I stayed up way past my bed time drawing this. Enjoy the time lapse video below.

Nothing artsy fartsy to report today except for I redrew the letters in the name Phoenix, who's getting an EMN background treatment like the Layla-Mae piece I shared yesterday. I'm still not a 100% satisfied with the letters in both of them so I might tweak them again. I also sketched the little dude at the bottom and really like the way it came out.

One of the design projects I'd been working on over the last couple months was finally revealed Saturday night. It was the album artwork for my buddies' band The Wet Bandits. They finally released their new album, "Elysian," on Halloween and made it available to stream on Spotify & Apple Music and purchase via iTunes. My friend, Adam, the guitarist, asked me to design a beat up version of the Warner Brothers water tower. I think it was originally going to be a sticker but obviously turned out to be much bigger. Below are the original sketches from Adam's stick figure drawing to my detailed sketch that eventually turned into the digital illustration. There's also a timelapse video at the bottom of how I began the building out the tower then beating it up in Adobe Fresco. I eventually moved it into the desktop version of Adobe Illustrator to finish it. I also did the CD layout which is currently in production and I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy

I sketched a ghost wearing a Frankie Mcfly shroud for day 26 but haven't inked it yet so Tuesday will be a twofer.

It's happened every year for the last three years that I've done Inktober, I start running out of ideas and spend more time thinking of what to draw than actually draw. I think I've just entered the slump. Today I spent hours trying to come up with an idea and only sketched a few with pencil. Tomorrow I'll have to draw & ink two drawings to catch up.

I drew myself as Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk from the cover of his first comic book. I sketched it out a few times before laying down the final lines and inking. I included a sketched a did a couple weeks ago when I was considering doing "Jacktober" which is a variant of Inktober that pays tribute to comic book artist Jack Kirby. If I had more time I probably would have drawn Betty & General Ross equivalents down in the right corner to fill out the space.

I spent most of the day working on the skull and a few hours on the drawing.

I touched up the sketch I started a couple days ago in my new sketchbook. I cleaned up and added more plants coming out of the top of the head and eye sockets. I also think I've found the right pen to ink my protester drawing. It's a Uni Pin Fine Line brush pen, and I can get the different line weights in the range I want for the piece. I've finished drawing the lines/shapes on the ceramic skull I'm painting for the upcoming 31 Skulls show, (more info TBA) and if I counted correctly, there are 61 pentagons & 58 hexagons wrapped around the skull. Tomorrow I'll start picking colors & hopefully begin painting it.

I ripped off the cellophane wrapper, slapped on one my stickers and started sketching in my new sketchbook tonight. It's some sort of decomposing skull with plants growing out of it. 

I sketched out a few ideas for a little project I've been putting off for a while.

Next up: figuring out the best way to ink this.

After a long hiatus I pulled this drawing out and worked on it a little. I drew/wrote some more protest signs. I kinda wish I would have done this on better quality paper but this was a test run before doing it on a larger sheet. 

This new job I'm working on is a refresh for my buddy's bands logo. He wants the new design to look like the old one but make it look older & beat up. He also requested a separate graphic that is basically the same concept but of an iconic image. Both are still in the early phases but starting to take shape.

I started working on the new band logo job tonight. Sketching out different variations of the general idea. Getting things out of my head and onto paper before vectorizing.

I didn't get too artsy fartsy today but I did take a little time to think about how I want to build out the website. I currently have all my t-shirts and stickers on one page in my store and that's it. I plan on doing the same with the new one but I also want to create individual pages for each style of t-shirt that has more details and information about each design. I wish creating websites were as easy as sketching them.

Here are a few more sketches I made today for the client project I've been working on. We figured out which path to go down so now I'm trying to expand on the original idea and to come up with my first round of variations. 

I sketched this out a few days ago and cleaned it up today. It was after a few days of constantly reading the news on my phone, mostly scrolling past headlines, and reading about all the fucked up shit going on with covid and racism. Apparently it's called doomscrolling. 

I started working on a new project. It's still in the early phases but here are some sketches I did tonight. I might share more as this progresses.

and I also fixed a typo.

Today I started writing messages on the protesters signs and went for a hike at Alum Rock Park, up to Eagle Rock. Can you see where I fucked up on one of the signs? Also check out the pics of the mutant bug (tarantula hawk) and a plant from outer space.

Next up are the signs.

I drew some more people

I made a little bit of progress on this today after taking 4 days off. Starting from the left I straightened out a bunch of signs and began fleshing out the people.

I finished the first pass on this 11"x17" drawing today. I laid out all the people with signs and then filled the gaps with people holding up their fists. The next step, after a few tweaks, will either be putting the messages on the signs or adding details to the protesters and making them all unique. Right now they all look like bald white men. When I'm done inking this, and if I'm happy with the results, I'll get to work penciling the 18"x24" version.

As I work towards an 18"x24" size drawing of my "protesters" piece I'm doing smaller versions as art studies. What I've been doing so far has been drawing the people holding up blank signs then I'll go and write something in them after. Because I'm going to have so many different people with signs I thought I should figure out what they're gonna say so I started writing & laying them out. Almost everything I wrote is something I've read on social media and on people's actual signs relating to George Floyds murder, police brutality protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.