HIPSTER SANTA

Santa lives at the North Pole is some strange commune where everything is hand-made and home-grown. He just sits up there and judges the rest of us all year long.

Thanks to everyone who contributed! Here are some of my favorites:

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Season's Greetings!

PROJECT: ZERO - 01

Part One of PROJECT: ZERO focuses on is character design and a full character turn around. This would have been a lot easier if he was symmetrical, but I think his asymmetry lends some of his charm.

This is Zero, aka Michael McManus. He's a character I've been drawing and refining since some time in 2005. Full disclosure - yes, he is somewhat based on me, at least physically. I made all sorts of key changes to ensure that he wasn't exactly me... like he has sideburns and stubble instead of a beard and he's a musician instead of a graphic artist. I also made him Irish for some reason. I just like their last names and after searching through tons of them, liked McManus the best. His first name actually came from the archangel Michael. I'm not religious, but religions interest me. Doing some research at some point in my life, I read that there are two archangels: Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel is the messenger while Michael is the protector. This was perfect for when I was toying with the idea of Zero being some kind of hero. "Zero" obviously has connotations as a name, but then to have his secret identity have other connotations was really interesting to me.

His appearance, besides reflecting my own, is meant to show his rock n roller status. His shirt color has changed over the years, but he's always had those red shoes. At one point he had red shoes, a red watch, a red bandana on his other wrist, a red belt and red on his shirt collar and sleeves. Way too matchy-matchy. Then he went through a period where everything was super desaturated. Wearing gray and black with just his red shoes. Too dull. I've been having fun in my recent paintings matching the boy's shoes to either his jacket or his shirt so I tried it on Zero and liked the result. He also had a goatee for a long time, but I recently traded that in for the less aggressive stubble. His ripped jeans are a nod to the 80s/90s when that was really cool. Finally, his t-shirt has a v-neck just to make it a little more different than an average crew neck t-shirt.

So that's Zero.

PS- I made an animated GIF of his turn around, but it absolutely trashed his colors. If anyone has any advice on better GIF animators for Mac OS X (no higher than 10.4), let me know! I used GIFBuilder, by the way.

(click to see him spin forever)

TRADING CARDS - Iceman

I actually don't own this card, so I had to borrow the image from Comic Collector Live. Iceman is an underrated X-man. He's about as cool as the Gold team got (pun intended) and he's super powerful, but I feel like he gets left off the team a lot. Or at least the main team.

A founding member of the original X-Men. Iceman's fun-loving personality has often stood in sharp contrast to his more driven teammates. But make no mistake - this feisty frosty X-Man is a hero though and through. 

He makes a solid #10 card - an important character but not hugely popular. I'd like to see him included in more big X-titles.

FACES - Flight of the Conchords

I love Flight of the Conchords. It is definitely one of my favorite shows and another one that ended too soon. I stuck to just Jemaine, Bret, Murray and Mel so I wasn't drawing the entire cast. But believe me, I did think about adding Dave, Greg, Eugene, Sally, Coco, Bryan the Prime Minister, Todd, Jim, Brahbrah, Keitha and the other Australians.

TMNT - Shredder and Krang

Made this to go along with my latest ninja turtles designs. The fun thing about drawing Shredder is also the terrible thing about drawing Shredder - his spikey things. I also love Krang. The old cartoon was a little too goofy (okay, it was more than a little), but it had some great characters.

TRADING CARDS - Banshee

Okay, like I said, I'm back and re-focused. Today is Monday, so here's another X-Men trading card recreation. I skipped #8 because it was Revanche and I know nothing about her. Apparently she's Psylocke or something? I don't know. Anyway, coming in at #9 is Banshee. He was never one of my favorites, but I've also never really seen him on the team. Overall I think he's a little on the lame side, but at least I didn't skip him, right?

Banshee began his career as a foe of the original X-Men. He was later recruited into the second X-Men team and today serves as a reserve member.

I'm pretty sure he just hangs out on Muir Island until somebody calls him... which probably doesn't happen very often.

PROJECT: ZERO - 00

So I've done a lot of thinking lately. A LOT. I've been thinking about my life path and where I am, where I want to be, and where I want to go. Project: Zero is me forcing myself to learn the basics and teach myself from the ground up. There are things I want to do in life and I'm tired of waiting for things to fall into my lap. I realize that I have to teach myself. I have to find the steps on the path to get there. Project: Zero will focus on character design, graphic design, animation and illustration.

This is only the beginning.