Valkyrie

Hey there, well I finished the painting for my book last night and all that's left is to figure out a cover, scan everything and the graphic design and type forever. I'm hoping to get all the pages scanned at some point this week so I may throw a few preview pages up here at some point.

In the meantime here's something that I did last week that I just got around to editing for the web. I needed a break from the book so I took a day off to just work on something else and had this sketched out from a little bit ago. Something funny happened to the background color when it was scanned that I can't seem to fix so just imagine it more magenta-y. So now that my life isn't as consumed with my absurd book-page-finishing schedule hopefully the updates can be a bit more frequent, as I'm sure I'll need a fair amount of breaks from the editing and layout processes.

Oh and also t minus 26 days until my US visit/vacation/temporary reprieve.

Houndstooth is really hard.

Here is as promised one of those sporadic postings that I had promised a bit ago so that you know that I haven't fallen down a well or something. This was done for an exhibition which ultimately fell through, but at least I managed to get a piece I liked out of it.

There hasn't been much time for anything else new as of late as I am in the midst of my book and it's absurd self imposed deadline. Basically right now it amounts to 2 finished fully painted pages a day for the next what feel like forever so that I can have most of the artwork done before my visit back to the US. Maybe I'm post a few teasers here and there as I start to scan some of it. I feel like I should have some sort of sign off phrase for these post.

What I've Been Doing For the Past Week Or So

Switching it up a bit for now until who know how long this thing will take, I've started working on a book as part of my thesis (and quickly becoming the majority of my thesis). For the past week-ish I've been doing these basic thumbnail/layouts as an entry into actually doing the book (posted small here as to not ruin the story). It's turning out to be a significantly bigger undertaking than I had initially anticipated, as the page count right now clocks in right at 60. Maybe not my best first significant foray into sequential art but should be a good experience. Expect sporadic at best posting as I work on this, partially because I'm not sure what kind of schedule this will take and partially because posting in progress might ruin the story.

I don't even like Captain America...

So I managed to finish that paper surprisingly early and have a couple of down days since it doesn't make sense to work on my thesis work until I have the meeting with my adviser on Thursday, anyways long story short here's something new that was just for fun and has no real relation to anything else I'm doing.

I've never really been one to draw superheroes (with the exception of those occasional project rooftop submissions last summer) but I seem to have be reading a bunch of superhero books lately and was introduced to a couple of really great new animated show that are gorgeous (spectacular spider from the equally spectacular Sean Galloway and batman the brave and the bold, go watch them now they're really pretty and fun). I'm not sure why I choose Captain America, especially since he's always been one of my least favorites, usually him and superman pretty much top my list. I have to admit that I didn't really know any Captain America villains so I just used the wonderful all purpose henchmen of HYDRA. Oh and since there were way to many dudes I also put in Madame Hyrda, who I only know about because she's in a episode of X-men Evolution which I really like, shut up it's awesome. As always feedback is awesome.

In which Tyler makes excuses and pretends to be a comic artist.

Howdy everyone, so I'm gearing up for end of term slash mid point of my course over here and as such have spent the past few weeks doing completely unfun things printing out everything bit of research and sketch that I've done in the last six months, cobbling together a reasonable in progress portfolio and now writing an obnoxiously long paper, which I am mid way through now and not sure when it'll be done (well before Wednesday I suppose since that's when I have to turn it in).

Anyways those are my super lame excuses for nothing new recently, however I do have this comic I did a little bit ago. I was asked by a friend of mine at SVA to submit a one pager for a comic collection he's working on. No info on the title or when it'll actually see the light of day right now but I'll keep you updated. This was a bit of an odd experience for me since I don't really have any experience in doing comics (I tend to be more on the reading way too many of them side) but it was fun nonetheless. So here it is, hopefully legit new stuff soon.

Littliest Bird finish

Here's the finish to this one in all it's washed out blogger glory, but that seems to be a problem for everyone so I'm not going to worry about it. If anyone has any thoughts they are as always appreciated. I think I may take a bit of a break from these for right now and focus on creating an overarching narrative of some sort rather than these one shots, so expect sporadic posting for a bit again.

