some reason this one was really popular.

Day 26: Squeak. BONUS piece. I did this one first but I decided I didn't wanna cause a raucous on da 'Gram. Even tho I shoulda.

Day 27: Climb. 

Day 28: Fall. As in, the fall of Don Draper.

Day 29: United. As in, No. 08's gang is united for revenge. Stranger Things season 2!

Day 30: Found. As in, you'll never guess where I found Carmen Sandiego. Well, guess!

Day 31: Mask. As in, the adversary that blocks the trail has a peculiar mask. 3 of 3 of the ronin samurai set.

And there you have it, the Inktober 2017 lot. Phew! What a month. Coming up next, more work. The fun don't stop.

Token

Missed a month of September post so I'm tossing this in so I don't miss a month. Next month I'll have the Inktober Art blast but for this month I'm just throwing up a birthday photo (Virgos whats up?).

Also taking this post to plug the podcast my boy Lee Lawson has been doing month to month, check out the Shuffelapod, it's dope! He asked me to do the cover art for each episode and he just said do whatever I want, so the art truly is whatever I want and it works.

They're up for download and/or streaming on his site. Really good mix of music to work to or jam out doing whatever, spans all musical genres. If you're a music lover as I am you'll dig it. 

For episode 5 I literally used a pic from the remains of my birthday dinner. Lee said "fuck it, that's dope. The pope in a glass box, dope..." or something.

For the latest episode, 6, I give a shout to my late Grandfather who recently passed away. I like this old photo of him in the driveway with the family car in the 60s. 

Alfonso Perez Sr, circa age 17.

what a month.

The Metroid 2 remake AM2R is my shit. Been on that the last few months. Highly addictive. Highly recommended. But it's taken down, ya gotta scour the internet underbelly to find a copy. Snag 1.1 if you can.

Be sure to peep my upcoming events, details at the top right spot under "Where to Find Me"

I got a table at a sneaker summit last Saturday in October on the TSU Campus, 12pm to 4pm. I'll be next to Van G. Garrett.

and or course I'll be posting up at Zine Fest Houston 2016 with possibly a new zine. We'll see.

And lastly, my old curmudgeon of a coworker finally retired this month. This was his desk. I took this shot right before he took everything down. This is what we looked at everyday. He drew the stuff.

Okay, That covers the September post. Peace!

Battle Ready

New illustration for my boy Jerry Carrillo for his son's laser tag "Call of Duty" themed birthday party. It's a caricature of his son runnin' and gunnin' through battle. It made it to the invitations and to the cake.

Main illustration, with the Halo sniper scope

Original edit, standard sniper scope. This edit was used for the invitations

And alas, the cake. 

Jerry kept asking me to use brighter colors, as the darker cake frostings tend to taste bitter. Everything in Call of Duty and Halo and every other FPS game is pretty dark in color and otherwise, but I think I made it work pretty good.

Feb Stomper

Because of the the show I haven't been doing much else. When I was keeping the gallery open on the weekdays I did set up a table in the window, complete with a light, and did drawings to see if I could spark the interest of anybody walking by. It worked a few times. I mainly just water-colored in my sketchbook, finishing sketches and pages I would have otherwise ignored or put off. The following is a bit of a glimpse of those selective pages.

a strange Kurt Cobain caricature

a Miss Cornpoppy sketch with a blunt in her mouth, entirely from my imagination.

Hermione Granger and her failed transform potion.

a robot and character color study. Thought worth sharing.

Characters from Streets of Rage. The white dude from Final Fight I get mixed up with this guy so I combined their names. 

really cool anthropomorphic dinosaur warrior which I just may use in an upcoming comic title I'm developing. 

While I don't dislike drawing caricatures of babies, I do think they sometimes turn out looking kinda weird, mainly cuz (technically) it's setting out to look like a specific baby. Here's a commission I did for a friend's niece, to commemorate her first birthday. We were going for a Pebbles Flintstone look, I'm guessing it was the theme. They put up this lil' piece at the party. 

Trust me, when I guet bizzy again, you'll know it.