Ramen Music #1 Cover

Today, my old friend Sudara launched RamenMusic.com which is one of the coolest ideas for a music website ever.  It's going to be kind of like a bi-monthly music anthology and it takes the standard music business model (where the label keeps almost all of the money, and the artist gets very little) and turns it on its head.  You can read a lot more about it on the site, and you should, because Sudara is one of the most brilliant guys I've ever met.  (He's also the mastermind behind aLoneTone.com if you've heard of that).

So when Sudara came to me at the beginning of this year and asked if I would like to do some art for Ramen Music, I LEAPED at the chance.  It met all of my criteria for an illustration DREAM job:

1) I got to work with a close friend, whom I respect and admire.
2) I had complete creative control.  (the only requirement was that the images somehow related to music)
3) The illustration would be used to help a project that I really believed in, and wanted to succeed.

Below is the first cover I drew, which they will be using for the very first "issue" of Ramen Music, which will be out in September.

I did four other covers, which I will post as they are used on the site.  For now, please go check out RamenMusic.com  You can sign up for a subscription, or if you are a musician, you can submit your songs for review.  If they are accepted, you will be paid well for your work!

Liz Prince Thank-You Paintings

As some of you might have seen on on my other blog, I recently bought a Pinball machine. This all came about because of my good friend Liz Prince, who put me in touch with the previous owner of the pinball machine. Not only that, but Liz also introduced me to my amazing girlfriend Claire. Liz ALSO put me up at her place a number of times while I was visiting Claire's family in Santa Fe, traveling to a comic convention and buying the pinball machine. I therefore decided that a thank-you painting (or two) was in order!

I decided to take a leaf out of Gabby's book of tricks and try to do paintings of Liz's two cats, Wolf Man and Dracula, whom she loves very dearly. Step one was to find some reference of Liz's cats, which was super easy, because Liz has tons of pictures of her cats up in a Flickr set. Below is an example (can you guess which cat is which?)

Next, I wanted to get some reference from some old monster movies, because Liz had no Wolf Man or Dracula MONSTER stuff in her apartment. I found some old posters with really great hand lettering:

Next I drew the cats, and the lettering, then lightboxed them onto some watercolor paper and painted them. I used some Martin's Dyes for the lettering and bases, to really make the color pop. This is not the best scan in the world, and as you can see, I'm no Gabby Schulz, but you get the idea.  (Click on the image to make it bigger!)

I waited for a few days, and didn't hear back from Liz...  I was starting to get worried that the paintings might have gotten lost in the mail.  Then, one day I found a letter from Liz in the mail!  (Click on the image to make it readable!)

You're welcome Liz.  Thank YOU!  So yeah,  if somehow you don't already know, Liz is a really great cartoonist.  You should totally go take a spin around her site, LizPrincePower.com  It's got an awesome art section, with tons and tons of her comics posted online for FREE, and there is also a store section, where you can buy all of Liz's minicomics (including her BRAND NEW comic, I Swallowed the Key to My Heart #1).  She's one of my favorite cartoonists, so if you haven't already, you should definitely go check out her work!

"Eat to a New Beat" comic

My old buddy Ezra Claytan Daniels contacted me a few weeks ago about doing some comics for a cool new site he built, for a campaign called Eat to a New Beat. The idea is to get kids and teens to eat more healthfully by making it seem cool through comics, movies and other internet hijinks. You can check out my comic, and comics by my friends Aaron, Nate and Sarah on their Comics page and there are even little mini-interviews with us too!

Also, I've been working on some other small illustrations lately, so hopefully I'll be posting those in the coming weeks. Until then!

Microcosm Catalogs are in Print!

Yesterday I got a whole box full of the new 2010 Microcosm Publishing Catalogs. They look great! I'm really happy with how they turned out. The 2-color printing looks pretty rad on the newsprint. They ended up using the Wolf spot illustration, but not the dragon one, oh well!



Claire sent me this photo, showing a copy she found in her local coffee shop in Oakland, CA. And Nate said he saw some a few weeks ago at the Chicago Zine Fest, so these things are OUT there! You can get one for 1 cent over at Microcosm Publishing or I'm sure they'll throw one in ANY order you place for the rest of this year. I'll also have copies to give away at a bunch of comics shows this year, so check it out!

Nate Beaty Thank-You Painting

I made this little watercolor for my good friend Nate Beaty, who helped me update my personal site when he was visiting a few weeks back. This, hot off the heels of his massive Top Shelf overhaul. Nate spends A LOT of time on the computer and one of the main themes in his comics work is his hatred for the machines, so this image seemed like something he might like.
I'm still focused pretty heavily on comics and teaching right now, but I HAVE done some illustrations recently, so once they are public, I will post them here!