buffalog » pixies & mermaids

old drawing, new color!

mike — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:07:05 +0000

a friend of mine is decorating her daughter’s new room with lots and lots of my pixies (very cool!). one of which is this old sketch that she really wanted colored. so even though it was strange coloring something i scribbled OVER THREE YEARS AGO, i did it anyhow. because that’s what friends do.

and you know? i’m okay with this. i mean, i see a million gazillion problems with this drawing (as i do with almost all of my work) but i still think it looks alright. it’s funny to look back on your past work and see what works and what doesn’t and compare those things to your current work to see what you have worked out or should still be working on (sorry- lots of work right now!).

and i know you kids like your desktop sizes so here’s a larger image for those who want it. :)

chocolate faerie

mike — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:11:54 +0000

this was another faerie commission (people must like faeries—i get asked to draw more faeries than anything else). in this case, the commissionee asked for some specifics: blond, waking up in the morning, a cup of coffee, a ladybug, a certain brand of chocolate (her favorite), and similar to the faerie seasons i was also commissioned to draw not too long ago.

yes! i think i pretty much covered everything! “oh, you didn’t want clothes on her?” so close…

here is the edited version:

i actually don’t have a problem with drawing a nude pixie. in fact, call me old fashioned, but most of the time i find it kind of ridiculous that faeries are wearing clothes anyhow. but it was tough to alter something i already had in my head as finished—especially since i couldn’t rework the original pencils (i work in a non-erase lead). this is just one of the many reasons i love that i render pretty much everything digitally now. in fact, i’m not sure how i’d get by without photoshop nowadays.

what do you guys think? which version do you like better?

faerie seasons

mike — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:03:53 +0000

here’s some fun stuff. i was commissioned to draw four simple faerie illustrations, each depicting one of our seasons (if you live on planet earth). i think they came out alright! it was fun giving each one it’s own unique color scheme.

most of my time right now is spent working on my second parable story (the first one you can read this fall when volume one comes out in december!), but i still have an inbox full of commissions i’m trying to get to. i’ll do my best to post some of my favorites as i draw them so this blog doesn’t become a ghost town. or ghost blog. spooky.

another mermaid and mocca

mike — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:42:34 +0000

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 caught a lite sneeze

mike — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:27:52 +0000

well, the story broke on this last week so i assume it’s okay to post this here:

this is a page from a story i’m contributing to for Comic Book Tattoo- an upcoming anthology inspired by the music of one of my favorite songwriters, tori amos. you can read the cbr article to read more, but basically we were all asked to choose a song but draw a comic that doesn’t just narrate said song. so what you end up with is a massive 500 page book full of comics that even a non tori fan can enjoy. smart thinking!

i choose the song caught a lite sneeze because, for mysterious reasons unknown even to me, i immediately thought of a story involving two faeries. and you all know it doesn’t take a whole lot to get me drawing pixies. hopefully my little story will hold back the legions of people clamoring for me to get back to drawing more seed (one day! i promise!).

anyhoo- i’m actually still working on this, but i anticipate being done within the next day or so. and then maybe i can get back to some regular blogging. or some cleopatra in spaaaace!

2008 list time!

mike — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:37:59 +0000

from catching up on everyone’s blogs and journals over the past two days, it looks like it’s that time again. the time to make lists of things! particularly things that happened or came to be in 2007.

something that most of you might not know about me is that i am a chronic, cusack listmaker. i even thought about designing a new blog specifically for the purpose of listing things i like or do not like. but then i wondered why anyone would, or should, care what it is i like. but lists do help me to organize my ever increasing memory of stuff.

i’m going to make this one easy on me though. here are just a few things that made 2007 a great year:

judd apatow
x-men
getting parable published
my book!
lunchbox funnies
journey cow
tv on dvd! (veronica mars, avatar the last airbender, battlestar galactica, how i met your mother…)
comic conventions that start with m (mega con, mocca, mid ohio…)
avatar the last airbender (listed again because of complete awesomeness)
new radiohead (and shaking up the music industry)
new david crowder (and an awesome concert)
FINALLY seeing the flaming lips!
discovering sunset rubdown (thanks kean!)
drawergeeks making me draw (and giving me something to blog)
BLOGS!
POGS! (wait, no… those are still lame…)
the dark knight trailer
grindhouse in the theater (first time i instantly clapped at a movie)
immonen on ult. spidey
world war hulk
we the robots
zelda: twilight princess
heck- just the Wii itself
crepes
the best batman ever
and more important than all of the above- all of my family and friends (on and off the internet).

i’m looking forward to this year. my goal is to draw lots of comics. :)

sugar frosted pixies

mike — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:07:51 +0000

a few of you may know that i’m part of a very cool art blog called sugar frosted goodness. there’s a zillion talented artists that post on there every single day so if you’ve never been there, and you like art, make sure you do. then bookmark it or rss feed it or whatever you wacky kids are doing these days. anyhoo, i was asked to draw some characters in front of the sfg banner and, me being me, decided to draw some pixies. well, two pixies and a mermaid (mermaids are just water versions of pixies anyhow).

sorry that’s as big as those get. i only had a 72dpi version of the logo to work with. but you can view some larger versions of the originals here, here and here.

that may be the last of the pixies for a while too. i just started a new project that’s going to focus my attention on something else for the time being. of course, if anyone wants to commission me to draw more pixies, i’m not going to turn them down. ;)

she’ll never get off the ground

mike — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:20:07 +0000

not really a vehicle lover so here’s a pimped out pixie instead for drawergeeks pimp your ride topic.

