Merry Christmas Flashtoon!

Here's a quick li'l flashtoon I put together between shopping and chores, Cheezy Christmas fun!



Hope Everyone is having a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

BDAY Sketch!

Happy B-day Man!

Sketch Comics hit the Spot!

I just finished up my latest SKETCH COMIC late last night. It's even better than a glass of warm milk, especially since I'm lactose intolerant! It's fun working on a project that's actually NOT designed for reproduction... You can focus on the MOMENT of art much more, since the exact piece you're working on will be what your audience will experience. It's like the difference between looking at a painting and a photograph of a painting, it's very different!



This is THE SMILING KING, which I'm especially happy with. The story is tight and I think the piece holds together really nicely...


Man, I dig activating my creative art endorphins... Eye of the Tiger and gettin' the PUMP on, Baby!

Latest Sketch Comic!

Here's pages 10 and 3 And 8 and 5 of my latest Sketch Comic I've been working on. I like doing these "done in one take" comic projects. For this particular one I grabbed like 4 sheets of heavy (legal size) 8.5 by 14 inch paper and started inking with some cheap black ink from the bookstore. I'm not doing any pencil roughs, which keeps the brush stroke pretty bold. After the pages are done, I'll go and paint the cover right on the book in acrylic. This is a great exercise, forcing you to compose and be adaptable with the execution of your strokes. It also ends up as a nice piece of original art!

who needs cold medicine? I've got art!

I've been sick, so what better reason to make a webcomic... This is a result of lots of public television, dvds and trying to get comfortable with pillows.

FINAL Vampy!

Just finished my custom for the AGIMAT gallery show! It's essential to know when a piece of work is done, believe me!(I've OVERworked many a project to the point of NO RETURN)And for VAMPY, he's done! We had some good quality time together, but now it's back to AGIMAT COMICS. (sniff!)

DEEGO TOY CUSTOM for AGIMAT!

The Wonderful folks at AGIMAT COMICS are having a Gallery show with DEEGO toy customs and I'm fortunate enough to be a part of it! Here's my first pass at VAMPY from their E-VILLE game app! The figure itself is great to work on, large enough with a simplified shape design to really work the acrylic paint comfortably and creatively. Doing a cute version of a vampire is a challenging proposition, I'm trying to find my particular balance of cute and horrific in this one... Think I'll sit on this first pass for a while and possibly work into it some more later.

SuperMonster robot zombie vs diecast plane!

Here I combined a diecast plane on my workdesk with a little SuperMonster painting. This time around ZombieRobot was done real fast, but I like the freshness of it... Like an inexpensive breakfast steak done quick with no muss no fuss. MMMM... Breakfast.... I'm gonna make some of that too!

ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

I find that sometimes the art just gets away from you. This is a painting that I worked for probably like an hour and it just got away from me. There was one point where it was okay, but it wasn't up to snuff so I kept going, and going, and going, and voila! it's "Gone!" Yup, it's going in the trash, but I have no regrets. It was fun and challenging and a great exercise wrestling with this one, with the colors, the brushes, the canvas... all told, it was a good workout! It got away from me, but maybe YOU can catch it!

And just cause It was in the previous post...

Here's my latest painting in progress...

CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS Neat Stuff!

Just got Mark Rudolph's latest comic. Full color, premium format... I'm liking how he presents his work. Having a limited artist edition run available where you get his comic AND a full inked original sketch is a good idea. He really gets me thinking how we as creator/publishers can make product as inexpensive as possible so as to pass the low cost down to customers, OR make product higher quality and price accordingly and PRODUCE accordingly (with an obviously lower print run). Thanks for the Cool comic, sketch AND food for thought buddy!

Man, I dig that heavy cardboard envelope, great way to store the book.

And as always, beautiful deep rich color and a wonderful ink sketch! NICELY DONE Mark!

in touch with my feminine side...

I feel like I'm just testing the water when it comes to paint. And here's my "4 toe" water test. Can't wait to jump all the way in, or at least go waist deep!

COLLABORATION BETWEEN ME AND THE MEDIUM

Man, I'm enjoying traditional painting... Here's a study I did earlier today. They look to be some sort of Morlock like Monster-men. It really is fun working with the paint medium, trying to dominate the paint, but being thwarted by it and then ultimately coming to terms with it. funny, but for me right now, painting is like a collaboration between Me and the Medium, good job Paint and Canvas, glad to work with you!

