I’m very excited to announce that $5 from every Doom Division bicycle print sold will be donated alternatly between the V-Day Movement to End Violence Against Women and Girls Worldwide (about 93% of $ they raise goes to programs to end violence against women and girls), and Victory – Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute whose mission is to advance the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in leadership roles around the world (about 96¢ for every dollar given goes toward their efforts).

(I figure if these guys are supposed to be superheroes I might as well put them to work somehow.)

Yeah, No.

Having made my first illustration for use in a textile design the best advice I can think to offer is to MAKE SURE YOU CUT STRAIGHT LINES! when you dissect your image.  This a collaborative project I'm working on with artist/designer/speed reader/computer nerd/regular nerd Kati Driscoll for this show to benefit the World Wildlife Fund.  Basically you have to cut your drawing into quarters when you get to a certain stage so that you can fill in the edges of the drawing in order for everything to meet up evenly on each side of the image.  This way your image becomes a repeating pattern.  It seems like a weird magic trick and it's really cool and pretty fun to do.  BUT! make sure make sure make sure you cut straight bloody lines or you're in for some photoshop nightmares.  Anyway, it was tough the first time around and I'm sure if I had a wacom tablet then it would have been much easier to correct my mistakes.  The above images show what the final piece looks like repeated as it would on a large piece of fabric, the letter design that Kati contributed to the piece, a close up of all the dumb gaps I made and had to fix, and an overlay that I had to do on a transparency sheet (complete with dust and cat hair, damn you Stilgar) over the original drawing so that I could fill in areas around the letters that were a little bare. Before I started I found a really helpful artical at Design Sponge, here is how I learned to stop worrying and love making repeating patterns.  I'm also working on a comic book for the show and this is why my next installment of Ovoyyamar will most likely be posted next week instead of this week.  It's weird and disorienting when you've been working all day at your computer only to look up several hours later to realize you're sitting in the dark.

In the Shadows of the Sunlit World

Part 2 of Ovoyyamar is lurking out in the shadows...

Until it strikes I highly recommend staring into the abyss that is Luminism.  There are a lot of amazing 19th century American landscape artists and their works that I have found very inspiring while working on this comic.  I could stare into John Frederick Kensett's 'Lake George' forever I think.  One random day someone will say "Hey, where did Alan go?" Then they'd look into the painting and see me floating off to the far shore before disappearing into the mysterious mountains.  To my mind there is something very quietly ominous concealed in a lot of those paintings.  This is basically what is happening in my head whenever I look at this stuff.  You'll find what you feel I guess.  That's art for you.

OVOYYAMAR: Part One

I've been working hard on my comic and have finally begun to post it! You can check out the first part here: Ovoyyamar.  

G.I. Joe-a-Day

In March I took on another Fun-a-Day project along with Alien-a-Day because I figure why not make things harder for myself. I fell way behind on these guys but finally finished them (does it count as fun-a-day if i did like 15 in one day?)

When I was a kid, going grocery shopping with my mom meant that we might also get to go to Woolworth's (when they were still around), K-mart, or Hera help me, KB Toys. That is if we didn't act up. I tried my best not to because I desperately needed to have a new G.I. Joe toy whenever I would come within 50 feet of a purveyor of the little, plastic soldiers. I would brake out in a sweat and probably drag my mom forward the way my dog pulls me along when he has to go O-U-T.

Toys are great and I was a very lucky kid to be able to have so many (did I appreciate them then?). My brother and I would wake up Christmas mornings when our parents were still together to find He-Man and Skeletor mid battle around Castle Grey Skull. Look over to the left and you'd find Luke Skywalker hanging out of the bottom of an AT-AT Imperial Walker surround by Storm Troopers. My dad had taken all the toys out of their packaging and set them up all around so that it looked like a bunch of toys broke into the house and decided to reenact the Battle of Waterloo on our living room carpet. Dad would go to a dozen stores to make sure he found every single character known to be part of the set as indicated on the back of each figures cardboard packaging. When the smoke cleared and all the toys were put away (which rarely happened), my favorite, hands down, is definitely G.I. Joe. They were just the right size to manipulate with my little kid hands and also stuff into the G.I. Joe fanny pack I wore at all times. They came with me to get pizza, they came with me in the car ride to my grandmom's house, I took them to the dentist office, the beach, the woods, everywhere. I kept them all neatly arranged in a big fishing tackle box. Knives and small arms on the first level, heavy machine guns, special weapons, and helmets on the next, the bottom compartment was filled with Joes and backpacks. I even had little plastic containers, about the size of a roll of quarters (i think they original were some kind of M&M candy pack), that had extra rubber bands, screws, and hip joints, in case I needed to perform any medical triage on the casualties of play. In short, I had a problem.

I still have a bunch of Joes. I don't really do much with them but I think about them a lot. As an artist I really appreciate the character design of my favorite guys and gals. Some designs were rubbish, especially as the toys neared the 1990's, but when they were good, in my opinion I think they were pretty great.

This is a set of 31 G.I. Joe action figure portraits painted from my little collection (4 or 5 of these I actually don't have but were some of my favorites so I included them). Let's start off strong with:

STORM SHADOW - Cobra - Ninja Assassin/Intelligence - 1984

WET SUIT - G.I. Joe - SEAL - 1986

NUNCHUK - G.I. Joe - Nunchaku Ninja - 1992

BIG BEN - G.I. Joe - SAS Trooper - 1991

SNAKE EYES - G.I. Joe - Commando/Hand to Hand Combat Instructor - 1985

SNAKE EYES - G.I. Joe - Commando/Hand to Hand Combat Instructor - 1982

FOOTLOOSE - G.I. Joe - Infantry Trooper - 1985

BUDO - G.I. Joe - Samurai - 1988

SPIRIT - G.I. Joe - Tracker - 1984

FIREFLY - Cobra - Saboteur - 1984

SHOCKWAVE - G.I. Joe - S.W.A.T. Specialist - 1988