it’s the first cool day here in tampa! i’m finally starting to get into the fall spirit- still my favoritest of seasons despite not many color changes here in florida. there’s a crispness in the air, the humidity level lowers, and a ton of my favorite bands decide to release their new albums.

speaking of which, has everyone downloaded the new radiohead yet? you really don’t have an excuse since you can pay however much you want for it. i was listening to it on my way to work this morning and, despite it’s short audio length, think it’s a perfect album for this time of year.

a couple of pixie sketches

mike — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:36:01 +0000

one in color:

one in black and white:

arena mermaid

mike — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:05:26 +0000

for fist-a-cuffs’ arena-girl challenge:

her name is hannah. why hannah? because i asked jen what her name should be and she said, “hannah”. that’s creative processing at it’s finest, folks!

attack of the pixies: part deux

mike — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:11:16 +0000

sure, they look harmless…

attack of the pixies

mike — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:03:36 +0000

i’m going to draw pixies for a little while if everyone’s okay with that.

a little mermaid drawing

mike — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:41:42 +0000

last week, a couple of my friends were drawing mermaids. not wanting to be left out, i drew one too, and just got around to coloring her this morning.

not quite as unique or cool as their mermaids, and a bit too ariel looking, but at least now i can add “have drawn mermaid” to my resumÃ¨.

and joel carroll pointed me to this really sad news this morning as well… :(

i only knew mike from online- from his blog and forum chatting and whatnot. but from what i gathered, he was an extremely nice guy and an insanely talented artist. you could tell his love of art, and especially the comics medium, in every post and comment he wrote. the news of his passing comes as a shock and is a great loss to both the comics and internet communities. his family will be in my prayers.

a faerie sketch in color

mike — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:56:20 +0000

yay! i did find some time to color that sketch last night!

it’s a quick coloring job, but still- better then none at all, right? okay, time to get back to important stuff…

a faerie sketch

mike — Wed, 30 May 2007 14:47:49 +0000

hey! haven’t drawn one of these in a long time!

i’m all kinds of busy right now, and any time i do any drawing it tends to be something i have to draw, or something i feel like i have to draw. so yesterday, i felt like taking a break to just draw something mindless and fun and nothing is more mindless and fun to draw then cute little pixies. well, and robots. and robot pixies.

i might try to give this sketch a bit of color tonight if can find the time. we’ll see i guess………

last of the faeries…

mike — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:41:26 +0000

well, my new job is keeping me pretty busy so i’m not sure how much of a blogger i’m going to be for a while. but i wanted to post something so that it doesn’t look like i just disappeared all of a sudden. so here’re a couple more faeries i scanned in last week. i’ll scan in some non-faerie sketches in between freelance and comic work sometime this weekend. this is actually the last of the faeries. unless there’s a huge outcry for more i think it’s time i move onto some other subject matter.

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i swear. i do draw other things…

mike — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:35:57 +0000

hmm… what kind of doodling can i pull out of my grab bag of sketches today. oh! there we go. more pixies!!!

more sketching means more piXie

mike — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:36:01 +0000

yesterday was a productive day. i managed to get two pages (roughly) penciled of my parable story, catalog the zillion of cd’s i’ve had piling up around my office, manage to cook jen dinner (which i don’t do often enough) and finally scan a bunch of stuff from my sketchbooks. that means i can start posting some sketches again.

to start off, some more doodles of everyone’s favorite fictional x-girl- piXie!

recovery on myspace

mike — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:23:25 +0000

so while recovering yesterday from getting some teeth yanked out, i finally conformed to internet society and set up a myspace account. some of my friends have been bugging me for months now to set one up so i finally did. it’s really sad, but most of my day yesterday was filled up with listing things that i like and searching for people i know (or want to know). and since i really like listing things that i like and finding people that i know, i must say i’m kinda happy that i set the thing up. so if you’re reading this and you have a myspace account, send me a friend request so i can look cool and popular.

i also drew some more pictures of piXie:

a little bit of everything

mike — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:29:04 +0000

tomorrow very early in the morning i’m going to go and get some wisdom teeth removed and a few cavities filled. one of the wisdom teeth is impacted which should be a whole lot of fun. i can’t wait. i’ll likely be in pain for a couple days afterwards which i’m also really looking forward too. it’s the start to a great week! anyhoo, i don’t talk about comics, movies and music enough…

music- i’m really in to sufjan stevens right now. i can’t get his song chicago out of my head. i’ve got to thank my friend jeff denton for introducing me to him.

movies- saw snakes on a plane this weekend and it was every bit as bad as i hoped it would be. i was hysterical. now i’m ready for the fall crop of films, which are usually a big breath of fresh air after the ridiculous and over-the-top summer ones.

comics- my new favorite web comic is zip and li’l bit by trade loeffler. the story is just getting started but i already love it. the art is amazing (love his linework) and there are plenty of sheep. lots of sheep is always a good reason to read a comic.

on the paper side of things, i’m really into the x-men books again after suffering through many, many bad issues (except astonishing of course). mike carey and chris bachalo are a big part of my recovering interest but ed brubaker and billy tan are doing an awesome job as well. and, it’s not really x-men related, but everybody who’s into superhero comics should check out nextwave by warren ellis and stuart immonen. it’s absurdedly awesome.

speaking of x-men, i created a new x-character! she’s got magical mutant pixie powers and there’s even an ‘x’ in her name! i call her piXie! (i’m so lame..)