Art, mostly

because I feel like it!

2009-11-05T06:55:22Z

For the first five people who ask!

I will draw whatever you request!

In under 30 seconds.

GO GO GO

GUYS GUYS THAT'S LIKE TWENTY

THANK YOU EVERYONE I AM WORKING SUPER HARD

THIRTY SECONDS AT A TIME

[EDIT] OKAY SO I WOUND UP DRAWING 16, YOU GUYS SHOULD ALL HAVE YOUR PICTURES NOW! Thanks for the good time guys, I'm headed to bed! <3 <3 <3

FINISHED MAW SCULPT!! Also: some art!

2009-10-21T18:07:17Z

First, I want to thank everyone for giving feedback on the last entry. :D You guys are great! I feel bad that I can't reply to everyone, but your voice was heard!

So HAY GUYS! The preorder for the Maw ends on OCTOBER 25TH! After that they'll go into production, and Patch Together will only have a finite number of figurines.

The jpg conversion doesn't do the saturation justice. The inside of the mouth looks RAD! 8D

... ... ...

Ananth and I made buttons! Well-actually, I designed them and George put them together. They will be on the J*W store soon!

THANK YOU GEORGE YOU ARE A GOOD PAL

ALSO, Ananth and I are finally putting together a JW business card! It'll be real cool looking, I think.

These two panels go on the back of the card. 8D

This was a lady who was standing behind us at the Dunkin Doughnuts. She wasn't Muslim, she was just wearing one of those stretchy scarves that converts into a shawl. And she was wearing this gigantic fur vest. It was bizarre. We decided she was from the Terrible Dystopian Future.

Ananth and I got to hang out with Darryl and L again on Monday! L has the sweetest cats, last time Loki hung out with me all evening, but this time Smudge was the one who fell asleep on my chair. He has a little white heart on his back! Also, he is super nice.

A while back, someone informed me that the theory of Southern Cooking BBQ Restaurants is the more anthropomorphized the pig is on the restaurant logo, the better the food is. And if it's cooking/eating a piece of meat that came from a pig, it's probably SUPER DELICIOUS.

I believe this theory can be applied to all foods.

... ... ...

I think Miss Monster linked this site on twitter yesterday: Hilda pinups by Duane Bryers. Gorgeous 60's pinups of an adorable buxom lady, lots and lots of character and energy. Her mouth just makes the best shapes!

Hello I have a question!

2009-10-12T05:51:11Z

I made a Byzantine Eagle Maw design this weekend! It was fun! If it's okay with you, I'd like to talk about it some. Can we talk about it? That'd be real nice.

Aww yeaahh! I've been wanting for a long while to do a Byzantine Eagle-But-Actually-A-Maw illustration. The symmetry isn't completely on, but I don't think it's horrible.

I went and made a 3-color print version of it for a tee or something, which I'm pretty okay with. (these don't have to be the finalized palette, though.)

It's difficult for me to ask stuff like this so forwardly, so I'm just going to dive in. Would you be interested in purchasing something with this image on it? Do you think other people would? What would you want it on? A shirt/hoodie/canvas bag/patch/sticker/mug/something else? Do you think it's a turnoff that it has my and Ananth's brand on it? (Ananth is really pushing for a tee because he wants to wear it, haha)

I found a place that does imprinted 100% recycled journals and I kind of really want to give them a shot. Do you think people might be interested in something like that? I went and made a mockup of what they might look like:

(sorry the image isn't so clear! or well-made D: ) The journals are 7.5"x6", 100 pages long. I think they're cute and practical. Also, I want to make them because I want one.

[edit:] Unfortunately, these only come with lined paper. :/ I'd prefer to do sketchbooks, but they're not available.

[edit:] A more legible mockup!

Any constructive feedback would be great! Thanks, you guys!

I MADE SOME HOURLY COMICS YOU CAN READ THEM IF YOU'D LIKE

2009-10-09T00:54:26Z

So, y-yeah, this was technically today's comic at Johnny Wander. But it's like three pages long! And I worked really hard on it! So you can read a higher-res version of it here too, if you don't read Johnny Wander. (and it's cool if you don't, I don't mind.)

huh, the cake kinda looks like it's covered in pepperoni instead of strawberries...

I was kind of nervous with this comic, since Ananth and I have made such a deliberate point of not discussing our relationship, or really the fact that we're dating at all. And this being the arc of an entire day, it has all those in-between things that we avoid in the regular comic. BUT REALLY, I AM FRETTING FAR TOO MUCH. I just hope our respective parents won't be too alarmed by the fact that we share a bed. eh hehh..

OH BUT LET ME TELL YOU HOW EXCITING IT WAS TO GO TO NICK MAGAZINE: SO EXCITING. yaytime and goraina were fantastic hosts! And we also walked away with a few handfuls of Avatar comics, which was so super awesome.

And finally: seriously, who feeds combos to their dog.

... ... ...

