Kytássin

Front-on drawing of Kytássin, since her outfit was pretty obscured in the original "design". In color, just cos I like ya. ;)

Delák and Kytássin

These two bozos are twin wizards! They're going to pop up soon in The Walking Weapon (which WILL continue!) The boy is Delák and the girl is Kytássin.

What kind of Pokémon are you?

Steve Wolfhard started a side-project a while back called "Portrait-dex", which is a blog collecting self-portraits of other cartoonists -- as Pokémon! I'm in love with the idea, and a while back I created my own Pokémon. Here she is!

Machine Of Death

You may have heard recently of a little science-fiction anthology climbing the Amazon bestseller charts to #1. The book, Machine Of Death, was the pet project of two very good friends of mine, Messrs. David Malki(!) & Ryan North (it was also co-edited by a Mr. Matt Bennardo, who I do not have the pleasure of knowing, but whose last name almost rhymes with mine).

In any case, David and Ryan reached out to some writers and artists with this idea of creating stories and illustrations based around a machine of death: a mechanism which tests your blood and then churns out a slip of paper telling you the cause of your eventual demise.

The premise may sound bleak (and I suppose it is), but don't let that fool you! Thar's pathos and love and humor in them pages!

Particularly dear to my heart is, of course, the story I illustrated: NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING by Erin McKean.

The story is available, read by Ms. McKean, as the first episode of the Machine Of Death Podcast! I highly recommend giving it a listen. I'm about to! And if you're interested, please consider buying a copy of Machine Of Death from Amazon or Topatoco! Let's keep this success story going!

The Walking Weapon (pts 1 & 2)

I had so much fun with The Walking Weapon that I decided to do a few comics with him! I plan on doing more; I'm really enjoying myself so far!

Fearsome Creatures

Having some fun with my moleskin!

This is Chelsey. She's the most popular girl in class:

Dabbling in furry art:

This guy is fearless:

Page Fulla Gordons

My little dog, Commissioner Gordon, is surprisingly difficult for me to caricature (but it's a lot of fun to try)! Here's a bunch of sketches I did with my brush pen last night:

People I Know pt 1

I'm starting to get back into portraiture again! These are two friends of mine:

This guy is a talented composer (and my next-door neighbor):

And this fellow here is my favorite photographer, good friend, and snazzy beard-wearer:

Eventually these will become paintings, but I liked them as monochromatic drawings, so I thought I'd share! More to come!

These Are Their Stories

I'm lucky enough to have been included in Brandon Bird's latest gallery show "These Are Their Stories", featuring artwork based on DirecTV synopses of Law & Order Episodes! I am in excellent company, and all of the pieces I've seen are fantastic! If you're in the LA area, be sure to check it out!

Here is my piece, "Goren Takes On A Chess Master" (I'm a huge Criminal Intent fan!):

"These are Their Stories" will run July 24 to July 30, 2010 at Gallery Meltdown, 7522 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Prints for this and other pieces are currently available at Brandon Bird's site!

Character design

Not sure what I am going to do with her yet (but it will be great, I hope!)

Web-Comics Auction For The Gulf Of Mexico (now live!)

(cross-posted from the Whirring Blender Design Challenge)

Hello everyone! I am pleased to announce the Web-Comics Auction For The Gulf Coast! I have been working on organizing it for weeks now, and this coming Monday, July 5th, the first auctions will be posted on ebay. For information on the other artists involved and for a full schedule, please visit the official auction website!

I will be donating the original artwork for the Runaways + CLAMP challenge! Both drawings are 11"x14" ink on bristol. If you'd like some original artwork and want to donate to an excellent cause, I do hope you will consider bidding on these or any of the other drawings up for auction.

Whirring Blender Design Challenge: Runaways + CLAMP

I have a new design challenge up! One year late!

Whirring Blender Design Challenge: Runaways + CLAMP

Black Canary

This was my submission for Project Rooftop's Canary On The Catwalk challenge! I got third place :)

The other winners and runners-up all did a fantastic job! Check them out here!

Cowgirls

Playing with my brush pen

Some good caricatures, some unsuccessful, and some faces from my mind.

Malcolm Gladwell

Inspired by all of the great stuff over at Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!!!, I decided to draw one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell!

Commission Update

Hey everyone! Just a quick line to tell you I'm still accepting commissions!

I thought I would share a couple of the drawings that already went out:

Hope you like them! :)

It's That (McNinja) Time Again!

Yes, friends, it's here: the new and exciting third volume of The Adventures of Dr. McNinja! I was happy to repeat my duties as cover artist for the good doctor.

We did a lot of research before I started illustrating the cover this time, so we had a really clear idea of what we wanted. Basically, the cover is a recreation of two old movie posters:

We loved the composition of "Plan 9 From Outer Space", but preferred the toxic, fiery color palette of "First Spaceship On Venus". So we decided to combine these two elements into a new, more ninja-like design!

Dr. McNinja in the space helmet was a given:

But then we also had to decide which scenes from the book we wanted to showcase. We knew we had to feature the Ben Franklin Thriller routine:

(Incidentally, I don't think Ben ever looked better!)

Finally, we wanted to reference the training sequence with Gordito and Dark Smoke Puncher:

(Fun fact: I posed for both Gordito and DSP! I think I've found an alternative career posing as prepubescent/adolescent boys.)

All of these elements together made for a pretty cool front cover! After that, we just needed to design the back. I loved the colored squares on the bottom of the "'Venus" poster; apart from the aesthetics, I thought the captions underneath struck the perfect chord. I had a lot of fun writing the new ones for this book!

Last, but not least, title design was courtesy of George Baier IV, who also helped layout the interior of the book!

Put it all together, and what do you get?

Violà!

The book is up for pre-order right now at Topatoco.com! The pre-order comes with all sorts of goodies! Did I mention it's the biggest volume of Dr. McNinja yet? What are you waiting for? ;)

Darkstalkers

I keep forgetting to post this! A while ago I tried to submit for Udon's Darkstalker book; I never really finished the image the way I wanted to, but I submitted it anyway (it didn't make it in, not surprisingly). I'm still fairly pleased with how the characters came out, though, so I thought I'd share them!

Wonder(mark)ful!

I have a guest strip up today at Wondermark! Malki(!) is a great friend and considerate house guest. He's also something of a mad genius, so when he asks you to do something I find it's in your best interests to buck up and do it! I had a lot of fun with this, though it's a bit tinier than I originally wanted; I'll probably be posting a higher resolution version of it here soon!

Here it is!