average joe art

I think I'm turning Japanese. I really think so.

2012-01-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

Check out my new Samurai friend.

Actually, this guy took up the majority of my day yesterday with all of his detailed armor, shading, and tricky background.

This bad boy was done for the fine folks at Sacrifice Apparel, who wanted something Japanese influenced for a new t-shirt. The idea came a current Dethrone shirt for UFC Featherweight champion Jose Aldo. I had seen the shirt awhile ago, and really dug the concept. Plus, I mean...it's Aldo. Dude is just BAD.

I sketched something out and sent it over. The guys were pretty excited about the concept, so I went ahead and started the finishing process. From sketch to inks, to color/background, you're looking at around 12hrs spent. That's a serious piece of my day.

Ah well, he turned out pretty good, and the guys were happy. That's what it's all about, right?

Word.

When you say nothing at all

2012-01-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

In my bedroom, right above my bed there is a framed picture of Bob Marley with a quote that reads "You just can't live in that negative way...make way for the positive day." The reason that picture hangs where it does is so that when I wake up every morning, it's one of the first things I see (after I fumble around for my glasses). It's a very simple and straight forward message, but it can mean so many different things.

The idea of living your entire life in an absolutely positive manner is a nobel one, but I'm afraid that it's just not realistic (at least for me). There will ALWAYS be circumstances, events, etc that cause us to get upset, angry, sad, etc. It's just the natural course of life. I do believe, however, that for every action, there is a reaction, and we absolutely have the power to control how we react to the circumstances around them. Over the past few years, I've really become a fan of the notion of altering your perception to suit your overall goal. If you want to be miserable and upset all the time, then you will perceive everything as a negative experience. If you want to live a positive life and be as happy as you can be, then you take your experiences (even the bad ones), look at them objectively, extract the good, and discard the bad. You don't forget about it. You just choose not to focus on it.

I wanted to convey these ideas through artwork (since it's the only way I really know how), and the first attempt was through t-shirts. Little known fact, I'm actually a big fan of compositional shirts that take names, logos, etc and use them to form designs. I call them "words on a shirt." The WWE of all places currently has a t-shirt for one of their top superstars, John Cena that simply reads "Rise Above Hate." Three simple words that can mean so many different things to so many different people. It really is a stroke of genius on their part. Such a powerful message, slapped onto a t-shirt of one of their biggest personalities. People all over the world will wear this shirt to support Cena, but indirectly will also be supporting a very positive idea. Whoever came up with this should be commended for their brilliant work.

In trying to follow the same suit, I wanted to create messages that conveyed positivity, but said something more than just "smile" or "be happy" because I feel like that's a bit bland. I asked a friend of mine to help out, because truth be told, she's way more in-tune with this sort of thing. When it comes to this, she's on a level that I truly aspire to be on - she just doesn't realize it. We went back and forth for a few hours on what the message was about, and although she nitpicked it to a degree, I knew that she would come up with something either directly, or indirectly. I was right.

This friend of mine has a blog in which she writes about a variety of subjects mainly relating to life and self discovery. For the past few years I've monitored this blog, and even written down several things that she's said in attempt to go back and reflect on them later (don't think she knew that - surprise!). While reading a recent entry that she wrote, I came across the words "protest indifference" at the very end. Literally, the blog ended with those two words. As soon as I read that, I sat back and just smiled. Once again, she has said so much, by saying so little.

With a little tweaking, I came up with the first shirt. Those two words just work so well together, that it really amazes me that I couldn't think of that. Then again, I'm not on that level. From that idea, I pieced together the idea for the second one. With some out-of-the-blue art direction that was actually good, from another friend, I settled on the second design. I feel that both are strong, and both convey good messages without being overly wordy. Basically, they're open to interpretation and that's what I wanted.

To my oddly-in-tune-with-the-world-around-her-even-though-she-doesn't-know-it friend, sometimes you say things that make me scratch my head. Sometimes you say things that make me laugh. And sometimes you say things that impact me to my core. Whatever it is, I really am in awe of your brilliance.

Even when you say nothing at all.

Word.

A lot to be thankful for in 2011

2011-12-31T17:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post one last blog update before the end of the year for two reasons. (1) To say thank you to everyone who helped keep me going and make this the most successful year I've ever had, and (2) because I at least wanted to tie the number of posts I had in 2010 (54).

The year started out better than I could have hoped with the fulfillment of a childhood dream when I was asked by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin himself to design a few new t-shirts for his WWE appearances. The first one I did was seen on an episode of RAW in March, but the pinnacle came for me when Steve wore a t-shirt I designed during his WrestleMania 27 appearance. Seeing a childhood hero of mine doing what he does best, with my artwork splashed across him, is something I will never, ever forget. I still have my pay stubs from the WWE safely tucked away so I can look back at them and smile. Thanks, Steve.

Another proud moment for me has been the continuation of the Sacrifice Apparel brand. We started in 2010 with a handful of ideas and no real clue of how to launch this thing, but throughout 2011 we (the crew and I) have learned A LOT about what it takes to really get things off the ground. With the introduction of hang tags, stationary, banners, much nicer t-shirt blanks, and a ton of new designs, I'd definitely say that 2011 has been a year or growth for both myself, and the guys behind the brand. Thank you for continuing to come to me and let me work with you guys on your vision for this brand.

I was also fortunate enough to hook up with the fine folks at Trinity Products who provided me with the opportunity to expand my portfolio immensely by creating artwork for such brands as Sesame Street, Pink Floyd, Brock Lesnar, and Bruce Lee. It really was a pleasure to work with everyone during those couple of months, and I am extremely proud of the work we put out together. A special "thank you" to Brandon Zundel for helping to guide me in the right directions, and always taking the time to answer my non-stop questions. Thanks, man. I hope we can do it again soon.

There are so many people who thank both professionally, and personally who helped push me to achieve some of my best work. Even those who thought they might come across as harsh, really helped me think outside the box and come up with fresh new ideas. You guys may think I don't pay attention to what you say, but I listen to it all, and I appreciate you always keeping it real with me.

Also, a special "thank you" to all of my new LCPD friends who helped bring awareness to what it is I do. I know you've all told me how much you appreciate me for helping to bring awareness to your cause, but in reality it's me who should be thanking you. Each one of you has really given me a newfound purpose with my art. It's one thing to create for people who are going to use it professionally for a variety of reasons, but it's an entirely different feeling to create artwork for those people who get so much pleasure out of it. Every time I get an email from a parent thanking me for putting a smile on their child's face with a picture of Batman, or Strawberry Shortcake, it warms my heart. I really am touched that you guys would take my scribbles and frame them for your homes. With all of the cool things I've done in 2011, that is undoubtedly my proudest moment to date.

So as I say "goodbye" to 2011, and welcome in 2012, I promise to keep on doing what I do, and continue growing both personally and professionally.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Whether we work together on a regular basis, you hired me as a "one off," or you requested a freebie from me, without each and every single one of you I wouldn't be able to continue to do what it is I love so much. Art is a big part of my life, and each one of you has helped to nurture that in your own special way.

Going Commando

2011-12-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

He just looks weird without those bright red undies, doesn't he? Ah well.

Everyone (and by everyone, I mean people who know me) knows that Superman is, and always will be my favorite character. Every since I was a kid, there's just something about Superman that stood head and shoulders above all of the other iconic characters we've all grown up with.

In 2013 (seems SO far away), WB is looking to re-boot the Superman film franchise with yet another re-telling of his origin story. The movie basically serves the same purpose that the latest trilogy of Batman movies: to update the character for current audiences, and add to his cannon. The last Superman movie was in 2006 with "Superman Returns." For all of the faults it had, I actually enjoyed the movie, and I thought it's star (Brandon Routh) did a great job in the role. Oh well, he's gone. And so is everyone else from that movie.

The one thing I'm always concerned with when these movies are made is the approach the creators take to the character's classic costumes. Over the years, some characters have looked like literally walked off of the pages of a comic book and onto the silver screen (Spider-Man, Rocketeer, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, etc), some have gotten really cool updates to their look (Batman, Captain America, Green Lantern, etc), and some have looked just downright awful (X-Men, Spawn, etc).

With Superman it's simple. Blue bodysuit, big red "S" on his chest, red cape/boots, and the classic red underwear (or trunks as they're often referred to). In all of the big-budget films, producers have always stuck to the core mechanics of the suit, and Supes has always looked, well....like Supes.

In the new movie titled "Man of Steel," the films director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch) has decided to take a new approach to the suit. He's decided to keep most of the classic elements, but give them a somewhat "alien" appearance to add to Supes' origins. Gone are the underoos, and added is a textured bodysuit, with a raised (and slightly re-designed) "S" shield, and some very interesting "piping" that wraps around different areas of the suit. It ain't what I'm used to, but I have to say, it doesn't look bad.

Having seem the pictures of actor Henry Cavill (the latest actor to don the cape) in costume, I wanted to take a stab at doing a quick rendering of how Supes new duds might look drawn out. The piping was a little tricky to get, and I had to teach myself how to draw the new "S" shape (has a slightly different shape), but all-in-all, it was basically like drawing the same Superman that I've done a couple thousand times before.

Kind of makes me realize, it's not the clothes that make the man, but the man that make the clothes....or costume in this case.

A lesson in humility

2011-12-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

4 days later and I'm back with another post? Word.

In an attempt to write something, but not come across as being overly wordy (I have a problem with that), I just wanted to take a quick second to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart.

For those of you that actually read this blog (all 3 of you), you've undoubtedly read the "Let the unicorns in..." entry about Jordan Pollard and her struggle with Perthes Disease. Well, in addition to Jordan, there are literally hundreds (probably a lot more than that) of other cases that I've become aware of. Each story is just as heart wrenching as the next, and throughout reading them all one fact remains: more attention needs to be brought to this disease so that more people are aware of what to look for, and more importantly, how to treat it.

It was brought to my attention that there is an actual foundation in the works called the LCPD (Let's Cure Perthes Disease), but they were having trouble getting any kind of attention or recognition. After talking to a few of the families that are dealing with this disease, I wanted to try to do something to lift their spirits, and help them know that they are not alone. There are others in the world just like you.

What I decided to do was to give a face to the LCPD project. Give them some kind of an identity so that the people could unite and show their support for one another. How about a logo? Even better, how about a logo on a t-shirt?

Above is the end result of those ideas. The logo came from the idea that each of these people (not all are kids) are heroes. They are dealt a rough hand in life, and instead of sitting around and complaining, they look to the bright side. They focus on the day when they'll be able to run around with their friends, or play soccer, or go swimming. It's actually quite humbling when you think about it.

The idea for the back is simple: List as many names as I can so that when these people get their shirts, they realize that they are in fact, not alone. When they see their name, they can immediately see the names surrounding them and feel some sort of peace knowing that there are people who can relate to them, and understand them.

I know I didn't get everyone's name on the shirt, but I promise that as this project progresses, I will continue to add them. None of you will be left out.

This whole experience has really brought me down a few pegs in my own personal life. With all of the things I whine and complain about, I often have to stop and check myself. I really don't have it that bad.

Each one of your stories has touched my heart. I've read every single email, message, and tweet that you've sent. Every single one of you inspire me with your courage and determination.

From the bottom of my heart, I love each and every one of you, and I will do whatever I can to raise awareness so that more cases don't go mis-diagnosed or untreated.

So much for not being wordy. Eh, whatever.

*If you'd like to order an LCPD shirt, please email sales@sacrificeapparel.com. The shirts are $20, and 50% of the proceeds will go to benefit the LCPD foundation. Available in kids S-L and adults S-XXL.

Mark

2011-12-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

We've all lost someone, or something that's near and dear to our hearts. A relative. A friend. Even a pet, all come with their own share of feelings and emotions that carry us through those tough times, and eventually help us cope with the loss. For my family, it's the loss of Mark Romero, or "Cousin Mark" as he was known to me.

I got that early morning phone call that no one likes to get on November 16th. When I saw my Dad's name on the caller ID, my stomach turned into knots because I always think it's going to be my Step-Mom calling to tell me something bad. "Mijo" he said. "I'm just calling to let you know that your cousin Mark has gone to be with the lord." My initial reaction was silence. I was still trying to process what had just been said to me, and when I did say something, the only words I could find were "what happened?" Dad didn't really know.

A month later, I'm still not exactly sure what the exact cause is, but at this point it's somewhat inconsequential for me. The fact still remains, my cousin Mark is gone.

Since I received the news, I've wrestled with the feelings and thoughts of "I should've..." or "I wish I had done..." like most people do. To be honest with you, none of that matters. Although I hadn't seen Mark in sometime, he is still a part of my family, and therefore, a part of me.

I can remember spending time with Mark when I was younger. Messing around with him at my Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary's (his parents) house, but the one thing that will always stick out in my mind when I think of Mark is his laugh.

Mark had THE most infectious laugh you've ever heard. Whether you were happy, sad, tired, or alert, hearing Mark laugh would instantly cause you to start laughing as well. I remember watching the Tyson vs Holyfield fight with Mark at Uncle Frank's house in the 90's. After Tyson had committed the infamous "ear bite" incident, the entire house was silent. No one could believe what they had just witnessed. Out of nowhere Mark just starts laughing, which immediately ceased any moment of awkwardness and caused everyone to start laughing hysterically. That's the kind of guy Mark was.

As I sit here and write this, I have a picture of Mark from his memorial service sitting on my desk where I can see it everyday. Those familiar feelings of "I wish I had..." surface every now and again, but I shut them down by remembering one very important thing: Frank Mark Romero (his full name) was a good man. He was loved by everyone around him, and in turn, he loved everyone. Especially his family, who he truly loved more than anything in the world.

While I may think he left us too soon, I know that Mark lived a full life.

I love you, Mark. I miss you, and you will always be a part of me. Anytime someone says your name, I will always hear that laugh of yours.

And that will always make me smile.

Happy Birthday, Landon!

2011-11-26T17:01:00.001-08:00

I know I'm about a week late, but better late than never, right?

This is a birthday gift for Landon Pollard, who turned 3-years-old recently. Landon is the younger brother of Jordan Pollard (www.ahipforjordan.com), who inspired my "Let the unicorns in..."blog, a few weeks back.

In doing the illustration for Jordan, I meant to do one for Landon as well, but I just didn't have enough time. When I read that it was his birthday, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to give him his own picture. When their Mom, Shannon told me that he liked Batman, Spider-Man (all the cool guys), I knew this would be a breeze.

I did a quick sketch of Landon as Batman and posted it on Shannon's FB page. She loved the idea, and actually wanted to frame that, but since I'm such a perfectionist, I wanted to clean it up for them first.

This is the final version of the illustration. Despite always disliking Batman wearing blue (isn't he supposed to be the DARK Knight?), it worked for this picture. All-in-all, it came out pretty cool. I even managed to life the "official" Batman font for the writing on the left hand side.

Oh, and Landon...I get that you didn't want to smile. Batman doesn't smile. It's cool.

*I want to thank KidNotorious from Deviant art for the idea for the drawing. I was really stuck, and I absolutely loved his original picture. Thanks, Kid.

Come to Butt-Head...

2011-11-24T21:36:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Come on, you know that's funny.

So glad these guys are back on TV. It's been too long, and MTV has been on the steady decline as far as their original programming. Forget the fact that they're no longer "music television," most of their shows are garbage.

I was a big fan of Beavis & Butt-Head during their original run in the 90's. Their crude humor, and unstoppable laughing totally captivated my attention every single week. There was a time when I had just about every Beavis & Butt-Head product known to man.

I was messing around the other day, and decided to do this little gem, based on an image from the 90's. I used to spend hours drawing both Beavis and Butt-Head, so I wanted to see if I still had it. Guess so, huh?

Now to do one for Beavis...

Word.

Beware the Ripper

2011-11-20T13:06:00.001-08:00

Little known fact about me, I'm a HUGE fan of true crime stories. I like fictional crime stories, but nothing beats the true crime, because, well....they actually happened.

In all of the stories I've read, none has been able to captivate my interest more than the accounts of the infamous Jack the Ripper.

For those not familiar with the story, Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer to gain widespread media coverage, and is arguably the most famous of them all. He committed his crimes from August 1888 to around November of the same year. He was known for his particularly grotesque murders, and the savagery in which he committed them. Without going into the gory details (you can read about them here), let's just say "the Ripper" was able to terrify an entire city in the short time he operated in.

What has always been the most interesting thing to me, is the air of mystique surrounding the events. Jack was never caught, and to this day (123 years later), has yet to be positively identified. There are countless theories as to who Jack the Ripper actually was, but I believe that this is one of those stories that will forever remain unsolved.

I caught a documentary on PBS (I love PBS!) from 1993 that detailed what was believed to be the actual handwritten diary of Jack the Ripper (it's been disputed numerous times). The documentary was set up so that an actual voiceover (well done, by the way) read entries from the diary as they played reenactments of the events. The whole thing was well done, and really re-sparked my interest in the story. The only natural thing for me to do was (you got it)....draw something out.

The top image is a very, very loose sketch of a more fictional, fantasy based Jack the Ripper. If you look at the facial area closely, you'll see that he has sort of a skeletal appearance. I did that to add to the whole mystique of the character. Make him appear as almost a phantasm or ghost of sorts. I really like the tall, foreboding stature, and the over-the-shoulder look.

The second image is based on the cover of a book I saw years ago. While Jack was never positively ID'd, this book presented an interesting theory. I wanted to draw Jack as a good looking, English gentlemen. Someone who wouldn't have a hard time luring his victims away. I also wanted to give him that sinister undertone in the eyes and the shading.

Both of these are just quick attempts to capture Jack the Ripper in some form. They came out better than I thought, so I figured I would share them with you. While the mystery will likely never be solved, I love reading the different theories, and coming up with my own interpretations of just who Jack the Ripper really was.

Word.

"Let the unicorns in..."

2011-11-15T13:59:00.001-08:00

Meet Jordan Pollard. I recently had the pleasure, and it had a profound impact on me.

Jordan is a 5-year-old girl from Mission Viejo, who was recently diagnosed with an extremely rare bone disease known as Legg-Calvé-Perthes. The disease is what happens when a bone does not receive a sufficient amount of blood and begins to die.

The Pollard family came to my attention through a Facebook post that a friend directed me to. I did a google search and found an article from the Orange County Register, detailing Jordan's battle with the disease, and the ridiculous amount of charges that have piled up, since her road to recovery began.

While the initial story broke my heart, I saw that there was a silver lining. A training facility in nearby Lake Forest known as Reign Training Center was hosting a fund raising event to help offset some of the costs that the Pollard family was being faced with. Now, I'd never met the Pollard family, and knew absolutely nothing about them, but what I did know was that they were a family trying to help their little girl overcome an extremely rare disease.

When I saw that the fund raiser was open to the public, I decided to attend along with a couple of friends of mine who became aware of the cause. I read that a few MMA stars would be there, which was great, but the main focus was Jordan, and helping to raise money to continue her treatments.

