Cupid

Sorting through some disc I found this buffalo news illustration from earlier this year.

Canisius inside illo

Illustration I did about a month ago. Still trying to work on my comic so far to go hope it does as well as the writer and I presume. Until then Just trying to keep penciling.

final sketches

came up with a few more sketches this is the last go because I've wasted enough effort on this project.

Can I really consider this a rough anymore?

I am suppose to meet with a potential client today to go over Ideas for a mural, except he wants a finished illustration before he decides who he's gonna hire for the gig. Not happy about the Idea of that but I could use the money so I started out deciding to do a very loose rendering I planned on bringing examples of how tight I can work so he knows what to expect. Now looking back though for a rough this has still ended up being way more work than I wanted it to be.

Sleepy time

After about 3hrs I'm calling it a night I cooked, I cleaned, I drew I'll finish it up in the morning.

New on the cintiq

Color roughs for a possible up coming mural for local coffee house

A couple rough blackouts for clone!

Lot of planning can't wait to get to the real work!

helicopter parents?

Never heard of the term but here is an commissioned illo for Canisius college.

To Photoshop or not to photoshop.

After some experimentation it seems like I might make the switch to photoshop for the inking purposes of clone. Their are plus and minuses to using both programs. Yet the smooth kind of soft edge that made me not want to use PS maybe the exact reason why I'll choose it as painter is too sharp and ridged edged. As far as typography is concerned at this point I'm still up in the air about which program I'm going to use.

Back to work

Had the breaks on for a bit but now where getting back to work.

Hmmm yeah creepy eye

Sometimes I wonder what went on in my mind back it the days. This is from when I was using prismacolor over watercolor. I miss the richness of texture and color I used to get back then.

Born Free revisited

Okay this is the second time posting this illo but I found these old concept sketches and figured I'd post the step by step process. By the time I was doing this illustration about 90% of my artwork was done using a computer. The original pencil sketch here was done in prismacolor. Most of the time the illustrations started as sketches in my sketch book and if I liked the feel of them I'd forego redrawing them and scan them into the computer (I often did this as an attempt to keep the drawings loose and not stiffen them up).

Old kiddie art

While cleaning came across a montage from my first children's book.

This week

Finishing up a Crest for First Calvary church. I think this is the first illo I've done in illustrator. Actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

a couple 1 a day sketches from NY.

Poster Adjustments

A date is set... well at least for now this one might be too far away but we like the symmetry of the numbers.

Ha! waisted sweat and blood

Images from the under marketed second children's book.

Very early painter stuff

Right around the time I began switching over to painter yeah it was early '05 I believe this one was about people addicted to only medication and how they could reach online help.

more old illos

This one was about online coupons maybe I'll just post these as I come across em'! I remember it having to run in Black and white so at least it gets to exist somewhere in color.

I don't remember what the second was for but it had to do with computers and disney trips I'm assuming... hmmm maybe this one didn't work too well.

Girlscout Attack

An old illo from '05 I found while trying to accomplish the daunting task of clearing some hard drive space.

Huh?

Stumbled acrossed this while nerdishly google-ing my art online. Kinda cool I never been to china or even submitted my stuff but some how they came across my work... well here's hoping its not a list of worst illustrations ever. My illo is 3rd from top!

http://www.aehome.cn/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=78364&page=1&authorid=28

Drama at officeMax

True story this was an email to a friend that suggested I put it on my blog so here it is.
Bought a printer the epson 1400 to be precise I decided I had a lot of unproblematic years with the stylus 777i so it was a safe bet. That, and it originally carried a $399 price tag that had a 100 dollar rebate but office max was unloading em for $179. Not a bad deal I might say until their f%*#in clerk tried to pimp me crap-ware. I'm not sure if it was his disbelief of the price I researched, as it was marked $299.99 in the window, or if it was when he tried to hit me with "You'll need the usb 2 to get optimum performance quality" pitch. He also tried to get me to buy the warranty package for only $44.99 or $79.99 which included the cord. I tried to clue him in that I was privy to the sham but he kept on going. I said why don't I just buy the usb cable (knowing dam well I had 4 extra ones at home) He was like well they cost 20 dollars so you'd only be saving yourself $20 dollars, this is a far better deal because you even get FREE TEST PAPER. This is the part where I stared coldly at him as I fought back the urge to spit square in his eye. The package fit almost squarely in my hand so any paper that was in that package if it happened to be more than one sheet had to have been folded or misshapen. Any way I said no thanks I'll pass. Of course undeterred he decided to push my cart to the printer ink Isle so that he could hand pick marked up cartridges of ink. I had already done my homework and found that the cartridges of ink were priced at $18.99 at the epson site however here they were being sold for $20.99. I relayed this knowledge to him yet it proved not deter him from plucking them from the shelf and pitching them into my cart. Much to his debacle when my well trained eagle eyes spotted a misplaced item in the $13.99 section. It was one of the blues I needed and now he was forced to give me the item at the marked down price. His face dropped as he tried to dismiss me along with my prize towards the cash register attendant. As he uttered in a defeated voice "if you change your mind about the usb..." I sort of missed the last part of his grumbles as I couldn't hear him over my ear to ear grin!

Down time? what is that??

On my down time from working on Clone I've been watching a lot of anime. That is if you count Dragon Ball as an anime. But I also watched Patlabor 2 and I must say it made me realize how much I truly miss 2d animation.

Allan's study

hmmm maybe I need to give him darker curly hair he doesn't seem Jewish enough!

Blackspotting chapter 3

Sometimes steps backwards are steps forwards. Rough panels with blacks to take more of the guess work out of the process. Will make it a lot easier when I get to the final pencil and ink stages. Sound effects are an art I'm not yet good at and I need to do some proper research on noises because the wrong noise or the wrong choice of displaying that noise can come off cartoony or hookey. Man I need help.

Dummy covers

So I was farting around ad drew up a couple alternate Ideas for the actual cover True these are off track but I thought they were kind off cool anyway so I thought I'd post em and change my banner.

Blackspotting

The writer of the book I'm currently working on fell in love with the blackspotting of the first chapter and decided to print a rough copy. This is the cover to it I didn't draw the front page but I'm planning on painting the back pages when done.

Drybrush Painter test

Finally found way to immulate a drybrush technique in painter and because of the stupid a trial version painter 11 I had to reset and loose all my settings in painter 9.5 :(

More grey test

finished blacking out the first chapter 19 pages now I'm going back and pushing the blacks a little here is a page with greys added in. This process would have been a lot faster if I had only followed advice and did my original thumbnails to scale anyway the process is still going rather quickly and it will take a lot of guess work out of the final pencil.

blackout panels

started working on blacking out panels for clone at half the print size. A little tool of the trade I picked up from reading Shawn Martinbrough go book great work hope mine come out half as well anyway here is a the rough 2 page spread. Here I'm looking at the possibility of adding a grey wash.

Noir boots practice

One a day inkings

One a day inkings trying to work on the craft until its second nature. These are really crude but I hope to be a lot better by end of year.

Clone poster work in progress!

Still trying to find that right noir fit for the story and this character. Just getting back into drawing mode. For the next few months Clone will be my day afternoon and night job.

Trying out the Cintiq

Fresh new digital paint on my Tablet!

done final illo for the news