SPECTRUM SELECTRUM

I received my official letter from SPECTRUM the other day notifying me which of my entered illustrations were selected for publication and I thought I'd post them here. The book itself won't drop until sometime in the fall. I'm quite excited to get my copy, not only because this is the first year I'll be published, but it's always a thrill to look through an entire year's worth of fantastic illustration.

The pieces selected were:
GORILLA VS. OCTOPUS: STREET FIGHT!




and
PAC-SAMURAI

DONKEY KONG WINS!!

Finished polishing off my first DONKEY KONG illustration last night (though I may still tweak it here and there). Been working on this one for a while in my "spare time" (between 10pm and 3am), but I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. The coloring actually didn't take as long as I thought it would -- as usual, the added effects and details took a bit longer to hammer out than I'd have liked.

Apologies to all you Mario fans out there -- looks like the little-carpenter-that-could bit the barrel! That's right, "carpenter". Mario (or "jumpman" as he was known before being given a name) began his career as a carpenter before he was shamed out of the profession and had to learn plumbing from his brother, Luigi.

Apparently, Mario used to be a bit of a bad guy before Nintendo decided to polish up his image and pit him against King Koopa. I love the game DONKEY KONG, but couldn't we play as the gorilla instead? He's a much more sympathetic character once you know the story behind the game. Apparently, Mario kept DK as his pet, yet treated him poorly, keeping him locked up in a cage and perhaps beating him while the poor ape is forced to watch from behind bars as Mario incessantly makes out with his hot girlfriend, Pauline, right in front of the imprisoned beast! Can you blame him for busting out, kidnapping Pauline and tossing barrels and flaming fireballs at the creepy carpenter? I'd do the same thing! Mario was later recaptured, of course, only to have his son come and rescue him and take out Mario in the process. Is it any wonder DK went crazy and eventually holed up in a greenhouse, communing with insects (see DONKEY KONG 3)?

Anyway, this time, much to the distress of Pauline, Donkey Kong wins and Mario eats a barrel. Hooray! I wonder what ever happened to Pauline anyway? Mario seems to have taken the golddigger route, ditching the sassy lass for the royal Princess Toadstool. I think you made a big mistake, Mario -- sure the princess is loaded (except their currency is probably mushroom-based), but Pauline is way hotter! Your loss.

Critiques and feedback are appreciated, please. The second DONKEY KONG illustration is underway and I'll post more progress on that when applicable.

SNEAK PEEK AT "DONKEY KONG" COLORS!

Howdy, folks!
I'm in the thick of coloring my first DONKEY KONG piece, trying to fit it in between a few freelance jobs and other odds and ends. It's progressing quite smoothly and I thought I'd share a peek at it with you to fill in the gaps in my posting schedule.

DONKEY KONG UPDATE!

Things are moving along at a snail's pace with my 2 DONKEY KONG pieces. I'm in no hurry to get them done, and I can only work on them late at night after the freelance work is done. This is a cleaned-up pencil drawing of the first piece with some odds and ends adjusted and tightened up -- the most notable adjustment is the size and position of Pauline on DK's shoulder. She seemed a bit too large in the first pass.



Next is a tightened up sketch of the second layout with the background and setting elements fleshed-out and the positioning of the objects adjusted. I really like how these are both turning out, so maybe I won't feel the desire to go back and redo these in 6 months, as seems to happen with many of my pieces (if you call them "pieces" instead of "drawings" it makes you sound like a real artist).



Finally, there's a page of DK head studies that I forgot to include in an earlier post.



I'm also including a cool DONKEY KONG QUILT that my magic computer showed to me the other day. It's done by Carolina Patchworks. It's nearly there and I wish it was a more pixel-perfect translation, but hey -- it's a Donkey Kong quilt! That alone makes it cool.

Mo' Betta Donkey Kong!

Hey, here's some more DONKEY KONG drawings as I refine my images and slog towards the finish line. Freelance bidness is hampering my progress on this and I can only work on it during the dead of night after the day's work is done.
Still, progress is being made. I'm also working on some new button ideas in the meanwhile, but more on that later.

DONKEY KONG IS... STILL COMING!

