My Day Thus Far #3

MUCH better day. for some reason i woke up and started singin' "I Wan'na Be Like You" by King Louie in the Jungle Book...looked this up








downloaded the sooong, aand been singing/listening to it all day..feelin' pretty relaxed and a lil' more like old self than i have in a few days...oobie doo, wanna be like you oo ...*snapping fingers to beat*

My Day Thus Far #2

Pretty long few days, but i think after tonight i will be well-rested and back to my fast-paced, semi-healthy eater, joggin, multi-taskin' self ;)

My Day Thus Far #1

So i have a couple ideas for some comics i would like to start on the site, buut haven't had the time, but i def wanna get sooome kinda project going on here!

So i've created "My Day Thus Far", which will be a "conscious streaming" of what I'm feeling at the moment...so I will date the toon, put the current time aaand either put several phrases that I'm feelin' at the moment and/or weave it into a one-panel comic...these toons, like most of my work, will be done do or die, in pencil, pen, ink, whatever...hopefully i can get a chuckle outta you guys, one man's misery is another man's happiness..or something like that, haha.

My Day Thus Far #1!

Great Google Banner

One day I'd like to be able to work for Google and work on a banner that miilllions of people will see across the entire world..but 'til then, i can repost the ones i personally really dig ;)

This has to be one of my favorites so far, it was on Google yesterday..was a big Popeye fan growing up, even of the Popeye movie:








The style of Popeye was perfect for the kiddos i think and is def a cartoon i hope will not fade from anyone's memory anytime soon...and i actually really love spinach too, haha, thanks popeye!

When The Man Comes Around

"There's a man goin' around, taking names..and he decides who to free and whom to blame.......when the man comes around"

I've been listening to this great, slightly chilling Johnny Cash song "When the Man Comes Around" aaand I sketched this lil' sucker up...quick sharpe/fine point pen hatching and voila...

I had this picture of a Ripper meets Archangel meets Old Cowboy from West thing in my head aaand this is what came of that..so be good kiddies, or "the man" will find you. ;)

self portrait # infinity and a half

i'm diggin' where i'm goin' with coloring on photoshop...again, as most of my photoshop coloring trials are, this came out accidentally and i liked it so decided to keep it...tryin' to go in another direction, thouugh not quite sure where, though i'm diggin' where i'm heading :D

Condiment Shortage in America: What is going on?!?!

Heya ladies and germs, busy week as usual, hope everyone out there is having a great week and staying outta this cold! (well least down here its getting kinda chilly, at least for us South Texaners!)

So a friend of mine posted about not getting enough ketchup, how this restaurant (which will not be named) only gave him one packet of ketchup...ONE...

How many fries do you usually get in an order? First off, I'm pretty sure no one really counts them, but let's make a guestimate...lets say 20 fooor like a small order...20 fries to one packet of ketchup..considering that most restaurants use packet ketchup and not the small "wells" like say, Whataburger (BEST KETCHUP EVER..i swear they make it w/ crack or something it is so addicting), you'll be lucky to get one scoop of ketchup per fry...

Thats IF you dip once per fry that you have...thats not including double-dipping which, come on, you KNOW you're going to do when you don't have to share your sauce right? Even then...if its someone close to you, you'll double dip...and your friend might double dip...thats two people double dipping a extremely small, ever-decreasing amount of ketchup! The HORROR!

We Americans love our sauce...whether its bbq, hot mustard, ranch, ketchup, or even tartar sauce for those seafood lovers (ME), so when we don't have enough of it, its pretty frustrating...and seemingly, over the last few years, restaurants are giving out less and charging for what was considered the normal amount now considered "extra" sauce packets, cups, wells, etc...

I 'member, back in the day, I could get as many "wells" of hot mustard for my chicken nuggets at McDonald's as my chubby lil' heart desired and now I have to pay an added cost for the same amount of sauces...utter ridiculousness.

I understand that our economy is not in the best of shape, but this started BEFORE THAT.

Really, its the small things in life that keep us going, we are not asking for much...just give us 4 packets instead of 1.....6 instead of 2...

We Americans eat more food, therefore we need more sauce for that food...it is the American way...USA, USA, USA.

Thank you for your time. I'm going to go find something to eat. & break out the ketchup. ;).

Wanna win $100,000 hmm? Read on!!! Nikon Festival

So a few days back I was messaged by a fellow 20 Something Blogger who works for Nikon and informed me about this GREAT contest!

http://www.nikonfestival.com/



Nikon is holding the "Nikon Festival" with a grand prize of $100,000, awarded to the best homemade 140-second movie submitted.

The theme is "A Day Through Your Lens" and the judges include Rainn Wilson (from The Office and SoulPancake.com), Chase Jarvis (the famous photographer) and iJustine (a leading YouTube star).

