WAITING FOR THE LIGHT

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SEVEN SAMURAI

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MIDNIGHT

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JOHN COLTRANE

Giant Steps is one of my faves. Fun to see it given the "kinetic type" treatment, although I miss that run at the end.

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It's always fun when a band changes up their steez and turns a corner on their fans. Plus, crafty marketing. I'm not a fan of My Chemical Romance; I've enjoyed a couple of singles but I've never felt the need to own any of their stuff. That said, I like the new album cover, and the band's new look. Stupid enough to be cool.

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MANHATTAN SOLSTICE

Wikipedia: "Manhattanhenge (sometimes referred to as the Manhattan Solstice) is a semiannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns with the east–west streets of the main street grid in the borough ofManhattan in New York City. The term is derived from Stonehenge, at which the sun aligns with the stones on the solstices. It was coined in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. It applies to those streets that follow the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out a grid offset 29.0 degrees from true east–west."

The track is a cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" performed by Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules.

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WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE

Drew Struzan did the painting for the cover of Alice Cooper's 1975 album. I found a nice pristine picture (and detail) of the original art on Struzan's website.

click to enlarge...

I so love the hand in the close-up. I remember seeing this cover in my older brothers collection when I was little. I was really taken with the brushstrokes, although I couldn't have articulated that at the time. Now I see a real Leyendecker influence:

I think I can trace my love of markmaking back to this.

I like Van Gogh because of Alice Cooper.

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"THAT'S... PEANUT BUTTER"

In 1970, Iggy and the Stooges tore it up at a music festival in Cincinnati. It resulted in one of the best photos in all of rock and roll. Decades later, footage surfaced of the performance. Watch Iggy basically invent stage diving, be lifted by the audience like the second coming, smear himself with peanut butter (Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys would take credit for bringing it from home) and generally just get rowdy while the Stooges lay down a punk rock assault 5 years before punk existed, all while the announcer watches in disbelief.

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BOMBAY

... by El Guincho.

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AUTUMN

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PLAINCLOTHES

On his blog, Paolo Rivera just posted a cover he did for an upcoming issue of Fantastic Four, in a 60's illustration steez. Love those graphic shapes and use of color, clothing and body language to talk about the character's personalities. I also love this page on the right from a 1969 issue by Jack Kirby. Awesome outfits!

click = embiggen.

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RAKTAVIJA!

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3Deluxe

Dialing in both my maquette and my 3D technique.

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3D

I did this little sculpt to figure out some lighting for the sketch I posted on Oct 5. I thought since I was working in 3D that I'd post the pic in 3D, too. If you have some old-school 3D glasses check it out.

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COMIC BOOK ABSTRACTION

Here are some examples of 5 comic book artists work. For each artist I chose pieces (in most cases) 20 or 30 years apart to look at how each has evolved over a chunk of their careers. It's cool the way they started out with more representational anatomy and rendering, and as they evolve as artists things get weirder, anatomy gets more distorted and abstracted, panels get bigger, figures take up more real estate. Generally things get more dynamic and expressive; blocky, cubist - and arguably just better.

click to enlarge

Jack Kirby: 1940's/1970's

Frank Miller: 1984/2001-ish

Mike Mignola: 1987/2007-ish

Bill Sienkiewicz: 1980/1987(!)

John Romita Jr: 1980's/2008

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VERMEER

... or, how to to compose like a badass. Vermeer painted "photo"realistically, but was not a slave to reality. He manipulated the way things "should" look to strengthen the composition.

check out the rest of the videos in the Vermeer series and other artists.

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RAKTAVIJA ROUGH

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KASHCHEI THE DEATHLESS

Here's a little digital sketch for a project. I started to really enjoy where it was going and took it a little father than a sketch, really. I love the looseness. I wish I had the chutzpa to hand in something like this. Maybe I will. Nah. But. Mm. Well. Noop. Maybe. Ngh.

Gotta fix those braids...

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INK

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