Working relationships are hard.

I know another artist, Cody Hagman, that I am fortunate enough to have a long-time working relationship with. We’ve co-edited and published together, moved work each other’s way, and collaborated on some of the pieces I’m proudest of.

This is an amazing thing! I’ve you’ve ever had to work with an artist, you might be aware that we can be… odd, at times. Sometimes, we just don’t get along with others:

Anyway. I’m glad to have a friend like Cody to make cool artwork with.

Robots don’t need spacesuits.

Sometimes, like now, when all I feel like doing is drawing spacesuits, I get to the face of the lucky guy or gal inside and lose interest. That’s when I spice things up with a skull, or an alien, or… a robot!

There’s no good reason to put a robot in a spacesuit, except that it’s really fun.

Food for thought

I always try to get away from the building I work in for lunch. I work long days and am unbelievably busy just about every minute I’m there. So, it’s really essential that I am not thinking or talking about work for at least an hour around mid-day.

Sometimes I read. Often I watch something online, but once in a while I’ll draw.

Living in Oklahoma City is very different than living in San Francisco. The sight of a guy in business clothes with a sketchpad out is unusual here, and I get weird looks quite often. That didn’t stop me today, though!

Fat man in a little suit…

I don’t know what happened to this one. Chalk it up to just getting some practice in, or maybe to being a little rusty.

I was just watching Alien Covenant and thinking that I didn’t like the spacesuits they used to repair their “solar sail,” but the more that time went on, the more I felt inspired by them. They look like modified, hardshell, deep sea diving suits.

This was my swing at that inspiration. I think it was a swing and a miss…

Sad robots need love too.

I was supposed to be taking notes in a meeting, but this pathetic fella wasn’t having it.

Getting ready… for action!

Like a bolt out of the blue, the desire to create and produce new artwork just comes back. I've been wanting to draw for some time, but wanting to and feeling compelled to are different things. Life gets busy, priorities can change, and time becomes a thief. However, when that itch finds its way under your skin, there's nothing for it except to start scratching…

I feel dead.

It was one of those days today. I am completely exhausted.

I promised myself that I would post this today, though.

Appropriately, this guy looks just like I feel:

Breathe deep…

Up to a few months ago, I was working on a project about the experience certain children (young adults?) have when they have to go in the hospital for fairly serious procedures.  It was a difficult project because of the subject matter, and very personally challenging for me because it was a drastic change-of-subject for me.  No robots or spacesuits in this story…

Anyway, I posted a few panels from the pages while they were in-progress, but I wanted to share one of my favorite pages as well.  The finished page was colored and has some dialogue where the poor kid is being warned that he’s about to be put under (breathe deep!), but I kind of like just the cleaned-up line work.  I feel like the “fading” visual works better in black & white.

One funny thing, when drawing this POV, I used my own legs as reference.  I guess it’s not enough that the poor teen had to be in the hospital, but I had to go and give him 40-year-old-man-legs.

Dress for success.

I’m trying to wind myself up for a new project.  It involves lots of spacesuits, robots, and ruined, industrial sci-fi settings.  Really, everything I love in life… imaginary life.

One of the most-difficult ongoing struggles I face is finding enough time to draw.  The last year has been so busy, I’m thinking about not taking on more freelance commissions for the near future, at least until I’ve finished drawing a few things that have been waiting for a while now and are pounding at the door on my conscience.

Enough of that, you came here for the drawing, right?  So, here’s a little sketch I cleaned up to get the juices flowing.  It’s going to be on the table for that upcoming project.  More on that soon…

load

I’m sick.  I hate being sick.

It’s nice to get a day off of work, but it sucks to not being able to do much with it.  I have a comfy bed, though, and lots of books that need reading.  So, I should be alright.

Drawing is not something I do well when I don’t feel well, but blogging doesn’t require much energy and I do have a little drawing from this weekend that I thought worth sharing.

This is for a friend who broke her arm recently.  It’s based off a mascot that she cares a lot about, and I thought she might like a little cyber-zombie treatment to make the bull a little more interesting.  I don’t think I can transfer this to a cast (on the arm), but it might make for some good nightmare-fuel while healing.

Enjoy!