Portland Mercury - Houses Not Handcuffs

Here is a new black and white illustration I did for this week's Portland Mercury. I did the line work with a nib and speedball ink, then filled in the rest of the blacks and did a wash with a sumi brush and sumi ink.

Full article here...

CRC in the Crosshairs

I did this editorial illustration for an article in the most recent Portland Mercury. This was a combination of pencil, ink wash and digital manipulation and color.

You can see the illustration in context and read the full article by clicking here.

Sketchbook - chase

This is a sketchbook sketch that I decided to try some ink experiments on. Not the greatest composition ever, but this was mostly about trying out inking with a nib again. So I used a nib, I believe a Hunt 99, and inked the sketch. I made an effort to ink most of the sketchy lines to give it some texture. The line looks much better than the marker pens (micron, pitt pen, etc.) I usually use. It's nice to be able to get the fine line, but with a little variation in the line weight. I guess that's the point.. I went back after the nib ink was dry and filled in blacks with a sumi brush. Then I went back with watered down ink and did some grays. I like how the slightly rough blacks work with the linework. I like the texture to the grays too, that comes from doing it with a brush rather than Photoshop.. The good thing about Photoshop though is the "undo" command.. but then you don't get cool organic textures and other 'happy accidents'.

Monsta

I played around with watercolor on this one. The ink I used was water based so I had to do the watercolor on a separate piece of paper - then scan them and put them together in Photoshop. This was a bit of an experiment.. next time I might try doing the watercolor first and a solid ink over the top..

Crash Poster

Here is a sketch I did as a concept for a band poster or flyer.

Tyrannosaurus Ax

Here's a new t-shirt! So, this came about while watching an old slasher movie (The Prowler) while thumbing through an old collection of comics (The War that Time Forgot). I did a full page sketch of a scene that kinda looked like an old grindhouse movie poster or something. I started to ink it (Sumi brush & ink) and realized that the dino itself was much cooler than the whole scene in itself. So I thought it would look best like this on a shirt.

I'm a HUGE FAN!

Here's a piece I did over the weekend. Started off in my sketchbook, inked it with a brush and Sumi ink, scanned it and colored and textured it in Photoshop.

New Art - sketchbook

A few recent things. The Lloyd City piece is from my sketchbook - a fun little illo with colors and grunge textures in Photoshop. The other thing is a Photoshop brush sketch.. not something I normally do in PS, but I like it.

New Shirt - ROCK!

Made a new shirt, cuz I can!

RipshaW - Haunted Hollow

I did this illustration for the metal band RipshaW. Listen to them on their Myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/ripshaw ...ROCK!

I used a new Sumi brush I got a Japanese bookstore. It's been a while since I used a Sumi brush/Sumi ink, so it was a fun change of pace. It worked well for this piece, I was able to easily get the kind of lines I was going for.

Diseasey Fly

Is 'diseasey' a word?.. I don't think so.. but 'Fly' seemed like a boring title. I loosened up a bit for this one. I did a quick sketch and loose inks using a brush pen (The kinda brush pen that uses real ink though, not those crappy foamy brush pens). I have one from Pentel that works well and kinda gives the result of a Sumi brush. Plus I can ink with it while sitting in bed.. always an added bonus. I like the ink work I did on it better than the color treatment. The colors came out alright though. They were done in Photoshop.. I've been meaning to do more coloring with watercolor or acrylics, but didn't get around to it this time. I think I could get some more depth and texture using paint.. next time maybe.

Pizza Party! tshirt

I finished coloring this shirt tonight and put it up for sale at MySoti! All the cheese drips and sauce splatters were fun to ink. Figuring out the saucy breadstick lettering was really fun too.

New Paintings

I finished off these two pieces today. They are ink and spray paint on wood panels. I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything further with these though.. they were kind of exercises to work out a style for pieces for gallery display. I'm mostly happy with the style, though there's still a few kinks to work out. On the policeman piece, the ink didn't exactly absorb, which made a cool effect, but wasn't exactly what I was shooting for. Since it absorbed fine on the other panel, (sun) I think it was just less absorbent wood. I'll have to keep that in mind when getting substrates again.

Pizza Party - work in progress

I did the inks for this project today. It's a t-shirt design that I've been working on the last few days. Next step is to scan it and do the colors in Photoshop.

