El Toro Muerto!

Sorry it's been while. I had a freak occurance with my Mac. It actually went down with a faulty ram. It turns out I was severely under powered in that department. So I took it in and upgraded the ram. And I have to say thank goodness for Apple care!
I also wanted to thank everyone for your feedback, You all had some really great advice. I guess I will keep on keepin' on and just see how it all goes.
I am in the last couple of months of the graphic novel I am working on. We have to be done relatively soon, so I may be very lax with posts. Possibly once a month. But I will see what I can do. And as I get closer to the end of the project I might try and get a little something out to you all as a preview. But for sure we are aiming for the SDCC as our launch date. And there may be a little something extra then too.
Well for now you can all enjoy some more doodles. This one may become my signature image......

A voice of my own

The other night I was having dinner with my girlfriend and we were talking about my art. I was expressing my worries about not haveing a real "voice " in my work. It seems to me in order to get noticed in the art world you have to have a voice or style. I think I am a generally decent draftsman, but as for a unique voice I fall short. It worries me that I may not ever get past that, to become a functioning illustrator making a living at what he does. I know the feeling of inadequacies run deep with all artists. But I was wondering what you all think. I put a smal collection up here that is a sampling of all the type of stuff I play around with all the time. Does any of it work better than others? I guess what I am asking for is a complete and open dialogue. Let me have it! Good ,Bad, Constructive, or even Deconstructive. I want to know what you think are my strengths and what I can do to make it work for me. I put the ball in your court and ask you to help me out. Don't worry about hurting my feelings...I'm a big boy and I can take it.
Thanks folks.

Still slinging ink.

Just wanted to post up another SDCC ink sample for you all. This one is penciled by Leinil Yu and inked by yours truely.
The new year has me working on even more stuff. Hopefully I will have some newer stuff up for you all in the next week or so. But as it is I am going crazy keeping up with the pile on my plate. I know I haven't been in contact with all of you on a regular basis, and for that I am sorry. I get caught up in all the work. But know that I appreciate the comments and the support. You all are great friends. Thanks guys and gals. I hope to do you proud in the coming year.
Oh, and of course: This image is copyrighted by the respective owners and included solely for the purpose of scholarly review.

Haring what you have to say.

Well I hope you all are having a great Holiday! I thought I would post my most recent Munny I did for my brother as a Christmas/birthday gift. I did it in marker, just to keep it in the true Haring fashion. And the heart on his chest is in red acrylic. I really like doing these. It's just that it ends up taking me a long time to do one. I simply don't have enough time to do as many as I would like to. But I do have the next one planned out already.
It might be a bit before I post again. Probably after the new year. Just so I can catch up on some work and get some more sketches done. That way it doesn't take me so long to post. Well, be safe out there kids.

Final Sequence.

And the last two pages of the Campbell work I inked. I liked how clean this page was to work over. It allowed me to focus on the stroke of the line more than "correcting" anything. Not that I would, mind you. I would have been hauled off by a mob of angry fanboys had I even dared to do so. I might have a few more inked things to post in the upcoming weeks. But then all I have left are the pages I am working on for Viper. And those won't see light of day until they are printed first. Cause you know, contracts and stuff.
Images solely for the purpose of scholarly review.....and all that jargon.

Ink'n samples

As I sorta promised. Here are the sequential ink samples I said I would post. These are of J.scott Campbell's Danger Girl. I had a lot of fun doing this. It is a real challenge to do as well as a great inker like Alex Garner. Hopefully I didn't mess it up too badly. I always wondered why inkers don't get the praise that the pencilers get, but then get all of the blame when it doesn't look good? Hopefully I don't get too much blame for this.
Again...blahh, blah, blah....all images here solely for the purpose of scholarly review....yadda, yadda....

Ink'n Fool

So I decided to add a couple of ink samples from my last SDCC inking portfolio. I have been knee deep in stuff to ink for the last week, so it is only fitting that I share what got me there. These are two images from Terry Dodson and J. Scott Campbell. I tried to choose a range of different pencilers to ink over to show what I could do. Like I said some people liked them and some didn't. Now you get the say so. I have some sequential pages as well to put up too. But that will be later this week. Maybe next week? Hey, I do the best I can people.
Again, these images are here solely for the purpose of scholarly review. I am not the original inker at all

Classics!

Thought I would add another doodle from work. This one combines what I sketch and doodle at work. One being a car, and the other being a funky little creature. I designed the little dino around a cross between Jughead and Cecil. If you all get that reference I will be surprised. Well more soon...ish

Lil' Damien

Thought I would add one of my doodles from work. I tend to draw a lot of characters now a days. It's just a time for me to let go and let my sense of humor wander around in the sketchbook. There might be more of these in the future....so you have been warned.

Creepy Inky

Here is the original image I wanted to post for halloween. But do to time constraints I went with the other one and colored it. I know it sounds weird that inking and coloring one image was faster then just inking another one. But it all comes down to the details. Plus the cartoony stuff I can do at work, while the illustrated stuff tends to be larger in size and more time oriented. This image goes along with my love for EC Comics which I have mentioned I the past. I miss the old horror comics. That's one thing I would like to see the return of in the comics medium. We have Hellboy, and for that I am thankful. But I think we could use some good ol' fashioned scare stories. Oh well, hope you enjoy.

Happy Hallo-were have I been?

