For Another Friend

Henry Gilroy is an awesome writer. Hire him! I got to work with him on a project an WOW!! He knows his stuff. He carries around a sketchbook with the theme of "Your favorite Robert E Howard / HP Lovecraft character". I just happen to love both those authors ability to create some neat visceral visuals. I was happy to do a piece, or two. Of course having the book be over half filled with Bruce Timm's homages, tends to dampen ones ability. These were the best I could do.

WHEN IS A SKETCH NOT A SKETCH

I was driving home about a week ago(the sun goes down around 8:00 right now) and I saw a hill with a window of golden light hitting it. There were hills higher around it but this one was the only one that was getting hit. I thought"Hey that would be a nice painting,...if that hill was a dinoasaur." I finally had a little time this weekend and I wanted to just do a little sketch so I wouldn't forget that hill top. About an hour in, I still thought I was doing a sketch


I had 2 versions before this, and it started flopped in the other direction. The gist of the piece is there. I have quite a few of these at this stage (and that's where they will stay). I usually stop at this point. For some reason I felt like I needed more from this image, to make it richer or more complete to me.


I added some atmosphere and foreground elements. This is where I got into trouble. Now I felt like I needed to clean up a mess that I made. I started trying to fix my mistakes in the "sketch". (the compy's looked like velociraptors and the diplodocus looked like a weird 3 legged beast) but I still thought I was doing a sketch(now 3 hours in).


Here's the semi final version.

So I think it must have been when I exported the image from Photoshop to Painter to use the Glow Brush. Yeah that was when I realized this was more than just a sketch. Still less than a "real" piece but much more than a sketch. It's important to go with the flow since you never know when the flow will come. Not my favorite piece but , there you go.
Based off of the response from this piece I am "finishing" it off and may present it in some final form later.

Far East Facetasm

Artists fall into ruts, blocks and bad habits. We do everything to get out of them once we realize we have fallen. Changing the way we draw, using new materials, looking at new things and the best, looking at life, or uh,TV. Yep that's right TV. I often use TV to do cheap life drawing(I say cheap because the brain is doing a 2D to 2D translation which is alot easier than doing a 3D to 2D translation)I was watching a neat little movie with some amazing faces and couldn't resist. I love faces! Sometimes you can see a persons whole story as it is written on there face. And their is beauty in it all.There is a Japanese story I would like to tell someday but it's far too soon to actually tell it. So as a visual person I have to draw my way through it.

See Out Loud

One of the more uncomfortable aspects of blogging is the seeming self importance and vanity that is inherit to it and art as well. So I always relish the opportunity to talk about a fellow artist and friend who's doing exceptionally well,......like my friend and fellow director Warren Fu. He just finished directing a music video for The Strokes. If you want to see more of his work check out his website over there on the side of the screen.

(If you want to check out the video click image above)

What I've been up to

The reason for infrequent and sporadic posts has been because I've been working with some amazing people on a new TV show, that takes an incredible amount of my personal time, but that I am very proud to be a part of. It won't be out any time soon but they officially announced it this past weekend. So now it's OK to let you guys know. Just doing my small part to feed the Nerds of the world(myself included).
(click on the image above if you want a sneak peak)

Todd is a Konig

I was dumbfounded when I saw this as a teen. I thought "Wow! Konig must be some sort of new curse word and man Todd really is a Konig." A few years later, questions always stay below the surface for me, I found out that I misread a very nihillistic german T-shirt. Tod ist Konig-Death is King. Uggh! The shirt also had a snappy graphic. Onto a personal Konig of mine Killian Plunket. It's his birthday this weekend sometime and I made this little card for him.

MOVING CLOSER TO THE PRESENT

Been incredibly busy of late, so I'm cheating, a little. A coworker of mine had a great idea to pass a book around to all of her friends she worked with to have a little piece of history to look back upon, before she left the company we were working for. I was so touched that she wanted me in the book, so I did this little piece. She told me I could take however long I needed, just as long as she got it back. She had about 3 other beautiful pieces before I did my scribble. I returned the book to her 3 months before she moved on to another job. Cut to 1 year later when the office was doing some Spring cleaning. I noticed a familiar sketchbook lying in the rubbish bin. Well I've been poor in my life and scrounged for any kind of paper to draw on, so I have the habit of collecting paper just in case I ever run out. Yep you guessed it. The sketchbook now had 4 drawings and the start of a 5th (another office mates who was still at the company). I was a little shocked, yeah maybe more than a little. I showed it to the office mate who had started the piece that was unfinished. "Oh, Yeah,Hmmm. Heh". He didn't even want it back to finish the piece or give it back to the original owner. OUCH!

For my 2 Friends

Some of us are lucky enough to have amazing and talented friends. I was lucky enough to be taught alot about what I do by my good friend Brian McDonald (see his Blog Invisible Ink on the side over there). He has a sketchbook that gets passed along and the theme of the book is " Your Favorite KIRBY Character". He was silly enough to ask me to do one, well that was a little problem. I don't have ONE favorite Kirby character. So I went a little crazy, cause Jack Kirby was one of my first friends, granted I never knew him, but his drawings made my life easier, and by my definition that makes a friend of a sort. So even though these are a little old (egads!! Is that really TEN years ago?!) I thought I would share. Brian's book also sports some amazing talent
William Stout-Devil Dinosaur
Rick Geary-Hulk
Bob Fingerman-Silver Surfer
John Romita-Thing
Beto Hernandez-Hulk
Xaime Hernandez-Super Skrull
Art Adams-IronMan
Scott Williams-Captain America
And many many more. It's an awesome collection and I am humbled to be part of it.

retro love

This was a throw away sketch that I can't throw away. This is from one of my favorite scenes in the original Frankenstein movie. If you haven't seen it (say it ain't so!) it's a brief moment of happiness for my friend the monster where he experiences some of the good things in life, eating, smoking, friendship and music. I went out and read the book after the movie and it fell flat for me. I realized it was Boris Karloff that made that monster so wonderful to me. The monster in the book looked nothing like the Universal version and vice versa. To this day he is one of my favorites. Not one of my best pieces but one I really like.