Merry Christmas

I have to admit, I haven't been in much of a holiday spirit lately. I guess as you grow older, some of the wonder fades, and you live for the moments that you can live within your kids eyes. See the magic through them.
Well on this the beginning of Christmas Eve, it's starting to set in.
So I plan on just reveling in the moment with them. It's going to be a beautiful couple of days.
And for all of you whom read this blog, to my friends, family and lurkers. Much love and magical Christmas wonder to those of you who celebrate, and those whom don't. Happy Holidays, and God Bless.

Marvel Masterpieces 2

Talk about coolness. Over the past year I have had the opportunity to work on sketch cards of some of my favorite properties around. Lord of the Rings, Heroes, and now Marvel Masterpieces from UpperDeck. When I was a kid I remember collecting these gorgeously painted cards of my favorite super heroes. And now, some 12 years later, I will be contributing 100 sketch cards to the set.
Somewhat of a lifelong dream really. Getting a chance to draw Spidey, Cap and all the rest of the Marvel Universe professionally.
Heck 100 cards might not be enough to cover all the characters I want to draw. But this should be a blast.
Anyway, now back to the 200 or so remaining cards I have to tackle, and then onto another box of cards that are sitting on my shelf calling out to be drawn on. Of course I can't officially say what they are yet, but it's another one of those boyhood dream projects.

TOON WEEKLY CHALLENGES

Between all the sketch cards I have to do, I'm amazed I can squeeze these cool challenges in. Every week the gauntlet is thrown and some amazing artists participate with inspiring results!
SO here are my three answers to the last three challenges. The first was to draw Harry Potter, which was good, because I had a commission going out of our boy anywho, so I killed two birds with one stone.
The next was to design a female wrestler. I went for the Diva approach. The American Diva needed a sidekick to run interference for her, and what better than a cute little Chihuahua named US.
Lastly was to design an 80's movie property into a cartoon. I chose one of my all time favorites. GREMLINS!
Anyway, you should try your hand at these challenges, or at least see the other great entries! You can click on the link to Toon Weekly on your right.
....now back to work. I only have 248 more cards to go...for now.

Blast from the Past

I was going through a few recent and not so recent pieces and decided to gather them all together and make sure that they give a decent example of my more "comic book action" side of the pencil. This is usually the style I choose to use when voyaging into the world of Super Heroes. As you can see I am partial to Marvel but there are a handful of DC characters I adore as well. There is this little set of Sketch Cards called Marvel Masterpieces I would love to be on! SO I crammed as many samples of what I would do with these cards if I got my grubby little hands on. So Enjoy, and cross your fingers for me!

Giddy Like a Schoolgirl

Frankie

I was doodling these out. It looks like I may be participating in a few drawing/design challenges with a handful of talented artists over at toonweekly.com
The first challenge that I'll jump on is Frankenstein.
The most important thing I thought to focus on was how to keep that brain in his head. In the first drawing he has some steel supports flapped right over the exposed brain. And in the second, a nice padlock keeping the lid shut.
I also played with the idea in the second piece that he'd be somewhat of a walking vegetable and not have a lot of control over his facial functions. Hence the hanging drooling lip.
Anyway, that's that for now.

Mucho Stuff

So Thanksgiving was a blast. Mom visited from El Paso, and we ate like it was going out of style. It was fun to ride Revenge of the Mummy with her too. One of the coolest aspects came when we picked her up at the airport. We noticed a super tall guy in the crowd coming off her plane. Low and behold it was Former San Antonio Spurs superstar The General David Robinson. I figured since I wasn't at Disney working, where it's a no-no to approach celebs, I'd ask him for a picture. Boy was he tall, and very humble. Made me really miss Texas.
I was also able to catch up on some commission work, and I just wrapped up 103 more Heroes cards for Topps. They are coming out soon....I hope. Here are a few of the commissions I sent out.
And of course some of the coolest news, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits theaters in May! And LFL has released a few promo images. I cannot wait for this flick.
Anyway, that's the news for now.

