THEES WIK on der EPIK MEEL TIEM!

THIS WEEK ON EPIC MEAL TIME. We've got BURGERS! We've got LAZA-GUN-A! WE've got Bacon Strips and BACON STRIPS and

- - UND BIKUN STREEPS! Und Poppen Rockens! Und Cannz oof Soooder Poppens! UND

JACK DANIELS! That's Right! It's a Swedish Meatish Candy Glucose Explosion, all Wrapped up with Muppet Burgers in a LASAGNA!

First... Muscles Glasses... creating another special SAUUCE with his mind. Creation of Jack Daniels... Soda and Pop Rocks?! Stupid. But Smart.

- - Und next, we Makken de Bikkunny Streepins in der WEEVE... Wit Der Sauteeiny SOOOOOOOOSSSE...

That's Right! Bakin that Bacon in a Concoction from Muppet Labs, Savory SAUUUUUCE... Mutation Sautee Creation! Smart!

""GROWWWWWRRRRRR....""

- - OOO NUU! OOO, BIKUNY WEEVIL CREATURA HUMONGA!

Next time... we eat a Yip Yip... Yup... Uh Huh....

Seriously. How awesome would this be? The Muppets comeback is partially due to their awesome YouTube videos, and how cool would it be to have a Muppet Meal Time crossover with YouTube cooking show Epic Meal Time? This was drawn as a (very belated) birthday gift for my buddy Amanda, two of her favorite things is Epic Meal Time and the Muppets. She's also a real sport for having to wait this long for her damn birthday gift. so, Happy Birthday, Amanda!

Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey, Matrimony

I don't always take commissions. But when I do, I make sure the project is awesome.

So when Joe dropped me a line and wanted his brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law flying away in the TARDIS, Just Married, with a bunch of Dalek and Cybermen parts dangling from the back (instead of tin cans)... I said Allons-y!

(Well, no, I actually said "yes" and then we talked price... but you know what I mean)

Viola.

A note of the image: I do have a scan of this image, it's in four parts (because the art was larger than my scanner) and I have to stitch it together in Photoshop. But the problem is, my computer currently can't do heavy lifting in Photoshop because it starts to overheat & sound like a plane trying to take off. I gotta get the computer fixed* So until then, here is a photo of the finished piece, framed, straight from the Alta, Timelord Bride herself!

Congratulations, Alta and Peter! All the happiest to you.

*or I might even need a new computer... :(

Protecting the world from evil.

How was it that this powerhouse duo came to be the protectors of this world? Lynn St. Martin remembers it thusly... "the way I remember it, Amanda expressed her hatred of sharks, I expressed my hatred of pandas (they are evil), and we offered to take care of the other for each other."

Thus began a century of a subtle blend of anarchy and justice. When asked about the violence against panda-kind, Amanda countered with "He had flames coming out of his mouth! What was I gonna do? Hug it?"

Fight on!

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE CROSS-PROMOTION CRAZINESS, PLAYA?!?

My good buddy Amanda is quite the intarweb social-media warrior. Community content co-ordinator of Spill.com, she also ranks among the earliest of Twitter-ers, and she has a vacation home built right on the cutting edge of Memes, Lulz & general internet tomfoolery, AND has an upcoming Video Game Podcast coming up on Lounge Geeks SOON! Smart!

I did this humble little drawing of her. See how casual she is about her rad-ness.

soon after this pic was taken, she turned into a blue lazer & flew into the air like Mega Man.

Follow her on Twitter!
Visit her on Spill!
Watch her show (eventually) on Lounge Geeks!
(and heck, because she turned me onto it, watch one of her favorite web programmes here!)

Another Album Art Mash-up: Dr. Who vs. The Clash

Fresh off the heels of creating an incredibly intricate mash-up Album "The Wire vs. The Beatles" I was looking forward to something a little easier to handle, So when my friend Beau requested a parody of the Clash's first album with the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor, I could hardly contain my excitement. But art is never easy. This one had it's own slew of challenges.

title: Police Box & Thieves. (rejected title: Hate & Time War)

Namely, the inking... I like to have a nice clean, yet textured look to my inks. This album cover I thought would be a snap since the photo is all 100% black and 100% white, no greys... but there's a lot of splotchy almost-stippling-but-not-quite-stippling going on here that wasn't easy to duplicate. But, duplicate it, I somehow managed to do.

Here's a colored version (I freaking love that it only took me one minute to color this piece)
and the original, for reference.

This is not the last Album Art Mashup that I will do. I plan to do MANY More.
(especially more Doctor Who ones) :)

A Mash-up of a different kind: The Wire vs. The Beatles

It began as a birthday gift to a friend (and it still is, BTW. Greg, pick this up already!) and ended as a return of an idea I wanted to continue since I did the "Dr. Who/The Who" album cover mash-up way back in '04.

Today, fine people, I unveil to you the newest Album Art Mash-up: taking The Beatles album "Revolver" and populating it with characters from HBO's "The Wire"

Go ahead, click it, zoom in and take a gander. That's over 30 characters, elements from opening credits, props and more (yes, that is the musical notations for "The Farmer in the Dell"), and over a month of sketching, planning, and inking.

(The big heads) Jimmy McNulty, William "Bunk" Moreland, Omar Little, Stringer Bell.
(The little heads) Jay Landsman, William Rawls, Commissioner Burrell, Major "Bunnie" Colvin, Tommy Carcetti, Lester Freamon, Kima Greggs, Leander Sydnor, Ellis Carver & Thomas "Herc" Hauk, Clay Davis (sheeeeeit), Augustus Haynes, Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, Dennis "Cutty" Wise, Brother Mouzone, Rhonda Pearlman, Cedric Daniels, Wallace, Beadie Russell, Bodie Brodus, Poot Carr, Michael Lee, Namond Brice, Randy Wagstaff, Dukie Weems, The Greek, Spiros Vondas, Marlo Stanfield, Snoop, Chris Partlow, Bubbles (and family), Proposition Joe, Waylon, Maurice Levy, D'Angelo and Avon Barksdale,

It was a beast of an illustration, but DAMN I'm happy with how it turned out. And this won't be the last Album Art Mashup from me. Expect more in the near future.

(and for reference, here's the original... slight changes were made to layout to fit in people, and to keep certain groups of people together...)

Hacking and Chopping: How Tony celebrates a B-Day

Illustration done for my buddy Tony's Birthday. See how he slays!
The only thing I regret is not putting in enough blood and gore. Oh well...I wanted to make sure he got it THIS YEAR...

Happy Birthday! (belated... but happy nonetheless)

Wind in the Willows... 70's Crime thriller.

Found these old sketches, they still make me chuckle.

I wanna see "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" done as a Steve McQueen car-chase.

New approach to Old Monsters: Cybermen

- A "Retro-Update" design -

Before their return and re-design in 2006, I was met with the challenge of approaching the classic design of the Cybermen, with a dual goal of (a) making them harken back to what older fans would enjoy and recognize, but also (b) make them appropriately frightening to new fans (and not... you know... how new fans likely already see the old Cybermen...)

"we are the knights of Camelot, we eat ham, and jam, and Spam a lot..."

I wanted to take the actual elements from the old design; rationalize in-story terms WHY they looked the way they did, and then tear it down to reveal what might be below, literally...

We could infer that not all Cybermen made in the past were created with top-of-the-line resources, there might not be enough to go around to convert thousands, nay, millions of sentient beings to the Cyber race. I'm sure a few hundred thousand were converted utilizing less-than optimal materials.

(which would explain the shroud-like wrappings on the original "Tenth Planet" Cybermen, the Zippers on the tunics worn by the "Invasion" style Cybermen, and the foil&Duct Tape jumpsuit & Moonboots (moonboots not pictured) of the Earthshock era Cybermen...)

So as sure as entropy eventually catches up to everything, so too does it come the old-school Cybermen.