The Littlest Birds (Sing the Prettiest Songs)

Okay so after a few weeks of distraction with class and some other opportunities I'm finally back on track with my actual project. Here's what I'm working on right now based on the Be Good Tanya's song The Littlest Birds (Sing the Prettiest Songs). Hoping to get it banged out in the next few days.

Texas Observer: Evolution vs. Creationism

Here's something I did last week for the Texas Observer. It was for piece on Don Mcleroy who's the chairman of the Texas Board of Education and his connection to the creationism versus evolution "debate". It should be out now so if you happen to be in Texas pick one up. It was a little weird going back to doing the cut paper thing, since I've been pretty much exclusively painting as of late, so we'll see where that goes.

Maple Leaves finish... finally

Okay so here's the finish that I promised over a week ago, apparently I did manage to get distracted. And by distracted I mean started the painting over because I didn't like the colors followed by a quick-ish freelance piece for the Texas Observer (I'll post it sometime after the issue comes out). Maybe I need to jinx myself more often, I could get used to a little more of this sort of distraction, the paying freelance kind not so much the having to restart midway through bit. Anyways what you think people of the internet? Thanks and hopefully more soon.

She said it was all make-belief, but I thought you said maple leaves...

Here's the latest, it's based on the Jen Lekman song "Maple Leaves", hoping to have the final done in the next few days unless I get distracted.

They are zombies!... Finish

Here's the latest. There are bits of this I'm really excited about, I like the really minimal line work and am trying to figure out the balance between this and the really pattern-y stuff like the last painting. I've also recently discovered mixing a bit of concentrated watercolor in with the gouache which really makes the colors pop, though you can't really tell in the scan on this one the pink is a bit brighter than it appears on screen (and even worse once publish to the web, anybody have any suggestion on how keep images from being washed out when put up here?). General thoughts/feedback/etc? Thanks everyone and expect more soon.

EDIT: Thanks to Mark and Justin for their help with the color problems, still needs a little tweaking but a vast improvement.

They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!

Here's the latest sketch this one's for "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!" by Sufjan Stevens, this may have just been an excuse to draw zombies. You know the drill final to come if it doesn't suck.

You and I finish

Here's the final for that sketch I put up a few days ago, still trying to get a hang of this painting business but I think there's some improvement here. Mostly just trying to get this whole using a brush for line work thing. I'm still at the point where I like the sketches more than the finals but I'm going to get the hang of this if it kills me. As always feedback is really appreciated and more to come soon.

Maybe I want to do what bunnies do with you, if you know what I mean

Here's the drawing for my next painting, I've decided to stick with this whole painting thing for a bit see if I can get a handle on it. This one's from Ingrid Michaelson's You and I, which is a cute little song I also happen to be trying to learn on ukulele at the moment. I am a bit worried that I might just look like the bunnies are humping the people's heads though. Same rules as last time apply, will post the final if it doesn't suck.

Static Electricity finish

As promised here the finish for that sketch I posted a few days ago, turned out alright I still have a lot of work to do on this whole painting thing. Mostly I'm having trouble getting the nice sharp lines of a pencil with brush. Feedback would be much appreciated.

what's going to be the death of me? static electricity

So about once a year I get it into my head that I'm going to teach myself to paint and it's about that time of year again. I usually get discouraged after about a week or so, we'll see how long it last this time.

Anyways here's a sketch that I did last night loosely based on a line from the mountain goats song I love you let's light ourselves on fire, which quite frankly is one of the greatest song titles ever. I'm going to try and paint it over the next day or to and if it turns out alright I'll post it.

1/16 Skecthbook Scans

A bit of new sketchbook stuff, been playing with gouache lately more to come.

first sketchdump of the new year part 2

and part 2, mostly I've been just doing lots of exploration hence the vaguely schizophrenic appearance of the work as of late

first sketchdump of the new year

I decided to scan my sketchbook from over the holiday now that I have access to a scanner again. I'm going to go ahead and split this into 2 post because there's a fair bit of stuff.

New Plush: Alan

It's been way too long since I've made a new plush toy and I forgot just how satisfying it is to finish one. This is Alan, he's a deer and is probably around 15 inches tall (which is a really nice size to squeeze). Making this made me miss my sewing machine a bit but they're something nicely relaxing about the repetitive motion of sewing with a DVD playing in the background.