Enchanted

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was quite pleasant and I'll drop you some more info on it shortly. For now we should give note to a movie I saw on Thanksgiving day. Walt Disney's Enchanted.
There are so many wonderful things about this movie. The most important in my opinion is the return of the hand drawn animation to a feature film. There has been so much computer animation out there, some good, and some really bad. But this movie brings us back to the roots, and does it well. Another thing Disney movies seem to be lacking is music. Alan Menken, one of the musical geniuses behind The Little Mermaid and a host of other Disney classics returns with pizzaz! As I left the theater humming the tunes, and still have them stuck in my head.
Of course there is comedy and Amy Adams does a great job as Princess Giselle.
I have always been somewhat of a romantic and this is one of those fairy tale movies that re-established that hope for magic in me.
Below is a clip of one of the movies musical numbers. It like a live action version of "Be Our Guest" and "Under the Sea"
Check this out!

Work work work

I'll be drowning in sketch cards for the next 30 days or so. Topps asked me to add 103 more HEROES Sketch cards to my bunch bringing me to a total of 350+ cards. On top of that the news of a third visit to Middle Earth working on 206 Sketch cards for the upcoming Lord of the Rings Masterpieces 2 set.
So needless to say my fingers will be getting a workout.
Now I'm just crossing my fingers on a third project that would be an absolute Holy Grail of projects for me to work on. It's all in Lucasfilm LTD hands now.

Arrgh

You know I look around at my place and find more and more little colored treasure maps all over the walls and floors. And it reminds me of this piece I drew a few weeks ago. Kids are funny, and this little pirate in training decided to make a treasure map complete with crayons on mom's wall.

Super Soap Weekend brings me back from the dead

Okay well I have been hiding for a while due to somewhat of an embarassing fiasco, but life seems to be back on track. I got to work a gig last night which brought me back into the swing of things in grand fashion. It was for the closing party at Walt Disney World's Super Soap Weekend. We got to draw several of daytime tv's sexiest people, men and women. I wish I could show you some photos but because of privacy reasons we kept our cameras holstered for the night.
But what a night it was. I got to meet and draw former Playmate turned daytime TV and Dancing with the Stars actress Kelly Monaco. She was quite a doll!
But the highlight of the night came from All My Children and One Life to Live stars Melissa Claire Egan and Tika Sumpter. Not being a watcher of daytime TV I was unaware of them. But they quickly established themselves as TV royalty with their fantastic playful personalities and gorgeous looks. They were two of the most humble, and down to earth actresses I'd ever met. You know the kisses on the cheeks of thanks were just a bonus. It was my pleasure to not only draw them, but to spend ten or 15 minutes getting to know them. They each have a new fan in me.
But it's the gigs like this and the people I get to work with, (it was nice to see my good friends Keelan and Ted again) that remind me why I am a very lucky man.

PS I plan on updating this page everyday this week with more news and art. I have quite a bit of catching up to do!

Rock Bottom

Had a really shitty day, maybe time to rethink a few things. While i think though, here is a little sumthin sumthin.

Heroes Scans

I got an email today from Topps trading cards saying that I was one of the first batch of approved artists on the Heroes set. I did cart wheels in my studio before reading on.
The email also gave me permission to post my scans on the net. Some characters are still awaiting approval so my Sylar cards and a few others, I cannot show. But here are the cards from the first round that I can. Now hopefully my second set will meet with aproval.

Back to work on Commissions

The second set of Heroes cards are off and on their way to Topps and then to Universal for final approval. It's been a tad nerve wracking as some artists have had all their cards rejected by Universal. Still for me, no news is thus far good news.
But now I have a few commissions I need to get back to and send out. Here is one of them that is completed. The Goblin Queen.

More Sketch Card Commissions

The hits keep coming.