Keeping the general shape, the very SILVER-ness of them... but showing entropy's effect in the exo-skin and insulation degrading and falling away... gaskets and joints deteriorating and falling apart... Those Old School Cybermen had all sorts of quirky weaknesses (such as an allergy to Gold... :) ) So perhaps some parts of it's structure succumbed to entropy whereas other components would still be operational... Underlying synthetic muscle, and fibers not-yet deteriorated cyber circuits, and of course, any remaining bones left over from the original biologic host. I was quite happy with how the design of a ruined, falling-apart Cyberman turned out.

(Of course Steven Moffat & team did a fantastic job with their own dilapidated Cyberman just last year...)

(next: A creature from the depths...)

Hellgirl: Portrait of the Damned

An oldie, but a goodie. I'm still really proud of this one!

Done for an old art contest: designing a Female version of Mike Mignola's Hellboy. Had a lot of fun with this one, from recreating the look of the cover design of the early Hellboy trades, and a reason for each aspect of the design... from the zipper on the underside of her Stone-Hand arm, and why her horns look cut off instead of the "snapped off" look of the standard Hellboy, why a Bomber jacket instead of a rugged trench... I remember doing a lot of prep sketches for this Illustration, which are in a notebook which is surely been lost since 2004.

LEOG - Time Travel & Alternate Timelines

Penciled months ago, edited quite frequently over the course of the last few months, and finished during a coloring RUSH last night, the Time-Travel LEOG Illo.


The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen (LEOG for short) on Spill.com is one of my favorite Podcasts, and Time Travel is one of my favorite genres/storytelling devices. And here illustrated is the quite large LEOG crew, each as a character from one of my favorite shows, Doctor Who. Listen to their Time-Travel themed episode by clicking this link.

From Left to Right, (with full-fledged link storm)

11th Doctor's upper half: Grant (also of TV Dudes & Greatest Drunk Stories Ever Told at Loungegeeks.com)!
1st Doctor: Jason "Fish" Fisher!
2nd Doctor: Randy (also of Rogues Gallery Comics & Games in Round Rock Texas, TV Dudes, Loose Canon Comics at Loungegeeks.com)!
3rd Doctor: Greg (composer of the LEOG theme song, (also of TV Dudes at Loungegeeks.com)!
4th Doctor: LEON, the imitable host of the LEOG podcast!
5th Doctor: CYRUS! Stalwart LEOG CoHost, sound engineer and editor of the LEOG podcast!
6th Doctor: Beau (also of Loose Canon Comics at Loungegeeks.com)!
7th Doctor: Rubio, of johnrubio.com (and follow him on twitter)!
8th Doctor: Cat!
9th Doctor: Peter!
10th Doctor: Harris!
11th Doctor's legs: Grant (again)

It all comes full-circle. See the links to past LEOG episodes at the League Lounge on Spill.com!

"A Very Marvel Hangover" - Loose Canon Comics Podcast

A very recent illustration, done as a Birthday gift for Randy of Rogue's Gallery Comics and Games in Round Rock, Texas!



Requested by Randy, an illustration of a rant done on his podcast "Loose Canon Comics" (which is not JUST his, he's along with "Lounge Geek" crew Jason and Beau) in which they discuss what would happen if the events of "The Hangover" occurred to Tony Stark, Mr. Fantastic and Moon Knight.

Hilariousness ensue; as you can discover by clicking this link to listen for yourself! Visit Lounge Geeks.

And if you're in the Austin/Round Rock area, visit Rogue's Gallery Comics and Games and buy something from the delightful and helpful staff. (And do not be scared of their in-jokes. If you hear them say "WE. ARE GOING. TO DIE! :(" Do not worry. No one is actually going to die.)

Online Portfolio - 2011

For your perusal and artistic consideration, a selection of some of my finest projects and works to date. This gallery consists of Illustrations, Poster and Flier compositions, examples of package design.

Any and all questions and comments can be directed to me at this blog, or the email address on the resume or business card that brought you to this blog entry. Thank you for your time, and enjoy!

I was proud and honored to have been able to work on the package design for Kyoji Yamamoto's introduction to the USA. "Voyager: The Essential Kyoji Yamamoto" is a fantastic collection of his greatest Solo work, available thru CityBoy Records.

