SOME NEW INKED PAGES...

Couple of pages I just got done inking and scanning. Will be coloring these this weekend. Results to follow
First is the cover of a children's book I wrote and am illustrating inspired by and starring my daughter, the amazing Parker!
Next is my version of Hop on Pop -- perhaps a bit more vicious than Suess', but, hey, they're cute widdle bunnies!
Ugh... time for bed.

"KINJITE ISN'T JUST A BAD CHUCK BRONSON FLICK..."

This is KINJITE, THE JETPACK SUMO. You've seen his sketch previously posted here with his partner, STILTED SAMURAI. I haven't finished coloring STILTED SAMURAI yet, so Kinjite will have to stand alone for now. I've got this big fella's origin and background all laid out, but I'm too tired to type it all out here right now, and I've got more drawing to do. Oh, and I forgot to add his logo to the piece which will be imprinted on the front of his apron, and the fins of his jetpack. UPDATE COMING SOON!!!

"OUR SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT... SORT OF..."

Colored version of L.I.N.C.O.L.N., another member of the sprawling and bizarre cast of my animated series concept proposal, previously posted as a sketch. What's his story (besides being an obvious rip off of Marvel Comics' M.O.D.O.K.)? He's a bit shrouded is mystery for the moment (meaning, I haven't conjured up a proper background for him yet) -- what do I know about new, improved L.I.N.C.O.L.N.? Well, his head is enourmous (as tall as a grown man), he can't support the weight of his massive melon on those tiny legs so his mobility is dependent on his special steam-powered frame constructed from the very wood used in the balcony state box #7 the original Lincoln was assassinated in at Ford's Theatre (the Civil War-era cannon he keeps housed is his hat is but one of many wicked devices stored there).

He is a semi-zombified clone (hence his grayish color), and his freakish appearance is the disastrous result of some haywire plot to successfully clone original Lincoln. This Lincoln is nasty and generally evil -- he wants to undo all that Original Lincoln accomplished and reduce ALL of humanity to an illiterate, subservient slave race. He also wants a bride --- I'm sure that won't end well! Why clone Original Lincoln, and who would do such a thing? I don't know yet, and it may not matter in the end. And, hey -- who's to say that time travel won't figure into this freakish villain's story sometime in the course of things? Who's to say that Original Lincoln won't travel back in time to help our heroes defeat this affront to nature and history? Not me -- in fact, I think that'd be quite swell! Oh, and just to review: L.I.N.C.O.L.N. stands for Lethally Intelligent Non-Confederate with Obscenely Large Noggin!

SKIDMARK SISTER #2: "SMASHLEY BUNDT"!!

The second member of the lovely SKIDMARK SISTERS (see previous post for elaboration), SMASHLEY BUNDT!!
I certainly didn't want cookie-cutter identical clones of the OctoPrimate hybrid. Any mad scientist worth his weight in test tubes will always fiddle with the genetic formula of his hybrids to produce a varied range of mutated beasts. Thus, Smashley has an octopus for a head, while her sister, Henrietta (again, see below) has a normal gorilla head, but four arms (two of which have suckers), two legs and two tentacles! It just makes good sense!

The O-mazing OctoPrimates!! Now in FULL-COLOR!!

Finished inking most of the character sketches for the animated concept package, and I'm in the thick of coloring them all now. First up is HENRIETTA KNUCKLES, one of the SKIDMARK SISTERS, the OctoPrimate Roller Derby team genetically engineered by Professor SquidHead (haven't finalized a good proper name for him yet) when he went through his "evil mad scientist" phase. Anyway, they're part Gorilla, part Octopus, and they can block, pivot and jam like nobody's business! More to come!

THE SEMI-STEREOTYPICAL JAP-TASTIC TAG-TEAM DUO!!

First thing, insincere apologies to any of you offended by that title. If you WERE offended, you need to relax a little, and take a deep breath.... There. Better now? All those imagined racist implications gone now? Good. Okay, let's move on.

