Have brain. Will travel

"Fanatic"
12"x12"
acrylic on canvas
This was my contribution to the 3rd Annual Red Dot Auction. It raised $400 for the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity. Special thanks to my pal, Bernard Gumz who helped show me where I should place my highlights. The title comes from a quote by George Santayana that Chuck Jones would often use to describe the Coyote. "A fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim."

Chud kept me company while I was working on it.

 

¡Dia de los Mars Attacks!

¡Atención, los seres humanos sucios! ¡Su planeta patético está condenada. ¡Prepararse para la aniquilación total!

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I'm a huge fan of Mars Attacks, specifically, the original bubble gum cards produced by Topps from 1962. So, naturally, I was really excited when Pete from legendary ska band, The Porkers, commissioned me to make this t-shirt design for his company, Hardcore Logo.

The idea was to draw a martian as a Mexican Dia de los Muertos sugar skull. I decided to add a little reference to the 1996 Tim Burton film by adding the Martian flag on the forehead

You can order your shirts here

"Is you is, or is you aint my baby?"

Here is my piece for The HB Show - A Group Art Show Tribute to Hanna-Barberra.

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This piece is 18x24, acrylic on illustration board. It was inspired by a classic scene from one of my favorite Tom and Jerry shorts, "Swingin Serenade" (1946)

The show opens this Saturday, April 6th at the Van Eaton Gallery. Over 100 incredible artists participating! You can see the rest of the work online here at the Van Eaton Gallery website.

If you're in the Los Angeles area, come on out to the opening reception!

"Inka Dinka Doo"

So, as I mentioned in the last blog post, I've been working on my digital inking since I got a new Cintiq. Here's some recent pieces I've inked, along with their original pencil on paper drawings. I think these are getting better, but there's definitely room for improvement.
These inked drawings are for a a project I'm very excited about and I'll be announcing at some point in the near future.

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"Don't stop skankin'!"

Here's a tour poster I did back in December for my pals, Reel Big Fish, but forgot to post it.

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This poster was for the US leg of the world tour which was this past January and February. Since the tour was in support of the album they released last July, which I also illustrated, I knew I wanted to incorporate the same characters. For those who don't recognize him, the guy in the middle who is at the mercy of these cuddly sadists is Aaron Barrett, the singer and guitar player for the band. 

On a side note, this is the first piece I inked using my new Wacom Cintiq. Previously, I had inked things like the album cover in Adobe Illustrator and it was all just vector paths. I think I could do much better better now that I've had more experience with the Cintiq. I'll be posting some samples of my more recent inked projects in the next day or two.

Here are a few of the early concepts for the poster.

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"We close our eyes"

2 years ago, I said I might like to revisit this painting. Well I finally did.

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I had the great fortune of being able to give this to Tim Burton this past November. His work, especially his drawings and paintings, have been a big influence on me, so it was a tremendous honor to get to meet him and give him some of my work. I wanted to give him this one because I felt it reflected some of that influence. This piece isn't supposed to necessarily scream "Burton!". I think it shows the influence in terms of theme perhaps, but I wanted it to have my own voice and style behind it. I didn't want to just make a painting of Jack Skeltington or something, because I feel that doesn't show influence. That's just regurgitation. Plus that kinda stuff is a dime a dozen on deviantart.com.  Tim seemed genuinely excited and grateful to get it. Even if he was just blowing smoke, it made me feel pretty damn good to shake his hand and share some of my work with someone whose own work has meant so much to me for so many years. I feel incredibly grateful to say that I have now met my two biggest influences. The other being Chuck Jones, whom I had met when I was 14.

For some more info/insight into the piece itself, check out the original blog post from 2 years ago.

"Everything's OK"

I went to go see The Queers on my vacation to Atlanta a few months ago, and I gave this drawing to Joe Queer

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