toy story 3

i'm really looking forward to this weekend. the first thing to be excited about is the next toy story movie. this is just a quick colored sketch, but i wanted to do something because i love these movies so much.

more as the week progresses.

mega x-men

okay, so i know i've stated before that i love x-men... so hopefully that at least half-explains this. i used to work a lot in ms paint before i was introduced to photoshop and all of creative suite. i got nostalgic for my old sprites and gif animations and all that and thought i'd try to figure out how to do it with photoshop. turns out, it's much more complicated to primitive stuff in photoshop than it is to do in paint. but i was messing around on my sister-in-law's computer and even paint isn't the primitive beast it used to be. makes me sad, actually. i miss my old processes and cheats and i-guess-this-works and all that i used to do in paint. i didn't really get in to the groove with photoshop because of all of the layers and there's no easy way to erase pixel by pixel... so i created some of my favorite x-men and that's probably all i'll do like this... unless someone can hook me up with an old school version of ms paint...

Super Squad

Sorry it took so long to post the real image of the Super Squad here, but I kept making minor alterations to costumes and character names and wanted to have those set before I unveiled them all.

From front to back we have Super Bat (the leader), Froggy (the creature), Super Bug (the sarcastic one), Super Deer (the girl) and Super Rat (the smart one). If you couldn't tell by their terrible names and ridiculous costumes, the Squad is somewhat of a parody of super heroes.

I originally came up with the Squad back around the 4th grade. I continued drawing them off and on until about somewhere in high school. Every time I brought them back I updated their looks a little and played with their personalities. When trying to come up with an idea for a comic, I couldn't resist bringing back my childhood creations. This time, though, some major costume changes were made and two of the characters were kind of combined in to a hybrid that doesn't look like either of them (Froggy). I prefer 4 member teams (rather than their initial 6) and neither of the characters I used to make Froggy had much actual personality, so I felt comfortable combining them in to the team pet. It is funny what a 10 year old who loves cartoons comes up with for heroes, villains and everything else, so that's been fun to think back on and figure out what works and what doesn't. Surpisingly, I think a lot of it will work for this project and it's stuff that I probably wouldn't have thought of now for a completely new team. Some stuff was just too weird or didn't make any sense to bother about translating to the newest version of the Super Squad.


Hey just for kicks, here's some old versions of the characters circa 2001 (DONE IN MS PAINT!)

Stay tuned for more updates

recent developments...

Sorry for the lack of posts since the comic con, I've been horribly busy. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and checked out my illustrations, and an even bigger thank you to anyone who bought anything. My wife posted some pics on her blog after the event. It was a great time and I'll definitely be back next year with even more work.

Which brings me to the main point of this post...

I have recently begun work on a few different projects and with a few different people. Unfortunately I can't say too much about any of them, but I'll tell you what I can.

I've started three new projects which I hope to compile into a comic for next year's con. One, which is more or less pictured above, features some old characters of mine who have been redesigned and reimagined. The second combines a lot of characteristics of characters I have worked with briefly but never quite made it, so I took all the best parts and I'm running with it. The third is a bit more ridiculous, but should be a lot of fun.

Now the projects with other people...

My wife and I are working together (finally) making paintings, prints, collages, et cetera which we will be selling as a company on Etsy.

My brother and I are in talks about his next project and the possibility of me doing some color work. It's mostly just been a "hey would you be interested" and a "yeah let me know when you finish Rock of Pages" type of thing, but it's worth mentioning.

Some high school friends (sorry no link yet) just contacted me about doing some work for their band. This is all still early on and I'm not sure how much I can talk about it, but it could be a huge break for everyone included.

Sorry to be vague, but I'll give updates and post pictures as things get farther along.

Big Red Monkey

Hellboy is awesome and, although I enjoy the movies and animated features, nobody does him as well as Mike Mignola. It's funny, it's creepy, it's dramatic and the artwork is beautiful. If you've never read Hellboy, go out and do yourself a favor.

I always like it when HB slings the creeper over his shoulder, so that's what I did for this piece

Along Came a Spider...

So I've been hard at work getting the rest of my pin ups finished for the con. This is one of the three I've been working on this past week. I don't know why I always seem to work on a handfull of projects at once instead of just finishing one and then moving on...

Anyway, I figured Spidey would look best next to Venom from my last post


-x

We are Venom

To me, Eddie Brock will always be Venom and Venom will always be awesome.