More DONKEY KONG sketches from the ol' sketchbook, as well as some other cool samplings of DK fan-art.

Thorsten Hasenkam produced this first piece of fan art. Nicely produced piece with a seemingly oblivious Donkey Kong. Bonus points for being hand-painted, but I'd like to have seen a bit more relation between the characters of the piece. Seems like two separate images tossed together in the same frame. The pixellated blocks save it by tying the whole thing together from a design standpoint, if not thematically. I like his other work, too. His paintings feel like a fun mash-up of Glenn Barr and Shag.



Next up is a charming and adorable little hand-made Donkey Kong by Anna Chambers. All I gots to say about this one is "I want one!" Anna, let's trade!



Here's a fantastic feat of paper-engineering spearheaded by Ian Rickard. Some folks at the Jack Baskin school of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz built a huge-scale replica of the DK game board with about 14,000 post-it notes in 4 stories worth of windows in their Engineering building.
There's also a time-lapse video of them setting it up.



To round things out, I'm gonna close this chapter with one of the most bizarre reimaginings of Mario and his simian nemesis that I've come across. What's even more bizarre is that it is an officially licensed piece that was acually used as packaging art for an Intellivision game cartridge port. It's like they very loosely described the concept of the game to some freelance artist who'd never heard of such a thing as a "Donkey Kong" before. Mario seems to have ditched his job as a carpenter to become some sort of Mexican 90's superhero version of the god of thunder, complete with golden hammer, while the decidedly un-gorilla-like Donkey Kong holds the homely Pauline captive in some sort of boundless Tron-type laser-scape and hurls shiny untapped kegs of beer at our mullet-sporting hero! It's so bad, I want a poster of it! I should research this a bit and find out if there's an amusing story behind this piece of art.



More tomorrow!

DONKEY KONG is coming!!

I'm in the midst of working on preliminary sketches, character designs and layouts for my upcoming DONKEY KONG piece, based on another old arcade favorite of mine. I'm having a great time puzzling through interesting layouts and poses (there's so much more you can do with giant gorillas and valiant carpenters), and I have enough ideas to perhaps do 3 or 4 pieces, so we'll see how that goes.

I thought I'd share some of my sketchbook work. I don't usually share sketchbook scans and I don't really keep a traditional sketchbook, mainly cause I don't think my sketchbook stuff is any good. It takes some noodling on an idea before I get it the way I want it usually, and I'm trying to be a bit more loose and uninhibited with my sketching. More scans soon.

Accompanying my sketches are some DK tribute pieces I like by other artists that I came across whilst doing the ol' Google reference search (I also use something called "books"). I wanted to see what other artists had done with the Kong, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't treading on someone's toes by doing something too similar to another piece.

The first piece is a bit of fan-art by someone who goes by the name Question Josh. Simple, but a decidedly different and original interpretation. DK sort of reminds me of Homer Simpson in this one. Original image can be found here



The next piece is a twisted bit of eye-popping fun by Jorge R. Gutierrez. It's got a great style and an almost creepy metaphysical slant.



The new Donkey Kong Jenga game. I don't know how this works, but I want it!



More sketches tomorrow!

"GORILLA VS. SQUID: FINAL ROUND!" -- prints available!

Hey, it's finally finished! Been fiddling with this piece for a while, but I finally got it colored well enough to satisfy me for now. I wanted to do this in a limited and flat enough palette so it could be easily screen printed on shirts, but I think it's a powerful enough design to stand on it's own. Thus, I'm also selling prints of this piece! I'm having these professionally printed, as I did the last two pieces, and they'll be available from me via mail, or in person at the GORILLA RIOT booth at HEROES CON in Charlotte, June 20-22!
Pen & Ink with Photoshop. Coming soon as a t-shirt!

PRINTS OF THIS PIECE ARE AVAILABLE FROM ME! 11"X17" ON 100# COVER STOCK PAPER, PROFESSIONALLY PRINTED BY INDIGO INK! $10 + $5 SHIPPING! CONTACT ME VIA EMAIL FOR MORE INFO!

GORILLAS HATE OCTOPI!!

