big apples are still just apples.

hello bloggie.
i've missed you.
i know i've been playing hard to get, only coming here like once every seventeen months or so. why do we hurt the ones we love, hm?

anyways, my personal life, in case you were unaware, has taken some drastic turns in the past few months. fate has seen me uprooted from my comfortable mid-western rut and transplanted to the bustling east coast.

if you'd care to know, things are going well, albeit slowly.
the darling girlfriend and i are subletting now, as we probably will be for another month until we can afford to move into our own pad.
our roommates are fine as far as roommates go, i guess. still, i avoid them whenever i can. darting out only when everything seems quiet, i'm like some nocturnal rodent.

i transferred up here with my company, so i didn't need to job hunt on my arrival. that was nice. but this city is hella expensive, so i got a second job for fun and profit... mostly the profit.

when we moved out here i only brought about 8 t-shirts, 2 work shirts, a pair of shorts and a pair of slacks. utterly spartan. (except my gameboy, and my psp, and my kendle, and a sketchbook, and a handful of art supplies. i couldn't be expected to come up here devoid of entertainment!)
the handful of art supplies has been a trial, sort of.
i left all my rapidiographs in a box back in ohio, and i've been missing them sorely ever since. microns travel a lot better so that's what i brought, but the lines just don't love me the way rapidiograph lines do. and i wasn't here a week before my 005 was giving out on me.
i don't have any color media either.
which isn't a huge deal, still, i guess it's one of those "you'll never miss it until it's gone" sort of deals.

but enough talk! let's look at some sketches!

^this is the oldest sketch i have to show off. i doodled this months ago, but i took forever to fill in his word balloon. i still don't really think i nailed it, but i guess i got sick of waiting around.

^ this is a self portrait i did just after i arrived at my new job. the work load was a little underwhelming.
^bigfoot! again!
^i don't know what that pirate has to do with that priest, but the priest seems awful nervous about it all... ^a collection of sketches. they aren't all on a single page like this image suggests. i combined them using computer trickery! that y u no guy is harder to draw than he looks! he's like a peanuts character, it seems easy enough, but one millimeter off and the whole thing looks wrong. go figure.

^this is the 'watermark' image i was putting on my resume.

^you may have noticed my new banner. and if you didn't, well, i made a new banner for myself! god knows it was time. the old one said 2010 on it. it's discombobulating to be in a new city, trying to get accustomed to a new(ish) job and town and all of that. i don't feel complete, without a space to call my own, with most of my friends, family and worldly goods 900 miles away. to honor that feeling i drew this. it's very much how i feel right now.

i want to try and start up posting again.
but if you cast your mind back to earlier in this very post you may recall there was some mention of a second job. so i don't know that i can really promise much.

gearing up for S.P.A.C.E.

man, how long have i been gone?
no, don't actually check. but it's been a while.

ron and i are hitting space again this year, table 103, which is actually inside the main room this year! yessir, no more hallway hanging out for us!

i slapped together a modest 9 page comic, this is the cover.
i'll post more later.
if the teaser is enough to interest you, shoot me and email and i'll snailmail you a copy.

Finales!

Just posting, I don't have anything awesome to say this round.

I liked the Faun all gray but, I like him this way too.Horrible Monster series:
Blue Merrow.

on to the next one.

Call me butter, cuz, I'm on a roll!

DONE!
DONE!

this post has horse hair and pyromania.



i've been goofing around with a soldering pen.

i burned this into a bit of balsa wood from a hobby store.  i wasn't well informed enough at the time to sand the surface before hand.  live and learn, i guess.  also, it's probably not a good idea to work with such a rough surface.

anyone know what this style of art is called?

pyrography!

which has to be the coolest title for an art style.

what if you got a doctorate in pyrography?

awesome points all around.

this guy below was mostly inked with a brush.

i never really got the hang of a brush.  i can see the appeal of them, the variation of line possible without ever switching tools is neat.  and the organic lines are good.  but the control just isn't there for me.  i think i'll stick with my dip pens and tech pens for now.

and last on this block is this guy.

he was going to be my update on friday, better late than never!

he's got a black hole in his chest.  i've got his story pretty well concepted, thanks to some script doctoring by my buddy dave.  now i just have to knuckle down and write his script up.

and refine his character sketch.  he's not all the way there for me yet.



et tu, blogspot?

i didn't forget you, honest i didn't.
i've got a picture here to show you.  it's scanned and everything.
but the new 'compose' window in blogspot seems to be too snazzy for the computers at work.  which have a flash player so old it still plays frogger.  ...i still play frogger.  never mind.
the point is, i can't show you much right now.

the cunning may point out that i have my header attached, so why not upload my image to photobucket and then post it you say?  a well conceived plan.  but the same problem exists over on photobucket.  flash uploader.

oh well.
say, how about a story instead?
i had a nightmare the other day.
ron, my fellow inkceller, and i had gone up for a pre-convention meeting prior to s.p.a.c.e. 2011.  it was during this meet up that it dawned on me, i had no finished art for this year's convention.  so just like last year i had nothing to sell!  and instead of only having a table for a day (like last year) we have one for the whole weekend.  i did the math in my head and i had about five days to get something done.
then the dream shifted gears to the comic i apparently finished.
it was some kind of a take on dracula, and it was pixelated and embarrassing.
in case you're wondering, ron was well prepared for the con.
how i resent him and his work ethic!

In other news...

i have a system that works now and here's what I 've been up to.

A moon fairy for my friend Tina. I owed her this for a while and though it's 43% complete, I will have it nearly done this time next week.


Faun is back. I went about making him the wrong way. This is the right way so, problem solved. I still have 4 hours to go on this one possibly 6. I like the way this one is going ,much better.

One in a series, this one will also be completed this week. It's a merrow and you should see his female counterpart.

this town will never be the same!

happy friday night!
i indulged on some bookish spending a few days ago, and one of the gems i got was 'shadoweyes' by formidable cartoonist ross campbell.
i don't do plugs for just anybody, but this guy's art is off the hook.
don't believe me?
see for yourself!!

anyway, i was so mesmerized that i did some fanart.



and then, because i was on a roll, i did some sketches of aang and zuko.
man, avatar was a great cartoon.

lumpy like oatmeal.

guh! i'm a horrible slack, i tell you that. tuesday came and went and it didn't even occur to me that it was my day to post!
come on, me! get your head in the game!

Holey Moley

Second post this month ... WHAT!!?
It's true, this week has been fun. I finally decided to tackle a few things in Photoshop that I've been dreading. But, Practice makes perfect and I I've got some perfect practice this weekend.
In the spirit of finishing things I have done some completions on "The Faun".

Turns out I was going about working on it the wrong way. After some time and some thought and ... some time, I found that most people fully render pieces with (you'll love this) The airbrush tool! That's right all this time I've been focused on painting in Photoshop with a vast array of tools and the main one used was the one I most dreaded working with.

With that said here are the results!

I have to say using this work flow solved a lot of problems and oh man is it fun!