Gig Posters

New "Hey, Koo!" haiku comic. Things exploding is bound to be a theme with a power like Koo's. Written by Kalia Armbruster with art by me.

Good good, Good bad, Bad bad: Daybreakers

I watch a fair amount of movies.  Most of them are bad movies.  This is just something I do.  This segment is devoted to all the movies I view.  Last night I watched Daybreakers in which Willem Dafoe is cured of vampirism after being launched from a wrecking car, catching on fire from the sun’s rays and being extinguished moments later in a dirty waterway…  It does get pretty gruesome at the end.  Overall, this qualifies as a “Good bad” movie.  It was pretty easy making Ethan Hawke look freakish; the hard part was making Willem Dafoe look remotely human.

Graphic Booklet: Sample Page

The comic is coming along. I have now entered the digital stage, which means less drawing outside and more late nights at a computer. But, I think it is looking good. These colors kind of came out of nowhere, as I was planning on a mostly black and white comic with orange as an accent. We’ll see how it shapes up - I’m still in the very early stages of inking/coloring. More soon.

Legends of Rock #04 - Ringo Starr

It's Fab Four week here on the blog! Kicking it off with the man behind the kit (sometimes the mic).  So much has been written, argued, plum made up about The Beatles, I'll keep it short and say they're a pretty big band, and Ringo did well as the backbone.

(these will be available for purchase once the whole set is released on my shop)

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Morning warmup today of Chia-Hui Liu in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. More Photoshop coloring technique practice - just so many things to do in there.

Visit my site!

Visit my new, pretty blog!

Working on some illustrations for a site redesign - rotating banner style. Hoping these will liven up the brand and make it a bit more personable. This one is about thinking, reading spread sheets, and weighing the pros and cons before commenting. You can't see it, but that spread sheet goes to next week.

From the Hmph

I started recording some music again.  Got a little album in mind with lots of guitar loops and lots of lyrics crammed into 2 minute and under songs.  Tentative album title is Jacuzzi Juice.  Alternate tentative title is Austin, The Man, Not the City.  Here is one of the tiny tracks I recorded Sunday afternoon and a comic inspired by the tiny track!

Legends of Rock #02 - Neil Young

Next up, the most American Canadian ever to grace us with rock and roll music. There isn't a whole lot I can say about Neil Young other than the man's a true Legend Of Rock and his run of 5 albums from 68-74 is unrivaled in my estimation of rock singer/songwriters. 

A Neil mix for proof of prowess.

Neil Young, the American's Canadian by Austineustice on Mixcloud

ae album picks: On The Beach (1973) & After The Goldrush (1972)

My Year In Bicycles

I’d say my cycling enthusiasm level is now “avid.” It’s been about a year of serious riding for me (or since I was convinced to take my roommate’s 80s Schwinn road bike after he left for another coast of America). The bike was impossibly small for me and he’d kept anything related to comfort free of what he called the bi-cycle (top right).  I believe the frame was 51cm, with a plastic seat (I have to call them saddles now that I’m avid), and awful, bare drop handlebars. These words may mean little to you - simply put, the bike was a pain in the ass. And hands. And back. But, I speak of the bike in an ungrateful tone, which is completely the opposite tone I’d like to be speaking of it in. The bicycle was my entry into the mania that now permeates my everyday life. I returned the borrowed mountain bike (top left) I’d had for several years (having ridden it a handful of times [which was also far too small for me]) and set out every late-spring day on that little red beast to try to get my confidence up riding in the city. I’m getting ahead of myself however, I had to ride every day just to learn how to deal with something so foreign. The first time on a road bike is extremely unnerving and seems wrong - the way a lot of things you’ve never done and go against your basic human understanding of ‘how the world should work’ feel wrong. Two skinny inline wheels should not stay upright, especially when adding a skittery, lanky 140 pounder on top. Once you’ve given into the magical psuedo-science keeping a paper thin bike upright, you have to deal next with the posture a classic road bike thrusts you into. Riding on the top of drop bars is not comfortable, especially for a person with wide shoulders and lanky arms (me, I’ve already mentioned my lank) - but what’s worse is the leap of faith you must take to enter the lower part of the curved drop handlebar. If flashes of your face grating against the sidewalk don’t instantly pop into your mind, you’re a brave person with a brain problem.

Suffice it to say, I learned to ride the bicycle without too many issues - and through daily riding and an ever increasing interest in how the parts worked, I was well on the way to my present compulsion, need, and desire for all things bi-cycle. After taking the Schwinn to a bike shop and complaining of outrageous back pain, I was told the bicycle was about 4 sizes too small for me. They set me up on a monstrously large bike and it fit and was a revelation to my atrophying back. So I got a new bike (not pictured) and donated the Schwinn to a friend who still rides it lovingly to this day. My new bike was a low-end fixed gear that was promptly stolen after 3 months of use outside a bagel shop. I hope someone is enjoying it (or its various stripped-off parts) - I did, for the short time I rode it as it gave me a brief but thorough look into the world of fixies - a dangerously associative world I may not have escaped if my ride hadn’t gotten jacked. Despite thinking not all that highly of the New York fixed-gear order, I got another fixed-gear bicycle (bottom left) - but a nice, proper one. It was not long before I threw a freewheel on there though, and indulged myself a little coasting. The rest of My Year In Bicycles involves a lot of conversing with my old roommate who bequeathed the Schwinn to me about bicycle parts, trips we’ll take, and bicycles we need to buy. We’ve both begun a small collection at 2 a piece with a 5 bike plan in the works. My latest acquisition is an old French road bike (bottom right) from the mid 70s that I rescued from a Salvation Army and cleaned, painted and rebuilt as a fairly faithful restoration. I’ve begun training on this monster for a long trip myself and the Scwhinn’s original master are planning. I will always think very fondly of that little bicycle and the awfully wonderful time I had riding it.

Bird 12: Red-winged Blackbird

An east coast staple, always mistook these at first glance for the much more elusive Oriole in my homestate of Maryland. Cornell Ornithology via Wikipedia claims this may be "the most abundant and most well studied bird in North America." Go figure.