Jeremy Forson

Distillation show

2011-11-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

I am going to be in a show at Phidias Gold. Haven't been accepting a lot of shows for the past year, but I took this one because it sounded fun, and the line-up is killer! I took 360° photos that I want to make into an animated gif or something, so that will be up later.

Quests UI

2011-11-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

I badly want to get into designing user interfaces for games. I think it's the perfect job for me because I get to do a variety of technical and creative work. For some reason that makes no sense to me, people don't want to do UI design in the games world. You get to do illustration, design, animation, and some light coding—while solving the puzzle of how to clearly communicate information to the player. I think it's fun, but I guess it's not for everybody. This would be an overlay menu for a fantasy MMO like World of Warcraft. It was given to me as a test. The company decided not to hire me because I don't have experience with a specific technology they are using, but have been very helpful and gracious by recommending me to their friends and colleagues.

This was the wireframe. The art direction was to be an edgy, mystical, fantasy hardcore MMO style like WOW and League of Legends. I want to talk about the UI decisions I made, but I think it would become a TL;DR situation. If you have any questions, leave me a comment :)

Head Labs

2011-10-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

This is a Flash Project I did a little while back. I had so much fun that I thought I would do a lot more Flash animation projects, but it looks like my life is heading in a different direction. I'm not sure how technical I can get of this blog without losing you guys, but I'm gonna go ahead and explain the project anyway. It started off as an HMTL5 project that was meant to just be for fun and learning. I thought I would do some simple animations in Flash and use Grant Skinner's Zoë air application to export sprite sheets that I could manipulate with javaScript. Well, I ended up getting really into the Flash animation part, and what I thought would be around 25 frames ended up being around 180 (even though it's shot in 2s). The sprites (as you see here) got to be WAY TOO BIG to use, as they are 1.2 MB, whereas the Flash swf was only 143 KB. I probably could have cut down the number of sprite images by programmatically jumping around the frames, but it seemed too tedious. I decided that this kind of animation was not going to work for sprites, and since I basically already had it built in Flash, I continued in that direction. Then in further digression from the goal, I started doing sounds. I had no idea how to do that, so I taught myself Adobe Soundbooth, and got pretty good results considering that I just used the mic on my laptop.

The project lives here: Head Labs Site

you do tattoo comisions for free? for friends? for what? haha u draw pretty well and that would be pretty awesome :3

2011-10-19T17:19:00.001-07:00

I've drawn some tattoos for my friends. I am willing to consider doing a tattoo commission if you send me the details, but be warned, it's not cheap! :)

Ask me anything

New Scanner

2011-10-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

My old trustee Epson scanner finally started to go, so I had to get a new one. After a lot of research I decided to get an Epson V30 photo scanner. I went totally low end, and I'm glad I did! Truthfully, more expensive photo scanners are WAY more powerful than I need to scan artwork, and often the only difference is a bunch of software that I also don't need. I got this scanner for $75 total, and it scans at over 12,000 dpi. That's over 4 times higher than the capability of the scanner I was using and happy with, but because I never need to scan slides or negatives, I still have no need to to crank it up that high. I'm really happy with the color, it looks dead on, and because it's LEDs instead of a florescent tube, it starts up and scans SO much faster. Take away: Don't waste your money on a high dollar scanner for your art.

Skull Avatar

2011-10-04T16:27:00.001-07:00

Skulls are just too fun!

Skull sketch

2011-10-03T18:13:00.001-07:00

Sketchbook painting from last week. I am ordering a new scanner, so I just shot this with my phone. I used a new set of liquitex ink I bought, and I like it a lot! Real paintings to come someday soon hopefully. Sorry guys, got bills to pay.

Bossman HTML5 game

2011-08-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

Sorry I haven't been posting a lot of artwork. I'm actually taking my work in a new direction, so I'm building a new portfolio, and I want to debut all the new work at once. This project came up, and I was excited to do it. I've been studying HTML5, specifically for gaming, for the past few months, and this was an opportunity to actually put something out there. It's currently at http://playbossman.com. Our team of 4 made this in 48 hours! Granted, it's buggy as hell and still needs a lot of work. I did the art/concept/sound/level building. Sadly, my concept for the game had to be curtailed significantly to work, and get done in time.

