right there

Hey- sorry I'm late. Technical problems. Anyway- here's a recent drawing I'm really happy with.

Behold the Stars

A rare attempt to add some narrative to my work. This city guy's out in the country marveling at the unfamiliar stars, when he sees the image of his beloved, who's back in the city, formed there. The house he's staying at is in the distance. He might also be a Jew, since he's wearing something like a yarmulke.

Self Portrait II

Tom's internet connection is down so the weekend update has fallen to me. Here's a self portrait I did around the same time as this one.

Mesh Girdle?

I thought it would add some of the poignancy I love if I used the same placement I use when making paired figures but then just leave one of them out. (Notice the continued similarity to the Progenitor)

oldies

Here's a few oldies that I'm still fond of and which needed a new home.

Progeny

I've got a few color schemes that I'm drawn to and have to fight myself not to use every time I do a new piece. Orange/Grey/Electric Blue. Pink/Baby Blue/Black. Pale Yellow/Green/Purple. In this case my old stand-by, Red/White/Forrest Green.

Dream Team: 2008

A piece I just finished for King Magazine. From top left, clockwise, we've got Dwight Howard, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant.

When I finish up a drawing, I usually rotate it (in Photoshop) a few times and examine it from different angles. I did it with this one. It's a way for me to see and appreciate the drawing in a sorta fresh light, after having just stared at it for 10 hours or so. Photoshop also lets you flip the image to a mirror vesion. Conversely, this does not aid in appreciation, this makes the drawing, specifically the faces, look monstrous and distorted (so I don't do it often, but I did it this time (I get curious)). Does this happen to anyone else? I really don't know what to make of this effect. It happens pretty much every time. I can't tell if it's just the shock that makes it look weird, or if a real defect is being revealed...

Progenitors II

At one point during my transition from exclusively making non-figurative paintings into exclusively making drawings of human figures, I tried to make a figure using the technique I was employing for my abstract work at that time (illustrated here with a painting titled "Bier Guarding"). What I would do was put down small blobs of paint around a surface and then squash it all with a piece of plexi-glass so that the blobs spread out over the surface and joined without leaving any brush strokes. Then I'd repeat that a couple more times. The idea was for the paint application to be and to look more "natural".

Anyway the figure turned out pretty bad, because the technique doesn't allow much control unless you're extremely precise about the size, shape, and position of your blobs. Which sort of takes the fun out of it. But so even though the features were hard to distinguish, I really liked some of the shapes that came about, particularly the overall silhouette.

This drawing, then, is an interpolation of a painting that was vague and distorted because I was using an inappropriate technique to create a human figure. Squashed paint has been reinterpreted and articulated as spongy deformations. I think the deformations and mutations, in combination with the festive colors, have a poignant effect.

Meathaus Postcard

An image from an old promotional postcard for the Meathaus comics anthology.

Also: if you're attending the MOCCA festival in NYC this weekend, be sure to stop by the Meathaus table and check out our first full-color book, "SOS". Top notch.

UPDATE: I was at the festival today, but no books. They didn't get shipped in time. Dang...

Progenitors

Adam and Eve as some kind of rainbow zombies. I think all of the figures I've been doing for the past couple of years started with the male figure in this piece, although this is actually his second appearance. I'll post and describe his first appearance next time.

rejects* pt.2

*Only "Wuz Entmee" was actually rejected. "Kiki and Neesy" is still under consideration over at Nick, but I thought I'd throw it in here anyways. The last one, with the wolfmen, was such a failure that I didn't submit it. Self-rejection I suppose. It may have the most complicated, least comprehensible, least funny "punchline" of all comics ever.

Before & After

Here's another "base layer" drawing. This one actually did get painted upon, and it changed quite a bit in the process. This is a good example of something I used to do pretty often, which is letting the loose brush strokes I use to paint the figures change the figures' silhouettes, such as the guy's right hip, and the girl's hair and the small flowery shape on her upper right arm.

rejects pt.1

Three rejected strips that I submitted over the years to Nickelodeon Magazine's comics section.
I'll post some more on Thursday.

Teal

Same method as the lavender woman, even more distorted.

When we go, we always stop