I found out about the event on the Weds before it was being held (Friday). I talked to a friend of mine, who trains at Reign, and asked him if there was anything I could do to help. Maybe something I could donate, or even create to auction off? What he suggested was doing something specifically for Jordan that she could keep. Good idea, Manny!

What you see above is a sort of step-by-step on the illustration that I created for Jordan. Since I knew absolutely nothing about her, I had to look at pictures of her on her website, and guess as to what she might like. A few pictures had her sleeping on a Tinkerbell pillow, with (what looked to be) Strawberry Shortcake next to her. After spending about 2 hours on google doing research (I had no idea Tinkerbell had an entire posse of fairies!?), and polling several friends and family members on what's "cool" to a 5-year-old girl, I had enough info to start the drawing.

The first step was to figure out how to draw Jordan, since she's the focal point. I use the picture of her from the Facebook posting, and did a couple of rough sketches. When I had that pretty much down, I created a frame using different flowers/plants (stole the idea from the Disney "fairies" line). From there, I started to add in some of her favorite characters. Since Tinkerbell was the first character I thought of, I decided to have her positioned on Jordan's shoulder - just like she did with Peter Pan. After that, I added in Strawberry Shortcake (who looks A LOT different than I remember in the 80's), and positioned her sitting on an open flower at the bottom.

Originally, I wanted to add in as many characters as I could, but I was a bit pressed for time, and I was told that it might be a bit overkill. Ok, fine. I decided to add in one more character, but really couldn't figure out who was popular enough to fill the spot. A friend told me that "Tangled" was a personal favorite with little girls, and that the character of Rapunzel has become one of the most popular Disney princesses around. Good enough for me. I did a quick search for pictures, and came across one that I thought worked for the drawing.

Once the line drawing was complete, and I was satisfied (I actually re-drew Jordan to fit within the frame a lot better), I dragged the file over to Mange Studio to start the digital inking process (basically re-drawing the entire thing using a black ink). Once that was done, I took that file into Photoshop and started the coloring process. Creating the different colors for the flowers/plants, and the 3 different blond characters (Jordan, Tinkerbell, and Rapunzel) was the most time consuming part. Actually, I finished the entire thing and framed it about 45min before the actual event. The entire process took about 10hrs which consisted of two separate sittings of about 5hrs each.

I was lucky enough to meet Jordan, her family, and her "ultimate besties," and present her with the picture. I can't even begin to describe their reaction when I showed them. Let's just say it totally made my year, and if that picture makes it to Jordan's wall, then my job is done, and I am an extremely happy man.

Getting to attend an event like this, really did restore my faith in humanity, and prove that despite coming from all different walks of life, we can all come together for a good cause. Shannon and Jadon Pollard are prime examples of "good parents." They knew something was bothering their daughter, and they were quick to take action. I am very proud to have met them, and talked to them for a short amount of time. The world could use a lot more people like them.

Thank you for letting me share in your story for even a few short hours. I sincerely hope to read about Jordan scoring the most goals on her team when the next soccer season rolls around.

For those of you who would like to learn more about Jordan, or how you can help, check out her website at http://www.ahipforjordan.com/

A face only a mother could love

2011-11-14T09:19:00.001-08:00

Who doesn't like to start their day with a psychopathic cannibal wielding a chainsaw? I mean, I thought everyone liked that sort of thing?

Actually, what you see here, is a little something I did the other night while I was watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Well, it was on in the background while I was drawing, but as you can see, it had a heavy influence on the subject matter.

To be honest with you, I think I saw an image like this (or something similar to it) in a magazine awhile back. I don't know who the artist was, but thanks for the help. I guess I sort of took a mental snapshot when I originally saw it, because when I saw down to do this - the overall image came a lot easier than I thought. Usually, I have to sit and think about what I want to do. This one was just sort of "there."

Overall, I like the way it turned out. Maybe I'll do a series of these with some of the other movie baddies?

Word.

Last of a dying breed

2011-11-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

I'm legitimately saddened by the news of "Smokin" Joe Fraizer's passing. I had read a news blurb on Saturday night that said Frazier was admitted to a hospice with liver cancer, only to read that he passed away late last night at the age of 67.

I posted a blog a couple of months ago about the great "Sugar" Ray Robinson, who I consider to be the best boxer to ever step foot inside a ring. For those of you that read the blog (I don't blame you if you didn't - I ranted a bit), you'll know my feelings on the sport of boxing as it is today, and how it's turned into nothing more than a business for overpaid "fighters" to turn up and collect a paycheck.

Gone are the days of real men stepping inside the ring to settle their difference with a good old fashioned fist fight. While you had guys like Ali, who could talk a big game, and get inside their opponents head with the pre-fight trash talking, on the flip side, you also had guys like Frazier who did his talking in the ring. While Ali could intimidate you with words, Frazier could intimidate with his brutality. He didn't need name calling to psyche you out. He'd let his patented left hook do that for him.

Joe was the first man to beat the seemingly unstoppable Muhammed Ali, and he did so in convincing fashion. To top it off, he helped Ali both financially and publicly during his problems during the whole "draft dodging" charade. It just goes to show you what kind of man Frazier really was.

While he may be gone, his legacy will live on forever. One half of what is considered to be the greatest sporting event of all-time (Thrilla in Manilla), Frazier is sure to serve as an inspiration to future generations of boxers who are genuinely interested in the fighting aspect of the "sweet science," and not just how to collect a quick paycheck while avoiding as much damage as possible.

It's sad to say, but Joe Frazier is among the last of a dying breed. Men who went out, and win-lose-or-draw, fought to the best of their ability and left everything in the ring.

Thank you for the years of entertainment. Even though I've always had to watch replays (I wasn't born during Frazier's heyday), Joe has always been a personal favorite of mine, and will continue to be so. Boxing has truly lost one of the greats.

Oh, and Philly...I love Rocky as much as the next guy, but can you PLEASE show Frazier some proper respect and give him the tribute he deserves? That's always bothered me.

Word.

At least I know, I've still got it

2011-11-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking, and yes, this one took a lot out of me.

Believe it or not, all of this artwork was done specifically for a t-shirt design, for the fine folks at Sacrifice apparel.

The owner, Jim, had this idea to design a war-themed shirt, and debut it at the midnight launch of the new "Modern Warfare" game coming out next week. Smart idea. I've seen those midnight launches before, and that's prime territory for something like this.

So, for this particular illustration, Jim wanted it to tie-in with the new game (which takes place in various cityscapes), but not have it look so much like it, that it would date the shirt long after the game is on store shelves.

In our earlier discussions, I told him that I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. I imagined a war-torn city, that shows absolutely no signs of life - except a lone soldier who is walking into the battle. I remember during the devastation of 9/11, there were countless people recalling the heroics of the FDNY. One quote that's always stuck with me was "while other people were running away from the buildings, these guys were running INTO the building." If that doesn't perfectly sum up the bravery displayed on that day, I don't know what does.

Now, while this is just an illustration, I still wanted to capture at least some of that. You've got this cityscape that's been completely ravaged by an unknown enemy, and still, the soldier knows his duty, and walks into the fight. Obviously, with an illustration like this, you can't go TOO overboard, and since it's only one color, adding too many other elements would cause everything to blend together.

I used a lot of reference for this one. Different shots of NY (look at the railing on the left hand side), and LA. Helicopters, buildings....all of that went into the mix to create the illustration. When I sat down to start, I had a pretty good idea in my head of how detailed I wanted it to be....that sort of went out the window once I really got into it.

The pencil work (which was done entirely in sketchbook pro on my Cintiq) took around 20hrs to complete. From there, I knew I had to "ink" the drawing, and add in those black areas. I was afraid I was going to have to re-trace the entire thing, but I discovered that duplicating certain layers, made the line work much thicker. I did that for the city, and soldier (who appears to have heavier lines), and it saved me a good 5+ hours of work.

All of the black fills were done in Photoshop, with a tiny brush size in order for me to get in the most detail. I'd say overall, the entire illustration took me somewhere in the 35 hour range. It sounds like a lot, but it was broken up over a few days. I'm just glad to be done with it.

I'm pretty proud of the way this one turned out, and I really hope that the people this is targeting like it as well. It was definitely a labor of love....even though I'd rather not look at it again for a couple of weeks. That's just the critic in me.

Word.

Behold, the Pumpkin King!

2011-10-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I actually did this a couple of days ago, before Halloween, but I figured today was the perfect day to share it with the rest of you.

What you see here is a little something I did in celebration of Halloween. I mean, when it comes to Christmas and Halloween, is there anything else that ties them together more perfectly than "Nightmare Before Christmas"? (the answer is no)

I've always been a fan of that movie, and the characters. The style, the music, the animation (stop motion), have always captivated me more and more with each viewing.

While I could never duplicate Tim Burton's unique style, this was my attempt to pay homage to it.

The drawing started off in Sketchbook pro, then went into Manga studio for inks, and finally, ended up in Photoshop for coloring and final tweaks. From the start to finish, I'd say I spent about 3-4hrs total. Not a bad amount of time for something I'm particularly fond of.

Word.

The dog days are over

2011-10-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

Meet Emma. Well, actually I've never met her, but she's been on my mind for the past 2 months. That's how long it's taken me to finally wrap up this commission for one extremely patient, Karen Melson.

We had discussed this project some time ago, but it kept getting pushed back for one reason or another. When we finally agreed on what to do, I had every intention of getting this thing wrapped up in a day or two. Two problems popped up: (1) My workload started to pile up on me, and (2) I had absolutely no idea what Emma was about. I mean, I know she's a dog, but so what? There's so much more to pets than just what type of animal they are. Each one has their own personality, and as I've said before, capturing a personality is so much more important to me than to nail a likeness.

Karen supplied me with some shots of Emma, and from those shots I came up with some basic sketches (top). The problem with these sketches was that they had absolutely no personality whatsoever. I must've spent a good 2-3 hours on google researching different dogs, and how they play, etc. When I came up with the idea to draw Emma as a puppy, I was afraid Karen wasn't going to like it. Quite the contrary, she loved the idea. She even told me that she really didn't have any pictures of Emma as a puppy, so this was perfect.

All-in-all, I'm pleased with the way it came out. More importantly, Karen is pleased. I have no idea what Emma's reaction is, but I'm hoping that she feels like I've done her justice.

Word.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

2011-10-05T19:15:00.000-07:00

When the topic of making a change in the world comes up, people often say "I'm just one person, what difference can I make?" To answer that question, look no further than Steve Jobs.

At the age of 56, Steve Jobs passed away earlier today, after a long bout with pancreatic cancer. Within minutes all social media outlets were overrun (twitter was over capacity - that didn't even happen when Bin Laden was killed) with people expressing their thoughts on the passing of one of the most influential people of the past 100 years.

I absolutely love apple products. Their style, design, and simplicity have made them THE products to have in the 21st century. Think about that for a second. People all over the world literally camp out days in advance, to shell out hundreds of their hard earned dollars, just to be the first person with the latest apple gadget. Prior to it's release, the iPad had made millions in pre-sales. That's millions of dollars spent on a product that no one had ever touched. It's incredible.

In my own personal life, just about everything I use to communicate with, is an apple product. From my iMac (which I'm writing this on), to my iPad, iPhone, and even iPod (that doesn't get a lot of love these days), everything I use to communicate with people started off as an idea of Steve Jobs'. In fact, as an artist who works a lot in digital formats, I owe my livelihood to Jobs' creative genius. Were it not for him, and the technology he created, my job would be twice as hard, and take quadruple the amount of time as it does now. Thanks to his ability to see into the future (I really mean that), I no longer have to spend time and money printing out my work to carry along in a portfolio. My entire portfolio is stored on my iPad, and is accessible with a few swipes of my fingers. I really can't even begin to describe how his technology has impacted my life both personally, and professionally.

The fact that millions upon millions of people used their apple product to learn of Steve's death, and respond, is just a testament to his unbridled genius. It's been said that he is the modern day Thomas Edison, and I couldn't agree with that more. Aside from Bill Gates, no single person has done more to usher in the era of modern technology more than Steve Jobs. He literally helped put the entire world within the palm of our hands.

I never met the man, but I am genuinely saddened by his passing. It's always sad to see someone die at such a young age. It's especially sad when that person still had so much left to show us. Steve was a visionary, and a creative genius that has undoubtedly left a world that he helped to improve. I mean, seriously, how many people can actually say they changed the world? Steve Jobs can.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for making my life, and the lives of countless others across the entire world, so much easier. I look forward to seeing your creative genius live on through the people at apple.

And most importantly: thanks for making being a nerd, cool.

Team Lisa

2011-09-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things about being an artist (yes, there are a few), is that you get to donate your talents to help a good cause, from time to time.

A good friend of mine gave me that opportunity a few weeks ago, and although I wasn't able to attend the actual event, when I see the images of so many people wearing my artwork in support of a good cause, I can't help but feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

A couple of weeks ago, Melissa (oops! She hates that! We'll call her Melly from now on...) posted an event on Facebook called "Tutus for Tatas." With my interest immediately piqued (come on), I read her event post, and called her to find out more. After listening to her explain what the event was about, and how the team was named after her Mom (who she lost to breast cancer a few years earlier), I told her that I wanted to help.

I asked her to email me some reference to things she likes, or things that represented her Mom. After a few attempts, I decided to call her and pick her brain. She sent me some examples, but I didn't feel like it really represented her Mom in right way (even though I never had the opportunity to meet her). I started to ask her questions about her Mom - what was she like? what were her interests? etc. She started to delve deeper into just what a wonderful woman her Mom is (not was). One thing that caught my attention, was her Mom's love for the book "The Giving Tree." Apparently, that had been her favorite book, and it continued to be something that brought back memories of her.

That was it. I'd take that information, and spin it into something appropriate for the walk. I told her that we'd do a tree, full of flowers, with a combination of pink/brown as the colors (people know now much I despise bright colors, so I muted everything). At the bottom, we'd put "Team Lisa" and the sentence "Now. And Forever" to symbolize her Mom's continued influence in Melly's life, and the lives of everyone she touched.

She loved the idea, and I set out to do the artwork. A few days later, I sent her over my idea, and she loved it. I placed the artwork on a t-shirt mock up (pictured at top), and sent it over for her approval.

While the t-shirts took a little while to print (there were some errors, and I wanted them to be perfect), they made it to the event in time, and from what I hear, they were very well received.

Now, on a complete side note here, the reason I actually sought this opportunity out, instead of saying "yes" to Melly asking me, is simple. She didn't ask me.

I've known Melly for about a year-and-a-half, and in that time, I like to think that she's become a close friend of mine. In fact (she doesn't know this), the first time we met, I thought to myself "she and I are going to be friends for a long time." I still think that.

Melly is one of those people that you can tell is just inherently good. I've never really seen her angry, or lose her cool. She's always been one of those people that you can turn to when you need advice, and she'll help you reassess whatever situation you're in, and find a reasonable solution. It's actually quite impressive. She surrounds herself with a lot of really good friends (yes Erin, I'm talking about you) - in fact, I'm not even sure she intentionally surrounds herself with them. I think they're just drawn to her. She's one of those types of people. I'm not sure if it's her randomly awkward humor, or her overly-white-girl-trying-to-be-ghetto demeanor that won me over. Perhaps a combination?

I've got a lot of love, and respect for the girl, and I'm very proud to have played a small part in such an important event.

Oh, and Melly, happy birthday (5 days ago). Thanks for letting me be a part of "Team Lisa" in some small way. You know whenever stuff like this comes up, I got your back.

Word.

Christopher Reeve: A true Superman

2011-09-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Today is Christopher Reeve's birthday. He would have been 59 years old.

In my eyes, Chris is, and always will be the definitive Superman. I'm a fan of a lot of various characters, and I've seen a lot of actors take a stab at portraying those characters, but no one has been able to embody the spirit and essence of any character, like Christopher Reeve. For proof of that, all you need to do is watch video, or ready articles about how he fought so diligently for those who couldn't fight for themselves.

When Chris was paralyzed, it literally broke my heart. My hero, my idol - Superman, was now confined to a wheelchair and unable to move any part of his body. When you're a kid, and you see someone you have so much admiration for, in such a helpless state, it can really have an effect on you. For the longest time, it made me so sad to see him on TV, or in magazines in his (then) current condition.

What he did following his accident, is nothing short of heroic. Instead of waste away, and feel sorry for himself, Chris campaigned and worked so hard to give a voice to those who remained voiceless for so long. Through his tireless efforts, and the creation of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, he was able to help countless amounts of people. If that's not a hero, then I don't know what is.

Embodying a character on screen is one thing. But to go above and beyond that, and really embody the character when the cameras aren't rolling, is something entirely different. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster may have created Superman, but it was Reeve who brought life to him, and showed us that superheroes can be real.

I never met the man, but I love him. I miss him. And I sincerely hope I live to see the day, when all of Superman's work finally pays off.

Happy birthday, Chris.

Superheroes. Conventions. And Social Media. Oh my!

2011-09-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

I love social media. I mean, between Facebook and twitter (yes, I know there are many more sites) just about everyone in the world has a voice that can be heard.

When I first heard about twitter, it seemed pointless to me. Now that I've gotten the hang of it, and learned to implement it for my own uses (both personal and professional), I've realized how wrong I was. Both twitter and Facebook have become among the most valuable tools in my arsenal of showcasing my artwork, sharing ideas/tips/secrets with other artists, and of course, attracting new clients.

Every July, I follow all of the Comic-Con news (I haven't been since 2005), and make it a point to follow people on both Facebook and twitter, that I either have never heard of, or didn't know were using either site. This year, I kept seeing people talking about a woman who attended the Con (as the people from the "in" crowd call it), and came dressed as the White Queen from the X-Men series. Now, normally I don't pay attention to that sort of thing, because I've been to enough of these conventions to know that not all of the people who come dressed as a specific character, necessarily look the part. In fact, they look like the exact opposite of who they're portraying.

When I saw pictures of this particular woman, I was pleasantly surprised to see that she not only looked the part, but was attracting a lot of attention from fans. I mean it's such a rarity to see someone who actually looks good in these costumes (they look great on paper, but usually look ridiculous in person), that people seemed to literally flock towards her.

Fast forward to a month ago. I start following someone named Tanya Tate (@TanyaTate for you twitter groupies), because some else I follow, re-tweeted something she said, and it made me laugh. When it comes to me following you, it doesn't take much. I'm easy.

A few days ago, Tanya put out a tweet asking if any of her followers were comic artists, and if so, wanted to do a drawing of her as a superhero. When I saw this, I immediately responded with a "me! me!" It took awhile, but I finally got a response (for a different reason), and I mentioned that while I'm not a professional comic artist (formalities), I would be willing to do the illustration for her. We exchanged emails and got the ball rolling on the illustration. It wasn't until after I agreed to do the illustration, that I realized that Tanya, and the the woman I'd heard about from Comic-Con, were the same person. Hey, I never claimed to be a quick one.

