BUY THIS SHIRT!!!

many, many, many years ago, back when i was a twenty something year old recent art school graduate, i foolishly believed i would become a famously beloved comic book artist. that didn't happen....

there are times when i feel as if the day to day grind of the "9 to 5" work week is just too soul sucking to put up with. dealing with the arrogant clients and the ridiculously impossible deadlines they impose upon you simply because they believe your sole purpose in life is to bend to their every whim until you fucking break on a daily basis is an oppressive feeling and quite depressing.

so how does one deal with these feelings? one could go on a murderous bat shit insane inter office rampage followed by the inevitable "suicide by cop" shoot out OR...

me being a graphic artist, i made a cheap ass T-shirt! available for purchase at Cafe Press!

the cheapest "Best Value" T-Shirt is a $20.99 dark men's tee available in various colors and sizes.

click the orange link below to go straight to the store.

http://cafepress.com/iamnotmyjob

special thanks to elgin who basically told me i'd be a fool if i didn't put this on a T-Shirt when i originally posted this on artjumble. the theme was "your job".

sex doughnut

version 1:do i need to explain what's happening here????

version 2:i might like this version better only because the art doesn't get too lost like it does in the doughnut background of version 1.

black and white version:
i did all the line work in Illustrator CS.
(mostly using just the pen tool)

the rough pencils:
the scanned in original pencils which i drew (traced?) over in Illustrator CS. note the upside down gun toting kid!

bonus art!!!
the not so wild one:
just thought i'd throw this up. originally posted over at artjumble for where the wild things are week.

lil' bastards #6 : SUPER SIZED SPECTACULAR FANBOY EDITION!!!

i know how she really feels...

any graphic artist working a corporate, full time gig (or worse yet is married to someone who is) knows the horrors of which i speak. kim mcgrattan, the writer/director whose name graces this b-movie schlock poster, is my lovely (and extremely patient and understanding) wife's name.

i thought about making the silhouette a screaming human but i like the idea of a giant monster being chained to a small desktop computer. like the poster says...

based on a true story.

color options:

watchmen abridged

last week's artjumble topic was alan moore's watchmen. i really wanted to submit something that week so i worked up a quick pen sketch (top left corner) which eventually evolved into a quick comic strip. the entire thing (from idea to rough to pencils to ink and finally to color) took me a few hours. kind of an exercise for myself to see if i could pull off a fully realized strip in a short amount of time.

the character above is rorschach who was brilliantly portrayed by jackie earl haley in the watchmen movie. in my opinion, his portrayal of this complex character is as good as heath ledger's joker in the dark knight! i did have a bit of a problem with the director's decision to alter the ending slightly as i thought it was an unnecessary change that really didn't make much sense but overall, i liked the film and thought it did the book justice.

the final submitted artjumble comic strip watchmen abridged:
(click on below image to maximize)
also, i submitted my much talked about (only by me) P.S. 666 story to artjumble's online web comic page comic jumble. it was originally supposed to be part of a published comic anthology entitled Cake Vol. 2 but the economy being what it is....well you know. if you wanna check out my entire 7 page P.S. 666 saga just go to artjumble.blogspot.com and click on the comic jumble launch button on the top right hand side. then click the Cake Vol. 2 tab. my P.S. 666 story's in there.

if you read it please let me know what you think.

NSFW

occasionally i take a break from drawing and try to dabble with type and design. although these are already a few months old, it's my most recent piece of personal artwork and the only thing i've done lately that i feel like is worth posting. been feeling too tired and uninspired to draw lately. the quote is from comedian drew carey. i did these at work.*

* if my current employer is reading this...that last sentence was a joke!**

** if my friends and co-workers are reading this...that last sentence was a joke too!

P.S. 666: rough stuff and odds n' ends

just a few rough sketches along with some finished art:

harrison mumford
on page 4 of my P.S. 666 story there's a 3/4 splash page where most of my characters get into a big school rumble in the hallway. this little drawing i did of harrison mumford fighting is one of favorite things about this story. in the scene he's fighting with muddy lagoon who's attacking him with a trident.

vamp racer
this vampy racer appears on page 2 of my P.S. 666 story. in the scene she's happily speeding away after dropping her son off at school whom she leaves coughing in a cloud of exhaust.

krackers the killer klown
one of the first characters i had created for use in my P.S. 666 story. but as the creative juices started flowing and i came up with more characters this poor bastard just got pushed off to the side. i wanted to use him in the class picture panel on page 1 but he didn't fit. so i used him elsewhere within my story as an "extra". i debated putting krackers initials on his forehead (KKK) but went with the pentagram instead.

the clockwork kid
another character i created that never got used or even got passed the rough pencil stage. an obvious take on malcolm mcdowell's character in the stanley kubrick classic a clockwork orange.

