R.I.P.

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I just found out from the insurance company that the Tacoma is a total loss.......... the vehicle is on its way to the big scrap heap in the sky.

I am really sad.....

:(

OUCH..........

While driving home from work last night, I was unfortunately involved in a 4 car accident. Traffic was a little heavier on the side streets due to all of the DNC road closures. I was hit from behind by an older model truck traveling around 45 mph. The collision caused a chain reaction, and ended up hitting the car in front of me. The car I hit ended up hitting the car in front of him. Fortunately, no one was severely injured and all of the crumple zones on all of the vehicles did what they were supposed to do.

I still feel a little banged up today.... thank goodness I was wearing a seat belt or I think things could have been much worse........

Below are the pics of the accident I took with my cell phone.











I sure hope my truck can be fixed..... I really love that truck.

Jack

OBAMA and the DNC

Since the DNC is in town and those overly popular Obama "Change" campaign posters are hanging on every wall and light pole, I thought I would offer up a version of my own..........


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After working on this, I kind of wish that I was working as a political cartoonist again. There is always so much material to draw from when the DNC and RNC are going on. It actually makes it really easy to do your job.

Remember, if you want Socialism and Taxes. Vote Obama in '08

Enjoy,

Jack

I am officially old today.........

Sorry, no art today...... I have to apologize that it has been a while since I posted. I have been so busy with other things in my life that this blog fell off of my list of the important things that I need to do.

Today, I turn 40 and I am now officially old. If I live to be 80 years old, I have now lived half of my life...... pretty depressing, if you look at everything as being half empty........ when I was a kid I sure didn't picture turning 40 years old to be like how I feel right now. I imagined that I would be more "grown up" and having a more "mature" outlook at life. What is weird is that I still feel like I am 18 years old and ready to take on the world..........

Below are some pictures from when I was a baby. My Mother did an excellent job saving all of my baby pictures, cards and clothes for me. I always enjoy looking through all of that stuff. It is interesting to think about what I remember about that stuff. Is what I remember what actually happened? or is what I remember what someone told as I was growing up?


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The card that was attached to my basket in the baby room at the hospital. I really like the illustration on this card. Very well done.




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This photo was taken by the hospital photographer on the day after I was born.


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This picture of the family was taken 9 days after I was born at 1100 South Farifax in Denver. Look at how pretty my Mom is (look at that tan!), and how handsome my Dad is, and how cute my Sister is......... I wonder why I was crying with all of these beautiful people around me....... maybe it was gas......


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I believe that this photo was taken at my Grammy's house in October of 1968. That is my sister I am sitting with. I think this was the last time we actually smiled at each other.... or maybe I am smiling because I had gas...... :)

I guess you are only as old as you feel, and today I sure don't feel like I turned 40....

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

Enjoy,

Jack

ROAD KILL RACCOON

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Back in November 2007, I was contacted by an old friend/client to come up with a design for a new line of pet toys he was considering manufacturing. There were a number of animals that they were interested in making, but it was decided that the Raccoon image would be the best animal to sell into the investors.

I was very excited to work on this project since this is definitely the type of drawing that is perfect for me to do. After penciling a few rough ideas, I decided to do one sketch comprising all of the different options that this toy would have.

I really hoped that this pet toy line would have been realized. Unfortunately, the investors weren't very keen on the idea of a line of "Road Kill" pet toys and the idea ended there.

Enjoy,

Jack

Coors Surfboard

Art Director's comp:


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Final illustration:


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A few months back I illustrated this image for the Coors surfboard promotion. This illustration was a little easier than some of the other illustrations I have done in the past. All of the work putting together the concept, sketches, and style guides were all ready decided upon before I was hired to illustrate. This makes it easier for me since I do not have to do all of the grunt work before I am able to start on the illustration. My Art Director did an excellent job pulling this together and selling this visual to the client.

This illustration has a little bit of traditional drawing and computer. This file ended up being quite large with a whole lot of layers.

