Unicorn Skull Finished!

("Unicorn Skull" Plaster 2014)

It's finally finished! My lovely unicorn skull. I just needed to smooth over the texture, paint it, and go over it all with a shiny gloss coating. This is going to look great on a bookshelf or a mantle piece somewhere. The perfect macabre decoration for any study, library, haunted mansion, laboratory, or little girl's bedroom. Im still wondering if I should add glitter....

I got this great old metal gear to use as a stand. I'm not sure what the gear originally came from, some kind of machine. All I know is it's solid steel and is REALLY heavy. Probably not good for a wall shelf but it should be okay on something sturdier like a book shelf or mantle. It makes an interesting juxtaposition between the feminine pink color and the heavy dark metal. I also appreciate how the skull looks like it's wearing some kind of frilly black neck brace.

Unicorn Skull

("Unicorn Skull" 2014 plaster & cardboard)

So Ive been working on this process of building plaster replicas of animal skulls. I've done a few so far and Im really starting to get the hang of it. I start by making the skull shape out of cardboard, styrofoam, tape, and wires. Then when I have the basic shape down, I just go over it with plaster gauze. How fucking great is plaster gauze?! Love that stuff.

Anyway, this was the first horse skull I've tried so far. Im pretty exited about it. It's not quite finished yet though, It needs a bit more plaster here and there (notice the bottom teeth aren't finished) and then I'm going to paint it. I usually just go over each skull with a thick layer of off-white paint, it's mostly just to give the surface a smoother texture rather than looking all paper mache. However, since this is a unicorn skull and all, I'm somewhat tempted to go over it in pink or purple and cover it in glitter... hmmmm.

Oh and incase anyone was wondering the horn is actually just a seashell.

Snowman Skeleton!!

So these are just some basic blue prints for a new idea I had the other day. I want to weld together a snowman skeleton. It would be sort of like a metal scarecrow. One end will stick into the ground and I'll pile snow up around the rest of it like a regular snowman complete with metal top hat and arms. BUT as the days go on and the snow begins to thaw, the steel skeletal form beneath (which will be covered in rust at that point so as to look extra creepy) shall be revealed to all! It's guaranteed to slowdown all passers-by and frighten children of all ages! =) I cant wait to get started!

Love Bears

One of my favorite teddies to date A few years ago I bought a cheap red hooded sweatshirt from a department store, XXL, cut it up, and made a handful of these little guys to sell. I'd like to make some more one of these days, maybe around valentines day. Not sure I'll use shards of aluminum as teeth next time though... not very safe.

Kitty

("Kitty" 2014, Photoshop)

Look I drawed a kitty =)

Horror Huggies; The Movie

("Disney's Horror Huggies" 2012 Paint & Photoshop)

There is no actual Horror Huggies movie, but how friggin' cool would that be? Am I right? I'm just a big fan of 2D animation, particularly classic Disney style. I wanted to make an illustration telling a narrative of some toys trying to get out of a toy store. I used a similar process that Disney animators use. The background is painted as one layer. The painterly quality makes it sort of blurry and not as sharply rendered as the characters, which helps them stand out from the background. It's a pretty common trick in photography and painting as well as animation. I then drew the characters on a piece of tracing paper, uploaded them to my laptop, and colored them in in Photoshop. The outlines, instead of just black, are all darker versions of what ever color the character is. The bear is outlined in dark brown, the bunny in dark purple. This helps the character look cleaner and more like part of the scene, while still clearly being 2D. I've always been interested in animation, although I don't think I would have the patience necessary to make cartoons. That stuff takes a LOT of work. But it was nice to see what Horror Huggies might look like in a cartoon form. 

The idea here was to draw the soul of an abused and forgotten toy rising out, sort of breaking out of a shell. I think I would like to do another piece like this with more of a background to add to that narrative, but at the time, I thought it would be best to concentrate on the three creatures. 

I decided to give each one a primary color, blue, yellow, and red. Partly to separate them from each other, but also because that specific combination of colors is a very common pallet used in plastic children's toys, and I so it seemed entirely appropriate given that these things are rising out of a broken toy.

Antisocial

("Antisocial" 2014. Photoshop)

There isn't much to say about this picture. It's a simple enough message. I wanted to do an illustration of a child being protected by their imaginary friends, lashing out with these make believe monsters. I sketched out a few variations of this idea, and I'd like to work on some of the others later on. I think my favorite part is probably the cooties buzzing around the above. It was fun trying to picture what cooties would actually look like.