What you see above is a (sort of) step-by-step evolution of the illustration. It started off with a rough sketch of her and a costume idea (the colors were different), and after some feedback from Tanya, we refined the colors and got the overall look of the character nailed down.

The next step was for me to do a cleaned up line drawing and add in shading to give the illustration depth and dimension. Normally, I prefer to add the shading in BEFORE the color, because the color tends to throw me off. I decided to do this in Adobe Illustrator, because I wanted to maintain that really clean/crisp look for the web. It just seems to "pop" better when it's done in Illustrator.

Once the shading is done, I add in the colors. When it comes to coloring, I ALWAYS prefer to mix my own colors. Not a fan of stock/bright colors at all, so I like to experiment with combinations, and come up with the ones I think look the best. In this case, Tanya told me that she wanted to use pink/lavender - so I just needed to make my own shade of each color.

To finish off the illustration, I fine tune all of the details such as eyes, lips, logos, etc. Now, normally I don't like to use black outlines for anything, but for some reason, it just made sense with this one. While doing the illustration, I created a proper superhero logo for Tanya (looks like Wonder Woman, huh?) that ended up serving as a chest plate for the character - two birds, one stone.

Aside from a few minor tweaks (she asked me to make her look OLDER. Talk about throwing me for a loop), Tanya loved the illustration. She was very complimentary, and has been kind enough to mention me to her fans/followers on twitter.

Overall, it was a lot of fun to work on. It took about two days from start to finish, and will look great in my portfolio. Should Tanya ever decided to show up to a convention dressed as her own superhero (hint hint), I'll know that I had a hand in that. Very cool.

Word.

The Champ is HERE!

2011-09-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

The sport of boxing has been on a steady decline (in my opinion) for well over a decade. Sure, it's one of the most profitable sports in existence, but I'm referring more towards the caliber of athlete that steps into the ring.

While you still have big names like Mayweather, Pacquiao, etc, those guys (again, in my opinion) are businessmen who just happen to excel at the "sweet science" and do so to collect a fat paycheck at the end of every fight. Mayweather in particular, is so concerned about his perfect record, that he's gone in and out of retirement to avoid facing off against people who might actually blemish his record.

Gone are the days of the true kings of boxing. Guys like Fraizer, Foreman, Hearns, Leonard, Ali, and Tyson. As great as all of those men were (I know I left a lot out), none were as great as the incomparable "Sugar" Ray Robinson. Robinson is arguably (although, if you check his record, it's hard to argue) the greatest boxer to ever compete in the sport. He went 34 professional bouts, without a single loss until losing to Jake LaMotta in their 1943 rematch. In all, he fought 200 times, and only lost 19 of those fights.

Which brings me to the art....oh yeah! there's that. Duh.

I caught a documentary on Robinson, a few nights ago on HBO. Now, if you know anything about me, you'd know that I am a diehard documentary fan. I don't care what the subject is, I'll watch it. This one just so happened to captivate my interest because it was about a man I admire.

After the documentary, I thought "man, I'd love to do some "Sugar" Ray artwork" - then it dawned on me. What's standing in my way?

Once I ran through my workload for the week, I found some free time to sit down and sketch out the pound for pound king. Here's some insight on the process:

1) The initial sketch done in Sketchbook pro, on my Wacom Cintiq. I like to sketch in bright colors instead of the typical black. I guess it's all the "old school" sketch I did with red/blue col-erase pencils. This particular pose was a combination of something I'd seen on a collector's figure, and of some images I found online.

2) I use a different color pencil to retrace my rough line work, and start to add in some details such as facial features, wrinkles, etc. I also use the marker tool to add in some light shading, so I can reference that later on when I color.

3) Rather than do my typical vector style artwork, I decided to "ink" this one, using my new tool, Manga studio (I'm still learning, so I'm inking everything). Right now, I like to keep the ink likes loose and free flowing - sort of as if I were using an actual brush/pen. Who knows, I might ditch that later for something more refined.

4) I go back to my original sketches, and add in some really rough colors to give myself an idea of what I want to do. Originally, I wanted everything to be muted in order to keep that "classic" look, but I ditched that idea because it looked dull.

5) Once the "inks" are done, I import the file into Photoshop, and begin the long process of coloring the drawing. Coloring in PS is another thing I'm fairly new at, so I've been using it a lot more frequently, rather than my safety blanket - illustrator. The colors took about 2 hrs from start to finish. I kept cycling through layers, adjusting opacity, etc, etc.

Overall, I completed the drawing over the course of 3 days, and about 6 hrs total. I think it came out nicely, and it's a fitting tribute (to me) for the undisputed king of the boxing world. There have been a lot of other greats, but NO ONE will ever touch Robinson's legacy.

Word.

From zero to hero

2011-09-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

I know that title sounds cruel, but it sounded really funny in my head. Sorry Steven, you're not a zero.

This is a fun illustration I did for a friend of mine around 2 months ago (completely forgot about it). He was part of an internet podcast called (you guessed it) "The Power Geeks." We'd talked about the idea of doing something together for awhile, and me helping to brand his show just seemed to make sense.

Originally, I re-did the show's logo to make it a little more "comic booky" (not sure if that's even a term). The logo they were using made me cringe every time I saw it, so I sort of volunteered myself to give them a hand on that one. I decided to go with that old school "Superfriends" look. I even added in those large color dots from the old school comic books - who remembers those??

As far as the character design, Steven (my friend) gave me some ideas on what he envisioned for himself. He's a HUGE Star Wars fan, so naturally, he wanted some kind of laser sword (but not a lightsaber - don't want to bite Lucas too hard). I sent him some sketches, and he loved the idea I came up with.

This was actually the very first illustration that I used with Sketchbook Pro. Normally, I'd sketch on paper, scan, and color in Photoshop or Illustrator. Not this time. This was entire drawn/colored/pieced together on the Cintiq, using Sketchbook and Illustrator. Not bad for a first attempt, eh?

Steven has since left the show, but at least he got a nice souvenir. I mean, who doesn't want to have their very own superhero?

Word.

Here comes the pain!

2011-08-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so Brock hasn't used that tag line since his WWE days, a few years back, but it's the best thing I could think of while writing this blog.

Above are (you guessed it) 3 concepts I created that are going to be pitched as an alternative to Brock's "DeathClutch" line, to stores that aren't too keen on carrying brands with the word "death" in the title. To be honest, it's essentially the exact same style of art as the "DC" shirts, but with more focus on Brock.

The first concept is based off of an image of Brock that was given to me. I really wanted to create a sort of "superhero essence" for Brock (you know, since that's like, what I do), and this picture seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I also wanted to keep the art pretty loose and raw, too keep the spirit of Brock's character. I'm not crazy about how the eyebrow turned out, but it's too late to turn back. Them's the breaks.

The second concept is more composition. I took the existing artwork for Brock's back tattoo (still can't figure out exactly what that is), and positioned it between his name. This one was sort of a no brainer since the WWE did the exact same thing a few years back with all of his merchandise.

The third concept plays off of the first one. I was provided with another great image of Brock, and I just did my "comic book thing" to it, to make it stand out against a plain white t-shirt. I originally wanted to keep the image black/white, but there ended up not being enough contrast between some of the wrinkles/folds and shapes on the body. I had to add a third color to the mix. Still, I think it turned out nicely.

Oh, and you might notice the Brock tattoo on the left sleeve of all of the shirts. I'm big on branding, and creating icons that become recognized with a specific brand (Nike's swoosh, Pepsi's....whatever that is). While I didn't create the artwork, I thought it looked cool added to the sleeve. It makes it part of a line. Like a collection. Same thing I did with the Bruce Lee stuff. I'm a creature of habit, what can I say?

Word.

Real men like Pink. Floyd.

2011-08-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at 3 designs I came up with for the Pink Floyd licensed brand. I was asked to work on these as part of my deal with Trinity Products, and to say that the project presented a challenge, would be an understatement.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't at least know who Pink Floyd is. I mean, whether you're a fan of their music, or not, you know who they are....right? I asked a couple of people what the first thing they thought of when they heard the name "Pink Floyd," and almost all of them responded with "that triangle/rainbow thing." Although, not as descriptive as I'd hoped, it was good enough for me.

The first design, actually came from a friend of mine who said that she had this pictured in her head, but couldn't get it on paper or on the screen. We talked about it for a little while, and this is what I pieced together based on her description. When I was finished, she said "that's exactly what I pictured!"

The other two, are just basic composition pieces of my own design. I wanted to do something that features the various album names that Pink Floyd has had over the years. After a quick google search, I came up with all of the names, and listed them in chronological order. I wanted to make it look like some kind of poster - featuring the triangle/rainbow. Of course.

Overall, I think they look good. I'm not reinventing the wheel, but I'm trying to give them something that's both new, and familiar. Let's hope these are well received. I would love to be able to contribute to the Pink Floyd brand.

Word.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply

2011-08-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Completing my run on the Bruce Lee brand, is actually the very first design I did.

This one (in my opinion) is the weakest of the group. It's the first one I did, and really doesn't represent anything different to what's already out there. It's not a bad design, and I'm glad it got approved, but compared to the others, I feel like it's the weak link of the lot.

This one is pretty cut and dry. Simple pose of Bruce in black/white, with one of his legendary quotes to the side. What I do like a lot about this shirt, is the quote itself. If you're not familiar, here it is:

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do."

Word.

Become like water, my friend

2011-08-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

Man, I can't believe it's already August. This summer has flown by!

I'm trying to round out the posts of my designs for the Bruce Lee brand, so I thought I'd share the second to last design (which really was the second to last one I did), which skips the illustrative nature of the rest, and pays tribute to Bruce's many legendary, and often used, quotes.

This one took some time to actually find the quotes I wanted, and piece them together in something of a composition. I didn't just want to slap them on a shirt and say "here!" I wanted to present them in a way that would be visually appealing to someone looking at the shirt. I found that by breaking them up into different sizes and colors, it almost read like a newspaper - just what I wanted.

Out of all of the quotes on the shirt, the very bottom (in red) is, and has always been my favorite. I love the way Bruce talks about the art (and it is) of adapting to one's surroundings. The way he compares it to water in a glass, is so elegant, and makes so much sense. It's always been a personal favorite of mine, and something I wanted to include in this particular set of designs. If you're not familiar with the quote, here you go:

"You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water into a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip, and it can crash. Become like water, my friend."

Word.

Here's lookin' at you, kid(s)

2011-07-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here are some quick (and I mean quick) sketches I did for a few new friends of mine. The first two are of Ms. Cori Madison Preuss (sounds SO official). The girl seriously takes some of the most diverse pictures I've ever seen, and she has these big, bright green (yes, I know they're green) eyes, that I thought would look really cool sketched out. I was right, too - POW!

The third picture is actually something I did for my 220th "like" on Facebook. I was telling people that once I hit 220, I would do a quick sketch of anything they wanted. Now, it took me about 3 months to get to it (sorry!), but I finally got around to doing this sketch of Ms. Liz Diaz and what I assume to be her boyfriend? I'm not sure. Anyway, this one was fun to do because I wanted to do it in under 10min, but I didn't want to make it sloppy (hope I achieved that?).

Both were fun to do, and I'm having a blast doing these speed sketches on my Cintiq. Methinks I'll keep it up.

Word.

Finally home where it belongs

2011-07-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

After years of waiting, and literally drooling over this thing, I finally took the dive and purchased my very own Cintiq 21UX tablet.

I've literally been talking about this thing for about 4 years. I had seen one in use on a behind-the-scenes look at an animation studio video, on YouTube, and I knew that I had to have one. The biggest hinderance has always been the cost. These things ain't cheap, and although they offer a smaller version for 1/2 the price, I figured, if I'm going to do it, might as well get the big daddy. And that's what I did.

I had made up my mind that I was going to make the purchase about 3 months ago. I did my research, looked online, asked well known artists that own one, a multitude of questions. My only problem now was, I couldn't find the thing anywhere! Amazon - back ordered 6 months. Buy.com - same thing. Even Wacom (the folks who make them) had them on back order! Ugh, it almost seemed like it just wasn't meant to be.

Thanks to some good folks on twitter (love that thing), someone recommended MacHollywood. I called, and the guy told me that they would be receiving a shipment in about a week, but that I would be put on the list behind 70 other people who have been waiting. Jeez....at least it was something. About a week later, the guy calls me and tells me they have one in-stock, but that I would have to come NOW, or they'd sell it to the next person.

I literally grabbed my keys, and called my bank on the way out, so that I could up my daily spending limit on my debit card. The drive itself was about an hour (they're located smack dab in the middle of Hollywood), but it was worth it. When I walked in, they had one on display, and after just touching the screen I told the guy "SOLD!"

Aside from some small hiccups during the installation process (they didn't tell me I need additional apple specific cables), this thing has been a breeze to use. I finally got it fully customized to my settings, and I've learned some tricks-of-the-trade over the past few weeks. All-in-all, I absolutely love this thing, and it's increased my productivity drastically. Being able to switch between screens (I have it set up as dual monitors with my Mac), and flip between programs - ugh, what did I ever do before this?

Needless to say, I am VERY happy with my purchase, and it's nice to finally feel like I've got somewhat of a professional set up going on here. Hey, if you're in the area, stop by and I'll show you what this thing can really do!

Word.

Knowledge will give you power. But character will give you respect.

2011-07-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the third entry in the series of Bruce Lee shirts that I created. Actually, truth be told, this was the very first one that I did, but it's the third to be posted, so....

This one is pretty cut-and-dry. I wanted to create something bold, and attention grabbing. Again, I tried to play off of a famous Bruce Lee quote, but not something that was overly aggressive, or about martial arts. If you've been reading (I don't blame you if you haven't) the other entries, then you should know by now that the focus on this line was to spotlight Bruce Lee as a man, not just a martial artist.

I had seen a few other Bruce Lee shirts that basically just took an image from a movie, and slapped it on a t-shirt, with some kind of catch phrase. Not my thing. I wanted to create art. Didn't have to be anything spectacular, but I didn't just want to grab images off of google and slap them on a t-shirt.

While I did find the original image on google, I managed to change it enough to suit what I needed. I hand illustrated everything to give it that "hand made" look (not so precise), and I kept it one color, so that there was nothing competing on the actual shirt.

Overall, I'm happy with the way it turned out. Great quote. Strong imagery. Bold colors. Can't ask for much else.

Word.

Respond like an echo

2011-07-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Man, what a cool quote that is, huh? This is another of the Bruce Lee designs that I'm particularly proud of.

As I said in my previous post (for those of you that managed to get through it all...I commend you), my focus for this series of artwork, is Bruce Lee as a martial artist second, and a thinker first. His quotes, his beliefs, his mantras, all of that stuff should take center stage.

Now, I can't claim credit for the idea behind the illustration. I came across a painting that someone did of this pose, while doing my extensive research on google. The pose really appealed to me, and the way the artist rendered it, was amazing. I wish I had saved the picture.

Anyway, I decided to do sort of a loose, sketch style of drawing for this one. Make it rough, and somewhat gritty. Almost in the style of one of my favorite artists, Leinil Yu (if you haven't seen his work, look him up. He's amazing.)

The font was a no brainer. While talking about these ideas with Brandon from Trinity Products (you should know who they are by now), he kept mentioning this quote. It's a strong quote (it's actually part of a longer quote), and I knew that it needed a strong image to go with it.

Once the illustration was done, the task switched to picking the right font. After going through a few dozen, I stumbled upon this one. It just seemed to work. That 70's style lent itself to the colors, and it all came together.

Pretty pleased with this one. So far, the response has been great. I hope the powers that be enjoy it just as much.

Word.

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. The Dragon.

2011-07-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I used the same title that's on the actual drawing, sue me.

I've been working on some Bruce Lee artwork for the past week, for the folks at Trinity Products (the same company that hired me for the Sesame Street art), and I think I've finally started to hit my stride. Prior to starting on the project, I did some fairly extensive research on what's been done, and let me tell you, it's quite surprising.

There seems to be this notion that if you take an icon like Bruce Lee, and modernize him, it'll sell. Now, no doubt that's true for some people, but that's just not the way my brain works. I've seen people put headphones on him, use some horrid color combos, and even GIVE HIM A GUN (yes, you read that right). Now, I'm sure all of these ideas started off as good ones, but in my opinion, they're all wrong.

Bruce Lee is widely regarded as the most influential figure in martial arts, and one of the biggest cultural icons of the 20th century. He managed to achieve both of those titles without the use of catchy taglines, or firearms. While we all know Bruce Lee from his impressive demonstrations of martial arts, what's always stood out for me was his role as a philosopher. His views and outlooks on just about any subject, are some of the most thought provoking that I've come across. You can really tell that there was always a method behind everything he did.

My goal with these new designs, was to pay homage to Bruce as a man, not just a martial artist. I mean, the name "Bruce Lee" has become synonymous with the term "martial arts." It's just unnecessary (in my opinion) to have to point out the fact that he was a martial artist. We all get it by now. That's not to say that I didn't want to include that, I just didn't want to make it the focus.

To my surprise, quality Bruce Lee images are hard to come by on the internet. You're usually stuck with hundreds of variations of the same few pictures/poses. It took me awhile to find the ones I wanted to use. Once I did find them, the ideas started to flow on how to incorporate them into what I wanted.

With this particular one, I wanted to do something that's somewhat abstract. Now, I know that comparisons to Shepard Fairey's work will be made, and that's definitely not a bad thing, but long before Shepard Fairey, there was Andy Warhol. While Fairey is definitely one of the most recognized "street artists," Warhol was one of the first to use simplistic shapes, and drastic color combos, to achieve his portraits. That's what I wanted to do.

Again, the idea behind this was not to showcase Bruce Lee as a martial artist, but instead, to showcase him as a man. I didn't want one of his classic combat poses, and I didn't want to use the yellow jumpsuit (don't worry, I did in other drawings).

Oh, and for those of you wondering, the background image is the classic Jeet Kune Do logo that Bruce originated. The symbols (although cut off) stand for "using no way as way," and "having no limitation as limitation."

All-in-all, I'm pretty pleased with the way this came out. The entire illustration took around 6hrs to complete, and the border/text took around an hour. As a fan of Bruce Lee, I wanted to pay tribute to the fact that more than a martial artist, Bruce was a thinker. I hope I was able to do that in some way.

Word.

It's my DUCK in a box...

2011-07-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

Out of all of the work I've done for Sesame Street over the past few weeks, this is hands down my favorite one. I wanted to branch out and use some of the other Sesame characters that I hadn't already used (that and I was running out of ideas for Oscar), and I came across Bert & Ernie....

Ah, Bert & Ernie. What can I say about those two that hasn't been said before? The two always seem to be pictured together involved in a variety of activities. And when they're not together, there's usually a picture of the other one either on a t-shirt, or a wall...something.