I am pretty happy with the final look of this illustration. I think it does a pretty good job bringing to life what had been sold to the client.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see one of these boards in person........

Enjoy,

Jack

Retouched

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During the downtime between all of the creative projects I am working on, I still make a strong effort to practice and expand my artistic skills. I have really been interested in image manipulation lately. I am always looking for good images to practice on. I like this type of work since there is no deadline and it helps me get better with my everyday work.

The image above is a random image I found on the internet and I thought it would be a good exercise in photo restoration. I really enjoyed the challenges this photo presented to me. After a couple hours of work, I think that I have taken the image as far as I could without losing the "look and feel" of the original photograph.

Enjoy,

Jack

Friday Morning Scribble........

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I haven't had a chance to post anything interesting lately due to my heavy workload and my lack of inspiration. Lately, I have been exhausting all of my creative juices on my projects at work and it has really been taking a toll on my personal work.

My regular morning ritual is to make coffee, listen to news radio over the internet and check all of my favorite blogs and news websites. I then try and do a couple of warm up drawings to prepare me for my day...... since I have been feeling so uninspired artwise lately, I have been having trouble with the warm up drawings, so I have been forcing myself to sketch wherever and whenever I can.

Today's scribble was drawn on the glass surface of my computer desk. Nothing that impressive, but it was a small step towards chipping away at that huge wall that has been blocking my creativity.

Enjoy,

Jack

Thursday Afternoon Sketch

GARASTIMPY
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I have been working really hard on a couple of different photo retouch assignments and I decided I needed to take a break and this drawing was the result of my time well spent.

So, since I seem to be only working in photoshop as of late, and not doing much traditional drawing. I have been trying to sketch as much as possible so my drawing skills do not become rusty.

The sketch above was inspired by the Japanese Ultraman character "Garamon", and the wonderful Spumco character, "Stimpy". I have been revisiting all of those old Ren and Stimpy cartoons that I enjoyed so much while I was in college. It is amazing that they still inspire me today just as much as they did way back then.

If you are at all interested in Garamon, please check out Michael Nordstom's blog Garamania!.
It is a great source of well researched info and pictures for all things Garamon.

Joy,

Jack

Monday Morning Pickled Sketch

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Today's meeting was something about new procedures, iChat, and we have a lot of work so everyone needs to put forth 110%......


.......... the really important thing I got out of today's meeting was this sketch.

Enjoy,

Jack

Friday Afternoon Pickled Sketch

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I had another informative meeting today..........

.......... this sketch was the result of all of that information.

Jack

Friday Morning Pickled Sketch

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I sketched during today's morning meeting....... I drew a couple of shapes and the drawing evolved from there.

Enjoy,

Jack

Inquest Magazine illustrations

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I was cleaning out some old files today and stumbled upon these four illustrations. These were done for Inquest gaming magazine for a feature called "What If? Far Side of Magic" back in 2002. Basically I was asked to illustrate the Inquest staff's ideas for their own Magic the Gathering gaming cards. The image above has the original rough sketches that I sent in for approval on the left, on the right you will see I had to make a few changes for the final illustrations.

Here is a list of the descriptions I was given when I was asked to do the illustrations:

1. There’s a card called Thriss, Nantuko Primus (I’ll send it to you). This is a powerful praying mantiss type creature. We’re turning it into: Priss, Nantuko Crossdresser. Illo has a Thriss-like creature wearing pink ballerina dress, lipstick, a purse etc... looking very feminine.

2. There’s a card called Border Patrol (I could send it but it’s not a
useful reference). We’re turning it into: Mexican Border Patrol. Illo has
two guys in sombreros sleeping next to a fence, wall or gate of some kind. A huge dragon is walking right by.

3. There are several cards depicting a class of creatures called Treefolk. They’re big humanoid trees (I have a great reference I can send). Our card is Inbred Treefolk. Illo has two of these tree creatures wearing ratty overalls, buck teeth, one has a banjo, etc… Basically treefolk meets hillbillies.

