A STRICTLY DEATH-ONLY DIET.

Just a quick one today, gang. This is my contribution to the Harry Potter-themed zine that Alyssa Nassner has been organizing to sell at the upcoming MICA Art Market.

I swear, I wanted to stay away from the dark characters and draw two of my personal favorites, Fred and George, but I just couldn't handle all the smiling. I also made a tremendous effort to stay away from illustrating teary-eyed Draco Malfoy, despite my natural inclination to draw sad-looking but impeccably dressed men. Bellatrix Lestrange was kind of a spontaneous thing, but the deadline was coming up, so I just let it happen. I played around a little with textures and the B&W restriction, though I think the lace and fishnets dated her outfit. At least now we know what Bellatrix would have looked like if she were in an ethereal goth rock band from the 80s.

KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER.

Senior thesis. I am right in the thick of it. I'm doing a series of 18x24 posters for films that don't exist. My project presentation to the class included me rambling about the freedom to play with stories that exist with little to no larger context, as well as a barrage of material from Kevin Dart's "Yuki 7" project, The Venture Bros. episode "Escape To The House of Mummies Part II" and the Grindhouse trailers. Basically, it's all just an excuse for me to design ridiculous characters and make up as many crazy standalone scenes as I want without consequences. The stories only live and breathe within these posters, and the viewer fills in the (massive) gaps with their own imagination. I'm going to pretend that kind of makes sense.

More details about my thesis when I'm feeling slightly more coherent, as I need a good deal of energy before I can talk about cowboys and 60s sleaze. In the meantime, take a look at my first completed poster illustration (text will be added later), featuring this snazzy fellow. Do not be fooled by his masterful and almost-sexy way with words! His lips say, "Try my miracle tonic" but his facial hair screams, "I will tie your girlfriend to the railroad tracks."

I ALSO ACCIDENTALLY YELLED AT A KID.

Baltimore Comic-Con was a few weeks ago, and I had a swell time with Emma Rochon and Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi at our Society of the Okay table. To look occupied (because I seem extra-unapproachable when I'm just sitting there, glaring into the middle distance), I drew Molotov Cocktease, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch and Triana Orpheus, and, surprisingly, they all found homes. It was great. I neglected to properly document most of my drawings, but you can see Mol below and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch above, kind of, sort of. I did Venture Bros. characters because their outfits are burned into my brain, though I admit I did text to confirm which side Mol wore her eyepatch.


Even though I only managed to walk through the floor once that weekend, I got to meet artists and writers that I greatly admire. I'm going to go ahead and pretend I didn't weird them out too much. There were also people that said that they were already familiar with my blog/Twitter, so hello to you guys too. It was great putting faces to usernames. Thanks, everybody. You have no idea how pleased we were about the response.

I was holding off on selling prints and shirts online to make sure I'd have all sizes available at the con, but that's over now, obviously. For those of you who are interested in buying any of the three pictured prints (digital, 8.5x11) or a shirt (American Apparel unisex XS - L), just throw me an e-mail (hidden away here) and hopefully we can work something out. I'm also putting together materials for my school's upcoming Art Market and finally putting things in my Etsy shop, so availability/sizes are limited.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must re-watch the Venture Bros. season premiere for the thousandth time and then do that "glare into the middle distance" thing I'm so good at.

I GENERALLY STAY INDOORS.

I never thought my first editorial work would be for a sports publication, but, then again, my psychic powers have always been lacking. I illustrated the cover and several portraits for this month's Lacrosse Magazine. I'm sure you've noticed that most of my artwork consists of women, and when I draw men, they are imaginary and/or extra-gaunt. So, being faced with the challenge of drawing so many portraits of male athletes was kind of daunting.

However, when AD Gabriella O'Brien and writer Matt DaSilva told me about their idea, which consisted of crazy superhero-esque portraits of lacrosse's finest faceoff masters, I was pretty excited. Too cool, right? I have seriously lucked out with assignments so far. This was also one of the select few issues that would go to their younger audience (in addition to the regular subscribers), so I took that into consideration. It ended up being a lot of fun, and the interiors look fantastic, thanks to Gabriella's work. I still can't believe they trusted me with the cover, which consists solely of my illustration and hand lettering. Thanks to Gabriella and Matt for a great experience!

