Northlanders

My stab at DC Vertigo's Northlanders - The Cross & The Hammer, Issue 2. Magnus shreds!

!!!!SHE-HULK SMASH!!!!

Thanks to a Coco Buchanan for reminding me of the forgotten power and majesty of She-Hulk.

The Sandman - The Dream Hunters 1

DC Vertigo has recently put Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters into comic issue form. It originally release in book form and was a illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. I'm looking forward to the rest of the story as it come. Here's my interpretation of the first issue.

Hong Kong Rooftops

This pic was sitting in a reference folder at work and I couldn't shake it.

Snoozebot 5900

Ink and then a quick digi.

Ten years after I initially started, I finally finished Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. Despite my inability to grasp the narrative at 19 years old, it's a pretty straightforward story told through Dostoyevsky's incredibly ornate idiom. A groovy and kinda epileptic prince(played in my drawing by an unsuspecting Dmitri)returns to Russia to find his last remaining family. Whilst in St. Petersburg, he chases after classy broads, they chase after him, he makes a mortal enemy (obviously) and he blows people away every time he opens his mouth with his simple world views.

I can't stop futzing around with channels and color separation. I'm not 100% sure I know exactly what I'm doing yet but it sure looks good at times. The final cover is on the bottom.

Hellblazer Cover

Wish me luck!

Finished Sula Cover

Cover for Sula by Toni Morrison

Did the ink on a large piece of used vellum while standing in the kitchen waiting for delivery.






Don't know where this is going color-wise but it's off and running.

Sure Obama's more handsome, but I'm way more fascinated with McCain's mug. The wet brush/ink bleed approach I enjoy working in just seemed perfect for his complexion.

Three pieces I did for a proposed photo shoot for Guillermo de Zamacona .

Quick Bubba

UK

I came back from a trip to London and Ireland last week. I definitely feel a little guilty for not doing more on location drawing while I was there. My travel partners appealed to my lazier side and lured me to the pub more than I expected. Nonetheless, it was a great time and here is the ONLY drawing I did while overseas.

Dreams & Miracles

Gilgongo is back. They've finished up their second album "Dreams & Miracles" and once again I've been lucky enough to work on their cover. I had the idea of a parade for a while and pushed them towards this as a wraparound cover design. Their music is quite bouncy and their odd and abusrdist lyrics stay whimsical even when their talking about their darker sides. I wanted the parade to start off in the distance as something malevolent and sort of unintentionally build up into something over-the-top AWESOME!

Kudos to Amy and Sam for playing the carnival barker/emcees of the parade and Ryan for sitting with me and hand picking characters from their lyrics to join in.



The drawing was pieced together in photoshop from individual sketches and then transferred onto artists vellum. The orignal is roughly three feet long so the tracing paper transfer was a bit of a pain. But once everything was in it's right place, I inked it pretty quickly - over about 3 days.



The rest was pretty basic solid photoshop color with minimal layers. I never got to work in this way before and it's simplicity was made it so much fun.

Here's what the cover is going to look like...



Some details...

Rocks.

Ink drawing from personal photograph of Jack Douglas and Jay Messina's. That's Joe Perry in the background laying down tracks. This was done for an audio demo that the two engineers are doing at SAE Institute in Herald Square.

Shopped! Now I need to find a black ink cartridge. RRRRAAAAAHHHH!

Last Night at MSG

I've wanted to see Iron Maiden since i was 14. It only took another full lifetime to get to see them. They melted my face.




Derek Riggs blew my mind as a kid.

Executive Decision: The next chance I get, I'm going to do my own version of Eddie. That's it. Done deal.

Little Flower Part II

Watercolor and ink wash. A softer piece that stands alone nicely. Titanium white acrylic, too.



Second drawing of YK and the transfer onto large Fabriano. Though it looks like two separate people now.

While I worked on the above, she drew this.



The headband looks even more douchey when drawn.

The Little Flower

A quick one of Yuriko Katori

Lou Says...

This year the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted that reluctant landlord of the tower of song, Mr. Leonard Cohen.
And who better else to give the induction speech than Long Islands' own Lou Reed? The gutter prince of elegant waste meandered on and on simply reading entire passages of LC's own poetry and song lyrics. Great stuff indeed, but after about six minutes the audience grew tired of Lou pretentiously listening to himself add his own vocal inflections to already masterful works and began to inject applause at any chance to signify that Lou should wrap it up. It was pretty awkwardly hilarious. And through each snappy flip to the next page of text to be read, Lou basically told us to go fuck ourselves.
I love you Lou, you prick.




Actually I started looking for pictures of Sydney Pollack, who passed away today, and then realized he kind of resembles Lou. I owe you one Sydney. Best wishes.

First one outta the gate.

Schools been over for two weeks. The studio is desolate and quiet and everyone's work station is still left just as it was the last week of school. I imagine soon that the cubicles are going to start miraculously being emptied one by one with each visit I pay. I will say that I enjoyed every minute (minus time spent troubleshooting the printing network) at SVA and I'm extremely happy with the work that was created over the past two years.
So after two weeks of back-patting and going home after work to the television, it's time to get cracking again. I feel a little uninspired in a "what's-next?" kinda way but I'm sure the best remedy for that is to dive into something new. Well, not too new - I'm gonna finally do that car wreck piece I've wanted to do for a long time.

Dig it! First sketch in two weeks.



A quick finish in Photoshop:

Yankees host the Tigers 4/30/08 7pm

The Tigers took all three of the series. First time since 1966.

That's it for school. Going through the stuff from Stephen Savage's class - I picked out some of my faves.

(!)first time

Just got my wolf/forest/naked ladies piece in American Illustration. I feel decent.

Light, Sweet Crude

It's contest time for our class with a story by Christopher Feliciano Arnold entitled "Light, Sweet Crude" that won Playboy's student fiction contest. A Houston oil big-wig and the people that his life affects. Here's the ink:







A businessman in a suit?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



Then add some shop gravy.

Sunday Charcoal

Okay, so I'm warming up to this stuff.

The Never-Ending Stairwell