Ugly Cabaret

Dog Days of Summer

So...fair warning. This is where things start to get weird....

Happy Little Comics

Yeah, my inner critic is seriously this vocal and this combative when I finally do sit down to get something on paper. So in the style of Chuck Jones, I decided to fight back...

Yet Another New Beginning...

So...earlier this year, I started making some comics, mainly to combat by creativity blocks and prove my inner critic wrong. I did a series of 10 - 12 at the time and then promptly forgot about them. Recently, I was flipping through the sketch book where I made these and they (well, some of them) were enough to earn a chuckle from me. Which is unheard of for me; I NEVER like the stuff I draw.

So in the process of leaning ever more towards professional illustration full-time, it seemed like a good idea to start cleaning them up and getting them out.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be giving this set of comics a quick clean up, mainly for legibility, and getting them up here, over on Tumblr, and maybe even on Facebook. This first set deals mainly with my own internal conflicts and the arguments I have with my inner critic anytime I set out to put pencil to paper.

Hope you enjoy and keep an eye out for a new website and a Patreon page in the coming weeks! 

IF _ Faded

I started work on this piece last week for the "Faded" topic over at Illustration Friday though I obviously missed the deadline. That's OK. I wanted to finish this up before moving on to another illustration. 

This started off as little more than a scribble as I'm spending more time getting used to the tablet interface. The abstract in the background evolved from a couple of preliminary scribbles (I suppose I should call them "sketches" in the interest of conveying the character of a serious drawer, but really, let's be true to the truth...) and the figure in the foreground is a composite of several elements, heavily filtered/effected. The overall result being a semi-surreal depiction of a sun-faded and watchful loiter.

Diogi - a dragon-headed boy; plus Many Happy Returns

Good evening all. I'm back. Again. I realize how long it's been since last posting, as well as how often I've written these words, or eerily similar words, in any case. So, in realizing this, I'm going to choose to not justify my absence or make false promises about more regular posting (wow. that almost sounded like bowel humor, didn't it?). Instead, I think this would be a perfect time to embrace the title of an episode from one of my all time favorite television shows. Though The Prisoner epsiode, Many Happy Returns, is a darkly sarcastic turn on the phrase, I'll choose to evoke it here as a new mantra in the upkeep of this channel of media. In other words, I intend to fall off and pick up as the whim takes me. Perhaps some of you who are left will return with me.

And I will say, if you're unfamiliar with The Prisoner, specifically the good version from the late 60s starring Patrick McGoohan as opposed to the god-awful remake AMC tried to do last year, I suggest you run, don't walk to your nearest video rental worth its salt (for me, that would be the unequalled Videoport down in the Old Port) and pick up a couple episodes and strap in. 

Moving right along, this evening's post is a quick concept piece I did up the other night to get a character out of head. His name's Diogi, and yes, that's a dragon's head he's sporting. Diogi and his pal Eekay (keep an eye out for him soon-ish) are an idea for a story that's been mulling about for a few months and neither one of them have let up. 

So here's Diogi: 

If you've been hanging around, waiting for me to say something, I thank you and appreciate your patience. 


I hope you'll hang out a little longer, and perhaps even find something worth looking at enough that you'll be moved to share with your friends, family, colleagues, whoever. 


Signing off, 
rocketfuelsushi