4. There’s a card called Nantuko Monastery. Our take on it is called Nantuko Mensroom. Illo is of three bathroom stalls with only the feet of the creatures visible. One set of feet belongs to an elephant, one to a skeleton and one to a Cephalid (I’ll send a reference but basically a four-tentacled squid). There’s some graffiti on the outside of the stalls but on the door of the middle stall there’s a big red circle with a line through the middle (the international road symbol for prohibited) with the word Spelljacking in the middle.

These illustrations were really fun for me to do. Since I have never really been much of a painter, I decided that I would do very tight pencil renderings of the images and then simulate a "painted" look by coloring them in Photoshop. I think that the look and feel of these illustrations came out very unique and was able to pass as an actual illustration used for these gaming cards.

Unfortunately, this ended up being one of the last jobs I did for Wizard Magazine (and their sister publications), before I moved on to pursue my short career in Law Enforcement full time.

Enjoy,

Jack

Monday Morning Pickled Sketch

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While cleaning up my studio this morning and dealing with the pain from my sinus surgery that I had on Friday, I came across my Father's Senior High School photo and thought that I would sit down and see if I could draw a decent likeness of him...... It has always been a real challenge for me to capture a likeness and draw a decent portrait. It is even harder for me when I know the person and I am trying to capture a likeness that does the person justice and does not offend them. I always put too much pressure on myself when drawing people that I know and love. That pressure takes all of the fun out of drawing portraits and because of that I do not draw them very often.
Recently, I have decided to make a conscious effort to draw more portraits and not worry about who I am drawing and just focus on the basic fundamentals of structure and form when I am drawing a portrait. If the basic fundamentals are there, a likeness should not be hard to achieve.
This drawing of my Father represents my first step in this direction.... Although I did not capture a dead on likeness, it was good practice and can only lead towards getting better. I am planning on updating the blog on my progress as I attempt to do more portrait drawing in the future.

Enjoy,

Jack

Pickle Flavored Slurpee

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The Dallas division of the company I work for was having a submission contest for some really cool prizes over at the Slurpee website. They were about to launch phase 2 of the new and improved Slurpee web site and needed new content. So they put out a company wide call for creatives to contribute content to the site so that it did not look bare.
There were all kind of categories you could contribute to such as: "The Spoon Straw", "Brain Freeze", "Slurpee Drinking", "Slurpee and Granny", "Your Special Mix", etc........ The entries could be anything from photos, video and even poetry.


I contributed the lovely drawing above to the "Suggest a Flava" category. I of course had to suggest a "Pickle" flavor.

Enjoy,

Jack

Monday Morning Pickled Sketch

I got the urge to sketch during today's morning meeting, so I drew this..... I just penciled some random circles and then started cross hatching. I was not really sure what I was drawing.........


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...... then I added some color..........


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Enjoy,

Jack

WOLVERINE ON THE CRAPPER

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Here are the original pencil and ink drawings of Wolverine on the Crapper I created for Wizard Magazine. I really haven't thought about this version of the drawing for quite a long time, I really wasn't sure if I had still kept this art in my archives. So, tonight I decided to do a little digging around in my art pile to see if I could find it. After about a half-an-hour of searching, I was able to find both the pencil drawing and the ink drawing......

When I drew this version of Wolverine, I was so sure that Wizard was going to use it, I went from pencils to inks and then to color without getting editorial approval. To my amazement, Wizard wanted something completely different, a more calm, exhausted and worn out from taking a dump Wolverine..... I was a little disappointed that they did not want to use this version because I thought this version had a little more humor and action in it.... reluctantly, I went back to the drawing board and came up with the version you see in the "Wizard Magazine #200" post below.

Enjoy,

Jack

Great Review on Scud the Disposable Assassin #23

Another great review by Michael Goldberg from "Criticize This". Michael always seems to give a well informed and educated opinion about what he reviews.