This one was actually kind of a natural fit in my opinion. I was up late working on some of the other Sesame Street art, browsing through YouTube as I'm known to do at 2am. I stumbled across the trilogy of SNL "digital shorts" featuring Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake. Now, I've seen these videos before, but for some reason they had me cracking up like I'd never seen them before.

After watching the videos, this just made sense. The only problem was, how to translate two raunchy characters from SNL, into PG/kid friendly versions? Then it hit me, Ernie's beloved rubber ducky....

What you see is about 2 hours of work, trying to make these two, into the characters from the SNL videos. Overall, I think it worked out well, and the response has been very positive thus far. For those of you that have seen the videos I'm talking about, it makes perfect sense. For those of you that haven't, well, get on YouTube right now.

Word.

Me want COOOOKIES!!

2011-07-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Well, come to think of it, I actually do want cookies, but that's beside the point.

I recently wrapped up some art featuring everyone's favorite blue furred eating machine, Cookie Monster. These were done along with the other Sesame Street work I did (more to come) to pitch as potential new t-shirts for their line.

Since I was focusing primarily on parodies, I kept it simple with Cookie. The first one is a parody of (you guessed it) the Incredible Hulk. Since there is nothing "incredible" about Cookie (except for his appetite), I decided to re-name him the "Insatiable Chunk" - it just seemed to fit. Actually, on the final version, the word "chunk" was changed to "monster" because it was felt that "chunk" might turn a few people off.

For the one below, that was an idea given to me by Brandon at Trinity Products (the kind folks who hired yours truly to do all of this). It kept in line with the album cover parodies we were doing (see the Oscar the Ground and Elmo covers), and it made sense once again for Cookie.

All-in-all, I really like the way these came out. The comic-inspired one is my favorite of the two (because I'm a geek like that), but I think they're both strong enough to be added to the Sesame Street line.

Word.

Holidays on Track

2011-07-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my brother called me and told me about a friend of his that was in need of some custom artwork for a project she and her daughter had been working on. During our brief conversation, the one thing I picked up on, was that this client wanted something that resembled "vintage Disney." As soon as I heard that, I immediately thought "I can do that" and agreed to call his friend, Cheryl.

When I spoke with Cheryl, she immediately told me about the difficulties that she has encountered with past artist's, that have been, let's say....less than "professional" in dealing with this project. As I've figured with most clients that have been in that same exact situation - the other artist's loss, is my gain.

Anyway, we got through the specifics and I agreed to take on this project, and have it finished in 2 weeks (7/1/11). Now, I knew this wasn't going to be an easy task for me. I'm primarily known for a very stylized form of art. People don't typically seek me out for my realism. Actually, it's quite the opposite.

After going through a few revisions, we came up with something that we all seemed to like. It's not the Normal Rockwell that some are used to, but it's warm (even though, there's snowflakes in the back), it's homey, and it's family oriented - all of the things you'd come to expect from a product that's aiming to start a new family tradition.

Overall, I'm pleased with the way it came out. It definitely took me out of my element, and made me work in a different way than I'm used to, but those are the projects that are usually the most meaningful. My goal was to deliver something that they were proud to use as a representation of their company. I just hope I was able to deliver.

Word.

It's obvious that Elmo loves pop culture

2011-06-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

So, Elmo is arguably the most popular character on Sesame Street, yes? I've seen more kids running around with Elmo t-shirts, and I'm still recovering from the "Tickle-me Elmo" frenzy a few Christmases ago. I like Elmo, but I'm old school, so that means I tend to gravitate more towards the characters that I grew up with, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, the Count....and even Bert & Ernie. Not to say I don't like Elmo, but the craze missed me by a decade or so.

Still, Elmo is one of those characters that lends itself (is "it" male or female?) to a variety of parodies. When I first signed on to this project, the "GT-Elmo" idea was the first thing that popped into my head. It just made sense. At least to me. The "Doors" picture, although not as abstract as the "GT-Elmo" design, made sense given the pose that he's in.

All-in-all, I think Elmo's most recent foray into pop culture is a success. There's no telling what other parodies this little "thing" can be used it. Just have to wait and see what the next trend is going to be.

Word.

It ain't easy being green

2011-06-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Sesame Street has and always will be one of those things that's just always around. I can't honestly picture a day when the show isn't on the air, and kids aren't running around with Elmo or Cookie Monster sprawled across their clothing. It just doesn't register to me. That's why, when I was presented with the opportunity to work on some artwork for the Sesame Street clothing line, I jumped on it.

I'm still amazed every time I think about watching Sesame Street as a kid, and seeing it's popularity grow tenfold for the current generation. Where was Tickle-Me Elmo when I was a kid? Oh well, I had He-Man and Superman to keep me company.

The fun thing about this project, was (A) getting to draw such classic characters, and (B) getting to come up with different ways to use these characters. Some were straight forward (the NY, "Go Green" and "Stay away from my junk"), and could appeal to both children and adults, and others were geared a bit more for adults, who might understand the humor (the play on Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" album).

All of the artwork was met with a really positive reaction, and I'm hoping that they all see the day of light onto actual apparel items. I wouldn't mind adding any of these to my private collection. You're never too old to rep Sesame Street, right?

Word.

Another round of cupcakes, please

2011-06-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

Check out the new snazzy business cards I just finished for "Dani Cupcakes" (or @danicupcakes for you twitter people). When I originally did this caricature/logo for her, it had A LOT more colors involved (scroll down a few entries). After talking with Dani, and trying to figure out a look for her new business, I decided to scale things back significantly.

I know her favorite color is green, so that gave me a base, but coming up with the right color green was a little tricky. I mixed and matched until I got the right blend of what I wanted. Once I had that, I started finding complimentary colors to match. Originally, I just had 3 basic colors, but with Dani's input, I decided to add in that shade of pink.

Those who know me (or who follow this site), know that I'm not a fan of bright/flashy colors at all. I tend to gravitate to the softer, muted, earth tones. That worked perfectly for the baking world. I figured using softer colors, would lend itself more to the "organic" look of the baked goods, frosting, etc. Maybe I'm over thinking it? Who knows.

Anyway, the cards turned out great, and Dani was very pleased with them. I am too, which is rare for me. Can't wait to get them back from the printer.

Word.

A battle of epic proportions!

2011-05-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

If you happen to follow "Stone Cold" Steve Austin on twitter (@steveaustinBSR), then you'll know all about his famous sense of humor. The guy has posted some of the funniest tweets in recent memory. None are as funny as the on going war he's been waging against the ultimate killing machine - the shark.

Go back and look at some of his past tweets, or take a look at the videos he's posted, like the one about a pack of sharks jumping him on the side of the road - they're hilarious.

This mock poster is my attempt to help build the hype for the ultimate showdown. By the time this battle happens, people will have forgotten all about the long awaited Austin vs Hogan match up.

If you really want to keep up on the action, follow @SHARKVSAUSTIN for constant updates on when and where this will go down. Because it needs to go down.

Word.

What exactly is a bad bunny?

2011-05-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late posting this, seeing how it was done about 2 months ago.

A friend of mine decided to go into business for himself doing freelance photography and video, and needed a name/identity. After kicking around names for a few days, he decided on the name "Bad Bunny studios." Originally, I thought the name was kind of silly, but after thinking about the possibilities of the logo, the name grew on me.

I'll be honest with you, I had no idea what exactly a "bad bunny" was. I did a series of sketches of various bunny heads with different expressions, and in different styles. None of them really worked the way I wanted them to.

This idea came completely out of nowhere. I tried explaining to José, but it proved too difficult to put into words. So, I decided to show him what I was talking about.

The whole thing only took about 15 min, and it made sense to make his business card vertical in order to maximize the area where the logo could fit. I also wanted the card to be simple and clean. Not sure if I really achieved that, but he seemed to like it, and it's seemingly a big hit with all of his clients. I'd call that a job well done.

Word.

A family affair

2011-05-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Just finished this little commission up for a loyal twitter/facebook follower, Jennifer Ricketson-Meade, and her family.

Jennifer has been following my on twitter and facebook for quite some time, and she's come to know me as the guy who does all of Steve Austin's t-shirts and artwork.

About 2 weeks ago, we got to talking about the idea of me doing a commissioned piece of her, her two sons, Jon and Chris, and their family dog, Shadow. We kicked around ideas for awhile, and she sent me pictures I could use for reference. After looking at her pictures, I got somewhat of an idea of each of their personalities. Jon, the youngest son, seemed like a fun loving, playful kid. Chris, the oldest son, seemed a bit more serious. Jennifer, of course, came across as a very proud mother who loved the outdoors and her pets.

After going back and forth with sketches and ideas for what we could do, I told her that I wanted to keep it simple. I wanted to draw everyone, but keep the background simple, so I didn't have to encompass everyone's personality into one background (like an outdoor setting, etc).

I did take some liberties with everyone's look (especially the dog), but that's sort of become my trademark. She even summed it up perfectly, when she said that my artwork tends to be more about the personality and expressions of the person, and less about capturing an exact likeness. Well said, Jennifer.

I hope to get a picture of the final piece hanging somewhere in her home. Maybe she'll even include everyone in it for me?

Word.

Mmmm....cupcakes

2011-05-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Check out these neat little I came up with for a special little birthday girl (today is her 27th birthday, in fact). Actually, the illustrations were just a piece of the bigger picture that ended up being her birthday gift.

You see, one miss Danielle Hammel is a hell of a talented baker. She whipped up some of her famous beer cupcakes for me a few weeks back, and I can honestly say that I've never tasted a better cupcake. EVER. I was so blown away by her tasty treats, I suggested (several times) that she seriously consider doing a little side business, selling her baked goods.

She originally balked at the idea, but I'm not so easily discouraged. I took it upon myself to create a custom illustration of her alter-ego "Dani Cupcakes" (sounds naughty, I know), and even come up with a basic logo that she can use for said business.

Once I finished those, I was on a roll and didn't want to stop there. I got to thinking "so she's got this cool logo, and super hot illustration...but how is she going to promote her baking?" So, I set out to build and customize her own personal blogspot, that she's able to add to with all sorts of fun pictures and stories about her latest creations. If you're anything like me (and if you read my rants), then you love to read about the creation process of all sorts of works of art. And trust me, what this girl does is art. Edible art, in fact.

So, for all of you lovers of all things tasty and sweet (and beer)...I strongly urge that you visit her blogspot, and even give it a follow so you don't miss out on any of her soon-to-be-published updates. The girl really does have a talent, and it's about time she share this talent with more people. You never know, she might send you a sample just for following. That along is worth the 10 sec follow sign up.

Word.

A Wyatt James double feature!

2011-05-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

Did this neat little poster for a friend's son. I guess the kid (Wyatt) is a HUGE fan of Thomas the Train (or is it "the Tank Engine"?) and Mickey Mouse, so when my friend approached me about the idea, he stressed that it definitely had to include those two characters.

To be honest with you, when he asked me if I could do it, I instantly pictured a vintage movie poster of some sort. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the only way I could work those two in together in a creative fashion? All I knew is that I didn't just want to draw them standing next to each other - I like to think I'm a little more creative than that.

Obviously, for this one I didn't really do anything too original in terms of the design for the character. I used reference for both since this wasn't going to be done in my own personal style. I mixed and matched the colors I wanted to achieve that "vintage" look I wanted, and I made sure that Mickey was drawn in his classic form. My personal favorite.

The background was probably the toughest part. Originally, the canvas was going to be a horizontal 24"x18", but I decided to flip it at the last minute and do a vertical poster instead. At first, I was only using 3 colors - the muted brown, tan, and white, but I decided to add in that muted red since it would help each section "pop" a little more.

The only other direction I was given was to include Wyatt's name on the poster - you know, to make it personal.

Overall, I'm pretty proud of this little poster. Always fun to make things like this for people who will really appreciate them. I'm hoping he'll hang on to this even when he outgrows these characters. Then again, maybe he'll end up like me and never really outgrow any of them?

Word.

Pink dresses, Hello Kitty, and Moonlighting

2011-04-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late posting this one (about 4 months late to be exact), but I figure it's better late than never.

This is an illustration I gave to my sister, Keri, as a Christmas gift. I had done one for my Mom on her birthday, and decided to follow it up with this one (I then followed this one up with the one for my brother). I'm not going to lie, when I give something like this to a loved one, I always feel accomplished if I see them shed a tear. It's weird, I know.

Without going into some long winded explanation (you can all breathe easy), I wanted to incorporate several things from Keri's childhood. Her pink/purple dress, her beloved Hello Kitty, and of course, the poster of Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard from one of her all time favorite shows, Moonlighting (I can still sing that entire theme song from hearing it so many times). I don't think she actually had a poster, but I figured it was a clever way to incorporate them into the picture.

If you read what I wrote at the top of the picture, you'll have a better understanding of the thought/feeling that went into this one. I guess you could say, I wanted to capture my sister just being a kid, since a lot of her childhood was spent dealing with two younger brothers who didn't always make things easy for her. I like to think we made it a lot of fun, but not necessarily easy.

Wouldn't you agree, Keri?

Living the Lifestyle

2011-04-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a peek at the rest of the upcoming "Lifestyle" collection from Sacrifice apparel. I posted a few images of another design, called the "seal" a few weeks back in my Just in time for Spring blog. What you see above is the rest of the initial launch of that same collection.

The purpose behind this specific set of shirts, is to appeal to a wider audience of customer. Spring is here, and Summer is right around the corner, which means the weather is warmer, and most people tend to stray away from wearing dark colors (don't worry, for those of you that still do - they're available) so they don't bake in their shirts.

Sacrifice wanted to re-package it's brand into something that could be more universal. Something that could apply to whatever lifestyle you live. You like to surf? They've got you covered. You're more of a gym rat? No problem. Basically, they didn't want to pigeonhole themselves into one specific market. The images above are the 4 (there's three here, and one in the blog link above) test designs to see if this more simplistic style works.

As always, you can check out the official Facebook page for Sacrifice apparel to find out how to get yours. Depending on the success of these, there's plans to launch women's designs, and to keep this running all year long with more seasonal-appropriate artwork. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!

Word.

A little Disney fun

2011-04-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some quick illustrations I did for some new friends of mine that love Disney. The top (obviously) is Minnie Mouse in her more classic form. I've always loved the classic look of the characters (muted colors, big black eyes, etc) more than the current versions. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I like to keep things simple with my own art, so I appreciate Walt's original incarnations of his classic characters?

The one below (obviously...again) is everyone's favorite fairy, Tinkerbell. I tried to stay true to her look, but still keep is somewhat in my style. Whether or not I achieved that, I have no idea. At least you can tell what it is right? Throw in some pixie dust (which, apparently is made from hearts, stars, and bubbles), and you've got Tink doing what she does best....standing around.

I actually made these for two very different reasons. Amanda (Minnie Mouse), was leaving her job with Disney to pursue something different, and well, like Mom always told me, you don't show up empty handed to a party....so I figured a custom illustration would work well. I was right. She loved it. Originally, I wasn't sure if Minnie was her favorite, but when I showed up and saw her sporting a Minnie tank top, and Minnie pin, I knew I was solid.

The Tinkerbell picture was done for Danielle, who recently got a brand new job, and was also celebrating. I know she loves Tinkerbell, so I was a little more confident with this one. I actually sprung this on her right before we went to Disneyland, so I like to think it helped add to the magic that is Disney.

I'm hoping both girls will display these (because they're both framed) in a place where they can always see them. It's one of those things that you can look at when you've had a bad day, and it'll instantly cheer you up....right girls??

Tinkerbell took about an hour from start to finish. Minnie, surprisingly enough, took about 30min from start to finish. Maybe that's why I like the classic look so much. It's SO easy!

Word.

In brightest day. In blackest night....

2011-04-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

Did this for a friend's 28th birthday tomorrow (4/9). With all of the big summer movies coming out, I originally wanted to do a group shot, but it required more time than I had. Besides, I know he's looking more forward to "Green Lantern" than any other movie, so it made sense to just focus on this one.

With most of my artwork, I do go for a dead on likeness to whoever I'm drawing. In this instance, I wanted it to resemble Ryan Reynolds, but I also wanted it to be Hal Jordan. I kept Ryan's wavy hair from the movie, but I squared out Hal's jaw to keep it more in line with the comics (Ryan has a very narrow jaw). Actually, when I look at it...he looks like Syndrome from "the Incredibles."

The costume was tricky. Since the movie version is very "organic" looking, I wanted to keep that same look, but I also wanted to maintain the comics version too. I'm glad they ditched the white gloves (honestly, who wears white gloves?) and went for a two toned color scheme. I added in some lines to the suit to make it look more organic, but when it came to adding in those lighted areas around the chest emblem, it just looked goofy. I tried about 5 different techniques, and they all looked like mistakes. I compromised and made the chest emblem project the lantern icon off of his chest, similar to how it's been done in the comics. I thought this gave the same look of the energy flowing through the costume, without having to worry about every detail of the movie costume.

Recreated the text from the movie, threw in the Green Lantern oath (didn't even need to look that one up) and there you have it. My version of the Green Lantern all decked out in his movie duds. Took about 4 hours from start to finish.

Word.

Stompin' mudholes...

2011-04-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

FINALLY I can post these pictures! What you are looking at, is pictures of what has to be my proudest moment in my professional career, to date (yes, I know I said that about the last shirt I did for him). It's one thing to see your artwork on your childhood hero on cable TV, but it's an entirely different thing to see him wear your artwork on WrestleMania - The biggest night in sports entertainment (that's what they call wrestling these days for those who haven't been paying attention).

Shortly after I did the initial "shield" design for Steve, we followed it up with something a bit "louder" for his appearance at WrestleMania on April 3rd. With the "shield" design, Steve wanted to keep it simple. Nothing too flashy. For WrestleMania, I was allowed to get a little more crazy, and experiment with colors.

I know Steve is a big fan of skulls, and throughout the years he's had dozens of different skulls used on his "Stone Cold" merchandise. They ranged anywhere from the classic "Austin 3:16" skull, to smaller, more detailed skulls. My first attempt at drawing this particular skull didn't come out so great. It was a little too "anatomically correct" with the lines, etc. Steve wanted something more streamlined and simplified. I used some reference from some old artwork he had given me, and he loved it.

The trickiest part about the entire design, was trying to get the blue gradient to flow the correct way. It couldn't be too dark, because then it would be hard to read against a black shirt. It also couldn't be too light, because then you wouldn't be able to see the blue at all. After a few changes, we found the right "flow" and we were off and running.

I have to say, my favorite part of the shirt is the skull icon on the left sleeve with the "95" on it's forehead. I love that they're bringing "Stone Cold" merchandise back, and I'm really digging the fact that we're giving a nod to the fact that he's a legend and a WWE Hall of Famer, but letting people know that this is an entirely new round of "Stone Cold" merchandise. The back of the shirt, well, that was all Steve's idea. Guy knows exactly what he wants, and that's one of the reasons I enjoy working with him so much. There's never any guessing, or mind reading involved. He tells you what he likes/doesn't like, which makes the entire process SO easy.

