Early 2015 Art Dump (2014's Leftovers)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's 2015- welcome to the future!!

With such a crazy busy convention schedule this past year- I found myself starting a lot of art but not necessarily finishing things. Or doing inks and colors on vellum for art shows but then never going back and finishing the digital versions of my pieces, which is where I usually fully realize the scope of my piece and can make it available as a print, magnets or other merch. With the quiet time right after the holidays I usually find myself arriving home from travels itching to have some quiet days to really get into some art before my day job and my clients have a chance to assign me projects.  So here's a bunch of art I started in 2014 but didn't really get a chance to properly ink and color until now in January 2015.

Enjoy!

Francesca & Yetch from Mad Monster Party

Connie & Raymond Marble from Pink Flamingos

Veronica Sawyer from Heathers

Kitty Pryde

Illyana Rasputin

Pearly Whites Sketch dump- July 2014

Had some time to myself during a weekend visit to my parent's house in Maryland and spent a good chunk of my time out on the back porch sketching and writing for my eventual comic, Pearly Whites. 

It's coming along. I actually closed a few gaps in the progression of the story and even made up a character or two that streamlines a very complicated origin story. The problem with writing a story that's been in my head since I was 15 is that that early on I had so many bad teenaged ideas ingrained into the story that they're simply taken as history. But in reality, I can change whatever I want and no one other than me will really know the difference. I mean some of these characters have been hanging out in my head for over 20 years so I don't necessarily want to un-make my imaginary friends, but for the sake of story sometimes you make sacrifices. I'm pretty proud of how much tighter Pearly Whites is getting though. I think I might actually *finally* have the beginning of the story figured out, which is exciting. It just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. It's like I'm taking a pinch from everything I love and putting it in a mixer and making my own cake of awesomeness.

Art updates! Nov 2013 Edition!

Exciting news! I was accepted into Moon Crisis: A Sailor Moon Tribute Show! It's out in California next summer and I get to display my work alongside some of my contemporary art heroes like Babs Tarr and Megan Lara! I am crazy super excited to take part. Plus I'm hoping some of these galleries in Cali will finally take notice to my work and offer me more opportunities to take part in more pop culture-themed shows (I'm looking at YOU, Gallery 1988...).

SO excited to take part that I'm already sketching the layout for my piece, which is looking to be pretty big. It was suggested I make my piece in the same vein as my Visionary Tattoo Festival poster, which as of right now is (in my humble opinion) my best piece of art ever. So I'm going for a VERY text-heavy gaslight Victorian style that is going to incorporate the WHOLE SAILORMOON THEME SONG... because apparently I hate myself. But I love all of your eyeballs. ::cries::

I've also been sketching some Pearly Whites characters for warm ups in between commissions.

Althea, the suit-loving raconteur.

Althea and Rasheeda. Pearly Whites: already passing the Bechdel Test.

As of yet unnamed demon character. Basically Boris Karloff wearing Max Shreck's suit.

A couple new chibi pieces!

Not much to report! Prepping for Baltimore Comic Con next week and drawing to de-stress. Haha. 

These are just for fun, mostly. And to keep myself sharp with my coloring and linework. Plus I can always use them for magnet sets, mini-print postcards and I'm actually thinking of getting the Frankenstein couple made as a sticker set this fall.

Tex Avery's Red and The Wolf

"Franken-FINE"

Pearly Whites.

See the full shots of these creeps and scoundrels on my Pearly Whites page.

Logo by Phil Balsman!

This is Amy, one of our heroes.
See the rest of my characters here.

In preparation for actually sitting down and doing my fabled magnum opus comic series Pearly Whites, I'm drawing character studies and other fun stuff. I consider this separate from my usual pinup work, so it's all going in here.

The long-winded 'elevator pitch':

It's best described as almost an east-coast version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but from the monsters perspective. (I'm not even gonna pretend people aren't going to make comparisons.) It could also be considered a superhero team book if the superheroes all didn't wear costumes and have no actual mission to carry out. It's got action, horror, comedy, romance, drama, powers, drugs, fashion and pop culture references out the wazzoo. Alot of the stories and characters come from my 4 years of playing/DMing tabletop dice-and-paper RPG's like Vampire and Shadowrun in high school.

The main story follows our main character Amy, an amnesiac who is of unknown origins. She is haunted by two girls, Suzan and Fiona, who could be either ghosts, figments of her imagination or incorporeal aspects of her own personality. Or all of the above. Or something else entirely. She comes to live in a sort of halfway house for the supernatural called the Monster Lodge, which is occupied by a rotating cast of various werewolves, vampires, demons, witches, Frankensteins, mad scientists, fairies, and ne'er do well's. Many who comes to live at the Monster Lodge are there because they're running from something, which results in several character's pasts eventually catching up with them. Depending on the character, this can result in anything from riotous hijinks across the country (and sometimes across the world) to heartbreaking realizations that can shake the characters to their very cores.