P.S. 666 (page 1: the monochrome versions)
just playing around with some color options. (the original version is is full color.)
first i desaturated the color page which turned it into gray tones. the one on the left i gave a -100 cyan color balance. the one on the right i gave a -100 yellow color balance. i like the monochrome versions as it sort of gives the pages an old timey "black and white" movie feel.

you axed for it...

i've got a whole lotta nothing new to throw up here so i just figured i'd throw up something OLD... again! i'm still currently working on and putting the finishing touches on my P.S. 666 story so i probably won't have any new shit up here for awhile so get used to it! i still really like this nasty old piece so here's hoping you do to!

it's from my Joe Kubert School daze so i'm guesstimating it was done maybe around 1994! going to the Kubert school it was hard not to be at least a little bit influenced by Joe's style and the many European artists who drew and inked in this style. one of my favorite artist's who inks with a heavy flowing brush stroke is Jordi Bernet. you can currently see his beautiful work in DC's Jonah Hex #37. but if you're like me and not the biggest fan of westerns and want to see some of his stuff i would highly recommend reading Torpedo 1936. it's a great old school, pulp/noir/gangster series. the collected volumes might be hard to find but they are well worth the search.

P.S. 666 (page 1 pencils)

early pencils for an upcoming project...

i wanted to do something along the lines of my lil' bastards comic strips. it's a style and humor that i enjoy working in and i believed i could create a multi page story in this style within the allotted deadline time. but how to elaborate a one panel comic strip into a story? i struggled with this for awhile as i didn't think a story about a group of kids being sadistically violent for no reason would work. the whole point of those lil' bastards strips is that the violence in them is meant to be a shocking (and hopefully humorous!) "one time only" moment for the kids involved. so then i came up with the idea of making the kids involved lil' monsters as being monsters sort of gives them a reason to be violent or at least more of an expected reason to be.

now how would i draw each monster?

this also took some time to develop. why are monsters, especially the classic monsters like Dracula and Frankenstein, so endearingly popular? it's because they are outcasts and misfits and everyone in some point in their lives could relate to that feeling of being an outcast. so i developed my depictions of the monsters as such. i made them nerds, freaks and geeks! the scenario of putting these monster nerds in a school specifically made for them developed after that and soon P.S. 666 and it's first class was founded. i tried to give each monster there own personality through their individual appearance and from there the gags in the story were now almost writing themselves!

finished color pages coming soon....

P.S. 666 (page 2 pencils)

early pencils for an upcoming project.....

the dark mite: son of gotham

the dark mite: finalit's the dark mite and his big ass big wheel bat pod! i like the poster design approach i ended up going with as opposed to doing a more scenic background.

the dark mite: ink and illustrator
i realize the full color version might be a little too dark to appreciate so i'm throwing up the "inked" black line version as well. "inked" is in quotes because i tweeked A LOT of this in illustrator seeing as how i originally inked this with an old blunt sharpie through cheap ass tracing paper! the original black line looked like crap after scanning.

the dark mite: rough pencils
as usual i like the roughness and energy of the rough pencils more than the final full color. only while doing the final version did i realize how much of an engineering disaster my bat pod was! how the hell is lil' bats supposed to steer this fucking monstrosity! i still think it looks pretty bad ass though.

the joker: rough pencils
i will reiterate everyone else's sentiment about heath ledger and say that he was the freaking man in the dark knight! he will be missed.

showdown in crime alley
just playing with some cardbaord and photoshop.

spirit vs. spirit

the spirit (full color):who will save Will Eisner's The Spirit from Frank Miller's The Spirit???

in contrast to my little cartoon above i'm actually trying to reserve judgment on this film until i see it for myself. i'm just kinda glad the movie poster no longer sports will eisner's name on it as this is in no way will eisner's the spirit as much as it is just frank miller's creation...or abomination(!!!) depending on your point of view. but grumpy ol' frank's just like any other movie director in the business because at the end of the day he's gonna shoot whatever the fuck he wants! for better or for worse! let's just hope it's for the better...

although all those ridiculous sam jackson costume changes doesn't leave one with much hope! in the short trailer i saw, sam's dressed up as a black nazi, a gay samurai and some kind of russian pimp! i've seen less costume changes at a cher concert!

um...not that i've ever been to a cher concert or anything...

the spirit (black and gray):
the spirit (sepia tone):
the spirit (rough pencils):