Gravity Bomb

Viewer: Jon, what's a gravity bomb?
Me: I dunno, but I want two. One for up and the other for down.

I guess this is a one page comic. I wonder if there are rules or a definition as to how much content a one-page comic has to contain. "Use the gravity bomb" and then the other guy does... I suppose it falls under the 'Conceptual Product Demonstration' comic genre.

So I did this in my sketchbook, and liked it, so it got a bit of a Photoshop treatment and Voila! Now it's online for the world to see. Enjoy World!

Litterboxx

Well it's been a while since I've done some real comic pages, but this looks like the project that's going to get me going again. I've been getting more comfortable with my inking approach, so I think these are going to be some really solid pages.

It's for a submission to an anthology called SIDE B, and even though it's not due for a while, I figured I should get going on it... especially since my schedule has been a little unpredictable lately.

These are the thumbs for it. The basic story is theres a band of cats called LITTERBOXX that fly around in an octopus space ship and play music for their fans... and theres a anti-music robot that tries to stop them... but the power of rock is just too strong.

Hoard, Illustration Friday

Well, I enjoyed doing this last week, so I'm going to try to get in the habit of it. The theme this week was 'hoard' and as I started to sort out ideas I kept thinking of the definition for 'horde'.. which is different.. Anyways, I looked it up to be sure.

I did a 3 page comic with this 'piggy-bank-for-a-head-man' character a while ago. It just seemed to fit for this idea. If you're interested check out the comic pages here.

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures

I got a nice little surprise in the mail, it's the new comic textbook from all-star cartoonists Matt Madden and Jessica Abel. I was an intern for Matt and Jessica while they were writing it. I did a character construction exercise that they included in the book, which is really cool.

I mostly saw the outlines and some rough drafts, but I could definitely tell this was going to be big. They've really covered the art of comics from all angles in this book. I'll enjoy going through this in depth and I can already tell it's going to be a great resource.

It's published by First Second and available at Amazon (among other places I'm sure).

Punchline

So theres this thing called Illustration Friday and I've been meaning to participate the past few weeks, but I've been so busy that it's close to the following Friday before it's getting close to finished. This time, I kept it a little simpler. The theme is 'Punchline'. This makes sense to me, but comment if it's too vague. I'm curious if it comes across like intended.

An Effing Foodie

I have posted about this project before, but hadn't put up the final web banner. The first draft was more of an illustrated cartoony style, but the client was thinking of something a little more elegant. This style works a lot better with the layout of the site. See for yourself at http://www.aneffingfoodie.com/.

Mangia Mix

I was browsing through my past work folders and realized I never posted this project online. Theres a few that slip through the cracks now and then, but this is one I especially enjoyed. Rich has made a business combining two of my favorite things: food and music. He does great music mixes for restaurants in the NYC area. I designed his logo, business card and some miscellaneous stationary.

This is the front and back layout of the business card. I had them printed at overnightprints.com because they're good, cheap and can do those nice rounded corners that I wanted.

Evil Bird cover

One day I'll have time to actually get some finished pages done for this comic. Still slowly working out some kinks to the story and it's still pretty much on the back burner. But I had a hankering to work on this cover image, so I put it together. The bird was fully inked, but I decided to crop it for design purposes. I played with some photoshop stuff that I hadn't really messed with much before and I'm happy with the results. I was unaware that there were two methods of achieving 'halftone'. I like this one much better. It's filter>sketch>halftone pattern. Although it doesn't seem to be available in CMYK mode. No biggie though for this piece. I also worked with illustrator for the logo, played with gradient and layer options and pulled in and manipulated some grunge textures.

Battle Ground Harvest Days 2008

This is a poster design I did for the Battle Ground Harvest Days event put on by the Chamber of Commerce.

I used a new tool (for me anyways) for my inking on this. Its a winsor-newton series 7 size 2 brush. A lot of people have recommended this as the ultimate inking tool (including Tom Pitilli ). I found it incredibly easy to work with and I love the lines I got out of it. It's been a while since I've used a traditional brush (brushpens and foam brushes lately), so I had a bit of trouble figuring out the water/ink workings of it, but I got it pretty much down.

I started using an ink i was excited to try 'fw acrylic artists ink', but the blackness of it was very week. I ended up using a winsor newton ink, which was much darker and cleaner.

Colors were done in photoshop, but I figured out my palette using the color tools in illustrator, based on tips from colorist Ben DeRosa.

RipshaW

Heres a quick thing I did for my brother's band.

Family Portrait

Found this sketch I did a while ago. Maybe will eventually ink/color, but figured I'd share.

Random Sketches

I was going through my sketchbook and found a few gems. I'm considering making shirts or something of the pizza=awesome and the robot whistling images. Also, I kinda like the weird Conan O'Brien face...

Blue Shift - inked

This is the inked version of the sketch I had up the other day. I'm working out a story based on this and hopefully I'll be able to keep up a webcomic. I'll probably do some more experiments in style, but I'm very happy with this image.

Battle Ground Little League

This is a banner I designed and printed at work for the local baseball little league group. They were very happy with the final product and apparently are getting a lot of good comments at their tournaments.

Blue Shift

Here is an illustration that I'm working up as part of some concept sketches for a new project. I'm planning on using a 2 color press to make prints of the final illo using blue and black.

Vancouver Voice - April Cover

A last minute job, I was able to do the cover for the April issue of the Vancouver Voice. I was called on Tuesday, luckily the AD had some ideas already - I worked out the sketches and submitted them that night. They picked one and I did the final workup (ink and photoshop color/texture) on Wednesday night. Personally, I favored my other sketch, but this image works better with the story I'd have to agree.

Vinyl graphics

I figured this was worth a post. I designed this partial vinyl car wrap at work for 'Timberman's Tree Service'. The main body wrap is around 12' x 7'...so, it's pretty big. I didn't do much on the actual install, but the overall design was me.

PANDA!

Last weekend Heather and I went to Wondercon in San Francisco and stayed with our friends Chris and Carolyn in the Sacramento area. It was great to see them and hang out. They requested the above illustration from me, which I was more than happy to work up. They liked the inked version, but I wanted to take it home and color it. Took a few days, but there it is!

Trickster

Here are some loose sketches for the short story I'm working on for the Trickster anthology. I'm in the middle of inking it right now and it's coming along great. It's been a while since I've done actual 'sequential' work, so it's a nice change of pace. It's definitely tougher than a single illustration though, for me at least. I'm a little behind schedule on it and will still need to color it when the inking is finished, but it's getting there. With the rate I'm going right now, I should be done by St. Patty's Day.

Gabriel Byrne

I did this caricature of Gabriel Byrne for the March issue of The Vancouver Voice. It's for a review on the TV show 'In Treatment'. The likeness was tricky, but my wife, Heather, helped me get that straight. It was a rush job and they pretty much had what they wanted in mind, so it went fast. I did it a rounder, more cartoony style than usual, more like some work from a few years ago.