This was for Node Knockout 2011, a 48 hour hack-a-thon revolving around node.js technology. Everything had to be made over the 48 hour period, and there were nearly 300 teams all over the world competing. The other 3 members of my team are in Argentina.

Here's my sketch for the game. No digital files could be created before the competition started, so I just had a bunch of drawings for my ideas. (I think my wonderful scanner is in it's twilight days as you can see by the CMYK sprinkles. I've had it since my first semester in college, almost 10 years!)

The idea was that you would race 10's to hundreds of people through a multi-level maze of bisected office space. The level would be constantly scrolling, and if you fell behind or through the cracks you would be killed and receive a pink slip. You could fight other players in a race to become the boss. The rat race in 8 bit game form.

Sadly, there are still some serious technical drawbacks to HTML5 games that I don't think will be solved any time soon, so this dream could not become a reality, in spite of it's relative simplicity compared to console games. The developers in Argentina worked incredibly hard on this, and I am in awe of their abilities! To give you some perspective, I am also a web developer, but these guys are so good that I didn't even touch any code. None of us had ever built a game before, but they are so talented, that they figured out how to do it the week before, and executed it over the weekend. Amazing!

I stepped up myself. I had only made a screaming doughnut for pixel art before this, but I got it now! We used impact.js, which is a great tool. The level editor is very easy to use, and it's well worth the $99, although we got to use it for free because the creator sponsored the event.

Weekly comic book review

2011-03-03T15:12:00.000-08:00

Logo work for weeklycomicbookreview.com. Fun project, good fit for me. I've been really into faux vintage lately, as you can see. I feel like vector art isn't finished until it gets some texture, it seems too slick to me.

I started with something happy. I thought it was fun—not what they were looking for.

I had many ideas, these were some of the more resolved ones:

SF wallpaper

2011-03-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

I like making wallpaper patterns sometimes, this is definitely my most elaborate one. I have been wanting to mess around with isometric designs lately, so this is what I came up with.

You can see it repeated here: jeremyforson.com/sf_iso_art.html

Jakob and Jessica

2011-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

Paintings! These are private commissions for the talented and kind Jakob Westman and his girlfriend, Jessica. I'm particularly proud of these. Jakob specifically wanted to commission me to do this style of painting, from what I call my "Night Life" series. This is what those paintings could have looked like, if I hadn't had to finish them in 1 to 2 days.

Sadly, I don't think there will be any new paintings from me in the near future. I'm shifting into a designer/developer career path, and I won't have time to paint until I'm gainfully employed.

Video game mock-ups

2011-01-23T15:44:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting on these for a while. This was some pitch work I did over the summer. A team of local programmers was working on a Rock Band style game that used a real guitar to pitch at E3. Sadly, at E3 Rock band announced that they were going to start using real guitars. Beat to the punch I guess. Still, it was a fun project. This was the beginning of my interest in 3D. It's hard for me to believe now, but I was ecstatic to use Google sketch-up with PS, AE, and AI to make these. Mostly because I didn't have to worry about perspective, which I don't enjoy drawing. If I had known how easy other 3D programs were to use I wouldn't have used sketch-up.

Cthulhu

2011-01-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

You know how if someone is missing for 7 days you can legally declare them dead? I believe that if you don't hear from the client for a month, you can declare the project dead. This was supposed to be a record cover. I was timid about working for a band again, as I have had bad experiences with them in the past. I took a chance and accepted a cover job for a small band, and a small fee. At this point, the band is nowhere to be found. ::Sigh:: I will never do that again.

The real shame is that I think this would have been the best CD cover I've ever done. The difference is that this is designed to be eye catching, iconic, and to read well at a small size. I used to try putting epic pieces on those little 5" squares (or whatever they are), but that's really not the way to go. Simplify the message.

This probably would be a good submission for Spectrum, but I don't see the point in entering anymore. I'm not looking for work as an illustrator, and I don't have money to waste on submission fees.

This is mixed media. It's a charcoal, pencil, and white gouache drawing, colored digitally. I think it's a great way to work. It has the speed and flexibility of digital, with the texture and "artist's hand" that makes traditional so nice.

