Game Map

Recently had several conversations with folks about the history and current state of the Bond franchise. I'm a pretty huge fan of the series as a whole, but could be a whole lot happier about the current choices being made about the (historically) suave and cunning spy in the suit.

Good good, Good bad, Bad bad: Buffy

I watched the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie last night, and while I remembered it being good, I had not remembered how good.  This is a fantastically funny, stylish vamp/90s high movie.  Self-aware camp and super  likeable vampire make-up makes this Good good.  One of the finest scenes involves Paul Reubens getting stabbed with a ruler.

Being green on a Friday.

I whittled a collection of fruit and veg for my nephew. All hand carved from basswood with a Carvin’ Jack knife and lightly finished with a smooth sandpaper to preserve the faceted look of the knife cuts. Main body colors were applied with an airbrush using Vallejo Model Air paint. Details painted on by hand with brush. First real foray into carving and will be doing lots more.

Dream JRNL #1

It is not a necessary evil, but an ever-present one: the abbreviated vocabulary used when texting. Like typos, you must be ever vigilant in a time of incredibly disposable communication. There are moments however, when typos happen; usually in those rushed or half-focused texts. For the past few months, I’ve been doing this thing where I will wake up and punch out a text with an autonomous thumb. I scarcely remember doing this in the morning but am always amused by them. So far, nothing bad has happened, so I haven’t switched to another form of alarm system that doesn’t have MMS capabilities. I actually don’t know what MMS stands for, I just know that it stands for something that means texting. Here is an example of one of these dream texts. Funny how just a little typo makes you look insane…

Beautiful morning here in NYC. Some more poster work for the inimitable DJ Lani Love. Went for a dot instead of my (what's slowly becoming trademark) loose stipple patterning.

Guy Stuff: Things to do to wood

You may’ve noticed that since moving to the city, I’ve missed manual labor and dudely work doubly.  When I was home for the holiday weekend, I got a whole lot of guy stuff out of my system, including chopping wood, lighting it on fire and sawing it in half.  I also ripped off the paper still connected to a few dozen wire hangers but that doesn’t qualify.

I launched my first comic of the new year, Friend Mold! It’s been in the works awhile, this comic, and I’m extremely excited to get it out in the world. It was a lot of work, but it has me anxious to get working on another (which I have begun but is still too early to be showing anything. SneakHear: it has a goat). During the process, the toughest design decision was the cover, and it kept changing. I ended up with something quite different from my initial design, which isn’t all that uncommon in the design process, but most of the book’s illustrations were set from the get go. The Friend Mold idea all came from a thought I’d had coming out of sleep one winter morning. I won’t bore you with dream-details, but the thought spawned a concept, a rough script and definite look within a few hours. Here is a look at two alternate cover designs.

The one on the right is closest to my original concept, which had a rubber like pour-mold with swappable head, chest, and crotch pieces. It just never read as well as it should have and the shadowed relief look didn’t fit the interior illustrations. And that always bothers me (pardon to any comic artists out there), where the cover illustration style has little to do with the interior art. The design on the left was just a bit too morbid when I polled some folks about it. While I did like the face down look, it did slowly give me the creeps when working on it. Made me feel very claustrophobic - which also isn’t the point of the book’s content.

So, check it out, and see the book as it is released, a page a day with the final interior on Feb 14th!

Bird 5: Blue Jay

A very pretty, pretty mean bird: the Blue Jay. These things would always scare away the smaller birds on the feeder at my childhood home. In the city, they’re a bit more humble with nastier competition.

The Fine Art of Design.

Did a magazine ad for a great vintage shop in Palm Springs. Was a fun project and allowed me to do more textural work which I’ve been getting into recently, and a touch of screentone which I’ve found hard to incorporate into my style but like the challenge a lot.