But I'm a wizard!

Watercolor paintings for the 2010 RoCO 6x6 show

2010-05-04T15:06:00.003-04:00

*Dusts off the blog*

It's been a while since I've posted here. Work has been good and busy for a while and with the spring quarter wrapping up at RIT I'll have more time to make new things and show you what I've been up to.

For now, check out these three watercolor paintings I made for the upcoming 6x6 benefit show at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center (aka: RoCo http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/). I've been drawing a lot of Mad Ball inspired artwork lately (primarily black and white ink pieces to ramp up to making a new Eat World based project) but I wanted to try working with some brown ink and watercolors to see what might happen for the 6x6 pieces. Below are the results.

Green Face

Purple Face

Bug Eyed Face

The ink I used is FW Acrylic Burnt Umber, and used Peerless watercolors http://www.peerlesscolor.com/. I'm typically a digital painting/color guy unless I'm screen printing something, but I really enjoyed working between ink and watercolors on these (especially since I could do it from a coffee shop or on the move). I'm definitely going to do some more pieces using this method.

I believe my three paintings (and all the paintings at the 6x6 show) are going to be on sale for $20 each. Proceeds benefit RoCo. If you're interested in picking up one of the three, get yourself to the opening this July! http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/6x6x2010.html. I think I will make prints of these faces too when I get some more print-worthy illustrations together.

I heard they have over 6,000 submissions. There will be a pile of tiny artwork to see at this show, so it should be pretty fun.

ArtOrder: Krampus

2009-12-20T02:11:00.003-05:00

I just finished this Krampus piece for the last drawing topic of 2009 over at ArtOrder.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone. Try not to get birched!

Webcomics, Orcs and Help the Hersheys!

2009-12-10T13:52:00.004-05:00

Blog folks! How have you been? The year is almost up and things are going as well as I could hope. If you haven't seen yet, I started a webcomic a few weeks ago.
Head over to ImaginaryMonsters.com to check it out. The story is full swing featuring the adventures and mishaps of a disembodied slimy skull, and his necromancer and wizardly friends. Let me know what you think! It's been a lot of fun so far. I'm going to be keeping this blog active to discuss work/process/news (like usual) and ImaginaryMonsters.com will be more focused on my comics, and other things I make like books and posters. So stay tuned.

I'm getting super stoked for this January to arrive since Mike and Raina will be moving to R-Town. We're going to set up some shared basement screenprinting space and I'll be able to make some new killer screen printed oddities. Stay tuned for Eat World 2, some collaborative projects between Mike Turzanski, Tom Smolenski, and I, and who knows what else! I think we don't have any shows until next spring (MoCCA and Buffalo Small Press Book Fair), so we'll have some time to cook up a stack of awesome stuff for 2010.

Here's some recent work in progress for an Empty Room Studios concept art project focused on orcs. I've been making some big bruiser orcs to start with.

In other Empty Room Studios news, lately Rick and his family have been having a rough time making ends meet. Rocky Dohmen set up a blog to spread the word and hopefully help out Rick and his family. Please go check out helpthehersheys.blogspot.com/. I know the economy and the health care system has been rough a lot of us, but it is the holidays and if you can spare some support I encourage you to do so.

Stay warm everybody. The snow is coming down...

Crimson Daggers - new studies

2009-11-23T08:30:00.002-05:00

Here are some more of my studies from the past four days. I'm really digging these still life paintings...expect to see more!

Crimson Daggers - daily studies

2009-11-19T11:18:00.004-05:00

About a week ago Dave Rapoza posted about getting people together (virtually) to do daily drawing studies. I decided to answer this call to awesome and try to do some routine art push ups in addition to my work routine. Below are the studies I've done so far independently and with the group. We've been studying anatomy from Andrew Loomis and doing still life paintings. I'm stoked because I've been getting up between 6 and 7am most mornings since it started. I've been a night owl for a long time with morning envy, so it's been a nice change of pace.

These are sorted chronologically, oldest at the top, newest at the bottom (ending with the pear still life I did this morning).

I'm gonna stay brave and hopefully sustain the hour or two of morning study each day. Rock on!

Dune book club: SHAI HULUD

2009-11-04T00:15:00.002-05:00

I write SHAI HULUD in all caps because I am PUMPED! I was talking to Smo earlier and somehow after reading Dune the first time I forgot about so many details in the story. It's like reading it completely anew and I'm getting frequently surprised. So stoked.

I took a stab at creating an image of a Dune sand worm / Shai Hulud. So frickin pumped about this! Just 3ish hours in Photoshop and a volcanic hot sand worm is screaming across my desktop.

Dustin Harbin is a prince for getting me to read Dune again. Check out the discussion here! http://www.dharbin.com/blog/2009/11/dune-book-club-week-03/

Imaginary Monsters identity redesign

2009-11-03T20:26:00.005-05:00

I've been rocking the Imaginary Monsters name since my last days at college. What grew out of the final project I did at school became my future business name and brand. I finished up at RIT in 2005 and the logotype I made for Imaginary Monsters has been left relatively unchanged for nearly five years (apart from a few new color options). It has served me well, but over the past year I've been taking stock in where I am right now as an artist and as a designer, as well as trying out new work methods to try and see what the future of my work will be. I decided that my work has changed enough over the past 4.5 years that I should update the look of my Imaginary Monsters brand to better represent who I am to colleagues, allies, and future clients. So, I think I have it mostly situated: At the top is the original Imaginary Monsters logotype, born 2005. Below it are some crazy color iterations and the less elements black and white version. Now that I can see this I feel like this is what I wanted the I.M. look to be from the get go. I still liked parts of the original mark and the type I designed for it, so I decided to keep the top "Imaginary" section. This sort of represents where I'm coming from: most of my old work was very clean edged and vector heavy. Precise and accurate, but a little sterile.

The bottom type is a totally new addition. The bulbous, fleshy, gory, booger puke type is organic and sticky. This portion of type was hand rendered and it's much closer to what I've been doing with things like Eat World lately. Something more violent and aggressive is going on, but it's an energy I'm excited to have access to and continue working with.

I hope this new mark helps to excite more people about my work rather than disturb them. It unsettles me a bit, but I'm ready to embrace that uncertainty. Life and work are getting more exciting by the day, so let's adventure together! Ha!

If you have any comments about the mark definitely let me know! Thank you world.

Here's another rationale note too:
The new Imaginary Monsters logotype also represents what I was interested as a young boy and continue to gravitate towards now. It's deliberately modeled to look like a gross out horror toy brand from the 80s you somehow missed when growing up. The 80s were such a weird time when gross was cool and monsters were everywhere in Saturday morning television, toy stores, and cereal boxes. If it involved mutants, barbarians, ghosts and ghost busters, robots, or just plain monsters it was damn cool!