The Cover was to both evoke Kyoji's own flavor of Rock and Wonder, but also to give it a classic "Gold" feel. The guy is a classic, huge around the world, and finally arriving in the USA.

The entire CD package is full of Kyoji's history, in both text and pictures. It was a great experience to work with Bruce Pegg and Kyoji Yamamoto in creating this package.

Promotional artwork created for "Spill Dot Con 2011" art and entertainment convention in Austin TX.

Illustration done to commemorate the First Annual "Spill Dot Con 2010" art and entertainment convention in Austin TX. Thanks and apologies to late artistic hero Al Hirschfeld.

"Empire's" Leia striking her best "Rosie the Riveter" pose. My favorite design for the Syracuse Heroes Expo.

The 2008 Expo was larger, bigger, AND larger, with more guests, more hype, and twice as many days. Fight-club-a-riffic.

The theme for the Heroes Expo is always Star Wars, but the added Fight-Club motif allowed for some more fun elements to be added, hence the "Fincher-esque" color scheme and the film-strip look of 2008's Collectible poster.

A fun mishmash of fonts, pictures and offset printing registers for the 2007 Syracuse Heroes Expo. Grindhouse movie posters and Bronze Age comics were very prevalent on my radar at the time.

My first design working with Jeff for the Syracuse Heroes Expo in 2007. I had a lot of fun making it look faded and weathered, but also eye catching.

a quickr pickr post

Fire & Ice: Farewell gift to buddy Rob

Here's a little B&W Illo, and a quick story behind it.

I worked a desk job for many years in Syracuse NY. One day, I was told my small, cramped office (that had barely any air circulation) would be filled with one extra person other than myself. I was less than enthused. The person who was taking what little space remained was a fellow named Rob.

At first, my opinion of Rob was not high. I had enjoyed being by myself in there, so another person in that tiny room did not really interest me. Also, my first impression of him wasn't that great... NO ONE can be this happy and smiley ALL THE TIME. What was up with this guy?

Over time, What can I say. I lightened up. I stopped being a grumpy bitter cuss (or at least, LESS of one) and we became buddies. In-jokes grew. I discovered he was the underweight long-lost twin of Comic's C.B. Cebulski... Internet Memes were swapped and many Lulz were had. Most of all, this fine Gentleman said something that changed my life: "You really should watch the Venture Bros. You'd really like it."

Well when this guy announced he was leaving Rainy Syracuse for Rainy Seattle, for WUV, then I felt I owed the guy something. (I mean COME ON, he got me watching the freaking VENTURE BROS.) Since he and his sweetie were avid MMORPG'ers, and had ridiculously high-leveled Red Mages in Final Fantasy Online, well it seemed a no brainer to draw their Avatars slinging off some magic.

Fire and Ice, ladies and gentlemen.

AAAHHHH! Monster! (Spill Dot Con 2011)

Time to get this show back on the road. I am an artist, for I "art". Here's the latest:

I've been on the Spill.com site for quite some time. They are a group of smart and funny writers, artists and humorists who create Animated reviews to new films, along with blogs, podcasts, and general internet tomfoolery.

For the last few years, the guys have put together a fantastic gathering in Austin Texas, a series of panels, workshops, art-jams, and nights of drinking; a fest called SPILL DOT CON. I am proud and honored to have been asked to create the promotional image for this years' event.

To the uninitiated who may be asking "What exactly am I looking at here?" You see the loveable animated characters of Spill.com (clockwise from top-left: Korey, Cyrus, Leon, Carlyle and the inimitable CoHost 3000 in the center) who have been mutated and combined into the body of Godzilla's arch nemesis: King Ghidorah.

(I cannot claim all of the credit. The Japanese translation by Toshishisa Nakamura, a friend who lives in Japan...thankfully far enough away from the recent tsunami and current reactor problems... but close enough where of course things are really scary. Hang in there, buddy.)

Despite the crazy events occuring in Japan,
Toshi is ever the picture of cool.