Monkey Mod Punch!

Monkeying around

(I was pretty surprised while typing this... "monkeying" passes spellcheck! People must engage in this verb a lot... )

This is fan art for Kevin Cross' slick comic, Monkey Mod-- the mod rockstar simian superhero!

He's got a cool animated trailer to go along with the webcomic too. (Aw "webcomic" does not pass spellcheck :[ ) I checked out the preview mini comic "Monkey Mod Unmasked" and really dug the production value (screenprinted cover/ hand stiched) put into it. It's raised the bar to do the same for what I'm working on too... aiming to have it ready for WonderCon.

Better than Pizza!

I feel it my duty to make some noise about the newly minted Art and Story SUPREME here too. The premium content counterpart to possibly the most helpful and inspirational cartooning podcast out there. The content I've seen and heard is really worth it-- especially the process videos. Kevin's microcast is called "High Adventure Daily" and it does deliver. I feel like punching barbarians to punk rock after every listen...

Wienerschnitzel and Wondercon

Wienerschnitzel promo for Adville USA

This is a promotion going on right now for Wienerschnitzel's corndogs at Wienercash.com

Not sure if the corn dog rapper's name is mentioned on the site, but his moniker's been dubbed "C-Dogg" :]
You can enter into the sweepstakes by entering the code on the sticks of them tasty snacks and have a chance to win $10,000!

I did the character and environment designs as well as take a leap into a less familiar challenge: Animation--! I hope a lot of people enter the sweepstakes because you only get to see the first segment of the animation before entering the code and it takes you to the Eating Machine (which took time to design :P)

The project sure built an appreciation for the craft of animation and nudged the possibility of applying it to some of my personal projects. I've seen some limited animation techniques like Jim Luhan's one-man "ghettomation" shorts that show it's totally possible even with limited time and resources.
There was a bit of research that had to be done with my very limited knowledge of rap and hip hop... I ended up taking some queues from Justin Timberlake's skit on SNL and a segment of from the Cleavland Show... fun stuff!

The character went through quite a few iterations-- above are some of them that turned into the e-bytes versions. I liked the Kanye glasses, but I think it took away some expressive qualities...
Among the different challenges, I learned quite a bit from looking at Chris Oatley's work samples that had characters making different phoneme mouth movements for lip-synching and making silly faces on my isight camera...
Check out my storyboard specific blog post to see the full development boards for the animation. Oftentimes my storyboards get turned into animatics, so it serves well to add it to a skillset and add some extra panache~

Wandering to Wondercon

I'll be at this convention in San Francisco at booth AA070 with my friends at Ralphco Comics (Ralph Miranda, Jeremy Parsons, Stephen Yan). I had a fun and positive experience at APE last year and hope I get to meet more fellow creators and enthusiasts. I'm looking forward to checking out this con for the first time, plus the city's a fantastic backdrop for the event.

I'll have prints of the Nouveau Robotica series, buttons, and some other goodies to share-- stop by if you're in town!

Faces and Creatures

Questo e il mio Faccia // "This is My Face" (EDIT: bad Italian grammar)

Model 006 [Italian import] in the Nouveau Robotica series. An homage to the "Absinthe Robette" poster by Henri-Privat Livemont-- my robotic interpretation of how we put on our 'faces' on ole Facebook.

[Bonus points and an original ink sketch for anyone that knows where I got the title!]

I may try to elaborate more on the symbolism I've attempted to incorporate into this one and the series as a whole, but I'd love to hear other theories and opinions as well.

I scribbled in a sheet of sketches to stick to making a series and have since planned on making enough robots for a calendar, so 12 all together. Half way there~!

"Heavenly Creatures"

This is a show that's going on tonight at Pehrspace in Echo Park with artist Karin Jancuk. Yes, very last minute-- as in right after I click 'Publish Post', I'm delivering my piece to the curator. Indeed a good thing she's a friend. I have a piece that's acrylic paint on acrylic sheeting-- a style and medium that's a departure from my usual, but a fun exploration with a Rilo Kiley inspired title.

If you're on Facebook, put on your best face, add, and check out the invite here !

'Daily' Sketches and Demo

"Daily" sketches:

I purposely left those quote marks as a sort of disclaimer that I'll do my best to keep up! These inks are a means to practice using some good ole analog tools, namely brushes, nibs, and pens. A great way to warm up the hand before doing more heady illustration, I've taken a cue from the talented GoGoIllustration sketch blog. They sure seem to be upping the ante as a group-- their work getting more polished with backgrounds/color!

In trying to keep these pretty casual and to stay interested, I wanted to pull inspiration from the things I liked most as a kid-- the stuff that reminds you why you wanted to draw all day in the first place... So I decided to start with characters that I've dressed up as during Halloween and other events in my childhood and some *ahem* more recently. Except for Yoda, I've donned some home made fabrication of these characters at one time or another. Maybe on my 900th birthday, I'll give the good old Yoda ears a whirl...

I think I'd like to keep the 'Dalies' in a separate sphere from this blog for now, but if you'd like to see them so far, check out the Flickr photo set. I update when I post a new one on the Twitter as well.

My buddy Ralph who I worked with on the drawing female space cadets has also been inspired enough to start his own blog with daily ink sketches as well (he's been more dedicated, no quotes around the 'daily' in his title or practice~) See his inks here: www.ralphious.blogspot.com

'Creatives Gone Wild' during Arty Gras:

This Saturday I'll be doing a watercolor demonstration for Grumbacher watercolors at a local art store. There's a ton of activities to choose from during Art Supply Warehouse's annual Arty Gras Sale (3/5 - 3/7) in sunny Orange County (err..rain or shine). Check out their schedule of demos and 'make-and-take's on their Facebook page. It's 25% off pretty much everything in the store so if you're in need of any art materials, now is the time to load up :] Learn about some new techniques and tools out there too!

There's also a show opening featuring the local talent from ASW in a gallery in the same plaza. I'll have a piece in there as well which relates to the comic anthology story I mentioned a couple posts ago. It's the first time in a long while to do some 'real' painting so I was glad to have the opportunity. The gallery event has a very fun theme: "Sideshow"-- which interestingly enough, it certainly is, next to the big sale events.

I hope they have a clown.. preferably robot.