The idea with this contest is to challenge people to fit their whole day into a constrained amount of time, 140 secs to be exact. Even Aston Kutcher shared a day he spent in Africa!

Go to the site for all the rules and regulations, but you only got to DECEMBER 15TH to enter!!!!

You can also follow the festival for updates and such oooon:

www.twitter.com/nikonfestival

aaand for all youse facebook lovers ;) :

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nikon-Festival/152228706571?ref=ts

Good luck to everyone!!! Lemme know if you post anything!!!

xmas is comin'...for you..

Hey there fellow bloggers and blog readers alike, happy holidays!

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving, i know i definitely have a treadmill and severe ab workouts in my future...why...did i eat so much pie..*sighs*

I'm hoping to get more practice with my handy dandy tablet so, playing with Corel Painter Essentials, came up with this deviled sandy claws....

Hopefully in the next couple months I'll get some more practice in and learn more of the ins and outs of the program, can't wait!

Chupacabra, the next movie icon

So I think you can agree with me when I say that vampires have over-saturated the market...I mean its beyond the marketing bucket is just overflowing with vampire tv shows, movies, books, etc...what is it about the vampire?

The vampire itself has evolved from this loathsome, vile creature



("Nosferatu")

to these "sex symbols"



("Twilight" & "True Blood")

The vampire has become an iconic staple to American society, evolving from a fearsome creature of the night to teeny boppers in Edward Cullen shirts screaming their love for fangs...

What we need....is a creature that'll stay true to its nature..that'll strike fear in the hearts of everyone and anyone who ever dare to catch a glimpse of its beady, red, killer eyes in the shade of night...

I give you...

El Chupacabra



DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!!

El Chupacabra, or "goat sucker", is a fearful creature that lives off the blood of goats in Mexico and South American areas....



^^^ that picture is what I've heard it described as looking as, but its a fearsome creature that kills in the dead of night...

Nosferatu, one of the 1st vampire movies, was made in the 1920s I believe, aand Twilight and True Blood exist now, almost 90 years later...

Can you honestly say, in 90 years, you're gonna see a chupacabra having love affairs with 20 something yr old women and becoming a icon to american teenagers everywhere?

I rest my case.

VIVA EL CHUPACABRA!!!

Dino #2

Sorry for the week long absence there my friends, def needed to recharge my batteries and focus on some other projects/freelance...still haven't gotten to like i've wanted to, but alas, thats the life of the artist eh? too many projects with too little time, gotta find that balance, which i do..from time to time :P.

This is "Dino #2" of the dino series I had started awhile back..still experimenting with color schemes but this series will consist of cartoonish dinosaurs with "attitude"..yeah..i know..that word has over-saturated the market for yeeears but it just fits so nicely with this series.

Sunday funday, hope everyone has a great manic monday!!!

Monster thing (photoshop experiment #4)

Haven't posted anything in a couple days, been a busy bee, so sketched up this..."monster thing" and did some quick coloring in photoshop..hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Skull Flower (photoshop coloring experiment #3)

So I've recently come up with the task of learning to color using photoshop..been wanting to for awhile now aaaand i'm slowly discovering techniques that have demonstrated to me why its something i should def strive to learn more...

I mean, there are tooons of way more advanced techniques than i'm currently using, but sometimes you just have to re-discover that fire for yourself eh?

A couple days back a friend of mine had told me to draw a skull with a flower, just for sh*ts and giggles, while I was hanging out, so I thought I draw that up and try coloring it. I'm excited to see where this eventually takes me. :D.

Self-Caricature #kajillion and 6, new photoshop tricks

When i first started using Photoshop, i learned a lot of tricks by experimenting on pictures of myself..reason being that i was the subject was i used these tricks while working on default "profile pics" for my myspace..so that my picture would look really cool...don't judge me :P.

Learning Photoshop this way gave me encentive and motivation to learn new tricks to make even cooler pictures to put on my social profile page..i didn't think back then about using photoshop for coloring my cartoons and never have really used it for such..until now

I've been reading lil' snippets here and there about coloring with photoshop and i realize i'm a bit behind the times with digital coloring, so these last couple of drawings have been experimenting with doing such..

I'm a beginner at water colors, but i really dig 'em and hope to do more of them in the future..with Photoshop, however, i am discovering a method in which i can make a "watercolor effect"...I am excited of the direction this is going.

Ghastly Thing

Quick sketch in pencil touched up by some photoshop...was watching Ghost Adventures (great show if you haven't seen it) and came up with this lil' bugger...scanned the pencil sketch in, added some color and some multiple layers and voila...


