Happy New Year!

Here's to hoping everyone wins the lottery next year.

In other news, stay tuned for art posts. I wish I could have published more in 2010. It's been busy, to say the least!

ArtWaffle.com!

 

I've launched a brand new website called ArtWaffle. This is my latest idea and I plan on devoting a lot of time to it. Be a pal and go check it out!

Pirate Guy

Hot dang, I'm back. Here's a little something I thought up real quicklike. More to come soon.

Team Fortress 2: Engineer

Wheeeww, this whole working full time thing and driving an hour each way sure limits my art time. Anywho, this is an engineer that someone requested a while ago.

Down the Hatch

Obnoxious purple creatures with toes for feet do the darndest things.

Fish Logo

Here's a sort of logo design that someone asked me to make for a business named after a fish.

Another Concert Flyer

www.pillowheadrock.com

Concert Flyer

www.pillowheadrock.com

The Bad Sleep Well: Deluxe

Another album cover I've done for the band Pillowhead.
www.pillowheadrock.com

Dig Bicks

You might need to be a wee bit clever to figure this one out. Also submitted to Art Jumble's monsters topic.

How to Get More Views

The secret revealed. Also submitted to Art Jumble's monsters topic.

Jedi Berserker: Final

I was experimenting with a lot of stuff (particularly proportions - I know they're wacky). I had some fun making this.

Jedi Berserker: Rough Sketch

Here's a somewhat gross-looking preview of what I'm currently working on. I've been wanting to do something fantasy-ish for a while now, but haven't been able to figure out what exactly. Last night I felt like maybe doing some Star Wars fan art, but I ended up sketching this fellow instead. I gave him a lightsaber because they are the coolest weapons ever. I'll call him the Jedi Berserker. Now it's time to clean this sucker up and paint it.

Pillowhead Flyer

I was asked to reuse the graphic from the shirt to make an advertisement flyer thingy for one of their upcoming live shows. Oh yeah, and they have a sweet new website!

Team Fortress 2: Sniper

Four TF2 characters down, five to go. I think. I really need to hurry up and do the rest of them. It would be quite the cool little collection of fan art!

I also posted this at Art Jumble for their best friends topic.

Pillowhead T-Shirt

 Another design for the magnificent band, Pillowhead.

No Sacrifice, No Victory

This is the final design concept that I came up with after illustrating the skull and gun that were posted earlier. It's supposed to be used in textile design (not so much on a t-shirt, although that could be pretty cool as well), so it would be in a repeating pattern on the fabric. I don't think I should give away exactly how it would be used just yet. The person I made it for has a rather unique idea, so I'm not sure if he would want me to be sharing that right now.

I also submitted this for Art Jumble's hate topic.

Preview of a Gun Thing

Here's another portion of the textile design I'm working on. This goes with the skull that I posted earlier. I'm almost ready to bring it all together soon and reveal the final design.

Preview of a Skull Thing

I've been working on a textile design concept and this is a portion of it. The final design is going to be much bigger and really awesome looking. That's the plan, at least.

The Bad Sleep Well

Here's the pillowcase in all its glory! This was taken from Pillowhead's new merch store, which can be found here.

If you like music at all, you'll definitely want to download the Pillowhead Library. This contains every song they've ever recorded up until now. Your socks will be rocked. It also includes live and studio photos, lyrics, artwork, and desktop wallpapers.

If for some reason you can't download this (don't be lazy, fool!), go and listen to some stuff on their MySpace page.

Even More Pillowhead Shtuff

(Lyrics and notes were written by Paul Hake. I edited some things because he sucks at English. These pictures go inside the CD case.)

I went to the album release parties on Saturday and they put on SUCH a good show, both times. I knew they would, but I was pretty blown away. I did acquire the Pillowhead pillowcase and will post a picture of that soon. They weren't able to print the album art just yet, so those pictures should be coming at any given time falling somewhere between the near and distant future. Also, I'll be posting the link to download their entire new album for free in a little while (listen to it here for now).

In other news, I start working as a social media intern today at an Internet marketing company. Yay for me and yay for anyone else who wants to be yay'd for the sake of being yay'd. Yay for Pillowhead.

A Little Doodly Sketchypoo

I sketched this concept for a story that someone is writing. It's an evil key that walks and talks. I might post an update sometime later with a painted/refined version, but I thought this was kind of neat.

Team Fortress 2: Spy

Eventually, I'd like to draw the whole cast of TF2 characters. Three down, six more to go! I also submitted this over at Art Jumble for this week's topic of villains.

The Pillowhead Pillowcase

To go along with their CD release, Pillowhead has decided to create their very own pillowcase, and I was asked to whip up this quick design to slap on some fabric. I'm really interested in seeing how this turns out. Pretty soon, millions of people will be sleeping on my beautiful handwriting.

I'll be taking pictures of the actual thing once I acquire one, as well as the actual CD!

Album Cover: Final

We ended up not using a font at all (they all seemed too "forced"), so I did some handwritten letters instead. I must say that I like it a lot more this way. Also, the second image is for the back of the album.

As you might be able to see, I designed this for Pillowhead's newest release, The Bad Sleep Well. Check them out and give them a listen at myspace.com/pillowheadrock.

On July 10th, they'll be having a couple of parties/shows where attendees will receive a free copy of this CD. I'll be there! More information on that can also be found on their MySpace page, under the upcoming shows section.

P.S. I updated my previous posts with more in-progress shots.

P.P.S. The front cover was posted at Art Jumble for their orange topic.

Album Cover: Finished Artwork

Once a font is chosen, this puppy will be good to go! And since we've already figured out the placement and have a good idea of the style, it shouldn't take too long. I have several prototypes being looked at right meow.

