Literature Dragon

I have Vietnam on the brain, since my wife and I are in the process of adopting a Vietnamese baby. I started some light research into Vietnamese folklore and found an image of the Literature Dragon from the Ly Dynasty. And, after years of masking textures in Photoshop, I learned a new masking technique that allows you to draw or paint the mask on paper, scan it in, and retain the subtleties of the grays in the mask. That's how I did this one. I love being able to blend the digital and handcrafted like that. It feels like printmaking without the mess. Click to enlarge.

Wildcat Revisited

That's better. Now it's like "Oh man, how can Wildcat take The House?! That guy is wild but also screwed."

Wildcat Against the House

Who doesn't love those old pulp illustrations? I was looking for something to draw so I pulled this off the shelf. I'm liking my new textures, but I'm not crazy about this one. It just doesn't have what it takes - guys laying on the ground bleeding. Plus, I couldn't make it work without the lines. Click to enlarge.

T-Man

Ok, now the trip through the past is done and we've arrived in the present. I started a big effort to bring my texture collection up to date. Most of the old stuff came from my old 3 megapixel digital camera in 1985. Now I have some pretty new textures and I want to use them. And I want to get away from the creepy stuff and try some cuteness. So here's my cat, T-Man. He is a nervous fellow. Very simple, no outlines, I like it.

Tin Bird Choir

An old friend asked me to do some drawings for his band. I tried a different approach to suit the band name and music. Each color is drawn on a separate piece of paper, scanned, and layered. A little bit of texture was added. I like the way these came out - I just feel like a schlub when it is so loose. Click to enlarge.

My Men

Those are my cats Sonny Boy and Trigger. I like those guys. Each color was drawn separately and layered in photoshop. More realistic than I usually work. Click to enlarge.

The '06 Sox

I did these Red Sox drawings during the '06 season when they imploded. Just mechanical pencil and india ink. It's fun to work without a computer. This is pretty much my old drawing style with more details added in, partly because they are based on photos. Click to enlarge.

Unicorn in cake

A rare excursion into vector art yielded this odd unicorn celebrating a birthday. All the shapes are drawn / painted / scribbled on paper, scanned in, and converted to vector art which is then pieced together. It's a fun way to work, but I'd like more detail and texture, please.

Manallo

Manallo is one of my favorite characters. He is part man part buffalo. Sometimes he is a man in a manallo suit. I need to put him to good use.

Kids

I usually use lots of linework. Getting rid of the lines is hard for me, but it lets the texture come through more.

Valentine

I made this card for my wife, Sarah. I like getting sloppy with some paint once in a while… maybe a little too sloppy.

The old stuff

This is the style I started working in during my art school days. Noodly finger people with shifty little eyes and no noses, fingers, or toes. They are drawn with mechanical pencil and india ink, then colored in photoshop and heavily layered with textures from digital photos and scans. Those last 2 examples are more recent, when I started adding a few more realistic details. I still like it, but I want to try something new.

Hi

This is where I'm going to float my debris - the work I'm doing to figure out what kind of work I want to do. I have an old creepy style, I want to start drawing more, and I want to make it more family friendly. Or something. So I'm going to play around and post some artwork when I can kick my pants into making some. First, I'll unload some miscellaneous bits that have accumulated over the last couple years…