I have to say, seeing Austin on RAW, wearing the "shield" t-shirt brought a smile to my face. Seeing Austin perform at WrestleMania, the same stage that I had watched him win the WWE title for the first time, 13 years ago....well, that was surreal for me. For him to follow it up on RAW the next night, with the same shirt, doing what he does best....man, I couldn't have asked for anything more than that.

2011 is a good time to be a "Stone Cold" Steve Austin fan. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be a small part of the madness that is WrestleMania, Steve. Definitely my proudest moment to date!

Oh, and don't forget to watch his new show, "Tough Enough" every Monday before RAW on the USA network. More Austin. More t-shirts. And a whole lotta pain for those kids on the show.

Word.

Just in time for Spring

2011-03-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a look at some new designs for the "Sacrifice apparel" brand.

The point we wanted to make with these specific designs, was to separate them from the first round of designs we created. We realize that the first set of designs are good, but they appeal to a VERY specific crowd, and come across as being just a tad too aggressive for some people.

We wanted to tone things down a bit, and create some designs that will appeal to a wider range of people. Also, since Spring is right around the corner, we wanted to experiment with different color combinations, and stray away from the typical black t-shirt (it'll still he around, don't worry).

I re-designed the logo, which will represent the "lifestyle" portion of the brand. I wanted to go with something very basic, but still appealing enough that people would want to wear it on a t-shirt (think Everlast - I did). Instead of using the "splat" from the other t-shirts, I went ahead and created a new icon that features the "what's your sacrifice?" slogan the company has been using. I think it helps to differentiate these from the first line we put out, even further.

This is the 1st of the "lifestyle" shirts, with hopefully many more to come. Ideally, I'd like to launch about 4 new designs for this portion just in time for Spring/Summer.

As always, you can get your own by checking out "Sacrifice apparel" on Facebook.

Word.

Never get tired of this guy

2011-03-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've been ridiculously busy as of late, which means that I haven't had a lot of time to do any personal artwork. Last night, around 11pm, I got the urge to do something for myself before heading to bed. I've got a ton of sketches that I've done of the past couple weeks/months. Some I want to color, and some that probably look better as just plain sketches.

I did this particular sketch around Christmas (that's how backed up I've been) and since I really love the way my other Dexter picture came out, I definitely wanted to color this one in the same fashion. There's just something about this character's facial expressions that really captivates my interest.

While the other Dexter picture had more detail in the eyes, I wanted to go basic with this one in an attempt to give him a little more of a mischievous look. I didn't want him to look evil, just like he might be up to something...which usually involves murder.

The whole thing took about an hour to color. I experimented with the background and outlines a little, and decided to go with something a little lighter than the previous illustration I did. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way this one came out. It feels good to work on something for myself for a change. I'm going to do everything I can to make it a weekly occurrence.

Word.

I've waited over 20 years for this...

2011-03-09T22:04:00.000-08:00

For those of you that have followed my blog (all 5 of you), and who might have read my Stone Cold! Stone Cold! blog back in June, you all know that I've always been a die-hard fan of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

Earlier last year, I got the opportunity to meet with Steve and work with him on a few projects. We've been at it ever since, and I'm proud to say that we've been at it ever since, and the stuff is really taking shape and looking the way Steve wants it to look.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from him, and he told me about his new job within the WWE, hosting the resurrected "Tough Enough" reality show. Naturally, since he'd be hosting, that meant the return of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin to the WWE Universe - which also meant that they'd be releasing all new merchandise for fans of his, new and old.

He explained to me how the WWE creative team sent him over some concepts, but they just weren't really what he was looking for. He followed up by asking me if I'd be interested in designing a new t-shirt for him. My immediate reaction was to yell, "what, are you kidding me!?" but I kept my cool. We talked about some ideas, and then Steve let me do my thing.

I stayed up all night and pumped out about 14 different concepts. Ironically enough, it was the very last design, and the one that took the least amount of time (it's always like that) that ended up being the one. He called me from the gym and said "you hit this one out of the park." I was pleased. Very pleased. Steve put me in touch with a wonderful girl named Kat, who works for the WWE and we got everything set up from there. When she informed me that I'd have to sign a contract in order to get paid, I almost did a back flip. I was now, officially being paid by the WWE for artwork I created for my childhood hero. I mean come on...

The funny thing is, back in 95, I was around 13 years old (do the math), and I would tune in to watch "Stone Cold" on RAW every single Monday night. I would always examine the shirts he wore (of which I owned every single one) and then draw my own versions. I would take these drawings, and mail them to the WWE with detailed notes on what I think his shirts should look like. I had no concept of money, or being paid for artwork. I just wanted to be a part of the "Stone Cold" character. Over the years I collected rejection notice after rejection notice. I still kept at it though. I complied a folder filled with drawings and notes....some of which I pulled out for this project.

Fast forward to March 7th, 2011. I'm watching Monday Night RAW with a friend (I rarely watch anymore now that Steve is retired) and right after the second hour, I hear the iconic shattering of the glass, and see "Stone Cold" Steve Austin walking to the ring...and he's wearing my shirt! It's one thing to see your all time favorite back on TV. It's an entirely different thing to see him sporting your artwork. Steve did his classic routine, and gave the fans what they wanted to see.

I had told everyone I know (which is about 15 people) to tune in that night, and within a few minutes I got phone calls, text messages and emails from people that all knew how much that meant to me. One of my sisters even said she almost started to cry. I'm not sure how I feel about that...only kidding Joelle.

Steve, thanks again for giving me the opportunity. You have no idea how long I've waited to do something for the "Stone Cold" character, and seeing that shirt on WWE TV seriously made my year. I know WrestleMania will only be that much better.

Oh, and of course, if you want one of your very own you can always visit WWEShop.com and pick one up. Check out the reviews!

Word.

My brother, the Superman

2011-02-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

My brother, Clint, just celebrated his 38th birthday on 1-31-11 (2 days after mine). Although I didn't get to see him on his actual birthday, I did get a chance to give him a present while he and his family were visiting during the holidays.

I wanted to give him something that reflected the relationship he and I had when we were younger. I had a couple of ideas that were more elaborate, but when I sat down to actually put it together, I decided to go in more of a simple, straight forward direction.

Rather than go on a long rant, I encourage you to click on the picture of the illustration to see what was written. It pretty much sums up our relationship as kids. As the older brother, Clint always knew it was up to him to set a good example, and he did that almost effortlessly. He was never too busy to help me with things. He was never too busy to play with me. And he instilled a serious passion for art/pop culture that continues to live on in me twenty-something years later. I will always be grateful to him for giving me one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever give - my love for art, and my desire to always improve. Even in my late twenties now, I still remember to practice my shapes (Clint used to have me trace coloring books), and I still love to draw those same superheroes I did when I was 3 years old.

For those of you wondering what's written at the top of the picture, along the matte, it reads...

"To the guy who taught me how to hold a pencil when I was 3yrs old. From the kid who never put that pencil down, and always kept practicing his shapes."

I have this same picture, framed and hanging in my house now too.

Anything to see them smile

2011-02-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

Remember the line in the Randy Newman song "I love to see you smile" where he says "in the summer, in the spring time, winter, or the fall...the only place I wanna be, is where I can see you smile at me"? That pretty much sums up these pictures for me.

My brother, Clint brought his wife, Alisha and their two kids, Beau and Colton out to CA (they live in Montana) to spend the holidays with our family. This was only the second time I would get to see Beau, and the first time I would get to meet Colton. Needless to say, I was excited.

In trying to figure out what to get them for Christmas, I came across a number of ideas: toys, clothes, games, etc. The only problem I faced was my gift getting lost in a sea of other gifts from various family members. And I was right. There literally was a sea of gifts at Christmas. There were so many gifts that Clint and Alisha had to take turns unwrapping because it got exhausting.

Finally, I decided to fall back on my default gift - a picture that I make them. One of a kind. I started toying around with ideas until Mom told me that they were both in love with the Disney movie "CARS," with Mater and Lightning McQueen being their favorites.

I had my direction, but now I was lost on what to do with the actual picture. I knew that I needed to draw out both characters, so that's what I did. McQueen took around 5hours, and I had to simplify some of the detail to make it work (mainly the decal on his hood). Mater took around 7hours mainly due to the fact that he has so many different shades of color and texture to him. I sketched the characters out on paper, scanned them in, and traced over my pencil drawing in a digital format. Once I had the shape of the character, I could then decide what details to keep, and what details to leave out.

The inspiration for the background actually came from walking around Disneyland. They're currently under construction with "CARS World" and they've got some pretty neat promotional images all around the place. I combined a few of them together and came up with the background. Naturally I had to incorporate Beau and Colton's name - I love personalizing things.

Once the picture was finished, I had it printed and framed. I wrapped it, and stuck it under the tree Christmas morning before they woke up. To be honest, I wasn't really sure how they were going to react. I mean, when you're dealing with a 2 and a 3 1/2 yr old, it's hard to get them pumped up for a picture when there's a mountain of toys sitting in front of them.

When the picture was unwrapped, they both looked at it, and immediately went back to their toys. I can't blame them though, they got some cool stuff. Both Clint and Alisha looked at the picture, and read what I wrote in silver marker (should have used black). They both loved it, and assured me that it would make it's way onto the wall in the kid's bedroom.

The goal with the picture wasn't to top any other gift they got, it was simply to give them something that no one else could. I wanted to give them something that they can look at and know just how much they are loved and appreciated. I like to think that as they get older, they'll be able to look at that picture and smile because they know that their uncle spent many hours making something specifically for them.

I asked Clint to take those pictures for me so I could have something of the two of them with that picture to remember Christmas 2010 by. Those pictures now sit on my desk, where I can look at them everyday and smile. The same way I hope they'll smile at the picture I made for them. I guess, now that I think about it, we all win.

To Beau and Colton. I love you both very much, and I miss you guys every day. I hope that no matter how old you get, I'll be able to create something for you that will always make you smile - because I love to see you smile.

Above All

2011-01-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

Check out the latest design from Sacrifice apparel, entitled (you guessed it) "Above All." With the overwhelmingly positive response from their "Fallen Soldier" t-shirt (still available for pre-order) it only made sense to continue the trend to honor the men and women in the armed forces. While talking to a friend of mine (who is married to a vet) she informed me that the men and women on most bases have absolutely no options when it comes to the clothing they buy. They've either got their standard PT's, or maybe a Tapout selection to choose from.

The idea here is to release a shirt for each branch of the armed forces: Air Force, Navy, Army, and Marine. The designs will be kept simple, and will play off of the current logo each division has.

This one was simple. Keep the same blue/white color scheme from their actual logo, but come up with something a little more literal for people to wear. I didn't want to go crazy with planes, jets, etc (yet), and I definitely wanted to incorporate the flag in some fashion.

Sacrifice apparel posted these images on their Facebook page, and so far the response has been good. The really cool thing is that these will make their debut at Lackland Air Force base in Texas in about 2 weeks. It'll be nice to give the men and women out there a new option when deciding how to spend their money.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's received well.

Word.

Paw prints on our hearts

2011-01-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

It's never easy when a pet dies. I've had my fair share of pets during my lifetime, and each time one of them passed, it took a toll on me and my family.

In one of my previous entries, "A furry little Christmas angel" I mentioned that my Mom had to put one of her cats to sleep because of a heart diseases he had. After that happened, I started to think of something I could make for Mom that would remind her of Vladimir, and make her smile. I played with a couple of different ideas that just didn't look as good as I thought they would once they were sketched out.

Finally, the idea hit me. When I was younger and a pet would die, Mom would say that the pet is now crossing over the "rainbow bridge" where all animals go once they die. It's their bridge into heaven, where they wait for us to join them so we can be reunited. For some reason, this story always seemed to make me feel at peace. The thought of my beloved pet crossing over into the next life where there is no more illness, or old age, or reason to worry, always made me smile.

I came up with the idea of drawing something out that depicted some of our beloved pets together, helping Vladimir make his transition. Roger, our rabbit, was with us for a very long time. He died when I was 18 years old, and to this day I still consider his passing as one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through.

Gilligan (the cat on the right), was a Mother's Day gift to Mom from my brother about 12 years ago. She got him when he was a kitten, and he was a part of our family up until the day he died about 2 years ago. I always thought of Gilligan as "my cat too" even after I moved out of the house. His passing was difficult to deal with. Especially for Mom.

I wanted to honor each of our pets in a way that would make us both smile when we looked at it. I'll be honest with you, drawing this picture bummed me out at times, but by the time I was finished, I was proud of the way it turned out. I wanted to keep everything very simple, and the colors very light. I didn't think getting into hyper detail was necessary in this case. The point of the drawing is to make you remember them, not capture every single minor detail.

When the picture was done, I framed it and wrapped it. When I gave it to her on Christmas, I could see tears in her eyes. Our beloved pets had been immortalized together. It was the first time Roger, Gilligan, and Vladimir were together, and it's how I choose to think of them.

One other thing. When I was a kid, Mom would always tell me "these are not your pets. You are their person," which has always stuck with me. I don't believe in "owning" an animal. They are a part of my family, and deserve to be treated as such.

Rock your socks off....sort of

2011-01-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

Check out the new clothing brand I'm working on, "Blackheart apparel." This is yet another brand that falls under the 10-9 Design umbrella (see a few entries ago). This specific brand has two simple objectives: keep it simple. keep it rock/metal. The idea behind Blackheart apparel is to celebrate those classic rock/metal tees from yesteryear. Bands like Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Ramones, AC/DC, Slayer, Metallica, etc, etc all had some pretty iconic images on both their album covers that later translated well into t-shirts. Well, since we're not a band we're going to skip the album cover part and go straight into t-shirts.

Unlike both the Sacrifice and Justified lines, you're unlikely to see multi-colored artwork, or even t-shirts for that matter. In the early stages of development we agreed that these would be printed on black or white only. The cool thing about this brand is that all designs will be available for both men and women right off the bat. That's right ladies, no more excessive emails asking when you'll be about to get the _________ design in a woman's shirt. I'm way ahead of you.

As far as the logo goes, I wanted to create something that wasn't your typical "evil heart" looking image (believe me, I did a few sketches of those). After looking at album covers I started to notice the constant use of skulls, bones, etc. I mean, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em right? I toyed around with some shapes and came up with an idea that seemed to stick, and didn't take the "Blackheart" name too literal. Can you see the hidden shape in the skull? Yeah, pretty cool huh?

The first t-shirt from Blackheart will be the "band" tee, and will be available upon publication of this blog (that's today, 1.7.11 for those of you keeping score) for a retail price of $24.95. While the website is being worked on, I encourage you all to search for "blackheart apparel" on facebook and sign up!

Word.

We're like a mixture of 311 and Incubus

2011-01-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a recent logo I did for a local band called (you guessed it) Run Down. I actually met the band's drummer at a bar while watching a UFC fight and when I mentioned to him what I do for a living he told me about the band and how badly they needed an identity.

After going through several revisions (some of which I really liked), they decided on this one. The color scheme appealed to them, and the overall look and feel seemed to match what they were looking for. They also wanted a smaller icon that they could use on merchandise without using the entire name. A lot of people do it these days.

Anyway, this was a fairly easy one to do. I think all-in-all it took somewhere in the ballpark of 8hrs after all the revisions. I'm looking forward to seeing them slap it across all of their banners and merchandise at their shows. Who knows, maybe I can score some free stuff??

Word.

Going....Going....Gone!

2011-01-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

First update of the new year!

I've never really been much of a sports fan. Coincidentally, this means I've never really been very good at drawing sports figures. I've been asked to draw my fair share of guys from various sports, but if you asked me to name 5 players on any given team or pick them out of a crowd, you'd likely be waiting around for awhile.

For as long as I can remember my Mom has been a die-hard sports fan. I'm not just talking watching the occasional game or jumping on a bandwagon because a certain team is winning. No, I'm talking HARDCORE. For as much as my Mom loves football, basketball, and hockey, I think it's safe to say that her first love has and always will be baseball.

During most of my early childhood Mom's favorite team was the Dodgers. I've even seen pictures of me as an infant decked out in Dodgers gear complete with a hat and baseball bat. I also distinctly remember listening to stories of Tommy Lasorda and Fernando Valenzuela (surprised I remember that?) during the late 80's/early 90's.

This year for Christmas I wanted to make something for my Mom that she could put in her "baseball room" (I'm serious) that went along with the decor. Originally I was going to do a Vladimir Guerrero picture, but I recently read that he was traded to another team awhile back. Good thing I did my homework huh? In trying to recall who Mom has cheered for the most over the years, a few players came to mind: Fernando Valenzuela, Wally Joyner, Jim Abbott....but who was her favorite? Finally, I decided to ask.

When she told me that her all time favorite player is Mike Scioscia I started to do my homework again. After about 30min on wikipedia I had all I needed to know. Left handed, played for the Dodgers, now manages the Angels (who Mom also loves). The only key element I had to leave out for "artistic purposes" was that he was primarily a catcher. For some reason I just couldn't find a good way to make all of that gear look good and still make it look like him. Maybe next time?

Overall I was pretty pleased with the final product. For someone who draws a baseball player about as often as he does photo realistic landscapes (for those of you keeping score, that's never) I think I managed to get what I wanted and do it in my own style. When Mom opened it up on Christmas morning she was both surprised and elated to see her favorite player in all of his illustrated glory.

Oh, and mission accomplished. The picture is proudly displayed in Mom's "baseball room."

Word.

At least I think it's funny

2010-12-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of people, I'm a HUGE fan of the TV show "Dexter," so much in fact that I consider myself a bit of a "Dexpert" when it comes to the characters, storylines, etc.

I have a friend who loves the show just as much as I do. Actually, the more that I think about it, he might love it more considering the way he decorated his house for the season finale last week. It was pretty impressive in a creepy/cool sort of way. Anyway, both he and his wife are big fans and I've had my fair share of Dexter related conversations with the both of them.

A little over a year ago, he and I were joking around and much like he always does, he started to turn on that creepy/cool charm that he's perfected and rant about a variety of subjects. Long story short, he said something that made me call him "the Ether Bunny" thus giving birth to one of the longest running inside jokes I've ever had with anyone.

Last week, just mere hours before said party (see above) I decided that I needed to bring something to the party. Mom always told me it was totally rude to show up to a party empty handed, and since she's done such a fine job raising me, I took her words to heart. I sat down and modified my existing Dexter picture (check back a few months for the original) to feature Dexter's newest arch-nemesis, the Ether Bunny.

The whole thing only took around 2hrs to modify from start to finish. While the likeness, isn't dead on (let's be honest, I'm not a fan of making things look EXACTLY like the person), it's good enough that people know it's him. Once the picture was done, I slapped this little gem inside a frame, wrapped it in some cool Iron Man 2 wrapping paper and brought it with me. While the look on his face when he opened it couldn't have been more underwhelmed, I prefer to think he just didn't know how to express his excitement.

