A Michigan To Texas Birthday Wish 2011

My internet pal Sandra likes to collect photos from her online friends for her birthday every year. So, for this year's photo, I selected this image of the Belle Isle Conservatory as seen from the roof of the aquarium. In the spring, the aquarium will be getting a much needed roof replacement, which will be one step closer to getting the place re-opened.


Sandra, I hope that you like this Detroit themed birthday photo!

Happy Holidays 2011

How ever you celebrate and who ever you celebrate with I wish you all the bestest holiday season! See you all in the new year.

Galaxy 7 Sketch Cards, part two

These are a few more of my Galaxy 7 sketch cards from the Topps set. The first cards are the hobby ones and these finish up those and the ones with the red background start the retail cards.

Galaxy 7 Sketch Cards

These are a few of the 212 (including returns) sketch cards that I am doing for the Star Wars Galaxy 7 card set that will be put out by Topps early next year. I just received approval to show these, so I thought I'd put them up for all to see.

And on to some convention news. Tomorrow I will be in Grand Rapids, MI for the Grand Rapids Comic and Toy Expo. There will only be a few of us artists on hand, so come on by and say hello. I will have sketch cards, prints, books and all that good stuff.

Muck Man #21

So, I got a little derailed in October and November due to an illness and some deaths and it seems like it's been ages since I last did a Muck Man tale. So, it was nice to get back into the swing of things and get going on this again. Also, my very first Muck Man comic book will see the light of day very soon as I am putting the finishing touches to this. Details coming soon!

Star Wars Blast From The Past Comicpalooza!*

*for lack of a better title...


Two posts back I showed a sketch from my childhood, so why not keep it going this time? When I was digging through my old drawings I came across this Star Wars satire comic that I did when I was 17. Such a witty young lad was I... Sad to say that I don't think my cheesy sense of humor has developed much since then.

Trooperfest

The 501st Legion's Trooperfest is going on now and I will be one of only a few artists on hand. I have yet to see who is actually attending, but I do know besides myself, Chris Trevas and Alex Buechel will be theretomorrow and possibly Jamie Snell from Ohio. So, I will be there with Star Wars related stuff, including prints, sketch cards and originals. Steve Sansweet of Lucasfilm will also be in attendance. Should make for an interesting time, so come on down and get your Star Wars fix.

The above image was swiped from their site and you can get more info here.

Rudolph F. Zallinger

 Allosaurus Attacking Brontosaurus (1960) by R.F.Z.

 The Age Of Reptiles (1943-47) by R.F.Z.

 Dinosaur sketches (1976) by me



Back in September, I decided to revisit a couple of dinosaur books from my childhood. I still have them and hadn't really looked at them in years and I wanted to see just how far the field of paleontology has come in the last 50 years or so (the books being written in '59 and '60). Surprisingly, the only really obvious 'mistakes' were in bone structure, where and how the legs attached to the body. I know that they now know that it would have been impossible for some of these behemoths to even hold their own weight had their legs jutted out from the sides instead of below the body.

But, even more revealing to me, was just how much the artwork (in Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Reptiles, 1960) by Rudolph F. Zallinger had an impact on me as a little fledgling artist. Although, structurally inaccurate, the images of the dinosaurs and the surrounding environments captivated me when I was young. The artwork is beautiful with deep, rich colors that I had never seen before (or since) and upon reviewing them, I was almost immediately thrown back to those younger days and even felt some of the excitement that I used to feel when looking at them then. Very inspiring, actually. No wonder that I hung on to them all these years! One can almost feel the heavy atmosphere and humidity in these scenes. I tried then to recreate some of those dinosaur images when I was ten and the bottom sketch is one of those. I just couldn't get those deep blues and reds, but I know I had a blast trying! I think a little bit of Mr. Zallinger artwork is still rattling around in my work to this day and why wouldn't he be?

Here is a brief snippet about R.F.Z. from wikipedia:

Rudolph Franz Zallinger (November 12, 1919 - August 1, 1995) was an American-based artist notable for his mural The Age of Reptiles (1947) at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and for the popular illustration known as March of Progress (1965), one of the world's most recognizable scientific images.

Biography

Zallinger was born in Irkutsk, Siberia in 1919. He attended Yale’s School of Fine Arts on scholarships during the Great Depression, was trained as an illustrator, and he taught at Yale after graduation. The Peabody Museum hired him to paint the mural in 1943 at $40 a week, and Zallinger took a crash course in paleontology to prepare for the job. After that, the museum appointed him as the “artist in residence”, a position he held until his death^[1].


I think a visit to Yale is in my future to see those murals.

Koi Wrangling 2011

Just recently, the Belle Isle Aquarium received a federal grant to replace the roof, which is much needed, so the top cartoon was done for that wonderful news.

And the bottom toon is for tomorrow's (Sat. 11-5-11) Koi wrangling event to move the 'deadly' creatures to their winter habitat located in the basement of the aquarium. Volunteers are always welcome, so come on down to the island at 9am to help out with the move. The kids love this, especially the big ones and the more helpers we have the quicker it goes.

Happy Halloween!

Muck Man #20

The origin of Muck Man continues! Click on image to engorge.

TJS Automotive Repair Logo

Recently, I finished up a logo design for TJS Automotive Repair shop located in Madison Heights, MI and here is the final design as it will appear on their t-shirts and other advertisments. The car used for this design is based on one of the owners own cars, a 1968 Grand Prix. I had a lot of fun doing this one and I seem to be getting better at doing cars, as long as I can put my own twist in there somewhere.

Muck Man Theme Song!

My Chicago based uber talented musician buddy Chris Quigley has honored me by writing and recording a theme song for my Muck Man character. When he approached me a few months back about doing something like this I thought that I would keep an open mind and be gracious for whatever he came up with. I didn't think that this would be too difficult a task to accomplish since I'm a fan of his music anyways. But, when he sent the link with the demo, I have to admit that just before playing it I had a secondary flash of anxiety that it wouldn't capture the 'essence' that is the Man of Muck. I then reminded myself that I would probably like what I heard. All doubts (which were pretty much nil, anyways) were immediately cast aside when the first guitar licks festooned from my speakers. To say that I was pleasantly pleased would have been an understatement. It does have an infectious guitar riff that I seem to be humming all weekend. Come on! Muck Man has a theme song! How cool is that?

Chris and I go way back to high school and as he has said that I liked him even when his music sucked, I can say the same that he stuck around me even when my art sucked! I fondly remember him giving me flack about my dreamy big-eyed self-portraits. Good times. So, go and check out his site for witty remarks and even better tunes. I believe that he is currently tearing up the Chicago night club scene, so if you live in the Chicago area, check him out!

Check out the Muck Man Theme here.

And here is the instrumental version.

So, make sure that you go to the Quigman's site and tell him just how cool the Muck Man Theme is! I command you.

And for your veiwing pleasure, a toon of Muck Solo, as seen above.

Detroit Fanfare!

Detroit Fanfare is finally amongst us! This Saturday and Sunday at Cobo hall in Detroit will be the place to be for all of your comic and pop culture needs and this event is turning very fast into being the Detroit area's premiere con scene. The founders of Fanfare, Dennis Barger, Gary Reed and Tony Miello have pulled out all the stops in making this a fun and exciting weekend. Besides there being over 200 artists, there will be a few media guests there, as well. Peter Weller of Robocop and Buckaroo Banzai fame, Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead and Burn Notice, Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead and Kelly Hu from X-Men 2 just to name a few.

Motor City Sketch will have a presence there, as well. We will have our artists at the MCS booth throughout the weekend doing sketches for charity and some of will be doing a panel on Sunday at 2:30 talking about sketch cards, including Jay Shimko, Bill Pulkovski, Jake Minor, Matt Minor, Kevin Minor, Jason Westlake and Jeremy Treece.

I was honored to be asked to do an exclusive official Fanfare print and what you see above is just that, minus the Fanfare logo. The print is of guest Steven Yeun. You can get that print at the main table when you come through the door or at my table, as well. Although, mine won't have the Fanfare logo. I will be at table 224 in Artists Alley.

