Swim Team T-Shirt

I recently designed this 3-color t-shirt for a swim team that my Cousin coaches. They are making a trip down to Florida for some intensive training, so I thought it would be good to have a 'gator gag.

AlecLongstreth.com redesign!

Well, after many weeks of toil, I am finally ready to reveal my totally redesigned illustration portfolio website! For those of you actually viewing this blog at its URL, you can just hit some of the new navigation links at the top of the page, and for those of you reading this from an RSS reader, just follow this link!

When I first sat down to redesign the site, I was having trouble trying to figure out what image I wanted to use for homepage. I wanted it to really reflect me and the kind of illustrations I want to be doing. Luckily, I remembered an old piece of advice that Aaron always used to tell the CCS summer workshop students: "you have to draw what you LOVE!" And well, I love drawing wizards and dragons and tree forts. So I cast myself as the wizard and then tried to fill my imaginary tree fort with as many personally meaningful objects as I could, so the space would reflect me. I really like how the image came out, and I don't think there is anyone else on earth (besides me) who could fully understand what every object in the drawing means to me.
Anyway, if you have a minute, take a lap around the new site and please let me know if you find any bugs! ALSO: a huge thanks (as usual) to Nate Beaty for some last minute help tightening up my coding!

Microcosm Publishing 2010 Catalog - Spot Illustrations

As promised, here are the spot illustrations that I did for the upcoming 2010 Microcosm Publishing Catalog. Again, these feature characters from the Isle of Elsi book I'm working on. If you're curious, you can check out their first story over at Dark Horse Presents. The first spot shows Draziw the Wizard making some zines with his wand. If only it was that easy!

Next we have Nogard the Dragon and R.J. Jr. delivering some zines!

And lastly, for good measure, some of the 'ites (as I call them - actually Stalagmites and Stalactites) mailing off a letter. It looks like some zinesters had their way with that mail box!

This one isn't actually going to make it into the catalog, but I thought I'd post it just the same. It depicts one of the wolves giving a ROCK show for all the 'ites. ;)

I'm almost done wrapping up a big illustration project, which I will post on here as soon as it's done. There's more on the way!

Microcosm Publishing 2010 Catalog - Cover!

I recently finished up some illustrations for the 2010 Microcosm Publishing Catalog. I thought I'd share the cover image this week and some spot illustrations next week!
For those of you that don't know, Microcosm Publishing is a super awesome zine distributor and publisher. They've been carrying my Phase 7 Comics for years and they have published books by some of my best comics friends. When they asked me if I wanted to draw the cover, they said that I could draw pretty much whatever I wanted, and that it was going to be printed with two colors (score!) I decided to use some of my Isle of Elsi characters from my Dark Horse Presents story that was released back in May.
There have been some great Microcosm Catalog covers in the past, so the first thing I did was look at those to see how some of the other illustrators handled the two color look. I especially liked the ones by my friends Liz Baillie and Sarah Oleksyk but instead of dropping the second color into a black line drawing, I wanted to try and utilize the second color throughout the illustration, so that I could get a variety of lighting and texture effects. Here's what I came up with! (click for a larger view)

Now all I have to do is wait for a printed copy, to see how it all turned out. I'll let you all know once it's out there so you can order your copy (I think they are usually like a penny if you place an order with Microcosm) and like I said, I'll post some spot illustrations from the inside of the catalog next week!

Judge Jasper in Nick Mag!

I received a stack of the latest Nickelodeon Magazine in the mail yesterday, which includes one of my single-panel gags and also a full page comic, called "Judge Jasper." Here is the first panel, to give you some idea what it looks like:

As most of you probably know, Nickelodeon Magazine has been canceled and will be ending soon. This issue is pretty light, so I'm not sure how many more are in the pipeline... Maybe it'll go until the end of the year? Anyway, this issue is in bookstores and magazine racks right now if you want to pick up a copy while you still can!