Lesser known Master of the Universe?

It's BURN-ZOR! And it's also an acrylic sketch I did last night, kinda posed out like those old HeMan action figures... So, BURN-ZOR it is! Yeah, He's a bad guy, tho he might have a heart of gold... or rather Molten Lava!

Inspired Painting!

I'm doing a series of paintings with acrylic and canvas board and having a blast with the medium! It really is amazing how the limitations of practical painting can lead to inspired artwork! Thank you Paint Medium for being so fun to work in!

From the workshop of Ted...

I'm working on making figurines based on some of my characters: ZOMBIEMAN ZERO, The Guy with Wire on his head, MONSTER MONOLITH, and SUPER ANDROID FUSIONMAN. I'm pretty happy with them so far, just a few tweeks and they'll be ready to challenge the next show I do! This is a great project, combining my interest in comics and Toys, Yay!

MONSTER colaboration!

I just did a drawing collaboration with the amazing MARY BELLAMY! And I've gotta say, Monsters never looked so good! I provided a rough sketch with no color indications and Mary finished and colored it masterfully. It's always exciting to see how other artists interpret my rough layouts, and how their choices differ from what I would choose to do. Great work, Mary!

Mary's going to have some great new books and buttons and sketch cards AND plushies(Whew, that Lady's been Busy!) this year at the San Diego Comic Con, so I encourage everyone to check out her site and her DeviantArt page for more info!

Is Pro Wrestling Lame 'Cause it's Fake?

Only if Real Violence is cool 'cause it's real...

This is the Coolest Moonsault variation I've seen to date! The Double Moonsault! There's nothing much better than a perfectly executed Wrestling finisher... Well, a perfectly executed comicbook splash page maybe... A really good piece of pizza too, maybe a... Okay, I'll stop now.

CAKOR-X

I was totally delighted and inspired to get a handmade card from some friends of their very own Monster, CAKOR-X! (pronounced CAKE-OR-X) I just had to do a version of their monster to keep Their version company! Thanks Guys, the cake was Monsterlicious!

Cool Art from Mary Bellamy!

I just received a REALLY Cool piece of Art from MARY BELLAMY. She's a pretty astounding Artist with a fascinating style and I highly recommend you check out her comics work and illustration. She also co-hosted an episode of the IDIOT ENGINE where we discussed creating characters, fascinating talk from a fascinating lady! Thanks Mary!

IRON-FIST-MAN

Scanned and colored my latest ink sketch in photoshop. Yup, no easy way to get back up to drawing steam, just got to keep drawing, and making mistakes and relearning past lessons.

Saying "Hello" again to pencil, Ink and Bristol

Got my hands smudgy with cheap ink and bristol after WAy too long. Here's a warmup with a cartoony THOR! And here's me trying to get back in cleaner tighter mode (a la my early BILLY COLE work) for a sketchbook I'm putting together. It was pretty friggin' tough getting clean again, Man sometimes I feel like I'm gettin' too old for this stuff! But then I remind myself that I can just "Feel too old" after I'm dead.
In answer to his question, Nope We're not done yet!

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK AND JUST DRAW!

Sometimes it's good to just draw. Focusing on an art career takes dogged determination and discipline and sometimes it's easy to feel compelled to only draw what's practical and useful for your career. I find myself thinking this more often than not, but sometimes... Sometimes I remember why I started drawing, I remember how much I enjoyed expressing myself with pencil and paper and ink. I remember how much I like the feel of scratching letters on paper with a bowl pointed nib or unloading a big watercolor brush full of black ink on a clean white sheet of bristol board. Sometimes it's nice to look at a new sheet of paper and see its emptiness as your opportunity to be yourself and say anything you feel or fear or want. Knowing there's a place you can be truly free to express yourself is empowering. So, like I said sometimes it's good to just draw.

Inspired birthday illustration...

It's selfpublisher / podcaster Mark Rudolph's Birthday and I've been looking for an excuse to do a daily sketch. Great exercise! Elapsed time: 20 min... Cintiq in photoshop cs2 . If you are so inclined, for more cool daily sketches check out GOGO ILLUSTRATION, those guys are makin' some sweet sketches! Happy Birthday Mr. Rudolph, you Bionic Bro!