Crocodactyl or Pterodile

("Crocodactyl or Pterodile" 2014, Digital)

In my library there is a very large book of reptiles I got when I was a kid. Every once in a while I flip through it, as well as a number of other volumes full of pictures and illustrations of animals, to find ideas for interesting things to sketch. One day I decided to take an already deadly and terrifying animal, and add wings to it. I like bat wings, they're fun to draw and they lend a sort of nightmare like quality to anything you draw them on. Thus was born this thing which I have yet to choose a name for. As you've probably figured out, I'm stuck between either Crocodactyl or Pterodile. I kind of like Pterodile best I think

I started with a basic sketch, then once I had a clear idea of what I wanted, I made a larger more detailed drawing, (seen below) then I cut up that drawing into smaller pieces, scanned each piece into my computer, and then put the pieces back together again in photoshop (see below again) then I colored it in. I did a similar project a little before this one with a dragon's head. If I have not posted that already I will most likely do so soon, but for now you'll just have to settle for a big crocodile with bat wings. 

(Aimee Self Portrait, Photoshop, 2014)

In a world of amateur selfie enthusiasts a handful of interesting or inspiring photos do occasionally make it onto the various social media websites. Every now and then when a friend of mine posts a particularly nice facebook photo, I ask for their permission to use it as a reference for a sketch or portrait piece. When my friend Aimee posted a photo of her holding a small puppy, I thought it might be fun to draw her holding something more ridiculous.

Portraiture is not my greatest strength and I spent a few days making sketches of the face until I had it right. After that it was a matter of taping the face to a piece of cardboard, placing some tracing paper over it, and sketching various backgrounds, bodies, and scenarios. I knew I wanted to draw her holding something ridiculous and I liked this version the best, so I scanned it onto my mac book and got to work.

It was a fun little side project, and good practice for portraiture, which is a handy skill to have. Aimee was very please with how it came out, as was I =)

"Playtime" Break Down

( "Playtime" 2014, Photoshop )

Some of you may have heard of this new online role playing game called League Of Legends (LOL for short). This piece was inspired by Jinx, one of the characters from this game.

HERE is a fantastic music video of her and her kick-ass theme song played by the group Djerv. It is one of my absolute favorite songs now!

After seeing this video and admiring the Harley Quin-esk novelty of her weapons, I was inspired to design my own colorful weapons of fluffy destruction! so I purchased a cheap plastic shotgun and set to work on painting and decorating it. (see below)

The end result wasn't bad, but it looked a bit more handmade than what I was going for. In the end, I took a few photos of it, and decided to use it as a reference for an illustration piece instead. 

I was much more pleased with the illustration than the original gun. I ended up taking the gun apart and saving bits and pieces of it (the bunny, the teddy head, the pink ribbons, etc.) for future attempts.I do have some soft plans to work on making some rubber ducky grenades of my own, but I have no strict plans as of yet.

Zombie T-rex Self Portrait

That's right! I located my lost password for this account and am back online! My apologies for the lack of posts. I will be posting regularly again from this point on into the foreseeable future, I have a lot of projects and photos to share with you all, so buckle up! And what better way to kick off my return than with this epic portrait of yours truly riding an undead T-rex?

("Science Bitches" Digital Piece 2014)

Generally. great art is made to convey powerful emotions and important messages to people. It is a medium through which all artists can communicate with the rest of the world... most of the time. Sometimes, you just get an idea for something awesome that you really want to draw! This was one of those times. Who among us has never wanted to ride a giant zombie dinosaur at some time or another?

This piece was colored in Photoshop but the I worked from an original sketch. Above is the finished outline after the sketch was scanned into my computer and traced over in Illustrator. Below is the original drawing that I scanned to start with. Here we see the transition from rough draft, to finish sketch, to final copy.

Professor Maskell's Eccentric Circus (in color)

("Professor Maskell's Eccentric Circus" 2014, Photoshop)

Once again HERE is the link to the song that inspired this poster!

Here it is, finished and in color! I am very excited about this. I've always wanted my own circus, or amusement park, hell I'd even settle for my own creepy looking ice cream truck, and while this is only fake poster and does not refer to any actual circus currently in existence, it's still pretty fucking neat! 

With finals coming up this week I have a lot of studying, reviewing, and memorizing to get to, but I just couldn't concentrate knowing that this poster was just sitting there unfinished. I think once this semester is finished I might start working on a series of circus related promotions. Post cards, flyers, tickets, coupons, etc. Then maybe one day, when I have an eccentric circus of my very own, I'll have all the design work finished ahead of time.

