With Apologies To Cesar Romero

I've been pretty busy lately, but I've been slowly chipping away at a couple different illustrations, which should be showing up here soon. In the meantime though, my friend Ollie once again asked me to draw something for her band, The Oohlas (I did this image for them last year), for a poster/flier for their upcoming LA show with Stellastarr*. And since Ollie encourages me to be as weird as I want, I just couldn't turn her down.

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The genesis of this image was a series of text messages which went something like this:

Me: Any particular theme I should run with?
Ollie: Idunno dude, just go crazy, but maybe something Ronettesish.
Me: Ronettesish? Is that defined as "related to or involving the 1960's trio The Ronettes?"
Ollie: Yes. I'm really into them lately.
Me: Okay. So, hypothetically, if aliens with paper Ronettes masks were feeding a sea monkey, which celebrity or historical figure's head would the sea monkey have?
Ollie: Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger.
Me: How about a two-headed sea monkey, with both heads? The two jokers. Sea monkeys have built-in joker hats, it was almost meant to be.
Ollie: Perfect! This is going to be amazing.
Me: I feel kind of guilty for excluding Cesar Romero, but at least now I can call the image "With Apologies To Cesar Romero." It has a great ring to it.
Ollie: You're insane.

Headache

I took a few minutes to clean up my horrendously messy desktop yesterday, and decided I wanted some new wallpapers to decorate it with. Here's the first one, which is probably the result of me playing too much Q-Bert lately:



Right-click to save:
Wallpaper for standard (4x3) monitors
Wallpaper for widescreen (16x9) monitors

Also, FYI - the Presents Opening Children print has sold out (thanks, Digg), and Troublemaker is getting very close, with the Mario print not far behind - in case anyone had been eyeing either of those.

New Look, Prints, Wallpapers

Today's sketch is the SketchBlog itself, as you can probably see. The quick-and-dirty layout I made when I set this thing up was starting to bum me out, so I decided to redesign it. I put together a nice, slickly-designed layout. Modern and hip, with lots of rounded edges. Very "web 2.0." But then a giant tentacled insectoreptilian sea monster thing came and destroyed it. Oh well. That's what I get for watching Naked Lunch while looking for design inspiration.

Anyway, a bunch of people have emailed me asking about prints, so I finally got around to setting up a print store. For now, I'm doing really nice fine art prints of a few images from the site, with each one limited to 100 prints. I'll add other images in the future.

I've also gotten some requests for wallpapers, so I set aside a place to put those, and I'll probably get them up tomorrow the first selection is up now - more will be added to that page in the future.

Hyperion Holiday

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This one was definitely the result of seeing this classic poster, which I have in my kitchen, and then somewhat subconsciously thinking about the cool look of Disneyland's great retro Tomorrowland travel posters, and probably also this scene from Forbidden Planet, and very possibly the desert-like alien terrain often depicted in Spaceman Spiff Calvin & Hobbes strips.

Perhaps Something Darkly Floral Devastating Sealike?

This is a strange little piece I did yesterday for my good friend Ollie's band The Oohlas, for their submission to Playboy Magazine's "Rock The Rabbit" project. Basically a variety of bands submit designs meant to combine their personality with the Playboy bunny logo. The designs will then be put onto t-shirts sometime next year, and the prototype shirts are auctioned off with proceeds going to the AIDS charity LifeBeat. A good cause, a good band, and a good excuse for me to make seaweed turn into fish turn into bunnies turn into seaweed turn into a creepy deep sea diver.

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Robot Block Party

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YesterdayCube

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The look of this was inspired by an old metal sign I have - which is also where I got the overlay texture. It's an "Emergency Resuscitation" sign from the '70's - I found it in a ratty old spring factory somewhere in London.

The image itself came from how much I like the word "YesterdayCube," which popped into my head randomly yesterday.

Troublemaker

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I really need to get a better grasp on the concept of a "sketch." This was way more complicated than it probably looks. Yeah, my Saturday nights go OFF.

Original sketch here.

Trick Or Treat

In the spirit of the season, and continuing my current interest in simple shapes and colors, I whipped up this invite for a friend's Halloween party (click to enlarge):


Original pencil sketch here.

Girl in Peril

I started this blog to motivate myself to draw more. It's been a favorite hobby of mine since as long as I can remember, but in recent years I've let it go, often going years at a time without drawing anything. One of my problems is that once I start something, I have a hard time keeping it simple. I make it complex and detailed and laborious, and it never gets finished. So today I decided to start a new little disciplinary exercise: I'm going to draw at least one picture every day. Even if sometimes it only takes five minutes, or it's just a stick person, something has to go up every day. It'll force me to learn to create things more simply and quickly, and putting them up on a blog like this makes it more real, and encourages me to stick with it. Plus people can harass me via the comments if I slip up.

To get things started, I decided to finish a little drawing that had been sitting around since the last time I told myself I was going to draw more. At the time I had a sudden urge to make something, but didn't have any ideas. I asked the always-helpful Tamar, who said, "draw a picture of me." I told her no, I did not want to draw a picture of her. She then said, "draw a picture of me getting eaten by a monster." Okay, I told her, I could handle that. But as usual, I never finished it - so when today when I was reminded of the cool '70's-flavored design work of Scott Hansen, his simple shapes and color palettes made me think of that drawing, and inspired me to dig it up and finish it. So here it is, dedicated to Tam for the original inspiration - click to enlarge, obviously: