The Ink Spill

Mooseboy and Sammy #2

2012-01-23T17:08:00.000-08:00

In honor of finishing the new Mooseboy and Sammy strip (#3), I'm posting the second strip that appeared in the last issue of DC Conspiracy's Magic Bullet. I think the jokes worked a little better in this one compared to the first strip, even though the whole Sarah Palin thing was a little "last year," when it came out in September 2011. When I started Mooseboy I had no idea where I wanted it to go, and bringing in the moose hunting Sarah Palin seemed fitting. Like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, Sarah made perfect sense in the Mooseboy world. I still don't know where this is going to go, I like having political guests come in, so that will most likely continue. I'm not trying to support one side over the other, I just want to poke fun at politicians who remind me of cartoon characters. Which is not hard to imagine in today's political scene.

But anyway. The third Moosboy and Sammy strip will be coming out in DC Conspiracy's Magic Bullet #4. I don't know for sure, but I think it should be out in a month or two, so maybe some time in March it will be available?? I am proud of the new strip, I think it is the closest to what I originally envisioned the art and design of the strip to look like. So be on the look out this Spring, available locally around DC, VA. and MD.

Sketchin

2012-01-08T21:27:00.001-08:00

GLADIATOR

2012-01-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

Just finished this one, it's a back patch for a motorcycle club. They call themselves, GLADIATOR, National Boxing MC. They have chapters in Virginia and Kansas. I'm really happy with the way this turned out, can't wait to see the Gladiators riding around with this on their backs.

Saturday

2011-12-10T08:26:00.001-08:00

I know it's been a little slow around this blog lately but I'll try to fix that soon. Finished my night school class two weeks early (Desktop Publishing I), I'm pretty sure I aced it. It's at a community college so, no real critiques or anything like that, a little disappointing but whatever. I'm just doing this to get a better day job, hopefully. I'll have more to share soon.

Continuing on last nights theme

2011-11-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

Drinking and Drawing

2011-11-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

Monday

2011-11-07T15:37:00.001-08:00

Facial Reconstruction

2011-11-01T21:12:00.001-07:00

I wanted to see what would happen if I took the zombie I drew a few weeks ago and reconstruct the face to see what he would look like if he were alive.

Patterns and Lighting

2011-10-30T21:22:00.000-07:00

Just playing around with lighting and patterns, listening to Tom Waits. I need to listen to more Tom Waits, I never really got into his music until recently. I have no idea why cause his stuff is right up my alley. Anyway, off to bed.

Quick sketch'n pt.2

2011-10-22T15:14:00.001-07:00

Quick sketch'n

2011-10-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

Zombies on the brain

2011-10-18T15:52:00.001-07:00

I think this is the best zombie I have ever drawn.

Sunday Night

2011-10-16T20:24:00.001-07:00

Thanks

2011-10-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for stopping by and checking out my work. This week has brought the most traffic this blog has ever seen.

Thought I would share some of the progress of the last Gizmodo illustration. I was asked for an image of Jeff Bezos sitting on a throne with a shadowy figure whispering in his ear. I tried a few different layouts but decided to go with this one because it had Jeff close enough in the foreground to do a portrait, but far enough away to show the throne. Any closer and the throne would be lost and any further away and I would lose detail for the portrait, this was my thinking anyway. The coloring was the difficult part with this one, I just couldn't seem to get the colors right. In the end, I'm happy with the way it turned out. I would do a few things different if I had the time, guess I'll just have to save it for the next one.

Sleepy

2011-10-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

Running on four hours of sleep, up late drawing. There will be plenty of time for sleep when I'm dead.

Zombies in the Rain

2011-09-23T12:34:00.001-07:00

Zombies in the rain for a rainy day.

The Profesional

2011-09-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

Don't share earbuds, unless it's with someone you really love.

2011-09-18T15:17:00.001-07:00

I had my second illustration go up over on Gizmodo, it was for an article on how it's not sanitary to share earbuds. I tried something different this time around, I worked completely digital. No scanned in sketches or anything like that. I had a few ideas on the design, but I just picked one out of my head and ran with it. I took a few photos of my fingers holding the earbud, and another of my ear, also went online and found some photos of microscopic bacteria. Then opened up Photoshop and went to town. I will admit, I got a little lost in this drawing, which doesn't always happen. It's nice when you can zone out on drawing, especially something as mundane as earbuds. Anyway, the top image is the first three hours of drawing, the second image is the last 2 hours. I thought the clean version turned out so well that I decided save it and post it here.

This whole Gizmodo art intern thing is pretty wild to me. Between the two illustrations that went up this week, over 90,000 people have viewed the articles. So 90,000 people have seen my art. In one week... That blows my mind. I never thought that something like this would ever happen, I had always hoped it would, but after working at this for so long with limited results... It's been a struggle to keep the fire going, I have more than once thought of putting my pen down for good, but I never will. Well, even if this is only temporary, this is a high point in my artistic career. I feel lucky to even have this chance. Thanks to Jesus Diaz and the Gizmodo crew for the opportunity.

Late night sketching

2011-09-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Found a plethora of cool photos today to use as sketch material. This was from one of them, just play'n around.

Wolverine

2011-09-14T16:21:00.001-07:00

Gizmodo Art Intern

2011-09-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

I am now officially a Gizmodo art intern, that's pretty friggin awesome!

Coffee stains

2011-09-09T07:05:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I did one of these.

Skech'n

2011-09-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

I was working on portraits, but just couldn't get in the zone. So I scraped it and did this instead.

Samples

2011-09-02T08:31:00.001-07:00

Here are the three sample assignments GIZMODO had me do. I think they came out pretty well for rushing through them as fast as I did. They took me between three and a half to five hours to complete, not bad, but I could be faster.

Pin Head

2011-08-27T22:22:00.001-07:00

Getting Sleepy

2011-08-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

Last one for the night.

Restless, can't sleep...

2011-08-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

1 hour in Photoshop.

Mooseboy and Sammy the Alcoholic Albino Barfly

2011-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished the second Mooseboy strip for the DC Conspiracy's Magic Bullet comic newspaper. Hopefully, it will make it into issue #3, if not it will be in issue #4. For those of you who didn't get a copy of Magic Bullet #2, here is the Mooseboy and Sammy the Alcoholic Albino Barfly strip from it. The new issue is set to debut at SPX in October, then various locations around the DC Metro area. Keep an eye out for it!

Seven

2011-05-06T20:08:00.001-07:00

It's been a long productive day. I'm so glad the weather is starting to stay on the warm side, just wish all the rain would go away. Anyway, drinking margaritas, listening to music, painting in Photoshop, nuff said. A quiet Friday night.

Two hours

2011-02-02T21:01:00.001-08:00

Two hours in Photoshop. I should also add that i spent the previous three hours on two pieces that didn't turn out as well as this one. So you could say this took me five hours to do today because without the three previous hours of of fucking up (aka warm up) this wouldn't have happened. But we could take that further and say it took me 34 years 1 month and 14 days to do this, because with out all of my practice over the years I couldn't have done this. It's time for bed.

Painting with Photoshop

2011-01-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

Random sketch

2011-01-25T07:30:00.001-08:00

The Dude

2010-09-23T19:52:00.001-07:00

I had one more sketch in me today. I've been up since 5:30am with five hours of sleep, Feeling a little wacky right now and my head is well into the hazy/swirling/about to crash phase.

The Time Travelers Companion

2010-09-23T17:47:00.001-07:00

I've been asked a few times to do videos of myself drawing and painting, well I've finally got around to it. Here is a video comprised of 82 screen-shots taken over a three hour period, condensed into 0:45 seconds. I think it turned out pretty well considering it's my first attempt at something like this. There will probably be more of this in the future.

Carey Mulligan...

2010-09-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

Went a little crazy with this one. Believe it or not this was done from photo reference of Carey Mulligan. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, I can't make any of these look like the people they are. I'll get it right one of these days. That nose was really difficult to paint.

Zooey

2010-09-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

I'm on a roll... This time I used a photo of Zooey Deschanel for reference. Again I like the painting as a whole, but as a likeness to Zooey not so much... But whatever, I'm just having fun with these. Spent one hour in Photoshop painting it.

Joan Holloway

2010-09-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

Another attempt at Christina Hendricks. It was hard to find a reference photo of her that wasn't from some awards ceremony or smiling for some random photo, anyway. Painted in photoshop. As a painting I like it, as a likeness to Christina Hendricks I think it could have been better. But whatever, it's a sketch.

SketchyScribbles lives

2010-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

SketchyScribbles is about to start a new round soon, and I have finished my first sketch for the new round. Here is a a tease to hold you over until the next round officially starts. This time Mr. Ben Phillips is going to start us off, so keep an eye out over at SketchyScribbles.

it's been a while

2010-08-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, I figure it's about time i post something new and give a little update to the four people or so who actually read this. I have finished inking the Pinocchio pages and have them scanned into the 'puter, finally!... I know it took me forever to get this far, it's getting harder to keep up with art lately. the fact that it's summer doesn't help at all either. Anyway, I'm going to start coloring them soon. In other news, the day job has been keeping me busy, I think I'm starting to get a hang of this whole management thing. I'm fairly happy with with the day job right now and I consider myself lucky to be at this store. It's a good location, good people to work with (even tho sometimes they drive me crazy, they are still cool in my book) and good customers too. Thats enough for now, I'll post some color Pinocchio stuff soon.

Magic Bullet

2010-06-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

Coming soon to the DC Metro area! You may see a stack of these sitting around somewhere or being handed out in and around DC soon. Be sure to pick up your copy!

Doodle from the day job

2010-06-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

Obamanator

2010-05-19T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've been falling behind on everything this past month... I blame the day job. But that should change now with the new manager in place. Anyway, here are a couple warm-up sketches for a cover I'm working on. Smeared mechanical pencil, Spit and a White Out pen. I added the color to Sarah in photoshop.

2010-03-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

I was digging through some old files on my computer and found this. I completely forgot I even did it. It was part of a small anthology of sorts a few friends and I tried to put together way back in '03/'04 sometime. It's not great but it's not bad either. I think it is the last time I actually lettered a story. Anyway, it was written by Angie Bantel, art and lettering by me.

Strathmore 500 series

2010-02-21T21:56:00.001-08:00

I love this paper. Oh man, it's so smooth and no bleeding. It even took some acrylic paint. I will be using this from now on. Thanks to Eric Orchard for recommending it.

Page 8

2010-02-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Thumbnails for page 8 of the story “The Stars Are Not Wanted Now”, a futuristic re-telling of Pinocchio. Written by Jason Rodriguez (art by me, duh). The panels that look like they are missing the outer edge of there borders are full bleed, the image will run to the edge of the paper. Got the idea from reading Paul Popes 100% in which he used lots of full bleed panels like that. Great book, by the way. But I like the way the full bleed panels looked in print, we shall see if I can pull it off as well as Mr. Pope.

Break time

2010-01-29T19:44:00.000-08:00

Spending too much time on these thumbnails... But, i am happy with where they are going so, fuck it, right. Quality over quantity... Whatever, back to work.

Unaltered

2010-01-21T12:13:00.001-08:00

More from the day job. Thought it would be interesting to show what these look like without any photoshop enhancements. So here you go, this is what they look like when i bring them home from work.

Rocker

2010-01-21T11:56:00.000-08:00

Had so much fun sketching Gypsy Punk I thought I would try it again. I would like to do more of these: Mod lady, Hip Hop Lady, Indy Lady...

Pinocchio and Geppetto

2010-01-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

Again, more sketches from work. The thumbnails are drawn out, I’m currently assembling them in Photoshop. Once I finish thumbnails I like to scan them and build them to size in Photoshop. It’s an added layer of editing where I can crop images, change panel compositions and further tweak the thumbs. I also use photoshop’s grids and guides to lay in the panel borders so when I go to do the pencils I don’t have to measure anything, I can just put down my ruler and drop in the panel borders and start drawing the fun stuff. Anyway, more to come.