In other news, Baltimore Comic-Con was a success. An inevitably obnoxious post to follow soon.

SPOOKS AND LADYKILLERS.

I was scanning sketches for... An ashcan? Mini-book? Mini-comic sans comics? It's a few Xerox'd pages, folded and stapled so that it resembles a book. Whatever that's called. Anyway, I was flipping through my last few sketchbooks for things to scan and I came across this piece, drawn a few months ago. It was a pencil doodle that I had, for some reason, accented with some matte medium. I liked the way the resulting texture looked in the scan, so I figured I'd post the full drawing and a super-close detail shot too.


I'll get the skull faces out of my system eventually.

Also, there have been questions about purchasing my Comic-Con things. My plan is to bring the full stock to the con first, because I have no idea what sizes/items will be popular and it's just smarter to have as many options as possible. Afterward, if I have time, I will re-assess the situation and re-print things as needed. In the case of shirts, I may even be able to take orders so I can get a solid idea of what sizes are needed. Sound good? I hope so, 'cause that's what I'm doing. Just keep an eye on the blog for updates, as always. Thanks. UPDATE: And here it is. Details about purchasing.

APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR MY AWKWARDNESS.

Don't worry, this is the last reminder. Baltimore Comic-Con is this weekend. I will be at Table 114, with my friends and fellow illustrators Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi and Emma Rochon, under the name "Society of the Okay." If things go according to plan, there will be prints, buttons, minibooks and I will have some newly printed shirts. Should you care to find me, just look for this surly creature (the angry face is natural, the purple hair is not) and these t-shirts...

I wear shirts from cartoons because I am an adult. Also, the tees I'm bringing are grey on grey and printed by the fine folks over at Squidfire, on American Apparel. Yeah. Stick with me and you won't need any more of that Fruit of the Loom nonsense.

Oh, and this is my 100th post. Whoo.

CLASSIEST WAY TO WEAR A BOLO TIE.

A first look at my project for Senior thesis. This is just a small part of it; I think I'll explain it all once I get the actual first bit done. If you can see the tags for this post, you're probably already thinking, "What the actual fuck?" Skip to the end...

This is a shirt design that I hope to get printed in time to sell at Baltimore Comic-Con (Oct. 10 - 11; more details later about what table I will be awkwardly hiding behind). If I can work out a plan that won't stress me out, I'll also sell them online. At the moment, I'm still trying to decide a few things, including the color scheme (I wanted black on black, but the skull detailing makes any print that isn't dark-on-light very weird... Now, I'm thinking maybe grey on white or black on grey?) and order size.

If you'd like to help with this last part, please do me a favor and let me know what size you would order (American Apparel brand tee). You can do so in the comments, on Flickr, on Twitter, on the street, whatever. Obviously this isn't a commitment, I just want a better idea of which sizes will probably be in higher demand and order accordingly. I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!


And here's a small sample of the Moo mini-cards that I ordered a few weeks ago. Amazing quality, as expected. Since I haven't designed a proper business card yet, I wanted at least something to carry around at SPX and Comic-Con. If you look closely, you can see a few pieces that I haven't posted online. The bits of those illustrations that I actually liked were small enough to fit on a card. So there we go.

CONFESSION OF A WHITE WIDOWED MALE.

Alternate title was "Picnic. Lightning." In case you didn't know: I kind of, sort of extra-like Lolita, both the Vladimir Nabokov book and the Stanley Kubrick movie. In fact, I also love the audiobook version, as read by Jeremy Irons, because, as I once so giddily mentioned on Twitter upon my first listening, it sounds like Scar reading Nabokov to me.

