Pickard, Chunk and Frankenstein

Making up for no Tuesday sketch

Did Someone Say It's "List Your Loot Day"?

I got some Bud Sagendorf "Popeye" comics, some Marge's "Tubby" comics, a bunch of "Adventures of The Fly" comics, a Gumby comic by Bob Burden and Rick Geary, two Mark Schulz books of drawing, the Dok Whitson sketchbook, a Moebius book, and a Howard Pyle book of drawings and paintings, from which I take my inspirational quote of the day: "Throw your heart into the picture and then jump in after it."

A Curious Collection of Creatures

Found this weird stuff over on Pink Tentacle

Gensou Hyouhon Hakubutsukan (”Museum of Fantastic Specimens”)

Caption Contest

Winner gets a Benefiel original. Loser gets 2 originals. Just kidding. I'm not authorized to give away Scott's art. I can mock him though.

Hey. That message about going to my other Blog. Forget it. Heres the same data on Mignola dispensed in a nice clean way. Halfway down the page (plus a smidge)
http://hellboyanimated.typepad.com/hellboy_animated/2005/11/index.html

TAG GRoup Shots

The ravages of age have only skipped one guy. Must be diet. It's a shame to move the SWEET LAD OF LIBERTY off the top slot for this but I guess it had to be done.

Sweet Lad of Liberty, Issue No. 1, Page One

Just for fun.

It's a bad page for a variety of reasons, like the confusion of the panels, the way everything's too crowded, and the color. I was experimenting with color. I started with felt-tip markers, but the last panel was done on computer.

I think I have a lot to learn. Please help!

(This was drawn on big 18X24 paper--that let's me use my whole arm.)

Friday Lunch Details

So here is what I know so far:

Friday Lunch

time: 1:00pm-?

place: The park behind the convention center (Ellis could you please edit this to the proper park and add a link to a Google map?)

FROM ELLIS See that park on the map . Meet there at 1pm. We'll sort it out. MARINA PARK not Petco park, whatever that is. That's the Ballpark isn't it? Marina Park, by the Charthouse Steakhouse.

Who and food order:

davischino: Pepperoni Pizza
Book Artists:
skribbl:Pizza-pepperoni buffalo wings or whatever
scottybuncake: sausage or pepperoni/Ellis' head on a platter of some sort.
rickart: Brown Bag
krayonzilla:
dokart:
pod-boy:
mrgoodson: Half Veggy, half Hawaiian
tom_moon: Brown Bag
TopCat: Haggis- on vacation (have fun Tom!)

Did I miss anybody?

We will mob Scott's table in artist alley (EE-04) around 12:45 leaving at 1:00 and walking down to the park

Krayonzilla will order the pizza's/drinks using his wonderfully donated coupons after we get all of the information. I was thinking Ellis would handle the money but after some thought I will pick up the tab. Okay?

Please edit this and add the proper information. Cool.

PS Rickart, MrGoodson, Scottybuncake, Podboy and Krayonzilla have my cell number. If you other guys want to contact me (thraxisjr@aol.com), e-mail your number and I wll call you back or get it from the other guys.

Shel Dorf, bad meat, and censorship.

Here's an interesting sidenote to that last story about Shel. I was the one who got his picture put up at the Palm Restaurant. I know the guy who paints the images on the wall at most all of the Palm's around the world and he sometimes hires me to help out. They were trying to find more celebrity portraits to put on the wall and asked me if I had any ideas. I told them they had to include Shel Dorf the founder of the biggest Comic-Con in the world. It brings in millions of dollars to SD each year etc. I'm glad to see they got him up.

Also, if you look above the door in the entrance foyer you'll see a re-creation of a big mural I designed for the Los Angeles Palm. I also created a new design for San Diego, but the a**hole in charge painted over it because he didn't like the words "under-cooked meat" in the image. It was a tongue-in-cheek rendition of a superhero character (in honor of the Con) named "Under-Cooked Meat Lad" who saves victims from purchasing bad steak and steers them towards the Palm instead. It turned out pretty cool... but no dice. I'll try to include a picture of it here before it got obliterated.

PhotoShop at work better than the version at home

I was really digging painting with photshop during some down time at work. When I tried to duplicate the fun at home I discovered I can't duplicate my Smear tool's settings on the home computer. My "smooth" setting is grayed out. To get close to the feel of smear at work I have to use a soft brush at about 45 % strength. Otherwise it does fingerpainting smudging. The blending was the big fun I was having. This piece was done at home where I managed to get something like I was getting at work. Just more effort involved in getting there.

My colorizing. Another Lockdown Painting

This shows a painting the way I start. Getting all the values. Then I start colorizing. I'm not done here. Lots of contrasting to be pushed around.

I added another Leg and played with contrast and color

Shapely Girl

I was trying to do a "Sailor Moon" type comic con character for the StoryBoredom blog and this is what came out. Oops.

Playing With Pure Flat Color...

... and an excuse to post. I'm going on a short vacation starting tomorrow, Friday. I'll be back next Tuesday. Marty, I have your Comic-Con papers to get your badge.

I vote for Rick and Ellis's informal pizza/brown bag lunch. See you all at the Con.

4 heads...

... and 3 of them have big eyes.

Lock Down Photoshop Painting

I'm not doing much today. I painted into a rough doodle and goofed with layers and alpha channels etc.

I've added the rough sketch that I painted straight into. I did it entirely grayscale first and then colorized it and then played with alpha channel mixing

Picture of Ellis

Jeff is showing me how to upload pictures to this site. This is only a test. A very good rendering of Ellis though...

Wanna Take A Peek?

If you want to see a little sneak peak of what I've been working on go to this event on Thursday:

1:00-2:00 Sony Animation— Join filmmakers and animators to see previews of the first two animated features coming out of the new Sony Pictures Animation division. First up, it’s Open Season, based on the humor of cartoonist Steve Moore (In the Bleachers), who, along with John Carls, serves as executive producer. The film is directed by Roger Allers (director of The Lion King) and Jill Culton (Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2). Legendary singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg is creating original songs and score. The CG animation is by Sony Pictures Imageworks. The film tells the story of Boog (Martin Lawrence), a grizzly bear with no survival skills, who has his perfect world in the tranquil town of Timberline turned upside down when he meets Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), a scrawny, fast-talking wild mule deer. Panel and footage presentation will include Jill Culton, Steve Moore, and Doug Ikeler (visual effects supervisor).

Then it’s Surf’s Up, which goes behind the scenes of the high-octane world of competitive penguin surfing. The film profiles Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf), an up-and-coming surfer as he enters his first pro competition and finds himself facing the legendary Geek (Jeff Bridges). Panel and footage presentation will include producer and Disney veteran Chris Jenkins (Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Plus, here’s your chance to see the new animated film Monster House in 3D! Screenings are Wednesday night at 10:00 PM, and Thursday 12:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00 PM and 12:00 AM at the United Artists Horton Plaza theater. Tickets are available at the Sony booth (#3945) on a first-come, first-served basis. Room 6CDEF

BTW the pic isn't a shot from the film!

TAG Dinner

So I thought it was going to be Saturday and Skib thinks it's going to be Thursday. What day did you think it was? What day should it be? For the record, Friday or Saturday are best for me. Let's nail this down!

Sketch Detritus

My biggest cop out yet

Skrbbl may Sue

I had reference, in my head, for one of these doodles. A portait of a Lemon Grove family

The next image is something handheld above a scanner. I will have a resin copy of this mysterious monster for everybody at our lunch get together.

Supaidaman!

Thought you'd get a kick out of this:

Supaidaman!

Snakething

This drawing is a few years old now... I was cleaning out a closet and I found it. I'm not sure why I like it, but I do. It's done with a ball point pen on smooth bristol, which worked out pretty well. maybe its all those nasty inverted teeth...

Game Artist Pic

Okay, so a couple of folks asked me to post this here, so here it is... a Game Artist in his Natural Habitat... along with the goofy copy that it goes with:

1. They typically mark their territory with small fetishes of their favorite pop culture icons.
2. Streamlined forehead, a sign of advanced maturity. Senility is not uncommon.
3. They often have failing eyesight from staring into computer monitors for too long.
4. Caffeinated beverage... it is said they can survive for weeks on just this and pizza.
5. Normally in this spot you would find a t-shirt from the last game the dev worked on, but here the artist decided to plug his alma mater instead.
6. Reference materials to remind the artist what various real world items look like.
7. Pictures of the artist's family to remind the artist of what they look like... very helpful for their periodic reunions.
8. Bagel day bagel. Game Artists believe that free food is the best tasting. They can often be found lurking outside noontime meetings in the hopes of scoring leftovers.
9. A donut container carcass. This is the typical location of such an artifact... it is very rare to find them occupied as they are emptied almost immediately upon sighting.

Thank You Notes

"Thank you" notes are always a problem. Don't you guys often find yourself pressured or guilted (from outside forces or the mysterious "within"), to spend your precious artistic gift on dressing up Xmas cards, birthday cards or "thank you" cards? I think a full fifty percent of my lifetime artistic output has been rendered on the inside flap of something from Hallmark...

But I think this may be the last one I ever have to draw--at least for "thank you's". Now I can just take this to the printers and have a few hundred notecards made up--what a lot of trouble this will save me!

It started as a doodle. Done for my Sister-in-Law. The gift was an iPod in-car charger/player. That deserves something special, don't you think?

p.s. My word ballons and lettering continue to be a liability.

Check Out The Flash Movie of Junkyard Split

I'm getting all the prep work done tearing into the comic book art. Since I had the single frames I imported it into a single Flash file. Whew, I had to republish the thing about three times to get it right. Added a back button. Deleted someout of place frames and added some frames that were misnamed. I think it's ready for primetime now


JunkYardSplit