Christmas Break

I'm spending about a week at home in Connecticut for the Christmas Holiday. Unfortunately it's not a total vacation, as there are still projects due. So I set up a miniature studio next to the Christmas stockings in my parent's downstairs family room.


In terms of Christmas gifts, I got a lot of useful items for my business. My collection of historical costumes and props keeps growing with the addition of a breastplate, shoulder pauldrons, a cowboy pistol, holster and ammunition belt. I will probably try to take some shine off the armor, but I want to do some research on the process before starting.


And I also got some fake tattoos. It's a fake cigarette, too. Don't smoke, kids.

Homer the cat

This is my Christmas gift to my girlfriend Shelly. Don't worry, we already exchanged gifts so I'm not spoiling anything.

I hate doing pet portraits. I really do. That's why, when asked, I usually charge an EXORBITANT amount. But Shelly loves Homer so it was worth taking some time to draw this for her. Homer is surrounded by a few pieces of his dry food, or "crunchies," which is not very accurate as he usually doesn't take a break while eating. He would never leave food behind.

Current sketchbook excerpts

After a long hiatus, I started a new sketchbook a few weeks ago. Most of the pages are junk, but that's fine with me. I tend to sketch in the morning as I'm drinking my coffee. I find that the morning haze allows me to be more free with my ideas and I'm less concerned with how things are presented on the page. Much like dreams, I usually forget what I drew later in the day and sometimes it turns out to be a pleasant surprise.

IlluXcon leftovers

As requested, some of the Artist Proof sketches leftover from IlluXcon. It's a shame I don't have a portable scanner because I really enjoy some of these sketches. But the good ones usually sell on the spot and I never see them again. All that's left are the ones that I do toward the end of these events. I really like the green goblin on the top row. I'm glad I got a chance to make a record of him.

Blog issues

I still can't recover the images from my posts prior to November 2010. Everything disappeared when I clumsily tried to update my website and lost access to my old server. You can still read my clever and intelligent writing, however.

Apologies to anyone trying to access old images.

Kingdom of Summer

Browsing on Amazon yielded this little surprise:


It's Kingdom of Summer, by Gillian Bradshaw, the sequel to Hawk of May. KOS is scheduled to be released in the Spring, and the final book in the trilogy (hopefully) will be published in the fall of 2011.

The censors

I'm sure many of you have heard about the recent controversy over the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. An article (one of many articles written recently) on the subject can be found here. I don't want to get too political on this blog, but it seems to me that this is only the most recent battle between controversial art (when in the last century was art not controversial?) and congressional leaders feigning outrage to garner support among a specific demographic. Personally, I think it's indefensible that the National Portrait Gallery removed the art in question.
What do you think?

And to illustrate this blog post, I'll represent a book cover I did a few years ago. Since it's illustration and not art, no one should be offended.