Hammer Down!

Local alternative paper Graphics Editor and Dr. Sketchy Ring Master Sean Bieri asked me to do up a cover for this week's edition of the Metro Times. The story's about the Wayne County Chief Circuit Court Judge and how she's made some rather controversial decisions. The assignment was a little short notice, but with my handy new Motion Computing LE1600 I was able to whip out a cover in two days. Not sure that my caustic color combination would fly, I did a more tamed down version that didn't have green hair. Good thing too, because that's the one they went with.


Here's a look at the sketch, inked drawing, and original color version I did. All done digitally. Ain't technology grand?

Post All Hallows Eve

Yesterday the Hallowe'en trick-or-treaters still managed to find me even though I took refuge at Cafe 1923 for my weekly cartooning night. Here's a portrait of my favorite in all of her Victorian Era finery.

Halloween is waning...

It's 9:30 pm and I think it's safe to go home and put the lights on again. The last of the trick-or-treaters (if in fact there were any) are down in their dungeons and sorting their stash. Nope, I didn't give out candy this year. Halloween has come and gone and Irwin the Creep failed once again to make an appearance. But that's okay! Because NEXT YEAR when he does I'll be ready.

I've got people working on plans as I type. Or at least I've got a co-worker in another state who has offered to help as payment for some monkeys. So to make up for not having Irwin entertaining the little hellions, I started a short mini-comic about his life and times to give away as a freebie next year. Here's a few pages as a year-ahead-of-time preview.

Halloween's a bit Sketchy

Last week was a special haunted version of Dr. Sketchy. Our models were the Motor City Rah-Rahs, cheerleaders for the Detroit Derby Girls roller derby team. Hula hoops were in full gyration as the Rah-Rahs decomposed throughout the evening. Lookit those evil eyes. Apparently they were possessed.



Oh, and I finally got the Dr. Sketchy stickers made. I guess there was a lot of calls for t-shirts too, so we'll have to check in with the good people at J's Silkscreens (where I worked while in college).

Here's the usual selection of sketchy-art, including the final pose where all I could see was the bottom of Suzanne Baumann's shoe.

Evil, evil me.

What do you do after you stir up a hornets' nest by breaking the taboo of discussing politics and religion (and art)? Why you slink into a corner and let others duke it out while you sketch quietly away on your tablet with a deviously sly smirk on your face. I'm such an instigator. Evil, evil me.

Here's John, witness to the trouble I started.

It ain't goin' nowhere.

I've been charged once again with designing all of the invites, posters, travel guides, etc. for my company's upcoming trip for their top sales people. I had put together some ideas for designs and was going to use vintage travel posters as the theme. But now it seems the client wants to go in a totally different direction and probably won't use anything I've done so far. So I thought I'd share this luggage tag design I did that will never get to see the light of day. Booooo!

And here's a card design too:

Ooooooooo...

I got a really cool new tablet PC! I can draw right on the screen! I can carry it everywhere because it's small and only weighs like three pounds! Ain't it cool? Ain't I cool? Who wants to touch me?!!


I hemmed and hawed long and hard over getting one of these for about a year. I was torn over this model or a Wacom Cintiq, which is a big twenty-one inch monitor that you can draw on. Only thing is that the Cintiq lacks the portability that I was looking for.

Now, what I really want is a Macintosh tablet. But Apple isn't really interested in making a tablet. Then I thought that my dreams had come true when a third party company was taking Mac laptops and converting them into tablets. But it was taking forever for them to release them. And they cost a lot.

So I settled for Motion Computing's tablet PC. Don't get me wrong, it's a great little machine. But as a member of the cult that is Macintosh I felt I was actually betraying the company that has provided me with excellent computers for over fifteen years. I prayed to the glowing apple on the back of my laptop for guidence. And because there was no answer being handed down by Steve Jobs himself, I decided that it was time that I make room for two operating systems in my home. Besides, I've been using Windows at work for years now and haven't noticed any real difference in how the software works. Well, maybe a few annoying things, but nothing I can't work around. So I put an Apple desktop pic on it to make me feel at home.

I'm currently learning to navigate around Windows with nothing but a pen. That's right, no keyboard. Things work just a little different and it takes some getting used to. Plus I'm also setting all of the software up like I want and that takes time. So right now I've mostly been using Alias Sketchbook Pro to scribble with before I get down to business. Here's a few examples in my electronical sketchbook:

Sunday Brunch with Dr. Sketchy

Sunday afternoon a small group of us local artists lounged in Cafe 1923 in Hamtramck for a laid back version of Dr. Sketchy. Our model on short notice was Sean Bieri's wife Sofia. She's been an artists' model for years and I have sketches and paintings of her going back a while. After some warm up sketches of cafe patrons and a few other art monkeys, as well as our barista April (who filled in as impromptu art judge and prize-giver-outer), we got down to business.

Again with Ellie

New page posted on the Ellie on Planet X blog!

Family Ties

A few years back my interest in genealogy was rekindled when I discovered that I could do much of the research online. I started scanning in old photos and decided I wanted to put together a kind of booklet to give to family members. Several pages have been finished, but my interest has kind of waned since my father died back in January. Most of my impetus for doing it was to show him something new each time I saw him. It wasn't even finishing it that was important, but the process and the time I spent with him. It doesn't even bother me that he didn't get to see it finished.

I included a couple pages in my gallery on the JimCanDraw website, but here they are, along with a few more, at higher resolution. The collage look to them owes a lot to the work of Nick Bantock.

Ellie continues...

At long last, there's a new page posted on the Ellie on Planet X blog!

Gotta support the team

This is a decal for my niece's high school cheerleading squad. Sis boom bah!

More Monkeys! More Monkeys!

Monkeys are always funny. Always. And we never tire of them. Especially Robot Monkeys. These are some spot illustrations for a friend's website redesign. I started drawing and inking them, but decided to do them all in Adobe Illustrator to keep everything looking consistent.

I'm not sure what that last one is doing. I think it's getting ready to fling poop.

Below is the original inked drawing I showed him. The new designs are essentially the same, I just changed the ears and added the DEVO hat so they more resembled his logo:

Dally in the Alley

Last night I helped man the HATCH booth at Detroit's Dally in the Alley, a festival of art, food, music, and people waving incense around. I had my sketchbook in case I got bored, so I drew a few of the patrons. Kinda difficult since, as I would start, they would move away, or someone would walk in front of them. I also managed to get the backs of lots of people's heads. My favorite was the girl modeling the dress in the mirror mostly because she stood in one spot for almost five minutes.

Boo!

Every year my department holds a Halloween poster contest and we donate the completed posters to a children's hospital in St. Louis. This year we're opening it up to the ad design department too. So here's my entry!

Edited to add the slightly changed version above, plus these fancy details below.

Oh, and one more, why not?