Professor Maskell's Eccentric Circus!

First things first HERE is the song that inspired this poster. The image really isn't complete without background music.

Excellent point, random viewer! It does seem a bit plain, doesn't it? It needs color, LOTS of color! Dark purple, acid green, blood red, fiery orange, etc! Unfortunately this semester has not quite ended yet, and since I have been working on this poster for most of the time that I should have been studying for finals, I'm probably going to take a break at this point, and start coloring it in later. But rest assured, I will be posting the finished product on this blog as soon as it's ready!

Until then, just listen to the music, and imagine how fantastic it would be if I had my own circus!

Venom Care Bear

("Venom Bear" 2014, Photoshop)

Are Care Bears still relevant at all, or is this a bit dated? I suppose it doesn't really matter. Even if the young people have never heard of care bears, they'll still get a kick out of seeing a big cuddly Venom.

For those of you who don't know what a care bear is. This is them.

Did you listen to it? Wasn't that just the most sickeningly innocent thing you've ever heard? (shudders) Now you know why I had to draw this. Care Bears have had it too cute for too long.

For those of you who don't know, this is what is known as a "mashup" a combination of different genres, themes, styles, or characters that would not ordinarily be put together. It is impossible to spend much time on the internet without seeing examples of these. Salvador Dali illustrating Alice in Wonderland, Disney characters drawn as Star Wars characters (or visa versa), Hello Kitty as a zombie, Marvel heros battling DC villains, the list goes on and on.

(original sketch)

Horror Huggies; so cute, it's scary...

It may or may not surprise you to learn that I am a big fan of horror movies. I don't much care for the kins of horror films that are just about some guy who kills people in an abandoned house for fun. I prefer movies about monsters, aliens, ghosts, zombies, or any other strange imaginative antagonist. Some of my favorite horror films are about evil toys- Chucky, Demonic Toys, the Puppet Master series. Every horror movie about killer toys starts off the same way, a montage of someone building the horrible toy, with creepy music playing in the background. I have a small workshop set up in my parent's basement (gangster right?) and it's full of the kinds of sketches, and tools, toy parts, and sketchy florescent lighting that would be perfect for such a creepy montage, so I decided to make this video, as sort of a personal spoof on those movies I enjoy so much.

The music in the background is form what is probably my all time favorite evil toy movie, Dead Silence.

Enjoy

I apologize for the pixelation on the video. For some reason Blogspot.com would not upload the more high quality version of the video, so I had to upload a cheaper one. HERE IS A LINK to cleaner version of this video.

Why Do I Do It?

Some of you may be asking, why I, or anyone else for that matter, would put so much time and effort into a  fine arts career when there is so little, if any, job security in that field. Well, I do it for two reasons. 1. Nobody was kind enough to warn me about the lack of jobs until after I got my associates degree, and 2. I LOVE ART. I fucking love god damn, mother fucking art! Like for realz, yo. I can’t even. And here’s why...

God Complex

If you can draw, you have a power. In fact, during the Renaissance, artists were often considered superior, and more virtuous than normal people, because they possessed the gift to portray the heavens, saints, angels, Christ, etc. Artists have the power to create stories, characters, anything they like. Any ideas I have I can manifest on paper or in sculpture. 

If I want to see a crab creature with the head of a cat? 

Voila!

What if I wanted to see President Roosevelt fighting off an army of Predators in the name of freedom?

MY WILL BE DONE!!

Communication

If I told you to picture a bear unicycling in a tutu while juggling dynamite. What you picture in your mind would be VASTLY different from what I see in my mind. What kind of bear would you think of? What color unicycle? Did I mean the long red dynamite sticks, or the round black ones with the little fuses?

However, when I show you this..

You know exactly what I’m thinking

(For future reference, you should always picture the little black round ones)

It's like trying to tell someone about a game/book/movie you really love, when you know it would be so much easier to just show it to them.

Art gives people a way to express ideas that they do not have the words or the understanding to express properly.

Boredom

I have often said “If I wasn’t an artist, I’d be an arsonist.” and sometimes I even believe it.

There is so much boredom in the world. That has been made even more noticeable over the years thanks to cell phones and ipads and all other technologies that are almost specifically designed to help us battle every day boredom. Every time you see someone texting or browsing the web on their pone or other devices, that means that person is bored.

I on the other hand am hardly ever on my phone. Those of us who like to draw, can battle boredom with just a pen and a scrap of paper, which are just as portable, just as distracting, and significantly cheaper than a cell phone.

See this? 

That’s Clifford The Dog battling Godzilla. Why? Because algebra is boring!

The Rush

Above all of those reasons. The main reason I stick with painting, sculpting, drawing, etc. is because I am, quite literally, addicted. 

There is no rush, no high I have ever experienced that can compare to the euphoria that comes form taking your ideas and successfully manifesting them in a painting, a sketch, a sculpture, particularly in a sculpture. The closest thing I could compare it to would be a warm, relaxing, wine buzz.

A great work of art is a constant reminder of your power, your skill, your creativity. A successful work of art will keep your ego strong, and keep a smile on your face... at first. After a while, you need more, more successful paintings, more great sculptures. You need to feel that rush again, to feel that pride and that self worth. It does not have to be a success in other people's opinion, only yours, but the more you make, the more difficult it will be to impress yourself over time. I’ve spent so many sleepless nights working on sketches and sculptures that were not finished, not good enough. It is my drive, my purpose, and my obsession, and I would not trade it for any other addiction on Earth.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

("Easter Bunny" 2014, Photoshop)

"Fair well, my children! I must return now to my own dimension, but I shall return next Easter to lay my delicious candy eggs on all of your lawns!"

I apologize for my lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. My laptop was being repaired and I could not access my photos. Nor could I use programs like Photoshop, which means I couldn't make any new illustrations for a while (dependence on technology is the one downside to digital painting) BUT I have returned, and I shall be resuming normal posts from now on. HUZZAH!

I shall start with this new illustration, which I finished just after Easter. This is most likely the most colorful thing I have ever done, and I'm quite pleased with it. I do not actually celebrate Easter, but I do admire a holiday that is so obsessed with bunnies and candy, and there's no better time of year to stock up on stuffed animal parts! Every shelf of every store is over stuffed with fluffy toys, and they're prices go down substantially right after Easter.

In case you couldn't tell, this bunny is actually a copy of the big blue bear from my other illustration "Day At The Circus" BUT before you call me lazy and unoriginal, not that I could really argue against that, take a look HERE and see what other illustrators are known for copying the same characters multiple times.

Just Add Skulls!

Back when I was first starting out as a creepy toy maker, I learned very quickly that the best way to make an interesting and faintly disturbing looking toy was to remove it's head and replace it with a skull. It's incredibly simple and not terribly imaginative, but the results are always fun to see. This particular rabbit I won at a carnival/rave that was being held one warm summer night, on the deck of an old battle ship in Salem Massachusetts. Fire jugglers, glow in the dark wands, face painting stations, and scores of people dancing and grinding underneath two enormous tank barrels! I popped a balloon with a dart on my first try and won the aforementioned rabbit, whom I immediately named Raziel.

 About a month or so later, I was on my way to a Halloween party, for which I had been asked to bring some of my toys for decoration, and as I was packing a few popular favorites, I found Raziel sitting next to one of the many plastic skulls I had recently bought (I stock up on them every year around Halloween) So I quickly grabbed my scissors and my glue gun and within 10 minutes I had new and improved Raziel.

Smiley

("Smiley" 2013, fleece and aluminum)

"Hello Clarice."

This was a custom bear, made for a friend of mine who is a particularly large fan of the Batman villain, Joker.

This is far from the first toy I've made with sharp aluminum teeth. Pointy metal jaws used to be a staple in all my toys. I stopped using it as much, not because it was unsafe (there is no sweeter irony than making a cuddly toy that can not be cuddled) but because the only way to get aluminum teeth to stick to a bear is with a hot glue gun, and since many of the teeth I made were quite small (unlike this example) it was VERY tricky to glue the teeth in place without getting glue stains all over the fabric. Of course, the toys I make do have a sort of hand-stitched quality to them and that's completely intentional, but glue stains on fabric is much different than sloppy stitching, or button eyes, or torn and patched fabric. There's something artificial and tacky about glue stains.

Anyway, Smiley here is one of my absolute favorites and incidentally, has no glue stains. He's made of fleece which is a great fabric for making toys if you ever feel like giving it a try. It is not only soft and easy to sew, but it's surprisingly firm and holds it's shape, which is why Smiley's grin holds so well on his face.

Remember kids,

Smile and the world smiles with you.