A Lone Tone Album Covers

When I was a freshman in college, I met this remarkable guy named Mark S. Williams. A few years ago he changed his name to "Sudara" and started the incredible music site A Lone Tone. A Lone Tone makes it super easy for anyone to post their own music online, and to share it with the world. Users can upload their recordings and then create digital albums by grouping the songs.

Well, I used to record a lot of music, and I'm trying to get back into it a bit (for a SUPER TOP SECRET PROJECT which I probably won't really talk about for another year or so). So I decided to set up my own A Lone Tone account as a place to archive my old music and hopefully a place to put up NEW music as it starts happening. A Lone Tone allows you to upload an image, which acts as the album cover, so I decided to quickly whip up some cover images for my two albums "The Curtain Tapes" and "My Adventure Soundtrack." I thought I'd post them here for people to see.

Since both recordings were made at very specific times in my life, I decided to adapt single panels from my minicomic Phase 7, which visually describe what the music is also trying to convey. The Curtain Tapes was recorded in Los Angeles, in my room with three walls and a curtain. And My Adventure Soundtrack was recorded while five years of hard work and dreams were crumbling down around me in Sydney, Australia. I chose to depict each of these depressing scenes with just one additional color (besides black) to try and keep it simple.

I'm slowly lining up a few small illustration projects which I will get to as soon as the next issue of Phase 7 drops in early October. So hopefully this blog will see some more action in the last few months of 2009!

An Anaconda Ate My Homework!

Not only do I work as an illustrator and cartoonist, I am also a colorist! Well, I just found out that An Anaconda Ate My Homework has finally been released! This children's book was illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators working today (and my good friend) Aaron Renier, and I did all of the coloring. Every single page of this book is jam packed with tons of detail and some really beautiful page layouts by Aaron. It's definitely worth picking up! It's available from Amazon.com and should be in books stores soon. Ask for it!

What Would Dumbledore Do?

The Harry Potter Alliance recently started a new campaign, called What Would Dumbledore Do? To help promote the WWDD? campaign, the HPA created a banner using one of my old illustrations of the greatest headmaster that Hogwarts has even known! The banner is posted above and the original watercolor illustration, which I painted for a Harry Potter fan art show at the Padlock Gallery, is below. Dumbledore is far and away my favorite character in the Harry Potter books, so it's a real honor for me to be a part of a campaign honoring his memory! The new Harry Potter movie comes out tonight at midnight, so I hope people have a Wizardly Week!

Custom Bicycle Helmet!

I have a few new illustrations in the works, so until those are ready to post I thought I'd show some photos of a custom bicycle helmet I recently painted for my friend Jon Chad. Jon is a great cartoonist and illustrator who rides his bike a lot, but didn't have a helmet, so I thought I'd try to make one SO COOL that he'd want to wear it. Here are some photos!

Dark Horse Presents

Above is the first panel of a new, full color, 8-page comic that I did for Dark Horse Presents. It just went up today, so please check it out! This story features my dragon character, which I have used in a number of self-promotional illustrations over the years. So you can finally see him in action!
I'm working on a lot of little illustration projects right now, so hopefully I will have some stuff to post on this blog during the summer. I'm also slowly but surely working on a redesign of my illustration portfolio site. So there is more on the way!

2009 Blogging Schedule

One of my goals for this year is to not stress out as much about my work. So with that in mind, I'm going to throw away my old system of posting here once a week (which was stressing me out plenty!) Instead I will post new illustrations or drawing challenges in this blog whenever I can. Sometimes I will post a lot. Other times not so much.

Okay! So here are a few drawings that I made for my girlfriend Rachel over the holidays, posted with her permission! The first is yet another cover image for a mixed CD I made her. (Hedgehogs are one of Rachel's favorite animals)

The other is an image drawn specifically to be used as a desktop image for Rachel's new computer. (Rachel's favorite holiday is Halloween). The chicken is dressed up as my dragon character, the snake is dressed up as Max from Spiral-Bound and the hedgehog is dressed up as Harry Potter (OF COURSE).

Alright, well, I hope you enjoyed these drawings. I'll update again as soon as I can!