LEGLESS MERMAID

Scribbles from the iPad

2012-01-24T00:36:00.001-05:00

Messing around with the free Sketchbook Express App on the iPad.
Fun, very addictive!

Welcome 2012...

2012-01-07T01:48:00.001-05:00

ipad sketch...

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:31:00.000-05:00

Don't indulge in to much holiday toad licking...

Hand inked, colored in photoshop.

Lunchtime on the night shift

2011-12-14T22:22:00.000-05:00

It has been forever since my last post, gotta catch up!

Been doing some part time sales work for some extra cash... hate it, but it helps pay the bills. This started as a collection of photos I took on my phone camera while I ate baloney sandwiches in my truck on lunch break. Why? no reason, just bored, but they inspired the illustration.

Scanned pencil drawing, inked in Illustrator and colored in Photoshop

Bills, Bills, Bills...

2011-08-04T14:10:00.002-04:00

Drinking with last summers vegetables

2011-07-07T23:26:00.001-04:00

Hunt for a meal

2011-06-28T22:05:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted in forever, I'm planning to really change that and try to post at least once or twice a week.

This was a project a long time in the making...
I promised my good buddy Eric I would do a painting for him for years, finally finished it.
It involves a cat in dire pursuit of a meal and a supernatural goldfish from our past "Bob".

8" x 10" Gouache and Acrylic on Crescent cold press illustration board.
Middle Photo is a series of process shots.

sketches

2011-02-18T13:52:00.003-05:00

More stuff from the sketchbooks

prophecies of rust

2011-02-14T23:17:00.001-05:00

I just came off a Conjugal visit with the universe, so I guess all is OK...
I can start posting again.
Interpretations of the future using Illustrator, Photoshop and
my crappy phone camera.

diligo quod contemno

2010-11-24T00:04:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

As per my usual, I had big plans for this one... wanted to have a creepy background with trees and big bright moon and have these guys crawling out of a crypt or something with a procession of painted faced skeletons all surrounding the pumpkin king. At my rate and free time
I may of had this the way I wanted it done by Christmas!
Anyways, this is what I pulled together in time for Halloween, concept sketches in Photoshop, a little inking on the rat in Illustrator and then back into Photoshop to splash in a little color.
Although there is no real composition or layout here, it was a blast to work on and a nice little digital study.

Have a great Halloween!

D's Salsa Labels

2010-10-20T12:09:00.000-04:00

Well my friend Dani has the labels I designed for her all printed
and on the jars, the salsa is a flowing. These look great!
Just wanted to share a photo, then crack these open and chow down...

What's your vector victor?...over.

2010-09-23T15:11:00.000-04:00

I will always draw by hand, that's how I learned to do art,
that's what I know.
But, in my efforts to grow and always try to learn more, especially the
digital side of things, I wanted to experiment with digital inking.
There are a lot of cool tools and software out there for this but I have lately been checking out a bunch of different online articles and tutorials by some great artists about inking in Adobe Illustrator.

Illustrator is a program that I have used for a long time, but, used more as a graphic software or, if I was doing an illustration I would typically ink the art by hand and then bring into Illustrator. I wanted to try to find something digital that almost looked liked I scribbled it out with a felt tip marker, Illustrator seems to be pretty sweet for this, but unlike Photoshop which is pixel based, Illustrator is vector based
(mathematical points and paths) which is wild, gives you a lot of options as far as setting your brush tool, unlimited re-dos and making quick corrections, It also imports into Photoshop seamlessly to color up.

Here is a quick little exercise I did, nothing special but was a lot of fun, experimented with a lot of crosshatch and dots and just a lot of noise

Tried to pack this to see if all the vectors would bog down the file,
but it did OK, the second photo shows the points and paths.

Much more practice with this to come.

Some more stuff from the old sketchbooks

2010-09-12T20:44:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned before, there's a lot of stuff I have in my old sketchbooks that I want to post. Some because it's new to me again after being buried for a while, some things I just like, and some because I just wonder what the hell I was thinking?
This post is just that, I like the sketches but, I don't remember what compelled me to doodle this stuff out.

The first image is a few pages of what I guess at the time would be a cool bathroom, why? I don't know. It's obvious I'm no architect,
I remember thinking at the time it would be wild to have this sort of steam punk, no period, shower tower mixed with metals and tiles and sculptures, that you could walk around and set all sorts of
different heads... from water fall to steam, all in this wild bathroom.