Enjoy,

Jack

Wizard Magazine #200

Many years ago..... about 1998 or 1999, I was hired to illustrate various comic illustrations for Wizard Magazine. I was usually called upon to illustrate the more "humorous" comic illustrations to run with their articles or features, I was also called upon to illustrate a lot of Pokemon characters (let me tell you, there were a lot of them) for their sister magazine "IN Power".

A couple of months ago, I was contacted and interviewed by Wizard Magazine for a feature they were going to be running in their 200th issue. This feature was about the best artwork they had ever commissioned for their magazine. I was honored to have three of my illustrations choosen for the feature. Below are the three images that they picked.
Also, pictured below is the Kevin Smith illustration with glasses that I had originally submitted first to Wizard. I thought that the image with the glasses captured the likeness more than without the glasses. But the editors at Wizard disagreed, and I was directed to remove the glasses for the article.

I have talked about the "Wolverine on the Crapper" and the "Bugs and Homer" boxing illustration in my past blog postings, so I won't go into detail about those here.....

I really miss doing those illustrations for Wizard Magazine, I had a great time drawing the popular characters in many odd and funny situations. I am also very proud of the fact that I am one of the few that has actually gotten paid for drawing Wolverine taking a shit.


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Enjoy,

Jack

Scud the Disposable Assassin #21 and #23

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Now appearing at a comic book store near you are issues #21 (2nd printing) and #23 of Scud the Disposable Assassin. I contributed the cover art for the 2nd printing of issue #21 and also contributed a pin-up for issue #23.

The black and white illustration was completed first. Rob Schrab asked if I would be interested in doing a pin-up for one of the new issues, and I was more than happy to provide an illustration. When I came up with the idea, I wanted to somehow create an image that incorporated the feeling I get from looking at all of the old "Ultraman" pictures and television episodes. I was also very aware of Rob's affection towards Ultraman and his favorites being the episodes that are dubbed. Taking all of that into consideration, I thought that I would do the illustration in sort of a movie-poster style using an iconic pose for Scud that was pure Ultraman and then working in my Cheerleader character that has been with Scud in all of the illustrations that I have done of him so far. I also asked my wife to translate things like "sureality just got funky", "Scud the Disposable Assassin" into Japanese. She said it would be difficult to get an exact translation, but she would give me something that would be very close to the same meaning.

About a month after I sent the image to Rob, he asked if I would be willing to create a color version that would be used for the cover of the 2nd printing of issue #21. I got to work, colorized the image and did some re-illustration on parts of the image. I also wanted to make sure that we kept all of the Japanese text on the image. I thought that it would be "authentic" to keep that kind of thing intact in the image.

So, after all of that work...... both of the images are still basically the same thing, the only differences are:
.....One illustration is in black and white and the other illustration is in color.
.....I changed the color illustration by replacing my "Cheerleader" girl character with Rob's character "Black Octopus". (The thought behind this was that would give the cover image more relevance to what was going on in the series.)
.....Adding the large Japanese version of the Scud logo behind Scud.

I had a lot of fun illustrating this. It suddenly hit me that it has been over 10 years since I was working in comics industry full time. Once I started working in advertising industry, I really haven't had the time to do comic work. It was really nice to do something like this again and the best part was getting to work with Rob again. As Rob said, "it was great to get the band back together".

Thanks again for the opportunity Rob!!!

Enjoy,

Jack

P.S. I just finished working with Rob doing the design for the Scud the Disposable Assassin Omnibus, "The Whole Shebang!". The book is going to be beautiful and I promise that you will not be disappointed. Make sure you buy both the softcover and hardcover versions that will be coming out in June 2008 (hopefully in time for the San Diego Comic Con) from Image comics. This is going to be one GIGANTIC book containing all 24 Scud issues, Drywall: Unzipped and Black Octopus: Sexy Genius.

Also, I have been fortunate to see the ending of the Scud series. I just have to say that Rob has written a wonderful ending that will definitely satisfy the most die-hard Scud fans. It will even tug at your heart strings while you are reading it. Definitely a great ending to a great series.