So this is a few day’s late, and I apologize for that. Unfortunately, not much happened last week, so there wasn’t much to talk about. Still isn’t I suppose. Today’s my dad’s 63rd Birthday, though so I guess there’s that.

A bufflehead duck my dad mounted.

It’s a little crazy to think of my dad being 63. My dad, for those of you who don’t know, is a big part of why I do what I do. My dad is a taxidermist by trade and all through my childhood, I got to watch my dad create life-like sculptures from these birds and animals and breathe a new kind of life back into them. Even after helping him do it for a number of years, as a teenager, it still seemed like magic to me. The level of realness that he’s able to achieve is pretty amazing. My dad drew throughout my childhood too and it’s because of him, that I was drawn (get it) to the pencil and paper. He also instilled in me a love for the outdoors, which has recently been helpful in my work on the Urban Wild webcomic. Anyway, so yeah – My dad’s old. Which is awesome. Happy Birthday, Dad. If you’re into that kinda thing, swing by his website and take a look around.

So what did I draw this week? Well, I did this thing, I suppose. I calls it Jurassic Cluck! Inspired (obviously) by my deep and abiding love of the original JP book and movie and an article I read recently about a Chickenasaurus. I thought it was pretty funny.

So, that’s it this week. While you’re here, go check out the Press Page and see what kind of nice things people have been saying about the stuff we’re doing. If you have a blog or podcast and want to fill some space (and Wil Wheaton isn’t free), I’m always available.

(no, I haven’t seen the new Tron, yet)

Man, it’s been a while. The X-mas season descended on us here at the Press, and relentlessly smacked us for about 2 and a half months. WHICH IS AWESOME, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But, now that it’s slowing down a bit, I figure I can safely poke my head above ground and give a bit of an update.

We’ve been busily working on the next book “Too Many Monsters”. We are planning to debut TMM at Phoenix Comicon this May, so be sure to check it out. I’ll be posting art and preliminaries prior to the release, so keep your eyes peeled. The book is going to be 32 Pages, 8.25 x 8.25 inches and full color throughout and will feature an all-new, original story by the other Half of MMP, Ashlie Hammond with art and design by myself, of course.

The Monkey Minion 2011 Con Schedule is nearing it’s finalized state, and we’ll be returning to two of our favortie shows ever, Emerald City in March and Phoenix Comicon in May. AWESOME! This will be our third year at the wonderfulness that is ECCC, and after a year away, our 4th appearance at PHXCC. I’ll have more info about those as they get closer. We’ve also gotten word that we will be attending SDCC again this year! WOO! We have a few more shows lined up and I’ll post about them as they get nearer.

So, with December very nearly over, and the celebration of various holidays commencing, the time for reflection is upon us. OVerall, this year has been pretty much great for MMP. We made a book, a lot of art, and a lot of new friends both online and in real life. I had my first experience as an invited guest at a comic-related event (more please), and we did our first SDCC as Small Press Exhibitors. MMP is slowly (but steadily) growing from a one-man sketchcard and freelance design concern into an independent artist and illustration business. We got our Zombie cards into a few more shops (TFAW and Cosmic Monkey here in Portland, Dark Delicacies in California) and got mentioned on some blogs and podcasts (including the AWESOME Geek In The City podcast) I miserably failed in my attempt to regularly update a sketch-blog, but no one seemed to notice. Maybe I’ll try it again some time later when I don’t have a day job to get in the way. LOL!

So, now that I’ve bored you to death, how about some art? This is the evolution of a brainworm I had earlier this year. I got to thinking and thought, you know, I’ve done quite a few Propaganda-Style Posters this year, but there’s one character that NEEDS to be on a WW2-style poster. That character? CAPTAIN freaking AMERICA. So, here you go. Incidentally, this is also available for sale at my Etsy store and my new Storenvy store, so go there and buy one, will ya?

Well, that’s it for now. Until next time, I suppose.

Happy Holidays, EVERYONE!

D

Welcome back. Not much new to share since last time. MY work was featured on an awesome tumblr blog called “Distracted By Star Wars” today which is AWESOME. (Seriously – go check it out. I’ll wait. Are you back? Good.)

Today’s ‘Sketch’ is another brainworm poster that came out right after I finished my SW recruitment posters. This one is inspired by that other “Star” series, Star Trek. I grew up on ST re-runs as a kid and when ST:TNG started, we watched it every week. (I still maintain that my dad was a closet nerd) So, it didn’t surprise me much when this image kind of issued forth from my gray matter. I wanted this to be in the recruitment vein, but felt that the overt “Military” vibe of the 2 SW images didn’t jibe with the mission of Star Fleet, which I always saw as more of a humanitarian/scientific service (like the peace corp or WPA). So, I went with a more WP-influenced style for it. This one is also available as a poster in the store and at etsy.

Well, after a trip that I’m calling a ‘comedy of errors and fail’ (including a 26-hour layover in Denver b/c of snow the first day of the trip), I lived through the harrowing ordeal of my visit to the midwest for Planet comicon and family visits, and have returned to the sanity of the Pacific Northwest. I apologize for the absence of the sketch blogs recently. ECCC and trip planning took up all of my time before I left. But I’m back.

So, not much to say about Planet Comicon. The fans were great and I got to meet and hang out with some cool local people. Also, Clayton Crain‘s table was next to ours. He was super cool, and he bought a hat from Ashlie (we couldn’t get a pic of him wearing it, tho… LOL). I don’t know if it’ll go on our list of ‘must-do shows’ tho. Oh well.

