Almost Done!

So, it's a bit more than a week until the "Septimus" show on the 12th, and I'm finished with all of my smaller drawings for my "Yokai!" series. All that's left is a larger drawing that I am refusing to post until well after opening night. If you wanna see before then (and you're in Memphis), then I suggest coming to see it in person, along with some really awesome work from my MCA and Bluff City colleagues.

The group show will have its opening reception September 12th @ Midtown Galleries at 2232 Central Ave., from 6-9pm. Come down! Bring friends!

Kasa-Obake

The Kasa-Obake belongs to a group of yokai (supernatural beings) known as "tsukumogami". These creatures are derived from objects that become animate after their one-hundredth anniversary. They are well known in contemporary culture and have appeared in numerous pop-culture media, including television, manga, and video games.

Wani

The Wani is interesting as it is subject to different iterations throughout Japanese mythology. In fact, some argue that the Wani is in fact a creature that originated in Chinese mythology. This seems to be a matter of speculation as there are a substantial number of stories from Japan revolving around this sea monster, depicted as a shark and more often (and here) as a large crocodile.

Samebito

The Samebito (translated as "shark man") is a mild-mannered creature that was banished from his home at sea. He happened upon a man that allowed the Samebito to reside in his garden. The man was relatively poor and was seeking a woman's hand in marriage, but could not afford to pay the dowry for the ceremony. He grew relatively sick, and the Samebito, concerned for his master's health, began to weep for him. His tears became precious stones with which the man was able to use to win the woman of his affection.

Gashadokuro

Gashadokuro are giant, vengeful skeletons that are comprised of the bones of people that have died of starvation. They prey primarily on humans, often biting off their heads, and a warning of their approach is a ringing sound that it emanates.

Rokurokubi

Rokurokubi are demons that take on the form of normal humans during the day, but after nightfall they reveal their true forms, extending their necks to great lengths. They typically disguise themselves as women, though there have been a few depictions of male rokurokubi. These creatures fall into two types: The more docile group that attempts to coexist with normal people, and the hostile individuals that prey on humans (usually unsuspecting lovers) while they are asleep. Malicious rokurokubi have the ability to completely detach their heads from their person. Because of this, a method to dispatch of these demons is to destroy their bodies while the separated head is feasting elsewhere.

P.E.D. Revisited!

During a brief period of free time from the comics class, I was goofing around with the previously-posted spoiled food creature. I wanted P.E.D. (Past Expiration Date) to appear more menacing, despite its refrigerator-compatible scale, and I added a couple of shadows to make the rotten food seem a bit further past their last known point of edibility. The implication of a ground plane was included in the upgrade package, and I just added lightning bolts because they're...cool.

Comic Class Characters Covered!

For the past week, I have been assisting my friend Cody in teaching the young minds of the future about the awesome-ness that is comics. The class is also working on characters for an localized version of the Fistacuffs tournament, in which Cody and I will be providing "boss characters" My pedagogical (props to JP for the vocab!) cohort's character leans more towards the bloody, baby-powered side of things, while I decided to go for a combatant that hits a little closer to home. Imagine some of your basic nutritional needs not being met because your fundamental breakfast foods turned on you, and I'm not just talking about shelf life.



While we're now properly segued to the subject of characters floating in space, I feel I should share this comic that illustrates the brain-storming process of some of the young cartoonists:

It's Not A Part Of My Series...

...but I thought I'd post something while I'm working on the other demon drawings.

Enenra

Enenra is a monster comprised of smoke and wind. It lives in bonfires and only appears to those who are pure in character.

Namazu

According to Japanese mythology, or at least Wikipedia's interpretation of Japanese mythology, the giant catfish Namazu was responsible for causing house-rocking earthquakes when his guardian got a little lazy on his watch. During the Edo period the Namazu was regarded as a Robin Hood-type, extracting money from the rich and distributing it amongst the less fortunate.

My Summer Thus Far!

So, after what seemed like a grueling year at MCA, I figured that my three-or-so month recess would go by sluggishly and I would be at a lack of things to do. BUT NO!!! I have managed to maintain a heavy workload that includes illustration for a children's book, random caricature gigs, a position helping teach kids how to make comics, work that I have to put together for a group show, and Rozelle Artists Guild business. Not to mention that I hold down a part-time job at the local art supply store on the weekends. Whew...somewhere down the line I have to work on my own personal comic projects before I run out of gusto.

Huffing and puffing (and whining!) aside, I have some images from the aforementioned children's book project: character designs that didn't quite make the final cut. I thought they were kinda nice, so why not share them?











Here's one the pieces that I'm planning on placing in a group show later this fall.