Sorry if this post is a downer, I was burned by another band, rejected for yet another job, and I filed for unemployment today. I've been out of work for over 2 years, and it's getting to me.

Christmas

2010-12-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

Some other stuff

2010-12-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

Some random stuff nobody has seen. I've been experimenting with video the last few months. Video is just awesome. I'm not very good at it yet, but I'm surprised how generally easy it is to pick up, if you are already familiar with other creative programs. The main problem is how long it takes! Hours and hours of rendering. These videos need a lot of work, mostly on the animation which is not so fluid. I made them just to learn, so I'm not concerned with a high level of finish. The Victorian with the lit sign was going to be part of a new website layout, but I ultimately decided to go another direction. Kinda sad because I put a lot of work into it, but I remember thinking when it was done "Man, I really wish this was a drawing!"

The character sketches were developed for Sunken Castles, and since now they will never be used for anything I guess I can post them. I recolored a couple of them when I was learning to paint digitally.

5 years

2010-12-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my last day of college. That doesn't mean much to most people, but it's a milestone for me. It's said if you don't go anywhere, whether in music, art, acting, or whatever, within 5 years, you need to move on. This is to keep you from needlessly working towards an impossible goal while other opportunities pass you by, especially if you don't have "it." You never know, you might be right next to thing you're meant to do. I had written a long and sad blog about how I was done with illustration because I don't make nearly enough to conceivably make a living from it. And really, I am done with illustration, as a career, but not as an personal activity. I've demoted it from career aspiration, to slightly profitable hobby. It will be something I do for myself from now on, unless there's a monumental shift in demand for illustration someday. Doesn't look likely though. It's sad to have to let go of a lifelong dream.

I'm looking to start a new career. I don't want to be the type of guy who works as a waiter part time, hoping in vain that his dream of being an artist/musician/actor will come true. I know it won't, and to be honest, I'm not sure I would like it anyway. I need health insurance, retirement, stability, vacation, weekends...um, money. All that good stuff. I'm hoping to find a job as an entry level art director, or creative intern. I think I would be good at it because of the diverse subjects I've studied, specifically if I could be an interactive art director, that would be amazing.

So yeah, I know I'm not posting a lot these days, but it's because I'm looking for a new job, and working on a portfolio that can help me find one. Sadly, my artwork isn't a desired skill.

jeremyforson.com V6 live

2010-12-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

You might have noticed some changes around here. For a while now I've been working on a new look for my site, and today I applied it across my websites. I started to feel that the old site had gone TOO far in the direction of minimal design and light weight file sizes. I stripped out everything that was unnecessary, and that left very little. Technically it was good, but it felt cold and detached. I wanted to add some more personality into my website, and make it friendlier. The new site is bigger in file size than the old one, but still small as far as websites go. I added some older work that I still like, and tried to add more content in general. I did not expect to settle on Garamond and gold, but I'm happy with the way it came out. To me, the time I spent studying graphic design recently is apparent, but I don't know if other people can tell.

That’s Witchcraf’!

2010-11-24T16:25:00.000-08:00

Just looking at these gives me chills! My mom has this book about witches that I had only looked at once or twice as a child. The Illustrations by Jos A. Smith literally gave me nightmares! They are as excellent as they are powerfully creepy. I snapped some pictures on my iPhone. The book is full of amazing illustrations, so I recommend picking up a copy if you can find one. It was published in 1981. Jos. A. Smith is a professor of Fine Art at Pratt, according to his website. I felt these needed to be shared.

The title of this post comes from a story a friend of mine tells. He was at a video store of some kind, and this African American family is there. One of the little boys yells across the store "MAMA, CAN WE GET HARRY POTTER?" and the mom says "NAW, THAT'S WITCHCRAF’!"

Interview on livefastmag.com

2010-11-22T18:55:00.000-08:00

Hey Folks! I did an interview for livefastmag.com. By far my most in-depth interview yet. Secrets revealed! Thanks to Abby Wilcox for the opportunity. http://livefastmag.com/2010/11/edgy-illustrations-by-jeremy-forson

11/21/10

2010-11-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today I wrapped up some sketches for a record cover I picked up, and finished an interview for http://livefastmag.com (NSFW-ish). It's by far my most in-depth interview. I'd like to thank Abby Wilcox for the opportunity.