When I stumbled across news that the site Venus Febriculosa was hosting a competition to create a book cover for Lolita (for kicks), I figured it was a good excuse to pick up my brush for something not for school/work. After doing assignments in school for The Virgin Suicides and The Snow Queen, I've discovered that I really enjoy doing book covers, especially when I get to combine hand lettering and graphic design with my illustrations. So, I had fun with this, even though I think I made Humbert Humbert (and his almost-glowy, predator eyes) way more attractive than he needed to be.

And I will end by saying if you have only seen the movie or if you have only read the book, then you definitely must experience the other. Lolita (Lo. Lee. Ta.) herself is all right, but HH is really the one to study.

THIS IS MY CASUAL WEAR.

My contribution to this week's Whitechapel Remake/Remodel challenge. This character is The Flamingo, a former colonel who goes around, doin' stuff with his service revolver, airplane, and vast super-knowledge. Really, that's about it. At first I was going to do something a little more action-packed, but, as usual, I reverted to drawing an eccentric, bookish loner.

Also, I've been slowly editing the list of artists on the side of my blog, so it's worth checking out if you haven't seen it in a while and you generally like what I like. I think the two newest additions are Joe Quinones and Mark Weaver (from whom I just bought two astronaut-amazing prints and I am eagerly awaiting their arrival).

In unrelated, more exciting news: Venture Bros. returns October 18. You have been informed.

I DON'T KNOW, THEY JUST DO THAT.

Prepare to OD on nerdiness: The Venture Bros. and Scott Pilgrim. Bryan Lee O'Malley posted a quick prompt to do something with a drawing of Scott on Flickr, and I decided to try it as a little exercise. I wasn't planning on posting it here, but I figured it'd give me an excuse to link to The Venture Bros., Scott Pilgrim and the Scott Pilgrim movie. I hope none of these are news to any of you, but, you know, just in case.


Also, last night I attended a Dr. Sketchy's Baltimore session. My left-handed drawing didn't turn out as nice as last time's, but I liked my one-minute sketches and my final 20-minute pose. If you've never been to a Dr. Sketchy's drawing session, you should find a branch near you.

Now, if you don't mind, I have work I need to do and a sun to avoid.

WAY OH WAY OH.

There's been a lot of black and white since I posted that Click Rush design from May, so here's a little something I made last night to bring back some color.

Jordie Bellaire (fellow art nerd from high school, now RSAD illustrator) invited me to join the new Doodles & More Sh!t blog. This week's theme is Egypt, which I was all about in first grade. I mean, I still like ancient Egypt but, damn, my friends and I were hardcore for Tut back then. Anyway, I used this as an excuse to do something both pin-up-y and historically way-inaccurate (underwire bras were not invented until Egypt became a province of Rome).

This is actually a quarter of the initial illustration, because I was inking with a brush again (unfamiliar territory) and didn't care for the rest of it. So, to make the best of the weird, horizontal cropping, I've turned this into a wallpaper. I even included one for iPhones. In fact, they get more midriff and mummy. Just pretend it's a gift to my readers for suffering through my ramblings and sporadic posting. Now, select your size:

1024 x 768 / 1280 x 1024 / 1440 x 900 / 1920 x 1200 / iPhone

I ALWAYS FORGET TO CLEAN THE BRUSH.

Forgive me for this lengthy absence. I know it's Summer and I should probably be lounging around in a sweet smoking jacket, eating Cheetos and constantly updating my blog with cheese-dusted drawings. But I'm not. I've been playing sort-of counselor at MICA's Pre-College Summer program, as well as Teaching Assistant-ing an illustration class. It. Is. Non. Stop. The highly intense month-long program ends this weekend, and I still have yet to shake the weirdness of a bunch of high school students relying on my feedback and supervision. Yeah. Me. Terrifying.

Since I can't really concentrate/work on anything super-substantial during class time because of my divided attention, I've been casually practicing my technique with brush and ink. I'm feeling a little bit more confident, but, holy wow, the wonkiness of the lines is killing me. On the plus side, I have been blazing through this new sketchbook. Here are some pages. So... That top one is a quick ink sketch of my foot. This is the kind of nonsense I wear. Black patent Oxfords, black trousers, black & white striped socks. Dangerously feminine, I know.


