been working like crazy here the last 2 months, and running around on top of it all.  Finally finished another concept piece for my personal project though.  It’s finally moving in the direction I want to end up visually I think now, which is part animated/part painted.  I’ve been writing more script the last couple of months than I have been doing artwork, but now that I’ve finished this piece, I’m moving on to more design work for the various locations in the story, the other characters, props and things.  In my copious “spare time” of course.  Enjoy!

Larger version can be found here.

Finished up this sketch card of Batman while watching election returns the other night. About a half hour, done mostly in watercolor, with some ink, black prisma marker and a bit of colored pencil. You can follow the link below to the ebay store and bid on it if you’re interested. Hoping to get a few more sketch cards done this week yet, but I’ve got a cover to finish for Zenescope and a 10 page short due before next Friday, in addition to some color studies and some submission pages. Going to be another busy weekend!

Batman sketch card now on ebay!

Spiderman has always been one of my favorite superheroes. Just completed a mixed media sketch card that’s up on ebay now for sale. Check it out!!!
Spiderman Sketch Card on ebay!

More goodies to come this week yet too!

the first of my series of sketch cards is up for sale on ebay now. Done in colored pencil, ink, acrylic paint and prisma marker, and sprayed with krylon clear coat to prevent smudging, it features YODA!!!! Going to be doing a variety of different cards over the next couple weeks, Star Wars, LOTR, Transformers, HERO BY NIGHT, and other superhero cards as well. If you’re so inclined,
head on over and start the bidding war!!
and here’s a peek for everyone!

at least that’s what it’s felt like here the last few months. we’ve been so busy and in a lot of ways so stressed, that it’s felt like we’ve been buzzing around inside a huge bee hive trying to keep up with all the other worker bees and keep making enough honey to keep the hive going. Maybe a terrible analogy there but it’s all I got this morning.

Football is finally over, we’ve been done for a week now. I’m glad to be done myself with all the coaching. It was a blast, but it was time consuming as well. My son played his heart out this year, made some great progress at QB I think if I look at things objectively, and his team finished in second place in the league. We lost the game last week which would have made the kids league champions, but it’s been a long year, some of our kids were starting to show the wear and tear of a long year, and we played against a team that decided they’d try to put all 11 defensive players up within 2 yards of the line of scrimmage. So we did well I think. My son learned a lot about himself, his abilities and his weaknesses and strengths, which is what sports is supposed to teach you. So in that regard I think it was a successful season.

My daughter finished in 2nd place in her conference for volleyball this year as well, and it was nice to get to some of her games this year and see her play that sport. I wasn’t very familiar with it before, but I think I almost understand all the rules now. She’s driving me crazy with how hard things are in middle school, and I really DON’T envy her having to go through all of that stuff right now. I’ve been there before, and there’s a reason why it’s better to look back on those times and enjoy the things you remember as being fun, and to forget all the other crap that goes with going through middle school and high school Still, I’m proud of the way she’s handling herself and I’m sure that we’re not screwing things up TOO badly with her.

work has been crazy. Mostly in ways that aren’t good. I’ve been extremely busy at times, which doesn’t bother me quite so much as times where I don’t have work to do. There was a stretch where things were falling through on me left and right, project after project that never got off the ground. While things seem to be looking up lately, and I have plenty of work now things still haven’t really settled down much. It’s one thing to have a ton of work, but to have a ton of work and to try and keep working while you’re owed money is not a good situation to be in. I thought I had left all of that behind me earlier this year after I had to wait for months to get paid from another client, but sadly it’s happening to me again right now. It’s November and I’m waiting on money for work I did in August. NOT the least stressful thing in the world. Been making an attempt to supplement our income here by picking up a TON of little jobs that pay on 50/50 terms, but I can only get so much done in a day here. So we decided to open up our own ebay store, and while most of the stuff on there is basically us cleaning out my studio and our basement with things we don’t need, or use or that are just taking up space, it’s been a mild success so far. I’m going to start offering custom artwork on there, and yes, there will be things that are not actually related to comic books shortly as well. I am a real artist as well, and I have plenty of ideas for things to sell.

Which leads into my to do list today, hopefully I can accomplish everything on here today (since I’ve already done the first 2 I’m making good progress)

-set up the Coldplay and Radiohead marathon in iTunes for background music today
-blog and organize my list of things to do
-VOTE
-make another pot of coffee
-color 2 pages or the equivalent
-work on sketch cards for ebay store
-kiss my wife and tell her how much I love her
-bug the people that owe me money to find a way to pay up soon
-color studies for a WoW character painting I’m working on for a client

So I’m off to start my day. If you do nothing else with YOUR day besides work and read blogs, make sure you get your butt out there and vote for change today! This country NEEDS to start moving in a new direction and we need to make sure that we’re at least voting.

haven’t slept good in over a week here.  My mind is just racing with thoughts at night now.  From work to family things to creative things…it’s nuts.  I’ve never had this problem before really either.  I can totally understand why they make sleep aid medicines now

It’s Friday.  Which means that most people are rejoicing at the end of another week.  Not me.  Tomorrow will be an even busier day, and likely a day that I don’t do ANY work, just family stuff.  Sunday I plan on working though a few hours towards the afternoon/evening time.

Aggravated the side of my hip/back/BUTT that bugged me for a few weeks there, again last Saturday.  It was just starting to come around and feel a LOT better.  So last night I did some “self diagnosis” with the aid of some medical sites and some threads on forums where other artists have had similar problems.  So now when I eventually DO end up making it to the doctor, we’re going to talk about RSI (repetitive stress injuries) because it seems that’s pretty much exactly what’s wrong with me.  I’m right handed, so my right arm/wrist/shoulder/neck area gets sore from the same motions everyday, and the opposing tendons and muscles in the lower left side of my body feel the same stress (if not more)  There was even one horror story from a guy who used to work at Industrial Light and Magic, and had this weird sort of CONTORTED tendon thing happen in his forearm and stuff from constricting his drawing motion to a little wacom tablet.  Which brings me to my next point, I’ve been thinking, saving, dreaming, hoping, researching, getting a new Wacom Cintiq for a while now, in part to make me even more productive, but also in LARGE part so that I can start drawing/coloring/painting, normally again, and using my entire arm and stuff and not just little movements from my wrist.  Today isn’t a great day for pain really, last night I stopped working at dinner after a mediocre day because it hurt so much.  Today isn’t as bad as last night, but it’s only 10am too

Also, I’ve been looking around the net for pictures of studios/people or companies that have a Cintiq work environment, so I can get an idea as for the best set up for my studio here.  So if any of you out there reading this own or use a Cintiq, and have pictures of your work environment, give me a shout will ya? :)  Back to the grind.

-i suck at math but when my kid needs help on learning how to draw dragons, I can help with that.  a quick 15 minute color study after going through the basic dragon shapes with her so she could work on her own.  Prismacolor markers, colored pencil and a tiny bit of ink. (see below)

-so dishes are done, garbage is at the road, homework help is out of the way, and coffee is made.  Which means it’s time to stop emptying the brain, and start back in with some work here. ugh.