So, the sketch! Well, today’s sketch is something that has been playing around in my brain for the past year or so and I sketched up this morning on my bus ride to work: SPIDER-KID! Everyone remembers as a kid tying towels and pillowcases around your neck and jumping off couches and boxes pretending to be superman. Well, this is kinda my version of that memory. I’ve always been a Spidey fan. I used to throw yarn around pretending it was webbing, too. It was awesome. I may do some more ‘kid super heroes’ in the future. Who would you like to see as a kid? Who did YOU dress up as when you were young?

In unrelated news, I was interviewed (along with good friends Daniel and Rebecca) by the fine folks at the Seattle Geekly podcast at Emerald City. You should go check that out, for sure. I’ll be putting that in the press page for future reference, as well.

The show was inSANE.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Our show experience started off with dinner Friday night with Dan and Dawna of SteamCrow, and Rebecca and James of LunaSea Studios. It was a fun night, good food lots of laughs and lots of great info. After dinner, the 4 of them headed back to their respective roosts and I proceeded to get lost in DT Seattle while trying to get back to the highway to go to our hotel. LOL.

The next morning, we got to the show a couple of hours early to set up. During set up, we had a lot of fellow artists and vendors swing by to look at and comment on the prints and hats we had out. So, that was cool. One of my favorite con moments came during set up, too; As we were putting the finishing touches on our booth, figuring out sign placement, etc., a woman and her young (like, 4 yrs old) daughter came into the hall from the loading doors. Right next the the loading door is where the show’s organizers had placed Stan Lee’s signing area. As the little girl passes this area, she spots Stan’s picture on the curtain behind the table and says, “That’s the SPIDER-MAN guy!!” That’s a kid that’s being raised right.

After that, the show starts. Now, I’ll admit – at this point the show floor becomes a bit of a blur. There were people everywhere. We were down at the end of the hall where the guests were, so there were tons of people near our booth. And it stayed that way pretty much until they closed the doors. We sold out of both of our Star Wars prints by the end of the first day (the Resist print ran out by noon!). Zombie cards were popular, and Ashlie’s cute hats had a lot of attention. At the end of the show, I did a Blue Beetle commission sketch (for which I had to go buy a JLA comic for reference. I never can remember how the lines of his costume go!). After the show, Ashlie and I got some noms (Tasty TASTY Indian food at Pabla Punjab Palace in Seatac) and went back to the hotel, where I did another sketch commission of Crow T. Robot from MST3K. Now I, of course, forgot to get pictures of these pieces, so if you own either of them and a scanner, I’d greatly appreciate you sending me a scan or picture of them.

Sunday started off badly when Ashlie and I went to breakfast at the Pancake Chef in Seatac down the road from our hotel. It was disgusting. We were both queasy and ill feeling afterward (and I love me some greasy spoon breakfast food!). AVOID! Anyway, when we got up, I had to place an order for more Star Wars prints to be picked up that morning. After I dropped Ashlie off, a friend and I went on an odysee to get our prints. Once again, Seattle’s aggressively hostile roads proved to be a foil to my plans and we ended up taking way longer than I wanted to getting back to the show. Oh well. Once back however, the show kicked back into gear. While it wasn’t as busy as Saturday, it was still pretty steady all day. I did a commission of Moon Knight, which was cool. Moony is a character I don’t get to draw nearly often enough. Sunday also found me getting interviewed by Shannon at SeattleGeekly, which was fun. I geeked out over her microphone/recoder gadget for a good 10 minutes. Good times. I got a chance to go wander on Sunday, tho, and I picked up some art books and a batgirl sketch from an artist from Singapore, a hand-pulled screenprint from Steamcrow, and a shirt from dresden codak (who I had never heard of until then).

So all in all it was a great show. Big thanks to Jim, Brian, George and all the rest of the Emerald City Crew. And of course, thanks to the fans who came out and made the show great!

This is my version of He-Man. I always thought that He-Man looked a little too much like a wuss. Maybe that’s why Skeletor was always giving him trouble? If He-Man had looked like a proper badass, maybe Skeletor would have behaved himself.

In an unrelated turn of events, the Seattle Geekly  Podcast did a feature on our line of Valentine’s Greeting Cards! Click the link to check them out!

Today’s sketch is of Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT was my favorite when I was a kid. I remember where we lived in Florida showed TMNT twice a day, once in the morning and then again that afternoon after school. I’d get up early to see it before school and then race home after class to see it again. I was a bit obsessed. LOL!

I did this with my Brush Pen (which ran out of ink while i was doing the shell, lol!), and then used my Microns to do the blade. It’s a bit rough, but for 20 minutes worth of drawing, no too shabby.

BTW, my friend over at Wax Wombat Presents just did and interview with me. You should go check it out!

Peace until next time!

Also, I have been interviewed again! This time, it’s international, baby! Yeah! Paul Bines from UK Cardcast , the internet’s best podcast about non-sports card collecting and sketch cards had me, Brandon Kenney, Trv Murphy and Ingrid Hardy all on talking about sketch cards, art and illustration. It was a good time, and Paul was a lot of fun to talk to. Go there, listen to both parts of episode 21 (I’m the second half of part A, by the way), and then subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.