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.

My Little Ghetto Wacom Tablet

So I have been thinking of getting a new Wacom tablet. This is why.





















The button on my pen broke, or fell off so I took a paper clip and cut off a small chunk of it and bent it into a un-stapled staple then taped it on to the pen. It works really well and I haven't had any problems with it so far.





















The connector cord has started to become undone and frayed. I had to duct tape the cord back on to the Wacom tablet in hopes that the actual cord would not become disconnected and snap. The duct tape just seems to come undone and make the corner sticky, not the best fix but it is working better then both the electric tape and masking tape.
















I plan to upgrade to the Intious 4 once I get some more money, maybe after I finish my latest freelance project. I probably should get a carrying case or something to prevent these problems again.

Prediction

Here is a sketch I did of myself before Laura shaved my head.






















Here is how I look after I got my hair cut.
Not too far off, I’d say.

Dictionary of Written Words

I recently did some album art for a friend of mine from elementary school, Jason Harris who goes by the name JaNetix. The work for his new album, Dictionary of Written Words. Check it out!

The Bust of Skull Face

Here is a doodle I did while I was watching Dexter (that show is amazing I can't wait until season 4 premiers in September).
Laura really liked the sketch of skeleton guy on the left and asked if I would finish it as well as do a piece of a woman who has the same kind of face paint (coming soon). I got the idea for the face paint from Dia De Los Muertos and Mardi Gras costumes. I have seen some witch doctors with the same face paint and who could forget the bad guys from Karate Kid, come on. I always thought it was an interesting aesthetic.
















Here is the first version that I created where I outlined it, colored it and added some texture.

















After drawing this I asked Laura what she thought of it. She said it felt incomplete and that it needed something, she suggested that I should maybe make it look like a sculpted bust. I liked the idea so I ran with it and came up with this. I added some details to the face, redid the shading and changed the background textures. This is the end result.