Illustration Friday - Broken

And here it is Monday again. What a weekend. I swear, the entire known world was out to give me a hard time. People need to chill out. Anyway, with Monday comes Illustration Friday. The topic this week is "broken" and nothing says "broken" than a girl with a hand grenade. Or a hand grenade pin anyway. This was actually done as a submission for Digital Webbing Presents but it works well for the IF topic too.

I'm pretty happy with this picture because it gave me a chance to toy around with my style by adding a little Erté into the mix. I used to have a heavy art deco influence in my work and over the years it's slipped away. I'd like to get it back and hopefully this will be a good start.

The music at a wedding procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers going into battle.

Edit: This morning, Blogger was being a pain and wouldn't let me upload my picture. So I had to host it on an outside image host which made the image look all pixelated. Naturally, I couldn't have that so when Blogger started working again I replaced the oh-so-crappy looking image with the nicer one seen above.

Anyway, this is the redone (an accepted) logo for General Jinjur Comics. I'm happy with this image because it's a little different from what I normally do stylistically. The heavy retro look worked out well, I think, and that big grin just cracks me up. My thanks go out to Gil and Jen from GJC for giving me the chance to work with them. They're cool people and were a peach to work with. Thanks, guys!

As for the rest of you, I'll see you on Monday!

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

I'm going to step out of the norm today and use this post to brag a little. You see, a while back Jim Stafford asked for a copy of my Bran-Man for a new magazine called Advanced Photoshop. The mag recently hit the stands so instead of posting artwork today, I'm posting a copy of the article. My thanks go out to Jim for the opportunity and the kind words!
Edit: It's come to my attention that parts of the article are a little hard to read so here's what it says about my Bran: F. Steve Musgrave's vector art-based Doqua-Bran. Says Stafford: "His style is clean - and despite the fact that I've no idea what's going on here I love it."

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

Hooray for Friday! Or something like that. Anyway, this is the logo for Plastic Half-Gun which is (in my mind anyway) the main identity that all my artwork falls under. The name "Plastic Half-Gun" is the result of an extremely absurd conversation between myself and a buddy of mine named Brad. It was a good time. You should have been there.

Another friend of mine is in town this weekend so I might not have a Illustration Friday post ready for Monday. It should be ready for sure by Wednesday though. We'll see when the time comes. Enjoy your weekend.

Paradise is like Disney Land...but with hookers.

Hello, Wednesday. Today we're serving a little satyr character sketch. He's a jolly looking fellow isn't he? Not too shabby. Hopefully I'll get around to using him in a full picture. You'll have to excuse the monotone ramblings (if writing can be monotone.) I'm dead tired today. Staying up for over 24 hours isn't as easy as it used to be.

Oh, I owe a bunch of you comments on your comments but I swear I'll get to them soon. No, really! I do appreciate all of it. But now I must rest....

Illustration Friday - Cold

Psst...y'know what day it is? That's right! It's Illustration Friday-Monday! What a weekend. I feel like there's a badger living in my stomach and it's really unhappy about that fact. This sickly crap has got to go.

Anyway, this is my Illustration Friday "cold" entry. It's not terribly original but I wanted to experiment with that rough style I played with when I did my "roots" entry. Basically all I'm doing is taking one of my rough marker sketches and using Adobe Illustrator to "trace" the rough marker work. Now that I think about it, things would probably go faster in Photoshop but ye gods I hate Photoshop. We'll just have to see.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I can't believe it's Friday already. What a lousy week this has been. One problem after another, I swear. Oh, well. Before I get to the picture du jour I want to say "thanks" to all the fine folks who sent their well-wishes to Allison. We both appreciate it a bunch.

Now, on to business. This is a panel from an Egg! comic page I started a while ago. It's not the most spectacular thing ever but I like her expression and the colors so it gets a showcase spot.

Have a good weekend. I'll see you Monday.

The greatest burden is great potential.

Welcome to another Wednesday. Exciting isn't it? What I have for you today is a sketch of General Jinjur done as a warm-up sketch for a gig that's in progress. I'm pretty pleased with it. There are some problems with her neck and shoulder but they're nothing too terrible. That hat was a pain in the butt too but the shadows turned out well. All-in-all it's an okay sketch.

Illustration Friday - Lost

My Illustration Friday post is a little later than normal today because I had yet another pain-in-the-butt doctors appointment today. Nothing new on that front. The old lungs still aren't working right so it's on to more aggressive medicines. Good for me.

Anyway, this is my "Lost" entry. Let me explain. This is a little cartoon picture of Allison. She's my best friend and honey. She's also suffering from lung cancer. She's only 22. We're both staying very positive and it looks like she's going to be okay but it's still a very scary time for both of us. After all, I'd be lost without her.

Don't be afraid to take a big step. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

In the spirit of giant turtles I bring you...GIANT TURTLES! Anyway, these are some "Big" sketches I did last night while hanging out with some friends. They're really rough marker sketches but it gives us a sense of Big's scale. As you can see he is a big honkin' turtle.

Have a good weekend. See you Monday.

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.

This is Big. Well, it's what I'm calling him for now. I had an idea for a story that involves a giant tortoise and this is the first of the character design sketches. As things progress I'll post more of these, including some background designs. Should be fun if I can pull it off in a way that won't suck. Only time will tell....

Illustration Friday - Float

Another Monday-born Illustration Friday is at hand. The topic this week is "float" and the first thing that popped into my thick head was an armadillo rising up into the night sky. I didn't have as much time to work on this as I'd hoped but it turned out better than I'd expected anyway. So it all works out in the end.

On a semi-related subject: What would you folks think if I put something like this on a t-shirt? Would you wear a buoyant space armadillo? Well...would you!?

Anyway, it's time for bed. See you Wed-nes-day.