Hi, I'm Jon

Made this little self-portrait illustration. I made it to fit on a business card, I'll probably print up a few. It'd be a fun little card to hand out to other artists at conventions or wherever.. It also works nicely as my current Facebook icon.

Kids vs. Frogs

I've been working on a large project, but I felt like inking, so I made this illustration. Someone told me this story from their youth and I thought I could make a nice visual of it.

I inked it all with a size 2 brush and a bit with a Pitt pen. I thought afterward that a size 4 brush may have given a little more looseness, but I'm happy with the result.

Smoke and Fire - Portland Mercury

I did a new editorial illustration for this week's Portland Mercury. You can read the full article here. The color version is online and the gray version is in print the printed article this week.

I used a few different tools for inking this. It's been a while since I used a nib, but I used a HUNT 99 for most of the line work on the city image. I filled in the blacks and did the line work on the rest of the image with a size 0 sable brush from Rosemary & Co. Also, I added a bit of spray effect for the flame using a toothbrush. Coloring was done in Photoshop.

Space Walk

I did a new illustration for a t-shirt design. Follow the link to check it out on sale through MySoti.

New Shirt - Sludge

I made a new shirt and put it on mysoti.com for now. Eventually I'll be selling these shirts separate from mysoti I think, but this works until I get that going.

This was a fun design to make, I penciled, inked and finished it off all today. I used a Rosemary & Co. Series 33 size 0 brush for the linework. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to look like in the end, but I did things a little differently with the brushwork. Instead of filling in all the 'black' areas, I outlined the penciled linework, then in Photoshop just filed the inside and subtracted the brushed lines. Working this way made the line weights extra important.

I wasn't sure about the face. Adding it made it look a bit cartoony and leaving it blank made it look more creepy.. but a little less interesting - so I went with the face.

While inking I was thinking a lot about 'process' and I came up with this: "Your process is the answer to the question 'how do I make this look the way I want it to?'" - That may not be the best or fullest explanation, but that's kinda how I think of it.

Rocketman Tshirt!!!

UPDATE: I made this into a shirt design and put it up for sale on mysoti. Check it out: http://www.mysoti.com/mysoti/product/380958


I did this illustration today, thinking of making it a t-shirt.

Digging Up Dirt - Portland Mercury

I did a new illustration for this week's Portland Mercury. I got to play around with a few inking tools I don't regularly use - to build the textures in the forest scene. I used a size 0 brush, series 33 (from Rosemary & co.) for most of the detail work on the main figure. The trees were built with a combination of toothbrush, old rag and foam brush.

Full article here: http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/digging-up-dirt/Content?oid=1380377

Money Talks - Portland Mercury

New illustration for this weeks Portland Mercury. Read the article here.

Stumptown 09

I went to Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland this weekend. I made the above image as promo card / bookmark.

Happy Birthday Riffer Ripshaw

My brother's birthday is today. So I drew 20 robots battling for him... it makes sense to me.

Metroid Loves Samus

Been playing Metroid Pinball lately on the DS. Good stuff.

Portland Mercury - Budget Cuts

I did another illustration for the Portland Mercury out this week. This was a fun one to draw/ink. You can see the illustration in the context of the article here.

Full of Pryde at Floating World Comics

Here is the piece that I am submitting for the 'Full of Pryde' art show at Floating World Comics in Portland, OR. All proceeds go to OHSU. FWC is a great little comic shop and it's owner, Jason Leivian does a great job organizing cool art events. Last year I submitted my THEY LIVE piece to the SUPERTRASH film festival that he helped organize. According to the website, the show opens May 7th. I look forward to seeing all the other pieces!

Baby Card

Here is a baby card I illustrated (and crafted!) for a friend's newborn.

Abstract

Here's an abstract piece I did recently.. hopefully the first in a series.



..and here it is hanging over my messy art area, where it will probably stay until I figure out what else to do with it.

Side B

So I posted a preview of my submission to this about a month ago. Here is a link to the site. It'll be hitting the shelves early June. It's being distributed through Diamond, so I'll probably post an update once it's in the Previews book.

Portland Mercury - There goes the Neighborhood

Here is an illustration I did for this week's Portland Mercury. It was a fun job, and I got to work with the new art director over there. Good deal. Read the full story here.

Litterboxx for Side B Anthology

Here are the first 2 pages of a 6 page comic that I submitted to a music-based comic anthology. It's called 'Side B' -- more info here: http://www.poseurink.com/sideb/ . It should be available sometime this coming summer.