stuff that happened in 2008:

• gained a nephew
• contributed something to cbt
• went to megacon. hung out with some cool friends.
• finished twilight princess (took only eight months!)
• went on my first cruise. realized having a personal chef, butler, maid  and giant yacht probably wouldn’t be that bad.
• went to fluke and hung out with some cool friends
• started a new comic
• dr horrible
• went to mocca and hung out with some cool friends
• avatar finale
• y: chapter 10
• the best summer movie summer EVER.
• went to sdcc and got a hug from tori frickin amos (and hung out with some cool friends)
• went to europe
• i went TO FLIPPIN EUROPE
• became hospitalized for the first and hopefully last time.
• sky•doll in english
• went to a world series game. finally got baseball.
• went to dallas and hung out with some cool friends

things i want to do in 2009:

• start working on that new comic again
• publish parable
• finish my parable 2 comic
• rid the world of evil
• sell some books
• lose some weight
• draw more
• hang out with some cool friends
• don’t forget about the ones i won’t see

yeah- it’s a cheesy pun, but it’s also a cow & buffalo tradition. :)

i’ll be taking a short break from cow & buffalo for the holidays but i’ll have some exciting announcements related to it shortly after i return to updating it in januray.  i may still find myself posting some stuff on this blog in the meantime though. we’ll see.

a little sketch i decided to throw some color on.

not that i want to make a habit of posting the stuff i draw here at work on this blog, but i’m afraid unless i do i’ll have nothing else to post right now! besides, in this case it’s kinda fun. i had to create this little monkey character:

he’s for a visual presentation for a class here and needed to be done pretty quickly—like most of the stuff i draw at my job is. even with the rush job, it was just the sort of lighthearted type of thing i needed to be doing after a fairly frustrating week last week. monkeys can be so therapeutic. :)

click here for more monkey madness!

jen has posted the last of our europe pics.

for our last days in europe, we found ourselves in rome looking at lots and lots of lots of ruins (and eating some REALLY good pizza). for our final day we ended up in the uncovered city of pompeii to visit even more ruins.  all of which were incredibly impressive. it was amazing to be walking on streets that were well over two thousand years old.

and HERE is some predictable but no less appropraite music to listen to as you browse.

i took today’s ‘witch’ topic  for drawergeeks as an opportunity to draw some kiki fan art:

kiki’s delivery service is my favorite ghibli film (at least until the next ghibli film i watch. it tends to fluctuate) so i wanted to draw something cool.  unfortunately, i think this piece suffers from what i think a lot of my illos have suffered from lately. it’s a weak drawing that i tried to make work in color and therefore ended up with a mediocre piece. lately i’ve been more excited about the coloring process and experimenting with some new techniques that i’ve been sort of rushing through the drawing stage just to get it scanned and into the computer as quickly as possible. not smart! good color does not a good drawing make.

even though i learned some new things about coloring this time around ( i have so much to learn!), i’ve decided i need to refocus on my drawing again. thanks to my pal keath, i’ve finally found a place in tampa that holds regular figure drawing sessions and i plan on doodling in my sketchbook more than i do now. it might mean this blog may become slightly less colorful for a while, but i think strengthening my drafting skills is a viable payoff. and don’t worry- i’m not abandoning color completely. it’s way too fun (and i need to practice that too).

all of my mm3 ap cards were approved which means i can now share them here.

thanks to everyone that bought one (or two)!

i was commissioned to draw stephanie brown again, whom i drew last year for the stephanie brown meme that was going around. since steph has since come back from the dead and is swinging around in her classic purple outfit again, i decided to draw her as spoiler this time around…

… which is pretty much the exact same costume i drew last time, only the red is now a bit more purple and the “R” is now an “S”. yay for creativity!

also- florence pictures are now up.

jen has posted our photos from venice, a beautiful and amazingly unique city. i recommend making an effort to go visit at some point while the streets are still above water.

some music to listen to while you browse.

hey guys! there’s an interview with me up at LCS today. check it out!

also, because absolutely no one asked for it, here’s a little sketch of cleo (and khensu).

i promise to continue her adventures in comic form as soon as i get caught up with the multitude of other stuff on my plate right now.

