I loved Grimm's Ghost Stories as a kid...

...so a while ago, when I was trying my hand at sculpting mini-busts out of Super Sculpey, I decided to create a tribute to that comic book's hostess, the old spooky witch hag Grimm.  I am happy with the finished result, and it still remains one of my favorite pieces.

Autobots hit the beach!!!

So, here are some drawings I came across tonight while reorganizing some old sketchpads and drawing books.  Some years back, a very good friend approached me to come up with some designs for her sand sculpting team, the Sandformers.  I believe the top illustration was the one they ended up using.  It certainly is the most polished, although I still find the one on the bottom a bit "cheeky".  Anyway, I always enjoy rediscovering old forgotten drawings, especially ones I don't hate.

3 Eye mask lives!

Here's a drawing I did the other night based off a mask hanging on my workspace wall.  It was originally done in color, but when I scanned it in grayscale, I liked it much better.  Huh.  Anyway, I like this guy quite a bit, so he just may end up in a comic or two.

Getting closer...

I am much happier with this blend of ink and pencil.  It certainly has much more "personality" than the first pencil study.

Loosening up with caricature studies

So, I am currently working on some t-shirt designs for a Star Wars themed contest, and decided to start with one of my favorite characters to draw, as well as one of my favorite characters, period:  Grand Moff Tarkin, as portrayed by the late, great Peter Cushing.  His is such a striking face with such heavy definitions and almost exaggerated features, it begs to be drawn.  The drawing on the bottom was my first attempt, really done to block out the features and learn their relations to each other.  Drawing the top one, I felt a little looser with the lines and think it is a much smoother piece overall.  I love doing multiple studies of the same subject like this to really work on freeing up my hand and becoming looser, and at the same time, more sure of my pencil strokes.  I hope to have some more Tarkin studies or even a finished ink drawing to post soon.

Fun with foam core!

These are two window displays I created for Big Brain Comics here in Minneapolis back in the early 2000's.  The top one was made to promote the comic Ghost World when the movie of the same name was released. The one below was for a Japanese horror comic called Uzumaki.  Back when Big Brain Comics was first located on 10th Street next to Let It Be Records and across from Schmidt Music, the store front had a nice sizable window which had a great 3 piece removable backdrop.  Over the years, I created many displays for the window, and learned a lot about designing and planning projects like these.  I actually made a scale model of the window stage space when planning the Uzumaki window display, which helped immensely when staging the separate pieces of foam core that made up the giant spiral.  That level of detail was one of the main reasons that display, which was the last one made for the store before it moved to its current location down by the new Guthrie Theater, was the most successful one I made.  It's always very satisfying to look at photos of all the displays and see the progress and improvement made, from one to the next, and actually see a visual record of techniques learned and improved upon.  That said, I doubt I will be sharing photos of the early displays any time soon.  They're still a bit embarrassing to look at...

Hey Brandine, I done brung back some critters for supper.

It just seems like a natural crossover to me.

Hey! Ho! I got a new Ramones comic!

So, here are the first few pages of a new mini-comic I am working on all about my never-ending love of the Ramones.  I had been wanting to get back into doing comics, and realized that writing and drawing an autobiographical story about growing up listening to the Ramones would be an easy way to jump back into it.  Anyone who creates, whether that means writing, drawing, painting, etc, knows just how intimidating that first blank page or canvas can be.  And I can ALWAYS talk about the Ramones, so it just seemed natural to start there.  So, I hope you dig this intro into what I hope becomes a multi-issue series.  I even have plans to follow this with more "I F'n Love..." comics, the next of which will most likely cover my undying love for a certain Space Opera movie series...