well, it’s official!  after a very last minute decision i’m heading out to SDCC next weekend!  for everyone that is planning on being there, let me know so we can meet up!

also, last night before bed, i finished reading the last volume of y the last man. trust me when i say i’m not going to spoil anything here (i’d never want to spoil a series this good for anyone), but i just have to write something. i could not sleep after putting down that book. i was seriously wide awake for over two hours thinking about what i had read.  i should have just got up and gone drawn or something, but i really wanted to fall asleep.  but i couldn’t!  it was like this mixed up emotion of being depressed that this great story i’ve been reading forever was over and the excitement of going out to san diego next weekend.

and then i realized what i was really depressed about.

Read the rest of this entry »

because i haven’t posted about music in a while, here are some of the bands i’m really into right now:

she & him- i think i’m in love with zooey deschanel. what i mean is, i love you jen, but i also love zooey deschanel.

sigur ros- takk was my favorite album of 2005 and now með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly) is probably my favorite album of this year so far.  these guys just know what i want to hear in my music. namely, swells and great melody.

the helio sequence- and broken afternoon is probably my favorite song right now. i can’t get enough of this band.

cherry ghost- thirst for romance is a great album.  pure and simple.

thomas newman- this awesome summer movie season (as well as xfm’s cinemagic station) has revitalized my love of scores, and wall-e is the one playing on repeat right now. newman’s strength is emphasizing emotion, and wall-e is great at this. (also good- but more fun- is kung fu panda by hans zimmer and john powell!)

the verve- has everyone heard the new single yet??  august 19th cannot get here quick enough!

and yes, i saw hellboy.  loved it.  more on that later.

a couple of people expressed interest in seeing some of my steps for that strawberry shortcake illustration i posted last week.  so this is for them i guess.  just click below to see a simple tutorial on how i went about it.

Read the rest of this entry »

strawberry shortcake was this week’s drawergeeks theme.  i did a couple:

i saved some of my steps for that first one. so if anyone’s interested in seeing those, let me know and i’ll see if i can’t find some time this weekend to post them.  and that’s all i really have to say about that.  time for more important matters:

2008 SUMMER MOVIE RANKINGS!

Read the rest of this entry »

i totally forgot about this.  project rooftop- a site i occasionally submit stuff too- was running a contest to redesign superman.  here was my take:

kinda goofy, but i still kinda dig it.  i just couldn’t part with the outside red undies though. i just know that’s going to be my downfall come voting time. but to me, superman just isn’t superman without his outside red undies.

i can go into more detail about my other changes, but really- who has the time to read that?  oh, you do?  okay then…

Read the rest of this entry »

can’t wait to draw this thing flying…

i might put a pause on these cleo posts for a little while until i can catch up on some pages. hopefully it won’t be too long of a break- there are some fun scenes coming up!

also- saw the incredible hulk last weekend and thought it was great. a really fun action flick with some essential comic geek out moments.  it’s not perfect but who cares.  HULK SMASH!  plus, i love this whole marvel universe that’s being built on the screen right now.  talk about early avengers movie hype!

my summer movie ranking thus far:

1. speed racer
2. iron man
3. kung fu panda
4. incredible hulk
5. narnia: prince caspian
6. indiana jones: kotcs

one day i’m going to collect a book of superheroes/villains playing ridiculous tacky instruments with giant pink hearts behind them.

drawergeeks topic this week was the joker, and i thought i’d draw somewhat of a companion piece to my batman/catwoman that i drew way back in 2006.  by 2016 i hope to have an entire bat-band!

has everyone seen kung fu panda yet?  what an awesome movie. it’s right behind surfs up as my favorite non-pixar cgi animated film, and definitely one of the best blends of action and comedy i’ve seen in a while. anytime po came on screen and did anything i was cracking up.  everything from the character designs to the animation to the backgrounds to the music was all top notch in this film.  this is really shaping up to be one of the best movie summers ever!

for those keeping track at home, here’s my current order list of summer movies i’ve seen so far, from awesome to not-so-awesome:

