Be Subject To One Another.

I love the West Wing. Not only do I enjoy it because I'm about as politically left-leaning as a reasoning person gets but also due to instances that reveal themselves on repeated watching as provoking critical thought. As I was working on tomorrow's White Pony post I heard Martin Sheen give a particularly stirring soliloquy that is quintessential President Bartlett:

"In this day and age of 24 hour cable crap devoted to feeding the voyeuristic gluttony of an American public hooked on bad soap opera that's passing itself off as important don't you think you might be able to find some relevance in verse 21? How do we end the cycle: Be subject to one another."


I enjoyed it and I wanted to share it. I did this West Wing fan art as a tribute to the fictitious government that I wish we had. We could all be better Americans, better people and kinder to each other. The West Wing does a good job of showing how it could be under the best conditions and what sort of things curtail our best intentions from manifesting. In that spirit enjoy the brilliant revelations of Naomi Klein.

I think a lot while I draw about how I might use comics to address the issues I think are important. For the time being we do casual stories with little serious underpinning. I enjoy escapism as much as anyone but I would like to do a story that, not unlike the West Wing, entertains and educates from a particular perspective. I want to be an advocate for the things that I consider most important: science, empathy and critical thinking. I'll keep you abreast of what I come up with.

Two Books With My Art Are On The Stands

I realized this week that I'm featured in two darkhorse comics titles that are out right now:


Troublemakers Vol. 1 (for which I did backgrounds on about half the book) and Myspace Darkhorse presents volume 5. MSDHP features a pin-up I did and my first published work with a major comics company. The story is called Blighter and I created the character with Jeff Parker. I penciled, inked and colored the story in a two week span. I have issues with it since it is my first project (busy, saturated color, cramped panels etc...) but overall I'm proud of it and I'm glad to see it on the stands. Please go check it out and let me know what you think. I'd like to do more Blighter stories. I think he would be a fun character to play around with in an ongoing series.

A Tour Of My Collection.

I have started a modest collection of art by other comic book pros and I thought I'd share some of what I've been lucky enough to receive.


This is a page from Agents of Atlas Inked by Kris Justice, Penciled by Leonard Kirk and Written by/given to me by the great Jeff Parker.


This was drawn by my Friend Jonathan Case for a commercial job and I thought it was so good I asked him what he wanted for it and he is such a nice guy he gave it to me. It is a perfect example of what sort of magic he works on even material he is indifferent toward.


This is a sketch done by my pal David Hahn. I like his art style but I like his brain even more. This little sketch, that he would've likely thrown out, shows his lush imagination in full flower- twin space-apes, robots, a spitfire and dinosaurs.


Here we have my 30th birthday present from my dear friend Jeff Parker. That guy is tops in my book. He got Gabe Hardman to sign it. Jeff is one of my favorite people so this one is super special. It's from my favorite comic (agents of atlas) too!


This is a set of clue cards that my mentor/friend Colleen Coover drew. She is badass and Clue just so happens to be my favorite board game.


This is a birthday present/motivational prompt from my buddy/up and coming superstar Ben Bates. He and I started our internships at around the same time and he has been a constant source of knowledge and inspiration for me since I met him. He gave me this drawing of Conan because he knows how much I'd like to work on that book and he doesn't want me to forget that goal.


I'm sometimes accused of being an 'art scavenger' at the studio and here is an example of that being the exact literal truth. I found this little doodle by dear Dylan Meconis sitting either in the trash or on the lunch table and I snatched it up. I did use it as a landing strip for my brush and pro-white but I took care not to cover up Luther Levy in the bottom left!

Once Lindsey and I move into our new place I'm going to make an effort to expand the collection to include paintings, sculpture and photography. It's nice to have unique works to decorate your working/living space because it makes that space feel cared for. I have an internal sense of resonance with some imagery which gets me excited about generating work myself. All the pieces I have,currently, make me feel that way.

Not posting for a while

I haven't posted in a while and for that I feel eh... so so. I've left you in the incredibly smooth and capable hands of Mr. Ben Dewey. Ben does a fantastic job with his blog posts and I love reading them. The simple fact is that blogs without pictures are boring and blogs with ascii pictures are just kind of sad. And frankly there are only so many different ways to capture someone writing.

There's the deep in thought pose...



The ureka pose...