Word.

Worth the wait?

2010-12-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

This is an illustration I did for my friend Brook's 27th birthday. When I first met Brook well over four-and-a-half years ago I did a quick sketch of her on a paper towel with the promise that someday I would do something "a lot better." Since I try to be a man of my word (even four years later), I whipped this up a few hours before we all went out for her birthday.

Brook has been asking me for awhile now to draw a picture of her in a pink business suit that she can use when she starts up her law career. I'll be honest, the thought of anyone wearing a pink suit makes me shudder so I intentionally held off with the hopes that she'd either forget or change her mind. No such luck (she's persistent, what can I say?).

I actually looked a lot of other character models from other artist's to see how they had done the whole "business woman" look. I know fashion changes daily, and since I wear pajamas most of the time, I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any means. I managed to keep the pink, but I had to tone it down a bit to keep it from looking silly.

Anyway, I finished, framed and presented to Brook all within the course of 5 hours. She loved it. I guess the four-and-a-half year wait was sort of worth it after all, eh Brook?

Word.

Time to break out the umbrella

2010-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

So here's a quick logo I created for a new business venture I'm working on with the guy behind Sacrifice apparel/Justified clothing.

The 10-9 Designs company will serve as the umbrella company to all of the brands Jim is currently working on that are in the developmental stages. It makes a lot more sense to do it this way than to develop individual marketing materials for each brand he has, and will eventually develop as time goes on.

I came up with this logo the second Jim and I discussed the name (which, for those who are wondering represents the fact that "sacrifice" and "justified" are both 9 letters, while "blackheart" is 10). I liked the idea of having the "0" encompass the "9" in some sort of retro looking font. I did play around with shapes, fonts for a little while, but once I found the right combination I knew I had exactly what I wanted. I also wanted the logo to resemble those old 1960's corporate logos from record labels, cigarettes, etc. They just have a really cool vibe (smoking is bad though!)

Anyway, here's the final product. Can't say it was really hard at all. Just one of those things that I was able to nail perfectly from the image I head in my head. That happens VERY rarely so I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Word.

A furry little Christmas angel

2010-12-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

With Christmas right around the corner it means one thing: a surplus of Christmas cards from both people you know and don't know. You would think that being "artistically inclined" would mean that I'd make some really cool cards for myself. You'd be half right.

On and off for the past few years my Mom has asked me to do something for her Christmas card. One year it was an illustration of Mom and Mike (step-dad) camping. Another year it was an older photo of my Grandpa, Mom, and my two aunts playing around when they were kids superimposed in front of a Christmas setting. This year we're back to the illustration side.

This year Mom's instructions were very clear. She wanted an illustration of her and Mike tangled up in Christmas lights with her 3 cats looking on mischievously. Sounds simple enough right?

I did one version of the card that just had Mom, Mike, and the cats. Apparently, that wasn't "destructive" enough for her so I was asked to add a fallen tree, and some broken ornaments. Ok, easy enough.

Then.....something major happened.

Mom's youngest cat, Vladimir (the small gray one) has had a heart condition since she first adopted him over 2 years ago. The Vet didn't give him much hope, but Vladimir proved them wrong by living a happy life since his original diagnosis. Unfortunately for us all, Vladimir had an "episode" earlier this week that proved to be more than his heart could take. Rather than subject him to a never ending stay at the vet, and countless people poking and prodding him, Mom decided to let Vladimir go.

I know it definitely wasn't an easy decision, but she did what was best for him.

Instead of removing Vladimir from the card and pretending like he never existed, Mom wanted to remind everyone that while he may be gone, he will always be a part of our family. After I added the wings, and halo, and changed the inside text around a bit, Mom felt that she had both a funny Christmas card and a fitting tribute to Vladimir.

Can't really ask for much more can you?

Dude, you made my ears gigantic!

2010-11-22T18:32:00.000-08:00

Here's the caricature I did of DiAnne Lowe of Snappy Momma Photography fame. As you can clearly see, I did a really quick, weak sketch of her using a red colerase pencil for the structure, a black writing pen for the detail, and a blue sharpie for the outline. I didn't really want to sit and get into a detailed illustration of her in my sketchbook so I just fleshed out what I needed and took care of the rest during the coloring process.

DiAnne was quick to point out the fact that I made her ears gigantic. In all reality, DiAnne is caught somewhere between a hobbit and a garden gnome in the height department so her ears, hands, and head for that matter are not nearly as big as I made them. Psh, details...who needs them??

I will say one thing for myself, I'm getting a lot better at just going straight into digital with my drawings. If I can see the end result then I'll usually just go straight into the final phase rather than sketch, scan, redraw, color, etc.

Still, nothing beats a good ol' sketchbook and a pencil.

Word.

Whoever said veggie lasagna is good is full of it

2010-11-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun, quick little illustration I did for a new friend of mine. I swear, I've been trying to draw this girl for over a week and it's not seeming to come together for me. I'm not sure if I'm over thinking certain shapes or whatever, but I've gone through about 4 pages of my sketchbook and they all look "blah" to me.

Anyway, this new friend (can anyone guess her name? there's a clue cleverly hidden somewhere....) stumbled upon a picture I did of myself as a Simpson character from about 3 years ago and "politely" (and by politely I mean that her "question" had a lot of exclamation marks rather than question marks in it) asked if I would do the same for her.

So last night in between eating some "awesome" (sarcasm) veggie lasagna and waiting for Glee to start I decided to take a crack at it. I scanned through some of her pictures to make sure I captured some key points (bangs, her cute little freckle on her cheek, and her ginormous dog) and let the pencil do it's thing. About 10min later I had the sketch you see at the top of the page. I don't know if it's the style of the Simpsons or if I was just on my game, but it was incredibly easy to do. In fact, the entire picture from start to finish took less than an hour to complete.

Needless to say, I was pretty high on myself last night after that one. I'm also sure she was THRILLED when I sent it to her via text message at 5am this morning. Then again, who doesn't want to be woken up with a custom Simpson-ized version of themselves right? That's what I thought too.

Who doesn't love a good bidness card?

2010-11-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

Now, before anyone goes and messages me to tell me I spelled "business" wrong, it was intentional so just relax.

Here you see some cards I recently designed for various clients of mine. They range from apparel, to photography, to....adventures for the 55+ (sorry Rose, I honestly couldn't think of what category to put you under). Above is the original artwork for each of the cards (front and back) and a picture I snapped with my trusty iPhone of all of the cards printed and sitting on my desk for me to admire.

In all fairness (and I'm sure she'll love this), DiAnne Lowe is much better looking than I made her out to be, and her ears are much smaller. Jim....well, Jim pretty much looks exactly as I made him out to be which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I have to improve my looks when I draw myself, so at least you have that over me.

Haydee-ho

2010-11-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

I really need to work on my jokes. I'm starting to realize I'm not as funny as I like to think I am. Oh well, at least if you say it with the Mr. Hanky voice it might be a lot funnier.

This is the 4th member of the Pearce family I've turned into a caricature (check two entries below to see the Sacrifice guys) thus completing the family - for now. I was asked to do this by Jim, the head cheese at Sacrifice apparel so that Haydee could appear on the Justified business cards much like how each of the guys will appear on their business cards for the Sacrifice side.

This one wasn't very hard at all. About 5min to sketch, and about an hour to color. Jim suggested a few clothing options for Haydee, but everything sounded a little too "Jersey Shore" for my liking. I decided that since the brand is somewhat targeted at a younger audience, we should keep her clothing in line with that. We'll see if it meets her approval.

Ah, scissor me timbers!

2010-11-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone remember that South Park episode? It still cracks me up to this day.

Anyway, here are two commissions I recently finished for my client Ryan Sumstad (he's the Iron Man guy a few entries below) for a company mascot that he wanted named "Brandy." The direction I was given was a sexy female pirate with an attitude....and a sword.

We went back and forth a bit on her overall look, and the size of her feet (I like big, clunky boots) but we were both very pleased with the end result. Above you can see the rough digital sketches I did in Photoshop to give me some sort of basis for the final line drawing/colors. I had to change a few things up, but overall she stayed the same.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how he plans on using Brandy.

Hope you guys like it.

Maybe I should do this for a living?

2010-10-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

For those of you who follow my blog (all 6 of you), by now you should know that I do a lot of freelance design work for a new apparel line called Sacrifice Apparel and it's sister company Justified Clothing. Well, I've been working on some marketing materials for Sacrifice for a few weeks and right when I was about ready to call it officially finished I had a stroke of "genius" (or what I refer to as genius).

I called Jim (the main guy) and proposed the idea of doing caricatures of him and his two sons Jimmy, and Jason to be used on the front of the business cards. People have responded pretty well to mine (which features the drawing of me used in my header at the top of my blog) and I always think it's a good idea to set yourself apart from the same old boring business cards that get passed out daily. He responded to the idea well, and I began work on the three caricatures. First up was Jim since he's the main guy (he's also the one that pays me). His was fairly easy to do - especially since he's bald. I followed his up with his son Jimmy who was a little trickier, and rounded it out with his youngest son Jason who was a breeze.

All-in-all these were fun and fairly easy to do. I'm not one for making the drawings look 100% identical to the person. I like to capture the likeness, and the traits that make them who they are. For Jim it's the bald head and goatee. Jimmy sports an upturned fedora and a rounder nose. Jason (like Jimmy) has a rounder nose and thicker lips (hence the reason I didn't just use a line for their mouths).

Anyway, these were well received by the guys and will be used on some of their marketing materials which I can now complete. I had fun doing these, and I've gotten some subtle hints from their friends/family that they might want one too. Never ends I guess.

Hope you like.

Didn't make him cry, but...

2010-10-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to skip the entry about how I did the Baird character because by now you get the point right? Besides, who wants to read that stuff when you can finally see all of the characters come together in the final illustration I've been rambling on about for over a month.

What you see here is around 2 months of hard work. Each character was meticulously drawn out individually (as you've seen) and then sized accordingly and assembled together to form the Delta squad for the Gears. I really wanted to include more of the grub, but I also didn't want him to appear like he was part of the team so I decided to fade him out and have him appear more as if he's looming over the Gears. Add in some splatter and a vintage-y/distressed look and I think you capture the essence of the game and it's world. Oh, and let's not forget the name. That was drawn by hand in about 15min using a scan from the box art. There's a few issues with it, but it's hardly noticeable....right??

The top picture is my Nephew Cameron holding his one of a kind (sort of) Gears poster framed, and signed. He didn't quite cry, but I could tell by the look on his face that he DEFINITELY wasn't expecting it. Good thing he never checks out my blog or the surprise would've been ruined. I suspect that's going to change now that he knows I can draw the "Gears" characters. Isn't that right Cameron?

Get your grub on

2010-10-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the 4th character for my "Gears of War" illustration. The entire picture is actually completed and has been given to Cameron (my nephew) already, but I haven't had time to update my blog with a recent move I made.

This guy presented some interesting challenges since he (A) isn't human and (B) has more of a reptilian appearance with the scales and slimy appearance. I had the other guys down to a science at this point, but this guy threw me for a loop. I had to approach this one a bit differently from a design standpoint and a color standpoint as well. The research I did had the "grub" in mostly a dirty golden armor, but I didn't think there was enough contrast so I decided to add in some different colors to make it appear more as if these guys had pieced their armor together from scraps they've recovered from fallen enemies, etc.

All-in-all this guy took around 10 hours to do. If you notice, I added some slight white highlights to areas on both his skin and armor to give it that wet and slimy look. Not really sure if that conveys properly with a vector image, but that was the intention.

Hope you guys like it!

"You've got more of a Tony Stark vibe..."

2010-09-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

Picked up a commission the other day for a friend of a friend who wanted himself done up in a fun animated style. After talking specifics, and seeing some pictures I was off and running.

Initially Ryan (the client) wanted a Bruce Wayne look similar to what had been seen in the animated Batman series from the 90's. After looking at his pictures I started to think he was a lot more Tony Stark and a lot less Bruce Wayne (that's not a bad thing).

After sending him one sketch that was completely off, I went back to the drawing board (literally) and came up with something that resembled Ryan a lot more. Originally, he wanted to be drawn in a suit. The only problem with that is that when you put someone in a dark suit you lose almost all of your detail with body shape and color. I suggested we lose the suit jacket, he agreed, and we were ready to go.

I sent him another sketch which he approved. I then did the line work and actually started to color before he gave me the green light (I had a hunch). About an hour later and there he was in full animated form and color. He loved it.

Little brothers can be a pain sometimes

2010-09-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun little break from my "Gears of War" illustration that I'm working on. I'm a big geek, and as such I LOVE me some comic book movies. Some haven't been so good (Wanted I'm looking at you), but others have been dead on (Dark Knight, Kick Ass I'm looking at you). Having seen just about every single comic book movie ever made it's only natural that I'm overly excited for the next wave to hit theaters in 2011. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the Norse god of thunder himself, Thor make his big screen appearance.

Like most people who didn't attend Comic Con this year, I sat by on a daily basis and read all the reports from the panels, and watched all of the leaked footage before it was yanked down, including the full blown trailer for "Thor."

I kid you not, I must've watched that thing 20-30x freeze framing, rewinding, enlarging and analyzing every aspect of the trailer so I could see all of the detail in the costumes, sets and characters themselves. Since my favorite Thor villain has always been his mischievous adopted brother Loki, I made sure to pay close attention to the shots of him during the trailer. While I didn't really get a good look at actor Tom Hiddleston in full costume, I took what I saw, added my own spin and came up with a quick little sketch for how I think he'll look in the film.

The first sketch was a little too comic inspired with the helmet resting more like a crown. The second sketch is more in line with the helmet from the film that covers the top and sides of Loki's head. One hour later and I had my version of Loki in full color.

Nothing major. Just for fun. Now I want to do a Thor version in the worst way.

Here comes the train

2010-09-23T15:04:00.000-07:00

Just finished off the third character for my Gears of War illustration, none other than the Cole Train - Augustus Cole.

I actually started Cole about 3 weeks ago but he had to take a back seat to some actual work that I took on. I picked at him little by little, but today I had a few hours of down time and I decided to finish him off since I've only got 3 weeks left until the birthday party where I present this as a gift.

By now I've gotten these down to a science of sorts. It's still extremely time consuming, but I'm not spending so much time experimenting with the style and look like I did with Marcus. As I did with Dom (the last one), I wanted to keep the armor looking relatively the same, but I still wanted Cole to retain some of his own style hence a bit more color on his armor.

Like always, I'll stare at this thing for an hour or so and then decide I don't like it at all and completely change the colors, but for now I'm calling it wraps. I like the way it looks, and when I put him next to the other 2 he looked great. I'm really getting excited to see this thing finished but then I remember that I've got 3 more characters to go and that excitement turns to dread.

For those who have been asking, these illustrations are based off of the early concept work for Gears of War 3. I did not design these characters, I'm simply interpreting them in my own style and giving them my own special touch. I'd hate anyone to think I'm claiming credit for the great work the design team behind the "GoW" games have put in.

3 down. 3 to go!

And the party keeps on going

2010-08-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a follow up from my last blog featuring the second character from the "Gears of War" picture I am working on as a late birthday present for my nephew Cameron. The character above is named Dominic Santiago or "Dom" as he's called in the game.

Same sort of process for this one as the Marcus picture, however in adding the color I did try to keep things relatively the same in relation to Marcus. Since these guys are all part of an elite squad I wanted their armor to remain the same color. The padding/soft armor underneath I did change because I did want them to have their own kind of style in some sense. While Marcus has the gray/blue combo, I wanted to give Dom something a little different so I stuck him with the beige/tan color to help break everything up.

Another thing I added this time around that I completely left out is....blood. I mean these games are VIOLENT. There's pretty much blood and gore every where you look in the game and for me to leave that out of the picture would be like me leaving out Superman's cape. It just has to be there. On Dom I added in some splatter to the gun, then some to his boots, and then a little more to his chest plate and gloves. I figure these guys mix it up and get dirty all over and that needed to show. I wanted to keep the blood off of his face because I thought that might be over doing it just a tad.

I liked the way the blood turned out so much that I went back and tweaked Marcus too. Next up, the third character in the series. I'm not going to tell you who it is, but I'll give you a hint...choo choo!

Sometimes waiting for a birthday present isn't so bad

2010-08-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

My Nephew Cameron is without a doubt the biggest "Gears of War" fan I've ever seen. I love the games, story, and artwork just as much as the next guy, but Cameron takes this to an entirely different level. The kid (and by kid I mean he just turned 19) has never been much of a reader, but when a new "GOW" book comes out he's all over it.

He had begged me to take him to Comic Con this year, but he asked me about a month before the event which didn't work out since I get the letter for my "industry pass" around April/May and I'm supposed to respond within 2 weeks. He was pretty bummed out that he didn't get to go because apparently there was some con-exclusive "GOW" schwag being given out. I looked up some of the posters they were giving out, and they were definitely cool. Would I stand in line for hours to get one? No. Still cool though.

Cameron is so desperate to get one of these pictures, he's resorted to engaging in bidding wars on eBay with no such luck. After he told me that he's "going to die if he doesn't get one" I started thinking...."hmm, I can probably do something in the vein of the "Gears" universe for him. The only problem is, Cameron is INCREDIBLY picky. If it doesn't look EXACTLY like the characters from the game then he's disappointed. No pressure right?

Cameron celebrated his birthday on Aug 2nd, and since there's yet to be a formal party for him, I wasn't able to see him. I decided to try my hand at a full blown poster for him feature the characters from the series. Originally I was going to keep it simple and somewhat "animated" as is my style, but after seeing some of the artwork I started to feel pretty inspired. I want to stay true to the characters and style of the games and maintain that gritty, edgy look. I decided to experiment when a new style that would keep those elements, but also put my stamp on it.

I had pictured the whole thing in my head, but how do I make that come to life?

What you see here is a progression of the main character, Marcus Fenix as he went from a line drawing to a full blown illustrated/colored drawing. This was no easy task. Since I was experimenting the entire time, Marcus took around 10 days to complete from start to finish. As I started to get closer to the end, I tried to figure out how to color him and what colors I was going to use. I decided to mix up the colors just a tad because normally the characters and their armor are VERY dark. That won't look good in print.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the way he came out. I'd say he's about 95% the way I originally pictured him. I had to improvise on a few things for the sake of time and my sanity, but I do think he looks pretty good. Here's the catch....Marcus is 1 of 6 characters I'm going to do for this poster. Next up will be the full Delta Squad and a "grub" (if you've played the game then you know what I'm talking about).

Guess I better stop yapping and get back to work huh?

No sacrifice, no glory (updated)

2010-08-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know I've used this title before (hence the "updated" part) but I just recently finished up the web sheets for all of the designs from each brand and I thought I'd share them with you since they're a bit more official now.