also, for the first time ever, i’ve decide to sell the original art for the above cleo drawing.  the price is $50 which includes shipping and a print of the colored version. if interested, just shoot me an email.  you can view the black and white line work HERE and if there’s a good response i’ll think about selling some more original art down the road. maybe even take the time to set up an ebay store or something.

i think every young space cadet needs to fight at least one giant alien tentacled monster in their lifetime:

for drawergeeks‘ giant monster topic today. :)

also, jen has posted our germany photos- or as we like to call it,  CASTLE DAY!

here again is some music to listen to if you decide to browse through.  this song will now forever remind me of watching the french and german countryside speed by as we traveled by train from paris to munich.

republic tigers - “buildings and mountains”

jen has started uploading photos and videos of our trip to europe. first up, paris: the city of looooooooove.  and delicious snails. click HERE to view em.

i think jen’s going to upload these in chunks so i’ll just post them as she lets me know. some of those videos are pretty funny too. and for those wondering who those other two people are in every other picture, we went with our pals shawn and alisha who were great travel companions. after spending over two weeks together, i think we only tried to kill each other like twice.

HERE’s some music to listen to as you browse.

i’m a little late on this because of europe and hospitals and stuff, but my brother-in-law’s band, coveted green (for which he plays lead guitar for), released their first album last month. and they’re pretty good! the album has a very 90’s alternative rock feel to it and i liken their sound to a slightly heavier “yourself or someone like you” era matchbox twenty. i encourage you guys to check them out and, if you like what you hear, support them by buying their cd!

here’s one of their tracks:

coveted green - “t-shirts”

remember all those marvel sketch cards i drew not too long ago?  well, i just got sent ten artist proof blanks that i’ve decided to sell as commissions!

you can view all of the cards i did HERE (or just scroll down this blog a bit).

i’m selling them for $50 each with a marvel character of your choosing.  they will be in the same style as the ones i drew before but hopefully better drawn (no color, sorry. i just don’t remember how to without a computer nowadays).

also- the sale of these cards will go to a good cause! paying my upcoming hospital bills from which i spent the last three days of last week unable to leave from. hey guess what? hospitals are NO FUN!

anyhoo, just send me an email with the subject MARVEL SKETCH CARDS or something like that and i’ll send you payment info and any other information i probably forgot to write here.

oh- and first come first serve and all that.

EDIT- only 2 left!

i just got back from europe to find that parable is available in this month’s issue of previews! the order code is OCT084412 for it’s official december release. please make sure to let your local comic shops know to help us make sure parable is a great success.

jen and i’s european vacation was incredible. we saw and did a great many things and we have well over 2000 photos that jen needs to edit down before we can start showing people. i’ll see if i can’t put some sort of summary together by the time she gets that done but for now there’s a lot that both of us need to catch up on. ciao!

no seriously. it was also the topic for drawergeeks last week. i drew yori:

i’m totally excited for tr2n! looks like it’ll be in safe hands too.

also, some of you may already know this, but this friday i’ll be traveling to europe for a couple of weeks. because i probably won’t be spending any time at all on a computer while i’m there, this’ll likely be my last blog post for a while. hopefully i’ll have some drawings to post when i get back though!

i saved the best batch of marvel sketch cards for last: the teen teams!

the runaways have been jen and i’s favorite marvel team since vaughan and alphona created them over five years ago.  it was fun to finally have an excuse to draw them:

one of my other favorite new teen teams, the young avengers:

and okay- a bit younger than teens, but no less awesome: power pack!

power pack is how i ended my 100, with  katie power energy-blasting me off to more productive things. :)

more marvel sketch cards!  today we have the fantastic four:

some random cosmic characters:

and those trouble making, skrull antagonizing illuminati:

last batch of cards tomorrow!

you can try, but it’s hard to avoid drawing mutants when you’re in the marvel universe.  there’s just so gosh darn many of them!

more marvel sketch cards! today we have:

some spider-man stuff (that one card over there is actually the first time i’ve ever drawn spidey. i guess i just never had an excuse until now!):

the incredibly emotional hulk:

and one of my most favorite marvel teams (and books!) in recent years, good ol’ nextwave.