ALSO HEY SINCE WE'RE HERE, I'll share this with you guys! We got our first pass colors on the Maw! I'm not totally pleased with the everything so these won't be the finalized colors, but OH MAN it's so cool to see everything come together!

WOOOO

A Jillion Things!

2009-10-05T04:45:25Z

Hello there are lots of arts let me show them to you! You might have seen some of these on the internets before, and for that I apologize.

YAAAYYYY

YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY

Things I can't get over how great they are:
• The floof over the mouth
• The teeny hands
• How they integrated the curly-cues on the wings into the final design
• Everything

These guys are still on preorder at the PatchTogether site! :D

... ... ...

A few weeks back, I met this little boy named Jorge at the laundromat. We hung out together, he drew a car and made me populate it with a family, and then he wanted a kid on a slide-wait-no-that's-too-short-make-it-longer-okay-now-draw-a-kid-on-a-swing. He was very specific about what I drew and was generally Pretty Cute. Ananth and I talked about him on Johnny Wander a little while back. I think there's another one of his drawings in the news post.

Some pretty mleh doodles from the zoo from forever ago. The Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn is pretty cute! The meercats were really excited to be sitting in uncomfortable-looking positions.

HOW'S IT GOING 8| OWL. PRETTY 8| I SEE

Also, there is Rina. I was obsessed with skeleton stockings for a little bit. OH hey, does anyone know where I could purchase such a thing?
[LATER] AWH YEAH FOUND SOME -- w-wait, THE BONE STRUCTURE ISN'T EVEN REMOTELY RIGHT c'mon guys, you gotta try a little harder at these things okay these are a bit better. A-actually, I'd probably wear the hell out of these.

Oh hey again, Rina. Carry on.

Pythias and Ame. Yeeyy, I could probably draw cute couples forever. 8D

OH HAY speaking of which, anyone else pick up the latest volume of Emma? Man, that second chapter is GORGEOUS. It's all small moments acted out through subtle hand interactions. Really gorgeous. Also, there's some naked Hot German Couple action, so I'm all about it.

Eldred Family Ladies (plus Pythias) Height Chart. My characters have dumb names.

Kid!Quetzal and her dad. Only about 40% of my characters are Actually Also Dragons. Only. Give or take.
(100% of the characters in this particular drawing are Actually Also Dragons)

Ananth and I went to a get-together with Darryl Ayo and his pal L, and L had two cats who LOVED ME AND I LOVE THEM BACK. This is Loki, who was busy loving me, and then fell asleep curled up against my leg.

I drew this while we were at the get-together. I've always thought it was funny how the words for Eel and Rabbit are nearly identical in Japanese. (Unagi/Usagi) And thus a TERRIBLE BEAST was created.

A much older image of Cecilia. She was originally going to be black in the comic, but it wound up not happening. I enjoy messing around with digital lineless art a bunch, but I also like having physical original images. hmmm

... ... ...

George has been a Super Good Pal since we moved to Brooklyn. Also, he sat the lot of us down and made us watch Venture Bros, which is awesome. So I did a teeny painting of Dr. Killinger for him.

It was Megan's birthday last week! So I did a teeny painting of a Cryptozoology Cruise for her. I was messing around with the scan and put the famous paper bag texture on it and brought out the whites. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!!)

I should mention that the teeny paintings are about 2"x3". If I held the paintings up against the computer screen, the image on the monitor would probably be at least twice as big as the original. 8D

... ... ...

Okay, admittedly these aren't that much higher resolution than the pages put up on Johnny Wander. But it's just really cool to be able to post comics here now and then.

I'll mention this here since no one in the J*W comments seemed to pick up on it and I think it's pretty neato: The secret story in Girl With the Skeleton Hand is that the story starts in the 1920's and ends in present day. Death was avoiding Cecilia, and so she never aged or died in that time. Also, Cecilia is a pretty forgiving lady.

WHEW! That was fun, we should do it again soon!
awh man now I want new socks

weeoo weeoo weeoo

2009-09-23T16:19:44Z

Looks like there was an attack on LJ last night, the security level of a bunch of recent posts were changed. You might want to check yo' self.

OMIGOSH MAAWWSSS and other art

2009-09-20T20:34:47Z

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

The preliminary Patch Together sculpt for the Maw came through! There's a bunch of edits, I'll post more views once the second pass goes through. But I'm SUPER EXCITED to get a maw! I'm going to request some blanks, I want to try my hand at some crazy custom jobs. :D

The figurine is now in the PT Store! They're $30 until they get produced-- then they'll go up to $35!

... ... ...

Here, I'll bulk this up with some other art. Th--there's not much that I can really show off right now--! I've been doing more of those small paintings in my free time, but they're all either unfinished or unscanned right now.

I think I drew upwards of 200+ index card drawings for people to stick in their packages. This was the last handful that I did, I had to stop for time constraints. =_= It was fun while I could keep it up! I'll start it up again if my schedule clears up some.

