Coverage

Here are some roughs I was working on for the cover. I'll frequently work like this. Moving things around, tweaking type and colors until something stands out from the rest. If something isn't working it's pretty evident and I move on, hence the unfinished, clumsy looking state of these.



Here I'm getting into the ballpark.




This is where it ended up.

Kinks Of The Road

Some roughs that are going into Kings. Big City is now pushed back until early 07 and this book is taking its slot. Big City needs a little more time in the oven.

Closing The Loop

The highlight of the entire Got Your Nose animated short process came last week. The preliminary "sketches" of the music score had exceeded my expectations of having such a great composer on board. But, now I'm completely blown away. Sitting in the mixing booth at Capitol Records as the musicians tuned up and familiarized themselves with the material would have really been enough for me. I could have left after that. But, to watch and hear them bring the piece to life in the next few hours was truly remarkable. It's a fantastic piece of music and they far surpassed what this little project probably deserved. I hope that this in some small, or not so small, way is an impetus for other animated shorts and even series to return this approach of arranging music. The difference it makes is huge.

Thanks to Michael Giacchino and Chad Seiter for composing such a masterful and appropriate score. And funny too.

At the end of the session we took a trip up to the top of the building. It was a gorgeous post-rain LA evening. Apparently they used to have parties up on the roof fairly regularly. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Beatles, The Beastie Boys had all hung out up here. The mind reels thinking about the shenanigans gotten up to.



Could the day get any better? Yes. Yes, it could.

When my best friend moved out from Sweden to attend Guitar Center we decided to share an apartment nearby. That aparment right over there.




The Capitol Records building filled the window of our lobby. It was also the first apartment Jill and I shared and where I lived when we started dating. The one room apartment that would regularly be home to 4-6 people. And many, many more on weekends. The apartment that housed the elevator in which Jill found a very large and very bisected snake. The apartment that employed a security guard that wore a bullettproof vest, and needed it. The apartment form which I watched the DEA raid the place next door. There's more, but you get the point. I'm standing on the top of Cap Records 2 blocks from where it all started. Who'd have guessed that I'd be driving up from OC for the pleasure.
Jill and I eventually moved down the street a couple of blocks, just down from the police station also known as "The Wilcox Hotel" made famous by Lee Ving in Fear's "I Don't Care Bout You". Was that really 17 years ago? Damn! I just figured we moved another 9 times since then. And we bought our house 8 years go.

Loop closed? Close enough.

New York

Well I'm not going to be there as I'm tied up with deadlines here, but my new art reps will be at Art Expo New York with my first new prints of the year. Van Eaton Galleries, who are probably pretty familiar to the animation fans out there, are in New York this week debuting these new pieces. They're great people and I couldn't be happier to working with them. A lot of people have been emailing over the past few months inquiring about prints. They're the people to cantact now. We won't be selling prints at all through the website or at conventions. We will still be selling books and other mechandise.

Panty Thief Paul

Have you ever seen the guys caught on video dashing to the clothes line and franticly yanking off underwear and scurrying away. Those guys kill me. Unfortunately they look like your average backwoods louts. I'd much prefer the traditional bandit mask-striped shirt-dollar sign bag get up.

Gettin' around

Some vehicle, prop character designs from Big City. The next batch of Big City stuff I post will be sketches and thumbnail stuff.

Cigarette Girl

A cigarette girl with some BOOM in the front and a little POW in the back.

Under The Wire

A couple of pieces that made the cut for Vernaculis.

Vernaculis

The cover for Vernaculis (Chromaphile 2) will look something like this-

Do You Have Any 8's?

An almost final design for the card game deluxe box set. This was the first straight package design I've done in years. As of now it's 4 interior boxes, 4 exterior boxes, one insert, 1 large interior box, 1 large exterior box, 60+ card designs and 4 card back designs.

Crawling back.

It looks like the worst is over for a little while. It's been a rough couple of months and it's nice to have some room to breath. Just in time for spring fishing too. Awesome! Anyway- here are a couple of last minute pieces from Got Your Nose. These will be the last until after it airs, or doesn't as the case may be. I'm considering a follow up book, which surprises even me. It won't be until after I finish up a few other books, but I've got some ideas for Horace and Boris.

I'll be back soon

I can 't believe it's been a month since I've posted. It's been a very busy month and I'l be back early next week to post some evidence. After I get some fishing in of course. Right now I'm off to Wondercon to buy some comics.

Thumb goes in, eye comes out.

Another KOTR study. An eye for an eye.

Long live the king.

This is a rough comp of the King Of The Road card game box. The game play is the same as Old Maid. There are three other games in the set, all based on simple traditional card games. The others are based on Crazy 8s, Slap Jack and Animal Rummy.

Scoot!

I know this is a crappy, gerneric, straight ahead angle on this, but it was really just to wrok out the design of the front of the scooter. I added the captain to provide some scale.

1313

I don't think I've ever posted this anywhere. It's a pin-up for 1313 magazine from last year.

Horace or Boris

I was going to clean these poses up a bit before I posted them, but decided they're fine the way they are. These are the kind of rough quick studies I'll do when hammering out a character. I don't worry about staying on model too much. I just want to how they move, behave and react.

Pimp Hand

A detail from a Kings Of The Road panorama.

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas