WIFE IS GONE - BAD GUYS COVER

My wife has been gone for a week. She's visiting family in another state and won't be home for another nine days. 

I'm up late.  I miss her.

I'm bored. 

 Here's the cover for The Bad Guys #3 

 That is all.

Goodbye Sweet Andorian

Above are a bunch of sketches from a recent project. Shown are four different ways of interrupting a story about a kid and his yellow balloon. Some are better than others I think. Feel free to let me know which one you like (without knowing anything about the tone of the story...which I guess makes it a bit difficult).

I dragged my wife back to the theater last weekend to see the new "X-Files" flick. Overall I can't honestly call it a "bad" movie, because it was pretty decent for the most part. My only issue with it is that it came across like little more than any random episode I could have seen on television. Everything from the look, to the story just seemed a bit "ho-hum" for my taste.

Work on my children's novel, which I have finally decided is going to be called "Forts" is coming along nicely. My wife loves it so much that she insists I attempt to write at least two chapters a day because she wants to know what happens. Though I think her blind admiration of is a bit tainted by the fact that she's my wife, her level of excitement is actually helping me to maintain mine...which means I might actually FINISH this one!

Lastly a recently purchased Andorian Star Trek figure I bought in Vegas broke on me over the weekend. I was trying to pose him in positions he simply wasn't made to be posed in and paid the highest price possible for it.

I've started absent-mindedly chewing on his severed arm, which has helped me deal with loss somewhat.

Steve!

Some Monday Morning Dutch Soccer

Another Monday morning has arrived!

Actually, I guess I shouldn't have finished that sentence with an exclamation point. Maybe it should have read more like this:

Another Monday morning has arrived...ug.

Yep, that feels much more appropriate.

The above sketch features a few caricatures of Dutch soccer players. Do I know anything about Dutch soccer? No. Do I even know anything about the sport of soccer in general? Not really, no. We do what we can to get paid though.

I dragged my wife to the very first showing of "The Dark Knight" on Friday morning last week. It was at 9:00 in the morning, and I wanted to get there early so she had to get up and out of bed around 7:00 to go and see a movie she had no interest in seeing.

The woman really does love me.

She actually ended up liking it though, as did I, and my inner nerdiness was fulfilled for the day, so I suppose all is well that ends well.

Until this Friday that is...when I do the very same thing to her in order to see "The X-Files."

Steve~

Rough Character Sketch

Not much to report today. The wife is down and out with back problems again. Things have slowed down a tiny bit as far as work goes, which has allowed me time to get some of my personal projects started...that, and lay around lazily. Nothing really changes around here.

I'm starting work on something new (that I can't really go into detail about just yet) and I decided to post one of my really early, really rough character sketches above.

Steve~

I'm Back!

Holy toledo things have been busy lately!

Lots of work and lots of family stuff has made it a wee bit difficult to get around to posting on the ol' illustration blog. Add all of that to the fact that I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping and you've got a recipe for disaster more annoying than a weekend long marathon of Ben Affleck movies.

Anyway, hopefully I'm entering a bit of a downspell and hopefully that'll mean throwing something up on here more often.

Hopefully.

I don't like making promises, so we'll just stick with hopefully.

Anyway, my wife has been snapping some pictures of me early in the morning and we think that we've discovered the reason I'm not getting any sleep.

The stupid cats seem to think my head is their bed.

(Don't give me any guff on the black and white stripped quilt. I've had it since I was a kid, it's ugly as sin, it needs to be thrown away, I've heard it all from my wife more than once. I'll tell you the same thing I tell her...it's not going anywhere. That's right, I'm a thirty year old Linus. Deal with it.)

Steve~

Gator / Monkey Sketch

Here's a little sketch I whipped up last night. Nothing really remarkable. A monkey riding a gator. I've been working on ways of cartoonizing (which I'm pretty sure isn't a word) animals.

My back is pretty much healed up. I don't think I even really get out of bed this weekend and I did the ice/heat thing almost constantly. The wife is still down for the count though (sort of) which sucks for her because she's got an exceptionally long day today. I tried to convince her to take the day off work, but she's dedicated and decided that she couldn't.

Yet another reason why I like working out of home. ;)

Steve~

Busy With Stuff

Been busy with a lot of stuff lately.

Busy, busy, busy.

Annoyingly busy.

The wife went back to work yesterday morning and the house was once again quiet. I didn't have to put up drapes, or shop for furniture, or clean the bathroom...

Wonderfully quiet.

Last week I started working on an illustration for someone, but unfortunately I can't post any sketches or anything on here due to a non-disclosure agreement. I thought the piece came out pretty good, and I'm just waiting for the final okay. I started yet another commission last night, and I finally got around to putting some color in my next monster piece today. Plus, I'm very nearly done with the drawings for my second collection of "Pen Man." The book should be around 100 pages long and in my (admittedly somewhat biased) opinion is looking pretty darn good. The story is kind of dark (darker than the first volume even) but features some really cool stuff. I still have to throw some gray tones in the pages, followed by the text, but I'm hoping to get it done by mid-year. (The picture above is an unfinished page)

Let's see, what else?

Busy doing lots more product design stuff, like always plus, I'm still waiting to hear back on my submission to zudacomics. I submitted it last Sunday night and haven't heard anything as of yet.

Ohhh, I also worked out last night for the first time in about three months...now I'm sore.

Remind me never to take so much time off again.

Steve~

Work In Progress - Monster Train

It's been a surprisingly busy week, despite the fact that I didn't have that much work to do. Let me explain:

As I mentioned in my last post my wife is on spring break and has thus been home...EVERY DAY...ALL DAY! This means that she's got me moving furniture, shopping for furniture, cleaning closets, cleaning room, cleaning the yard, buying plants for the yard, planting plants in the yard, she's got me doing anything and everything that she can dream up.

Needless to say, I am excited for her to return to work.

I did manage to somehow find time to finish up my zudacomics submission, put the kibosh on a commission piece I'm doing, as well as get started on my next monsters chasing kid piece. (The above sketch)

The kid is on a train now and those darn monsters are still hot on his trail. Persistent jerks, aren't they?

Steve~

Zuda Submission Page - Colored

Here's a page from my zudacomics.com submission inked and colored.

I admit it...I'm not nuts about computer coloring. (Maybe it's because I'm not that good at it). Sometimes it just feels like a chore to me. (Once again, maybe that's because I'm not that good at it).

I'm about halfway through coloring the eight pages in my submission but I'm having trouble finding time getting it done with so much other work going on right now and with my wife on spring break and requiring a good deal of my attention. MY goal is to knuckle up and get it done this week.

Is that likely?

No.

It's nice to dream though.

Steve~