Wow. It's been a while since my last post. Been super-busy with my top-secret concept art project. Can't share any of that work with anybody until the project is complete, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Got a chance to catch up on some "me" work this week and finished inking some of the t-shirt designs I'd started working on months ago.
First up: another variation on the Gorilla vs Cephalopod theme. This one might end up with GORILLA RIOT APPAREL, as well, if all goes well. In the meanwhile, thought I'd share this look at the final inks.

In the original thumbnail for this design (which I think I posted here earlier), I had a squid instead of the octopus. I got some calls from the Anti Squid Defamation League, however, claiming I was singling squids out as evil and malicious. I tried to explain to them that these are just two natural enemies goin' at it -- there's no good guys or bad guys in this fight. But, you can't argue with folks who are fixated on the victim mentality -- they're bound to see speciesism everywhere they look. Might as well represent some other cephalopods before I start getting more angry phone calls. I think it makes for a better design, anyway, so suck it ASDL!!

Colored version coming soon!

GORILLA VS. GIANT SQUID: ROUND 1!

Been a while since my last post. Been super-busy working on my top-secret project which I am forbidden from posting any images from until the project is complete, which won't be until the end of the year. I can tell you it's an online multiplayer game, but I can't say any more than that. I've produced a LOT of work thus far for it, and there's a lot left to go, but I cannot share it!

In the meanwhile, I've been working on a few side projects, which I CAN share. These images are some small sketches I've done for a t-shirt design for GORILLA RIOT APPAREL. Gorilla Vs. Giant Squid -- right up my alley! More to come.

APE-CONTROLLER!

It started as a simple, eureka-like, brainstorm: A robot controlling a gorilla controlling a bigger robot! It's monkeys AND robots combined, and we all know that's a cliched, yet reliable, formula for gold-plated success! I sketched it out, keeping the larger robot rather simple (I had just seen the TRANSFORMERS movie and, as good as it was, It put me in the mood for some ... less complicated robots), and the smaller one even more simple. The idea of a small robot manipulating a gorilla in order to manipulate an even larger robot just seems like a winner to me, and I've got some plans to extend this idea, which I can't go into yet. Anyway, for now, here's the pencils for the large robot and a blow-up of the gorilla controller (with minirobot in his head). Enjoy.

COLLIDE-O-SCOPE part 15: "THE SKIDMARK SISTERS"!!

the SKIDMARK SISTERS: SMASHLEY BUNDT, HENRIETTA KNUCKLES, DAISY DITCH and TENTAKELLY

The SKIDMARK SISTERS are the OctoPrimate Roller Derby team genetically engineered by PROFESSOR SQUIDHEAD during his "evil mad scientist" phase to conquer the world roller derby circuit. Anyway, they're part Gorilla, part Octopus, and they can block, pivot and jam like nobody's business! Oh, and they HATE music of ANY kind!

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!

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!

PRESENTING... THE "GO-GO KREEPS"!!

Say hello to Astro-Gongg! He's the first of a series of li'l characters I'm doing called "Go-Go Kreeps". Basically, they're all bizarre or silly animals/ creatures paired with odd vehicles. I don't know why this turned out the way it did -- a quadriplegic gorilla in a motorized cart with boxing-glove mechanical arms IS pretty bizarre, but I just started doodling, and this is what came out. This guy is currently posted on Mojizu.com, so head over there and vote for him so he can be merchandised! Astro-Gongg's backstory is both tragic and silly.

Astro Gongg was one of the many secret test gorillas sent into space during the early days of the US space program. He was subjected to countless tests, simulations, experiments and enhancements. Severely injured during his last mission, Astro Gongg lost his arms and legs as a result. He was supposed to be put to sleep, but one of the scientists who felt responsible for his condition instead created a life-support system linked to a motorized cart which would keep him alive and help him get around. The rocket pack and boxing gloves are Astro Gonng's own addtions because he likes to go faster than his cart will allow sometimes, and... he just likes punching things. Needless to say, he has had quite enough of space, astronaut training and zero gravity, and wants nothing to do with the space program anymore. Still, sometimes at night, he'll look up into the night sky and remember with fondness his "glory days". Then he'll go punch something until the feeling goes away.

Pen & ink drawing colored in Photoshop!