These two fellows are part of my animated series concept (I should really come up with a definitve name for this "animated series concept" so I can call it something proper). Anyway, one is called "Kinjite, the Jetpack Sumo", while the other is knows as "The Stilted Samurai". I'll let you figure out which is which. More to come...

IT'S A SURPRISE... SHHHH!!

Okay, don't tell her, but this is a sketch of a poster I'm going to be illustrating for my favorite little girl, my daughter Parker. Her birthday is coming up on the 24th of March (she'll be six), and I thought I'd do something artistic for her. She loves artwork, she loves rock and roll, and she loves playing Guitar Hero on Playstation (I'll have to post a video on here of her playing soon), so I thought she'd love a poster featuring herself as a Guitar Princess. Let's try and keep it a secret though, shall we? I'd like her to be surprised. I'm also planning on giving her a large colored poster featuring the planned artwork to be used as the cover of the children's book inspired by and based on her. More on that later.

"THE RETURN OF THE CHARACTER SKETCHES!!"

Just a few more character sketches for the animated series concept.
First up, Doctor Hedonism. He's a nasty old bugger who's take-no-prisoners pursuit of pleasure puts him in conflict with my group of heroic super-musicans. He's the de-facto head of the evil organization H.E.R.P.E.S., but more on him later. His second-in-command is a bit nastier, and much more offensive -- I'm not sure the world is quite ready for him yet (I actually rendered by Advanced Illustration instructor speechless -- he just sat there repeating "Oh my God... Oh my God", a fact of which I'm quite proud -- , so I'll hold off on introducing him until later.
Next up is the benefactor/ father-figure for my heroes, Professor Syd "Squidhead" Fleetwood. He used to have a normal head... now it's a squid. Why? Wait for it -- more on him later.

"ONCE UPON A TIME... THERE WAS AN ADORABLE LITTLE GIRL NAMED PARKER..."

Here's a few pre-inked drawings from the interior of the children's book I'm writing and illustrating, based on my muse, my daughter Parker. She'll be six later this month, and she's quite an amazing little girl. The working title of the book as of now is "What Parker Thought She'd Rather Be", and it concerns Parker wishing she were other things besides a little girl. The things she wishes she were instead were plucked from her own active imagination and include things like a godzilla-like dinosaur, a robot, a pirate, a rock'n'roll star, etc. The book follows the pattern of Parker wishing she were something else, noting the cool things she'd be able to do in that form with her parents countering with the downside to each. In the end, Parker decides that perhaps being a little girl is best after all. Awww. More on this as it develops. Now, over to Kent in the weather center...

A FEW MORE WACKY CHARACTER SKETCHES...

Three more character sketches from my animated series concept. Very briefly:
First is Ergophobos, an ancient Egyptian wizard reincarnated mistakenly in the body of a lazy, morbidly obese white guy.
Next up is Captain Billy Cribkiller, the de facto leader of the Fetal Pirates (they float around courtesy of their buoyant airborne jellyfish placentas -- don't ask)
Finally, Mobster Lobster, one of the Pugilisticrustaceans, a gang of boxing crustaceans created by a mad scientist (coming soon, Buster Crabbe and Shrimp Shocktail)!!

Over and out!

"STEAM-POWERED EX-PRESIDENT GOES ON KILLING SPREE!!"

Another sketch for my animated series concept. This may look like Abraham Lincoln, but it's not! He's been reborn (through the twisted and perverse birth canal of black science) as L.I.N.C.O.L.N.!! What does L.I.N.C.O.L.N. stand for, you ask? Easy -- it stands for Lethally Intelligent Non-Confederate with Obscenely Large Noggin, what else! I based this design (quite obviously, if you're an old-school Marvel Comics fan) on the wacky yet adorable villain M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing -- they don't make bad guys like they used to. I'll give you L.I.N.C.O.L.N.'S full story when I post his final design -- just thought you'd like a tease of giant-floating-Lincoln-head-with-a-civil-war-era-canon-in-his-hat for now. You're welcome.

"AND ON BASS GUITAR... SCHRUBB!!"

Rough sketch for my character SCHRUBB. Schrubb is the bass player for the super-group that is the focus of the animated series/ comic book/ action figure line concept I'm smack dab in the middle of creating. I've come up with plenty of rough concepts for things like this before, but this is the first one I'm actually carrying through to the stage where it will actually be ready for proposal to an actual company (check you local listings in about a year or so). I'll give a more in-depth description of the concept once I hammer out a few more details. I don't want to really finalize any of the designs or the overall concept until I've visualized all of the major characters and worked out their connections, backgrounds, plot elements, etc. It involves music, science, the supernatural, and a hefty dose of far-out mayhem and bizarre characters.

The core of Schrubb is simply he's an early 70's refugee bass player who doesn't talk, and whose face (indeed his entire head) is concealed by his shrub-like head of hair (hence the name -- clever, eh?). His glasses (which are already in the process of being redesigned to better emphasize their arcane nature) allow him to see well beyond the range of normal human sight. Sometimes this will mean a very broadened spectrum of sight, sometimes this will extend to the temporal, sometimes it may even enable him to see into your mind!! I'm still working on the details, but I'll post more when I've got it.

"Mmmm... MONKEY POPS!!"

This is a cereal box I designed and built for portfolio class at school. I thought the traditional "clamshell box" suggested by the instructor to house our final portfolio was a bit too rigid and formulaic for a free-wheelin' artist such as myself, so I devised this cereal box that would house my portfolio instead. It turned out to be quite the headache.

This was before I got my kick-ass large format photo printer, so I didn't have the capability to print this thing out full-size. I didn't want to chance taking it to print services at the college, so I started calling around to local print services shops (Kinkos, etc). Apparently none of them could print it out at the size I needed on the type of cardstock I needed in a decent amount of time without sending it off to some out-of-state printing facility. I decided to just print it out in two segments, then mount those segments onto cardstock with spray adhesive, cut the thing out and fold and assemble it. Easier said then done. Spray mounting two large sheets of paper and getting them to line up square is a task I don't wish to repeat. I got them down fairly well, and then let them dry.

After sufficient drying time had elapsed, I proceeded to cut the entire box shape out with a ruler and x-acto blade. With that done, I attempted to score the cardstock along the fold lines and fold it into shape for the gluing. This was made more difficult by the fact that I overestimated the stock thickness of an actual cereal box -- I had gotten too thick of a cardstock, which made folding it along nice straight lines near impossible.

Once I had it all scored and folded, I discovered it didn't quite line up right, which wasn't noticeable, except for the fact that tab on the top flap didn't extend out far enough to fit under the slot on the opposite flap. So, I rigged up a little adhesive velcro to secure the top. The end result looks nice, and I'm considering doing more cereal boxes in the future (perhaps Octo-Pops), now that I've learned from my mistakes... and I can now print the whole thing out in one piece!!

The design of the logo is based off the Kellog's Corn Pops logo, but all of the elements are created anew by myself. Even the cereal bits in the background were created by simply pouring out a box of Corn Pops onto my scanner and scanning the resulting mess (I don't recommend actually doing this, especially with your more sticky cereals). All the text is created in either photoshop or illustrator, and I simply snagged scans of my other work for the back advert, and my bananamonkey logo image for the front.

WRASSLIN' LOVE!!

This is an image designed to accompany the short story "Charlotte" by Tony Earley. The story takes place in Charlotte, NC, and centers around a failing love relationship paralleled with the shift in popularity and loyalty from "professional" wrestling to the new Charlotte Hornets basketball team in the early 90's. The story is found in a collection of Earley's short stories titled, "Here We Are In Paradise."

It's quite a good short story and features several colorful wrestling characters -- initially, I was going to stick true to my nature and go completely gonzo-overboard with cartoony charicatures of these wrestlers in a free-for all explosion of wrasslin' madness! Perhaps mix in some fight poster elements. I may still go with this idea for a later project, but I decided to pull way back and focus instead on the doomed relationship, turning the lovers into opposing wrestlers, as their bed becomes the ring, complete with ropes and turnbuckles. Clearly, a great struggle has taken place, although no one seems to have emerged "victorious.

