Yeah, it's been a while...

So, I have been doing stuff. Most is in preliminary stages. I have like 4 different concepts for illustrations in various stages.

Anyway, here is a job I did recently for a friend from my high school days. He works on a crew at a power plant in Georgia. I am pretty sure they clean and repair the boilers. He said he wanted a new mascot for his crew, a Boiler Flea to be exact. Apparently the named originated from a talented Hispanic welder named Lemonade. He told the boss that he was getting fleas from the boiler. These things get so hot that it takes about 30-days to cool them down, there is no way an insect is living in there. So he was let go, but his legacy will live on.

Dorn asked me draw a flea and this is what I came up with. It has a little bit of hot rod culture influence, not bad. I included the rough sketch below. I inked it and put it in Illustrator to clean it up. [ink + digital]

It crossed my mind that this may have been an X-file. You know, some prehistoric creature that lies dormant in the coal, only to be awakened by the intense heat of the boiler. Possibly...

Here's to you Lemonade.



Pencil rough:

One-Eyed Pink Monster

My niece is turning 4 this year. She wanted a monster themed birthday party. So I drew up a slimy striped tentacled one-eyed pink monster for her bash. [Ink + Digital]



Front of Invite:

Nine years...

As I mentioned in my last post, my wife and I just celebrated our 9th anniversary this past weekend. Good food and a delicious big ass beer at Checkers. I always make a card of some sort for my wife for the big three: Christmas, Birthday and Anniversary. I had no idea what I was going to do this year. I then had an idea while in the shower, which seems to be the place where most of my eleventh hour ideas originate.

When I started drawing it, I kind of had the sneaking suspicion that this might make a good sticker for some hippie's rusted out VW. I do not take this as a compliment. No way. This drawing is my technique, but not really my style. Anyway, it was done for love, so that makes it alright in my book. I wanted to watercolor it, but since I procrastinated, I thought I would mess it up in my rush to get it done. I also included my hand written note on the inside in all its embarrassing prose glory. [pencil + ink]

Front:


Inside:

May I probe you?

Not very prepared today, exhausting weekend (Ava's 5th Birthday Party).

Here is an old drawing of a nurse robot. When I am bored, I tend to draw monsters, eyeballs and robots. That is all I really have say this Monday. [ink]

...when pigs fly.

I think I am going to try the Illustration Friday next week. I was little late for this week's topic, which is "Magnify." The goal is to illustrate the given topic for the week, then post it on the site. This is where the flying pig idea came from. I think the H1N1 (Swine Flu) paranoia seems a bit out of hand. I hope that I am not wrong, but my gut is telling me not to fall for this hysteria.

Anyway, the original idea was to have the pig in space, flying away from earth. This was illustrating the magnification of the situation of how fast and far this virus is supposed to spread. In the amount of time I wanted to complete this (one evening), I was not liking how the pig looked in space. I then just focused on the pig solely. It didn't turn out bad. [ink + digital]



The thing that gets me is that normal strains of the flu spread just as fast, and take more lives. Yet the WHO (Haha, not Roger & Crew) does not get involved in those scenarios. I feel like they might not be telling us the whole truth, whether for better or for worse. Maybe I am just not seeing the bigger picture...I am after all, an elitist American.

Benny & The Cakes

This is part 2 of the cupcake incident. This was a fun little project. A little slow and frustrating in the beginning as I didn't know what the hell I was going to do. I think it all turned out well in the end. Have fun Ben. [ink + digital]



Here is the front cover of the invitation for Ben's 16th birthday party. For privacy reasons, I am not going to post the inside layout I used the cupcake for:

Ugh, woke up late...not prepared

I hate waking up late. I am so neurotic about being punctual that if I am not on time, my day is shot to hell from a mental standpoint. I absolutely did not know what to post today, due to the cloud of lateness that is looming over my head. Anyway, here is an invite I did for my niece's first birthday. The original ink drawing was bad, and required a lot of photoshop work on my part. Not even going to post it. This is from my coming out of retirement phase, when the hands were rusty from not drawing. [ink + digital]

I need another tattoo...ASAP

Let's keep the tattoo thing going. This half-sleeve is on my wife's other arm. This was actually commissioned before the tree tattoo featured in yesterday's post. Another bare-knuckled fist fight followed with a kick to the groin type of job. When she let go of the reins, this is what happened. [ink + digital]

Lineart:



Color sleeve (Noted: Her half-sleeve actually has a blue background):



Let it also be noted that I enjoy making my wife happy, most times it is very easy. I don't want my audience to always think it is difficult to work with her.

I want a weeping willow...

The story is, that Jen, my wife, likes to get tattoos. She will ask me to draw something for her. She will give me an idea of what she wants, then I get pissy as I actually start to draw it due to the constraints of her conceptualization. An argument usually ensues due to the fact that I am usually not into what she is asking me to do. Finally, she says to just do whatever and storms off. About an hour later, still keeping her initial concept in mind and me feeling like their is a bit more freedom, I usually come up with something cool that she loves. We never seem to agree on art direction. She is my worse client, but I still lover her immensely. [ink + digital]

Anyway, I did a version where I reversed the art. This is how I would print it, preferably silk screen or wood block:



Here is the version she got tattooed as a half-sleeve:

Eat your pudding, Mr. Land.

"The natives over there are cannibals. They eat liars with the same enthusiasm as they eat honest men." -Captain Nemo.

I remember the first time I saw Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". It was such an epic moment in my childhood. I obsessed relentlessly over the leviathans, especially squids and octopi. My dad had these Time Life animal kingdom books. I would constantly be looking at the marine life one. Always referencing those few pages on squids, so I could draw them just right. The squid battle in the movie was fantastic. Anyway, those times drawing it from reference didn't help me. Which brings us to today's scribble, an inaccurate drawing of a squid. Eventually I would like to get a half-sleeve on my other arm of a battle between man and leviathan. [pencil]



I wanted to be Captain Nemo. His character was so awesome, I always wished he would have come out on top at the end of the movie. The Nautilus would have been my home too.

"There is hope for the future. And when the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass. In God's good time." -Captain Nemo

A train, a train...would you, could you, on a train?

Start with one train:



Next, add a little portrait of one daughter:



Finally, mix it up in Illustrator, and you have one invitation:



[ink + digital]

Oh nos!

Monday morning production meeting scribble: What if Squidbot was not a bio-mechanical organism, but just 100% robot? What if he had a bad memory from his robot-hood? What would it be about? [pencil]

Prehistoric Beaver?

Another scribble that happened on the same press check as Phonebot 8000b. I just started to draw some strokes with my brush pen, this is what came out. Is is a beaver, jungle rat or a wombat? Is it even from this era? Ink and digital.