No! Sleep! 'Til ComiCon!!!

T-Minus Nine Days and Counting! Man, TOTALLY stoked about going this year! I'm at the point in my career where good friends of mine that I went to college with are now becoming movers and shakers in the industry, and a lot of them are going to be doing presentations and networking at ComiCon. Disney, Hasbro, Dreamworks, Sony, Blue Sky, Pixar, i09, G-4, Image Comics, Sideshow Collectibles, cosplay bitches....basically, if you're a nerd, this is your Woodstock. My bud, Andrew, brought up a good point the other day about ComiCon:

At sports games, they gotta line every square block with tons of cops and riot squads. Don't have to do that with Comic Book conventions!

True fuckin' that! Us nerds are WAY too busy having fun and playing make-believe to ever be violent. 125,000 people going to be there this year, and I'm confident not a fist will be thrown. Probably 'cause the nerds with weapons always have a play fight "arena" they can jump in, and swing their PVC pipes and cardboard creations around for hours, if they want.
So, gotta get back to finishing up pieces of artwork and stories to knock the socks off of editors and art directors with! Not leaving there until I've got five potential commissions lined up!! Either way, I'm gonna have a spectacular time! More news and pictures soon!

Finished SOMETHING.....

Wow, I'm always a little shellshocked when I've suddenly finished up several projects, and somehow between the made rushing through of projects, contacting clients, touching base with sub-contractors, keeping myself on schedule, then find myself panting, and looking around frantically for the next thing to do...only to realize that the main priorities are already DONE, and that's why the dust is finally settling. Website project's been greenlit and posted, and just finished up this final illustration for the potential comic book gig:

Hopefully I'll know sometime today if I got a commission off all this work. It's so strange to have several projects going, and the difference in your work ethic when it comes to something you love, versus something you're not so keen about. For instance, the website? Yeah, hate those kinds of gigs. Part of the reason why I charged a lot--if you want me to do art I hate, I won't say no, I'll just throw a number out there that might make YOU say no. If you don't, well, sure, I'll do the gig, and at least that way the money will motivate me to get off my ass.
The comic book I did the spec work for--Flash Gordon--has a species of natives from the planet that back in the day they just called Lion People. The original comics from decades ago never really made such an interesting name an equally-interesting illustration. They just basically made a human have tan fur, and a mop on their head that'd put Tina Turner's to shame. But the new editors now have done a KILLER job of making them look REALLY cool, and it's been an absolute BLAST playing around with the species, and really feeling out possible stories through their artifacts on them that'd add texture to their fictitious culture! Visual storytelling, that's what it's all about! Here's a head illustration I did of a Lion person General:

Now the amusing thing about this whole wacky career I have as an artist is this: my parents just plain don't "get it." They can't quite wrap their heads around the fact that I receive checks from people for doing silly cartoony or fantasy characters, or animating a cartoon for a commercial spot. Like most people, I think they just default to the assumption that these things just magically appear on the screens, and takes no "real" skill, whatsoever. When I was talking to them yesterday on the phone, I was telling them about this potential gig, and how it could be a game-changer for the types of gigs I get. My mom's response? "Yeah, well, don't hold your breath!" You'd have to know my mom to know that as she gets older, the filter between her thoughts and her mouth has pretty much been removed, and she really doesn't actually mean anything by that. In other words, she sometimes doesn't realize when she's being a bitch. :) I, unfortunately, sometimes suffer from the same epidemic, and so I worry how I'll be treating my daughter in the future, as well.
Either way, MAN, I love what I do! It's exhausting, but also insanely enjoyable! Who said, "If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life?" Goddamn right. Seven years after college graduation, I'm feeling like I'm finally hitting my stride....

Character Sketches

Don't wanna say too much too soon, but got approached by a good mid-sized comic book company last week to potentially work on one of their flagship comics! Here's some sketches of the main character I did for them to prove I can replicate the style:

A picture of the Battle Grounds, otherwise known as my art desk! Critters illustrations, as well as character sheets for my comic book commission all over the walls, paints all over the desk. I think there's more paint on the desk than there is on the actual papers!