Still want to play around this a lil' more but wanted to post this before i go for the night, have a great one ;)

"Let The Right One In" movie discussion

So what if Halloween is over, always time for a good horror movie ;)...vampires are over-saturating the markets these days ( though i am a TB fan true and true), but this movie is def an exception to the cliches & mainstream soap box drama we have been accustomed to here...



Let The Right One In is based on a novel by the same name, the author John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's a romantic horror movie about a human 12 yr old boy meeting a vampire girl and the bond that grows between them...Yes i know..twilight..true blood...but this is NOT a "kiddie version" of either, rather its an entirely different "spin" on the whole vampire genre, receiving "widespread international critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including the "Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature" at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation's 2008 Méliès d'Or (Golden Méliès) for the "Best European Fantastic Feature Film", as well as four Guldbagge Awards from the Swedish Film Institute." <--(from wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In_%28film%29, but still, pretty sure thats all pretty accurate)



The cinematography, soundtrack, the narrative (AWESOME) work seamlessly together and creates a beautiful environment in which these two characters thrive and grow.



I don't want to give away anything on the movie but this has instantly become one of my favorite movies.



The movie is originally in Swedish and you have the option of watching the english-dubbed version oooor english subtitles with Swedish versions...I watched the latter, personally I HATE dubbed movies, on both aesthetic and moral grounds.


There is a supposed to be an English "re-make" coming out in 2010 by the director who made Cloverfield, who claimed to have "fallen in love" with the movie and will make it more "appealing" to a more "widespread audience", which I'm skeptical about...the movie just came out in 2008 and to the US in 2009, so I personally feel a bit insulted this guy wants to already try to hog the spotlight..I may just boycott this "remake" , haha, its definitely a thought..


Anyways, Let The Right One In is a must see, def go check it out!



Let The Right One In Trailer

ZOMBEEZ GALORE A SUCCESS!

So I started this project on a whim, full of inspiration and a desire to be a bit creative..I originally was aiming to get 30 zombies but with the great response I ended up with 57! :) Thanks to everyone who helped with the project and who supported me along the way...It's your support that helps me to continue to grow and push myself.

Now for you guys just tunin' in or who missed part of the project, ZOMBEEZ GALORE AIN'T OVER.

I will be makin' a small lil' sub-site that will have all these zombies available for prints and the option of sending your requests for customized zombie pictures, only this time for a small fee...keep updated by subscribing to this blog and/or following me on Twitter (twitter.com/thetoonman)

THANKS again guys, take it easy and in the words of Mr. Stan Lee, EXCELSIOR!!!

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #57: Dead Rabbit

THE LAST OF THE ZOMBEEZ series...at least for now. ;), Mr. Frank Undead is dedicated to moi, I wanted to end this series with a bang, and the first thing that came to mind was one of my favorite moviees, Donnie Darko, so I decided to pay tribute.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #56: Seduction Undead

This seductress is dedicated to Ms. Monica, who has given me several great requests throughout this series, much appreciated, got some great ones b/c of her, so THANKS :D!

When I got the request for Jolie, I googled some pics and saw the pic which this is based on, and the idea started to form..I wanted Jolie as a zombie to still be..well.. "Jolie-ish", but at the same time insert the creep and gorey aspects of being a zombie...I used the gradient coloring technique again for this zombie, a technique I'm glad I stumbled upon.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #55: Zombie Pimp

ZOMBIE PIMP. name says it all, haha. dedicated to my good friend john, whose caricature represents the true nature of this man..he's got a gift i tell ya.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombeez #48 thru 54

Zombee #48: Red-Eyed



Dedicated to my friend Ms Katy, thanks for the request! Ms. Katy's zombie I am particularly happy with, very zombie creepy ;)

Zombee #49: One Flew Over The Zombie's..Nest



A movie that has been on "must see" list for awhile, hoping to catch this soon! I knooow someone requested this b/c I remember thinking I have to do this one (glad I did!) but can't rememer who requested it, so please lemme know who!

Zombee #50: Epic



The epic battle b/w two legends, dedicated to my friends Gabe and Allison, preciate the support guys!

Zombee #51: Red-Neck Undead



This red-neck zombie dedicated to my friend Cody, hope you like it!

Zombee #52: The Kittyman



Kittyman Undead, dedicated to Mr. Sammy, the Kittyman ;), thanks for the request!

Zombee #53: Undead Boxers



These "comic booky" zombies dedicated to Allison, thanks!

Zombee #54: El Matador Muerto



Dedicated to the lovely Monica, preciate all the requests and support! :D.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombeez #41 thru 47

Zombee #41: One Giant Leap for Zombie Kind



Mr. Neil Armstrong ;), dedicated to my friend Gabe, who has been here to support me through numerous artistic endeavors, always lending out a good suggestion here and there, including in these series, thanks man!

