Final Bob Dylan for Minnesota Monthly!

Here's my final Dylan, was fun to work on, of course I had to listen to some Dylan while working on it, never hurts, only inspires! While working on my Harpo piece, I had Marx Brother movies playing on my I-Mac . . . good times!

Almost there Bobby!

Bobby Dylan

Started working on a new illustration of Bob Dylan for Minnesota Monthly, a piece for his 66th birthday. This is a w.i.p. only a sneak peak, I'll post final piece soon!

Sometimes I preform Cosmetic Surgery

Well, I thought I was finished with it? Turns out that the art director loved what I had done but when the editor saw it there was panic in the press room! I guess they were worried that Mr. Royce would be offended, so this piece is more of a distortion or a denial of the truth. Had to put in a few more hours but now everyone is happy . . . I hope.

Cover for the Dallas Observer!

Started yesterday, finished this afternoon. This was fun to do, didn't have much time on this one so I decided to give a more painterly loose look to the painting. The subject is Senator Royce West of Dallas.

Harpo's Play Things!

This is a new Harpo that I just did for a book called "The Film Art of the Marx Brothers" by William Woollcott Marx and Daniel Kinske, LCDR., U.S.N. The book is a tentative 80th anniversary celebration of their first film, The Cocoanuts (1929) and will be out in stores in 2009. Should be a fun book, there will be a lot of great art featured in the book by great artists, like Al Hirschfeld, Mark Fredrickson, Drew Struzan, Jack Davis, Hermann Mejia, Mort Drucker, Drew Friedman, Richard Williams and many, many more! I'm very honored to be a part of it.

There still may be some slight changes made to this piece but for now this is what I have.

Bush is Number One!

I guess every week the top 3 Village Voice covers are critiqued, and this week I have the honor of having the #1 cover. (out of the 13 papers).

Cover for Reform Judaism

Most of the jobs I do are people so this was a fun challenge. When I started sketching out ideas, I immediately saw a dramatic lighting and emotion playing out in my head . . . so the challenge for me was to try and get that to come out the way I invisioned. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, my favorite part is the sky, to me there's a sense of peace even though what's going on below is mayhem.

Ka BOOM!

This an illustration I did for Reform Judaism a month or so ago, finally published so I can share it now!

Final cover for the Kansas City Pitch!

Here's the final cover as well as a small version with the paper's logo to give you all an idea of how it might print. The space on the lower right was left for text. I'd like to thank my pals Tom Fluharty and Chris Wahl for their helpful critiques while working on this piece!

In preparation for the final!

For this illustration I actually pieced it together sketch by sketch. I did some other small thumbnails to work out the kinks, and then went on from there. After I was settled with my likeness I did a quick mock in photoshop, I took my Bush sketch and quickly drew up an idea for my composition . . . you can tell from this small mock that it took me about 60 seconds to do. It doesn't need to be perfection, just throw some ideas down and see what happens . . . I like to work fast and get my first ideas out while they're still fresh . . . then if I like it I refine it and work it more. No sense wasting time in this stage.

Once I like the basic idea of it then I shoot photo reference for accuracy in folds and anatomy, lighting etc . . .

I knew I was going to paint this in photoshop, so I sketched the hands seperately as well as Bush's body . . . I then pieced everything together in photoshop and moved it around until I was happy with it. Then I flattened the image and began painting.

CRACKED magazine is DEAD!

I did this Paula Abdul for Cracked two months ago, I've been waiting and waiting for my check, finally I get an email from Cracked saying they're no longer doing the magazine . . .

From the Staff of Cracked . . .

"Cracked Magazine is gone as of Issue #3.

Unfortunately, distribution issues and the publishing industry as a whole made publishing a bi-monthly comedy magazine unviable. Will we revisit it in the future? Ya never know. But for now, no more Cracked magazine.

What does this mean for you? Any outstanding payment for Issue #3, which did see print, will be paid in full and should be mailed off to you shortly. Any work done for Issue #4 or #5, which will not be seeing print, will be paid a standard 20% kill fee, which is outlined in your contract. This, too, will be mailed off to you shortly. We apologize for the delay, and hope you can understand our difficulties under the circumstances."

So I only get 20% for my work on Paula . . . PEANUTS! Well, I won't be working for Cracked again, I'll just consider this a learning experience!