The second image is a concept sketch for a play structure proposal that never really went anywhere. The idea was to take one of those toys that you see in almost every kids play area in the doctor's office lobby,
and make it into sort of this public sculpture and play structure

D's Salsa

2010-09-01T23:57:00.000-04:00

My good friend Danielle who lives deep down in Texas is a hell of a cook, and when she started whipping up batches of fiery hot salsa she started to develop quite a following of fans.
Even the people who can't stand the heat couldn't stop eating it,
asking her if she could make a mild version of the Delicious stuff.
Thus, Dani has created her Devil and Angel sauces, and she asked me if I could design her some labels... a pepper with horns and a pepper with a halo and wings. Here are my designs, I wanted her to have something really different that would stand out from everything else,
hope they can stand up to the goodness in the jars!

For information on ordering some for yourself, click here.

More Sketchbook Archives

2010-08-25T23:47:00.000-04:00

More stuff from the old sketchbooks, only this time with
gratuitous nudity, don't look kids!

Trees

2010-08-17T17:27:00.000-04:00

I came across some old sketch books last night and I want to do a few posts of some of the stuff I have in them. It's funny, some of the stuff sparks new ideas, some of it is just stupid, but it's all so random...
from tree man to trees in structures.

as long as I'm jousting...

2010-08-09T23:48:00.004-04:00

had this in the sketchbook from a little while back,

figured I could add it.

Joust

2010-08-05T17:42:00.000-04:00

Having a little photo fun... This is a picture of my son's bird Beaky.
He was out of his cage one day just exploring and hopping around
and I started joking about having a little rider on his back,
the old "Joust" video game popped in my head, had to do it!

Kaleidoscope

2010-07-29T17:43:00.002-04:00

Some beginning concept designs for a public
interactive kaleidoscope piece.

Gallery of Unfinished Paintings

2010-07-25T22:44:00.001-04:00

I have a really bad habit of starting projects, never getting to far with them, and then getting bored and moving on to something else.
Never to touch them again. Here are a few paintings I have that are a great example of what I'm talking about, would love to finish some of these, but will I...?

All of these are acrylics on wood, 24" x 24" and bigger, with the exception of the lady with the red skeleton, that one is acrylic on canvas board 18" x 24"

Speed Paint, Space Dragon

2010-06-24T02:25:00.009-04:00

Every time I do a paint, it looks likes it was done in the 1950's...
maybe that's OK? but not what I'm going for, oh well, I'll keep trying until I'm happy.

Quality Auto

2010-06-07T23:06:00.015-04:00

I don't know why I am posting this, I just really like it...
It's not a great sign, I guess I just see a lot of different things in the painting. This is a sign painted on the side of an old mechanic's shop in the heart of downtown Pinckney, Michigan. I have probably passed this sign as a teenager a hundred times and never noticed it, but recently was nearby and it just grabbed me. I guess just something about the combination of colors on the wall, the blue sky and the green trees makes me feel at ease...
like I'm a kid back in the 70's, with tube socks pulled up to my knees and on my Schwinn with the banana seat and sissy bars riding by while they work on a 72' Nova listening to Journey...

I need to get back to posting!

2010-05-29T23:52:00.026-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I have been crazy busy
with just life in general, but I have a lot more stuff to come soon.
In the meantime here are some random sketches
from the last few months.

Patch Together

2010-03-15T16:21:00.003-04:00

I've just submitted this design to PatchTogether.com, and need your voting support for selection to be possibly produced as a toy. Could you find it in your big hearts to sign up with PatchTogether and vote on my design and maybe even leave a friendly comment.

This particular design is for the Cutest Animal Warrior contest, but I also have the Trojan bug posted as well, you could vote for him too!

Have a look here.

The Real World

2010-02-16T17:37:00.005-05:00

No robots or space birds in this post. Nope, just quick concept designs for a 20' x 30' trade show exhibit. Here's hoping to get the full design and build contract. The client is a manufacturer of industrial lasers and wants to see what could be done to have a wide open, clean and inviting booth space

on a ( as everyone these days) tight budget and time line.

Portrait

2010-02-07T17:07:00.007-05:00

Kind of a side view portrait of a kinda bug shelled, cow, dragon thing...
I did a post like this back last April called "The Bug" where I wanted sort of this weird creature portrait set against this sort of beautiful back drop
and never really had gotten any further with it.
This painting started out where I was going to pick up on the bug painting but, I only ended up with just using the same shell and started changing everything else.

Aquatic Oddities

2010-02-01T21:29:00.009-05:00

Just some more random studies in Photoshop painting with the Wacom tablet. Playing around with brush sizes and details, loose and a little tighter... some more thought out stuff coming soon!

Thomas Lettuce, " The Hammer Head " Johnston

2010-01-12T22:50:00.003-05:00

Nothing to brag about, a somewhat crappie photoshop painting.... just have a couple of beers and see what happens. OK Tom, you space cowboy, with your flying four legged marmet...save the universe.

Sneak Peak

2009-12-27T23:36:00.002-05:00

Here is a shot of a piece in progress I am thinking about using as a t-shirt design if it turns out OK.
I think I might take this and a few other things and put them up as shirt designs over at redbubble.
Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

A Few More Freaks!

