SHE-SPARTAN INKS!!

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Finished inking both my Tata Gala submissions. Had to scan them in sections, so I've only got one assembled and cleaned up so far. Took some progress pictures along the way, so I thought I'd share them too. Inked almost entirely with brush. I really like the way this one turned out -- now I just have to figure out what to do with colors...

Beast du Jour #10: "Schmezz"

This guy.. what do I say about Schmezz? I don't know if I care for this guy. I don't trust him. Seems too needy. And those EYES! Gah! And what kind of a fellow wears socks when he doesn't even have FEET!?

Yeah, I fixed her face...

Wasn't happy with the face on one of my SHE-SPARTAN drawings, so I fixed it. See?

GLASS BAST'RD makes EMPTEES "Tee of the Day"!

Hooray! Good ol' GLASS BASTR'D garnered enough votes over at EMPTEES that it made "Tee of the Day"!! Thanks so much to everybody who gave it some love!

Give me your love at EMPTEES!

Folks, if you really care about BeastPop and the 16 Vietnamese orphans that BeastPop has committed to raising on his own, please head on over to EMPTEES.COM and give my two new shirt designs some love. I've recently posted GLASS BAST'RD and PAKKU-MAN (or Pac-Samurai) and they are being received rather well, so help me boost their popularity even higher by signing in and lovin' the heck out of them!

Thanks so much -- just follow the links above and spread the love!

Beast du Jour #9: "The Wailing Wronk"

During drawing time with my daughter tonight, The Wailing Wronk came to me, as if in a dream. All I could see was his gaping maw lined with shoepeg teeth and those horrible pop-eyes as his wailing drowned out all sound. Wronks are not satisfied with ANYTHING in life! They constantly find fault with everything that crosses their path, no matter how seemingly pleasant or perfect. Nothing brings them satisfaction and it is physically impossible for them to be content.... or is it? Do they willingly choose such an uncomfortable and insufferable lifestyle? Would anyone? Some say "yes". Of course, as ugly as they are, no one really bothers to address their complaints, out of disgust and a clawing desire to get far out of range of their chilling wails.

TATA GALA SUBMISSION PART 2: A PREVIEW!

Finished pencils for my second submission to the annual TATA GALA breast cancer research benefit show.
Another reworking of one of my skateboard designs.
Compare and contrast below... she's got legs this time... and a SWORD!

TATA GALA pencils exposed!

Some of you might recognise this pose from one of my skateboard designs. I was going to attempt to submit an entry to this years TATA GALA show (an art show held to benefit breast cancer research spearheaded by one of my art skool pals, the super-talented Erik Jones), and I thought my She Spartan designs would be a perfect fit. The problem was I (of course) wasn't 100% satisfied with the original designs as they were done during a very stressful period and under a bit of a rush. As they could do with a polishing up, I decided to rework them and really make them shine. Anyway, this is the final pencil drawing for the first piece and I have no idea what sort of color treatment I'm going to give it. I'd like to try something different and painterly, but the Oct. 1st deadline is looming fairly menacingly on the horizon, so I'm thinking I should just stick with what I'm comfortable with. More to come.

Oh, and I've included the original piece, just for comparison's sake.

Beast du Jour #8: "The Tufted Knubbender"

What a goofy lookin' mug on this guy! Sheesh! Despite their friendly, sappy looking faces and slight resemblance to those cool Landstriders in DARK CRYSTAL, Tufted Knubbenders do not like to be ridden! It hurts their backs, and the only real place to grip them is their ears or their back hair, neither of which gives them a pleasant sensation. They're pretty tall, too, so it'd be a heck of a fall when they shrug you off with a grunt and a huff. Their bad habits include gorging on butter and smoking cigars -- both of which are hard to come by for them.

PAC-SAMURAI RETURNS! Now safe for screenprinting!

Hi, beasties! Been wanting to rejigger my old PAC-SAMURAI piece into a more polished and screenprinting-friendly design for a while now, and I finally made that happen.

Don't know whether I like it better on yellow or blue (or maybe both), so weigh in on your favorite. 6-color design.

For the link to the original PAC-SAMURAI illustration and blog post, just click here. The original piece was featured in the SPECTRUM annual to my pleasant surprise, and turned a lot of attention my way.

I'll be submitting this to TEEFURY asap and it will hopefully see print soon. And, as always, the BPAW watermark will not be featured on the final product.

GLASS BAST'RD! Now with 100% less text!

Had a request to see the GLASS BAST'RD images sans logos, so here they are! Also wanted to show shirt placement mock-ups. Drink up! Also, see if you can spot the "missing tooth" variant!

Beast du Jour #7: "Floppo"

Been a while since I've had time to do a Beast of the Day, but we're back with a rather... hmmm... interesting fellow. Floppo really really likes pie. If you have pie, he's your best friend... or at least he'll follow you around pestering you until he's exhausted every remote shred of possibility that you are in possession of any amount of pie or knowledge of where he might find some pie. If you don't have pie or know the whereabouts of any... well, he can still be pretty nice. He's just that kind of guy.

If you'll excuse me now, I'm really in the mood for some pie.

GLASS BAST'RD Flavors!

Finally finished coloring the GLASS BAST'RD design. This is a riff on the evils of a giant pitcher of sugary beverage destroying childrens' houses just to quench their thirst! Some of you who might recognize the phrase "Glass Bastard" from Dane Cook's bit about Kool-Aid Man. I know it's somewhat uncool in some circles to enjoy anything to do with Dane Cook, but I couldn't care less about such "rules of cool". I certainly am not a fan of everything the man does, but he has made me laugh quite a bit, so shun me if you must, Snobarella!

We've got three flavors of shirt to choose from here: Blue Raspberry, Lemonade, and ... uh... Gray. Hmm. Oh well. I will be trying to get this printed through various outlets in the very near future, so stay tuned for more details. Anyone who would be interested in buying one of these, just cast your vote for which color you'd like to see, and I'll try to contact you directly when they are nearing the printing phase.

ZOMBAMA RETURNS FROM THE GRAVE!!

A year and a half or so ago, I did a design parodying Shepard Fairey's Obama "Hope" poster and his "style" of art recycling. The result was Zombie Obama, more affectionately known as "Zombama", and he became quite popular, making the rounds of various websites, blogs and news sites, becoming TeeFury's most popular selling design at the time, and spawning two more rounds of shirt reprints, which I still get requests for to this day. He also became heavily bootlegged, being ripped off and sold by street vendors in New York City, shirt manufacturers in the Phillipines, graphic "artists", and comic book companies.

I was recently contacted by TeeFury concerning the possibility of doing a reprint of this shirt, and I had to jump at the opportunity. I still get a steady trickle of emails from folks asking about how to get a hold of this shirt, so now's your chance! Well, not NOW, but soon...

I figured I should tweak the design a bit since I usually see room for improvement the day after I'm done with a design. This would give the folks who did get a hold of the shirt the first couple times around a sense that they got something limited and rare, plus added incentive to buy it again, too! Genius! So, I further decayed his face and added some weathering effects to the design to bolster that grungy, undead feel.

Anyway, this should be available for sale over at TeeFury soon. I will post another update as soon as I know something more concrete.

BeastPop Gorilla Icons!

Everybody knows that gorillas hold a special place in my heart (right below the left ventricle), so when it came time to designate a master mascot for BeastPop ArtWorks, the choice was obvious. I'll be introducing some different beast mascots in the near future, but for now I've got this set of sassy gorillas to kick things off. I initially posted my set of banners that I'm using for this blog, but I just realized I neglected to post decent images of just the mascot icons, so here they are in all their hairy glory (sounds like the name of a hirsuite stripper)!

Beast du Jour #6: "Krakkitt"

This is a half-finished beast cuz I realized I wasn't going to be able to fit him on the page properly. Poor planning. Anyway, he's Krakkitt and he's obviously mantis-inspired. Poor fellow lost one of his "hands" in a brawl (due to a misunderstanding over instructions given to a waiter on how to prepare his food at a very disreputable and seedy restaurant) and now he's forced to wear a much less intimidating hook hand prosthetic. His comrades give him a hard time about it, of course, which doesn't improve his disposition any.

She Spartan Skateboards by the Seashore!

Hey, I finally fulfilled another component of my master plan and got some skateboard designs done. GREEK skateboards, at that! These designs were completed and produced a while ago, but I'd been saving up posting about them until I could get my rebranding taken care of. Now that BeastPop has been launched, I can share these with you.

These were done for Goodbie Skateboards over in Greece, and being 1/4 Greek myself, I jumped at the opportunity. I had a lot of fun with these, and I wish I'd had more time to work on them. The job was a bit rushed and I had a lot going on at the time, but I am definitely up for doing more of these, and I hope to have more time to devote to it next time around.



As you can see, the final color choices are very different from my original designs and the placement was adjusted as well. That's one of those things that is just out of the artist's hands once he turns in the artwork, and I can't fault them for changing their mind (I just wish I'd been able to be the one to make the changes, as the end result seems to have a few awkward choices in the coloring).





I'm not sure how well the company is doing right now, as the economy over in Greece seems to be in very dire straits, but I hope these designs did well for them. I don't believe they are available over here in the states, but you can check out Color Skates for more Greek skate goodness.



Anyway, I'm all aboard doing more skate deck designs, so if anybody out there works for such a company, or knows someone who does, please point them in my direction.

Beast Du Jour #5: "The Whistlin' Spoo"

Eh, it's definitely not one of my best efforts. For some reason, a whistling beast popped into my head, but there's not much interesting about this guy otherwise. Sorry folks. He seems nice, though.