Christmas Gifts

This Christmas I did several acrylic paintings as Christmas gifts, half of which I forgot to take pictures of, though some were small enough and flat enough that I could run them through my scanner. These are just a few I will post more when I am able to get pictures of them.
A while back laura showed me this artist who uses oil on wood and I really liked how that looked and the texture that wood gave to the paintings, not to mention how easy and cheap it is to find pieces of wood to paint on. Though I don't have any oil paintings, I don't have a work space with the ventilation to work with them, so I decided to use acrylics instead.






















I did this one for Laura.
I started this painting like 6 months ago for the longest time it was just a daruma on a piece of wood for Christmas I decided to finish the painting by adding Hungarian (since Laura's family is Hungarian) flower designs inspired by their traditional style of embroidery, Kalocsa. This seems to be something I have been doing combining Daruma's and western European culture, I hope it isn't too culturally insensitive of me, I just love the design of the Daruma as well as the cultural meaning. Surprisingly I think that the flowers and the daruma work well together and the Kalocsa was a fun style to work in.



















I did this one for Laura's mom
She is a former nurse and now a nutritional instructor at John F Kenedy University and when ever Laura and I come to her with a question about an ailment or a food question the answer is usually "try putting some coconut oil on it." She even fixed a a stuck lock by sticking coconut oil in the lock. So I wanted to make her a plaque that said just that. I looked at a lot of vintage signs as reference and came up with this design. On Laura's painting I would draw on the wood with a pencil which would dent the wood and aake it more difficult to put a smooth painting on it. I went to an art show last year and saw a show of Todd Schorr's work and they had a DVD on how he worked. One of the things that he did on his paintings was to take a drawing and cover the back with charcoal and then trace the drawing on to the canvas. I did the same thing here and it worked really well. Though I think in retrospect I would have painted the white on the board first. I really liked how the text came out. I showed this to Laura and she felt that the composition felt unbalanced and that I should add another coconut. I had wanted to avoid having two coconuts because I thought it would end up looking like balls (just sayin').
















Here is the final version with the extra coconut and the added palm frond. It was kind of rough around the edges but I really liked how this turned out, and so did Laura's mom.

Congrats to the Wedding Zombies

Congratulations to my friends Catey and James DeSantis who tied the knot on this day in Las Vegas.
Here is a drawing of the happy couple as a pair of zombies.This was done on the inside of the card Laura and I gave them congratulating them on their wedding.

Christmas Card 2009

This year I ended up making two Christmas cards. My mom just asked for something funny. So in October I came up with theses sketches (previously seen on my sketch blog), they all had to do with global warming or the bad economy, things that are on my mind. Plus one about Santa being tattooed which was just fun. (If you are having trouble reading the dialogue on my sketch blog I wrote out the dialogue for clarification)










































My parents weren't too crazy about the ideas that I came up with but I guess it started my Dad's mind a turnin' and he came up with "Things may be a little tight this holiday season what with the recession and all. But there is a barrel of love and good wishes from the Royals." So with that in mind I just started working in Photoshop.























Here is what I came up with. I got it done pretty quickly for one of my Christmas cards (which usually take forever for one reason or another) I finished it in about a day. Yes I know "recession" is misspelled, I based it off of my Dad's spelling which is also not very good. My mom liked it when I showed it to her, but then I showed this to Laura and she didn't like it and thought I could do better. That the elves were ugly and they should be cute, so then I decided to show it to my friend Chris Vear, who felt that the back ground could be more detailed and that I could incorporate the text elements better. So I decided to just redo it to incorporate their suggestions.










Here are the new elf sketches that I did trying to keep them simple cute and homeless looking.













I compiled all of the sketches along with some of the roughs I had done fro the older version and I created a new back ground sketches adding more posters on the walls. This is the sketch that I took into illustrator and made into the card.






















Here is side A
I wanted to try and not do heavy black outlines and to not shade it so that they looked like little cut out characters. I took the finished Illustrator version into Photoshop and added paper texture to everything and added some blues to make the elves look more somber. Some of the lines got a little washed out; I should have paid a little more attention to my contrasts. There are a lot of things that I like about this piece and a lot of things that I think could have been better. I learned a couple of things and I think the second one definitely looks better then the first one. Though it took me way more time so we got off to a late start and I never got around to sending out my cards to my friends. Sorry guys, I still love you.


















Here is side B
We based the idea of doing a post card off of this weird troll post card my mom found, on the back of that post card there was an illustration of the troll kids just sitting there so I wanted to do a similar thing. So here is the back of the post card with my homeless elves dumpster diving.

Two Cups of Tea

Here is something I did for my friend Catey for her bridal shower, which is today. Laura is one of the brides maids and was helping out with the festivities of the bridal shower and had me design an invite. The theme of the bridal shower was a tea party, which made Laura think of the song by the Star Fucking Hipsters, Two Cups of Tea. One of the lyrics is "Two cups of tea // one for you and one for me."






















This was always designed to be a painting but I started out by sketching it in Illustrator because I wanted a nice and clean template for the cups and the pattern going around the cups. The sketch I made in illustrator ended up being too flat for Laura and she sent me some tattoo pictures of tea cups for reference. Based off of those I sketched out these tea cups and added a ribbon to it with the song lyrics in the ribbon. I was really happy with how the painting turned out














This is a used tea bag that was meant to hold the the info for the bridal shower. In the end it was not the right size to fit all of the information. So I added it around the illustration, using the tea tag for the RSVP information.

We ended making these into postcards to send out to invited guests.

Christmas Card 2008

Christmas Card 2008!
This years card my mom and me decided that we wanted to put my Grandpa on the cards.


















Here is the one of the many sketches that I did in October for my Daily Sketch Blog for my mom to pick what was going to be on the Christmas card. This was in fact the first Sketch that I did, the other ones were all "A Christmas Carol" based where my Grandpa was Scrooge, because he enjoyed saying "Bah, Humbug!" during the Christmas Seasons as well as he hung a sign in his front yard to that effect. In my rendition of "A Christmas Carol" my mom and dad were the ghosts of Christmas past, My brother was the giant ghost of Christmas present, and Laura and myself were the ghosts of Christmas Future. My mom and I both liked the concept, however some of my illustrations made my mom uncomfortable with the way i portrayed my grand father so she picked the first one I did where i had my Grandpa as father time and my new baby (second) cousin Reece as Baby New Year. This was very appropriate because my grandfather had passed away a couple of weeks before Reece was born, so it seemed like what happens with the changing of the year, the old pass one into our memories and the new is brought in with limit less possibilities.























I brought the sketch into Photoshop and completed the sketch to be a full body shot and then I added a clock and some texture for the back ground. For some reason every one kept thinking that my grandfather was death, instead of father time, I for some reason have references from the 30s in grained in my brain.

Christmas Card 2007

It seems that despite the fact that I had this blog way back in 2007 (I think) I didn't bother to post this on my blog even though I posted all of my old Christmas cards from the five years before that. So Before I let another year pass without posting it here it is.
In 2007 my mom asked me to do a family portrait being tired of doing Santa jokes from the years before. In 2o07 I also met Laura and my mom recognizing how important Laura was to me and how much i loved her offered to have me put Laura in our family portrait. Letting her know that she is part of our family.






















Here is the sketch that I started with the idea being that it was

























Here is the final version of the card that was sent out to every one.

Christmas Ornaments

This week I painted two Christmas Ornaments for Arts Benicia. This was designed as a fund raiser for Arts Benicia, where the artist members were invited to come and get a blank ornament and decorate it to be sold for their gallery and education programs.





















Here is the first one, a Daruma Santa, or more a blue eyed whited haired Daruma. I figured with this one I would try and be more commercial with a Santa-esque figure. Though I don't know if appropriating a Daruma for Christmas was the most socially sensitive thing to do, I liked the idea and the colors are similar to Santa.
My second idea was going to be for me and for fun. For my second ornament I decided to do a skull and tentacles. After I told Laura what it was she told me she hoped it didn't sell so that she could have it for herself, no such luck.





















Here it is half way through painting it.





















Here I am painting the tentacles on the skull in the Arts Benicia gallery.





















A close up of me painting a tentacle.





















Here are my ornaments on the tree during the Holiday Parlor Tour. I volunteered to help out Arts Benicia and their very talented program coordinator to set up the room, which involved me helping to carry lots of heavy things up a flight of stairs. The event wasn't much of a sucess, where as we didn't sell too many ornaments, just three. One was mine! I sold the skull one the day before the event to one of the Arts Benicia board member who loved it.

Consensual Tentacle on Paper Bags

Surprisingly I have not done a post on this Blog about the resurgence of the web comic that I draw co-write with with Scintilla San. Check out Consensual Tentacle every Monday and Friday for new comics about alternative people and their oh so normal problems.

Gilda Green

She works in the I.T. department of some big faceless soulless corporation and hates her Job. She spends her free time with her beau August either at their apartment, at the bar, or on some wacky adventure.

August Edwards

He is a struggling artist who is currently unemployed. He is based off of my dear departed friend Patrick "Pathetic" Herrman.