Now I'm ready for the renaissance.

Hand Lettering: Type Silhouettes

2009-10-29T14:43:00.004-04:00

I went over to RIT yesterday to hang out with their Hand Lettering club and give a demo. We talked about screen printing and some of the tools I use for doing ink work. The night before I put together these two initial caps based off of typographic silhouettes. The first one is a majuscule Helvetica P.

And the second one is a majuscule Bodoni Z, negative space.

I love the word "majuscule". For the Helvetica P I used a crow quill pen (Speedball/Hunt 102 nib). For the Bodoni Z I used my Kuretake pen (a brush and ink would have done just fine too).

I enjoyed doing those...much different than other hand lettering I've done recently, like exploding brain typography in this Angry Penguin poster:

I should have some more booger and brain type for you soon though, so stay tuned.

Dune book club: Duke Leto Atreides

2009-10-26T11:40:00.002-04:00

Week Two in the Dune book club brings us to about page 80 in the book. We ended on the chapter where Duke Leto wrestles with his rage after learning his son was nearly killed by a hidden assassin. Meanwhile he is trying to keep up his calm and stoic appearance in front of his men and attend to his duties.

I'm reading a lot of things in the book that I don't remember from the first time I read it, but Leto was and is still one of my favorite characters. He knowingly enters a situation filled with traps and perils out of duty or recklessness. He's willing to take a chance on such a treacherous situation, placing his family and allies lives in danger because if he can catch the plot before it fully unravels and foil it, it will be a great victory against his enemies. At the same time though he seems tortured by the dangers that do come to fruition. They show that some things do escape his control and expose threads to the plot he has missed. He's torn between boldness/dynamism and protector/guardian as a father and leader figure.

Dune book club: The Gom Jabbar

2009-10-19T10:27:00.003-04:00

I'm taking part in Dustin Harbin's Dune Book Club. I've read Dune before and enjoyed it immensely, so I was totally down for reading it again. I like book clubs too (or the idea of them at least) and also the idea of an internet book club.

Dustin asked us to read the first 40ish pages for today. I thought the meeting between Paul Atreides and the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (what an intense name!) and Paul's test by the Gom Jabbar was awesome, so I drew a bit of that as a tiny comic for this week.

I'm also reading Joseph Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces, so while that's still fresh in my mind I've been picking up bits of classic myth structure in Dune that Frank Herbert may have left behind. I'm looking forward to discussing those bits!

Imaginary Monsters and the Good Product at King Con in Brooklyn, November 7 - 8

2009-10-10T11:03:00.003-04:00

Internet dudes: I just found out that Mike Turzanski and I are going to be exhibiting at King Con in Brooklyn. The event is this November 7 - 8 and it's taking place in the Brooklyn Lyceum (right in the heart of Park Slope, I think). Go check out the King Con website for info about the show: http://www.kingconbrooklyn.com/

Mike and I are going to have some gnarly stuff to show you. Music, screen prints, posters, art prints, comics, and definitely some new books and/or secret projects. Get down with it! We'll see you there!

Environment: River tree speed painting

2009-10-08T14:43:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to get back onto the environment train today. I think it took me about 20 minutes, but I'll pay closer attention to the next few.

Zombie Roller Derby girl

2009-10-07T13:26:00.002-04:00

I can't believe I forgot to post this after I finished it. I did this zombie roller derby girl piece for an Empty Room Studios calendar. I'll try to dig up a link where you can find it.

Headed to Bethesda, MD this weekend for SPX!

2009-09-24T23:52:00.004-04:00

If anybody is near the Baltimore / DC area this weekend you should head to Small Press Expo in Bethesda! Here's the SPX website with all the info you need to find the show: http://www.spxpo.com/. I'll be exhibiting under Peter Lazarski / Imaginary Monsters in the program book, so you can look for me there. I still have a few copies from the 1st printing of Eat World and also a batch from the 2nd printing (with bizarre brown, gold, and white covers), some illustration prints, and maybe some screen printed posters if space allows. I'm also going to be exhibiting with my friend Mike Turzanski of The Good Product, so we'll have a lot of good stuff to share.

Come hang hang out and check out what's up. Get a free sticker...I've got like twenty of those.

Too Art for TV 4 / Eat World sneak preview

2009-09-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

Attention world...if you're in Brooklyn this weekend you should go to the Too Art for TV 4 group show opening. I'm in the show again this year with two massive ink drawings inspired by my Eat World zine. Here's a preview of one of the pieces:

Twisted monster mayhem and carnage in an attractive gallery space. I'm super stoked.

Here's the show details from the Too Art for TV website:

Too Art for TV 4
New York's 4th Annual Fine Art Exhibit for the Animation Industry

Opening reception - Friday, September 18th, 6pm-9:30pm

September 18th, 2009 through October 17th, 2009
at Erebuni, 158 Roebling St. Williamsburg, NY 11211

Erebuni is proud to present Too Art for TV 4, the fourth annual fine art exhibit for the animation industry. Featuring new works by 37 artists; Too Art for TV 4 is the largest and most vibrant show in this exhibit's history.

Animation artists are pop culture wranglers with strong design skills and a love of whimsy. Their profession is collaborative by necessity; an animated production needs many skilled hands to come to life, but the individual gets lost. Too Art for TV provides an annual opportunity for animation’s creatives to strut their stuff, unencumbered.

Featuring the international interactive downloadables known as "Cubeecraft" by Christopher Beaumont, the striking and bold beard-paintings of Devin Clark, the larger-than-life obsessive drawings of Elliot Cowan, the spinning "cinetropes" of film artist Eric Dyer, the dry wit of Chris George’s acrylics, the bright and huge murals of Andrew Bell, plus a wide variety of paintings, sculptures, toys, and video art by many more.

Awesome thanks to Liz Artinian and the rest of the curators! I'm heading out tonight to help set up the show. Rock!

ArtOrder: Flaming Coward!

2009-08-17T12:34:00.003-04:00

Here's my entry for another ArtOrder topic. The title of this week's topic was Flaming Coward. The idea was to design a creature that had a nasty bite, general physical weakness, and would emit a large amount of heat/flames/energy if it felt it lost the upper hand in a battle. Behold...

I'll paraphrase the flavor text from each of the images in case you prefer viewing from afar:

The Flaming Coward has an extraordinarily high metabolism. The heat generated by it’s numerous spinal stomachs makes the creature semi bouyant, allowing for swift and nimble hunting. It’s head and lower body is thick skinned to withstand attacks and it’s own body heat.