There was a long Twitter conversation about in the Terrible Dystopian Future, Disney is going to buy Oni Press, then Scott Pilgrim will become a Disney property, then Scott Pilgrim will become a character in Kingdom Hearts. Under the urging of Various People, this came about. There's like 9 belts in this picture.

finally, this is the worst thing I have ever drawn. do no look at it. i am very serious about this. also done under the urging of Various People.

OH SO, Ananth and I are doing an Actual Fiction Story over at Johnny Wander. I've been enjoying myself immensely, but it's been stupidly time consuming. I miss the days when I can sit down for 6 hours and start and finish a comic. =_= The last page is going up on Tuesday, then I'll share the high res images here.

Patchtogether and Paintings!

2009-08-30T05:26:32Z

Hey, so we finally have internet and my Patchtogether design is up! 8D

Feel free to look/vote/promote if you want!

Also, I've been bit by the painting bug again and have been doing a few small paintings in my spare time. If I put original paintings on Ebay, do you think anyone would be interested..?

The first one I did, and my least favorite. Forza in some sort of regal flag style. Whenever I draw his face at weird angles, people get confused about the logistics of it. ._. D-dunno if this one would be good enough to sell, I might not bother with this one. The scan cleaned it up pretty nicely, the red isn't this clean on the original.

This one though, I'm pretty thrilled with. I might eventually make small prints of it. I'm finally nearly on speaking terms with watercolors! How nice!

Some original characters in sexy poses! You might recognize Rina, I enjoy drawing her now and again. Rina and Daniel are from a Future Project, and I like them both a lot.

I was able to find teeny frames! Apologies for the poor lighting!

... ... ...

Yesterday, Ananth, Conrad, John, Mike, Steve, and myself all went to goraina and yaytime's release party for their new book! It was lovely! There are a lot of cartoonists in Brooklyn, it's kind of overwhemling! Also nice! Everyone is so welcoming! I really like my profession! And the people in it!

nooo internetttt

2009-08-25T20:48:57Z

Two/three-ish weeks after moving to the new apartment, we still don't have internet. Cablevision was supposed to arrive today, but then in an exciting turn of events they didn't! How lovely of them.

The lot of us will continue to be largely unreachable until this internet crap is resolved. In the meantime, I drew up a Maw turnaround for Patch Together. He'll be submitted after we get regular internet access. (hopefully this will not be never.)

He's a pretty classic looking maw. It'd be neat to get blanks for custom paints, but I don't know how they do business there. It was weird to think of them in a 3D space, I usually only ever draw them in profile.

weeoo weeoo weeoo
Then I tried to turn it into an animated turnaround. It wasn't drawn to be animated, so the movement is pretty terrible looking. :/

See you guys laterr! Enjoy your internets!

Time for New Icons!

2009-08-13T06:10:13Z

Awh hell yeah! New icons! armaina did this for me out of the blue after we hung out at CTcon! Thank you so much! I also have a new default icon, from a drawing Conrad did for me while he was watching the table for me also-at-CTcon.

I just got back to my parents place from the new apartment Brooklyn-- John and I spent the whole dang day cleaning (again) to prep for Saturday. Finally, finally, finally we're going to be finishing this move. I miss everyone terribly and can't wait for us all to be back together again. Additionally, we did get a pretty sweet place.

Hope you like dumb art, because I scanned in a bunch of dumb art!

So, with the J*W shipments, Ananth and I have come to the realization that people really like quirky personal touches on things, like when addresses are hand-written (which has become nearly impossible for us to do :/ ). For a long while, Ananth and I were sticking freebie postcards in with packages, but the stack I had with me ran out, so I started writing little messages. Then I started just doing straight-up doodles. I don't know how long I can keep this up, (and it probably won't be long), but people have really enjoyed them. Which is nice!

For a while when we first started shipping prints, I was drawing like 40 maw doodles at a time to send with packages. I had to stop because things got really hectic and doing that many drawings gets REALLY time consuming. But it's nice to send people things they weren't expecting. I've since moved on from maws to goofy animals! And Chewbacca!

I started losing steam, so I started going through the alphabet. X is for X-men!

This is probably the greatest thing I have ever drawn.

Although this might be a close second.

... I'm not sure why I scanned this in. On the bottom there, you can see prep sketches for that terrible guest comic I did for Questionable Content. There's also a sketch of a statue on the Brooklyn Museum, which I'd prefer you pay attention to.

And my thumbnail for the QC comic. OH NO NOW YOU WILL KNOW ALL MY SECRETS

Círran you are hard to draw! But you are such a nice a guy, I don't feel so bad about it anymore. North is also there.

SH--SHUT UP, I'LL DO WHAT I WANT i love you guys

I drew straight with a sepia brush pen and doodled on top of it with a pen. But then I scanned it in in b/w, so you can't even tell anymore. Also there a drawing from memory of Fone Bone? I--I MET JEFF SMITH AGAIN AT SDCC, DID I MENTION THAT? M-MAN, HE MIGHT JUST BE THE NICEST GUY IN THE WORLD.