Album Cover: WIP

This is an album cover that I'm working on for a certain rock band. I'm leaving the text and such out of it for now, since I'm still waiting for the dudes to confirm a couple of things. I'm also going to be experimenting with some textures in various spots. That should darken and roughen things up a bit, as well as give the piece a little more depth.

Clint

Here's my rendition of Clint Eastwood as Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino. This was done for Art Jumble's Clint Eastwood topic.

The Beast of Shaolin

My entry for deviantART's Splice contest.

The Beast of Shaolin is considered by most to be a Chinese military experiment gone very wrong. He is a combination of human, bear, lion, lobster, snake, and monkey. After escaping the laboratory and an army of pursuers, he fled into the Tibetan mountains. The Beast is an extremely deadly force and a master of kung fu.

My Portfolio

jxrace.blogspot.com

My new illustration and graphic design portfolio is now online! Check it out. There's also a link on the side of this page so that it can still be seen once this post gets buried.

The Dark Knight

A lame quickie I made while watching the movie.

Hold My Purse

This is a mish mash of cartoons that I originally made about a year ago. I plopped them together into the same picture and refined them a bit for this week's Art Jumble topic of pink.

Another Self Portrait

I guess I thought it was about that time. I painted this in Adobe Photoshop CS5 by starting with a photo and then used a combination of the new mixer brush and my standard paintbrush. It was a pretty cool technique! I'm loving the new features in CS5.

Rate my shirts at Threadless!

I have just recently submitted my t-shirt designs over at Threadless.com. If you would be so kind and could take a couple of minutes to rate them with what you think they deserve, I would very much appreciate it! Also, if you like them, selecting "I'd buy it as a tee" would be super great. You won't actually have to buy anything.

Here are the links:
Bowel Movement (Rating has ended!)
Christ on a Cracker (Rating has ended!)

Thanks!

Oh and I finally got this a week or two ago! Time to get crackin'.

Smokey Dude

This was originally a doodle in my sketchbook from a while back. I've liked the look of this character ever since sketching it, so I felt like doing a little something with him.

I recently began using a program called Corel Painter. It's quite an amazing piece of technology that simulates just about every type of paint and paintbrush known to man. I used it to create the background texture for the above cartoon, which gave it a nice contrast, I think. Just by messing around with the wet oil paint brushes and such I was able to achieve a neat effect. I'm still amazed at how realistic it looks!

Original:

Gladiator

I've been watching a lot of Spartacus: Blood and Sand lately, so that definitely inspired me to draw this. I've watched the entire first season, and I'm very much looking forward to the next one. However, actor Andy Whitfield (Spartacus) has been diagnosed with cancer this year, so here's to hoping he recovers. We need a season two!

Also, while on the subject of shows, new World War II series The Pacific is turning out to be pretty good as well. It doesn't quite beat Spielberg and Hanks' previous effort (2001's Band of Brothers), in my opinion, but I sure am glad they made more stuff.

T-Shirt Design 2

Here's my second shirt idea, to go along with my previous one. I will most likely be submitting these to some website contest things to see if people would actually want to buy them!

I also used the actual t-shirt design version of this for an Art Jumble topic of unlikely hero.

New Blogger Templates!

Finally! Apologies if you are noticing that the look of my page changes often, but playing around with these new features is quite fun and addicting. I am looking for a design that would help me present my work in a better way.

As always, I am working on some projects and will be posting them in the near future. I have been a bit short on time lately, but I am always thinking about and writing down what I will try next!

Characters from Shapes

This was a fun little exercise. I drew a random shape and tried to create some kind of face or body out of it. I think it actually could be a good way for me to come up with original characters.

Prisoner of War

Inspired by a scene from HBO's Band of Brothers series, I originally painted this for Art Jumble's war topic a couple of weeks ago. Since I took too long to meet that deadline, I am now submitting it for this week's topic of guilty pleasure. I definitely consider one of mine to be war films, and Band of Brothers is a ten-part series. I can never watch just one.

Thor

The topic for this past week over at Art Jumble.

A Comic

Something quick and simple.

Hi

I finally got my computer back yesterday. Sweet Jesus. I should be working on something shortly.

Update

The situation is still the same; HOPEFULLY I will be getting my computer back tomorrow or Wednesday, but I'm not holding my breath. They have been saying "tomorrow" every time I call them, and they've had it for two weeks now. Pretty ridiculous. They keep ordering all of these parts from Asia and possibly Saturn.

I've been so bored that I made a new blog where I talk about music. Maybe if I actually update it often I can make some money with AdSense. That would be neat.

With any luck, I will be back to posting art again in the near future.

Computer Problems

My computer has been at the shop this week due to some fried parts. I guess I was playing video games too hard. For now, I'm stuck with my older PC that doesn't have any of my art tools or programs on it. I think everything should be fixable, though, so hopefully I'll be back in business soon.

T-Shirt Design 1

I've been trying to think of more ways to make money from my art besides freelancing, and I think I might have some funny ideas for cartoons that could appear on T-shirts. I've worked in retail before and have a pretty good idea of what people will buy. Basically, a lot of people love ridiculous humor that borderlines on raunchy, and I think I'm pretty adept at that. These definitely won't be your grandma's kind of shirts (unless she's one of those cool grandmas).

Apparently, it's best to use a maximum of 8 colors when making these. I think I ended up with 7 or something, but I found it a little challenging, especially since black and white count as colors too. However, I think it will be fun to experiment with some creative "workarounds", if you will. Plus, limiting myself to so few colors can result in an interesting and unique palette in every piece.