Doing some more sketching on the record cover art now. Working on the type. I'm really excited about this one, I think it's going to come out awesome! Kinda slow today overall though, I've not been feeling 100%.

Las Vegas

2010-11-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

I went to Las Vegas a few weeks ago for a wedding and I saw a woman that looked something like this. I was just so captivated by how perfectly Las Vegas she looked, as well as the stories I imaged she would have. She was in the casino, smoking with a broken arm, huge gnarly scar on her calf, haggard looking, tacky dress, big fake breasts, and a tattoo she must have gotten a couple hours ago because she was still wearing the plastic wrap. Amazing. One of those things where nobody noticed her except me. This image has just been sitting in my head since then. I finally got a chance to sketch it out. The tattoo was just little lines, looked like a bar graph.

John Hersey lecture

2010-11-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to CCA for John Hersey's lecture. The photo is of some wrapping paper he was nice enough to give out to people after the lecture. I like the little cube faces. I have to admit that, even though I respect him as an illustrator and designer, his work is not really my cup of tea. I'm sure he would say the same about me, we have very different styles. Still, I think it's important to participate in illustration-centric events when you can find them, and it's always good to listen to lectures and interviews from illustrators. You never know what you might learn, and sometimes you can find a new respect for their work. John's presentation was light-hearted and very funny at times. I do like his isometric work quite a bit. When I saw it I wondered if e-boy had draw some influence from John's work, as he was doing digital isometric illustrations as far back as the 80's. I was especially interested when he was talking about an economic recession in 1993 that almost wiped him out. He took the time to make a book of his work and mail it to people. Not sure if that helped, but either way he made it through the economic downturn.

I talked to Barron Storey after the lecture about how I've been having trouble finding work, and my concerns about it being due to the quality of my illustrations, since I know many art directors have seen my work, and not hired me for one reason or another. He didn't think it was because my work was bad at all, and told me a story about how he had done some illustrations of Despair and sent it to Neil Gaiman. He heard nothing about for 7 YEARS then Neil started writing about it on his blog out of the blue. I suppose that the connections you make can sometimes take years to bear fruit. Doesn't really help my situation now, but it does put my mind at ease a bit. Robert Hunt weighed in on how he thinks that mass mailing is plainly not effective. I'm inclined to agree with him. Bob knows his stuff, and is excellent both as an illustrator, and a businessman. I'd like to know more of his thoughts.

I went out to drinks/dinner with everyone afterwords. Hanging out with a bunch of other illustrators is THE BEST, so I was happy to be there. I was glad to see Chris Koehler, Alexis Lopez, Caitlin Kuhwald, Randy Chavez, of course Bob and Barron, as well finally meeting John Hersey and Owen Smith. I saw Alexis Mahrus and Mark Eanes as well, but didn't get to talk to them much. Randy told me about figure drawing on Wednesday nights at CCA. It's free, 7-10. I think I'm going to start going after Thanksgiving. I heard about it, but didn't think much about going since drawing figures is not what I'm focused on at this point. I'm more interested in ideas, composition, storytelling, and color. I don't feel that technical skills like chiaroscuro, line work, and anatomy are really low points in my skill set right now, but still I'd like to go for community reasons. Hang out with some other artists, do some drawings, talk shop, etc. These things are fun to me, and productive, so it seems like a good idea.

Client Shopping

2010-11-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today I'm not drawing (as much) because I'm client shopping. Essentially what that means is I'm looking for potential clients, and taking down their contact information so I can try to solicit my services to them later on. It's a necessary task for all illustrators at one point or another. In my case, I haven't been marketing myself, and I haven't been getting work, so I badly need to address the situation. One reason I don't market myself more is that it can be very expensive, and it's a gamble. My past experience hasn't been so good. For a year I had subscribed to a pricey contact list that gave me essentially any email or postal address I could want in the publishing, advertising, or music industry. I sent out lots of email blasts, and one postcard mailer, and after all was said and done I only got one job, which was nice, but the payment for that gig was not nearly enough to cover the costs. Most people would say that I need to do many more mailers, but they cost about $200 every time, mostly because of the postage. Email blasts only have a small percentage of success. If you have a service for mass emails, you actually get some analytics back about how many people opened the email, who they are, and how many clicked through, meaning that they clicked a link to your website. I noticed a spike in visitors to my site every time I sent one out, but still no work. I'm also on Altpick and theispot.com, both of which have not brought me work personally, in spite of other illustrators I know swearing my them. What to make of all of this? Well, I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what it is. Thousands of people see my work every day through the various websites I'm on, and still nothing. The only thing I can think of at this point is that my work must not be very good, and that seems hard to believe considering a lot of other encouraging things that have happened over the course of my career. When I was doing my senior thesis portfolio revue, I remember Shawn Barber told me "All you have to do is get this in front of people." Sadly, that didn't work out, and it's left me pondering what I'm doing that is not appealing to potential clients.

So what's next? Cold calls. The last thing I ever wanted to do, and who would? It's basically focused telemarketing, and I'm not a good salesman. On top of cold calls, I need to try to meet more people in person and show them my work. I might not get any jobs this way, but maybe I can find an art director who will be honest enough to tell me why I'm not getting hired more often.

On that note, I'm available for work of all kinds, and will be happy to talk to anyone who would like to purchase my services. I'm specifically looking for book cover work, posters, and editorial, but I'm open to record covers, tattoos, dog portraits, covering your dish-washing shift, whatever! No graphic novels though, sorry. Send me an email or give me a call if you've got a project for me.

Wildcats

2010-11-15T14:31:00.000-08:00

This time on my comic book series, Wildcats! There wasn't a single person who wanted to see this one, but I had to do it. I fell in love with Wildcats because of the work Travis Charest did on V2. If you haven't seen them, he did the first 6 and a half (ish) issues if I remember correctly, as well as Wildcats/X-men: The Golden Age, which is the best drawn comic books of all time in my opinion. I also love Ladytron as a character. I'm a huge fan of the cyberpunk genre, and she's definitively got that appeal. 80's future is the best future! I was having so much fun working on this that I pulled an all nighter! I've never done that without the impetus of a deadline.

I've been wanting to make covers that directly illustrate specific issues, but in this case I read the last couple issues, and it seems to be in the middle of a multifaceted story arch that I just felt out of tune with. So I made up a story for this illustration, something along the lines of Ladytron fighting against the team in a good robot being turned bad scenario. In this case, the piece evolved instead of being spelled out completely in a sketch. There was a time where Ladytron was the only thing in the page, and it looked fine. A little background work and it could have been a cover on it's own. There's no shortage of covers with just a posed character (or 2, or 20), but I honestly believe that all illustrations should tell a story! Otherwise they are just portraits, and that's not very interesting. Even Gil Elvgren would tell a story with his pin-ups, like her dress is being pulled up by a lobster or whatever, and that's enough story to make the piece work, campy as it is. He also painted "girl laying there provocatively" as well, but I don't think those are as interesting. With that being said, I give cover artists a lot of slack, because often they are on a tight deadline, or not even privy to the contents of the book, so sometimes a character pin-up is the best solution.

The process I used for this was unnerving, and I couldn't get over how weird is was during the drawing phase. It's a pencil drawing. Like a fucking #2 HB pencil with shading and everything. I usually only use pencils for sketches, and drawings that will be inked or painted over later. I haven't done a polished pencil drawing since high school, and I couldn't get over the feeling that I was going backward. There's nothing inherently wrong with working in pencil, it's forgiving and versatile, but I associate it with amateur artists and the very worse kinds of art you can find, like that guy at the rib cook-off who sells photo-realistic pencil drawings from celebrity head shots. Somehow people who don't know anything about art think he's the next Michelangelo. When I was drawing, I felt like any minute I would have to draw a heavily referenced wolf with a dream catcher behind it. In the end, though, I got a result that I couldn't be happier with. The pencil give the drawing a nice texture that helps balance out the slickness of working digitally, and it was a fairly fast way to work. All the values were set up in the drawing, so once I got it into Photoshop, it was more like tinting it with watercolor than opaque painting.