EVERYONE IS BORED.
No one is ever not bored.
North, Dhio, why don't I ever draw you guys with clothing. You guys do wear clothing, don't you?

Some of these guys look so dumb. Sorry guys, that I drew you so dumb.
Sometimes I have ambitions that I might be able to draw a sheet of heads as fluid and gorgeous a davario. But that is just a pipe dream. I mean, look at this shit. aagh so nice.

Josephine! I'd forgotten about you! I need to figure out where she fits in, in the scheme of everything. I love my dandelion girl.

Whenever I feel down, I watch movies of Maru. Apparently he's won a bunch of YouTube Japan awards! Also, I suggest checking out his owner's blog, she puts all of the entries in adorably simple (and simply adorable) English.

YOU SHOULD LOVE HIM BACK

but it's what I do beeestt

1.) Conrad told me to draw "Zangief as a woman" at CTcon
2.) So I did
3.) I didn't really remember how to draw Zangief
4.) Also I couldn't remember how to spell his name

... ... ...

So can I ask you guys a hypothetical question? If I put in a pitch for a figurine to Patch Together, would anyone be interested in purchasing it? It'd need 50 preorders to be made, and will probably cost $30-$50 per order. I'd probably do a Maw to start off with.

I got missmonstermel's Foo Dog a bit back, and it is excellent quality. These guys do excellent work. Also: I want a maw figurine.

I have become very good at not posting! It is like a talent!

2009-07-22T05:41:53Z

Hello! Man, I totally haven't posted publicly since before I left for Japan. D: H-how about that. H-hey guys.

I mostly have a slew of Terrible Images to share, so I will go ahead and share them. Prepare yourselves! (some are pretty large! Also stupid!)

Ananth and myself did a Terrible Guest Comic for Questionable Content. It just went up about an hour ago, the referral accidentally the whole Johnny Wander again. D:

if you guessed that I referenced Loveless, you'd be correct--!

Just wanted to say, this is probably the ~~least~~most sexy thing I've ever drawn. HOPE YOU ENJOY.

S-so, I did two guest comics for Jeph Back-In-The-Day? They're both awful. God, 2004. Stop showing up in all my google searches.

... ... ...

If you were watching on my twitter, you probably saw my awkward spam of WIP shots of this guy. They can be found here:
one | two | three | four

So, it's finished! The deck was done on commission for my pal (and yours), George Rohac. It features Stephen Colbert (who George technically works for), Scott Pilgrim, and himself fighting a bear who is also Gideon-the-antagonist-from-SP? It was his request.

IT ALSO GLOWS IN THE DARK! (the camera was no good, but believe me when I say the thing glows like a mofo)

Also everyone's heads on the front -- there will be clear grip tape on the front, so everything was bold and simple to show through.

After like 10 coats of polycrylic, it's finished! Hello George! (say hello, everyone)

I would like to extend my formal apologies to Stephen Colbert (who is unlikely to see this journal entry) and Bryan Lee O'Malley (who is significantly more likely to see this journal entry.)

... ... ...

I can't remember exactly how this goes, pick 10 meaningful images you have already saved on your hard drive, don't explain them or something. I liked the ring of it, so I'm doing it. But I didn't want to pare down the images, so you get 12.

... ... ...

Oh-and-finally--! I've mentioned this on Twitter and Johnny Wander, but Ananth and myself WILL be at San Diego Comic Con.

Ananth I know has a bit of a heavier schedule with his DH stuff, but we'll be mostly freely walking around. Unless the Oni dudes put us to work (they might.) We'll probably be dicking around with Miss Monster or bothering the Topatoco dudes or something. We're playing it by ear, I've never been to SDCC before. I do want to go to the Mythbusters panel, though. Badly.

There WILL be a Johnny Wander meetup, though! On Sunday, from 1-2 PM in front of the convention center, between the the Fedex and the Starbucks. Maybe I will see some of you there..? :D

OFF TO THE MOTHERLAND

2009-06-04T03:24:11Z

FAREWELL, INTERNET-AS-ACCESSED-IN-THE-UNITED-STATES-OF-AMERICA.

I'LL BE SEEING YOU IN NIHON

... ... ...

No-but-seriously, I'm headed to Japan until the 15th. I'm going to be out of the loop except for occasional sporadic e-mail. I left Ananth with as many J*W comics as my little hands could turn out between Other Very Important Things.

I have to wake up in about three hours, so I'll be off now.

I WANT TO MAKE THIS BOOK SOMEONE GIVE ME MONEY TO MAKE THIS BOOK.
Inspired by this image set. I should've done something simpler, the image doesn't read well.

I wasn't allowed to post this picture for 7 months or so. But the Applegeeks book is out now, so I now have permission! This pinup is in AG Vol. 1! I drew it!

There is a lot more art I've been busting my ass on! But you guys probably can't see it for another 6 months.

OKAY YES NOW I AM LEAVING BYE DUDES <3
aaaa my Japanese is so bad help help this is going to be a disaster

OH HELLO AGAIN IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

2009-05-26T05:34:51Z

I have not been diligent about LiveJournal. I should probably update on some current events, so here are some things that have happened/will happen soon!

