I'm not sure what _____.

I am finding I am having trouble balancing having art on Instagram, here, and facebook ... its hard, I loose track of at least one all the time and practically let it die.  If I can't learn to be better at balancing three diffrent cared about things I better make sure to never have more than two kids.  I need to find some sort of progression grove where each thing has its proper place.  After I figure that out I need to start twittering.  Then youtubeing. Then something else which I am sure we be invented before I get that far.  

Before all that happens, here is a thing for your eyes to see.

SPACE PEOPLES.

Half Life

In the spirit of Halloween .. and awesomeness .. I give you some head-crab zombie decapitation.

I can't believe how long it's been ...

... Months at least since my last baked potato.

Also, it has been a while since I posted here, I guess.

Here is my newest finished something ... in sadly low res ... oops. I'll have to fix that later.

Mario! ... man, I miss Bob Hoskins.

Luigi! My personal favorite Marioite.

Princess Peach! Looking kinda gold-diggery ... an odd thing for a princess.

Princess Daisy! Does she really have a third eye on the back of here head or was my old room mate just joshin' me?

Toad! So ugly he's cute! ... right?

Waluigi! Ever rocking the bell bottoms.

Wario! In a possible ninja pose, inexplicably.

Yoshi! A unisex dino with a long tongue that has a thing for a thing named "Birdo". Odd.

The last of the single Shel-ites

Here are the last three Shel Silverstein monsters that stand alone. There are still three more images to come to finish my collection honoring his collection but they will be large groups and will stand out from all that has come before.

The Wild Cherote!

I stayed pretty close to the source image with this one, just thickened the legs and exaggerated the face colors.

The Friendly Old Sleepy-Eyed Skurk!

He is in dire need of chapstick.

The Squishy Squashy Staggitall!

The most ferocious monster of them all! 

Now Mario wont be bro-less. 

And this finishes the Phase One Avengers! And lets not forget my random inclusion of Dr. No!

MANN MADE

I made a thing.

Guardians of the Galaxy - 2 of 5 and more!

Here are some more of my Digital Sketchbook pages where I figured out the line work for some vector images! I had a lot of fun doing Drax, Hawkeye, the Hulk, and Mario!

Drax was intrasting to do because in the new Guardians of the Galaxy film his red markings are strange and complex and would be too time-intensive and detailed to properly render on a cartoon of this caliber, thus I had to find a level of simplification I liked for the set.

Looking at this a couple hours later I can see I accidentally deformed the Black Widows legs ... oops.

I just love this page. <3

Guardians of the Galaxy - 3 of 5

Here are a couple of my Digital Sketchbook pages where I figured out the line art for my vector Guardians of the Galaxy images that I am currently about halfway through!

Peter Quill (a.k.a. Star Lord) and Rocket Raccoon

I AM GROOT!

Three and Three

The first three - three of my Digital Sketchbook pages.

Everybody's favorite flux-capacitor inventing time traveler!

I mostly did this page as a contrast to my Ron Swanson pages as Christopher Lloyd and Nick Offerman have such a difference between their faces and expressions. I found the switch difficult and the likeness above to be a little lacking.

Page 3 of Swansons.  The top two turned out rather well I think! The other two ... hey, what's that behind you?!?

nothing? oh, well. Where was I? ah, Princess Leia!

I decided late last night I wanted to do something for yesterday's Sketch Dailies ( #PrincessLeia ) and this was all I had time / awake-ness / willingness to do. I like the top right face ... I want to do something more with it but have no idea what.

Next up the Shel Silverstein monsters! I am nearing the end of these ...

The Zumbies!

This is another one with an appearance I almost completely made up .. I like it.

The Gumplegutch!

Meh ...

The Flying Festoon!

... and the award for being my least favorite drawing in the collection goes to ...

Machismo

I think, on a whole, this batch of Ron Swanson / Nick Offerman turned out better than the last.

The Gink!

Triangle-eyed cyclops are all the rage these days

2,000 + page views!

... I am not sure if it is impressive or if it sad ... but it is, and that's what matters, right?

Here is another quick doodle I did from Mark Kistler's draw squad book. It is from he second lesson about surfaces. Really, his books and video lessons are a must for pre-teen artists in training!

The Gleeech!

Another monster unseen in Shel Silverstein's and thus whose appearance I made up.

The Feather-Breasted Greel!

Oddly, the original did not look very feather-breasted ...

The Skinny Zippity!

I made his legs less skinny, so he may need to loose the descriptor.

This, like Jerry the Fairy from an early post, is my quick representation of my buddy Richard's bed time story character he tells his daughter. I think of him as a mobster finger ... who murders tyrannosauruses in the night ... while listing to Gregorian humming involving off-key minor sevenths ... but that may or may not be an unofficial sequel to the original bedtime story.

Ron *expletive* Swanson

I watched all but the last season of Parks and Recreation over the summer ... and Ron Swanson has been added to my hero list. I may expand that to being all of Nick Offerman (the actor who portrays Ron Swanson).

The Furless Flatchim!

A contrary beasty

The Gru!

Don't pooh-pooh the Gru

The Bold-Top Droan!

Lick not

Tribute x4 (a.k.a. my artiest and wordiest blog post of yet had times)

I have been trying to grow in a few different directions lately ... as well as have fun.

To do this I decided it would be good for me to find a few different artists to emulate.

This is something I hope I always have time to do.

I have for your viewing pleasure my recent accomplishments along this line.

In this post you will find my work as I emulate, copy, redo, and hopefully pay well-received tribute to four other artists.

Each of these persons had been chosen for a different reason though each in an attempt for myself to grow as an artist.

Person #1 - Shel Silverstein

I have chosen to re-draw the painted monsters from Shel's Dont Bump the Glump book (his first published collection of poems in fact). If you have seen my blog lately this should not come as a surprise to you. Perhaps he is not largely known for being a visual artist per-say BUT ... there are paintings in the book! Buy the book, read the poems. They are like good things ... in that they are awesome.

I chose this little project for three primary reasons.

1) I am a fan of doing drawings in a large set but usually take on projects far to vast for me to finish - this was an opportunity for me to not fail on that front.

2) My wife bought me the book at the start of our wondrous marriage. Thus I own it. Thus the research required by this project is minimal and easy.

3) An excuse to draw monsters!

and without further adieu ...

The Gursdee!

Its like a bird with like a language and stuff.

The Lop-Eared Panda!

Now in red! (arms not included)

The One-Legged Zantz!

Can't dance, CAN prance!

Person #2 - Zach Heckert

Zach goes to school with me. He draws stuff (often involving horns, bullets, crooked teeth, and awesome) and says high to me in hallways. Also, his hair does this cool poof thing in front. The drawings that follow are fan art of the art that he posts on his blog - Mind Dump.

The reasons I am posting this tribute to Zach are ...

1) He is honestly the one who motivated me to really get crackling on this blog in the first place

2) He is the only one who ever comments on this blog ... so far.

*Fingers crossed for a someday larger friend AND fan-base*

3) He draws demons, sharpshooters, and laser-horses, who wouldn't want a piece of that action?

4) I think he is a right righteous dude.

and without further further adieu ...

Please see, stare in wonder, and be inspired to donate money here ... and here.

and here ... and here.

Person #3 - Jason Bowen

Honestly I am not sure how famous this guy is. He is an oil painter in the vein of Bob Ross and he lives inside of YouTube. It is a Tron thing I am pretty sure. Anyways, seeing as how I want to be better at painting (albeit digital not oil) and I can actually almost keep up with this guy AND he is kinda funny AND he has pretty hair ... I decided to follow along with a few webisodes!

I have no idea if that is the right term or not.

The reasons I am ... hmm, actually I already told you. Nevermind. Though I will say I spent less than 45 min on each of these ... which compared to my earlier digital painting class is no time at all.

and without further further further adieu ...

So I posted this once before and this has only minimal updates.

The full length original video is found somewhere in this sentence.

I did it again ... this time without the fun added fantasy bit. why? I dunno.

Click on this to see it as a good painting!

This looks SO MUCH EASIER WITH A PALETTE KNIFE!!!

Proven here.

J.K. its here.

Person #4 - Mark Kistler 

He is my earliest remembered art hero and inspiration. His drawings are simple, cartoony, and fun.

They build joy and encouragement in children and his 12 main rules of drawing are the best art lessons I have had until my second year of collage. This is his page, markkistler.com. The following drawings are silly little things based on the first lesson in his book Draw Squad.

The reasons I am drawing from this book are ...

1) Mark Kistler is my #1 art hero

2) I like nostalgia (sp?)... and pistachio pudding 

3) I have owned four of his eight books and I think of them this is the oldest. I love it.

4) If I dont make use of my book my WIfe threatened to loan it out ... and I am sentimental ... about everything.

and without furthest adieu ...

LESSON 1! FORESHORTENING!

I messed up a bit ... but this was just a few minute warm up, not a series ... thing ... like a walrus.

CONTEST 1! TERMITE OPERA!

A title I don't understand, but fun-ness I do!

THE END

or is it?

3

This is an example of another very random post. I dont apologize

I found an oil painter who lives in Youtube named Jason Bowen (while I was listning to the Bob Ross remix song) and desided to paint along digitally as he did his thing. This is how far I got durring the episode ... not the best but not tooooo discouraging ... anyways, I might work on this more and do that again. It was fun.

Find the vide here

This is dedicated to Richard and Liberty ... may story time always be epic.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY!