January 2017 Horoscope Illustration of Capricorn

First illustration of 2017. Wow. I had a few rounds of sketches before I felt comfortable with a composition. This still doesn't match what I had in mind. It is supposed to feel much tighter...but physically the creature wouldn't fit in properly. I really want to step away from this kind of style and be more design oriented. More emphasis on shapes and form than line. This picture fails to do that.

Once again, the illustration is for the hyperlocal blog, Greenpointers.com.

Here was the prompt:

This month is all about goals and aspirations. Now that we’re in Capricorn, matters of career, goals, ambitions are on the brain—and you’ll be focused on who you want to be in the future, and how to get there. The sun will be in Capricorn until the 19th, and Mercury will be retrograde through the 8th. This means you should hold off signing contracts or making major choices with your job--which is what the first week of the month is for. outstanding tasks from 2016.

Sketches from my visit to the American Museum of Natural History - August 2016

Rest in Pieces, Big Figment

Brooklyn four piece band, Big Figment has called it quits. It's been months since their break up, but I never got around to posting the last few pieces I created for the band. In fact, there are a bunch of pieces still stuck in progress that probably won't see the light of day.

So this post is for those poor lost little souls, and an informal farewell to a strange, challenging, and glorious band. So long, "Biggie Figz", it's been real.

Cat Skull Watercolor - ARIZA Promo

ARIZA 2016

A Guy From Queens Now Living In Brooklyn. Traitor? Trend Sheep? Pros/Cons?

I have left my home town of Richmond Hill, Queens to live in Greenpoint, a hip, up and coming neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I live right by the East River and can wave hello to Manhattan from my apartment. Never thought that would happen! Honestly, I've always thought that I would stay in Queens.

Some of my friends now think my hipster metamorphosis is complete. Once I get my bike from home and lock it up here I may have to agree. I will miss Queens, but something tells me I won't be away from it for too long.

I just hope I don't get too drunk one night and make my way all the way back home to Richmond Hill instead of my new apartment. That would suck!

I still need to get my art supplies over here, I'm just afraid of being overwhelmed with the lack of space I have here. My bed takes up about 80% of my room. I did bring my music recording gear, though, and that already takes up a lot of space. 

This will just force me to work digitally to pump ideas out. Before leaving my childhood home for good, I made this poster for the band Big Figment. The inspiration of this piece came from a Wikipedia article about an Eel City that my friend Peter Longofono had posted up. The image I had in mind was far more involved, but for the poster's sake, I had to simplify it to make it readable. 

I originally had the colors much brighter...which was okay, but the top one definitely matched the darker tone of the band best. 

Once Jennae, the lead singer of Big Figment, approved of the design, I added the show info.

The font, for those who care about such things, it's called Bebas Neue.

I explained the creation of the band logo in an earlier post.

Native and the Bird

Lion Headed Man

Lion Headed Man acrylic on wood 2013

TOONS Performing at Arlene's Grocery Concert Poster

Baboon Jungle

Baboon Jungle Acrylic on 12 x 16 in. canvas panel 2013

Baboons, I find, are some of the strangest and most frightening creatures on this planet. Funny enough, I think human beings, specifically men, are pretty damn frightening as well. Since we are animals ourselves we have innate tendencies to react to stimuli in a rather uncivilized way. I myself have felt urges, pure primitive ones, at the sight of women. The painting of the baboon is how I imagine my inner voice to look like. It is wild and fierce. Its eyes directionless and aimless because it cannot focus on just one.

I was inspired heavily by Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings. His nude women, and the wild creatures around her. I am also inspired by Walton Ford and his amazing watercolors of wildlife having human like characteristics/motivations.

The Witch Doctor

The Witch Doctor Bears a Gift  Acrylic on 6 x 6 wood panel 2013

Love At First Sight

He just can't catch a break.

New York City Subway Train Drawings | Breaking in a new sketchbook.

Here are a some subway drawings I did over the last few weeks. Most of these were done on the ride to and from work on the E train. That's a whole two hours of drawing each day! I go to work five days a week, that makes it ten hours of drawing time a week (not including my time spent in the studio), so by the end of this month I would have drawn for forty hours. Pretty valuable practice time! Let's see if there are any results over a long period of time.

Christmas Gift

Curious Girl meets a Frog Sepia Ink on Card Paper 2012

A good friend will receive this card.

Bacon

Bacon

The robot looks like he got a tan...not crazy about his new color. I'm trying out these new gray scale markers. I think it's safe to say that they suck.

Sticking with Prisma Markers. Bitch.

Return to the Museum of Natural History

I went back to draw more bones. I drew a whole lot more this time around, but I think I might've burnt myself out. I don't know how anatomical/medical illustrators do it, bones are a real son of a bitch to draw. After hours of drawing, my eyes began to bug out, and my brain cried for me to stop. A lot of visual information was translated on to paper today. I can't wait until the day where I can go on without any breaks at all. Maybe I'll go crazy, and step over into an enlightened state of creativity. I don't know.

I'm still having a hard time composing properly, fitting everything in. Composition is tough to think about when you're so preoccupied in being accurate. The day composition comes naturally to me will be such a glorious happy day.

New York City Subway Drawings of People on the Train

Acorns

Acorns

Crumbs

Crumbs

Comics about Life

Holy cow, guys!

I've been making a few comics for fun as you can probably tell from previous blog posts. I've been looking at a bunch of web comics lately and realized there isn't much out there that really makes me laugh. My sense of humor is stupid, but not that stupid...so I decided to make my own comics with my "taste" of funny.

Cause and effect. Life's brilliant way of making things interesting. It's in the physics, look it up!

And now, I present to you, the loverly prettiful pictures I drew.

Foul

Theft

Into to Dance