The above image actually consists of three different pages from my sketchbook. As you can see, in addition to my usual pencil sketches of girls with weird sci-fi guns, I have been doing some hand lettering practice. The words for the page on the far left popped into my head as I was watching the students perform in the talent show. Sometimes weird phrases just float through my brain and I have to put them down, even when they have nothing to do with anything. I swear. No one was doing slam poetry. Or lines. Really. And the last page is a drawing of a plastic dog and some text from one of the assignment prompts in the illustration class. I don't feel like explaining it, so draw your own conclusions.

... Ah-haha. Draw.

In other news, I hope everyone at San Diego Comic-Con is having an incredible time. Actually, I know they are, because the endless giddy Tweets are bumming me out. You lucky bastards.

OH, REAL DROWNERS.

How absolutely mortifying! Showing up at the party with the same make-up.

I hadn't touched my sketchbook since the Dr. Sketchy's Baltimore session I attended last month, and I could sense the pathetic thing was feeling a little neglected. I let myself sketch for an hour or so before bed, but I only made it through three and a half pages. Yeah, I'm a little rusty.

Not much else I can share at the moment. Uh... I really like people with painted skull faces. And I also really like Suede's "The Drowners".

There. Yes. End transmission.

LIKE SOME KIND OF CHAIN REACTION.

My blog header insists that this is an illustration and design blog, so I figure it's about time that I post some actual design stuff. Even though I'm an Illustration major in school, I like to take Graphic Design classes too, the most recent one being a Typography course. One of our assignments last semester was to make a little booklet using one type family and a single body of text. I chose the ever-lovely Futura and the beautifully painful lyrics to Pulp's "Sheffield: Sex City." It's an old, old song from the band's early days, more spoken than sung by Mr. Jarvis Cocker (by the by: NYC show on July 30!). We also had to cut some squares out of a magazine and then use a selection of the random pictures as our images in the booklet. I got a lot of ladies, so that worked out. Above are two of my favorite spreads.

In Illustrated Book, where my Snow Queen project initially started, we were only required to do the illustrations (cover, interiors, end papers, etc.) so I decided to combine it with my Typography final, which was to do the text for a book of our choice. It ended up being a lot more work than I expected, but it was nice to have a full product in the end. This is an example of a completed spread, complete with extra-fancy hand-drawn flourishes.


My Typography professor occasionally uploads classwork, and you can see a few examples of my projects, including the full "Sheffield" booklet and more pages from my Snow Queen book, in this Flickr stream.

Oh! And I went to the MoCCA Festival last weekend. It was interesting, even though I awkwardly avoided eye contact with everyone and ran away after only a few hours. Really, I'll get this whole "human interaction" thing down eventually.

A CONTAINER OF ACID GREEN CRAZY.

As a little break, I spent a few hours putting this together for the current Remake/Remodel challenge on Whitechapel. For some reason, I decided a good way to take a breather from the art I was working on would be to do... more... art. I don't know. Anyway, it was pretty fun to work on a guy's costuming and get a little crazy -- but not too crazy -- with the DIY look. This fellow is Click Rush, the Gadget Man. First of all... Click Rush. Come on. Secondly, he's a crime-fighting inventor who loves the color brown and takes orders from a sass-mouth toad. A toad. Mind you, this is a comic originally from the 1930s. Lastly... Click Rush. Read more about this extra-weird character and see other illustrations by visiting the R/R thread.

Also, I added a few more artists to my links section. I have hundreds of artists' sites bookmarked but the ones on my blog are part of the handful I always revisit when I'm in an artistic rut (in other words, half of their page views are from me). I'm not going to point out which ones are new because I want you to see them all. Ha! Dick move!... of kindness.

Also, also, I hope you all have been following Edgar Wright's daily photo/video posts on EdgarWrightHere.com. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is going to be ridiculous. I honestly can't wait. I mean, for fuck's sake, look at this.