Yeaahh

Old XmaSS Card

A Traveling Magician

Another digital rough sketch. I want to get back into doing these smaller scale digital pics again, similar to the stuff in the imaginary museum.

edit - messed with it more..

Crunchy Crunchy Llama Fetus!

Thanks to flickr I now have an obsession with llama fetuses, and not just any dead llama fetus but the dried crunchy kind that probably go good with dipping sauce.

There's hundreds of these wretched suns of bitches on there, check it out.

CRETIN

I've been working on variations on this zine for a few years now, sort of teetering between different ideas. It all gelled recently though in a form i'm pretty excited about. I've been reading enormous stacks of Richie Rich, Archie, Sad Sack, Mad Magazine & junk like that, paying about as much attention to the old novelty ads as the actual comics. Anyhow, as you might know, i teach little kids how to draw comics & comical drawing styles, & i've got a son & before that, i worked in the children's room of the library, but it's always a bit of a teetering line that i walk. I've decided to directly produce all my output for kids, because i'm so disgusted by what's out there for them (it's all Japanese or Japanese influence crapola or emasculated PC nonsense) & my son has to live in this future world of nonsense. With another kid on the way, it makes it all the more urgent to reform the American cultural landscape into what i consider to be REAL AMERICAN CULTURE. Anyhow, i've also been watching the recently released Woody Woodpecker & Popeye collections which are blowing my socks off! So much cartoony violence! I love it.

Black Riders

Here's a digital collage sketch I threw together last night. I've got this idea for a giant demonic race of these vintage racers with some Big Daddy Roth inspiration thrown in for good measure. This is just a conceptual rough of one rider. The full composition would have dozens of em racing around with some crash and burning, others fighting back and forth across their vehicles, bunch of Mad Max meets Hieronymus Bosch insanity going down!

drawing (a) monster

You're wild, man. Wiiiiiilld!

Tardigrada

Here I copied a microscopic photograph of an organism called tardigrada, or "water bear". I found this particular picture in a Watchtower some jehova's witness gave me, but there's more awesome images of it to be found via google and check out the cool video on this site.

Also, no cthulhu, but a random monster in the same vein.

Once more into the Fray!

Fray magazine, who, in their own words "...is about true, personal stories and original art..." is back. They went away a while ago as you might recall. I'd actually been a fan of the mag in the past.

When my friend, and art collective compatriot, Chris Bishop exercised his capacity as illustration wrangler there and asked me to contribute an illustration for their (then) forthcoming relaunch, I was pretty excited.

The final image is seen above, the full article it accompanies can be read here, and the (extensive) process work behind creating the image can be found below.

Initially, I doodled a quick sketch in Alias Sketchbook Pro. I like the program's simple tools. They force me to not spend a ton of time on this step, which is good. As you'll see, the image changes a lot from this color rough as we go on.



After figuring out the colors, or so I thought, I started inking the piece. I knew that the bank robber in the tale needed to look smug and satisfied. He thinks he got away with his heist. I planned on putting a helicopter in the side window, but time would later dictate otherwise.



Herein lies the point of derailment. I had just reinstalled Painter 6.1. Yes, you read that right, Metacreation's Painter 6. Not Corel's subsequent releases. What can I say? I'm a purist! I wanted to try and lay some painterly colors under the inks as a sort of cathartic experimentation. No one wants to stagnate, right? Trying new things is integral to getting better.

Note the pathetic, laughable, placeholder helicopter!




I wasn't feeling the color scheme any longer, so I jumped into a total repaint under the inks. Since this method isn't my typical one, I was really feeling around blindly and hoping for something to just click.



While not bad, my lack of experience with this style ultimately slowed me down.



As I should've done from the start, I opted for my normal style. Things immediately started to feel right with the piece.





Some further tweaking with the colors, and I was pretty confident I could wrap it up quickly (which was necessary - I had wasted much of my own time with the painterly experimentation).



Ultimately, I opted for a strong red and blue lightsource to indicate the presence of the police and, while not as fun or engaging as a helicopter, it suffices. Lesson learned: experiment on work that doesn't have a deadline!






One last thing; I haven't had much of a chance to post lately, but I have been reading. You guys are really blowing shit outta the water. Yay for y'all!

Dingus goes face to face with his own face

A new story idea...

the mysterious world of fear, ugliness and death.

I found a fantastic old "child protection" article linked from the Blurp Balls site, posted by RAG. The article is basically about everything i was into in the 80s, outside of music. But if they added music, then i'm sure that would be suspect as well!

Child's Play - OR IS IT?
http://www.kubik.org/vcm/toys.htm

"Toys in the Mad Scientist series include one called the "Monster Lab Set." It bids you to "make disgusting, gross monsters… then sizzle the flesh off their bones." On the box a group of young boys dips a creature in a frothing vat of pretend acid. How about the "Glowing Glop Kit?" The advertising tells youngsters, "Squeeze 'em! Alien Blood oozes from their eyes."

The gross toy boom prompted a popular brand of children's candy that looks like spiders and rats.

Some adults are concerned with trends toward grossness in lines of toys such as the Garbage Pail kids because the ugliness desensitizes children gradually till they are no longer offended by violence, sadism and the grotesque."