So, come on down and say hello. I will also have other prints exclusive to Fanfare and it's content, sketch cards, books and original art.

Saturday 10am to 7pm

Sunday 12pm to 6pm

You can get all the details at the Detroit Fanfare site by clicking here.

FF 50th Gallery Opening Reception

Headspace Gallery inside of Green Brain Comics is hosting an exhibit featuring 26 artists re-imagining each page of # 1 of Fantastic Four, which was originally released 50 years ago in 1961. My contribution to this event is a redo of page #3 in my own cartoon style. I did pretty much a straight up version using the same panel layout as the original, but just doing the characters in my style. Some of the other artists include Ted Woods, Topher Crowder and Matt Feazal, to name a few.

Tonight's opening goes from 7-10pm and you can get all the pertinent information from Green Brain Comics:

13210 Michigan Ave.
Dearborn, MI
313-592-9444

Uniroyal Thanos

I did this drawing of the mighty Thanos materializing out of the Uniroyal Tire for a Detroit/pop art inspired sketchbook that will be available at Detroit Fanfare next weekend (Sept. 24+25) at Cobo Hall. This exact image may or may not be in the book, as I haven't heard which of the three images I submitted will be included, but I thought that I would show it here anyways. I will have more on Detroit Fanfare in my next post.

Muck Man #19

More Vampirella sketch cards

Above are the rest of the Vampirella sketch cards that I did for Breygent. The bottom cards with the blue backgrounds are my Artists Proofs and as always, if interested send me an e-mail. The set is out now.

Muck Man #18

The saga continues...

Summit City Comic Con sketch cards

Back in June at  the Summit City Comic Con they were nice enough to supply us art folk with some blank sketch cards with their logo printed on them. So, I did up some characters from this spring and summer's pop culture movie releases; Thor, X-Men, Green Lantern, Transformers and Harry Potter. Four of them have already been sold, so if interested on what's left, shoot me an e-mail.

Muck Man #17

As our origin tale continues, Muck man recalls a childhood memory...

The Hellboy Thinker

The Hellboy Thinker
12x18
colored pencil on tinted paper


I've been tinkering around with Detroit themed pop culture ideas for next month's Detroit Fanfare convention and this was an idea for another painting, but I kind of like it as a drawing. It would definitely have a very different feel to it done in acrylics. I may still do it, but I have a few other Fanfare related projects that have to be done first and I don't think I can talk about it just yet, so I won't.

Muck Man #16

The origins of Muck continue.

Project Superpowers San Diego exclusives

These are the limited cards that I did for Alex Ross' Project Superpowers from Breygent Marketing. These were done exclusively for the San Diego Comic Con International and were given away as handouts. I've already seen one of them up on ebay. The bottom two are my Artist Proofs.

Jacques Cousteau

Here's a little something from the sketchbook. A recently done caricature of the famed undersea explorer and film maker Jacques Cousteau. Some of these are easier than others, as a large nose helps.

Muck Man #15

Our intrepid hero continues to explain his existence amid further suspicion...

The Professionals

This is a scene from the 1960's movie, The Professionals with Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster. The movie has some great lines in it and I have to rank it as one of my favorite westerns. Like the RocknRolla piece that I did a few months ago, this one will be a part of a bigger piece with three scenes from the movie done in a comic book panel format. So, when reading the text you have to do it with their voices to get the effect. Do it, you know you want to speak like Burt Lancaster, you just know you do.

Click on the image to engorge.

Vampirella Sketch Cards

Here are a few of the cards that I did for Breygent's Vampirella set. We have been asked not to show all of the cards that we have done for this until the set is released, which I believe is sometime next week or so. The rest shall be posted soon, so I hope that you enjoy these until then!

Muck Man #14

After receiving some good advice and direction for my Muck Man and ink.re.ments cartoon strips at the Summit City Comic Con a week or so ago, I have been eager to get the ball rolling and put these things out in a more timely fashion. So, here we continue with the origins of Muck Man.

This may appear as a slam against Greenpeace, but it's not. I'm actually a supporter of what they do. Just so you know.

Muck Man #13

In this latest tale of  the Muck, we catch a small rubbery glimpse of his past.