Paper Bag Yokai

I have fallen in love with the Japanese demons known as Yokai; they are so different and strange and have interesting back stories and modes of attack, they demand to be drawn. Here are a few that I drew on paper bags.

Here is Rokuro Kubi, this is the Snake-Necked Rokuro Kubi, who by day is a normal woman but at night her head leaves the room with her long neck and hunts for grubs or human vitality of Qi.

Here is Tofu Kozo, which means Tofu Boy. He temps people to eat the tofu and some times it kills them, some times it does nothing.

Here is my favorite, Azuki Arai;, he is a strange Yokai who lives in canyons in high mountains. Azuki Arai is the Bean Washer, he sings a song while he washes his beans.

"Wash me beans, or catch me a human to eat ... Shoki-Shoki! Shoki-Shoki!"

This song confuses passers by and makes them get lost and at times has been know to make them lose their balance and fall their deaths in their attempts to catch a glimpse of this Yoaki.

King Potato

I have an odd obsession with potatoes, I like eating them, talking about them, and drawing them. This is just one of my many odd obessions (which also include fezes, handlebar moustaches, and the color blue). This is one of my pieces about a potato. As my last name is Royal I decided to create King Potato.















I originally did this as part of my Steam ID as King Potato. I drew this rather quickly and when I did it I thought it was sufficent and I might have even liked it. However, I now feel I could do better so I did.





















Here is a doodle I did on a post-it.






















The final version after I created the image in Illustrator and then textured it in Photoshop. Long live King Potato!

Gloom Cupcake

This is a painting that I did for Laura; she likes cupcakes (baking & eating them) and skulls. Our mutual friend Amaya used to call Laura "Gloomcake"; this gave me an idea and I started to do several sketches of cupcakes with skulls on it. I liked this one that had the little plastic skull cut out on the top. I'm not particularly pleased with how the little yellow light burst off the skull turned out, but I think it came out pretty cute regardless.

My Job Daruma

Recently Laura visited Seattle; while there she paid a visit to a store called Uwajimaya, which is an Asian supermarket specializing in a wide variety of groceries and gifts. While she was there she picked up a little Daruma for me.

For those who don't know, a Daruma is a Japanese wishing doll; when one is about to embark on a project one paints in the right eye of the Daruma doll making a wish or a vow to complete the task at hand. The person is then supposed to put their efforts and energy towards the task and the Daruma supplies the luck. When the task has been completed one paints in the other eye to signify the achievement.

This is my job Daruma, hopefully this will give me the edge in my job search.

I hope it isn't like a birthday wish and I just screwed it up by telling every one.

Dharuma Punk

This is a painting that I did based off of both the Japanese tradition of making wishes on a doll called a Daruma, who is based off of a Buddhist Monk, and on a book called Dharma Punks by Noah Levine.

I really like Darumas. I find the concept very interesting.


Via wiki : they are hollow and round Japanese wish dolls with no arms or legs, modeled after Bodidharma, the founder and first patriarch of Zen. Typical colors are red (most common), yellow, green, and white. The doll has a face with a mustache and beard, but its eyes only contain the color white. Using black ink, one fills in a single circular eye while thinking of a wish. Should the wish later come true, the second eye is filled in. It is traditional to fill in the right eye first; the left eye is left blank until the wish is fulfilled.


This is the first in a series of paintings of Darumas. I gave this painting to my friend Jason Storey who is a tattoo artist in San Francisco, he's currently working at Light House Tattoo at 3402 Geary, San Francisco, CA. He is an old school punk who specializes in Japanese style Tattoos. If you ever want a Japanese demon tattoo he is the man to see about it.






















Admittedly, I misspelled Daruma and I also painted the wrong eye, though I like to think that that adds to the rebellious spirit of this punk Daruma.

The Tattooist

I have started to learn how to tattoo. To commemorate this I decided to draw myself as a tattoo artist working in a shop.

















In progress :
















This is the final version. Most of the Flash on the walls is based off of the flash of Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins. One of the biggest names in American tattoo, Collins was the one who is responsible for many of the designs and motifs that are associated with American traditional tattoo.

However, some of the flash is own design. In the next couple of months I plan on working on some original flash pages; stay tuned!

Monkey with Symbols

Here is something I did as part of my daily sketch series Friday Fez-tivities . I thought that it was a nice and simple drawing that I could elaborate on as an illustration in a few hours, and when I wanted to get something done that day I decided to work on this. Here is the drawing that I did back on May 1st 2009.

Here is the version I produced in Illustrator.

After I finished the drawing in Illustrator I took the illustration into Photoshop and added some texture. The texture blows out some of the details, like his little elbow hairs, but I think I like that. I'm also pleased with how the texturing softened up the primary color palette I used.

James and Catey's Wedding Invite

Last week my friends Catey and James asked if I would create a wedding invitation for them with them fighting zombies. This meant an opportunity two work with two of my favourite subjects ; my friends, and zombies.


First I did a series of sketches for them. The only instructions Catey gave me was to have them in Las Vegas, where their wedding is being held, and to have them fighting zombies. James said to do something along the lines of Conan the Barbarian standing on top of his fallen enemies; Catey didn't know what he was talking about so she said to ignore him. I did the sketches that were based off of Conan and they felt rather sexist, so I did several other sketches where the couple was fighting zombies and they preferred them to the more Conan-esque designs.


















Here is the sketch that they liked best. The only thing that they wanted different was to have their positions changed where james was in the back holding a shot gun and a machette and that Catey would have the chainsaw.


















Here is the pencilled version that I drew on some bristol paper I cut down to fit in my scanner. I made sure to position them so that I had plenty of room for the all of the text elements.




















Here is the inked version with blood spray.























This is the final version (I removed all the info on when and where and all that jazz). They are printing their wedding invites like flyers and they found out that it is the same price to have them either black and white or color, but they left it up to me if it was going to be colored. I decided to color it with mute tones and texture it digitally to make it look gritty and pleasantly post-apocalyptic.

Aside from the chain saw blade getting lost in the blood spatter, I'm really happy with how it turned out and most importantly, so were Catey and James. Congratulations you two – see you in Vegas!

Why Be Blue?

Here is a painting I did for a friend of mine, Ricky Burger, who is a Sacramento based musician who I happen to think is going places. She has asked me to do animation for one of her upcoming music videos

video so I have started to do character design for her, beginning with the main character, the sad accordion. I thought he would make an interesting painting and allow me to explore him more as a character so I painted him as an abandoned instrument in an attic. There will be more about this project in the future.





















The musical note he is saying is a B flat, a dumb joke I know, but I love it so.

A Few of My Favorite Things

If you know me it is no big secret that I have an odd obsession with fezes. I also happen to love skulls, so I decided to do a painting of a few of my favourite things.





















One of my skull models wears one of my fezes, as well as any eyepatch. He makes for good company.

Lady Skull Face in the Big City

I revisited Lady Skull Face in this painting of her in a desolate city scape.





















I think I will be doing more works featuring her in the future.

Paper Bag Kappa

Here is a paper bag drawing of a Kappa, a Japanese water imp, who is a Yokai, which are monsters and demons of local Japanese legend. I have recently started studying about Yokai and find them fascinating; I plan to do more illustrations of them. I was turned onto the Yokai by my friend Jason who recommended that Laura and I should see "The Great Yokai War" and "Gegege No Kitaro" both live action movies filled with Yokai both as CGI and as dudes in glorious rubber suits. They are awesome movies and would recommend them to every one. Kappa are one of my favourite yokai in particular, I even have one tattooed on my left leg, so you can be expecting to see more of these in the future.

The Crusher of Hearts

Earlier this year I did a sketch for my daily sketch blog of a female Luchador crushing a heart and named it "Yo Soy La Reina De La Trituradora Del Anillo" which in Spanish means (or at least what meant I meant it to mean) "I'm the Crusher, Queen of the Ring." Named after the Ramones song "The Crusher".

I really liked the sketch but i wanted to do more with it and so i decided to redraw it here are a
few sketches.

I wanted to capture more of the whole scene in the painting i want to do. So I wanted to make sure to draw her as full figure in the ring. For some reason I have a habit of drawing characters too big so that they don't fit on the page, so I wanted to make sure I had the whole figure. The Idea was to make it maybe like the end of the fight and she has ripped out her opponent's heart and she is surrounded by the dead. I love little Dia De Los Muertos statues and they were my inspiration for the audence members.





















I felt that the most important part of the painting is her squeezing the heart. I didn't feel like i had a good position for her to stand in so I worked on the on some detail sketches of her of her standing in a different position planing to go back and drawing the whole scene around her when i found something I was happy with.



















In this sketch trying to iron out position and posing so she looks like she is crushing it. I was also trying to get back to the original sketch design and try and recapture some of what i loved in that drawing.





















I decided to move from here to a test painting, i wanted to make sure that I had the hand gesture correct and I wanted to make sure that I could paint her well, it has been a long time since I painted with water color so I was a little uneasy about starting it.

Here is the first in a series of paintings that I plan to do with Luchadors and in particular La Trituradora de Corazóns.

I tried a new technique where I painted over the sketch and then inked the painting, it works, but the only benefit is my black outlines are darker, so I don't know if I will do it again.