(Relatively) New Stuff!

I've been a terrible Blogger, I admit it. I never pay enough attention, I'm easily distracted. Days become weeks, weeks become months...next thing you know years have gone by and I've forgotten all about you, my poor little blog.

But not tonight. Tonight, we post!

A Christmas gift for a friend, totally ripping off Jim Flora's awesome album covers. Gouache on watercolor paper.

Attempting to create a Jack Davis style B&W wash. Ink on watercolor paper.

 

Not the best Betty Boop, I might try to redo this one someday.
(haha! Right) Gouache on watercolor paper.

 

 My contribution to the CAPS auction to benefit Stan and Sharon Sakai. Ink and gouache on watercolor paper.

There is a book collection out collecting lots of great artwork from all the auctions, see it here: The Sakai Project.

Affectionately titled, "You ruined Christmas!". Ink on bristol board, digital color.

 

Don't ask me, sometimes these things just come out of my pencil. Ink and watercolor on bristol.

 

The last four are a bunch of convention sketches. Marker on watercolor paper.


 

Some Cover Recreations

I like doing these pieces for inking practice...and I need lots of practice! I especially need to make myself do more hand-lettering. Redrawing old comic book covers is a lot of fun, and I'm usually more inclined to finish. When I screw up an original practice drawing, chances are good I'll never finish it.

The Discard Pile

These two cartoons were samples I had planned to submit to MAD magazine, around the mid 1990s I think...the joke was, "What if older features tried to copy the success of Calvin & Hobbes?" It was more relevant at the time, of course. I don't know why I never finished them...it was probably one of the times I had to switch jobs or apartments, so I probably packed them away and forgot them.

I pulled both drawings out late last year and decided to finish inking them. The color was done in Photoshop; I'm trying to use the color halftone filter to get that old newsprint look. It doesn't look quite right, but I like the effect much better than just flat color!

Sketch Cards!

I love these things...they're a good way to get myself to draw something when I don't feel like drawing. I'm trying to make myself draw a few cards a night. Although I can't seem to find the Canson brand cards anywhere online. I hope the Strathmore ones are just as good, otherwise I may have to buy these from conventions and stock up every year.

 

Mongombo!

Recently I got an email from an old Eye of Mongombo fan in the UK who bought a commission from me. I hadn't drawn the characters in so long I had to pull out some of the books to draw them correctly. But I was happy to learn that my inking isn't quite so rusty as I had feared.

I'm trying to work on the book again, but I have to revise and redraw the first six issues before I can complete the story. Here, in the meantime, are Jamie's commissions, the first new Mongombo art in years: