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A very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday to everyone no matter how/what/where you celebrate.

Every year I have illustrated an original Christmas card for my family to send to family and friends. The earliest Christmas cards we would make were silk screened and my father took my art and cut it by hand into the screen. Latter we would xerox the cards in black and white and hand color a few small elements to enhance them. And now I can scan, edit, color and prep the files on the computer and have them printed in vivid color, but no matter what form the cards take they are a continuing tradition I am proud to be part of. This year I decided to show you the illustrations I have created since 2000 in the video above.

I hope you enjoy the video and have a wonderful season.

note: Music “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″

Continue reading »]]> I wanted to find a unique way to show samples of my artwork that would stand out, so I decided to create a hard-cover book that I could use at conventions and professional meetings. The book features samples of my artwork from 2007-2011 including illustrations and personal work.

The books are Print On Demand through Blurb.com, who do a high quality job and create a very slick final product.

You can order the hard-cover book (with an on-line preview) HERE

This is the 4th book I have made through Blurb.com and I have been very happy with the results. The books are always printed beautifully and come to you looking very professional and slick.

Now, one of the best things about Blurb.com is that they are constantly updating their services aimed at their target audience: artists. So they have made their own software BookSmart more customizable, but also finally have an option for folks who wanted a more professional options. This year they introduced a plug-in for Adobe In-Design that not only generates the templates for a book/cover, but also a way to correctly output a PDF to upload. This means that you can pretty much layout the pages any way you want and can use files in formats like Photoshop .psd that BookSmart can not use. Considering I have lots of art as high-resolution .psd files, that means I could place them and not have to convert them to .jpg files first.

Uploading the final book as a Adobe PDF was easy to do and the website will let you know if any of your images are too low-res for print, but I would always make sure to carefully look at your PDF yourself to make sure there are not unexpected surprises which sometimes do not show up in In-Design.

If you are familiar with Adobe InDesign I would definitely consider using the plug-in since it was a lot faster and more powerful, but the BookSmart program is really good if you want something pretty nice.

To find out more about editing your book at Blurb.com visit HERE.

Continue reading »]]> As you know from my previous posts, I participated in the Cartoon Art Museum’s Sketch-A-Thon at the SDCC2011.

Most of the time we created original art for a donation to the Museum for an individual, but sometimes we did drawings that were just examples while waiting for a customer. A few of mine that did not sell I was able to borrow from the Cartoon Art Museum to Scan and return.

YOU can buy a drawing if it’s still available for a donation of $10+ (plus shipping and handling if needed) and all proceeds go to the Cartoon Art Museum.

All characters are © there respective owners and these are only done as fan tributes and not for reproduction.

I did a few drawings that were “Kick Butt” version of Disney Princesses. This one is Princess Tiana from the “Princess and the Frog” who I saw as a warrior with voodoo powers. (below) To see my version of Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” visit my previous post.

Another Disney character I drew is the mysterious Hat Box Ghost which was a character in the famous Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland. The character did not last long in the ride and was removed shortly after it opened making it a mystery that the fans love. Me too.

The last piece of art is my version of DC Comics Superman as a steam punk hero.

Continue reading »]]> So here is the second chunk of photos from the first day of the Cartoon Art Museum Sketch-a-Thon at the San Diego Comic-Con 2011. We were doing a fundraiser to help the museum by having artist rotate ever hour and create original art pieces for donation of $10 or more. As you can tell that most folks got their money’s worth.

To go back and see PART 1, FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Anthony Hon busy drawing.

Scott Shaw’s Captain Carrot.

A drawing I got of Fred Flintstone as Batman.

Another amazing drawing by Mike Dubisch.

Scott Shaw and Chari Pere busy drawing for their fans.

Anthony’s awesome Hulk drawing.

Dirk Tiede draws Batgirl.

Museum Curator, author and artist Andrew Farago draws his version of Daffy Duck.

Brad Rader’s drawing of Goliath from the TV show Gargoyles which he worked on.

Wow, someone got a drawing by Chari and Scott. Lucky lucky lucky.

My first ‘kick butt’ Disney Princess drawing.

The amazing Jamaica Dyer gives us the mysterious adversary of Batman, Poison Ivy.

And one more from Seamus Smith.

To go back and see PART 1, FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Continue reading »]]> This year I again volunteered to help one of my most favorite organization at the San Diego Comic-Con 2011, the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco. I can only wonder around the convention so much before getting burned-out and this was a way to also promote my art as well as help a great non-profit.

The idea is that the Museum has artist scheduled every hour to do original art for a donation of $10 or more. The art was amazing and it was great to hang out with other artist.

These photos are from the first full day of the convention Wen July 21, 2011. I did not get photos of everyone and every drawing I am sad to say. This is just the start of posting a lot of images of the artist at work as well as the final results.

Enjoy.

a drawing by…Me of Adventure Time characters

a drawing by Seamus Smith

Rick Lucey and Renee making art

The fabled Hat Box Ghost from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland by…Me.

Andrew Farago draws Captain America

Mike Dubisch painting a very cool dragon.

World famous Captain America from Marvel Comics and the new movie.

Continue reading »]]> And the rest of the art I created at Wondercon 2011 (April 1-3), this time all original characters by me.

Octopus – click above for a bigger image

Some creature thingy – click above for a bigger image

Steam punk women – click above for a bigger image

Archer – click above for a bigger image

Fantasy women – click above for a bigger image

Batman Tiki – click above for a bigger image

Cat – click above for a bigger image

Dead pirate – click above for a bigger image

Dragon – click above for a bigger image

Continue reading »]]> Here are some more art I created at Wondercon 2011 (April 1-3).

Pokemon creature – click above for a bigger image

Etrigan the Demon from DC Comic – click above for a bigger image

Vision and Scarlet Witch from Marvel Comics – click above for a bigger image

the Might Thor from Marvel Comics – click above for a bigger image