Zombee #42: Presidente del Muerto



Mr. President, dedicated to my other friend the other Gabe, ha, thanks for the request!

Zombee #43: Smile, You're Dead!



This lovely zombie is dedicate to my cuz Sammy! Love ya cuz!

Zombee #44: Dead Salon



This colorful zombie is dedicated to mi amiga arte <--probably said that wrong, Claire, thanks for the request! Zombee #45: Advisor to the Undead

This Happy Go Lucky Zombie is dedicated to my ol' South Texan Advisor, Dr. Flores, 'preciate all you do sir, hope you like your caricature!


Zombee #46: Ms. Zombie PR Rep



This eerily vivacious zombie is dedicated to my friend Adriana, thanks for the support and request!

Zombee #47: The Zombie Next Door



This Aphroditic zombie dedicated to my friend Suzette, 'preciate the support, hope you like it!

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #40: Under The Sea, Death Awaits

These deadly swimmers are dedicated to Ms. Marce, a good friend of mine whom I don't know what I do without ;), thanks for the support!

Marce appeared as the headless zombie a few Zombeez ago, and since then it has always been in my mind to make her another caricature...just wouldn't be right if I left her a head on a platter :P (refer to Zombee #17)

Ms. Marce is a big fan of the animals, especially sea animals, even has a pic of her and a sea turtle, so I decided that would be the subject of her caricature..

As far as compared to the rest of the series, Marce's caricature, although it may not seem it, is one of the most complicated as far as the process in creating it...Marce's caricature, Zombee #40, required a good combination of both Photoshop and Illustrator...to sum it up, blue color scheme for everything and Gaussian blur the hell outta everything, haha.

I hold #40 as another fave of mine of this series.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombeez #35 thru 39

Zombee #35: Homecoming for the Dead



Dedicated to Zach, who was TAMUK's Homecoming King this year ;), congrats!

Zombee #36: Rose-colored Glasses



Dedicated to Ms. Paige, thanks for the request!

Zombee #37: Cowboy Brain-Eater



Dedicated to Mr. Cody, a good ol' friend of mine from waaaay back, preciate the support man!

Zombee #38: Lil' Terror



Dedicated to Reg, good friend of mine, thanks for the request!

Zombee #39: Cupcake?



Dedicated to Ms Jenny, thanks for the request! Jenny is a good ol' friend of mine who has given suggestions on several projects I've done, which always seem to come out very interesting, so much appreciated ;)..the cupcake makes me smile, haha

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #34: Furry Death

This deadly critter is dedicated to Ms. Christine, who was zombified a bit earlier in the series, appreciate the request ;).

As far as style, I decided to go for a more "realistic" approach..which after finishing this piece I'm glad I did, otherwise the coloring techniques I accidentally discovered wouldn't be as effective..or at least I don't think it would be..

I've never been much of a gradient tool user for other things than coloring the background, but, in the process of coloring the koala, I didn't realize the gradient tool was still on and behold! another coloring technique revealed itself to me.

As far as the Zombee series go, I hold this as one of my favorites.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #33: Wahlberg

Mr. Wahlberg dedicated to the candle lady, Ms. Moni ;), hope its to your liking. I decided to use one of Mark's old model pics for this one ( i know how much gals like lookin' at cartoon men abs, so i had to deliver!) and corpse it up a bit...I've always been a fan of that "lets sepia the hell outta everything else except for the glaring eyes" color scheme you see with photoshopped pics and whatnot, and decided to do that with this drawing, to give Wahlberg a bit of a creepy look.

Ms. Moni is a good friend of mine and runs a lil' candle business, so if any of you guys or gals lookin' to buy a candle, check out her site at: www.baysidecandles.com

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #32: Mr. Undead California

Mr. "I'll Be Back" is dedicated to my friend Joey, hope you dig it man!

Mr Governor, well...I couldn't resist but to give him the T-1 metal skeleton...just had to be done ya know? I did bloody him up a bit to "justify" the metal skeleton, but yes..I deduct points on myself for not being AS creative as I could have been..don't blame me, blame the badass Terminator movies!!!

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #31: Lil' Red Riding Hood

This red-eyed seductress is dedicated to my friend Karluh, hope ya like it ;).

There's a pic of Ms. Karluh in a Halloween costume of Ms Riding Hood, and I couldn't resist but to "zombify" that pic. As with Zombee #28, I went with a monochrome for the color scheme and am happy with the result.

ZOMBEEZ GALORE: Zombee #30: Hannibal

Mr. Lecter here is dedicated to my good friend Kirk, appreciate the suggestion man! Kirk had the idea of Hannibal eating a human as himself and not a zombie, eating someone with a group of zombies...i couldn't resist, haha.

At some point I would like to come back to develop this drawing some more, but for now I think this will do ;).