OK so I have been gone a long time. Plain and simple. But what have I been doing that has taken me away from the blog? Well that is a tough answer, but a good one. In the last episode I told you that I had gone to the SDCC and showed my ink work around to some people. Well long story short, I got a job out of it. Well to be clear, I already had the job. I just got a contract out of it. My friend Matt Hebb and I have been working on a couple of projects together and we started one with Viper comics. I can't and won't get too specific on the details, but this seems like a good thing. So I have been busting my chops to work on this book and hold down a full time job. It's crazy tough. But really cool. Not only that but I did some stuff for another company also. It was a short assignment, but it was a fun one. So with any luck, by SDCC next year I should have some stuff in print. But no promises. I don't wanna jinx it.
And that is what you ol' pal here has been doing. I would love to post more stuff as I can. But it seems the only time I have to sketch is at work when I should be eating lunch. I will see what I can do.

More ink samples?

I decided to add another ink sample from this years con. This one was penciled by Joe Madureira and inked by yours truly. I had some aspirations to do a couple of original ink works for the blog, but it got pushed aside due to my current work load. The good news is that they are half finished.The bad news? I dunno when I will get back to them.
Anyway, I have to legally say that this image is included soley for the purpose of scholarly review.
Hopefully I will post again soon.....hopefully.

Post Con.

Well the Comic Con has come and gone, and I have to admit I am glad the stress is over. Had a tuff time working 40hrs, doing inks for a comic and trying to get some ink samples done as well. It's like working three jobs! But I think it went well.
My sample consisted of inks over a couple of pro's like J. Scott Campbell, Terry Dodson, Leinil Yu, Joe Mad!, and Cory Walker. Plus my inks over Matt Hebb, of course. The ink sample panel here is from Cory's work in a Spiderman story.
I talked to some people at the Con and got some reviews on my work. Some good and some bad. But it all balanced out in the end. Went to the top 2 (Marvel and DC) and did the drop off there. But got no word back, no worries. Went and met up with the team from Viper. Good things a coming that way. Met with Penny-Farthing. Seemed to go pretty well. Saw Top Cow. They didn't seem interested. But again, no worries. My friend Matt sent me to Darkhorse after he had a good review. Just to show my face and show my stuff. Seemed good enough. But you never know. And finally saw a group called Blind Wolf. They do kids style comics and needed an inker for a story. So I am looking forward to good things with them too. But all in all a pretty decent Con. Bought lots of books and stuff. So I am stocked up for almost a year and looking to get back into inking and sketching. After a little rest of corse.
Oh, and a few things added to the web site.

Saddle up!

Trying to keep up with the posts more often. But I know I have been a little behind. Been working two jobs, trying to get ink samples for SDCC, and sketching more is kinda a tough gig. But I think this subject matter slowed me down as well. Trying to get something going with this image was a struggle. But in the end, I think it can out alright.

Along for the ride

So as I have stated before, I have been drawing a lot of cars lately. Mostly because they are kind of a weakness in my abilities as an artist. Them and environments. I will start working on the environment issue in the up coming months. But as for the cars, I just feel that older cars have a little more character to them than newer ones. I guess because they are a part of history, they have a history of their own. And history does build character.
Well whatever the case... I hope you all enjoy!

Picture page...

I thought I would get back to the feel of this blog from when I started it. That being more illustrative and less cartoon oriented. Now that being said, I love the cartoon aspect of the drawings I have been doing. But I feel the need to stay devoted to the illustration/figure drawing that I spent years trying to learn. So hopefully you will see more of both sides of me from here on out. Well, one can only hope so...

Team work!

There is no real reason for this one other than I felt like drawing a hotdog cart one day at work. I know it's a wierd thing to have an impulse to draw, but that's exactly why I chose it. And then I added the ants to make some kinda story out of it. Besides... who really gets a chance to draw a hotdog cart?

Mista Direction

Lately I've been really into this whole urban toy craze. I find myself searching for hours on sites such as KidRobot.com, TheBananaLab.com, and MyPlasticHeart.com. I especially love the Munny and Dunny lines. A lot of my favorite artists have designed their own versions. So when the chance came along to do one of my own for a friend's birthday present I couldn't resist. I worked up a couple of designs and showed them to her, not telling her what they were for, and we agreed that doing this design on a glow in the dark one would turn out really well. For about the next month I secretly worked on it, and presented it to her on her birthday. She was thrilled. I really like how it came out, and guess what kids, it's a new medium! Acrylic on vinyl. I guess I'm not limited to pen and ink after all!

Working out the bugs.

Why a Giant African Beetle you ask? Well a few years ago I actually did this same image but in watercolor. It didn't have the punch I wanted it to and I was a little unhappy with it. So I decided to give it a go again. Much happier with the effect the markers and col-erase gave me. Don't get me wrong, I love watercolor, But the markers actually played well to the whole exoskeleton thing. Well, more to come...

sketchin a go-go

So I have been trying to get back to sketching a lot more. Been busy working on some small projects and working full time at the school. I have been dropping in on a life drawing class for about a month or so. But it's unlikely you'll see that stuff here as it is bad! I forgot how on-the-ball you have to be with life drawing! Good artistic workout though. So this one is just me sketching for fun. Now worries and just trying to get the old imagination going again. I have been working on a more cartoony style, as well as working on the illustrative side of things as well. Hopefully you'll see more of both in the up coming days...