One Week 'Til Convention

It's Memorial Day weekend! Guess what I'm doing? Beach? Barbeque? Beer? Nope, nope, and maybe later. I'm knee-deep in watercolors, making Critters for my in-process children's fantasy picture book, Lil' Book of Critters.
It's a little bit of a drag, 'cause I'm running a few weeks behind where I wanted to be with the book. I was hoping that I'd be finished with a website commission a few weeks ago, but in standard Jason fashion, I misestimated how long this project would take. S'kay, I got it taken care of. And I'll GLADLY sacrifice a weekend of fun for....well, FUN, honestly. I lovelovelove art, and it's SO nice to just be able to focus on your own wacky project, for once.
I have the SCBWI Florida Children's Book Mid-Year Workshop this coming weekend. I'll have an Illustrator's Intensive on Friday, Picture Book Workshop on Saturday, finished off with two critiques of my book that Saturday evening. I went to the event last year for just the one day, unsure who or what this convention had to offer. But after seeing the big-name authors, literary agents, and other "power" people there, as well as the direct-access addresses and other inside help the organization offered, I realized it's worth me taking this seriously.
In amazing synchronicity, this year had two big industry editors coincidentally really gravitate towards this book that I just had mentioned on a lark. One was an editor from io9.com, who found my art on a site like DeviantArt or something like that, and did a whole little blurb about me. I felt like I should have my Professional Geek card revoked, because I wasn't familiar with io9.com! I checked it out, and just marveled at the amazing stuff they had on there! Comic books, fantasy and sci-fi book and movie reviews, concept art from big-time video games....and now an online article about lil' ol me?? No way! She asked me what current/future projects I was working on, and decided to mention this children's book I was toying with. She was really interested in it, and in addition to my other illustrations that she wanted, I sent her some scans of the rough illustrations I had done. She asked me if there was a story in addition to the characters, and I'd discovered through sharing the book with others that people had more fun making up their own stories, so felt it was more enjoyable for the viewer to just have the visual of the critter, their name, and then let others make up what the critter's story was. The editor loved the illustrations from the book, and then did exactly that--she took the critters, and made up what she felt these creatures do, what they eat, where they live! She even changed the gender of what I felt some of the critters were, which was once again affirmation that leaving these critters this open truly gave people their own imaginary playground to enjoy!
A few months after that, I contacted an editor from one of my favorite art magazines, ImagineFX. I sent him some samples of my work, as well as a link to my site. He liked what I had to show, and asked for three print-ready samples of my work, as well as to answer several questions that he sent along. One of the questions that he asked was, once again, about current and future projects I was working on. In the same way, I mentioned the Critters book. My work was supposed to appear months ago in the magazine, but due to circumstances out of his control, ended up postponing my blurb in the magazine 'til June of this year. As that date approached, in early May he revisited my information, and realized that I was doing this Critters book. He asked if I had some information about the book, as well as some pictures of some of the critters, and if so, he'd put it in their "Products" section in addition. Holy shit!!! I was now going to have an internationally-known publication helping me sell my book, free of charge! This has made me suddenly have to move in fast-forward. I immediately contacted the information architect that helped me put together my own site, and told him, "Hey, here's some scratch! Can you please set up an e-commerce site for me, stat?" I've looked into Paypal, and am setting up a new bank account to just focus on money earned from that project. Hopefully if I get enough pre-orders from this, it'll help me seal a deal with a publishing agent or better yet, a publisher.
It's really amazing how life works, sometimes. I never really thought very much about this book, except for it just being an exercise for my imagination. But after seeing two industry people react so positively to it, I suddenly thought, "Holy shit! I might be on to something, here...."
I REALLY hope this convention and children's book does well! I'd love nothing more than being a daddy that takes care of his kid during the day, and earns his keep, working on his art during the evening. That, in my ideal mind, sounds pretty much like a dream come true, no doubt! Wish me luck!

