autobiographical work & tattoos

I never know if i should cross-post from blog to blog. I'm currently operating two separate blogs & then contributing to this one. I don't want to cross-post to all of them, but sometimes feel people might miss what i'm saying, so i try to mix up the content a bit! This is actually an old piece that i can't remember if i posted here or not, but i was feeling fond of it.

It's one of the first pieces where i started to include autobiographical elements, this one is about my childhood!

Then, i thought i'd share some tattoos people have of my drawings from the early 90s when i was a post-apocalyptic Punk Rocker with Volkisch tendencies.


These two have the same drawing done.



I kind of miss the days of when i was involved in a subculture where stuff like this would happen more (people getting tattoos of my work), when i was very much tied into a group of people & was a bit of an iconoclastic shaman of sorts. Ever since i decided to become part of society, i have felt more isolated on one hand, but on the other hand, less alienated. I prefer this actually... i hate alienation.

yellow blarer

I had this up on my wall at home but had to take it down 'cause the eyes seem to follow me around the room and it was quite unsettling

letratwins

Drawn on an old letratone box.

'Exhaust' exhibition flyer.

This is a flyer done in collaboration with David M. Birchall for an exhibition we're doing together. The opening night is the 14th march at cow lane studios, salford, with sets from Shackleton and the levenshulme bicycle orchestra.

Oozy Woozy

So lately I've been insanely busy working on a vast pile of ink creature drawings. I've got between one thousand and one thousand 200ish that I'm doing, all of which will be published this fall. I'm also planning on printing all of them across one big poster that I'll probably sell on my blog. I had to put a lot of paintings on the back burner to do this series and will be returning to those soon. Beyond that I'm doing a mini art book concerning the alphabet recreated with demons and tortured souls which grew out of some stuff I was doing for Craig Yoe's next Arf book which is due out in May. I'm juggling back and forth on other projects like my digital stuff and Hob Bob, some sculptures of monster masks and other stuff I'm forgetting. I've been wanting to experiment with the technique that Xia Xiaowan has put to amazing use. Been thinking of getting a small stack of plexiglass and painting layer over layer to create some sort of landscape with the distant areas painted in the backward pieces and the foreground objects painted in the frontward pieces. Has anyone messed around with anything like that? Anyway, no art for now as I'm not near a scanner.

edit - I just had a crazy dream where I ran out of a large classical dome theater in the middle of a forest and was trying to escape a giant monster that resembled a huge wooden painted devil with clots of black fur that was trying to eat me, it was awesome! I've already forgotten the details but I know the giant wooden puppet thing had something to do with the show, and no it wasn't Faust.

Mr. Sean in the news!!!

Fun article about me in the Lane Community College Torch newspaper.
Mr. Sean's neighborhood welcomes the unique and eccentric to the art world - Arts
"To me, good art is a combination of having the skills and the vision, but also kicking over garbage cans and digging up graves. Making all of this political propaganda feel-good art is just too communistic for me to deal with." ha ha!

Also, personal note. My first gang was Rat Punks. We had the most gang graffiti up in Berkeley in 1995. That's right you punks!!!

BLURGH!!!

I ended up hopping around FLICKR last night looking at the work of a bunch of trendoid hipster artists. The work was all very slick & well-crafted, i'll give it that much, but does it look like i give two bits of bottom botulism about that? After filling my brain with such things i don't know what to do. I spent a bit of time working that angle, the hipster trendoid angle, but it just isn't me. I'm a Salt of the earth type. Honestly, i think i dislike most artists.

poster

Portfolio Updating Makes Ray a Dull Boy

I've spent a fair amount of time the last three or so days working on my portfolio. My linework has gotten a lot better and my color sensibilities have matured a good measure over the last three years. Adding older pieces to round out my portfolio really kills me. I figured, what the hell, I ought to revisit some of these pieces and bring them more in line with my current capabilities. A sort of George Lucas-ing of my old pieces. I redid small bits of linework and updated the colors a tad on the following images (And a few more on my Flickr stream, but I'll spare you all of them).