• The Library of Congress thing went well! Thank you again to the people who showed up to show support, you are all wonderful. I hear there is going to be a webcast of the thing going online some time, but I haven't heard any news of it. Maybe that is for the best!

• I am going to be in Japan from June 4th to June 15th! I'm probably going to have sporadic internet access, so apologies in advance if I'm super slow to reply during that time. There will be Johnny Wander updates as usual. I'm sorry, but this is going to be an extremely tightly-scheduled trip (I'm mostly visiting family), and I won't be able to go out of my way to meet up with anyone.

• We're moving right after I come back from Japan. This summer is going to be so hectic... I've realized, I haven't lived any place for longer than a year since high school. And my book collection is now significantly larger than it was while I was in high school. =_=

• I keep on forgetting, so I'll do it now. My pal (and yours) sheepyrai is doing an excellent recap blog of the Twilight series. As a person who has been trying to keep the series at an arm's length, it is both hilarious and mystifying.

I do not have so much art scanned, but I'll share a bit! I'll try to scan in more things before I leave!

I've again been reminded that I am no good at real media. Embarrassingly so. Also, I'm breaking up with crow quill pens. We are no longer an item.
Serona has eight cats. I will name them for you in a moment.

From the top and working from left to right:
Sam, Navi, Mortimer, Matthew, Gabrielle, Ernie, Sancho, Robin. Serona has a specific naming scheme that she likes to stick to. I'm sure you can guess it.
I was actually pretty fond of this picture, so I went and made a print of this version of it. (they'll be arriving on Wednesday! 8D) But not before dicking around extensively with it in Photoshop.

I'm also terribly fond of this version of the image! But I only came up with it after I'd ordered the print of the blue version. So I guess this one's only for the web.

Then I thought maybe I'd want to screen-print it somewhere down the line and converted the image into a 3-color design.

Then I went and made the whole thing CMYK.

Spoilers for the movie. Click for the entire (totally dumb) image.
So we saw the Star Trek movie. I-- OKAY I REALLY ENJOYED IT WHATEVER SHUT UP. As a childhood hardcore Star Wars nerd, I feel a little shamed. But the Star Wars franchise has kind of imploded with Many Terrible Things, so maybe I shouldn't feel so bad. ~~also uhura was super hot~~

Today's Johnny Wander is superficially about Star Trek, but really mostly about how we're little kids and like sugar cereal and light-up toys.

Oh gosh, wish me luck.

2009-05-12T06:42:33Z

Hello I am back from TCAF which was wonderful and everyone who was there should pat themselves on the back for being such great people. The shindig at the Library of Congress happens today. @_@ L-look, there's my name on this government website. What's with that.

If you're planning on going, this is what the website is telling me about how to find myself:

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Lecture — Asian Pacific Month West Dining Room C, 6th floor James Madison building.
James Miho, Bauhaus illustrator, and Yuko Ota, Japanese comic illustrator and creator of Johnny Wander, present "Japanese Illustrators Then and Now." Contact: (202) 707-0698

I am told that there will be a webcast of the event, so if you miss it you can see a video of me stuttering into a microphone in front of a room full of people on the internet as well.

I think it has been a while.

2009-04-30T20:43:38Z

Oh goodness, let me post some art. I've been sitting on most of this for somewhere between months and weeks. 8O

Hay artists! Have you been paying attention to the thing that harveyjames is doing over at his journal? It's fun, draw one of his cats-in-hats girls if you have time before Saturday.

I did this girl, then realized she'd already been drawn.

So I did another.

A little while back, rufftoon asked for fan art for her comic, Water Tribe. I'm not actually certain I've plugged this thing before, so I'll do it now. Water Tribe an epic what-if Avatar: The Last Airbender spinoff comic by one of the story board artists from the show. The story follows Admiral Zhao (the dude who was supposed to've been killed in the end of the first season) if he'd survived and was taken in by the Northern Water Tribe. The comic is a good 450 or so pages long, and is excellent. rufftoon is doing a small run of the comics, but I think they might only be available at San Diego Comic Con. (do not quote me on that)

I also drew Nauja as an ink test (I don't trust my brush anymore, I've pretty much decimated the thing), and decided to put some tone on it as well.

Some doodles from my tegaki. Ame.

Lars! I have never posted a picture of him before. He's a Ariesian Soleon -- the kind that North isn't.

Splashed some halfassed color on him in photoshop. Probably not his finalized coloring.

I am a terrifying nerd for myself. someone stop me.

AAAAAAA

Connecticon asked for some pictures of Ananth and myself for their con booklet. So I drew some terrible things.

The terrible thing I drew for myself. D8

elbales was sweet enough to send me a pack of artist trading cards a while back. I finally broke out some real media stuff and doodled out a few. I drew this one while listening to the new Decemberists CD? The drawing is kinda dumb and uninspired. Also, painted entirely in coffee and whatever that broth is that black beans make when you boil them (it makes a terribly pretty Payne's Gray color).