The Flaming Coward will fight potential prey ferociously, unless it’s stomachs are struck or wounded. Fearing further harm to the most delicate part of it’s body, the Coward will vomit forth the contents of it’s heated stomachs, releasing a great deal of molten matter. With luck, the foe will be too busy trying to douse the surrounding flames to notice the Coward’s retreat.

More or less, it's nimble, bitey, and pukes when it's scared. Yessss.

Eat World!

2009-08-03T13:03:00.004-04:00

I finally listed on etsy the mini comic I made for MoCCA. Behold, EAT WORLD!
And the etsy spiel:

Eat World is a wordless mini comic zine about monsters. Each page progresses further up the food chain as weird creatures, mutants, and primordial beasts smash and tear each other to bits.

The comics are 5.5" wide by 8.5" tall. The cover is a two color screen print (black and silver) on grey paper. The inside 16 pages are black and white. The first page of each copy is initialed and numbered (X out of 100) with a small sketch by me unique to each book. All copies are hand printed and assembled.

This is the first printing of Eat World. I may reprint this comic but the screen print colors will be different and the insides will note that it's a reprint. Black and Silver ink on the grey paper cover will be unique to the first printing of Eat World.

There may be Eat World 2 in the future, so if you like what you see, let me know and I'll get cracking on the sequel!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28753481

Wizards of the Coast: A boy and his hammer...

2009-07-17T12:42:00.006-04:00

The above illustration ©2009 Wizards of the Coast, LLC.

Jon Schindehette over at ArtOrder released this image today. I did this illustration for Jon / Wizards of the Coast through Empty Room Studios and since the piece was made public today I can share it with those looking at my corner of the internet. Jon refers to this piece as "A boy and his hammer", and that keeps reminding me of the movie A Boy and His Dog...I'd love to see that again!

I remember being a kid and wanting to see this movie since the VHS box cover appealed to me. My dad said no though! (rightly so! Thanks dad.)

Jon, thanks for the shout out today! Rick, (owner of ERS) thanks for the opportunity!

ArtOrder: Catastrophic Dragon (Earthquake)

2009-07-12T01:55:00.005-04:00

Whoah! Dragon time. I've been trying to work on some environments in my downtime lately and yesterday I started getting really antsy. Environments are challenging to me since I usually draw things with legs and faces, so I decided to take a quick creature break. How convenient then that Jon Schindehette made this week's ArtOrder topic a dragon challenge! The topic this week was to create a catastrophic dragon...it's a new dragon subtype they're trying out that is sort of a container or carapace holding back elemental fury. The natural force for the topic is "earthquake". I thought about it and a really earth ripping earthquake would probably spill out magma like crazy. It's insides is a burning hot tumble of rocks, gems, and magma, while it's outside is like a rough and cragged hillside. It's body is almost composed like earth strata.

O.K. Dragon break is over, time to get back to drawing places.

Environment thumbnails 2

2009-07-07T17:30:00.002-04:00

More thumbnails. I decided to shelve the creeper castle one for now in favor of something different. Most of my horizon lines were safe and in the middle before, so I wanted to try some more extreme angles (birds eye, worms eye...high and low vantage points). The upper left one in this new batch has me really excited so that's where I'm headed next.

Environments: Cradle of Life

2009-07-03T13:33:00.003-04:00

I think this is done for now. I added in little white birds flying around the tree and nesting near the water pools. Now, onward to the creepy castle!

Four demon girls

2009-07-03T00:48:00.002-04:00

I had drawn these demon girls a few months ago and completely forgot about them. Wow! They're all iterations on one character I was trying to create but they're interesting enough to me on their own.

Environments: Cradle of Life in progress

2009-07-01T00:41:00.003-04:00

Here's as far as I got today. I'm calling this one Cradle of Life, depicting a tree / oasis in the middle of an arid desert. I'm going to try working in some birds and little critters flying / crawling around the place.

I sort of feel like it's not totally an environment piece but a design for this tree, but it's got me working on stuff that's not character / creature related for now. Gotta start somewhere!

After doing this image which is turning out to be very optimistic like I'm probably going to want to do the skull and spine castle...

Is that Bambi over there behind that root?!

ArtOrder: B&W Vampires

2009-06-30T00:24:00.003-04:00

Here's another submission for
Jon Schindehette's ArtOrder blog. This week's theme was a b&w illustration based around two vampire characters: Gwenth and Gareth. Jon provided this bit of info about he pair:

Gwenth: A female vampire, once a human, who excels at stealth and ambush attacks. She wears leather armor and carries two short swords. She should look both seductive and dangerous, but let’s avoid clothing that’s too revealing or risqué. She has short, dark hair, and is an effective assassin. If we see her partially obscured by shadows, that’s great.

Garreth: A male vampire, once a human, who is more of an up-front bruiser. He wears leather armor, and carries a heavy shield and short sword. He’s standing in front of Gwenth, almost protectively. He has pale, almost white hair, and the scars of several battles. He’s thickly built and muscular, and his mouth is open to reveal his fangs and vampiric nature.

I added a bit more to the brief too:

The way I interpreted the illustration was that before attacking their prey, Gwenth cuts, scratches and slashes Gareth (hence the scars). This gets him twisted up into a masochistic frenzy before she turns him loose on their unsuspecting quarry. Once Gareth's bloodlust is kindled and he has the front lines occupied Gwenth will slink through the shadows and strike their true target. The few travelers who have survived a run in with the masochistic pair recall the expression of grim delighted arousal that they shared on their faces.

I included the Empty Room Studios logo for shared recognition, since Rick Hershey introduced me to the ArtOrder blog. Rock on ERS!

Spot blacks rule and so does hatching with a brush. Woo!

Environment thumbnails

2009-06-30T00:19:00.006-04:00

So Daily Demons are on hold again. Work has been keeping me busy (a good thing!) In my spare time I'm gearing up to get back to portfolio development time in the area of environments.

In most of my recent illustrations I've been including settings, but I don't have many pieces that are environment only. Time to fix that!
Look Bill! It's not all creepy stuff! Sure there's a skull cave / castle in the mix but there's also a big tree, cliffs, giant crystals with anchors...I'm going to pick a couple of these to render over the next couple weeks. Then back to thumbnail land and repeat.

Carney Art Show: Glitter Spitter Raisin Face

2009-06-17T14:18:00.004-04:00

Here's Glitter Spitter Raisin Face! He's the painting I made for the upcoming Carney Art Show at Monkeyhouse Toys in LA. The shows theme is circus freaks. I hope it arrives on time!

I took this photo before adding a little more red to the background, but it's pretty final. I won't make it to the opening but if you're in LA you should go check it out.
The show opens on Saturday, June 27 and will run through July 12. monkeyhousetoys.com for more info!

Eat World!

2009-05-26T23:33:00.002-04:00

Eat World is coming soon!

