A Commission That I Did Back In 2004, For A Gordon K. (from San Diego).. He Had A Very Unique Request

Haven't been drawing - inking - coloring (or Posting) in quite some time now.. So, here's BEETLEJUICE in one of his classic poses!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN !!

A commission that I did back in 2004, for a Josh S. (from Ottawa).. He wanted me to draw "The Old Witch" from EC Comics' 'HAUNT OF FEAR' title,-- for which I was only too happy to oblige!  I tried to incorporate all of my favorite "Ghastly" Graham Ingels bits, into my own version..

I was fortunate this past weekend, to win a couple of nice items at Heritage Auctions.. Here’s one of them: a large mixed media painting, by Daniel Torres - the great Spanish illustrator/comic-book artist! This illustration was published in the December ‘89 issue of PLAYBOY Magazine, to accompany excerpts of “The Killing Man”; Mickey Spillane’s 12th MIKE HAMMER novel!

This is the first sketch I ever commissioned a comic-book artist to do for me.. Back in '85, Mark Askwith invited me to see Mike Kaluta at the Hamilton 'SILVER SNAIL'.. A genuine thrill when one of your favorite artists impresses you even more as a person! He loved drawing this 'ROCKETEER' pinup too, and I think it shows..

One more BEETLEJUICE for the pile.. BJ shreds on a Tuesday Afternoon!

Two years ago today, we lost a local legend.. RIP Darwyn Cooke.

Digging through some old drawings last night, I found these.. After seeing a few examples of my Fan Art in the pages of AMAZING HEROES, I was approached by publisher Dave Goode to do cover art for his “SQUARED CIRCLE Comix”. I was very flattered, as the interior story was drawn by Bill Ward, a favorite artist of mine!

I was all of 25 years old in August of ‘88 when I drew this, so I can see a lot of things I’d definitely do differently now. I recall that Goode sent me a sampling of Steve Reeves photo reference for “Brad King”, the wrestler featured here.. I’m guessing I used a Marilyn Monroe photo book by Andre De Dienes, for the “Sugar Caine” bikini babe?

I was pretty obsessed (still am!) with Dave Stevens artwork, at this point. And while I like the Poses and Staging, the line weight on the inking is pretty sketchy. Even so, I recall mailing this and a number of other art samples to Dave Stevens. He wrote back a nice letter to me: “As for your drawing ability, you seem to have a good grasp on the Figure. So you shouldn’t have any trouble getting work. Based on the wrestling piece you did, I’d say you’re ready to try your stuff on a story..” 

You could have knocked me over with a feather, after that.

In exactly 20 days, the new Nickelodeon cartoon series I’ve finished working on, will make it’s TV debut. I’m very eager to see/hear the reactions to (what I can only describe as) the most extraordinary animation project I’ve had the good pleasure to work on!

Seen above, are a small handful of the Layouts I completed, for the premier episode.. The show had a stellar cast of "Yowza Animation” talent, working magic on all aspects of the show. And the production pipeline was unique and innovative, in more ways than I can accurately describe.. Suffice to say, it’s highly unusual to have all of the environments “built” as 3D models first, that were then turned into specifically “hand-drawn” 2D location backgrounds!

It was a unique experience for me especially, as I’d also worked Layout on the short digital web-series on which this show was based, back in 2014. But I think that fans of the original web shorts will be even more amazed at the amplified depth and detail of the worlds, as now presented in “Welcome To The Wayne” TV series.. Hope you’ll all enjoy watching it!

'HELLBOY' illo that I did for a charity auction, back in 2004.. Parts of it look wonky to me now. But I liked how the coloring came out. Especially, the swamp scum details..

Happy Holidays to all my Internet friends!!  Here's what this year's version of the Christmas card ended up looking like.. It was my meager attempt to ape the stylings of Eyvind Earle.. I had plans to model more shadows onto the limbs of the foreground tree,-- but I simply ran outta creative steam before the deadline crashed down onto me..