In the above recolor, I'm attempting to work some texture and soft shading in with my linework. It's got a ways to go, but I like the results of the experiment.





While doing this, however, I got stuck in a bit of a rut. Being bombarded by all your foibles over the last few years can hit a guy in his ego! Sometimes, when I need to shake off the cobwebs and get my head back into a creative space, I do something outside of my comfort zone. In this instance, I made a set of "watercolor" tools in Manga Studio and did some portraits of friends. Here's one such attempt:



I really like the result. I'm just not sure what to do with it. I've worked as an art director in the past and I know that if I saw this sitting with the rest of the pieces in my portfolio, I'd be a bit confused. I think consistency of style is important in the way an illustrator markets themselves. I'm a brand, more or less, and there are certain expectations of me. Perhaps I can use it in one of my comics that I'm working on? Maybe I need a pseudonym, eh? Hah.

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Barry Bon Bon

Gosh, it has been a bit since i posted a new picture up on here.

Here is a fun two-headed monster to play with!

HOTWIRE #2!

Be on the lookout for HOTWIRE #2, out soon from Fantagraphics, look at the amazing line up, Tim Lane, Jonathon Rosen, Mark Newgarden, R. Sikoryak, David Sandlin, Mary Fleener, Johnny Ryan, Matti Hagelberg, Sam Henderson, Danny Hellman, Glenn Head, Carol Swain, Mark dean Veca, Stephane Blanquet, Mack White, Onsmith, Lorna Miller, Chris Estey, David Lasky, Ivan Brunetti, Tobias Tak, Craig Yoe, and Christian Northeast

all that and some sunny sidewalk surfer* called David Paleo, don't disturb his siesta or let him know where your door is! he'll camp there with a key!

here's a link where you can check some previews
http://www.hotwirecomics.com/

*Bum

Beware of Flying Guts!!!

I spent way too much time on this SuperTrash poster but I think it turned out good. I originally was sticking to a normal human set of organs which are hidden under all the gore but I started to abstract things into my own weird bloody designs. I covered everything in a thick coat of blood to give it that extra trashy splatterpunk sort of vibe.

Creative Commonality

If there's one aspect of art shows I don't like, it's that the art is often very costly. As a result, only a select few are able to purchase it which flies in the face of my ideals on a number of levels.

Willfully contributing to this system gnaws on my conscience a little. The circumstances make me wish there was something I could do to change the way people consume my work. I've been toying with the notion of releasing my personal, uncommissioned works under a Creative Commons license.

Unfortunately, a large portion of my income is to be derived from print sales and, now that I'm working as a freelancer full time, I can't really risk that money. Last time I checked, my wife and I like to eat!

A good compromise, I think, is to do everything I can to support other people who have the same goals. I'd like to announce my services free of charge for any band releasing their music under a forgiving Creative Commons license. The artwork I create for the bands in question will also be released under a non-commercial, no derivatives license.

I may not be a good fit for every project and I suspect the amount of people asking for help will be daunting. With that in mind, I hope to help as many bands as possible. I thought it appropriate to start with my friend's band, Soul Pollution, and the above flyer shows a hand lettered logotype and a bonafied-original illustration I created for him.

Leave a link to your Creative Commons licensed album download in the comments on my site (and a contact address in the comment form) and I'll promise to help in whatever capacity my time allows! Flyers, album art, hand lettering - all the things I usually charge for.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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SuperTrash IT!

Is anyone else submitting work to the SuperTrash shindig? I saw Luke mentioned it a few weeks back in one of David's posts here. I decided to do it a few days ago even though I don't really have the time, but to hell with it, too cool of a project to pass on. I contacted the folks in charge and they're accepting submissions up until Sunday. Check here for all the details. I'm doing a poster for Mystics in Bali! It doesn't get much Super Trashier than that goddamn flick!
Below is a preview of what I'm working on. Currently turning a gut wound in a dead pig into a nasty witch mouth. Not sure which of the above eye types I'm going to use. Blue upside down dead pig eye or halloween mask voodoo eye.

