FACING THE UGLY TRUTH

Batman & Clayface. Never knew anything about Clayface until Batman: The Animated Series. Matt Hagen's fall and transformation to the horrific Clayface was really incredible. His ability to transform into anyone was super cool...and kinda gross. I had never seen anything like it in a cartoon back then. As this show did with most all of Batman's villains, you went away thinking maybe they weren't completely bad people to begin with. Some really bad stuff happened and then things just took a turn for the worse and they couldn't real it all back in. I mean, no one ever really sets out to be the bad guy right? Kinda like Anakin Skywalker never intended to be Darth Vader? This is an older pic I did sometime ago. Still one of my favorites. I think the orange-brownish color and the blue and green of Batman really contrast give the image an extra pop.

Batman Vs Clayface

ALIEN INVASIONS AND ASPARAGUS

Not sure if two aliens really make up and invasion, but...well there's more to come. So this is my first posting with aliens. To me nothing says alien monster like a giant brain. Star Trek had a big alien headed dude. Mars Attacks had them. Seems like there were old random 50's and 60's sci-fi monsters with big brains. The alien below kinda reminds me a bit of the monster on the Frankenberry cereal box also. The weed with the eyeballs...not sure...maybe some subconscious homage thing with the floating eyeball from Big Trouble in Little China.You probably forgot about that, huh? I had asparagus the other night. Maybe it's asparagus from outer space. Maybe the big brained alien cyclops is hungry for asparagus from outer space?

Alien Cyclops

Alien Eye Weed

CHRISTMAS IN JULY!!!

Not sure where the idea of "Christmas in July" comes from. But hey! Here's an Evil Snowman!

Evil Snowman

PIRATE AAAAAAAART!

I live in Tampa Florida. I remember back about as far as I can and one of my earliest memories is of this painting by my dad of a bunch of drunken pirates sitting around at this table half passed out with all their treasure. I would sit and wonder what their story was all about. Where did all the treasure come from? As a young tike I remember going to the Gasparilla Parade along Bayshore and watching the pirate invasion. I was so stoked and I got this plastic pirate sword and I was set to fight them off! But they weren't really invading. Just having a big party. The got the drunken part down for sure though.

Of course living about a hundred miles from Disney we made many treks to the "Happiest Place on Earth", and one of the highlights being The Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We would usually go with My Great Uncle Hubert who lived in Orlando. As the boats tug and pull through this world of crazy pirates, you come to a small town where they are pillaging and plundering to their very best. There is a gorgeous red headed lady in a red dress being auctioned off in the town square. I will always remember Uncle Hubert would yell "I'll take the red head!" I think if we road it a hundred times in a row he'd yell the same thing. (My Aunt Hellen was a red-head so it was all good.)

Growing up in Tampa I have always been a die hard Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. My blood runs orange. Not pewter. Not red. Orange! I endured the early years. I roasted painfully in the scorching Florida sun, as they would loose one game after another, ultimately becoming the laughing stock of the NFL. Their original team colors were that cream sickle orange and they had the big goofy pirate in the giant hat logo. They were doomed to loose, I think in the early year, before they ever hit the field. Once the logo and team colors were decided. Well, that was it. Selling team gear back then wasn't all that successful either. I mean there really isn't anything that goes with cream sickle orange (even in the late 70's and early 80's). It was almost as bad as if we were the Tampa Bay Clowns and you had to wear red noses and giant bow ties. In the mid 90's, when the team logo was revamped, you couldn't get enough of the gear. It was a skull with crossed sabers! Freaking awesome! They even put a pirate ship in the end zone!!!  Naturally we became a team to be reckoned with, marched our way to the Super Bowl, and ultimately annihilated the Raiders (another pirate team)!

So here are some of my own pirates. The second one kinda...eh...kinda bothers me. He's cool but reminds me of Jesse the Body Ventura. This is not really bad (i.e. the first Predator movie) but I see Jesse before I see a pirate. Probably just me. Or he reminds me of those commercials where you draw the little pirate in the pamphlet and mail it away. I think for some drawing school or art classes of some kind. So yeah, pirates.

Sea Pirate 1

Sea Pirate 2

HOLY OBI-WAN KENOBI!