I tried to paint in watercolors for the first time in years and years and got frustrated and decimated the thing in acrylic. This was the unfortunate result. Sorry, Pythias.

Acrylic washes! My true love. I just finished Zelda: Wind Waker, and as irritating as I found DadBoat, he had the coolest design in the game (other than maybe Ganon). I did a Wind Waker comic over at Johnny Wander a bit back, with me and Pythias standing in. It's super, super dumb. I mean, really dumb.

Now that I've done some Artist Trading Cards, am I supposed to trade them? I'm so useless about these things.

And that half-naked lady I was promising! There is not much to oogle, apologies. I did some experimenting with textures and blowing out saturation. It was super fun. 8D It is Kaia and Dhio. Kaia's husband is a giant prehistoric dog. SWEET

... ... ...

SO, RECAP:
Draw a girl for harveyjames.

Read rufftoon's Water Tribe.

Oh gosh, there's so much more art that I left out. I need to share this stuff more often, I just have a bad tendency of getting all nervous and jittery about posting. :/

One final thing: It looks like I'm going to be following Ananth to do a Free Comicbook Day shindig at J&M Comics in Eldersburg, MD this upcoming weekend. (I'm 100% not important, I'm just going as moral support. If you stop by, we can hang out or whatever.) Also, I'll be at TCAF the weekend after that-- I don't have a table, but I hear I'm halfway recognizable in a crowd! If you see me, say hello!

Makin' things, makin' things

2009-04-15T18:04:31Z

I'm alive! And I'm doin' some stuff!

I updated my etsy account several days ago and decided to make some new button designs.

North face

Janus Face

Forza Face
oh gosh it looks so Miss Monster-y, I'm sorry Mel ;_;

Tristain Face

And Now They Buttons.

~~These aren't on Etsy just yet, but I figure they'll go off as a set.~~ THEY'RE UP AT MY ETSY 8D On that note, Johnny Wander recently got a Big Cartel shop. Only Phoenix Down shirts right now, and I can't promise that we currently have full stock of all shirt sizes. There will be more, though--!

In the meantime, here's a thing to look forward to for the future.

... ... ...

One last thing, it looks like I'm going to be doing a panel at the Library of Congress on different generations of Asian-American Illustrators. It's kinda terrifying, but the people seem to be very nice and not mistaken over how completely not important I am. I guess if you're in the DC area on May 12 from 12 to 1, you can see me fidget in front of a crowd of librarians. >_@

... ... ...

I promise, I'll have real-er, better art in the near future! I just hate using my scanner, it barely communicates with the scan drivers these days. =_=

the sound of SI-I-LENCE

2009-03-19T20:27:42Z

Hey fellas! If you read Johnny Wander at all, you might've noticed the news posts mentioning that my computer is dead. We're pretty certain the motherboard is fried, it's hanging out with Applecare until (hopefully) some time next week. I've been listening to CD's on the walkman I still have from middle school. It's a strange experience.

In the meantime, I'm probably going to be mostly silent on e-mail, livejournal, twitter, replying to J*W comments. I've basically only been commandeering Ananth's computer when I need to scan and color a comic.

There will be some cool stuff when I get back, I promise.

A Few Dumb Things

2009-03-02T21:28:22Z

I'd forgotten, I posted that useless robot design over at Threadless! Feel free to vote on it if you are compelled, it's only up for two more days.

To buffer the post:

As requested, I inked the picture of North that I posted a while back. Then I colored it! I learned a few things, cool! Although, I'm pretty bad at winging viscous liquids like blood? It's cool, no worries, he's just leaking caramel out of his hand.

Out of curiosity, I did the "MAKE YOUR OWN BAND AND ALBUM COVER" meme and the results were kinda hilarious. So I put everything together in photoshop for your amusement.

Rules or whatever:

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random" or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random.
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3.
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

YES YES YES WALL OF TEXT

... ... ...

It is strange that I am freaked out about posting too much on LiveJournal and having people hate me, but do not have that problem so much on twitter. Sometimes I post WIPs over there, but it is mostly my roommates and I yelling at each other.

Art or whatever!

2009-02-20T19:42:34Z

GOD THIS IS SUCH A MISTAKE. I promise I will never put a twitter feed on LJ, that's just irritating I know.

Something like ten people have friended this journal in the past two or three days! Where are all you guys coming from! Did someone link me or do I just have a permeating presence? I am curious!

I am boring, so I will get on to the art.

This is the last of the art that I did from Setsucon. There was only that sour instant hotel coffee at the shindig, and I was embarrassingly going through caffeine withdrawal. Also, there is a vague 30 Rock reference.

There was so much pencil smudging in this one, I slapped a texture on it to make it look passable. Then I half-heartedly colored it. How is metal effects formed? No one can be sure.

