NY Con: WOW

Man, I am totally baked from the con. Everyone in my gang worked their collective butts off doing sketches for the rabid TMNT fans. Lots of prints and original art was sold as well.



Unfortunately my camera batteries died after the 4th picture I took and I never got new batts. One guy was nice enough to mail photos of some sketches to Jim Lawson so I have one image of a sketch I did. I was doing these things FAST! This pic is of SLASH from the first cartoon series.


Thanks to all of you who dropped by and showed some support. Especially JOHN, my biggest fan ;)


The Transformer prints were a huge success. Optimus sold out by 1:00 on Saturday and the last Starscream sold first thing on Sunday. I am currently talking with someone I met at the con to make the prints available at other cons through his service.

I still have a bunch of original art that I want to sell off so I may be doing some auctions in the near future.... depends on how busy I am.

TMNT book covers

I was hired a few months ago to (digitally) paint 3 covers for some TMNT books based on the new CG Movie coming out this March.

The books are now on store shelves across the country :)

I would like to note that I only did the paintings. The layout and rough drawings were provided to me. I'm assuming they were drawn by the interior artist for each book.

The first two covers look great but I am concerned about "Mikey's Nightwatcher Scrapbook" because the colors are all whacked for the online preview pics. It looks like they inverted some of my colors... maybe to make it look more exciting? I don't know but it looks garish to me. It may be an error since I have some copies of the book and the cover looks just like I intended. I won't know for sure until I see it in a store.

Special thanks to Murph for the project- I had a lot of fun doing these!

Check 'em out at Barnes and Noble...
Leonardo Returns
The Legend of Yaotl
Mikey's Nightwatcher Scrapbook

New York Comic Con This Weekend!!!

I will be attending the New York Comic Con this weekend with all my pals from Mirage. I'll be selling original art and on the spot commissions as well as mecha minis (of my design) and some prints.

I'll have two 11" x 17" transformer prints. Optimus Prime, which you can see in my first blog post, and Starscream.

These two designs are my interpretations of the original toys and I tried not to be influenced too much by other artists interpretations. I did not add the autobot or decepticon logos to the designs because I want to avoid any legal issues when selling the prints. I think the odds of Someone from Hasbro stopping at my table are good simply because of the proximity to their home base in Massachusetts.

The other print will be personal favorites. It is slightly smaller at 11" x "14" but the Artifact 16, which is one of my really offers a lot of originality and engrossing detail.

It looks like my name was actually added to the artist alley list thanks to the efforts of Eric Talbot so you should be able to find me by name in the program. My fingers are crossed. Thanks Eric!

50 Fantasy Vehicles to Draw & Paint

I have 5 designs in this new book by author and artist Keith Thompson. This is the second in the series by Quarto Publishing, and I hope its not the last! (the first was 50 Robots to Draw and Paint)

There are a lot of "how to draw" books out there and I am am in quite a few of them, but this series is my favorite. Why? Simply because I think you can actually learn something from these books. Each artist was responsible for providing notes about how the art was created, what the artists was thinking while creating it, or any other tips they wish to share with the reader. These tips often provide a lot of insight and are way better than the usual fluff text of similar books.

The quality bar for the art is also a lot higher than usual, at least in my opinion. Some of the author's art seems a bit too macabre and dark for the intended audience but it is still well done. The fantasy aspect of the book as called out in the title seems secondary to the sci-fi content but I guess it really doesn't matter if you have fun with the book.

You can order the book from Amazon right now. It may be at real bookstores... I haven't checked yet. I only saw the first book in the series one time at a Waldenbooks. Here are some links...

50 Fantasy Vehicles to Draw & Paint @ Amazon.com

50 Robots to Draw and Paint @ Amazon.com

LEGO Exo-force Collector's Guide

You have gotta check this out!

My first book with Scholastic should now be on shelves across America. I created dozens of illustrations for the LEGO Exo-force Collector's Guide and really had a blast doing it.

I have not seen the actual book but I am sure it is fun. I am supposed to get some comp copies but who knows when I will actually receive them? Publishers usually take their time with that sort of thing but that's OK as long as I can go to Barnes $ Noble and check out a copy.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon...
Buy the Exo-force Collector's Guide

And here's a link to the next chapterbook (#3), which I also illustrated...
Exo-force: Search For The Golden City

TALES of the TMNT #29

This is kind of old news, but since this is a new blog I figured it would be good to post it just in case...

I am really excited to announce that my issue of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in early December!!!

I wrote and illustrated the 26 page B&W story. Peter Laird helped out with some creative input and Steve "Murph" Murphy gave me help with my script.

You can order back issues directly from Mirage - the order forms are in the back of all Tales issues. Here's the address just in case...

Mirage Publishing
P.O. Box 486
Northampton, MA
01061-0486

LEGO Knight's Kingdom

Here are some some illustrations I created a while ago for an issue of LEGO Magazine. I love creating this style of work for the Knight's Kingdom toys!

Image 1 - King Jayko Defends the Tower.

Image 2 - Lord Vladek is ready to rumble.

Keeping up with the Jones's's

Yep, I finally joined Blogger. Several of my friends have recommended this service so I checked it out. I already have a blog through my Yahoo business account but it isn't very good. I am hopeful that this will work better and reach more people.

To celebrate my first post, here is a preview of an image I created for the upcoming New York Comic Con. Let me know what you think. If you like the image then you can buy an 11x17 print from me at the con. If they are successful then I may make them available through my paypal shopping cart. Who knows?

Here's a link to the con info...
New York Comic Con