One of the highlights of the Prequel Trilogy is we get to see what a badass Obi-Wan Kenobi is. The Clone Wars series just knocks it out of the park with how awesome he really is. I've actually become so used to the animated version it strikes me as odd to draw the real life version. Something subconsciously tells me it's all wrong. He doesn't look like that! But he is Ewan McGregor and he is as equally awesome as his animated counterpart. Below we see pencils for the Padawan (student), Jedi Knight and Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi. (For those of you still tuned in from one of my recent blogs about Jesus, clearly you can see there is a fine line between the Jedi and the other Big J.)

Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi

Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

ONE SERIOUS DIRTBAG

A lot of what I draw is based on things I thought were really cool as a kid growing up. Naturally my impressions of the subjects I draw now are probably rooted in those childhood perceptions. Here we have a real dirtbag of a character. He's not cool. He's a great bad guy, don't get me wrong. He does what bad guys do and you want him to get his in the end. When I saw Return of the Jedi, I couldn't figure out why Darth Vader took so much crap from this guy. Up to that point (and really even to this very day) my childhood pretty much revolved around playing Darth Vader, reading about Darth Vader and hopefully one day becoming as cool as Darth Vader. This dude that barks orders at Vader had to go. Yeah I got it, he's the Emperor. He's the boss. Really? Now days you get to see the evolution of this bad guy through the Clone Wars cartoons and, of course, in the Prequel Trilogy from a few years back. I know he finally gets what's coming to him but you know it's a long time until then. Well, if I just pop in the DVD and skip to the end of ROTJ, it's just a few minutes away. Still, as much as Emperor Palpatine wasn't one of my favorites, he was cool to draw. Plus I can rewind and watch his demise over and over until I feel a little better about it.

Emperor Palpatine

Chancellor Palpatine

JESUS

The first image of Jesus I remember were from a picture hanging in my aunt's house. I think he was knocking at a door. I must have been about three or four years old. There are endless interpretations over the last two thousand years of what Jesus looked like from paintings, to sculptures, to movies. As I got older, I thought it was amusing to see a lot of these interpretations make him out to be a slightly tanned guy with light brown, flowing hair and light eyes. Looked like he belonged on a beach with a surf board, rather than a Middle Eastern guy walking through the desert preaching God's word. Not too long ago, I saw this show on TV about what Jesus really looked like using a computer scan of the Shroud of Turin. This was the burial cloth his body was supposedly wrapped in and has an image of him on it. After studying the cloth no one can determine what caused the imprint. Most likely it was some supernatural phenomenon of some sort. It was really fascinating to see the process the scientists and artists went through to get to the final image. Around the same time, I caught part of the movie Talladega Nights, during which Ricky Bobby was going on about how the version of Jesus he likes to pray to is little infant baby Jesus. So all this got me to thinking about my own version. What would he look like? Now, in part of the creative process you just find yourself drifting along to wherever it takes you. You start heading in one direction and it starts to zig and zag until you wind up with whatever it is. So this is where I wound up. The crucified version I'm OK with. The other almost seems like if I drew him with a guitar he should be in a rock band or something. Throw a suit of armor on him and he's a knight. Give him a Lightsaber and he's a Jedi! Or a surf board?

Crucified

Jesus Christ Rock Star, Surfer, or Jedi Knight?

DEAD HORSES, ZOMBIES, AND ELVIS

I don't mean to beat a dead horse...or zombie, but here are a couple more. I've posted a number of pics of  these guys over the last few weeks and I think I'm finally reaching the end with them. For the moment they aren't quite dead and buried yet. Not sure where the marionette idea came from. When I think of marionettes I think of this old Elvis song and some distorted memory of one of his movies. I think he was singing to a marionette in German and I know the song is something about a puppet on a string. Yeah, kinda random and nothing to do with zombies.

Zombie Worm Guy

Marionette Zombie

CANTINA ALIENS

Star Wars is and always has been a tremendous influence on my life. I remember drawing TIE Fighters and X-wings in huge space battles on notebook paper in class when I was a kid. The creatures and monsters too really opened my imagination to the endless possibilities of what I could draw...and hoping maybe there were creatures and people like these somewhere out there.

Myo

Bom

Defel

ZOMBIES RETURN

As I've posted previously, zombies just don't seem to go away. Rotted, crumpled, mangled and distorted, I really dig drawing zombies. I always kinda wonder what their life was like while I'm working on them. They're really kinda faceless monsters (really, sometimes they have no faces) you just never really know anything about. They're usually just a mob of brain-starved, disgusting creatures.Oh, and they can dance.

Eyeball Zombie

From the Grave

Big Jacket Zombie