Remains To Be Seen

Once again it's been a busy month and, while the client jobs seem to have slowed down a bit, there are always plenty of projects that don't pay me anything that keep me sometimes busier than I'd like to be.

One of the things I finally wrapped up this weekend is putting to bed my friend Lou's newest album. We've been getting together every Saturday afternoon for months, playing around and putting together songs and, finally, we have a finished product to show for it.

I'm really proud of the way this album turned out and the recording techniques and sounds I was able to get out of my new home studio sometimes amazed me. I think I might be getting pretty good at this whole recording, engineering, mixing, producing thing. And, while it did drive me nuts sometimes I think the album turned out great.

You can see the album art and listen to sample clips of the songs below. And, if you like what you here, head on over to CDBaby.com and throw a few shekels Lou's way.

Enjoy the fun and enjoy the music! See you all soon!

The Deep Desert Survival Suit

I did this piece in late December and, if you checked in here at all during my hiatus, you might have seen I used this piece for the blog's header in January.

In the next issue of OilCan Drive I want to have some sort of really heavy duty suit for the military to wear while they are out on long range recon patrols in the middle of the desert. I pictured it as part robotic exoskeleton and part deep sea diving suit while still keeping elements of the soldier's uniforms I've already introduced in the world of OCD.

I think it turned out pretty well and, as well as looking like something that could survive a bomb being dropped on it, it also looks like something that could go toe to toe with a certain giant bass playing ape that the military might come across while hunting the band. I think I'll call this design a success!

And, while I really love doing the week to week narrative pages for the OilCan Drive website and books I really missed doing these kind of single illustrations. I'll have to find some more time between doing the book, doing the client work, recording music, and trying to continue to breath in and out to do some more pieces like this.

Hmmm....I wonder what the indigenous people of the desert wasteland might look like? I'll have to break out Mad Max for inspiration and see what comes out of my pencil. Sketches may be coming soon! Ha ha!

Undiscovered!

It's been a long day doing work, recording music, and finally ending the night by getting the next page for OilCan Drive ready to drop on Friday. But, I wanted to get a quick post out before I crashed for the night.

Finally, after weeks of sitting on the footage we shot last fall, I got around to editing together Lou's video for his song, "Undiscovered." And, I have to say, for my official directorial debut, it didn't turn out too bad. All the things I wanted to try out for this video worked out pretty well. I wanted to see if I could synch up Lou's performance in the video with the pre-recorded song and, if that wasn't hard enough, film him at different speeds and then speed up or slow down the footage to match the song. It's cool to see the things I thought would work actually seemed to pan out.

Of course, there are a few glitches I can see here and there but those are things I can address in the next video we shoot. Oh, and did I mention I have a friend who liked this video so much she wants to be in the next one, have us shoot at a friend's ranch out in the flat lands of Colorado, and has offered to lend us a horse for Lou to ride on as he sings? I have no idea if any of that will pan out but the thought of filming Lou riding a horse as he tries to save the damsel in distress makes me smile.

Okay, I am off to crash. I hope you enjoy the video. Rock on!

Happy February!

Alright! I've put this off long enough. I've been away from the blogger world for far too long and it's about time I got it all started again. I figured the start of the month with a new header would be a perfect a time to start writing again so here we go!

These last few months have flown by and I've spent a lot of my time trying to get the latest issue of OilCan Drive done. I've been pretty good about getting the weekly pages up since I got back from my trip to Maine in October. And now I've almost even gotten a little bit ahead. The penciled art for the newest issue are all done and I have two more pages to ink until the bulk of the work is complete. I'm shooting to get the whole book done and laid out and to the printer by the end of the month for the upcoming convention season. I think I am on track to get that done but we'll see what happens.

I've also been making more music with Lou. Each Saturday we get together and spend the day working on songs. We've come up with some really neat stuff and I'll be sure to show some of that off in the coming days. I've even gotten into video production using Lou as my guinea pig. We shot a video last fall and I finally found the time to edit it all together. So I am now an official director! Ha ha. I'll have to add that to my resume.

And, as always I've been doing what client work I can. It's been a little slow these past few months so I am always thankful to keep doing my monthly gig with the great folks at Sports Illustrated Kids. I know I am WAY behind in showing off that work so it's something I'll get to in future posts as well. But this month's blog header is a newer piece I did for them and I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Plus, doing comic pages has been taking up a lot of my time and I haven't been able to do any fun single illustrations for myself lately. Hopefully once I get this book done I can get to some new painted pieces. My fingers are crossed.

Okay, that wasn't too painful. The first blog post back after a long hiatus is always the worst so hopefully it gets easier from here.

Happy February everyone! I'll talk to you soon!