Bulbous mic

This drawing is much bigger than I usually work 'cause it's for an exhibition I'm doing with my pal Dave Birchall at cow lane studios here in salford.

Frankensteinian Monster

My take on Frankenstein's monster for a friend's band. Hand lettered type at top. Gonna hand letter the show info in the area of negative space to the left, too. So far, so god.

Gonna try to gore it up a little, though!

I've been doing a bunch more hand lettering. It's a lot of fun. My piece in the aforementioned show even incorporates it a bit. Here's another recent example:



I think that getting better at hand lettering will only increase the abilities I can market for and get work doing. The other biggie that I want to get better at is 3D work.

Dread Pirate Patches Meets His Maker

So, I'm in a show set for this Saturday. Yay! Details here.

The concept behind the show is this: the participants offer personal works with little or incidental commercial value. In other words, do what you want to do, not what pays your bills!

At first, I was a little stymied. I mean, I DO what I want to do for a living, right? A little reflection left me with a clear idea, though. Comics. I love comics, but never have the time to make them. I made a little vignette. Half comic, half piece of art, and that's what I'm printing and bringing along.

I locked myself in my office and finished this last night at 4:00. I am pooped.

Mammoth Logo and Lettering

Mammoth is going to be a clothing brand with a demographic that largely consists of Mixed Martial Arts fans. I was hired to work on the logo and it served as a perfect opportunity to do some more hand lettering.











I'm working on getting better with my hand lettering. In addition to the lettering in the logo above, this was all done by hand:



It's a lot of fun to not be restrained by what fonts you have installed and, rather, to rely on your own ability. I've got a way to go, but it should prove fun to get better.

As is usual, I encourage you to click on the images and get whisked away to my Flickr page. Larger versions are available and the linework looks better in the non-resized, uncompressed version. Hey, what can I say? I'm vain about my linework!

I know that a decent crowd of individuals reads these posts. I'd like to interact more with you guys. What part of my process do you guys have questions about? What would you like to see more of? Less of?

Thanks for feedback, it's always appreciated.

My Fallow Year..

I haven't posted any artwork here for a long time. It's not for a bad reason, either; I haven't been making any.
I try though. I sure do. I get ideas. I sketch. I get excited about those ideas
And then I sit down to do it. To get it done. I'm not distracted, I'm not stressed or tired. It just doesn't look good to me.
It never really does. Some of it looks okay, I guess, but what good does that do anyone?
But I keep trying and trying, and it just..slowly..disentegrates...
And it doesn't seem worth it after a while, to be honest.
The next day I'll go in and look over what I'd done the previous day and it looks foreign, like some alien artifact; What was that guy thinking when he drew that?
I have no idea.
Flaccid. Fallow. Forget it.

And then I get to thinking about other medias, other forms I should go after; Maybe purely digital works, collage, maybe screen-printing .Maybe I should learn FLASH.
Maybe I should just write.
Maybe I should forget about feeling like I have to do any of this stuff. Don't other people live like that?
What does it mean to be "creative"? It sounds like fun, but vanity works like that too. What might I be missing out on while I'm burrowed away in a corner, scribbling and scratching?
Maybe I should get a dog.



I hope this next years proves to be more fruitful. Even if that means I leave all of this stuff behind. I

Horror Icons Playing Poker

I've been busy as all get-out. December marks my first month of full-time freelance work in over a year. Cold turkey from here on out - you have my undivided attention.

I'd been working 9-ish hours with 3-4 hours of additional drive time. Now, instead of dividing my time across two business ventures, I'm doing solely freelance.

I bought a great, large format, archival quality printer and I intend to start selling prints, more frequently update the blog (including a one hour long narrated podcast as soon as I figure out the most economical/practical way to host it), and really kick 08 in the ass.

I spent all day yesterday soliciting agents and hammering leads, and I can't wait to get started.

To try and balance out all this word smithing, I have a couple of shots from a forthcoming personal work, tentatively titled, Horror Icons Playing Poker. I've always been enamored with Dogs Playing Poker. What's not to like? Dogs? Check. Poker? Check. Fisticuffs to ensue? Check.

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."