The theme is "fictitious" creatures, so that gives me the excuse needed to draw a series of Japanese demons, which is something that been I've wanting to do for a very long time. Seriously, the excitement level is pretty disturbing... but anyway, I'll be posting more drawings as they come along.

Another All-Nighter

So I'm working on finals for my computer graphics class and I've finished four out of sixteen spot illustrations that will be in a booklet due in two weeks...my eyes are burning a little from staring at a computer screen for WAY too long. The pictures themselves are coming along pretty quickly, but I am running out of steam (and energy drinks) at the moment, so I might call it a night (maybe not), but I figured I'd post these before passing out.

The Saga Continues...

So the squares are coming along steadily as the semester quickly reaches it's end, and I'm really impressed by how much I've been able to make given my busy schedule . I laid them out yesterday and it was so fucking cool to see entire tabletop decked out in a blanket of little swatch illustrations. It's times like that where I wish there was a digital camera in reach to make snaps and show off a little... But lamenting aside, I've got a few more squares to share:







Speaking of things that should be documented with photograpy, I've also been working on some more promo books featuring some work from the square project, and a few past and recent works. One of the recent illustrations is a flyer that I made for my awesome brothers in arms for a benefit dance party coming up in May. I spent some crazy hours drawing out the initial linework, and even more time coloring it digitally. The effort paid off and resulted in a fresh ass piece of advertising for the Rozelle Artists Guild.

Here's the black and white:



And the color:



If I ever get my hands on a camera, I will (hopefully) be able to post some pics of some of handiwork that deserves photo documentation...

More Squares! (and a few sketches)

So I've been a little negligent about the posting lately...sorry folks. But I managed to find some free time and happened to have had some fresh new squares on my person, so I figured I'd show them off. I've lost count of how many I've made to date, which is a good thing. They've been getting weirder to say the least and with each one, I feel as if I'm getting consistently better at the inking, which I figured would happen during the course of this project.

But anyway, here they are:





I've also got some sketches that have been sitting in my moleskine for a bit:

Squares!

I'm an impatient man sometimes. There are times when the wham-bam is more my thing than a long term commitment. In short, I decided to scrap the large-scale drawing project that I hinted at in a previous post and move on to something that accommodates my short attention span. This new project started out with my coworkers and I doodling on some cut-down pieces of matboard from the Art Center's frameshop. After about doing about two or three of these, I became addicted...to the extent that I made about thirty more miniature illustrations. They're fun, quick, low cost, and I see myself having an obscene amount of these in the near future.

Finished(?) Posters, Comics, and...Nien Numb?

I finished working out the designs for the travel posters, and at this point working on some anal-retentive fine tuning. I found a solution for the previously mentioned crappy font, and I made a few adjustments to the color scheme. By adjustments, I mean that there's another frickin' version. Here they are:





I've also finished working on the inking for my promotional mini-comic, and I'm working to get snazzy covers made for it.





While I was working on the last page, my friend Cody made the keen observation about the resemblance of my self-caricature and a creature from the Star Wars universe. After a quick Wikipedia search and a call to an "expert" on the subject, we found that the alien in question was part of a race called the Nien Numb. It was a little disconcerting how close the resembance was, but you can check it out for yourself:

Works in Progress and Image Dumping

So I've got some follow-ups to my previous post about the travel poster. I'm almost finished, but I've got the two major problems that have yet to be resolved. The first is the wonky-assed text that I used for the design that looked cooler as a sketch, but for some reason didn't translate well into vector... The second problem is the color scheme, which I kind of solved by adjusting the color balance to get some of that visual-unity jazz. Here's what I got so far:

The first version...



...and the color-adjusted one.



I've also got a few new sketches, some from my drawing workshop class that I'm taking this semester, some for fun, and a few Photoshop scraps that were taking up space on my hard drive.

Getting Up to Speed...

This blogging thing is becoming quite the hassle with the location change and all! But like in the real world, moving to a new space can be rough at first, but in the end it's (hopefully) for the best.
I guess I should start showing some images at this point to emphasize that I am still alive, well, and more importantly, working. The first two sketches are for my computer graphics class. Art deco-style travel posters are the name of the game here, and I've got nothing but San Diego on my mind, well at least the awesome public transit there...




The next sketches are part of a project that will involve large scale drawing based on sketchbook entries. This will be a daunting task because:
a) I love working in sketchbooks... more so than finished work sometimes.
b) And I realize sketchbooks are small. Sometimes REALLY small.

This kind of project is gonna require a lot of "raw material" to fill out the sheets of paper that I'm using (30" by 44"). Here are few doodles:





More to come soon.