Tattoo Concpetuals

After a long hiatus, here's a series of tattoo sketches I'm working up for a few friends. The first is an Ouroboros, a snake eating it's own tail as a symbol of infinity. I tried a variety of Mayan styles to choose from. the second set of sketches is a symbol of Baphomet, a pagan deity of duality.

New Business Cards!

Yes it's that time of year again. By now you'd think I'd tone done the textures and graphics with all the recent graphic design work I've been getting at ICOM, but for some reason this particular idea just won't leave me. I think it was originally inspired by an old TransCanada boxcar rotting on the tracks or some kind of heavy machinery.

Ahm Backup Onmah Grind!

It's true, I'm no longer dangerously sick or overworked, and I figured the best way to celebrate is with more raw sketch power! So here's the latest figure studies originally done in a variety of media, but adjusted for a more harmonious presentation.

3G Generation Gap

 

I was recently commissioned by Swerve magazine to do an editorial illustration for their Dec 23rd issue. The article covers a quirky story about older generation folks jumping on the communication technology train with full force! I challenged myself to make the piece entirely vector-based in illustrator. There are still so many different styles to try I'll have to do another one soon!The article can be seen here.

Angont

This little beauty is a serpent of Native American Huron legend said to dwell in lakes and rivers, and when provoked it overwhelms its prey with disease and death. I ran with the disease idea and made my two active words 'putrid' and 'disgusting'. Putrefaction is the harbinger of disease, and maggots its heralds. I combined that with the overpowering nature of a boa-constrictor with the gnarly fangs of a viper to try and make something truly horrifying.

If you Could Swing a Sword With Your Feet, What Would It Look Like?

This week's Mythological Mayhem project (or maybe last week's) is the Turul. Basically it's a Mongolian hawk that swings a flaming sword and impregnates women in their dreams. So my instinct is to immediately anthropomorphize it, functioning similarly to a man with all the necessary uh, equipment. So if this bird swung a giant sword with it's powerful talons, how would it do it? I've recently been inspired by Joy Ang's work again, how easily she switches from smooth stylization to sharp realism. thus I'll be switching gears to better articulate a similar style. Also the giant fantasy sword definitely comes courtesy of Paul Richards. I just couldn't resist.

FORCE

Still trying to take what I've learned from Force: Dynamic Life Drawing For Animators and trying to push fluid movement by drawing through the forms to carry the 'ski slope' rhythm and working with straight/curved shapes. I try to get a good stack of sketches to work with first, so I can skim the cream of the crop, even if it is more work arranging them in puzzle-piece compositions. Currently keeping the sketching going as much as possible in between writing covers letters for any range of graphic design/illustration work.