Daily Demon 61: Labyrinth Imp

2009-05-26T23:12:00.005-04:00

I took a couple days off from DD, but a Labyrinth Imp showed up today.

I just realized I'm using last years copyright watermark too. Better fix that for tomorrow!

Daily Demon 60: Bubonis

2009-05-22T00:18:00.003-04:00

Bubonis is a middle level authority and agent of the plague. The name Bubonis name is inspired by Camus's The Plague, which I'm currently reading. It's about the bubonic plague! Ick. I started the sketch for Mr. B. by roughing out some head shapes in ZBrush and doing some canvas sketching. Fun experiments!

Congratulations to Marlene on your successful student show. You rock :D

Daily Demon 59: Holland, the Blind Herald

2009-05-20T23:56:00.002-04:00

Special thanks to Christian at Fangoria for encouraging me to start doing Daily Demons again!

Also, I counted my posts wrong and this is my 200th post. Woo hoo! But the demon for today is only the herald. Post 201 will bring his boss...stay tuned.

Daily Demon 58: Pinklet

2009-05-19T19:59:00.002-04:00

Pinklet says hello! Another Daily Demon to add to the roster (daily what? haha). So begins another push to get back on the daily Daily Demon train. The good thing is, I've been kept mostly busy with work over the past few weeks so I won't be going hungry anytime soon. I'm getting close to my 200th blog post too, so I'm guessing something massive should be showing up around then...

In other news, I'm going to be at the MoCCA Festival this year (thanks to Mike and Raina for being completely generous and offering to split their table with me). I should have my usual stuff and a totally new secret minicomic. Maybe you've seen me working on it over the past few months. It is, in a word: INTENSE.

Also, I need to get my act together and put together a piece for the Carney Art Show in LA curated by Jared Deal. I have a month before the piece needs to be physically in LA, so some magic might be exploding onto canvas next week. Thanks Mr. Deal!

I'll have some good work-work to share in the coming weeks too.

Btw: have you checked out the Angry Penguin webcomic yet? Get on it! http://www.theangrypenguin.com/comic.html Warning to the kids and parents: violence and bad words await. Get permission from your mom and dad before reading it.

ArtOrder: Way Back Machine, Primordial Gnomes

2009-05-19T08:08:00.002-04:00

I made another image for ArtOrder. This week's topic was to devolve the Dungeons and Dragons gnome.

ArtOrder: Unfamiliar Familiars

2009-05-12T12:40:00.005-04:00

Recently I've been following along Jon Schindehette's blog ArtOrder. Jon is a Senior Art Director for Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast and he's running his blog as a venue for inside info and sneak peeks at what's up with D&D. He also facilitates weekly/biweekly art topics via the blog and I finally got in on one. This weeks topic is Unfamiliar Familiars. Jon sez:

The concept this time is to step away from the normal familiars (cats, rats, snakes, ravens, etc.) and dream up something new and interesting...

If you know me at all you'll know I really dig axolotls. So a classy wizard would doubtlessly prefer an axolotl familiar over some other animal. In this case it's a dire floating axolotl, but an axolotl the same.

It would grant it's wizard master with water breathing and regenerative powers, so it would be a good companion for a wizard who preferred adventure in the elements over scholarly pursuits. Geek off!

ZBrush face

2009-03-19T22:03:00.001-04:00

More 3d practice stuff. This was from a few weeks ago. I'm grateful for the y-symmetry drawing toggle in zbrush!

Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu

2009-03-17T13:08:00.002-04:00

Found this on cartoonbrew. Just putting it here so I don't forget.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOBCMoDGGZU, http://pauldurango.blogspot.com/2009/01/nobuhiko-obayashi-hausu-1977-movie.html. I really want to see this movie!

Creature design demo

2009-03-17T03:47:00.008-04:00

I covered for Jay Lincoln's Character Design class today and did a bit of a creature design / brainstorming demo. Mainly I talked about digital thumbnail sketching and shape / silhouette construction. I even tied in a little bit of Gestalt principles too. I think I spent about an hour and a half putting this stuff together, and probably 20 - 30 minutes minutes of that time refining the fish a bit. I hope to work on it some more.

Isomorphic correspondence, anyone?

Plus, I think I introduced Jay's students to the Mekong river delta catfish. Hoot hoot!

What a rad planet. Thanks guys!

Google SketchUp!

2009-03-14T15:33:00.002-04:00

I went to a SketchUp demo today. It was fun. here's the result of 1.5 hours of tinkering while listening:Whale ship visits big gun city! I was having Tron flashbacks along the way...

tangled sketch!

2009-02-19T00:21:00.001-05:00

It's been a hectic / busy week.

Titania, fairy queen

2009-02-14T00:13:00.002-05:00

I did this piece for another conceptart.org Character of the Week challenge, but I was late making it to poll. Alas! The topic was Titania (the fairy queen). I drew her with a retinue of goblins and fairys following her through the woods. It's still pretty rough but it was fun to do, learned some things along the way. It's still rough too. I may tighten it up in the future.

Angry Penguin

2009-01-17T16:07:00.004-05:00

Rochester has a lot of nice things to offer. The George Eastman house and Dryden theater, the Little Theaters, multiple public markets, and a man sized homicidal penguin.Yes, you read that correctly. Angry Penguin Productions is a character / clothing brand based in Rochester and I've done a bunch of design work for them over the past year. I haven't mentioned it much before on the interwebs but I really enjoy the work and it's time for me to start sharing it with you!

Check out their website to start with, www.theangrypenguin.com where you'll find some Angry Penguin news (and some webcomics soon too), and when you're finished there you should go see what they have to offer at the Angry Penguin online store: http://www.angrypenguin.bigcartel.com/. If you buy a shirt it means I stay employed! For kicks, tell them Pete sent you if you decide to order something. You can find them on facebook too: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Rochester-NY/Angry-Penguin-Productions/8566865817?ref=ts

Look for them at NYC Comic Con in February too! They're going to be giving away limited edition t-shirts.Get it while it's hot before the Angry Penguin gets you!

Forest Oni wins!

2009-01-09T09:20:00.002-05:00

Thank you to everybody who went and voted for my market bag design! The Forest Oni is one of two winning designs for GreenEyed.com's first market bag design contest. Now you can go get your reusable bag on and support oni awareness all at once! Right now they are accepting pre-orders for the first run of bags. Go check it out!
http://www.greeneyed.com/product_info.php?products_id=41
Check out the other winning bag design by Bill Nagel while you're at it (because maybe onis aren't your thing...)
http://www.greeneyed.com/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=40

Daily Demon 57: Gloople

2009-01-05T18:57:00.002-05:00

Sad, serious Gloople... his name makes me giggle.