Hit the Road, Jack: A Farewell to George W. Bush

A Farewell to W

It’s stunning that someone who has succeeded in screwing up every major decision possible somehow STILL got reelected. Then again, it’s honestly really debatable that you ever LEGITIMATELY got elected, ever. A perfect storm of right-wing media influence, a hive of your daddy’s political strings, and no paper trails have had to make honest people suddenly try to think like a dishonest person in order to figure out what will be the next stunt your kind will pull to try to stay in power. As a politician, your base requirements for any political position are only two things—be a competent public speaker, and step up to the plate when things get bad. You’ve failed horribly at both. You couldn’t give an adequate speech if you had teleprompters surgically implanted in your eyes. And as for handling disasters….well, if your mission was to fuck things up almost to the point of complete ruin, all I can say is, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.”
Congrats on crippling our economy by trusting corporations that were larger than first-world countries, and deflating our country's power so much that the majority of the world is rooting for our enemies. You’ve succeeded in only encouraging minor antagonists like Russia and Venezuela to become very aggressive against us, with you’re your demonizing labels against them, instead of trying a little something called, “diplomacy” first. I guess that’s just not how they do it down in Texas. Shoot first and ask questions later seems like a much more sensible approach for a privileged half-retarded fundamentalist like yourself.
You’ve made the United States go from being the idol of the virtues of democracy and capitalism to looking like the bully in the schoolyard. A country that was once the vigilant protector of freedom has now made the words democracy and freedom sound like a sardonic punch line to a bitter joke. Our country’s façade of respect was shredded away to reveal a country that looks like a spoiled teenager—fat, lazy, irrational, and selfish.
Just the fact that you chose to lower taxes on the richest in our country months after the largest catastrophe our country had experienced for sixty years was the first sign of your blatant lack of leadership and your contempt for the regular Joe. But it also demonstrated who you were really looking after--the rich, not the middle or lower class. Your encouragement of people to shop several days after the 9-11 disaster when the market was crashing showed the biggest truth--that money mattered more to you than the security of our country.
The justifications you made for invading countries like Iraq that had no real threat, except for the one to your father’s reputation, stunk from the very beginning. Yet you’re so inept you can’t catch a giant Afghan in the middle of the mountains that needs dialysis daily. Just be grateful that you had a Congress so scared about reelection that they went along with you on the invasion fiasco, and enough jingoistic nodding heads in Congress to go along with you. Nixon got pressured into bailing on his job after just getting caught sneaking into his political opponent’s office looking for political strategies, yet somehow you’re not tried nor convicted on leading our country falsely into war and killing over 4,000 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians within that country. God knows the official number of military casualties would have been higher if you hadn’t privatized your own personal group of assassins, known as Blackwater. You know, Nazis had their own “special group” of henchmen as well, known as the S.S.
I hope in future elections, when people choose to vote for the, “guy they’d want to have a beer with”, they also remember that this kind of guy is typically the same one who gets ripped out of his mind, try to pick fights for no reason, and throws up and passes out in the bar, as well.
You’ve changed me into a totally different person, as well. I have to admit, I didn’t vote for you in the first election, but that’s only because….I didn’t vote, period. I wasn’t involved nor concerned about politics in my country, and didn’t really care about who ran the place. I have to admit that I was part of the disinterested mass that didn’t feel that voting nor community involvement had any significance to the welfare of my life. But you’ve made me realize the true value of a certain quality of life, and how being a citizen of a country you love is very similar to a marriage--you have to work like hell to keep things good, ‘cause it’s way too easy to make it bad. I love this country, but didn’t realize how much I had taken it for granted until recently. You’ve opened my eyes way the hell up, and as much as its made me partially paranoid towards all people in power, it’s almost made me realize the kind of bullshit people will try to sell in order to take advantage of good, innocent people.
I realized that things have to get really bad before things ever get really good, as well. If gas was still $2.50 a gallon and the grand percentage of citizens weren’t going through foreclosure, clean alternative energy and real policy change wouldn’t even be real discussion points for the future president-elect.
So let me say in my final words, these statements: hit the road, Jack. Turn away, run away, and never, ever look back. I don’t EVER want to see you nor any of your kin, ever again. Not you, not your daddy, and for the love of god and all that is holy, none of your spawn, either. I can only be grateful as hell that you didn’t have any boys to carry the name on. Your daughter DID just marry a Congressional leader as well and you’ve already been giving her a lot more media coverage, so I see what you’re trying to pull. But trust me when I say that it’ll be a cold day in hell before we fall for that kind of bullshit again. And think about all you’ve done when your Day of Judgment finally comes, because you might have been able to fool a lot of the small, trusting people, but you’ll have a lot harder time explaining things to the Big Guy. And at that point, you’ll have all of eternity to think about every crooked thing you’ve ever, ever done. Good bye, go away, and NEVER come back.

Concept-A-Day

Each day, I try to draw a concept to keep my mind fresh, and keep the gears going. Some weeks I'm way ahead on my concepts, other weeks I've got so much work backlogged, I start to slack.
Remember, I've got a full-time job, plus a little lady to keep happy, PLUS I gotta work out or exercise on occasion (or what I like to call, "Fat Control"), so these sketches are done afterwards, on top of all of that. I also try to theme them, each week. I also like having the opportunity to experiment with different styles than what I normally do, or have the freedom to work on something different than what I currently am. Like most artists, very short attention span. Feel free to subscribe to this RSS Feed, in case you like a bit of visual inspiration each day!

April 30-May 11, 2008: Car/vehicle designs