I should also point out that these characters are not mine, they are property DC/Wildstorm comics, and I made this purely for fun and portfolio purposes.

Ladytron wip

2010-11-12T14:37:00.000-08:00

This is what I'm working on today. So fucking weird to draw in pencil. More later.

Grendel

2010-11-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

(see full image) this Grendel is 100x cooler than the one in that recent 3D film. Right? Alan Lee, 1984.

Vampire love

2010-11-09T11:00:00.001-08:00

Wrapped this one up today. I still think the idea is funny, but I'm not sure if I did the best job of getting it across. My idea was a vampire is attacking a girl, but instead of being terrified, she throws her bra at him. Did you get that? Let me know if you have an idea about how it could be more clear. I think something to note is that even though I wanted to only spend a couple hours on this illustration, I still went through the whole thumbnail process. When I was a student I hated doing thumbnails, but these days I fill pages with thumbs without even noticing. It's extremely important to work out your compositions, and I genuinely enjoy it now!

One reason why I want to do illustrations like this, besides it being a good exercise, is that I've been unhappy when I look at my portfolio lately. I feel that one reason I haven't gotten an illustration call in a long time is that I don't have any illustrations! I've been doing personal paintings for galleries, and they've taken up my site. I'm taking steps to make more illustrations. Telling a story is fun and important. I wish I hadn't lost sight of that.

a little editorial

2010-11-08T23:14:00.000-08:00

I wanted to see if I could do a little editorial illustration in a couple hours before I go to bed. Didn't quite finish. I'll probably wrap it up tomorrow. Overall though, not too happy with it. I think it would be nice to make quick little opinion drawings, and have them look nice. Needs work. The idea behind this one was a commentary on the rampant spread on vampire love in pop culture.

Sheep

2010-11-07T22:49:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to see if I could blog an instagram pic (@jeremyforson)

Zatanna

2010-11-07T16:27:00.000-08:00

Alllllright. So, I had an idea to do comic book covers just for fun. This would be my idea for the cover of Zatanna #1, July 2010. I have a whole list of books I thought would be fun to make covers for, and this is where I started. I like the character, the magic/witchcraft aspect, there's lots of demons which is a big plus for me, and she lives in San Francisco, big plus! I'm happy with this, I think switching to digital has really opened things up for me. I'm much more inclined to experiment and paint with reckless abandon because I'm not afraid to mess up some part of the painting I like. The way I think about it, it's like a game of 21. When I'm painting with acrylics, if I've got an area of the painting that's a 19, I usually play it safe and stay there.

The guy with the knife is Brother Night. I know he looks like the Joker, but that's because he looks like the Joker. Take it up with DC. I took liberties with the characters. Ember is a half dragon lady, I wanted her to look a little more dragon-like than she is in the book. I gave Romalthi an octopus mask, even though he (she?) only turns into a frog/pig/and snail in the book. I also wanted Zatanna to be more dark looking. I feel like she usually looks kinda.... ordinary, for lack of a better word. Like a school teacher with implausible mams. I thought she should look a little more dark and mystical, like a Selma Blair, or Catherine Zeta Jones maybe. I'm sure if this was a commissioned job, I wouldn't be able to take such artistic liberties, but hey, this is just for fun. I've been "painting" this for a few days, kinda losing track of time because I just zone and noodle for hours when I'm working this way. At some point it's good to just stop, call it done. I want to make a lot of these, so I can't get too hung up on small details. It's easy to do that when you can zoom in %2400.

I have a list of covers I want to make. I plan to keep chipping away at it until I finish, or get pulled away on some other work. I chose them either because they are my favorites, or the play to what I consider my strength, which is creepy monster stuff. Here's the list in no particular order. If you have a suggestion, speak now or forever hold your peace!

