Waterlogged Memories

Some friends might remember the flood I had a few months ago, which I have yet to write about either here or on The Collection. A more detailed post about it is due. In brief, the cause was my hot water heater bursting open in the basement. All in all, what could have been a total disaster seemed to turn out relatively well, with only a couple of hundred dollars worth of damage to some not so rare or coveted books and magazines (and a small handful of comics). I got off relatively scott free it seemed.

Recently, I went to look though a large zipped vinyl student art portfolio that had been in the corner where much of the worst damage was done. To my horror and utter shock I discovered that ALL the art in the portfolio had pretty much become fused together, a pile of art around two dozen thick. Sitting for months, soaked through with water, the pages had been reduced to brown mildewy sops with torn stains making up for what was once art, with only slivers along sides remaining of untouched artwork. Thankfully, much of the original art in that portfolio existed in some sort of form, whether it be a stat or newspaper printing, slide or digital scan. Still, a good 5-10 pieces are gone to the winds of time forever. I'll write some more about it on my Collection website, along with photos of some of the beyond repair damaged artwork. It's not a pretty sight and I recommend the faint of heart to look away.

Some of the art that was lost were some of the first art showcaed on this blog back in 2005. Pieces like The Paradox Of Time and No-Meenin' Funnies. A few paintings done for Personality Comics and a science-fiction anthology were lost, along with three pages of an issue of Plasma Baby which I inked over Mitch Waxman's pencils. And then a whole bunch of student pieces, both large and small.

So here, as a last goodbye to this art, are just some of the pieces that were destroyed none of which have made it onto this blog before.




From the top:

The Return Of Captain Democracy-1987
Behind The Wall Of Sleep-1988
Marcos-1988
Salvation-1988
Spacer-1988
Carl-1989/90
Skull-1989/90
Giantess-1989/90
Bobbi-1990

Real Life Superheroes

mostly monsters

some friendly, some not so friendly.

Post Its

A bunch of recent post its and small head sketches...Some of these are done with a brush pen and a dry marker for shading.

More Sketches

Sketches

A few random drawings taking up space on my table here...

Because The World Demanded It - A New Blog!!

Yes, just what we've all been waiting for! A new blog. This one will feature, would you believe it? - life drawings. I and some friends attended a life drawing session this week and it got me excited about drawing from a live model. I'm hoping to attend more on some sort of regular or semi-regular basis. As William Stout, artist and illustrator extraordinarire has stated, all artists should figure draw at least 3 hours a week from life. Taking that into account, I'm about 6 million hours behind. Hopefully, I'll be able to do a little catching up in the months ahead. You can find the new blog here:
Figure It Out

The Seer

And I thought coloring in the backgrounds flat black took a long time....

Kathoolu

The Monsoon

Lizardo

The Return

The Gift

The Lurk

This started as a pencil sketch last October and tonight I decided to give it some inks.

Hellboy

I've been drawing Hellboy a lot lately...he's definitely one of the most interpreted characters in recent comic memory...I guess 'cause he's just fun to draw and there's no really 'right' way to draw him; he's open to interpretation. Here are a few different takes on him, including a quick color version of one of the pencil drawings.

DESTRUCTOTRON!!

This was one of the last designs I worked on at my job before they closed down the men's division. Nothing was ever done with this artwork, which I think would have made a pretty cool pair of boxers. The final image had Japanese characters running down the side reading 'Giant Robot', made to look sort of like an old Japanese movie poster. Here are a couple of different takes on the concept, sans lettering and the final design as it would have looked.

Girls!

Something a bit different this time out...more stuff for Walmart, but for girls...these were fun to work on. The figures are for screens and I then incorporated them into repeats. One of these days I'm going to put up a more work related blog with samples of my repeats and stuff and I'll put those up there.

JOHNNY GALAXY

Another one of the prints done for men's boxer briefs that didn't get past the sample stage. There is the possibility, though, of some of this stuff making it to market, if all goes well. It's had a new lease on life, as my company is going to try and sell it again to Wal-mart. I doubt they'll be prescient enough to pick it up, but hey, one can hope. I've redesigned this to work as a single image for the blog as there were other robots that went on the back, but they didnt' work for this layout. Johnny Galaxy is my made-up space hero.

SUPER STRONG!

Something from the archives...hopefully I'll get something NEW up later this week...I've finally got some time freed up in my schedule, so I can sit back down at the 'ol drawing board and work something up...all kinds of bits of sketches and whatnot lying around, though...anyway, this was something done last year for men's underwear...the Japanese characters roughly translate to Super Strong and naturally were placed over the crotch area on boxer briefs....I was asked to do something with a Yu-Gi-Oh feel...kinda the same sorta face/hair with a beefed up body. I finished the legs on another paper somewhere, but only in pencil for myself....they weren't going to be on the briefs anyway. It was fun to do and the underwear came out really cool..unfortunately they weren't picked up by any of the major chains. A cryin' shame....I'll wear my pair with pride...

Lunch Time Special - new blog!

Hey folks - it's been a month almost since my last post - and it's gonna be a bit longer until you see some new art for this blog, but in the meantime, head on over to Lunch Time Special to check out a new blog, curated by myself, May-Day himself, Carlos Vega, and the caretaker of the Pencil Box Zoo, Rob Kramer! All the details can be found there!