From top to bottom we have:

Freedom (Black only)
Victory (Red & White)
Sanctuary (White only)
Sacrifice (White, Red & Black)
Fallen Soldier (White, Khaki & Green)
Conflict (White & Red)

These are all of the approved designs that will be going to print with the initial run of t-shirts later on this month (keep your fingers crossed). I'm VERY anxious to see these printed and get some in hand. The reaction has been great thus far, and I'm always blown away when I see people wearing something I helped create. It really is pretty flattering to say the least.

Anyway, I'll be sure to post pictures of the shirts when they come back from the printer. I'll also include info on where to order so YOU can get yours. Gotta support the cause right?

Cuz you gotta have F...F...Faith

2010-08-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Does it sound like I'm stuttering or do you get the George Michael reference?

Anyway, this is the latest design for the Justified Clothing brand. It's a bit of a play on the "Sanctuary" design that I did a few months back for the Sacrifice brand, and even incorporates the same cross. I like to tie things together, what can I say?

What I wanted to do with this one was to make it a bit more angelic and feminine. While it still does feature the same cross as the "Sanctuary" design, I wanted it to a lot less bulky and a lot more streamlined. I thought adding the ivy wreath was a good idea because it seems to form a halo shape towards the top of the design. Adding the flourishes and ornate patterns was done simply to give the background a little something extra to fill space on the shirt. The wings....well, that's pretty obvious isn't it?

Jim (the owner of Sacrifice/Justified) posted this on his Facebook page and it was met with a pretty positive reaction. I think it's a solid design, and doesn't cross the line of adding too many elements simply for no good reason. I'm not a fan of that at all.

Anyway, I hope you like.

Happy Anniversary

2010-08-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

Like the new header? I felt it was appropriate to switch it up a bit.

Today marks the one year anniversary that I went into business for myself full time. Yep, I've officially been on my own for 12 whole months, and to be honest with you....I couldn't be happier.

Ever since I was old enough to pick up a pencil I've dreamed of the day when I could draw for a living. It doesn't really matter what I'm drawing, the fact that someone is hiring me to do something I love to do is very flattering to say the least.

When I left my last job it was due mainly to the fact that I just didn't feel like my efforts were being appreciated at all. I felt like I produced some really quality work, but it went downhill as I was given task after task and never really told "good job" or "that looks great." Words like that can mean the world to a creative person. I still feel that in my last few months with the company I turned out some really good stuff, but I'd be lying if I said I poured my heart and soul into everything I turned out.

After I left my last full time job I had no real plan at all. I had saved my money so I had a bit of padding if I needed it, but I really had no business model that I could lay out and say "ok, this is where I start." I just knew that if I wanted to make this work I was going to have to hustle. And that's exactly what I did. I refined my logo, started adding to this blogspot like a madman (yes, I know I've slacked since then), printed business cards, gave my portfolio a MAJOR overhaul (I've since gone digital too...ooh fancy) and basically started hounding anyone and everyone who need some form of art.

The first few months were rough to say the least. No one knew who I was. I was just some kid with a goofy name, no real official website, and a lot of ideas that some people didn't like. To say that I had to sell myself is an understatement. But hey, that's the name of the game right?

Things have definitely picked up since then. I've built a steady client base that I would hope knows that no matter what, knows I always try to turn out quality work, and even though my ideas might differ from theirs, I always offer them with the best intentions. I feel like it's my job to speak up when I don't think something is right. Sometimes my ideas are approved, and other times they're turned down, but at least they're heard, and for that I am grateful.

So, on this one year anniversary of Average Joe Art being full time, I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me stay afloat when it seems like businesses I grew up with are going under.

Thanks to Pam for taking the time out to teach me about social networking when I had absolutely NO clue what any of this was. Thanks to the guys at Milifidel for letting me help build a great brand and share in their passion. Thanks to Frank at Serve 'n Swerve for letting a complete car novice ask question after question about how to draw a car properly. Thanks to Jim at Sacrifice/Justified for always listening to my input and taking my ideas seriously. Thanks to Rachel for taking awesome pictures while wearing some shirts I designed even when she secretly thinks I'm not touching her site. Thanks to the guys at Left Coast Threads for always referring me to other people. Thanks to Henley Motorsports for letting me do their logo in 30min flat. Thanks to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin for letting a die-hard fan work with his childhood hero on some fun stuff. And last, but not least, thanks to everyone who follows me on twitter, or "likes" my fan page on Facebook. It doesn't matter if you're a paying client or not. I read/listen to everything you say, and I appreciate all of the comments and criticism you offer me. It's always a great feeling when someone tells you how much they like your work, and every time I get a "like" or a comment about something I've done, it always makes me smile.

So while this might sound like some long winded, pretentious acceptance speech for a non existent award, I guess what I'm trying to say is - Thanks for everything. You guys have all made a lifelong dream come true and it means a lot to me.

Now I'll shut up and get back to drawing funny little pictures.

Nothing beats the good ol' days

2010-07-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

My Mom just had a birthday on Monday, July 12th (don't worry Mom, I won't say how old you are). I didn't get to see her because she had some things going on, namely Angels baseball, but today, July 15th we went out to breakfast at one of our favorite places - Katella Deli.

For the past few weeks I had been trying to figure out just what to get Mom for her birthday. She sent me a list a few weeks ago with some ideas for gift cards, but I thought that was pretty boring, I mean anyone can do that right? Every year for her birthday, Christmas, Mother's day, etc I always try to think of something to give Mom that will outdo the previous year. Some times I pull it off, and some times I completely fail. This year I really wanted to give her something that she'd like. I mean what do you honestly buy for the woman that has EVERYTHING?

Then I got to thinking, should I do a photo collage of some sort? Nah, I've done that. Maybe lunch and a movie? Again, anyone can do that. Hmm...then it hit me. Why not go "old school" and make her something? I mean parents always tell their kids how much they appreciate hand made gifts over store bought ones right? Why shouldn't that still apply now that I'm older?

When I was a kid (specifically around 2nd - 5th grade) Mom used to have these days that she called "Mommy and Joey days" where she'd pick me up from school early and we'd go out and see the latest sci-fi, action, or Disney movie that I had been wanting to see. The kicker is that when I'd get in the car Mom would always have t-shirts, toys, posters, etc waiting for me. It was always like an early Christmas.

I loved these days not simply because I was treated too all sorts of neat and exciting things, but because Mom took the time out to plan these days because she knew it was something I would enjoy. I guess you could say it was the thought that counted the most. It also helped that when I went to school the next day I was the envy of all of the other kids because not only had I got to leave early, but I came back sporting the latest and greatest in boy's fashion. Nothing screams "cool" like a bright purple t-shirt with the Ninja Turtles on the front and the word "cowabunga" written across the back. If only they made those in my size nowadays - I'd be the envy all over again.

I will never forget the "Mommy and Joey days." Every time I think about them it always brings a giant smile to my face - the movies, the toys, and most importantly, the time spent with Mom. We have very few traditions in my family, but that was one that I've always held nearest and dearest to my heart and something I hope to continue one day with my own kids.

Thanks Mom.

Something for the ladies

2010-07-15T09:27:00.001-07:00

Another round of t-shirt designs for the Justified brand from Sacrifice Apparel are now in the can. These 2 couldn't be any more different from each other if I wanted them to be. The first design, entitled "Love" was honestly inspired by the movie Edward Scissorhands. I was picking away at some ideas and I had the movie playing in the background with Tim Burton's commentary on. Given Burton's unique style and the overall tone of the movie, I started messing around with some shapes and ideas. I want to say at some point in the commentary Burton said the line "if I know what love is, it's because of you." Then again maybe I'm just making things up and pulling things from my extensive library of nonsense I have locked away in my head. Who knows?

The second design, entitled "Beauty" is an idea I got from seeing a girl walking around the mall. The girl was probably around 19yrs old and had a giant print of a really beautiful pin up girl across her shirt. I didn't get a chance to take a picture because, well, that would be creepy (I've done it before), but I did remember the concept. Mine is a little bit different. Instead of using a pin up girl I wanted to feature a more modern looking woman. Jim (the guy behind both brands) suggested that we give her a bit of an edge hence the rib tattoo. At first I was a bit hesitant because it sounded too cliche, but now I like it. I think it plays off of the modern woman nicely.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with these two designs. The response has been positive thus far and I'm hoping to continue that trend with my next few....only three more left!

We all need a little hope

2010-07-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

I've been hard at work lately on creating some new artwork for the various clothing companies I freelance for. Some take longer than others, and some require a greater amount of detail than others. With the Justified line from Sacrifice Apparel the makers are specifically targeting women. The brand is for women and about women.

I'm pretty familiar with the trends in women's fashion, but this brand presented a new challenge to me. How do you not only help launch a new brand, but come up with artwork that conveys the strength, power, and beauty that most women covet? That's no easy task. It's certainly a lot harder than coming up with some military inspired artwork, or drawing TV characters for friend's birthdays.

What you see above is the first design that was created for the brand. Entitled "Hope," this shirt has a lot of ornate, detailed elements. The opposing angels represent hope, the flowers represent beauty, and the crown in the center is meant to represent power/strength. Maybe I pulled it off, and maybe I didn't. The general response thus far has been fairly positive so I'm hoping that stays true when the shirt is released a little later on.

A big thanks to everyone

2010-06-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

After posting both my "Stone Cold" and "True Blood" pictures I've received a really positive response from everyone who's seen them. Earlier today "Stone Cold" Steve Austin himself tweeted a picture of the framed version I gave him of the "Stone Cold" picture and within 10min I had a good amount of people telling me how much they loved the picture. Thanks Steve.

A lot of my friends who are "True Blood" fans really like the picture I did as a gift for my friend Vince's birthday. Since posting the pictures on Sat I've gotten several requests for prints of both pictures. I'm trying to figure out if/how I go about doing a run of these and my Dexter picture and sending them out. As we speak I've got the "Stone Cold, True Blood" and "Dexter" pictures being turned into 18x24 prints for me to frame. I'll post pics when they're finished.

In the meantime, I decided to follow the same suit as my "Dexter" picture and turn these illustrations into wallpapers for everyone. I know the sizes on computers vary so I did the best I could trying to find universal sizes for everyone.

Right now, I have the "Stone Cold" picture as my desktop wallpaper. It looks great. I really like the color and how it pops on the screen. If any of you decide to use these, snap a picture and send it to me. I always get a kick out of seeing that.

That's enough rambling for me. Enjoy!

I wanna do bad things with you

2010-06-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm a HUGE fan of HBO's "True Blood" series. I had heard good things about the show when it originally premiered a few years ago, but I never got around to watching the first season. I just figured they were trying to cash in on the "Twilight" phenomenon and I wasn't interested in anything like that. How wrong I was.

I caught the first episode OnDemand and 2min into it I was hooked. I managed to watch the entire season almost in one sitting - it was bad. I completely shut myself off from the outside world and became a little bit too involved in the world of Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton.

The 3rd season premiered last Sunday and did some pretty big numbers. Right after the show I had a few people text message me to see if I watched it, and what I thought. After awhile I started to notice that just about everyone I know that's a fan, is female. Interesting...

A friend of mine, Vincent, is also a big fan of the show. He and his wife Nicole even went as Bill and Sookie for Halloween (was it Halloween Vince?) one year and managed to look pretty convincing. After thinking about it, I realized that Vincent is the only other guy I know aside from myself that loves this show. Go figure right?

I went to Vincen't birthday party yesterday at the beach, and about 6hrs before I left I was still giftless. I went through his Amazon.com wish list to see what I could pick up, but after some thought I figured his other friends/family would take care of most of that stuff. I wanted to give him something original. Something no one else could give him. I decided to do a True Blood illustration.

The concept was fairly easy to come up with: Bill and Sookie. And if any True Blood fans are wondering why Eric isn't in the picture....well, because I didn't want him in the picture. Maybe I'll do another one and include him, but for now this is what you get. Anyway, the picture took about 1hr to draw out and about 3hrs to color. Since I refuse to use layers when I color, there was A LOT of copy/paste in front/in back going on. I might have to rethink this layers thing.

The background has become somewhat of a "thing I do" where I take the drawing, strip the color, blow it up and paste it very faintly in the background of the picture. I've seen a lot of other artist's do it and I've always loved the way it looks. I found an image of the True Blood label as seen on the bottles, recreated that, and then recreated the shows logo and I was done. The color scheme changed quite a bit as well. I wanted to make it somewhat gritty like the show's intro (look it up, it's awesome) so I had to experiment a bit.

Anyway, I framed the picture (after 10 trys because my printer wouldn't work) and presented it to him yesterday. He loved it and his wife Nicole immediately demanded one of her own. Sorry Nicole - you guys can share. Sharing is caring. Duh.

I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I feel like I'm on a roll this week so I want to keep it going. I dare say this picture is....FANGtastic! eh? eh? ok, nevermind. I'll stick to the art and leave the jokes to people who are actually funny.

Stone Cold!, Stone Cold!

2010-06-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Man, no one calls a wrestling match like good ol' JR.

When I was a kid (and by kid I mean well into my teens too) I was a HUGE fan of the WWF. I grew up watching guys like Ultimate Warrior, Macho Man, Hogan, and Andre the Giant duke it out in the squared circle. Watching those guys perform was entertaining, and they always put on a show, but for me that's all it was. Sure they had their story lines going on, and you never quite knew who was going to come out on top, but once the show was over - that was it. At least that's how it was until a specific guy broke the mold for the WWF - a specific guy named "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

When "Stone Cold" burst onto the scene in 1996 by defeating Jake "The Snake" Roberts at the King of the Ring tournament and coining the infamous "Austin 3:16" phrase, I knew that for me, wrestling and the WWF would never be the same. I was right. I tuned in every week to Monday Night RAW, bought every PPV, wore every t-shirt and played every video game that featured "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I even remember sitting on the edge of my seat during his feud with Degeneration-X heading into WrestleMania 14 in 1998. All the odds were stacked against Austin heading into that PPV, and when he landed the patented "Stone Cold Stunner" on Shawn Michaels for the 1-2-3, it was officially the beginning of the Austin era.

During his run no one was hotter than "Stone Cold." He was everywhere, TV, toys, video games, magazines, posters, you name it and he was on it. And I was right there along with him. I couldn't even tell you how much money my parents shelled out for "Stone Cold" merchandise. All I know is that I had anything and everything that sported a bald head, goatee and a smoking skull t-shirt.

Recently, through the power of twitter, I came into contact with "Stone Cold." I sent him a tweet to which he replied. To say that those 140 characters he sent me made my night would be a gross understatement. Throughout the next couple of weeks I would reply to things he would say, and I would get the occasional response. Again, always made my night. One night in particular, he sent me a message saying that he saw my artwork and liked what he saw. Man, you couldn't pry the grin off of my face if you tried.

Anyway, long story short (if that's even possible at this point) having your childhood hero call you at home and compliment your work and talk about a few different things is one of the biggest compliments someone like me can get. It's always a great feeling when people respond to something you've created, but to have someone that you've admired for so long pay you a compliment, is one of the best feelings I've experienced in my career.

I got the opportunity to have breakfast with "Stone Cold" this morning and go over a few things. I'm a little bit older than I was during his run in the WWF (ok, I'm a lot older) but I'm still just as much of a fan. 14 years ago I stood in line to meet him, and when I got my chance, the best I could come up with was "do you know who you are?" That's a story my friends like to bring up even to this day. Now I'm sitting across the table from him eating breakfast.

If I hadn't been a fan before meeting him, I would have become one anyway after today. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was always this larger than life persona who didn't trust anyone, and stood up for the "average joe" (pun intended) - the real Steve Austin is a very nice, complimentary and really funny guy. Talking to him is like talking to one of your buddies that you've known for years.

What you see above is a picture I did for Steve in the wee hours of the morning before our meeting. In all the times I've attended events, or stood in line to meet him, I always made sure I drew him a picture - unfortunately the people at the events would never let me give my picture to him. I told myself that if I ever had the opportunity to meet him one on one, I would give him a piece of my art. Today was my day. I spent about 5hrs on the picture from start to finish and I'm very proud of the final product. When I presented it to Steve I was a bit on edge. I've always believed that giving someone a piece of your art is like giving someone a piece of yourself. I was giving "Stone Cold" a piece of my childhood - something he was a big part of. His reaction meant the world to me. He loved it.

While it broke my heart to see Austin ride off into the sunset following WrestleMania XIX in 2003, I was glad to see him do it on his terms - just like he always did. I have followed Austin in and out of the ring. Anything that had his name on it automatically got my money. I've never seen an episode of "Chuck" but I watched when Austin was on. I usually don't buy movies I haven't seen but I did with Austin's movies.

I hate to gush, and come across as the ultimate fan boy (Steve, if you're reading this I apologize) but as a kid there were always 3 people I looked up to - He-Man, Superman and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I'm pretty sure I'll never meet the first two, but that's ok because the fact that I got to meet Austin, and FINALLY give him a piece of my artwork more than makes up for it.

Thanks for the memories Steve. I'm sure you've heard it more times than you can remember, but all of those years of hard work, traveling, and dedication mean the world to me. I appreciate everything you've ever done to entertain myself and the countless fans. No matter what, you've got a lifelong fan in me. I've been a part of the ride for this long, and I'll be along for the ride for as long as you decide to keep going.

Gotta love apple

2010-06-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Just like most geeks, I'm big on the latest apple craze. Ever since purchasing my beloved iMac last year I've been following everything they've released. While I've been unable to get an iPhone due to not being eligible for an upgrade through AT&T (which will change next week), I love just about everything they put out.

When they released the new iPad a few months ago, the geek in me was dying to get my hands on one and see what the buzz was all about. After talking myself out of it for a few weeks, I stumbled upon an artist's blog that showed drawings he did on the iPad - wait, you can draw on this thing?? That was enough to sell me on it.

I called about 4 different apple stores in my area and the only one that had it was the one in Newport Beach about 20+ miles away. Didn't matter. Within the hour I was the owner of a brand new 32GB iPad.

I've had this thing for a little less than a month and I absolutely love it. Sure, people want to say "oh it's just a big iPhone" but isn't the iPhone just a smaller, more portable version of my iMac with less features? The cool thing about the iPad is that I can download my entire portfolio into my iPhoto account and carry it around with me. It sure beats having to print everything out, and it makes presenting my art a breeze. Add the fact that I'm able to sketch out ideas without having to carry my entire art bag with me (although nothing beats the old school way), and I can easily say this thing has just made what I do a whole hell of a lot easier.

The first thing I did was download the Sketchbook Pro app and practice, practice, practice. I still haven't mastered everything there is to know, but I'm slowly progressing. I've been experimenting with the different brushes, pencils, layers, etc. I like to think I'm getting better at it.

Anyway, here are a few samples of the sketches I've done on the iPad. I did buy one of those Pogo stylus pens, but I find that I use my fingers to draw on the screen more than anything.

