Watercolors; “Noon-Thirty Creepshow;” Sandy Jones, Butcher Queen

So I’ve been getting into doing lots of small 5×7 watercolor and sharpie sketches.  I have a good handful, and will upload them soon.

In other news, I’ve decided to try a new format of storytelling to generate lots of ideas.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I’m going to do a small sketch and then write a uber-short piece of fiction that goes along with it.  You can find it (if you couldn’t tell by the title) at 12:30pm (PST) on my facebook page.

Here’s the first one I did:

I sketched this out in Photoshop, then came up with a story to go along with it:

“It wasn’t until the second brother was found without his liver that the widow was suspected. Upon harsh..questioning, the widow showed her true form and admitted that she was often abused by her husband and brothers-in-law due to what she was. As she was burnt at the stake, I wondered if perhaps demons are inherently evil, or if we make them so…”

And that’s it.  Fun times.

Also, I finally finished my piece “Sandy Jones, Butcher Queen,” a character from a game I’m trying to create.  Enjoy!

Gallery show, new pieces, new job!

I’ll just go bullet-points on this one:

•Officially the San Francisco Ambassador for Crescent  - you know, the company that makes all that amazing matboard you love (precut ones ftw!) and some pretty cool illustration and watercolor board.  Look for me in art stores, classrooms, and in art organizations doing demos and giving away free stuff!

•New Dark Wizards’ One Stop Shop pieces up in the store!  Go go now! 

•Three new pieces in Big Umbrella Studio’s show this Friday, titled “Sweet.”  My stuff is the sweetest/cute I can possibly get.  Here’s one of them: a digital piece.

“Koi Heart” -Digital

•I’ve sold my ownership to Big Umbrella Studios back to the other owners.  I was getting burnt out there, and my heart just wasn’t into it any more.  That said, I wish the other owners and the gallery the best of luck in the future and hope that I regret my decision in the future when they become rich and powerful.  That said, I will still be around using the screenprinting facilities there, so it’s not like I’m leaving it forever.  Coolio.

Also, in other news, I’m working on a few other game designs.  One is a resource management card game that has you playing Dark Wizards killing heroes and trying to take over the strongholds of good.  The other is a hex-based dice game that has you trying to escape a prison planet.  Cheerful themes, huh?

Zombies!!

So I’m working on developing a zombie-themed survival game in the theme of Castle Panic, but with more variables and strategy.  In my mind, it also sort of feels a bit like a board game version of Plants vs. Zombies, so it’s definitely a castle-defense sort of thing.

Anyway, after making a semi-functional game using a big sheet of paper, a crap ton of index cards, and some extra figurines from the Zombies!!! game I got last summer for my birthday (thanks A&J), Eve and I playtested it once last night.  I took lots of notes as we were going along, and while I’m tempted to change a bunch of mechanics at once, I have to remember take it slow and steady and change one variable at a time to tune it well.

So with zombies on the brain (and really, who doesn’t have zombies on the brain nowadays?), I came up with this fun little digital illustration.  All photoshop.  Cool.

Don’t Self Flagellate

Sometimes I create a piece of art that I can’t stop snickering at.  Maybe it’s nepotism, but I swear that some of the weird, random things I come up with are the funniest things ever.  I guess it’s good to enjoy your own sense of humor.

I really love the watery eyes on the orc/goblin/thing.  Why is it a non-human creature that’s whipping itself and not a human?  Because if it’s human, I don’t want to suggest that any sort of sexual deviancy related to whips and things is a bad thing.  It’s only morally wrong to self-flagellate if you’re an orc, apparently.  Seriously, this was my train of thought.

Also, did you notice?  IT MOVES.  I did it in Photoshop CS5′s animation panel.  Is it easy to do so?  YES!  I’m sure you can find an easy tutorial online, and if you can’t, ask me and I’ll tell you how I did it.  Simpler than your favorite fruit-filled dessert.  I’m very tempted to only make .gifs now, but will restrain myself.

Anyway, while completely un-serious, you should really go check out the post over at Monkey + Seal in its entirety – Lady E wrote the accompanying post this week and really knocked it out of the ballpark with this one.

The Reckoning

I decided I wanted to do a small piece that actually involves backgrounds (kinda) and multiple characters (kinda again).  Eh.  ”The Reckoning.”  Acrylic on canvas board, 9×12.

The Dark Wizard’s One Stop Shop

Hi all.  So I’m officially announcing a new art project: The Dark Wizard’s One Stop Shop.

I’ve decided to fulfill every dark wizard’s (visual) needs by illustrating all the reagents, spells, potions, elixirs, wands, grimoires, and other magical items that any practitioner of the dark magicks would need.  These are the first two items up for sale, a hunk of bad meat (always good for feeding your orc slave), and the head of a gorgon (in a sack).

:

Why is the head of a gorgon in a sack?  Well, obviously, if it wasn’t, you’d turn to stone as soon as I showed you. You haven’t been a dark wizard for very long, have you?

Anyway, if either of these items suits your dark wizardry needs, please go to the store to procure them before they’re gone.  Fortunately, there are also magical copies of these items, known as prints, and if you’d like to get a print of either the gorgon’s head or the hunk of bad meat, you can!  Granted, it’s not as good as getting an original hunk of bad meat or a gorgon’s head in a sack, but such is life for the budget dark wizard (or dark wizard seeking to diversify their magical powers).

Happy spellcasting, and please keep checking back as while this is a fledgling shop, we’re working on procuring more of these magical items every week!

PS – BTW, did you notice?  The store is up (holy crap!)

“Hero Speaking Out (M.Y.)”

This is a piece I did after hearing about Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who stood up to the Taliban, got shot in the head for it, and survived.  She’s truly a badass and I totally look up to her strength and courage.  I hope she recovers quickly and that the Taliban assholes who tried to kill her are brought to justice.

Creating More, Hustling Less

As I started on this post, I realized that I didn’t really have any new art to show.  Granted, I do have this 30-min head study I did a week or so ago:

30 min, acrylic on board.

And I guess I did just bang out this 1-page comic (acrylic on watercolor paper, if you’re interested):

but I guess the point I wanted to make was that I think lately I need to work on balance in my own life a bit more.  Instead of focusing on end goals (which of course, will obviously change if I ever meet them in a never-ending game of chase your own tail), I’m trying to live a bit more day-to-day and focus on doing stuff which make me happy (storytelling, painting, sketching, making new stuff).  While I don’t think I can ever stop the art hustling, I have realized that I need to prioritize making stuff to hustle.

From the Darkness Creeps Photos

So a big shout-out to Mark Adamusik, one of Big Umbrella Studios‘ newest members for taking photos of the opening.  You can check out all his great photos on Facebook over here.  Some of my favorite pics:

Monstark in full regalia terrorizing fellow “From the Darkness Creeps” artist Jose Gabriel Angeles.

Laura Thompson replicating the awesome painting by Lynn Colingham.

Anyway, here’s a photo he snapped of me with my giant coffin piece, my heart, and me covering up a painting of a bleeding pig’s head.  Anyway, the photo doesn’t really show the pool of blood in the bottom of the coffin, so even though I gave most of it away by posting this photo, you should still check it out in person at the gallery.  Go go go!