King Con

Hi everyone. So this weekend I went to King Con at the Brooklyn Lyceum. It's a new convention and I had a great time! Hopefully they'll do it again next year. It was an intimate con with a lot of undiscovered talent as well as some more seasoned pros. Everyone was really friendly and thank you to everyone who attended and who stopped by my table. Jeff Marvin from Troy's Buckets kept me company as we sold our two anthologies from Cave Drawing Ink, "Cycle's End" and "Rise of the Outlanders". I also debuted a new story I'm working on for Cave Drawing Ink. The big announcement from us was that starting on February 1st, 2010 we're launching Cave Drawing Ink Presents. It will be free, professional online content for your viewing pleasure. Each month an artist, writer, designer or painter will be given free reign to post whatever creation they wish to share with the rest of the world. We hope it'll catch on and you guys like it. The above image is a page that I'm working on for my contribution.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Take care!

Coming to a King Con near you

H everyone. Much apologies for not updating my blog. I've been doing a bunch of commissions but mostly I've been working with the good folks at cave drawing ink about designing some new features for their website . It'll be announced soon. Anyways there's a new comic convention in town...King Con! It's at Brooklyn Lyceum and I will be there with Cave Drawing Ink selling prints, doing commissions, and also doing some free head sketches. If you're around come on down and drop by.
Hope to see you there!
Here's the info:
King Con
Brooklyn Lyceum
Nov 7th-8th
11am-7pm
Admision:
1 day=$7.00
2 days=$10.00

227 4th ave in Park Slope
R to Union St.

Jason the Matchmaker

So this is a bit of a screwed up painting but a friend of mine is getting married next year and he asked for a commission of him and his finance as if they were in a Friday the 13nth movie. We're all big fans of Jason (although the new movie sucked). I was thinking about it an got the idea of Jason as a matchmaker, but it had to be bloody. I thought of the idea and had to check in with my friend to make sure it was ok. I started this out with pencil, then ink, then moved to some watercolor, the acrylic paint over that. Afterwards I added some gloss medium, a couple of coats to get that slightly streaky look. I wanted the blood to be a little bit raised and I didn't have any modeling paste so I used elmer's glue mixed with red acrylic paint. Hope you guys like it.

Snake Eyes

So I did this piece in a night as part of a sketch contest through Cave Drawing Ink. It's a bunch of friends from my college/comic convention days and you couldn't be associated with a group of nicer, talented guys. Anyways the theme varies. The theme for this one was GI Joe so I drew Snake Eyes. Obvious I know, but I love drawing ninjas. If you get a chance check them out at
Hope you guys like it.

Kids Art

So awhile ago I got really excited after finding this posting on craigs list about doing a kids book. I got in touch with the person who posted the ad and sent this as an example. Alas this was at least a month ago and I have heard nothing since then, so I'm presuming that I did make the cut or the project is dead in the water. That said, I was really proud of this. It was one of those things that when I drew everything, I wasn't sure about it and had to have a friend talk me down from the ledge and tell me that no it was good, but then after I colored everything it appeared that it all came together.

Spidey

I've been finding it hard recently to draw for fun these days. If it's something I'm doing for a friend or an assignment it's one thing, but just drawing to draw has me somewhat aloof these days. Maybe it's that we're finally getting good summer weather. Maybe it's cause I"m working on a bunch of assignments. I don't know. Anyways one of the things I always love drawing is Spidey-I kinda reverted to my 10 year old self again...just a 3-quarter boring pose, but I loved drawing it. Hope you guys like it. It was done with a brush pen, some water color, and crayola washable markers ( I love those things!).

More sketches

Hey everyone. It's been awhile and it's totally my fault. I've been lazy and am going to promise myself to do be better at the blogging. Anywho here's another sketch I did while on an Amtrak train awhile ago (it was business class and it was freaking AWESOME!) Next post I swear will be something finished. Also at Cavedrawingink.com we just started doing our sketch contest again. There's some awesome stuff there too that you should check out.

Drawing on Location

So I used to take this course in college called drawing on location. You would go to a public place and draw for three hours on 14x20 paper using charcoal. It was all about composition and finding pattern and shape, more so than I'd say perspective. It was awesome and definitely shaped a lot of opinions I had with approach. Later on after college I took some perspective lessons from a friend who was an architect and did some location drawings basing my observations on more or a deconstructed approach. This is kinda a marriage of both. It's the fountain at Madison Square park and was done in a very small sketch books using s fine tip sharpie, a regular sharpie, a gray crayola washable marker (I love these things!) and a copec warm gray marker (which is AMAZING!)_ More life drawings/sketches to come.

More Ninja Turtles Stuff

Some more TMNT sketches. I was trying to figure out how the hell to draw Shredder.

Ninja turtles sketch

Hey everyone. So I don't know why but I went on a ninja turtles kick this weekend in my sketchbook.
They're fun as hell to draw! I'm convinced that drawing that comic had to be the greatest job ever,
especially the way Eastman and Laird drew them! I changed the design just because I've found over
time that in order for me to draw an established character well I have to do my own spin on it.
Anywho hope you guys enjoy it.
Thanks!

Band flyer

So not to be one of those "Come see my Band" people...but
come see my band. This is a flyer I did for an upcoming gig. I
drew the image on the train and then scanned it in and spent 5 hours in photoshop
coloring it and redoing parts. The gig is at Best Buy, next Wednesday at 6:30
(I know....weird, right?)

Puppet Sketches

Here are the pencil sketches of the 2-D puppets.

Dezi's Puppets

Hey guys. So I got a freelance gig helping out with this theater company. The theater company is called The Subjective Theater and they're awesome. They put on a free show every year. They're very professional and the plays are always creative,interesting and entertaining. If you every get a chance and you're in NYC, you should check them out.

Anyways during some key scenes in the play they had a video segment that featured puppets, and they needed some 2 Dimensional background figures for some small scenes. It was a blast to do (except for cutting out the foam core, that was a pain). I sketched out the figures, got approval, and then photo copied the sketches. From there they were pasted onto some foam core and cut out. Then I painted the figures using acrylic paint. I then went back in and did the line work with ink. The last step was I added some gloss medium to protect to protect the paint a little make make it look a little more finished.
Anyways this is how they came out.

5 page story

So I had this debate with a friend awhile ago. Not to get into the specifics but the jist of it is that I believe that everyone has some creativity in them. I think creativity is something that needs to be fostered and nurtured. To prove this I did a five page story based on something my friend wrote. This was kind of the next big project I did after the portrait I did of my grandfather. It was a challenge, but it was a lot of fun. I didn't really use a lot of referenct and wanted it to have a bit of a loose, rough, handmade feel. I used Arch's watercolor paper, drew directly on the board with a 4h pencil, then went in with Paynes Gray water color. After that I did the borders with black acrylic paint, went back in with a Presto white-out pen, and did some more highlights using watered down white acrylic paint. Hope everyone likes it.
Special thanks to Cassandra Thomas for the story. It really was one of the most fun things I've done in awhile and I attribute that to the writing itself.

First Post

Hey everyone-welcome to my blog. So my goal for the blog is for it to be about whatever artwork I'm working on currently. A lot of my friends have blogs and I check them regularly so I figure I should probably get in the game too.
This first post is a 20 minute painting I did of my grandfather. It was really important to me that this was the first post because I feel like this piece is the beginning of a change in my thought process. I painted it the night before my grandfather died. He was a HUGE influence on me, not only on my artwork but just all around, he was an amazing man. My brother sent me a portrait he did on his cell phone and it inspired me to do one of him in watercolor. It was cathartic. From a pure process standpoint it was almost instant. There wasn't any planning. I grabbed his cast photo online and painted it free hand using some watercolors. It is the first time in a long time where I didn't second guess any decisions. I didn't really redraw anything. I wasn't hyper-critical about the piece. It just came out as it was supposed to. That's a feeling I want to hold on to and remember when I draw from now on. To be critical but also to not second guess yourself and go with your instinct. Anyways, it's a really important piece for me and a tribute to someone who I wish every day was still here with me. Also for anyone who's interested, we was an opera singer for the metropolitan opera house. His name was Ezio Flagello if anyone wants to wiki him.
Thanks!