More Ideas for Comics that People Won't Like (Possible title for my Autobiography?)

I joked with my girlfriend awhile back about drawing a superhero named the Crimson Avenger who ensures the continued existence of menstruation for women all over the world. I drew him while waiting for class to start this morning. There is a decent chance that he'll be in at least a one-pager soon. Keeping earth's women women, one woman at a time.

20 Minute Skull study

This was a really quick light study I did last night while watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with my girlfriend Angela. I did it over an old color comp, 8"x10" on masonite. I'd been wanting to paint the neat little ceramic skulls Ang bought for me last Halloween, so I covered my desk lamp with yellow felt and gave it a shot. This most likely will not be the last color sketch I put up with these little guys.Though the light side of the skull looks like a cold yellow green, I used only Cadmium yellow and white. The old painting underneath was a mostly green composition, and my thin painting allowed the colors underneath to show through, creating the glowing green effect. It was also quite an adventure trying to mix correct colors in a relatively dark room, my main light being bright yellow. Good practice, though SPpOOooooooooOOKKY!

Illustration 2 Final Project

The final project in Bob Barrett's oil painting class was to create an image with at least one figure, somehow interrupted by another element of the composition, based off of the Golden Mean and executed with a split complimentary pallet. After much hemming and hawing, I came up with this idea. I really love old mens' adventure magazine illustration, so I went into this with the conceptual and technical spirit of Joe Bowler and Basil Gogos. My buddies Charlie and Ian were nice enough to be my models, and props from the BYU production of "The Elephant Man" provided scenery. The color and quality of the top image (of the finished painting) leave a bit to be desired, but I had to turn the painting in this morning, so I'll replace it with something a little more true to the painting as soon as possible. The bottom three images are all 8"x10", with the final piece at roughly 17"x25". I trimmed a little off the right edge in the final composition, as well as trading in a new head and dropping some detail out of the guard for the sake of atmospheric perspective. Good end to the semester.

Final Project for Narrative Class

Our final project in my narrative class was to create an illustration for Stowaway, a travel magazine run by BYU students. The requested illustrations were very broad, so the produced illustrations were also very broad. It was a fun project, though. This is gouache and india ink on illustration board.

Euro Crisis Cartoon for BYU Political Review

 My good friend Taylor at the BYU Political Review asked me earlier this week if I could get a cartoon in for the next issue, and I was stoked to put something together for her. After talking to some professors who helped clear up some of my misconceptions about the Greek Euro crisis (most notably my friend Professor Tom Spencer), I was able to form what I feel is an accurate (however biased towards Germany, go figure) cartoon. The middle shows my initial inking, before cleaning up and editing some lines to increase clarity. Merry Christmas Europe!

Oil Figure study for Class

So this semester has been my first working with oils, and I really like it. I'm definitely still learning who's who and what's what, and certainly will be for the rest of my life, but I feel like I'm getting more used to the medium, and the process is slowly becoming more understandable. The figure above was painted from a live model over several sessions in the past couple weeks. The class starts at 8 am on Monday mornings, so I'm proud that any of us are producing creative images at that time (which my classmates really are). The textured masonite I experimented with on this painting and the academic-grade oil paints I'm using to learn on can be thanked for the bright glare on the background colors.  There will probably be more of these to put up in the coming weeks, and there will certainly be more personal and work projects popping up in oil.

Big Daddy Wehrmacht Projekt

I did another shirt-for-painting trade with my pal Shaky this Fall (the original being my Creatue painting for his Robert Williams-inspired Triumph shirt last Summer), in which I was to do a painting of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth in exchange for a monster shirt of me on my little Honda. Shaky sent me the Honda shirt (which turned out great!) about a month ago, and I decided yesterday (after getting the painting itch from looking through the Maynard Dixon book I just bought with the prize money from the German Week contest comic below) that I had better get moving on holding up my end of the bargain. I first did the layout/line study off of an old photo of Big Daddy in one of his "Surfer Helmets", seen here at the bottom of the pile, to the scale that the final painting will be, 8"x10". I then created a miniature version of the line drawing (middle image) to fit the 2.5"x 3.5" illustration board card that I did the quick, basic value study on in gouache (the top image). The final will be in oils, also in black and white. I'm also thinking of doing an inked version of the smaller line drawing for another art trade which is currently in the works with another hip monster artist, so that will be posted as well, if things go as planned. BIG DADDY IS OUR LEADER!