Setting up all the reference and deciding on a color scheme was quite a struggle, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. Pen and ink with photoshop colors.

GO-GO KREEPS #4: SWEET-CHEE!!

By now, some of you are probably thinking I have some sort of perverse desire to harm animals based on all the amputee creatures that have made up the Go-Go Kreeps! But that's just what the Go-Go Kreeps are, baby! Just roll with it! Seriously, I love animals (except for spiders, and chupacabras).

Sweet Chee considers himself a real ladies man, yet he seems oblivious to the fact that no woman really wants to be seen with a quadriplegic ant. He lost his other four legs at the hands of Angus McMurty, the neighborhood bully, who fried them off with a magnifying glass. Sweet Chee was rescued at the last minute and, after he recovered, he was given a motor cart for handicapped ants, which he proceeded to soup-up to better "attract the ladies". Now he races around the landscape, cruisin' for chicks and layin' down hot rubber!

Pen & Ink followed by photoshop colors!

GO-GO KREEPS #3: UNCLE FIBBLE!!

This is Uncle Fibble, number three in our series of Go-Go Kreeps. Uncle Fibble is a master fabricator of "tall-tales". According to Uncle Fibble, he is responsible for Japan's surrender during World War II because he convinced president Roosevelt to drop both atomic bombs. He's also slain the Loch Ness Monster (which is why the beast hasn't been captured or photographed clearly), cautioned the other three Beatles about letting John get involved with "that tone-deaf Yoko chick", and helped build the sets for the fake moon landing recordings. Anyway, Fibble probably isn't really old enough to have done any of those things, yet, no matter how outrageous his tales, he always seems to weave them in a way that makes them seem completely plausible. He couldn't bear being cooped up in his fishbowl all day and night, so he devised and built the walking platform that carries him wherever he wants to go -- the better to spread his wisdom and tall-tales!

Pen & Ink with Photoshoppy colors!

GO-GO KREEPS #2: BULLFROGDOZER!!

This little fella is Bullfrogdozer! Say, hi, Bullfrogdozer! Actually, you can call him Bubba-Gene. Would you like to know Bubba-Gene's story? No? Well, here it is anyway!

Bullfroggdozer (his nickname, given to him by his co-workers) was once a simple country frog named Bubba Gene, living his carefree life in the swamp and whittling detailed wooden figures for his nieces and nephews -- until his swamp home was drained and filled in to make way for the construction of a new strip mall. This strip mall happened to feature a new restaurant specializing in spicy chicken wings and frog legs -- so I bet you can guess how our friend here lost his lower limbs. After Bubba Gene recuperated from having his legs chopped off and served with watery draft beer, he decided to strike back, and had himself fitted into a "personal bulldozer" which he uses not only to get around, but also to strike back at encroaching strip malls and restaurants by bulldozing them down in the wee hours of the morning with the help of his demolition team of swamp-animal friends. On weekends, they all play together in a swamp-rock band down at their favorite watering hole.

The usual modus operandi: pen & ink with photoshop colors.

BEWARE, THE OCTOPRIMATE ROLLER DERBY TEAM!!

These lovely ladies are part of my senior thesis project, which I haven't mentioned until now. I'll post a more detailed explanation of it later, but in centers around a concept for a truly whacked-out animated series (of the Adult Swim variety) regarding the world's most awesome super-powered music group, who not only play in sold out venues worldwide, but also explore and combat the unknown and arcane forces of nature, science, and the mystic realms. Think BUCKAROO BANZAI and THE TICK in a back alley brawl with THE VENTURE BROTHERS.

Anyway, these are the OCTOPRIMATES, a roller derby team whose members are genetic combinations of gorillas and octopi, created by a deranged scientist to conquer the world roller derby circuit! Their names are: Daisy Ditch, Henrietta Knuckles, Smashley Bundt, and Tentakillerilla (or just "Tentakelly" -- haven't decided yet. Inked and colored versions to be posted soon!