1. speed racer
2. iron man
3. kung fu panda
4. narnia: prince caspian
5. indiana jones: kotcs

sorry- i skipped sex and the city that week.  saw speed racer again instead. :)  looking forward to wall-e now!

you know what this story’s been missing? some heavier exposition…

mocca, as always, was awesome.  it was great seeing friends and colleagues i only get to see once or twice a year- or every two years- or every once in a turquoise, polka dotted, square moon. ryan and trade were great table mates and we couldn’t have asked for a better section right underneath the air conditioner units.  especially right after all the doors in the place were swung open for a half hour while we all waited outside for the firemen to do their jobs.

met and hung out with a lot of old and new friends- and i hate naming names because i’m bound to forget somebody- but you all know who you were (and all of you can also confirm to how “elephant like” my memory can be).  but hanging out saturday was fun.  and dinner sunday night was a blast (kean and andy make a cute couple).  i wish i could have walked around the floors more (i was pretty much confined to my table) so it was nice to be able to chat and stuff after show hours.  how else was i going to enthusiastically promote speed racer? :)

i didn’t really realize it until i got back and tallied up everything, but it was also my most profitable con ever (thanks mostly in part to the art prints i decided to bring with me this year- i’ll need to get a shop set up for those soon).  reason enough to head back up again next year, but i would be planning to anyhow just because of the amount of fun i had. mocca is easily my favorite convention.  the people there are the best, the amount of quality work the exhibitors are selling is astounding and no one really has to tug at my arm very hard for me to have a reason to visit NY.  even if it is for a quick, kinda stressful couple of days.

so yeah- see you all next year!

this is for a card set coming out sometime later this year.

i actually drew this little mermaid earlier in the year- but just recently got the okay to blog it.

i’ll be at the mocca art fest this weekend! me, ryan and trade all have our own little lunchbox funnies section in the back, tables A17-A19.  i’ll have copies of adventures in sandwich making, it’s prequel/sequel mini, ash: the time traveling kitty, postcards, buttons, window clings, magnets… all sorts of stuff.  i’ll also have a limited number of art prints on me from stuff i’ve posted on this blog, including the mermaid above, as well as a free promotional parable poster for the first 90 people that walk by.

should be a really fun festival this year.  hope to see a bunch of you there!

i’m afraid i’m not as caught up on these as i would like- and i have a lot of other work i need to focus on in the coming months. hopefully i’ll be able to catch up, but realistically i should warn any cleo fans out there that i’m not sure how much longer this weeklyish schedule is going to last.

still- yesterday i went to go see speed racer again (i know- i should be drawing cleo instead…), this time on imax, and loved it just as much the second time as i did the first. maybe even more. i can honestly see this movie becoming one of my all time faves, which is crazy since i almost didn’t even go see it at all. folks- don’t miss it on the big screen while you have the chance! especially the big, big screen. man, imax is cool.

time is just not on my side for drawergeeks lately. but i would have been kicking myself (which i’m sure is awfully difficult but i’d try anyhow) if i missed zombie week! so here is my super kinetically quick colorless submission:

one of my life long goals is to see/create a zombie musical, and i wish i had more time to do better justice to this image i’ve had in my head for a crazy long time now. also, trying some new things. pushing myself to use more solid blacks and be looser with my drawing. didn’t turn out as bad as i thought it might. though it needs a ninja. there will be singing ninjas in my zombie musical too. and david hasselhoff. as maybe a ninja.

also- i drew a guest strip for fellow floridian webcomiker derrick fish this week and forgot to tell you all to go over and read it on tuesday (i was too excited to talk about speed racer). so click HERE to go over and read it. dandy & company is a pretty hilarious webcomic, so you might find yourself lingering there a little longer than you want. but derrick assures me, that’s ‘okay.’

here’s a cleo page for my birthday (29 today- old)!

i saw two movies this past weekend (actually three, but two in the theater)- indiana jones 4 and speed racer. and you know what? speed racer blew indy out of the water in terms of awesomeness. why is this movie not doing better?? i had so much fun and felt like i was watching something really special. the script was great, the characters were super developed, and the car racing was the coolest car racing i’ve ever seen. i don’t think i wanted to go home and play mario kart so badly in my life. there was just so much to love about this movie, all the way from the visuals to the message it was trying to tell.

unfortunately, in contrast, indy fell victim to a really bad script and a super, under-developed story line- and honestly- should never have been made. it was like an indiana jones movie for the sake of an indiana jones movie and just didn’t work on so many levels. i don’t want to go into the details, because they’re fairly obvious and most of you have either seen the movie already or will be seeing it soon. but i think this was a rushed project that was fun only in the sense of nostalgia for how much we all enjoyed its predecessors. i didn’t think it was all bad, but i went in with very low expectations and this movie met those.

the funny thing about the two films is that there are so many “wha–?” moments in both of them. but with speed racer those “wha–?” moments are instantly followed by a “haha! awesome!” while with indy they just leave you with your mouth hanging open wondering how someone thought that was good idea.

so- i know speed racer isn’t for everyone, (believe me- from the trailers, i thought it looked just as horrible as the rest of the world seems to think) but if you go in with an open mind- i think you’ll find something you haven’t really seen before. something fun and unique. something for kids and adults. something for artists and people just wanting to see some great action. something meant to be seen on the big screen. something raiders of the lost ark accomplished 27 years ago.

so, with june fast approaching and more movies on the way, here’s my ranking for favorite summer movies so far:

1. iron man
2. speed racer
3. narnia: prince caspian
4. indiana jones: kotcs

this is a pinup i just finished up for scott zirkel’s wonderdog inc book due out this summer from viper comics. there are many a character in wonderdog inc, but i decided to draw rachel. who is rachel? you’ll have to buy the book to find out! mainly though, i just really liked her hair.

for those with wowio accounts, you can download a free ten page preview of wonderdog here- before the book even arrives in stores. for those without wowio accounts (with the exception of those overseas-sorry guys!), what’s wrong with you?

xerx smash!

apparently cleo’s not the only egyptian queen zapping her way through the cosmos. now nefertiti is getting in on the action thanks to fellow tampa drawing buddy, keith patterson. do i detect a team-up?

well, my available time to participate in drawergeeks was short lived. i’m back to being extremely busy again. still, i had to do something for dinosaur week! and so i scribbled this brontosaurus onto a post it.

and then i (sadly) scribbled six more…

Read the rest of this entry »

um… wednesdays instead? :P

yesterday was jen and i’s five year anniversary and we spent it at a beach house one of jen’s clients graciously gave us for the weekend. it was just the sort of two day, relaxing vacation both of us needed before we dive back into the grind that is our busy lives. while sitting on the beach, watching the waves crash and ignorantly not wearing sunscreen on every single inch of our bodies (this was not known until later), we both decided to draw ourselves as we were in high school for the meme that’s probably just about over by now. better late than never though, right?

here’s me in all my grunged out glory next to present day spiffy, floridian me (just click to enlarge these):

and alternative rock jen next to present day sweetcake jen:

so cool that jen was excited to do this with me, on our anniversary no less. i love my wife- more than anything else on this world. even more than ice cream.

sorry, a bit late on this one…

well, now that i got a few projects out of the way and have made some good lead way on some other things, i can finally start participating in drawergeeks again. woo! this week’s topic was the lone ranger.

i sorta struggled on this one. i don’t know about the rest of you but cowboys and gunslingers are hard! so many bells and whistles and holsters to think of. and don’t get me started on horses. apologies to anyone that actually knows how a saddle and harness attach to a horse (i was about researched out at that point).

MUSIC! bands/artists i’m into right now:

mgmt- i think they put addictive chemicals in their music.

the frames- finally saw once a little while ago and am shocked i’m just now finding out about these guys.

need to breathe- they opened for third day a couple months back and i think it’ll be the last time they simply open for somebody again.

murder by death- this was perfect lone ranger drawing music. thanks to keath for this one.

sera cahoone- thanks to kean for mentioning her. really, all i need is a banjo and a harmonica to make me happy.

ralph stanley- ’nuff said.

iron man is finally out!

i think it’s time to get this started.