Daily Demon 56: Anem

2009-01-01T15:19:00.001-05:00

I started Anem before leaving for the holidays. He's the last demon to escape before the new year.

Happy Holidays to the world!

2008-12-30T12:40:00.002-05:00

In time for new years...Happy holidays everybody! I hope the new year brings you happiness. You rock!

Copyright for Artists is getting destroyed...

2008-12-29T10:15:00.003-05:00

Current copyright law grants the author rights to any/every work created (including finished pieces, paintings, sketches). Copyright is inherent at the moment of creation. You can register work with the Library of Congress (http://www.copyright.gov/forms/) to give you more air tight rights, but it's not necessary.

Now meet the Orphan Works Bill. If it passes as described in the video below copyright won't be granted to the author until they register each work. This will be very harmful to every artist / musician / creator and helpful to large corporations.

So any work that the artist doesn't register can be taken and used by anyone else as an orphan work. Do non artists realize how many images and how much content artists actually do create? Take a look in any sketchbook and you'll find thousands of unique images that belong to the artist. Should I keep my sketchbooks and artwork in a safe so I'm not robbed by Disney or Google of my intellectual property (or anyone for that matter?)

The Orphan Works Bill will eliminate the need for any person or organization to license unregistered work. Say I'm publishing a book and I want to use a painting for it's cover. If it's not registered I can pluck it. I know there's a generous handful of people out there who would like to use artwork for free and would do so over paying for it if they had the chance. What's to say they won't just avoid registered work in favor of trolling for orphan works they can use for free? When it comes to the budgetary bottom line cheap and free reign supreme.

It's all up for grabs. Look out world.
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Daily Demon 55: Horn Beak

2008-12-17T14:43:00.002-05:00

Horned dinosaur type.

Vegetable / Mineral / Structures / Props

2008-12-16T14:06:00.003-05:00

I started my Daily Demons back up again the other day but I haven't been dwelling entirely in creature town. I've been working on spending more time sketching on organic / mineral forms and structures (tall image warning!)

Daily Demon 54: Ratwyrm

2008-12-16T13:07:00.002-05:00

I wasn't feeling this guy after too long, so he's getting posted rough.

slow mo punch

2008-12-15T16:02:00.002-05:00

Crunch!
Remeber the Pleix video too?

Daily Demon 53: Phleodon

2008-12-15T00:11:00.003-05:00

Skipped a day! Phleodon eats blood. Ick.

Daily Demon 52: Dimaxus

2008-12-12T21:19:00.003-05:00

I would have liked to take him further but it was time for other things... like baking cookies.

Go Dimaxus! I choose you! Because your eyes stick out and you're bow legged! Dimaxus is another kaiju scale monster (I may do a couple more).

Daily Demon 51: Kaneagon

2008-12-11T17:45:00.000-05:00

Kaneagon! I opened the kaiju bottle and he came out.

Forest Oni market bag design

2008-12-10T23:53:00.006-05:00

I'm submitting this design to a contest being hosted by GreenEyedMonster (www.greeneyed.com). Help me out by checking out the design on the entry page and voting high (if you like it, that is :] ). If the design gets chosen then you'll be able to get a market bag with the design printed on it. Keep the Oni smiling!

What are you waiting for? Go vote for my design! Ack!
https://www.greeneyed.com/contest_page.php?entry=36

Daily Demon 50: Numgums

2008-12-10T10:58:00.005-05:00

Do I dare pick this up again? I do. I'm feeling the need for some closure on some unresolved specters from my past... art specters haunting me.

As a matter of fact, I always feel like somebody's watching me... and I have no privacy...

Also, the Too Art For TV show went great! The turnout was amazing. After they ran out of beer there were still a ton of people at the show, so I figure it was genuinely enjoyable. I took some photos during the show:

You can see the rest here on Flickr: Too Art For TV 3

2A4TV paintings are done!

2008-11-25T15:21:00.003-05:00

The paintings are done! Here are both of them.Painting 1...

Painting 2...And some process! I decided to do both paintings of skulls after finishing the first one. Instead of redrawing the first thumbnail I used a mirror to reflect the image to start with.
Pencil on canvas. Painting number 2 isn't a mirror copy of the first one. I changed the expression on the second painting. I wanted this one to look sad instead of angry. I wanted them to look interesting side by side or back to back, so a little bit of semi symmetry was o.k.

Pencils next to painting.
Monk figured out he could warm up by sitting in my chair next to the space heater. Warmth mooch!
The green and blue base colors. I was having a rough time getting the colors right on painting two. I was being lazy about mixing too much paint, so I tried working from the tube if I could. It worked ok since the paintings are mostly flat colors.I started off painting the outlines this dark grey blue. It was too dark compared to the burnt sienna outlines on the first painting. They ended up being a dark olive green in the end.
Then I painted the outlines a dark blue, but I changed that too! haha. The tentacles got filled with a light blue, but that was mostly covered with the same purple color from painting 2.
Now comes shipping the paintings to NYC and then the actual show. You should go!

DESIGNPOLICE: Triobelisk vs. Courtney Love!

2008-11-18T14:40:00.005-05:00

More tales of the blatantly infringed! Friend of a friend Shelby Cinca just found out that Courtney Love (or an employee of) ripped off one of his album designs from his Triobelisk project. This one is extremely painful...

This is the original Triobelisk album art:
The artwork is pretty cool too. There's some other versions and details of it here.

And here is the ripped off one that's currently on Courtney Love's myspace:

Maybe I'm too far removed from the imagery mythos of Courtney Love, but what's up with the Beetlejuice cherry question marks? There must be hidden secrets behind that door...

This is a side by side comparison made by Shelby comparing the original to the ripped off artwork with some notes by him:

Shelby sez

I’m sure it was her Hollyweird myspace webmasters which are mentioned on her page, Jason Trenton and Ben Phen, that are ripping her off saying they created all the images themselves and charging her way more than they should, etc.. etc… pathetic… well Courtney, please fire those guys, hire artists that create their own work (I know a few) and give me some nice cash to remix a Hole song with class and so I can buy my wife something nice. Hole ruled… but this sucks!

Shelby, stay strong sir and get in touch with them about this. You might want to contact Myspace too to see if they will remove the image.

Smo, thanks for letting me know! And thanks to Celestronica for originally giving Shelby the tip off.

original post: http://www.buddyhead.com/2008/11/18/courtney-love-ripped-me-off-today/
http://www.myspace.com/triobelisk

ice cream people: triopolitan!

2008-11-13T21:24:00.003-05:00

I think I forgot to post this. I did some postcard art for the ice cream people project. I don't know if it ever made it there but it was fun to draw.

I called them TRIOPOLITAN...

