Mechanized Fluff-ball of Terror

Despite the prolonged radio silence, I am still around and continuing to draw and create. As proof, here is the MecHamster carving a swath of destruction through some hapless city:

terrifying, yet adorable

In other news, after a prolonged stint as a goblin rookery, the Studio is finally almost organized. Just need to clear out the last nest of the buggers.

I'm trying to get them to move into the attic or the basement.

Grisaille

Muse helping me experiment with an idea to reproduce some techniques that I have done with the Copic gray-scale markers (warm, cool and neutral).

It's been a while since I've drawn some of my old characters (Muse, Rayne, Obadiah, as well as some from several of my first sketchbooks) so plan to see them here in the next couple of posts.

Linum usitatissimum

Here's one of the paintings that I was talking about last post. I'll have to set up a better rig at some point for better pictures.

"Helianthus annuus"

oil on canvas panel
-Work In Progress-

[update]

Hey all, been busy with some oil paintings, crocheting a half-dozen projects at once or so, and fighting off a nasty cold that hit me last weekend. Will be posting up pictures for your ocular feasting in the next few days.

Technologic Trefoil

There and Back Again

As some of you know, I was away for a week for a brief sojourn to my alma mater.

Was nice to see some of my class mates again and to meet some new members of the club I had helped start up my junior year.

The trip to campus was pleasantly uneventful.

The trip back is another story.

Good news is that I was parked in a rest stop when my SUV decided to not start, and once I was towed to a garage (thank you AAA) I was back on the road in about two hours. Bad news, needed a bunch of new parts and I don't think I'm going to be able to head down the coastline again for a while.

Will have a new pic of some kind up tomorrow, perhaps of the scarf I'm working on.

Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin King!

Shadow Throne

Judgement

SquidBot

WIP concept art of a tentacled bot that (I now realize) wouldn't be out of place in The Matrix 'verse. ~ 2 hours in it so far. Originally it had insect legs but they weren't working out so I gave it tentacles instead because let's be honest, tentacles are cool.

Art Suplies

I swung by Jerry's Artist Outlet in West Orange, just to check out what they had in stock. Ended up picking up a bunch of supplies for almost dirt cheep.

Canvas panels: 12 6x8 for $0.72 each, 12 8x10 for $0.88 per, 12 9x12 for $1.01 each. All told I paid $31.32, which at list price it would have cost me $69.00. How could I not buy em?

Oil Paint: 38mL tube of Alizarin crimson for $2.99, list price $6.25

I am definately going to keep an eye on this place and keep and the other open for sales and discounts.

"Stein" - Colors

Color variants sheet for a project I'm working on. Reminded me how much fun I have mucking around with colors. Plan to see more related to this project in the coming months.

DragonCon Aftermath vol. 2

Finally got a chance to sift through the cards and fliers I got at the Convention. Today we have a list of various artists and related people/studios. Most of the people here got a copy of my portfolio teaser and a business card.

If you are one of the people amongst the list, welcome to my little slice of the bloggosphere.

Legendary Leatherworks
Southeastern Browncoats
Frogpants Studios
Demon Kitty Designs
Meg Lyman Illustration and crashoctopus.com
Chandra Free
Gina Biggs
Filthy Figments (NSFW)
Jennie Breeden
StickerLOL.com
Richard A. Kirk
Tom Taggart Art Studio
Derek
Mark Dos Santos
Erin Belle
Dave Cook
Chris Hamer
Luna 7
Fleecs Design
Eric Morin
Miss Mindy
Amanda Louise
Stephanie Gladden
Spyda
Tiny Kitten Teeth
Ted Naifeh
Tyson McAdoo
Lauren Pery's Blank-ees
Errant Story by Michael Poe
John Tyler Christopher
Denise Vaquez
The Horrific Adventures of Franky
David Mack Guide
Imaginism Studios
R.L. Alexander

DragonCon Aftermath vol. 1

Dragon*Con is over and I am exhausted. I had a fantastic time, but it took a lot out of me. Handed out most of the portfolio teasers in person, left a couple of stacks around various places around the con.

If you are visiting from a business card or a booklet that you got while at the Convention, welcome. I'm going to be making a list of all the people I got cards or fliers once I get home and sort through it all. Pictures will be up on Flickr about the same time.

In other news, car's in the shop. Transmission was rattling, next the battery's acting up and power steering is gone. Then the engine starts over heating.

Turns out that the problem was a worn belt and busted tensioner. Should be fixed up sometime today or early tomorrow. I ought to be on the way back to NJ in the next day or two.

DragonCon Preperations, vol. 2

Ok, teasers are done, getting clothing pulled together and packed.

Excited to be heading off to Dragon*Con, first big convention since 2006 when I went to Otakon and MomoCon in Atlanta '08 (good thing about MomoCon was that it was free. Bad news, it was free).

Got a Flickr stream going, going to be uploading pictures from Dragon*Con there.

Will see what I can do about keeping you guys up-to date while I'm at the con. At the very least I'll have a post after the con. that's all for now.

DragonCon Preperations

Huzah! Got my business cards in the mail yesterday. They turned out really nice and defiantly going to use the company again. GotPrint.net printed them with a 2 day turnaround and 3 day delivery for about $30.

Now just need to get the portfolio booklets printed up and I'll be ready for DragonCon next week.

Wow... I'm starting to feel like a professional.

Concept Vehicles Speedpaint

Spartan 2800cc v6 motorcycle

Spartan - sample colors
SphereCycle, built on the same propulsion concepts as the SecDroid

Sketch Dump 2

Trying my hand at some concept art, pleased with how they turned out.


Playing around with some ideas for an environment that will likely appear in the D&D game that I will be running soon. Lost track of how long I spent on this, maybe 3 hours or so?


Hour speed paint that was inspired by this video.


And preparations for DragonCon are starting to come together. My business cards have shipped today. I should be getting them by Wednesday or so.

The portfolio teasers are almost ready for printing, just need to work out the cover. Plan is to have some friends over to help put them together next Monday. Gotta love what promises of beer and pizza can do for acquiring some extra manpower.

Bloody Blue Screens and Bad-Ass Blogs

Well, crap.

When trying to scan the pics from Dr Sketchy's on Thursday, my work rig blue-screen'd on me. I've had it happen every once in a while so this doesn't bode particularly well.

Good news is that a friend of a friend is brilliant with building computers. Plan on talking to him when upgrading my systems so that I can customize it to what I'm going to need; High processor speed, lots of ram, high end graphics card are what I'm thinking. Going to talk to some people to get suggestions.

So, since there's no dawing from Dr Sketchy's for the moment, here's cool stuff from the wilds of the Internet.

• Gurney Journey, the blog of Dinotopia creator James Gurney. Fantastic for picking through the mind of a fantastic "Imaginative Realist".
• Newman's Art Blog, "naughty art, filthy fairytales and other perverted nonsense" by Ben Newman. NSFW at times, so be warned.
  
• Indistinguishable From Magic, by Aaron Diaz; the artist and author of Dresden Codak, which is an amazing comic which if you haven't heard of, for shame. If you haven't read it you should go do so, now. No seriously, go read it.

Dr. Sketchy's

Went to the North Jersey Dr Sketchy's last night. Small but had a good vibe to it. Definitely will be going back and will post some of the sketches up here when I can.