As of right now I've got 16 characters down, a bazillion to go. Look for more designs soon! With the summer weather being absolute shit right now, this is basically all I've been concentrating my free time on. It's like I'm in high school again. I'm proud to say I'm further along to a cohesive plot than I've ever been in the 15+ years these characters have been running around in my head, and I'm taking serious steps to organize my thoughts and get my shit in gear to do my own goddamn comic. Woot.

I added an actual page to my blog up above under the title banner of this very blog where you can see my character designs as they progress. Or just click here. Be sure to check it out every few weeks as I plan on adding more characters and concept drawings and who knows, maybe some comic shorts as I get back into the sequential game.

Harley and Ivy

Working on a set of chibi-styled Batman ladies for fun. I plan on doing 6- Batgirl, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Black Canary and Huntress. So far I have completed Harley and Ivy and have sketches for Catwoman and Black Canary! Check em out!

Studying Up on Retro Cartooning

Always looking to keep my work fresh I'm constantly keeping my eyes peeled for new inspiration. Like a fancy new liquor I can splash in the martini shaker of my brain, sometimes I find something in the back of of my cabinet shelf that's been there all along, hiding in plain sight, covered in dust and cobwebs. I mix it in with my regular favorites and holy crap- where was this deliciousness my whole life? 

'Gee, willeckers!'
Self portrait in the pie-eyed
style of 20s-30s animation.

I plan on doing a whole 'family portrait' in this style
for eventual 2013 Christmas cards. 

So hey guess what- that thinly-veiled analogy I just used of liquor is actually about retro cartoons, particularly those of the 1920s. I've always been a fan of old cartoons, especially since my first artistic interests laid in the animation industry. I fortunately have SUPER supportive parents as well, who were totally feeling my artistic obsessions (especially since these interests were nice and quiet and solitary when I was a kid) and would point me in the direction of pretty much anything animation-related they came across. In particular the old Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Fleischer cartoons of their youth and then eventually I moved on to the more obscure works including those of Osamu Tezuka (Unico), Richard Williams (Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure) and Nelvana (Rock & Rule). Even during vacations to Disney World as a child my parents would enroll me in children's animation classes while they were getting to ride Splash Mountain. 

'Cutie Patootie!'
A flapper pinup in the 20's style.

As I got older my interest shifted from animation into comics but I still wanted to keep the clean aesthetic and line economy of traditional 2D animation and I've been chasing that look ever since. And being a big fan of the concept of 'climbing your artistic family tree' for inspiration, I've been researching the works of Ub Iwerks and Max Fleischer, two of the founding fathers of animation. I remember watching so many of these cartoons as a kid and being engrossed in the adorable creepiness.

Fleischer's Bimbo in "Bimbo's Initiation"

Part 1 of "The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story"

The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story... by CarlStallingEnthusiast

I hope these inspire you as well! I hope in the near future to have my pie-eyed portraits available as a commission option!

Surrender, Dorothy! and new Miss MJ

Finished the pencils for the Wizard of Oz piece on Cortes's Art Studio Livestream last week! You can see the archived footage from the evening here on the site! Fair warning: there's a lot of footage, split between several videos and I think if you want to start at the beginning you have to start at the bottom and work up.

Here's the first segment where I go thru my sketchbook! You can see the rest of the night here!

Was super-duper fun, can't wait to be on again!

I also drew up a BRAND NEW pic of Miss Mary Jane, finally! :D

Heads up! Livestream with CortesNYC on 2/12/13

Hey guys! I'm gonna be drawing LIVE on the internets with CortesNYC and TameekaTime next Tuesday night! Be sure to drop by and say hello!

CortesNYC’s livestream channel HERE.

Boot the Foot: Mondo Gecko

I was recently invited to take part in my art pals Beast Wreck and Skummie's new art blog Skumm Beast presents Boot the Foot, which has several artists interpreting their favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle characters in their own unique way. My first piece, of April O'Neil is up and now my second, of Mondo Gecko the 80s-tastic skateboarding lizard is posted as well. You can check it out along with a small quesstionnare regarding my history with the beloved franchise.

Boot the Foot: April O'Neil

I was recently invited to take part in my art pals Beast Wreck and Skummie's new art blog Skumm Beast presents Boot the Foot, which has several artists interpreting their favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle characters in their own unique way. My first piece, of April O'Neil is up and you can check it out along with a small quesstionnare regarding my history with the beloved franchise.  

Check out the full entry HERE!

I highly suggest checking out all the cool artwork involved!!!

Here's some sketches of the other characters I'm working on for future entries, including:

Mondo Gecko!
My all-time favorite action figure.

Irma! (and eventually Vernon)
Cuz no one else wanted to draw them!

The Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe- REDUX Edition blog

I had the honor of taking part in the The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe- REDUX Edition blog, which was quite a thrill for me as I am a HUUUGE fan of the book series, which was a giant influence on my childhood obsession with character design. By the time I found out about the project and got ahold of the moderator it was pretty slim pickens, most of the 'cool' characters on the list had been rifled thru, leaving a lot of D-listers and what I like to call the 'single-pagers', which were always the most awesomely lame weirdoes the Marvel U circa the 80's had to offer. I fortunately was able to grab the last girl, being Her, the female counterpart to Adam Warlock, or who I lovingly now refer to as 'Giant Gold Bitch' and chose the awesomely weird Aelfyre 'Whitey' Whitemane, whom I remember even from my childhood as being such a strangely designed character. Plus it's such a departure from my usual pinup art, it was definitely a fun exercise. 

Be sure to check out mine and several other awesome reinterpretations of characters at the 

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe- REDUX Edition blog!

Her! See the actual entry here!

Whitey! See the actual entry here!

And now I ramble:

I love stats, I love character lineups, I love comparing power levels and surmising whether or not so-and-so could take on so-and-so in some whirlwind street fight. It fills my nerdy little heart with glee. The combination of the OHotMU, the Who's Who in the DC Universe series and various sourcebooks for tabletop roleplaying games I collected over the years resulted in me just spending hours upon hours alone at my parent's dining room table as a kid creating multiple characters and universes of my own design. All thru junior high I had stacks of RPG sourcebooks and stacks of character sheets, but sadly no one to play with. ::insert sad violin:: It wasn't until high school that I found enough sorta-like-minded individuals to get a Vampire: The Masquerade game together. Unfortunately the only way I could get them to play was if I was the DM/Gamemaster/Storyteller and totally threw out the actual dice-rolling process of the game (I know, blasphemy. I think they figured the lack of dice made it less nerdy?). Since everyone I played with had gotten themselves so wrapped up in creating their character, if there was even a possibility of that character getting killed and rendered unusable I could kiss being able to play at all goodbye. So I counted my blessings and just found creative ways to work story arcs where characters got really fucked up, but didn't necessarily die. I think that was a major mistake on my part however with running an RPG, as it gave the player characters (PCs) way more control than they should be allowed. But alas I was young and naive and had a spine made of spaghetti. These game sessions happened about once a week for about 3-5 hours apiece, and each 'Chronicle' (major storyline) lasted about 3 months. We even made different mix tapes for the characters and overall story atmosphere to get my brain going. (Which I still do to this day, but now it's playlists on iTunes.) It was creatively exhausting, writing all these open-ended stories for the PCs to navigate thru and then the times we actually played it would be even more physically exhausting acting out all these characters on the spot. I was seriously performing some sugar and soda-fueled one-woman show shit at that poker table in my parents basement. (I'm sure if I nowadays was a fly on the wall witnessing my antics I would cringe so much at the embarrassing wannabe theater-kid-ness of it I'd collapse in on myself like a dying star.) I apparently did 'such a good job' of DMing that once any of my players decided to step up to the plate and host a session they backed out at the last minute, which was quite a disappointment to me as sweet Christ it's an exhausting job. I have no idea how I did it. So many of the NPCs (non-player characters, essentially supporting cast and extras that were portrayed by me) I created for RPG sessions I still plan to use for my magnum opus comic Pearly Whites, though they have drastically evolved with the times. During my heyday of RPGing back in 10th-12th grade I probably had a backlog of easily over 100 NPCs, not including repeat characters who had multiple alternate universe versions depending on the story. I was so wrapped up in gaming I almost failed Desktop Publishing my Senior year of high school, which would have caused me not to graduate. Oh, the irony. Lookit me now! ;P
Even before all that I had started to make my own awful, derivative-as-hell superhero team and had about 10 pages worth of a fully colored, fully lettered comic back in the 7th-8th grade when I first started really getting into comics (which for a kid that young even I must admit is pretty impressive) which I carried around with me in one of those chincy plastic portfolio books with the clear plastic pages and worked on every chance I got. I had even made my own Handbook-style character entries in the back as a guide that I typed out with a TYPEWRITER and even drew in little fake 'action shots' (that were so totally swiped from everything I could get my hands on, but hey I was only in 7th grade and just learning...) that I had to format my typing around by hand. I probably had about 6-8 completed entries in that book, all illustrated with the original art gluesticked in, with fully realized origin stories. It was awful yet totally charming at the same time and I wish I still had them somewhere so I could show you but I'm pretty sure none of it survived my 'I'm gonna destroy everything remotely embarrassing because I have an ego made of sugar glass'-phase I had in high school. Sometimes really I wish I could go back in time and shake the ever-loving shit out of myself.
Nowadays my more intensive character creation processes has been temporarily retired to my stacks of private sketchbooks, filled with scrawlings that would remind you of some sort of OCD-riddled crazy person. The movie Seven comes to mind. Hopefully with the self-imposed projects I'm planning to inflict on myself in the near future I can actually flex those creative muscles again.