The hard at work pose...



And the using a pencil in spite of the fact that I clearly use a laptop pose...



and there are a few others but at the end of the day you can only take so many pictures of someone writing. For the most part I could take these four photos and post one of them to cover me on any topic while I blog. On the other hand you can never take enough pictures of an artist's creative process. It's always exciting to see what he/she/they is/are working on.

But some new things have come up recently that I'm excited to write about so expect to see more of this guy...

Interior Art In A Hurry!

The record project that Josh Asked me to do had two parts. I had planned to make an image for the interior that was more in keeping with the cover. I constructed the whole image for the cover fom my head using reference as a guided for accuracy. The circumstance of my weekend caused a shift in the approach for the interior.

I had two major jobs for Adidas and for Darkhorse that absolutely had to be complete by Monday morning. I knew Josh needed his piece in the same time frame and that if I didn't find a way to make his image quickly it just wouldn't happen. I looked online and found pictures I liked of Cleveland and San Francisco. I picked starting images that I thought evoked each city and then I knit them together in photoshop-printed them out in blueline and inked over the bits I thought looked best.

Normally I think of that as a lazy approach and I suppose it would be if you had tons of time but I had next to none. I have found, in the business of professional illustration, that delivering on time is better than sticking vehemently to some aesthetic dogma. Experience is a great teacher and this weekend showed me how to be as efficient as possible.

Cleverancisco

The same musician friend who I mentioned in last week's post 'Jazz is like Jello Pudding' commissioned me to do another cover. He told me, neglecting not the slightest detail, what he wanted to see and this was my best attempt at capturing it:


He had asked, specifically, that I switch two buildings from each city's respective skylines and fuse them in the fold of the CD jacket. It is somewhat busy, but overall, I'm pleased with it.

Gameshow Fun

I had been given a job by the Oregon Children's Theater and the Kaiser Permanente Educational Theater Program to design and illustrate a backdrop that will be used around Portland to entertain and engage kids and adults about health. The project director had a color palette in mind and a reference point of match game for me to go off of.

I produced this:


When they asked for a second round of characters I sent them this sketch:


You can see which ones they ended up enjoying the most. they narrowed it down to the comedienne, The 'Muppet' and the athlete:


I like Cakey Monster the best. Look for these backdrops at events around Portland this summer and check out the Oregon Children's Theatre WEBSITE.

Jazz Is Like Jello Pudding

My close friend Joshua Smith is a fantastic sax player who has made many exciting and unusual recordings in the 12 years that we've been friends. This album by the Cleveland Trio, his most recent, features art made by yours truly.






He called me last year (after he'd made the recording) to brainstorm ideas for a cover and, within a few minutes of the start of the call, I sketched out what he described. Doing the final art only took an hour or so and the final printed result is beautiful. I enjoy Josh as a musical collaborator but we seemed to make a good visual team too! He just came through town on a tour and gave me a few copies of the printed album. If you like Jazz vocabulary but you like music that veers away from familiar tropes then check out my amazing friend Josh's Website and his other astounding sonic explorations.

Comission Mission

A month or so ago I was asked to do this commission:


I tried a couple roughs for my client with more extreme/dynamic angles but she wanted a straightforward portrait. There were a lot of requests for small details and I feel like I did a decent job accommodating those. I learned a couple things from doing this piece:

1. Charge per person depicted when you do a portrait commission. Likenesses are hard and time consuming. One should be paid appropriately. Thankfully I really liked the client and It didn't care that I had quoted her a low rate because she was so easy to work with.

2. I have to work on proportion and doing this pointed that fact out to me. There are a few little issues apparent in the image but I still like it.


I would do commissions like this in the future on a case by case basis. For now I like doing stories or pinups of characters that are well established. It requires less busy work to render a firmly established character or aesthetic.

You're Gonna Find Yourself Floating Home

I have a more elaborate Han Solo drawing on the back burner. This image was done as a tryout for a possible comics job where the request was to draw the characters more simply. There is a difference between getting a likeness of a fictional character played by an actor and just doing a drawing of the actor. With this image I tried for Han Solo rather than Harrison Ford.

If you're a super 'original trilogy only' dork like me you'll note where the two bounty hunters, that are tracking Han, are from.

When I finish thepinup I will post that too. Both will be available on the Periscope Studio Etsy Store.