OH YEAH, I guess this is my Valentine's Day picture? It was done in time for Valentine's, but I always feel weird posting one thing at a time. Like I'm wasting your guys' time or something. Inspired by that music video that Everyone's-Already-Seen, but I will link it here anyway. ~~I take secret pleasure in how Sid's underwear is half coming off 8D~~

I realized that bunny ears look kinda like a nimbus! I guess that's neither here nor there.
Ananth says he looks like "Canti" from FLCL, but I'm actually not really familiar with the character... I saw the first episode back when I was in high school... It's one of those things I should probably sit down and watch.

I did this as kinda an exercise, then Ananth told me I should color it. So I did! It was pretty fun. It might get submitted to threadless?

PUT THAT AWAY, RINA.

... ... ...

I've been trying to teach myself how to use ink with a brush. I used a brush to do the latest J*W and I think it came out pretty okay? +1 TO INDIE CRED!

[EDIT:]

FRONT PAGE OF TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO SAVE THE PRESIDENT

Art post, then runnin' to Katsucon

2009-02-13T16:28:55Z

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while. Ananth and I are headed down to Katsucon soon, so I'll post this as quickly as I can.

The multicultural squad, or whatever Conrad called them. >:/ I drew this at Setsucon a while back and finally got around to coloring it. I'm not great at drawing guys, b-but maybe I will be some day--!! WHO KNOWS

ROLL CALL from the top left corner: Cirran, Dhio (Jack), Taro, Serik, Sid, Noa, North, Pythias, Gray.

this is terrible and I don't know why I'm posting it. Back at Setsucon, I forgot my pencil case so was drawing with a blue pen. I later stole a pencil from Chris. But there's Forza! AWW WHO'S A GOOD KITTY

Speaking of Chris, a while back he asked Ananth and myself to do some surfboard designs for his new book. I'm so five-out-of-ten on these, but I did them in a rush, and he liked them, so that's a plus. :D

'Sup Pythias. I forgot your spines there, sorry.

More things I drew at Setsucon. (I think there was more that I scanned, but forgot to shrink it. Next time!) ZEE ♥

I finally dove into Pose Maniacs! Wow, what a great tool.
I've been trying to design North's feet practically -- they're mostly based off an emu's feet right now. I need to draw some Soleon studies, their anatomy is so wonky.
I might ink this later --

A warmup sketch I did off my PoseFile book. I am trying to form a better relationship with my brush ... IT IS DIFFICULT. Things look better when I use a brush, but it also takes about 10x as long. I love how organic the lines look as opposed to the crow quill-- it probably suits my personality more-- but I am also a stickler for control. BLEURG

I have a bit of time between projects right now, I'll be spending some of it practicing not being awful.

... ... ...

So hey, if you're at Katsucon today, I'll be hanging at the Applegeeks table ~~flirting with Jess~~ folding t-shirts or whatever. We will have Phoenix Down shirts if you want them.

I should mention, at NYCC last weekend (o-oh yeah, I was there too), Ananth and George and I wound up chilling with the Oni Press dudes for a bit. Charlie (who is a fantastic photographer with a KILLER CAMERA) took some great photos of the weekend. Check out his flickr! i-it is like we are in a movie

And then DC collapsed upon itself

2009-01-23T07:08:07Z

OH, so the lot of us went to inauguration on Tuesday! It took me a good two days for my body to get over standing in the cold for so long, and I spent all yesterday doing the final filler comic for Applegeeks, apologies that I didn't get these up sooner.

Ananth, John, and Conrad

Ananth, Conrad, and WHAT, WHAT IS THAT FACE

It was something like 10am and it already looked like this.

I think this was the one decent photo I took? I'm a solid foot shorter than John, so he took most of the photos.

Biden was arriving, so everyone was waving their Obama-themed flags 8D

The man of the hour!

You can't really see the snipers on the roofs, but there I counted at least six from where I was standing. Crazy stuff. You can see how far away we were from the jumbotron, hahaha.

I could not believe that there were people taking video of the jumbotron! But there a lot of them!

I love this shot. Good job, John!

After the actual swearing in, everyone was dispersing to head towards the presidential parade, which we wound up skipping.

Photographers standing on top of the portapotties!

I think that's one of the Smithsonians on the left there? I love the WRONG WAY sign with the bee swarms of people. You can see some marines(?) directing traffic over on the right.

That dude in the middle of the photo. How intense.

Can't have a party without party poopers! They were raining down fire and brimstone and largely ignored. We were disappointed that they didn't go the extra mile to get a god-themed vanity plate.

... ... ...

I was at Setsucon this past weekend and drew a lot of things! I will scan them in later.

My dad is hilarious sometimes

2009-01-10T06:59:14Z

Me: Hello?
My Dad: I NEED YOUR FAVOR.
Me: You need a favor from me?
My Dad: I NEED YOU TO DRAW A PICTURE.
Me: Okay, I can do that.
My Dad: OF A MONKEY.
Me: Okay.
My Dad: RIDING A DEER.
Me: Sure.
My Dad: CARRYING A JAPANESE FLAG.
Me: Okay..
My Dad: ... BEING CHASED BY A BAD MONKEY -- YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT REALLY BAD
Me: Uh-- okay
My Dad: AND IT HAS TO BE CARRYING A BASEBALL BAT
Me: A monkey carrying a Japanese flag, riding a deer, being chased by a bad monkey, carrying a baseball bat.
My Dad: YES.