2009-12-03T14:55:00.009-05:00

Here's a couple more quick Photoshop paintings...

Nothing preconceived, just sit down, think of something and start painting. I kinda like the swamp guy, became bored with the robot and didn't really finish much on him but thought he was worth a show.

What do ya think?

What do space birds dream of?

2009-11-30T12:11:00.004-05:00

A quick little Photoshop painting...

Go Vipers!

2009-11-10T10:08:00.014-05:00

Just finished this little project up, been doing a lot of vector art lately and thought this might be a nice simple loose step by step.

My good friend Greg McMillin asked me to design a logo for his son Hank's hockey team, Greg had some ideas of what he liked and showed me some other Viper logos that had elements in them that he thought were interesting, but wanted me to do a custom one based on his ideas.

Here are the rough thumbnail sketches, I will usually do a page or two of all sorts of concept directions, but Greg gave pretty good direction on what he wanted to see. After checking these out, he went with option A.

Now that I know he wants this direction, I do a tighter pencil...
by tighter I don't mean finished art line work, tighter meaning overall design, getting all the curves and details of the snake and positions where I like them.

Once I'm OK with the pencil, I scan this and bring it into Illustrator.

Now that it's in Illustrator, I place it on it's own layer and lock it. I also like to make my pencil layer really transparent, about 15%-20% opacity, this way I can still see it but it will not compete visually with the vector lines I am drawing.

I throw a layer over the top of this and start drawing vector lines.

Here is the finished vector logo, hope you like it!

Another Autumn Fairy

2009-10-11T19:03:00.002-04:00

Another fairy, different style.... this ones just hanging out on a bird house having a smoke break.

SCAREBRUSHED PUMPKINS

2009-09-26T22:48:00.005-04:00

If you are ever in the Michigan / Ohio border area in October,

you have to go see my good buddy Nick "The Schnix" Hartzell

airbrushing pumpkins.
Nick will be appearing live every weekend in October, at Erie Orchard, Erie Michigan.

See his 10 pasche air-guns blazing out pumpkins with creepy faces

and sports logos.

See more of Nick's stuff here

First day of Autumn

2009-09-22T10:29:00.001-04:00

Fall is here, and the Autumn Fairies are hard at work changing the leaves in my yard to their beautiful fall colors.
These Fairies are obviously of the yellow persuasion, Hopefully I will see some of the red ones.

Uncle Stanley, slayer of Evil!

2009-08-15T18:37:00.011-04:00

I am well known for coming up with stories for cartoons and comics, starting story lines, creating characters and then doing absolutely nothing more with them, maybe this one might actually go
a little further...
Anyways, my son Jake and I started playing around with the idea of a
little old man (Uncle Stanley) who spends his time fighting hoards of evil entities and protecting his neighborhood or subdivision against being taken over by ultimate doom.
Uncle Stanley off course, is highly knowledgeable in this field and is surrounded with tons of magical items and weapons as well as some sort of bizarre mascot and maybe a big oaf nephew or something....haven't gotten that far yet.

On the other side of the spectrum is Uncle Stanley's arch enemy, the destroyer of all that is good, the unholy...well, i don't know yet... but, this entity will stop at nothing to take over the neighborhood because it holds the secret of...well, I don't know yet,
we still need to work a whole lot out. Here is my first pass at very rough concepts, not really even sold on anything, just some beginning thoughts.

Still not sure on a right look for Uncle Stanley, I want him old but how old? I like the idea of him being somewhat funny and eccentric and wearing a lab coat or more of a utility type jump suite with an exposed bow tie.

As for his arch Nemesis, a little dork who is very small in stature but believes he is, next to the Devil, the scariest being alive...is he a vampire? demon? I'm not sure,
like I said, we have a lot to work out yet.

WHAT THE ?

2009-07-02T18:00:00.007-04:00

What is this? What is it for? I don't know...been crazy busy with other stuff and with the exception of the beautifully sculpted Mermaid...or...I guess Merman above, I haven't had a chance to do much artwork lately other than this sketch of characters. Anyway other things are brewing and I plan to have some more exciting posts soon!

The Bug

2009-04-27T09:50:00.001-04:00

This is a study for a illustration that I hope to get off my butt and finish...

Balance

2009-04-27T09:41:00.004-04:00

Balance is a design that was produced in a very limited run of posters. It simply shows some of the simple Yins & Yangs of life.

TRIO OF UGLY MUGS

2009-04-16T22:53:00.002-04:00

A small collection of of ugly faces, the ticket holder was for a trade show booth graphics package
the other two were for personal fun stuff. Smile was a poster design that never went to far.

2009-02-26T16:35:00.000-05:00

2009-02-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

2009-02-26T16:14:00.000-05:00