the secret of nhm

Went to the Natural History Museum today, it occurred to me for the first time how strange it is that the whole building is filled to the brim with dead bodies. Like, those awesome dioramas with the amazing painted backgrounds? Yeah, that cute cuddly mountain lion you're staring at in there has been dead for at least like ten or fifteen years. But hey, it still looks great! Taxidermy rules.

unurban sketches

Though they can sometimes be quite painful to the ears, open mic nights are a really great place to draw. Each of these doodles is around 3-5 minutes, or however long it took for the person to play a song. Fun times!

heman detail!

I'm still bummed over how janky my photo of the He-Man vs. Skeletor painting came out. seriously, what am I doing wrong? Here's a smaller detail of the action that gives a better idea of the color and value. Anyway, back to drawing, happy Friday night!

ghost-eater wip!

a work in progress shot of the short comic thingy I'm doing. I painted tone in with ink washes on top of the pencils to give it a little extra texture, and now I'm photoshopping my life away, doing type and adding color and whatnot. this is a splash page, I'll post some more pages as I get to them. wish me luck!

He-Man show

Thanks to everyone who came out to the He-Man show last night... all, what, ten thousand of you? What a crazy night! So much amazing work rarely can come together under one roof! Here is my humble contribution to the show:

18x24, oil on board.

And while we're on the subject, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for photographing work? I don't have steady access to a large format scanner so I photographed my He-Man piece at home. I did it as professional as I could: propped up against a white backdrop, with two spotlights at 45 degree angles to the piece, and using a high megapixel camera on a tri-pod... but STILL the damn photo came out blurry, washed out, and unevenly lit! What am I doing wrong?!
Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to get a good scan of this sometime in the future... I'm relatively happy with this piece and hope you all enjoy it too.
cheers!

this and that

on the drawing table right now:



and a work in progress detail shot of a painting I did as a christmas present, gonna take it to get a proper image made next week. can anybody guess who this dashing gentleman is?

Also, don't forget, if you're in the LA area tonight, I have a piece in the "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" show at Gallery 1988 tonight. Come by and check out the gallery transformed into Castle Greyskull... it's going to be a blast!

New decade, here is a teaser!

If you're in LA this weekend, check out the opening of the Under the Influence: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe show at Gallery 1988 on Friday. I've got a piece in it that I'm really proud of and slaved away on all through the holiday frenzy. Two big paintings with fast approaching deadlines + illustrating a comic short story + holiday shopping and family what-have-you = ...well, I'm sure you can imagine. After a well-needed break I'm back in action with lots of fun stuff to post, so keep your eye out for, you know, said fun stuff.
hope everyone had a great holiday!