Gypsy punk

2010-01-17T17:50:00.000-08:00

Something I was doodling at work, I thought it came out kinda nice. Tweaked the color Photoshop.

Holograms and water in my ear

2009-12-07T19:41:00.001-08:00

So, here is a color sample and a sketch from the new project I’m working on with Jason Rodriguez (aka: the writer). I still need to play around with the colors more, maybe add a texture or two, but that will have to wait. It’s time to shift this project into third gear and get rolling. Thumbnails are next.

On a side note, I just took a shower and I now have water in my ear that wont come out. I hate that…

I will post more as the project comes along.

Edit: Oh and please, I would love suggestions, comments and constructive critiques. This has a good chance of being published along side many other short comic stories in an anthology, I want this to be one of the best stories in the book. All comments and suggestions are welcome, thanks!

Rose nose

2009-10-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

Did this one a couple weeks ago at the day job. I couldn't decide if it needed another coat of coffee stain, finally said no, no more. Then it sat in my back pocket for about five hours yesterday before I brought it home from work. I was drinking a lot of green tea this past week, tried to use it as a stain... not so good... perhaps if i let it steep for an extra 20 mins, but then I wouldn't be able to drink it. If I can't drink it whats the point?

Julian Strong Lake III

2009-09-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

aka, Grandpa.

Ruby lips

2009-08-31T18:56:00.000-07:00

Yet another coffee stain from work. Black ballpoint, red pencil and the secret ingredient of course. I’m thinking about getting these matted and framed, see if I can get them in a gallery or a art show or something. The thing I like the most about these is they aren’t perfect, there are wrinkles in the paper, folds, creases, rips and tears, crude coffee stains. Place these on a nice clean white matte and encased in a nice pale whitewash frame, I think that would be a good contrast in textures. I think one could come up with some good subliminal meanings behind the contrasting textures if one was so analytically inclined. But that could be stretching it.

The Red Head

2009-08-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

Jolie Lips

2009-08-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

A new one from work, black ballpoint, coffee and red pencil. If any one is wondering, I use the tip of my finger to apply the coffee washes. You don't need fancy expensive brushes to make interesting art, get your hands dirty I say, it's more fun. I gave the eyes a little bit of color in Photoshop, and thats it.

The warm up

2009-08-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

Just a warm up drawing that came out kinda nice. Reminds me of Japanese prints.

The ink spills again, but for how long...

2009-08-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

Just sketching around at work.

I'm still alive!

2007-12-08T09:53:00.000-08:00

This is a caricture I did as a demo for the class I'm teaching at the Corcoran.

And a teaser for a project I'm working on. More to come!

Its never too early for Halloween!

2007-08-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple new sketches I did for the DC conspiracy's Book of the Dead. The deal is one artist does an original drawing of a monster, the next artist does their interpretation of the previous artists monster, then does an original monster for the next artist. Confused? Here' the blog for more info and to see how much is done.

http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=6910.0

Here is my interpretation of Matt Dembicki's monster

And here is my monster

Dr. Dremo 4

2007-08-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Here are the finished pages for my part of thr DC Conspiracy's DR. DREMO 4. Writen by Art Haupt illustrated by me and soon to be lettered by Chris Piers. There are a total of seven stories by diferent artists and writers. We hope to have the book ready and printed for the SPX show in October. So if your in the neghborhood stop by pick up a copy and say Hi.

Cali

2007-08-15T15:30:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I always thought I'd live in California. Now I'm thirty, I've never been to Cali, Maybe later... Work in Storyboards and or Conceptual art, Maybe actually have enough money to pay off these damn Student loans.

Anyway, here's a piece I did a few months ago for a friend. This was the beginning of taking my art in a new direction. I'm trying to reach a state of constant evolution.

Not enough hours in a day

2007-08-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

So buisy, so much to do.

I'm almost done with a four page short story for the Dr. Dremo anthology, put out by the DC Conspiracy. I post it soon.