Warmup painting

2008-11-12T16:24:00.003-05:00

This guy happened before the first canvas painting below. I wanted to warm up with something small, so I painted this on some wood panel I found lying around.
He's very fancy. Maybe he'll end up on Etsy some day.

Too Art for TV paintings in progress

2008-11-12T15:32:00.004-05:00

Too Art For TV is having its 3rd show in NY beginning December 5th. I'm going to have two paintings in the show and one of them is nearly done!

Here's some of the process (with notes) that got me there...

When talking to the 2A4TV folks they said they would like to have some energetic paintings of mine similar to the picnic table I painted for the Art Park benefit (previously posted here). The picnic table was big, so I was able to do a huge image across it. For the pair of paintings I'm working on 18" x 24" canvas. Big, but no picnic table. I liked the scale of the table painting so I decided to do close up monster faces for the canvases. After some sketching I settled on these two thumbnails to move ahead with:

Then came sketching the image out on the canvas. I already gessoed the heck out of them a few weeks ago so they were ready to go:

I started by painting the background color and moving forward in depth (trying to let areas overlap as I went):

And then it's a big jump up to the painting I posted at the top! I'll try taking more photos of painting #2. Originally I was planning on using complimentary color schemes for the paintings (you can see my original notes on the thumbnails say R/G/W and B/O/W for red/orange/white and blue/orange/white) but I decided to go for analogous sets for both. The next one will be primarily blue, green, and violet. Also, I ended up liking the skull image so much I think I'm going to scrap the ape thumbnail and do a different skull for painting #2. Choices!

Just a few more details to change on painting 1 and then it's done-done. Then onward to #2!

Find more info about Too Art For TV via Liz Artinian's page or "the facebook": http://www.bunnycutlet.com/2008call
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1538561657&ref=ts

All books on etsy!

2008-10-27T09:19:00.003-04:00

It is done.

All of my books from this summer are now on etsy. Peruse with abandon if you wish.

Plus, I'm offering discounted pricing if you order all three books together. Here's the specific item for that offer: Adventure Underfoot, Sketchbook, Collected Works book trio
Buying the three books together this way costs $34 (29 + 5 shipping if you're in the US). Ordering each book separately would normally be $39 (32 + 7 shipping in the US). Five dollars off! You can use that $5 you save to go see a matinee!

New poster and Adventure Underfoot volume 1 on etsy!

2008-10-23T12:11:00.005-04:00

I finished another poster for a show on November 1. It's creepy skull time!Thanks to Tom Smo for the color tips and time saving suggestion of doing the poster as a 1 color print.

Also, I'm going to be selling copies of Adventure Underfoot vol. 1 on etsy too. Behold!
I'm going to be posting the other books I made this summer for comic con. They should all be up by Saturday so stay tuned if book-things are your thing.

Homework: Creature thumbs

2008-10-02T23:01:00.001-04:00

I was up early today so I started some thumbnails. Add a little more time in between work and here's three creatures that weren't there before :]

DESIGNPOLICE: Adobe CS4 vs. last.fm / Shortcut to ripoff?

2008-09-24T12:34:00.006-04:00

I just noticed some identity mimicry going down. Adobe CS4:
versus the last.fm logo:

It looks like Last.fm updated their identity from an older version with lighter type (http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/images/lastfm-logo.jpg) but the "as" mark has remained a key component. It works as their stand alone mark as well so I was surprised to see it in the CS4 "Shortcut to Brilliant" statement.

Is it accidental or intentional? The world may never know...

NEWS FLASH! TOM SMO AND KYLEMOTRON FEATURED ON G4 TV, FRIENDS STILL NOT RICH

2008-09-18T14:32:00.006-04:00

Tom and Kyle's Yoohoo Wizard Staff video was on G4 tv. Cool, right? Except they weren't contacted and the video was used without permission... internet faux pas!

6. Posting a video to YouTube puts it in the public domain.

No, it doesn’t. People seem to think that because the public can access videos on YouTube, for free, the vids are in the public domain. (I suppose this follows from the “everything on the Internet is public domain” misconception.) They’re in a public space, true, and people don’t have to pay to see them, but that doesn’t affect copyright.

You do in fact retain copyright in your video when you post it to YouTube (that would be your video, not your Stephen Colbert clip). But by posting it you grant YouTube a license to do pretty much whatever it wants with your work. That includes sublicensing it to others and modifying it (making derivative works). The license terminates within “a commercially reasonable time” once you remove your work from the YouTube site. And you still own the copyright.

That bit of legal wisdom came from 10 public domain misconceptions at publicdomainsherpa.com. Snap, that's harsh. Time for some WIZARD RAGE!

Here's the original video:

Man up, G4! Smo and Emo, fight the good fight!

A\V Presents John Wiese, Tumul, and Pengo

2008-09-17T09:03:00.004-04:00

New poster for a noise show on the 24th. This one is on 8.5" x 14" chipboard. I was happy to print on something brown!

Here's the link for the poster on etsy too:http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15356259
Get while it's hot! And ten dollars :]

huh... picnic table photos

2008-08-31T17:28:00.003-04:00

I thought I posted this a while ago but I guess not. Here's some photos from the picnic tables Marlene and I painted up for our friend Tanis at Artpark in Lewiston, NY.

Forgetful me.

I Survived California + Hellgirl

2008-08-13T15:49:00.003-04:00

So, consider this the final entry of the trip blog! I'm back in Rochester now. California was great and busy. Marlene and I moved to a new apartment too once we got back and we're getting settled in. July / August = intense this year...

I just finished up this personal project, a redesign of Hellboy as a lady! Strange but alluring.

I tried keeping it quick, so just a straightforward outline illustration for her. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe there's more girl drawings in the future...

California Adventure, Day ???

2008-07-23T04:51:00.002-04:00

Sorry for falling behind on the trip documentation. I just wanted to post to say everything is "A.O.K!" I've been busy getting ready for the train ride to San Diego tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get into town tomorrow in one piece by around 1 or 2. Bob and Jason have been awesome hosts (thanks you guys!) and good tour guides of L.A.

Time to go to sleep, don't want to miss the train.

California Adventure, Days 8 and 9: Working!

2008-07-18T18:24:00.005-04:00

Super edit: I just received notification from Lulu that my books have been printed and shipped! I'm hoping the formatting came out o.k. on them all since I had to blind proof them. So, if you're stopping by Comic Con next week I should have these three books with me:

The 2nd printing edition of Adventure Underfoot 1 + 2. It's mostly the same as the first book but it's a larger format with some typesetting redesigned in the guts and a full color cover. Lookin' good fellas!Imaginary Monsters: Collected Works! Yep, it's a portfolio book! Hopefully this will be a killer leave behind after interviews and get me much work. It's 32 pages of color images and fun. The content ranges from my illustrations, color concept art, and poster designs. Woo!
Imaginary Monsters: Sketchbook 1. Artist sketchbooks are sort of a comic con staple so I figured why not start things off right with my first year exhibiting? Inside there lies some of my favorite sketch pages from sketchbooks I've kept over the past two years.
Cross your fingers and hope they didn't come out deformed! Hahaha!
- - - - -
Yesterday and today I've been playing it simple, mostly working on some things in the apartment. The more new pieces I can have ready for Comic Con next week the better. I still need to order business cards and maybe some postcards too. Must remember!

