A New Year's Appetizer

Hey internet friends!
    I am totally still alive and I have a plethora of wonderful things to post here. Christmas was great and super busy, and followed immediately by my younger brother's wedding, so I haven't posted any of the things I've made lately. So enjoy my three redesigns of Calvin and Hobbes for Joe Olson's class. Realistic, for girls ages 4-8 and for boys ages 9-14.

Halloween and Skittles Kid.

I love Halloween. It's such a wonderful excuse to wear socially awkward costumes and seem perfectly normal. I think it was made as an outlet for weirdos who feel a need to fit in to normal society.
It also means funny trick or treaters.
Early in the evening, a veritable horde descended on my doorstep in search of pre-packaged, overhyped and ever so desirable sugar. After I had warded off a sizable group with my offering of the Mars company's finest assortment I was just settling back down to my semi-annual viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas when a tiny little knock came rapping at the door.
I returned to the porch to find a 4 or 5 year old boy dressed as Buzz Lightyear and another boy (who turned out to be the little guys older brother).
The older boy told me that his brother had been too shy to come up to the door with all the other kids, and had waited until they had left. I offered little Lightyear the ginormous bowl of candy and he reverently chose a package of Skittles from the top of the candy-copia. His brother gave him a little nudge and prompted "What do you say?"
Buzz replied:

Needless to say, I gave him another bag.

Adventure Ho!

Alright friends. Here they are, finished and ready for adventure. Meet Moby and his Imaginary Friend, Sir Reginald Squeaks (Of the New Hampshire Squeaks). That means that Matt Bowman and Andrea Roberts are the winners of the Name That Toon contest and may request a drawing of their choice! Thanks for playing everyone! I think I like having Blarg Contests and will likely be having another in the near future. Also, INKtober Day 16.

Inktober Day 12

It looks like I'm doing more of the half-marathon for inktober this year. Here is today's offering, our boy and his imaginary friend setting out for adventure. Their names are still up in the air for a little while longer if you want to throw your hat into the ring. Whoever comes up with the winning name gets an ink drawing of their choice!

Inktober Day 9: CONTEST!!!

Yes, I know I missed Day 8, but I was doing oil paintings all day and my beloved ink fell by the wayside. So here is Day 9's offering.
CONTEST: These two, a boy and his imaginary friend, need names and I am too lazy to invent them. Leave your name suggestions in a comment. If I choose one or both of your names, one of my inktober drawings is yours for the asking. If you give me a great name before October ends, you can even tell me what you want me to draw. (Within limits. I'm pretty strictly G - PG).

Inktober Days 6 and 7

Sorry for the Delay Inktober sports-fans. It was the semi-annual general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was out of town and away from a scanner, so I just have to play catch up I guess. So for your internet viewing pleasure, two general authorities of the church.

Inktober Day 5: Fenris

Inktober Day 4: Duck Noir

Today's offering on the altar of Inktober is a three panel noir duck-tective. This is an assignment for Bethanne Anderson's (Who has no Website, or I would link it here) Narrative class. Nothing from Archs today, other things needed attention first.

Inktober Day 3: The Thief

Another Character from Archs. The Thief. The latest holder of the title is aware of his status as Arch-thief and goes by no other name. No door is closed to him and nothing safe from the reach of his sticky fingers. I'm not especially happy with this pass... I'll come back to him later.

Inktober Day 2

INKtober day 2! Same story as the last guy. This is THE Murderer. He is one of the Archs. The Archetypal humans that walk among ordinary humans. No one is totally certain whether this title has been passed among a succession of madmen, or if he is the original Murderer.

Happy Inktober!

It's Inktober! That joyous month in which we celebrate the glorious medium of black ink. Jake Parker put me on to this, and I shall be posting an ink drawing each day this month.
This is "B," a character for a story I'm working on. Details to follow.

Not quite fireworks.

Here it is folks! Just in time to go up with your Independence Day fireworks! I whipped this up today in honor of my favorite country who is celebrating her 236th birthday today. She is still pretty young, as countries go, and her fan-base doesn't always represent her well, but I sure do like her.
Thank you America, for the ideal that you represent. Thank you for the freedom of speech, even when we would be better off keeping out big mouths shut. Thank you for the great experiment of Democracy, a government for the people and by the people, however silly or forgetful or stubborn and wrong we the people may be. And a big thank you to all of the great men and women who see to it that the Great Experiment keeps on chugging away.
Love you America. Acne, social awkwardness and all.
Happy Independence Day!

Jedi Time!

Who is the best Jedi ever? That's right! Qui Gon Jin! I thought about saying something like Gandalf or Harry Potter, but neither of them is Liam Neeson.
This is an experiment-y type portrait of Yoda that I did for my Illustration 3 class with Chris Thornock. Yoda has always been one of my favorite people. He has so  much perspective and natural joy, despite the awful things that come his way. I love that happy little green dude. This was done in acrylics on watercolor paper.

Back in Action

Hey friends! It's been a while since I last posted, but I have a great excuse! For some of that time...
     I spent about three weeks (April 22 through May 15) in the U.K.! It was incredible! I went with the Brigham Young University Singers and we sang our way across most of Southern England and a little bit of Wales. If you're interested in reading up on what we did, you can check out the tour blog HERE.
      I will start posting things up more regularly now that I am back and getting back in the swing of things. Meanwhile, here are two paintings from the end of last semester to tide you over. Both are acrylic on masonite board.

A Classic Nursery Rhyme

Baa Baa Black Sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes Sir! Yes Sir!
Please don't shoot me sir!

That is how the nursery rhyme goes, right? I still can't figure out why no one else remembers Mr. Bigg and his lackeys, Catgut Jimmy and Red Al. You guys remember how Jimmy was known to carry an ACTUAL violin in his violin case? And the story about how Al, a reptile, came by his luxurious red locks? You remember right?
If you don't remember, I guess it's okay. My childhood was just cooler than yours.

Out of the Closet, In Color!

There just isn't much money in the labyrinth biz these days. I feel you buddy. Yeah, so I painted this in acrylics. I really need to learn how to get the color to scan better, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Here is something in a slightly different style for me. This is part of some concept work I'm doing for an upcoming BYU animation project.
That is all.

Out of the Closet

No. This is not an announcement, and I am still straight, single, and available (only ladies need apply). I'm talking about my little friends here. In this economy, it is almost impossible to work exclusively as a closet-monster any more. The union helped for a while, but there just isn't much money in scaring and emotionally scarring children. Besides, with the increasing realism and intensity of computer generated graphics and the rise of the zombie/horror thriller video game, kids are just harder to scare these days.
Hence, these gentlemen have come forth out of the closet and taken up secondary jobs to support themselves and their little monster families while they wait for their dreams of super-scaredom to come true.
I dreamed these guys up in response to a class assignment to paint a creature of some kind in a simple cityscape. I'm still fairly new to the idea of using a real brush and paint rather than their digital equivalents, but you will be seeing some updates as I work on one of these hard working fur balls.