My dad is going back to Japan and will be visiting an old friend of his from middle school, who lives in Nara now (Nara is famous for its deer shrine -- I've been there once, it's not as cool as it sounds). Apparently back in middle school this guy had a nickname 'monkey' (or probably 'saru' or whatever). My dad is the "REALLY BAD MONKEY," he was a bad seed when he was a kid, also he liked baseball.

My dad's something like 68 now, how is he still in touch with people from middle school. And why does he still act like he hasn't aged since then. XD

WHAT THIS IS STUPID

2009-01-07T18:15:59Z

I should preface this by saying that today in the New York Times Dining section, there's a lengthy article about eating squirrels. *THUMBS UP*

I started writing this entry last night when I heard a huge crack and suddenly all the power went down in the building-- a large branch had dropped on the power line. Haha, if it's not the water going out in this place, it's the electricity.

Goodness, it's been a while. Sorry, I'm still doing that if-it-doesn't-have-pictures-don't-post-it-publicly thing. Hope your respective New Years went well! My family did its usual traditional feast shindig, and it was wonderful. I feel odd, it seems like I'm doing art constantly but don't have anything to publicly show for it. There's J*W, I did some stuff for the Applegeeks DarkHorse book that I can't show, there's other comic work stuff that I can't show, O-OH I didn't mention that I'm subbing for Hawk at AG for the month... I, ah, I'm not really all that familiar with the characters so I'm going off Ananth's original descriptions of his characters which isn't really how Hawk draws them. A few fans are complaining that they can't recognize people. What can I do, I guess. ._. no-but-seriously it's not a big thing.

So a few days ago, nedroidcomics did this awesome thing on his journal which naturally turned into a meme. I chimed in a few times. >_>

The thing is, that day I was stuck at Ananth's folks' place waiting for my old car's carcass (ah, pun not intended) to be picked up for donation. It was supposed to be picked up at or before 10. It was picked up after 3. So I had this indeterminate chunk of time to wait with the knowledge that the tow truck would come at any minute. So I made this atrocity.

(original by Artemisia Gentileschi, it's easily one of my favorite paintings)

Seriously, go through the comments in the entry, they're all gems. XD

I feel weird posting only o3o faces, so here is the latest applegeeks comic without the text:

And a doodle of a cat on my ink test page:

art and other useless things

2008-12-16T03:04:38Z

BEFORE I GO ON, THIS NEEDS TO BE SHARED. The lot of us went to the mall yesterday primarily so we could go into Hot Topic and look for it ~~so I could give it to Megan for Christmas and ensure she never speaks to me again.~~ (thank you iatro XD )

So, I was thinking some about the god system for that one world I have whose gods I draw a lot. All of the gods are self-realized prehistoric animals (ojeez it sounds so stupid when it's said out of context). In any case, this is what Dhio actually looks like. He's mostly based off a Hyaenodon gigas. (they had really big faces ♥ )

I should mention that I'm no good at BSing weird positions for animals, or, y'know, anything.

Doggyface, from Tegaki. The teeth weren't big enough in the previous picture, I fixed that.

TEGAKI HAS OPACITY NOW? CRAZY

I love you, North <33

You sure do, buddy.

SO THERE WAS ALL THIS ACE ATTORNEY CRAP FROM FOREVER AGO ON TEGAKI THAT I'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT? It's all really dumb, apologies in advance.

conrad complained that he hadn't seen these guys yet so apologies if you've already seen them

It's over, you can come back now.

I've been dicking around with brush pen as much as possible lately, we are now on vague speaking terms.

GOD PLEASE SOMEONE PAY US TO DO THIS SERIES I WANT TO DRAW THESE KIDS ALL THE TIME D*8

... ... ...

CLOSING REMARKS: While we were at the mall, I had to leave the Under Armour store because I was laughing so hard I started crying.

[EDIT] Today's Johnny Wander is super Yotsuba. I can't say I'm not proud.

CHILD'S PLAY and other things

2008-12-06T18:33:21Z

This year, I was asked to join in with a Webcomic Holiday Card Fundraiser for Child's Play, so I drew a thing. You can buy these guys bundled with cards done by people more popular than I am. XD

Er, you probably don't know Joannah and Caroline. (I didn't feel comfortable drawing pictures of myself and my roommates for the card...) Hopefully that will be remedied soon.

We went to the zoo a few weeks ago and I forgot I drew these. LET ME SAY NOW THAT RED PANDAS LOVE TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN.

Ah, those last two weren't from the zoo. I think I drew that at a convention. Hopefully the gal on the right will get her moment in the spotlight too?

OH MAN GOTS TO GET COOKIN' FOR HAMSGIVING 8D