Decisions, Decisions

AHHHH! Color choices on my sketch, I'm always awful at feeling comfortable getting this part down. I'm pretty sure I know which I'll go with, but still, I like to try and test all the spectrums, it seems...

Upcoming piece for a show with a bunch of artists from work; we're recreating Tarot cards in our own definitive styles!

The Black Hearts Need YOU!

 - ADULT SWIM SHOW - 

Opening Reception Friday January 13th

art up until February 4th

Gallery 1988

Melrose, CA

New piece for the upcoming Adult Swim show at Gallery 1988!  We were limited to Adult Swim's Original shows so I chose one of my absolute favorites: The Venture Brothers.  I spent the majority of my time trying to think of what could possibly make a good tribute piece for this series and kept coming up short. I wanted to include every character and every great situation that's occurred, and there just was no way I could achieve that. So I really thought about it, and I wished there were even more episodes that featured Molotov Cocktease and the lesser seen Hunter Gathers. I've included them both in this War Recruitment-style poster for the Black Hearts Elimination Agency.  I had way too much fun creating this one! I love, love, love Hunter Gathers in the black/red catsuit.

Dickens Fair

Every year there's apparently an enormous Charles Dickens Fair in San Francisco during the holidays. People dress up in the clothing from the author's era and speak with old English accents, and so on. The Boyfriend and I went for the first time ever this year! One great plus was there was a 'Pre-Raphaelite Life Drawing' session that took place in a room entitled, "The Adventurers Club." The theme was primavera, so tons of fake flora were around, and the model adorned herself with a wreath-crown. They supplied us with some pads of paper and pencils (though no erasers, aiya, don't make any mistakes!!) and we got to work on two different poses that were about 10-15 minuets each. Lots of fun!

Nostalgia sketch - mugs and wooden spoons

 Back story: I had a room mate in college who actually dropped out after finishing our Sophomore year. She was a very close friend to me, even though we only knew each other about three years or so. During this time was right before every person and their mom owned a digital camera as a staple-electronic; we still bought film and had it developed at a Rite Aid whenever we needed to take photos.  Turns out I didn't have many photos of my room mate (and any photos that I did have of her, might have been lost when I moved over 7 different times, the last being across the whole country). It's a strange feeling not to have a picture of someone you remember so many things about. The way their voice sounds, the way they walk, their gestures, and so on.
 I felt nostalgic today, reminiscing about our last day as Freshmen. We'd trashed a ton of godawful art projects (because it was Foundation Year and what the heck will you do with the rest of that Color Aid?). We had just packed up all of our belongings, and cleaned the entire apartment when I discovered an entire box of instant oatmeal packets my mother had sent me many months prior. Please realize we were starving (and not just that precise moment, either - art students), but had packed up every dish and utensil in our boxes and which were now far from easy reach. The only things we were able to retrieve were giant wooden cooking spoons and mugs that our other room mate had made for us.
We sat out in the Freshmen Commons grounds, on a picnic table that someone had pulled onto the grass and ate our oatmeal while reflecting on the entire year. I distinctly remember I couldn't stop laughing. It was a really wonderful time!

Underworld

Another quickie illustration for SciFiNow Magazine; deadline was pretty fast as I'm going away this week. This one was for the new Underworld: Awakening film that's coming out, so it depicts Kate Beckinsale!

I'll be honest, this was frustrating as hell because Kate Beckinsale appears to look somewhat different in nearly every scene or photo of the Underworld movies. Seriously.  Super challenging; I sketched her face out about 6 times until remotely coming close to a likeness.  Half the time her eyes are an icy blue when she goes all-Vampire-crazy, the other half is her natural eye color, so it really changed her face for me!!

Moving On

New illustration done for the next issue of SciFi Now Magazine. The article talks about actor Daniel Radcliffe finally leaving behind his long-running role of Harry Potter, and moving on to new, exciting films and plays like How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Equus, of course. This was a really fun job, I'm a huge Daniel Radcliffe fan!

Airplane-Sketches

I recently went on a trip to China and always take a sketchbook for the plane-rides. I apologize for the awful photo-quality. My scanner's been broken for forever and I haven't gotten around to buying a new one, so it's point 'n shoot for now!


I watched a ton of Mad Men before leaving for the trip. I was never good at caricatures so I figured I'd get some practice in. Growing up, people that found out I liked to draw usually asked me to draw them and then the pressure was on. I guess this is just my rendition of Peggy Olsen, Donald Draper, Betty Draper and... Pete Campbell? (And hey, Batman Beyond's Terry McGinnis snuck in there again)

Ghosts & Plane Wrecks

New illustration for Rhode Island Monthly Magazine.

The article was about a man who collected parts from planes that crashed locally, starting in 1944, and the ghostly experiences that occurred after he'd begun to rebuild the vintage planes.

Sketches:

Friendly Doodles

I think over 10 years ago, I did a sketch for a friend of a character he made up, I then sent the sketch to him via snail-mail and he recently informed me he's held on to it ever since. That really touched me! I decided to give his character a bit of a re-vamp (I have an extremely vague idea of what the original sketch looks like as I was what, 15 years old?), and tried to do some action poses. I-am-super-rusty.

Fairy Eater

New Legend of Zelda piece to commemorate the 25th year anniversary this year! FINALLY got it done before the year's end too!