Here's Al Gore's latest challenge speech.

Man Treeman supports environmental reform.

Lazer Fight!

2008-07-17T14:25:00.001-04:00

Things got a little out of hand at Aaron and Jean's wedding.

California Adventure, Day 7: I meet someone new

2008-07-17T13:50:00.006-04:00

Today I met someone new.Man Treeman!
Man Treeman lives in Bob and Jason's neighborhood. Maybe he's a tropical Ent. He likes sunshine, cool drinks, and cats. He dislikes going for walks.

After meeting Man Treeman I was so stoked I decided to eat a cupcake. What better place for it than Puddin Out Cupcakes? I can't tell if their business name is a sexual reference or not but the cupcake was mighty tasty!
I opted for a root beer float cupcake. The cherry threw me off initially but the frosting tasted like good root beer. I will be returning to Puddin Out before I leave.
Another thing I notice about Sherman Oaks: 2 out of 3 retail personnel here are really outwardly friendly. Plenty of "Hey man", "Bro", and handshakes. It's nice.

California Adventure, Day 6: I walk around

2008-07-16T13:33:00.002-04:00

Today I went for a walk around Sherman Oaks. Ventura is pretty commercial but there's a handful of smaller neat looking businesses. There were two vintage clothing stores and a Goodwill on the street plus some other things like...

An honest burger.
Toy Mandala. Really cool stuff in here and friendly staff. Look for them at Comic Con around booth 610-ish (I'll double check today). They have the Old Boy graphic novels. Drool!!!
Unreasonable, illogical, inappropriately fresh produce. What nerve.
Some sad but glad bug news. I found a dead June Bug in the courtyard. I was happy to see a friendly face from home though.
I made dinner for Bob, Jason, and I too. Farfalle with peas, mushrooms, and veggie sausage. There's an old piece of bread from Trader Joes in my bowl. The food wasn't really that yellow. It's just the fluorescent light in the kitchen making everything look like it's seasoned with tumeric.
Later on we watched Godzilla Final Wars. I still have the end credits tune in my head. Nate came over to hang out and we played a couple games of Magic: The Gathering! Wow, nerd nostalgia! Jason had a spare deck so we played 1 on 1 on 1. Magic! Wow!

Moebius Redux

2008-07-15T21:34:00.002-04:00

So I can find it later...
Moebius Redux

California Adventure, Day 5: Return to L.A.

2008-07-15T15:32:00.005-04:00

Yesterday we drove back to L.A. Frank suggested we take the 5 since it was a bit quicker. On Thursday we drove up the 101. While being a longer trip the 101 is more scenic. The 5 is more of a straight shot. It was pretty direct and barren looking, further east than the 101 and away from some of the good coastal moisture.

We passed a reservoir on the way. Frank mentioned that he had never seen the waters that low. I think the bottom edge of the black marks on those hills was the old waterline. Yikes! If you look close too you'll see a reflection of my lap. Double yikes.

Head on view of driving/being driven down the 5. Bob mentioned he was driving down the 5 once and his car was attacked by tumbleweeds. The worst we fared with was a broken pallet in the road...
Oil country!
I have a very long straw...
I drink it up!

Once we got back Bob went off to figure drawing class and Jason came home shortly after. We went for a walk down Ventura to look for some dinner and settled on chinese food. Thanks for showing me around Jason!

I'm finished!

California Adventure, Day 5: The Wedding Day!

2008-07-15T15:22:00.004-04:00

Aaron and Jean got married!
It was a nice ceremony at a park in their neighborhood. Outdoors and sunny.
Hey Marlene, here's the wedding cake! It was really stylish.
The reception was a good time too. The dance floor was usually packed.
Aaron and Jean, best of luck to you both and God bless you. Have a great honeymoon!

Dave, Jamin, Frank, and Bob, thanks for helping the wedding go great and it was awesome hanging out with you all this weekend. Woo!!!

California Adventure, Day 4

2008-07-12T18:53:00.004-04:00

Today is pre wedding chill out dudes day. We're currently watching Roadhouse. We may go see Hellboy 2 later today too.

Also, Krystal sent me a photo she took of me from Day 1. She's an amazing Hollywood tour guide!

Thanks Krystal!

Hey, if anyone wants me to send them a postcard while I'm in CA email me your address! I have a ton of postcard stamps with me.

California Adventure, Day 3

2008-07-11T16:04:00.003-04:00

San Francisco smells like catnip!

Edit: There are many smells in San Francisco, catnip being one of them.

Apartment smells.
Flowering tree smells.

Fig smells.
Basil smells.
City smells.
Rochester smells.
Perspective smells.
Chrome smells.
Train smells.

Pigeon smells.

And dinosaur peeping tom smells.
Odorous!

California Adventure, Day 2

2008-07-11T15:23:00.006-04:00

Frank, Bob and I drove to San Francisco yesterday. There was 6 hours of driving ahead of of us. California is a huge state... very big. I guess that's what happens when your state is the entire side of a country. Wow!

I tried taking some photos of the drive along the way. I missed shots of the oil drills along the coast. Maybe I'll get those on the return trip.
Look out Bob!
Frank was driving. Thank you Frank!

First we found some mountains.
Then we found some fog.

Sunset. Bob had to get the picture from the back seat. He did a good job!
We stopped in San Luis Obispo (sp?) to see Still Time play a pre-tour show. It was great. We made it into San Francisco late, maybe it was around 2am? Bob took over driving for a bit and I put my glasses on so I could stay awake and talk to help keep him awake. We tried really hard but we couldn't find any jazz on the radio. Eventually we got a BBC news broadcast. Capital!
Aaron's bumper stickers! YES!
The BNS bumper sticker...
I'm finished!

California Adventure, Day 1

2008-07-09T11:30:00.005-04:00

I'm en route to California. I flew to JFK first where I'm currently waiting. It's a long layover, about 9am to 1:30pm before I fly out again. Spatially I've barely moved at all but temporally I'm nearly half way there. Funny how that works out.

I got to start the morning off with a drive down Lyell Avenue with John on the way to the airport. We kept getting blocked from the highway by on ramps in construction. We were both pretty exhausted and it was a pretty funny drive. We drove by the Cordial Club (a most gentlemanly of clubs) and a van marked FUTURE BOXING. A maze ing.

I'm going to try and see if Lulu.com can print my books on time while the wireless connection still lasts...

Edit: I'm in L.A.!

California Adventure, Day 0

2008-07-08T19:13:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow I'm leaving for California. It's going to be a pretty long trip (I won't be back until the 28th). Since I'd be away so long I thought of trying to keep people posted via a trip blog.

I'm headed to California mainly for my friend Aaron's wedding. I haven't met his fiance Jean yet but I'm sure she's great. Then Comic Con 2008 is at the end of the month. Stop by and see me (Small Press booth N7, right next to Bad Karma!) I still don't have my books printed for it though, so things are a little shaky. In between San Francisco and San Diego I'm going to be staying with Bob and Jason in L.A. Total-college-reunion-in-parts ahoy!

Getting prepped for the trip has been pretty stressful, mainly with making sure things get sent to the proper places and the whole trying to get things printed ordeal. I did a last minute poster for the July 20th Monotonix show in town too. It was a harried ordeal but they're finished!

I'm going to miss Marlene when I'm away too but I told her I'd call near-daily. I feel like a jerk leaving town when I should be around packing to move, but that's what the 28th through the 31st are for I guess!

My flight leaves at 7 tomorrow, so I hope I don't oversleep. California, hoooooooo!

Edit: I just went to look at Aaron's blogger account and it looks like he's been hacked... the blog was post free for a couple years, but it's a weird kind of electro-death. Weird...

Imaginary Monsters posters on Etsy.com!

2008-06-18T14:09:00.004-04:00

One whole poster for sale. Gosh!
I'll be adding other posters over the next couple days.
imaginarymonsters.etsy.com

Art dump.

2008-05-15T16:44:00.007-04:00

ack. the images are out of order, but you get the idea :]

Pleix - Birds

2008-05-08T16:45:00.001-04:00

Just keeping this around for reference. The music is by Vitalic and the video by Pleix.
Vitalic / Pleix

updated portfolio + website facelift

2008-04-25T21:52:00.006-04:00

Holy croaks! This took forever but it's done: peterlazarski.com/portfolio.php

Just in time for Battlestar Galactica and a late nacho dinner. Woot!

003, 004, 005

2008-04-22T13:13:00.006-04:00

100 Drawings! 2 down!

2008-04-18T15:30:00.004-04:00

My friend Aijung just issued a challenge to complete 100 drawings in 30 days. So far I have two done:

Technically I started yesterday (4/17/08) so it looks like I have until May 15 to get them all done. Aijung started a flickr group too for everyone that's participating:
100 Drawings group on flickr
It's pretty skinny so far but it should be blowing up pretty soon!

I may try to sneak some official Daily Demons in there so I can finish up my last 100 drawing challenge... heh!

Mathematicians, Mose Giganticus, The Emotron

2008-04-14T01:26:00.002-04:00

May 1 at the Bugjar in Rochester, NY. Come celebrate the return of the bands and commemorate the birthday of a certain Paul R. Martino! Be there or be rust.

Monotonix at the Bugjar, April 2

2008-03-27T12:23:00.001-04:00

Everybody in Rochester go see Monotonix!

Wed Apr 02, 2008 09:00 PM PST

MONOTONIX
with BLUE SPARK AND FLAME

Admission: 18+/$6 over $8 under

What's goin on:
*MONOTONIX:

*BLUE SPARK AND FLAME:

January sketches

2008-03-21T14:46:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to post these guys since the Seattle trip in January. Finally!

Oni's squishing small things

2008-03-06T11:23:00.007-05:00

I put together a submission to the open call for Fantagraphic's Beasts! Book Two. I did a pair of oni happy at work.
And the sketches (most of them) that got me there:

And here's the original greyscale image before I added on colors:

I weirded out my friends when I told them I wanted the little hell guys to look pink and sore... haha whoops! Huh huh, I hopes you like em!

Pacific ocean garbage patch twice the size of U.S.

2008-03-06T11:19:00.004-05:00

The article clipping is from this week's City Newspaper (Rochester).

I threw the map together to show how big two Americas in the Pacific ocean would be (I didn't include Alaska). Maybe in a few years we'll have a Russo-American Garbage Bridge?

reptile man becomes helmet wizard!

2008-02-21T13:43:00.004-05:00

I made the helmet guy out of the lizard guy.
Just mushing around in photoshop when I could be working... eep!

Belated Valentines Day... to the world!

2008-02-19T12:45:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentines Day world!

Bilemaw!

2007-11-30T10:08:00.000-05:00

Blech.

Here's a description too for extra nerd points:

Bilemaws are a foul species of dragon that some believe to be responsible for virulent outbreaks of plague. They exude an awful nauseating smell from their mouths and through vents along their necks. Usually the stink may signal the arrival of a bilemaw to the wary. While unpleasant, breathing the stench given off from a bilemaw isn't lethal. The real danger of dealing with bilemaws results from their foul dripping mouths. While flying overhead cities and villages their jaws will drip infectious gobs of offal, literally causing a rain of plague. Anyone unfortunate enough to be bitten by a bilemaw and escape will soon find their body rife with infection. Any attempt by the victim to seek refuge and relief among their friends and family will sadly result in the spread of the plague.

Little Boy progression

2007-11-19T00:43:00.000-05:00

Republicans speak out for bike awareness

2007-11-15T17:13:00.000-05:00

Congressman Pat McHenry speaks out for bike awareness and energy conservation.

damn, it finally happened...

2007-11-07T00:20:00.000-05:00

http://butimawizard.deviantart.com/

Figure drawing photoset

2007-11-05T00:59:00.000-05:00

I just made a new photoset on Flickr to house some of my figure study work. Check it out if you're inclined. http://www.flickr.com/photos/butimawizard/sets/72157602923374596/

C.O.W. 100: 100 Monsters

2007-10-31T02:29:00.001-04:00

Been wondering what I've been doing for the past 30 days? I've been making an army of 100 monsters (of course!) I put this together for ConceptArt.org's 100th Creature of the Week community activity. People spent 30 days coming up with 100 monsters according to some topics, so here be my results. The voting poll won't be set up until this weekend but I figured I'd post them here since they're already hosted on my flickr account. Let me know what you think, you internetoids!

Time to sleep before teaching tomorrow at 8am. Zoiks!

I'm thinking too, If I had done this for my Daily Demons series I would have been done ages ago... but no copouts today. For now DD is sleeping. Project resurrection pending.

posto-redundo! my Artjumble green dragon

2007-10-02T21:00:00.000-04:00

Here's the dragon picture I posted to Art Jumble last week. I kept it loose and quick, the coloring went fast too. Mu hahaha!