And yes....that IS Justin Bieber.

Lookin' Fine

2010-06-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

First off I want to apologize to Rachel Fine for using a really, really bad pun on her name. No joke, I sat in front of my screen and watched the cursor blink for 15min and that's the best I could come up with for a title. As a "creative person" I feel ashamed of myself right about now.

Anyhoo....here are some new shots of singer/songwriter and Howard TV's "The Bonus Show" co-host, Rachel Fine sporting some of the women's shirts from the Milifidel line.

Rachel took a vacation and visited the Veteran's Memorial in DC, and being the team player that she is, she made sure to pack the stuff I sent her so she could snap some shots of her "in action." What's funny is that the second to bottom picture of her in the "We Can Do It!" t-shirt (with Rosie the Riveter) is taken in front of the Women's Memorial....it was also completely unintentional. Talk about a stroke of genius....sort of (I kid, I kid!)

All of the pictures look great, but I'd have to say that my absolute favorite is the one of her next to the wall (bottom picture). The girl definitely knows how to play to the camera and set up a shot.

Well done Ms. Fine.

Be sure to check Rachel out at her official website, and on Facebook (she's currently waging a war against Mayor McCheese), and follow her on twitter @RachelFineMusic

http://rachelfine.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Westminster-CA/Average-Joe-Art/110757198962774?ref=sgm&__a=4#!/pages/Official-Rachel-Fine-Fan-Page/123383267687185

Finally done!

2010-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

What we have here are the final designs for the initial launch from Sacrifice Apparel. From top to bottom you've got "Perserverance" which benefits the breast cancer research foundation. Below that is "Fallen Soldier," "Conflict" (in 2 colors), and "Victory." Each sale from the "Fallen Soldier" t-shirt will benefit the intrepid fallen heroes foundation, and sales from the women's "Perseverance" shirt will benefit the BCRF as I mentioned.

With the exception of the "Justified" shirt, each one of these shirts was no joke. The "Conflict" alone went through about 4 variations before being decided upon. There is so much detail in that design I'm really anxious to see if the printer will be able to pull it off on the final product. While I have my issues with the design, the people behind the brand are pleased with it which is what matters.

Both the "Fallen Soldier" and "Victory" shirts were a little tough to do as well because of the amount of detail that went into each one. The soldier shirt is meant to look sketch and rough, same with the clouds behind (which I did not draw). The "Victory" shirt was somewhat tricky, but nothing compared to the other two. It's a pretty straight forward design that MMA fans should pick up on (hopefully).

Now that the initial designs are all wrapped up, I'm anxious to see if we'll be adding more to either line so we can really launch the brand strong in the coming weeks. I've already got ideas floating around in my head, it's just a matter of whether or not the "powers that be" want to move forward. In the meantime I'm pretty pleased with how everything turned out.

Sucker for a pretty face

2010-05-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of the Howard Stern show for as long as I can remember. I've listened faithfully for years, and even followed over when he made the jump to SIRIUS (now SIRIUS XM) in 2006. I'm such a fan, I even pay a monthly fee for "Howard TV" through Time Warner cable which I absolutely love. One of my favorite things about the service is that it has a ton of original programming including my new favorite, "The Bonus Show" which basically serves as a weekly guide into the musings around the Howard Stern offices.

A friend of mine actually turned me onto the show back in April simply because, as he put it "dude, there's this really hot chick who co-hosts it" (sorry John Hein, it's not you). After watching a couple of the episodes I was hooked. Sure the co-host in question is definitely easy on the eyes, but it's actually a really entertaining show. There hasn't been an episode yet that hasn't left me in tears from laughing so hard.

Enter the magic of Twitter. What I love about this thing is that it allows every day people to communicate with each other. Doesn't matter who you are, or what you do for a living, it's a very easy way to communicate with your friends, family, or people you see on TV. I love it. I especially love when the higher profile people actually respond. It humanizes them and I'm very much drawn to that.

I began to "tweet" back and forth with one Rachel Fine (the "really hot chick who co-hosts the show" for those of you who haven't caught on yet) about the show and other things, and by chance we got on the subject of her website/the work that I do. Without going into specifics, we struck up a deal under the "don't be a dick" agreement and set out to scratch each other's backs (I'm reminded of the scene in Superbad with Jonah Hill's famous "too bad my back is located.....anyway."

Long story short (if that's possible at this point) I sent Rachel a box filled with shirts I had worked on for the Milifidel brand. Not only was she complimentary of the work (flattery will get you everywhere), she was kind enough to snap a few pics of her wearing the shirts in the SIRIUS XM studios in NY.

Aside from seeing an attractive woman sporting my artwork across her chest (that's another story), it made me smile to see something I created make it into the hallowed halls of the Howard Stern show. Rachel has been super easy to work with, and I sincerely hope we can continue our "back scratching" for some time. The girl is super talented, and I look forward to watching her take off. If I can have even the slightest role in driving attention to her, then I will feel extremely satisfied with my work....and if I can get a few more pics of her sporting my art, I guess that's not so bad either.

Thanks Rachel.

http://rachelfine.com/
http://twitter.com/RachelFineMusic
Look for her on Facebook too!

My faith has been restored

2010-05-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've been a Disney fan for as long as I can remember. Growing up with a passion for art/drawing meant that everyone I knew automatically assumed I wanted to become a Disney animator when I was older. While I'd be lying if I said that wasn't in the back of my mind, any aspirations I had were somewhat put to rest when the company stopped making traditional 2D animated features in 2003.

Last year when Disney released it's first 2D animated feature in nearly a decade, "The Princess & The Frog," I wasn't really convinced that it would live up to the classics I grew up with like Aladdain, Lion King, and of course my personal favorite Beauty & The Beast.

Oh how wrong I was. I rented a copy from my trust Netflix and finally got the chance to sit down and watch it yesterday afternoon. Within 15min I was sold. Not only had Disney returned to the style that made it THE studio for animation, it did so in a way I'd never seen before.

The movie is not only one of the most visually stunning Disney movies, it's also a great story, and features a cast of characters that I honestly believe will one day be among the ranks of Flounder, the Seven Dwarves, Jiminey Cricket and Tinkerbell. I loved every single character in that movie. That's rare.

I could go on and on about this movie, but I would STRONGLY recommend that you, and everyone you know take the time to check this one out. If you're like me, and have been missing out on the traditional Disney movies, this will completely restore your faith in the "house of mouse."

The above sketch is of the film's villain, the Facilier, voiced by the always incredible Keith David. It was done as a warm up before I had to do some other projects, and was done entirely in Photoshop in about 30min.

Brawny man who?

2010-05-14T16:20:00.001-07:00

Here's something that might shock you: I watch cartoons. In fact, I watch a lot of cartoons. I'd say about 65% of the shows set to record on my DVR are animated in some fashion. Of all the shows (not just limited to cartoons mind you) I watch, Ben 10 is, and has been one of my favorites for years.

If you don't know what the show is about then take a quick trip over to www.wikipedia.org and look it up yourself because I'm FAR too lazy to type out a synopsis. I will tell you that the show is currently in it's 3rd incarnation titled "Ben 10: Ultimate Alien" which features a slightly older Ben than he appears in my picture.

The sketch you see above was done while waiting for a UFC fight to start at my local Hooters (where a kid can be a kid). While the "average joe" (no pun intended) might just see a roll of paper towels to wipe his greasy mits on, I see an endless supply of sketching paper at my disposal.

This was actually done several months ago and I just got around to scanning it in. I threw some rough colors on it so I can warm up for my real work to begin. Nothing big, just showing my love for the character and the show.

Maybe Ben could take over for the Brawny man? He's had a long enough run.

Express yo'self

2010-05-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a really good response from people about my entry into the DEXTER fan art contest. At first I wasn't sure if anyone would like it since it's a far cry from the gritty nature of the show. I was pleasantly surprised to hear how many people enjoyed my interpretation of the character.

Earlier today I decided to change the wallpaper on my MAC. The "Nightmare on Elm Street" poster had run it's course and I wanted something new. After searching around I thought "why not use my own artwork?" so that's what I did. I re-sized the picture to fit my screen, but then I thought "why stop there?" and I decided to make 3 different sizes just in case anyone else wanted to Dexter-ize their computer.

I hope you guys enjoy. If you end up using it for a wallpaper send me a pic!

America's favorite serial killer

2010-05-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

I am a hardcore fan of the Showtime series "DEXTER." So much so that I consider myself a bit of a Dex-pert....haha, get it? Anyway, last week a friend of mine brought to my attention the fact that Sho.com was holding an art contest for DEXTER fans. She's also a fan and told me that I HAD to enter. Before she even finished her sentence an idea had popped into my head as to what I could do.

I gave it some thought and said "ok, I'll do it" and left it at that. While waiting for the UFC fights to start at my local Hooters this past Saturday I began to sketch out my idea figuring I would do something really rough and see how I liked it. Well, about 45min later I came out with something that I was pretty fond of. Yeah it was rough (that's why it's a sketch) but I was pretty pleased that I was able to nail the idea in my head almost 100% accurately on paper...that rarely happens for any artist.

I wanted the image to capture the duality of Dexter's personalities. On one hand you have this polite, charming, charismatic guy that everyone wants to be friends with, and on the other hand you have this dark, tortured, blood thirsty side that is only going to grow after the events of season 4 (if you haven't seen it, shame on you!). I purposely used darker colors, heavier shading and sharper angles on the darker side. On the brighter side, things are a lot more rounded, with lighter colors and less shading.

When I got home that night I took the sketch, cleaned it up in Photoshop (using my new trusty Bamboo touch pad) and began experimenting with color to see how that was going to work. 3hrs later I had to call it a night since I had to wake up early for Mother's day.

Last night (Sunday) I set aside a few hours to knock this thing out and get it entered before the 5/14 cut off date. After about 4hrs and me over analyzing everything about the drawing (I hate when I do that), I decided the picture was finished. I even managed to re-draw the show's logo and fit that into the picture. Needless to say, I was pretty high on myself.

This morning I made a few minor tweaks and decided I wouldn't mess with it anymore. In fact, I'm going to just submit it so I can't go back and nitpick over and over.

Artwork has to be submitted by 5/14. On 5/21 members from Showtime will pick their top 10 designs and announce them on 6/14. Voting to the public will be open until 6/21 and a winner will be announced in early July. The grand prize winner gets their designed turned into the official 2010 DEXTER t-shirt for Comic Con, $250, all seasons of the show on DVD, and a chance to have their artwork sold as official DEXTER merchandise on Sho.com.

I trust I can count on your vote....right?? Wish me luck!

"Hey, I need a favor from you"

2010-05-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

I got a message from the guys at Milifidel the other day that said they needed a favor from me. Basically, they hired an artist to do a flyer for the MMA event at Camp Pendleton on 5/7 and the guy flaked out due to some personal reasons. Since I have a good relationship with those guys they asked if I'd be interested in designing the flyer instead. After going over the specifics, I agreed and told them I really only had about 2hrs to dedicate to this since I was working on several other projects.

What you see here is the result of piecing together around 60+ individual photos, text blocks, misc artwork, etc. Milifidel has a very distinct look and feel, but the problem is, that look and feel doesn't always mesh well when you're trying to read copy. Getting the information on the front of the flyer (with Kim Delaney at the bottom) was the hardest part. Once that was done, everything else came together nicely. I like how the fighter's names are stacked. That's my favorite part of the whole flyer.

Not bad for 2hrs? They were pleased. The flyers were printed and handed out during the MMA event. I grabbed a few for myself.

My Dad would be proud

2010-05-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

I enjoy creating logos for people. I enjoy the process of talking to them about their brand, product, etc and finding out how I can interpret their message into a visual icon - it always serves as an interesting challenge for me. I also enjoy re-designing logos for people. It's flattering when someone says "well, I've got a logo, but I'd like you to take it and make it look a lot better." That's a cool thing. I am a firm believer that certain logos, typically ones that have been around for a long time, should be left alone or changed ever so slightly at the most.

The guys at Milifidel asked me to design a t-shirt for an MMA event that was being held on 5/7 (that's yesterday) at Camp Pendleton. After going back and forth on what the shirt should look like, the idea of updating the current USMC logo was mentioned. I honestly can't remember if it was my idea of theirs. Anyway...

I accepted the job and set out to give the logo an update rather than a full blown re-design (there's a difference). I took the general concept of the eagle, globe, anchor and chain/rope and gave it a 2010/MMA twist to it. Nothing is drastically different in my opinion. I hand drew the wings, head, and anchor. The globe is something I found that I had to touch up in Illustrator. Halfway through the design I started to wonder if it was such a good idea to update such an iconic image. Once I combined those elements and put them in a layout I felt looked right, I sent the concepts out to the guys to approve.

After some back and forth tweaking we finally got the artwork done, separated and uploaded for print within a day since we were in a bit of a time crunch. The one thing I was firm about was the fact that the shirt didn't need the name Milifidel across the front. It should be about the USMC first, and then Milifidel second which is why the brand is on the back.

My Dad is ex-USMC and he's told me a million times how the very sight of that emblem sparks emotion in him. I didn't want it to seem like I thought I could make it look better.

Overall I think it came out nice. I saw quite a few people last night wearing the shirt, including one of the fighters, Kenneth "The Black Ninja" Alexander and his entire crew. That definitely made me smile.

Show me some love

2010-04-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's always a good feeling when someone appreciates the work you've done. Such is the case with me. Even though I might whine and complain about times about not having enough time to complete things, or having to listen to people who deem themselves as "experts" tell me how things "should be done," the simple truth is that it's always flattering when someone offers to compensate you in exchange for artwork. I mean YOU want to pay ME to draw you a picture or design something for you? It really is quite flattering.

The cool thing about doing apparel work is that the artwork you create will be around for years and years and over that time countless people will like your artwork so much that they'll dish out their hard earned cash for it. They have no idea who made it, what went into it, or how long it took you, all they know is that it appeals to them and they want to spend their money on it. That's cool.

This past weekend there was an MMA (that's mixed martial arts - as in the fastest growing sport in the world) event out in god-knows-where that featured an up and coming fighter named Kenny "The Krusher" McCorkell on it's main card. A few weeks back I designed a t-shirt for Kenny for the Milifidel brand. This weekend was the first time he'd seen it. Although I was unable to attend, I did request that pictures be taken of the people that wore my shirts. The guys at Milifidel were kind enough to snap a few shots of the fighters sporting both the Kenny t-shirt and the recent "Milifidel Soldier" shirt I finished up a few weeks ago (check a couple entries down).

Also, the "We Can Do It" design I did for them featuring a more basic version of Rosie the Riveter recently came back from the printer. My friend Brook was kind enough to model the shirt for me while I took a picture. Yes, I know the shirt is wrinkled but let's be honest....you're not looking at the shirt are you?

Always nice to see people appreciate the hard work you put into something. I have no idea who that kid is in that picture, but the fact that he's holding up my shirt and smiling means the world to me.

No sacrifice, no glory

2010-04-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

I received an e-mail a few days ago from a guy named Jim who said he liked my artwork. At the time I had no idea who Jim was, or how he managed to find my artwork. After doing some detective work I discovered that Jim was a former co-worker of one of the guys from the Milifidel brand, and after I had finished the "Milifidel Soldier" (see 2 entries ago) design it was posted on Facebook (don't you love social networking sites?) where Jim came across it.

One I realized that Jim wasn't some crazy stalker or guy asking me to work for free (you'd be surprised how many of those there are) we got to talking about how I might be of service to him. After he filled me in on the details of this brand he was trying to create, I knew it was something I could help him with. We kicked around ideas for about an hour, came to an agreement and I got to work.

The following 3 images are the first 3 shirt designs I've created for the brand which is called "Sacrifice Apparel." What's ironic is that a few entries ago I posted the church design and ranted about how I created it and no one wanted to use it. Now, a month later and it's slapped across a t-shirt. How proud I am. The second design is just the official logo (which I also created) enlarged across the chest/shoulders to make it more prominent. The third design is another piece of artwork I had created in my spare time that never got used for anything. Jim liked it a lot, and after a few slight changes, it became one of the first official designs for Sacrifice apparel.

The cool thing about the shirts is that each one has the name of the design (Sanctuary, Sacrifice, Freedom) on the back, and beneath that is a brief, but meaningful definition of the word. I thought that was a cool touch.

Overall Jim is very pleased with how things have been coming out and when my clients are pleased, I'm pleased - I'm cool like that. I'll be sure to post more designs as they're completed. I'll also be working on Jim's marketing material in the next coming days.

Meet the man of your dreams

2010-04-18T11:11:00.001-07:00

I've always been a horror movie fan. For as long as I can remember movies like "Friday the 13th," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and "Halloween" (not the crappy Rob Zombie directed ones) have always terrified me. As scary as the characters in those movies are, no one scared me quite like Freddy Krueger did. I don't know if it's the razor sharp blades on his glove, the scarred face, or the sadistic humor, but Freddy always gave me nightmares when I was a kid...which I guess is what he does best right?

When I heard that they were remaking "A Nightmare on Elm Street" I had mixed reactions. Some of the horror movie remakes like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Friday the 13th" have been great in my opinion, and some...namely "Halloween" have been complete and utter failures. My biggest question was whether or not they were going to get Robert Englund to put on that red and green sweater one more time. The guy has made a living off of Freddy Krueger, and turned a pretty gruesome character in a pop culture icon. In my opinion, no one else can play Freddy like Robert Englund.

After seeing the pictures of Jackie Earle Haley in the new Freddy make-up, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed. He looks like an alien to me, and his voice sounds like a bad Larry Flynt impersonation. Don't get me wrong, I'll still pay my $10 (matinee prices now! geeze) to see the movie when it comes out in a couple of weeks, but my first impressions of the new Freddy are kind of "blah."

I took it upon myself to pay tribute to the one and only Freddy Krueger from my childhood. The way Robert Englund portrayed him in the original movies. After doing some research on google, I found a few images that I liked that gave me a detailed look at his scarring, sweater, and of course, his signature glove.

I actually started this at around 12am this morning (4/18) thinking I would just tinker with some shapes. 4 hours later I was deep into the project and I couldn't stop. Around 4:30 I finally started to slow down and decided to call it a night. I woke up around 8am this morning (yes, that's 3 1/2 hours of sleep) and finished it off. I decided to add some HEAVY filtering to Freddy to give him that dirty, distressed look. It just wouldn't have looked right as a clean illustration. Freddy needs some grit....oh, and blood. I purposely overdid it with the filters so that certain areas would be hard to see (saves me from having to over detail it). I really wanted this thing to look dirty. After about 65 individually masked layers, and adding the classic "1...2 Freddy's coming for you" line I decided I was done. At least that is until I stare at it and nit pick like I always do.

Oh, and all of those filters, splatter, illustration, etc....all on a single layer. I hate working with multiple layers. Slows me down.