The first few Legend of Zelda games didn't have the whole spiritual 'fairy flies around Link, sparkle sparkle' animations. I used to wonder what the heck he did with those fairies to restore his health since he'd touch them and they'd just... disappear. (Legend of Neil depicts Link-Neil having sex with the fairies, but I didn't agree as it wasn't an instantaneous disappearance). But this is what my innocent-child-mind thought:

"Full Health Restore"
13" x 19"

This will be featured in Gallery1988's Video Game Show - invite below:

Do it, Samus!

New Metroid piece for the Geekart.net show called "8-Bit Champions" which will be in Paris, France:

September 15th
LA FLAQ GALLERY
36 rue Quincampoix
75005 Paris

Metroid holds a bit of a special place for me. I distinctly remember sitting in my basement as a kid, and watching my older brother play it (majority of original NES games are memories of watching him play it before I actually got my hands on experiencing the game for myself). Right after he'd just beaten the last level, Metroid reveals in the ending that --(ZOMG SPOILER?!?) Samus is actually a female under all that androgynous space-suit looking armor. That really got me, mainly because all of the games I'd been playing up until that point always starred a male character (Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man etc.). And this female heroine was extremely awesome!

I tweaked Samus's armor some because it was looking a bit outdated (according to the original NES covers and manual booklets that came with the game).

Stay

My submission for last Friday's IllustrationFriday! topic - stay ...That is too late because they've moved onto a new topic. Darn. Oh well. Here it is and maybe I'll create/update more work more frequently:

Rut!

I've been in a real rut lately for personal illustrations. I want to blame the full-time job on sucking the life out of me these past few weeks. Whenever I get into these moods, I really should head over to Illustration Friday! and take a peek at their great topics.

Here's some filler - old quickie-sketches from work.

Technology meets Fantasy:


Discovery:
Awkward Moment:

Vengeance:
And the good 'old Zombie Apocalypse:


Hopefully more updates sooner!

Poison Ivy

One of my favorite Batman villains of all time is Poison Ivy; especially from the 90s Batman: The Animated Series cartoon. This was a request from a friend, "Just draw Batman." So... this is what I came up with.


Wowee, two posts in one week, this is INSANE.

Warriors, Come Out To Play-ay!

The Warriors. A cult film from the late 1970s.

ALSO an illustration I've created for the Crazy 4 Cult 5 Show that will be in Gallery1988 in July!

WIP - Poison Ivy

Commission for a friend - about 50% done on this one. Figured I'd show a work-in-progress shot in an attempt to post more often!

Choices in Video Games

I did some illustrations for GamesTM Magazine in the UK. These focused on the choices a player can make for video game characters. Whether your character have good or bad morals upon your decisions, the places you go, etc. They were extremely fun! Here's how they'll appear in the spreads for this month's issue:


'Til next time!

Gallery Show: Prints 2.0 Analog<>Digital

If you live in the San Francisco, CA area, or might be visiting soon, you can view my Black Swan illustration at the Meridian Gallery! The opening reception is May 13th.

More information is here.

Little Red Riding Hood v2

I did a Little Red Riding Hood illustration a long, long time ago. This time there was an extended time-limit for our daily sketch-jam at work. My interpretation:


You honestly didn't think she survived the attack, did you? They just made up the rest of the story so children could sleep better at night.

Dreamworks Fine Art Prints

Still super busy (when am I not?), but here's a new piece that will be printed for Dreamworks Fine Arts Prints and sold where ever Dreamworks prints are... sold. The original choices for films to illustrate were: Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How To Train Your Dragon. I'll be honest, I loved HTTYD far more than the other two (Not counting that the first two have/will have multiple sequels). I felt like Dreamworks finally got it right for once; they didn't need to resort to using animals to simply replace people to make an animated film. That's just my opinion though!

Orange and Mechanical

New quickie from my work's sketch-jam. The topic was 'Orange & Mechanical.' Just off 'n on over the course of an hour. Sorry for not having anything more complete these days; been a bit busy, but hopefully I can get myself together for some new inspiration with these sketch-exercises!

Sketch Jam - Battle Arena

I joined a sketch-blog at work. This is my entry for the theme, 'Battle Arena.' ...somehow my first thought was the battle arena should take place in the bedroom.... ah well.

Photoshop, done in in about 1-2 hours on/off.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I somehow managed to crank this out over the weekend. Here's to Valentine's Day (Happy Singles Awareness Day for the cynical?).


If you're looking for love, may it strike you when you least expect it (as it should)!

The Cranes are Coming

Commission for a co-worker/friend, he just gave it to his wife for her birthday!


The story is very adorable: They knew one another in High School and in their Sophomore year, the bride folded a paper crane for the groom in one of their shared classes. He kept the crane as a memento (he had a crush on her). They ended up getting into a relationship after high school, then married. They used paper cranes as the theme of their wedding, and the groom used the very same paper crane the bride had folded him on their table at the reception. This was based off of the bride's favorite photo from the wedding; with a touch of my obsession for paper cranes included. Enjoy!

Is This Thing On?

If you live in the Los Angeles area (or will be visiting this week), I'll be in a show at Gallery 1988 that has partnered with Funny or Die. The show consists of 100 illustrators taking a crack at comedians. Each artist was assigned a comedian to depict - Opening reception is on January 7th! Here was mine:


I'm super excited to be amongst some of my long-time illustration idols like Jim Mahfood, Tom Whalen, and Tara McPherson, just to name a few!