Today my Monster Artwork has gone up for auction to benefit Comic Relief : Red Nose Day. Please head over to ebay and start a bidding war to benefit the cause. JamWah asked me if I'd be interested in drawing a monster to help out with the charity. I was not only happy to ask, but even more happy to deliver an 11"x17" ink drawing on bristol paper to them to post for the auction. I'm hoping to raise some money with the piece. If you are interested, please stop by the ebay page and put in a bid. I am a U.S. citizen, so don't let the fact that you are bidding in pounds throw you off. Anyone can bid on it. You don't have to be in the UK.  BID BID BID!

There are heated debates on scanning line work. Grayscale? Bitmap line art? Personally, I scan at a very high resolution and usually convert a super high res grayscale to bitmap with Photoshop. It's not quite as simple as it sounds. I use a variety of techniques to get my final result, but today I decided to see how different the same image looks between grayscale and line art.

In the grayscale case, I used the 'levels' option to push the blacks and whites to their limits. Here is the side by side comparison. What do you think? We're talking print size of course, so if you zoom in on the bitmap you're going to start to see some stair stepping.

I've been asking fans for ideas through my facebook and twitter pages. Since I've had a lot of time to draw what I want lately, I thought it would be a fun exercise to use ideas from various people and create an illustration. One of my friends suggested a "Cthulhu Robot." This is what I came up with. Not really at all what he asked for, but it was sure fun drawing it. I know. You're asking where the gnome came from? I was trying to think of something very different from the main character. I had known that I wanted something flowing by. My original concept was an image that popped into my head when I read the words from the email. I envisioned a man in a suit with a Cthulhu head in a room filling with liquid. That's it. Why? I'm not sure. Some sort of subconscious impending doom? Probably. Either way, I think this is a fun piece to add to my 2011 art book. What do you think?

A few years ago I was asked to do some production design on a film called "The Hog."  The story was about a cybernetic pig that goes crazy on a college campus. A real classic rampaging monster splatter flick. At least that's how the script felt. The movie is in post production and being shopped around to studios and I was recently given permission to show off some of the work I did on the film. I'm not sure if it made it into the final cut, but here are a few pieces, my favorite being the robotic pig plans. Enjoy!

I was very scepticalabout these "blocks." They are essentially biodegradable packing peanuts. I'm assuming you can use starch style peanuts in the same manner. You would just be limited by the colors packing stores offer.

I sat down with the family and we laid out the blocks. Of course, I had to join in. After helping folks get the hang of attaching them, I started on my robotic masterpiece. I will also share a few creations from my six year old, four year old and two year old. Enjoy the show.

I was asked to come into a school and talk about creating comics for an hour or so. I'm very excited. There is nothing I enjoy more than properly informing kids about the creation of comics. So many times to I hear people ask:

"The writer makes the letter balloons right?"
"By inking, you mean you drew all of it?"
"A letterer writes the scripts?"
"So, YOU write comics!?"

Well, there are instances when all that is true. But I'll be focusing on the art of comics, how they are made (generally) and what it is like to work with creative individuals such as editors, writers and various other aspects of the industry. I'll clear up some sticky answers and generally have fun talking about creating characters and then taking a script and translating that visually. 

I wanted to quickly share some samples images of me drawing a comic book page. You can watch me take a rough pencil all the way through to finished inks. I will be using these images to show the kids what I went through to get to a finished product. I will also be blogging some pictures of me coloring. Enjoy and please feel free to comment.

Luckily for me, I know a LOT of folks in the comic industry. I sent out a mass email to get feeback on my pencils, inks and finally colors. There were some tough changes, but that's what I get for sending it to people who work/worked for places like Darkhorse Comics, Disney, Marvel, Wildstorm, LEGO and a few others. A BIG thank you to some editors I've worked with who put in there two cents and got me motivated to fix some minor and major issues. It's still not perfect and they never are. Enjoy the pinup!

As many of you know, I'm coloring a comic arch for Hero Envy - Swass Adventures. I just finished up coloring issue #2 for them and offered to donate a pinup. They kindly accepted. I don't do many pinups because they take a lot of time and usually fall on me when I'm swamped with work. However, since they are my main job right now, my down time synced up perfect and I was able to start working right away. I'm hoping it blows them away. Here's a sneak peak at my drawing desk. Enjoy.

A lot of comic artists bring out the Canson and colored pencils at conventions, creating amazing works of art. A very popular medium for the collectors. But Art Baltazar and Franco started doing crayon sketches YEARS ago. I was actually one of the booth neighbors one year when they first start bringing out the $1 sketches of super heros on notebook paper. Here's a quick sketch I did while I had some access to crayons and construction paper. Fun stuff.

If you've been thinking about ordering one of my custom guitars, this could very well push you over the edge. This is the first custom resonator guitar I've made for a client. I'm still waiting to hear back from the person it was gifted to. I love this guitar. With my single coil, hand wound wooden pickup and the brass reso cone, the sound can't be beat! Lots of mojo.