Batman
Akira
Hellboy
Judge Dredd
Conan
Zombies(as if for a zombie comic, not a specific one)
~~Zatanna~~
Wildcats
Lobo
Tank Girl

Prop. 8

2010-10-29T18:07:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to do an illustration about Prop. 8, California's constitutional ban on same sex marriage, for some time now, but I was too busy working on other projects. I've left my company, amicably, and I'm now working on a new portfolio, and looking for work. It feels great to be doing personal pieces again :)

Over the summer I was working on NDA projects that have yet to be released, and it helped me to take a break from gallery work and illustration, and get some perspective on what I've been doing. Sometimes (in whatever you're doing) you can hit a wall, and it helps to take a break and come back to it. I don't know the exact science of why it helps, but it seems like your mind needs time off to make new neural connections. Now that I'm back at it, I feel as if I "leveled up" and it's amazing! When I'm drawing, it seems like I'm not moving the pencil, it's just doing what I'm thinking. Spooky. One direction I did not expect to be heading in was digital. I guess that the computer has been playing an increasingly larger role in my picture making over the last year or so, but after doing the Zombie self-portrait, and now this, I've become a digital convert. I can't imagine what this piece would be like if I tried to paint it, not to mention how long it would have taken. I'm in love with the speed and flexibility of working digitally, and for mostly practical reasons I expect to continue in this direction. I feel that I did a pretty good job of bringing my painting style into the digital realm, but I'd like some feedback on that. I'm showing some new influences as well. Since I got an iPhone, I've been digging vintage photography apps, and you can see that I applied a cross-process look to this illustration.

I really wanted to do an opinion illustration about this subject for a couple reasons. I haven't seen any illustrations about it, and it's an issue I feel strongly about. I think Barron Storey would say that's exactly the kinds of things you need to illustrate.

If you don't know, there's a big deal about gay marriage right now, duh. What you might not ave heard is that the Mormon church has put vast sums of money into banning gay marriage in California, which is why there's a little Mormon guy in the corner. This idea started off being humorous, a rampaging prop 8 monster destroying a city of gay wedding cakes, and in the beginning the monster was kinda silly looking, like a Japanese vinyl toy or something, but conceptually that bothered me. I didn't want prop. 8 to be cute or funny at all, because that's not how I feel about it, I wanted it to look as scary as possible. We're dealing with bigotry made into law after all. What I've ended up with is a mix of humor and horror that I had a lot of fun making.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-24T16:42:00.001-07:00

Zombie self-portrait for conceptart.org's CHOW. Came out pretty good I think. This is really my first digital "painting." I suppose I could have been doing painting this way all along, but I would always get impatient when working so long in photoshop. I have some misguided expectation that everything I do on the computer has to happen quickly, and when it comes to digital paintings, it's not really the case. It is still faster then doing to by hand, and much more forgiving.

Here's a little process. I just did what I normally do in paint with photoshop. Basic grisaille technique.

Civilized Creature

2010-10-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

Another sketchoholic submission I did for a warm up. It's been nice to do these just for fun, and at least I have something to show people since everything else has been under wraps for months. This one is a little different because I want straight from pencils to color. Worked out ok, and saved me some time not having to ink it.

Hairy Creature

2010-10-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Did a little sketch for sketchoholic.com today. Topic: Hairy Creature. I don't do these contests a lot, but I thought it might be a good warm up exercise. Besides, it was fun!

Europe 2010

2010-09-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a 10 day tour of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic as part of a Catholic pilgrimage with my partners family. I'm not religious, so much of the church artwork and symbolism was lost on me, but I still found it interesting, and surprisingly macabre. Nice trip overall. I was feeling a little in a rut artistically, and traveling always revitalizes my creativity.

There are many, many more pictures that I still need to get from Jerome's family, but for now this is what I have.

First stop was Munich. We went to a brewery from like 1500-something called Hofbrauhaus for a touristy cafeteria buffet. It was complete with traditional lederhosen wearing musicians, German slap dancing, and whip music, which is basically like hearing a pistol being fired, right next to you, twice a second, with polka in the background. The food was not great, and served slightly warm, but I was amused by the cartoonishly huge steins of beer, and the hammered Chinese business men.

A mural in the Hofbrauhaus.

I think this is the first Church we saw in Munich, "Church of our Lady" but I'm not sure. I didn't get an international plan for my phone, so I couldn't use geo-tagging or anything. That would have been really helpful.

Pretty sweet painting. The story it's telling is mysterious to me, but I kinda like it that way. Looks like something you might see in Spectrum. I guess it's a knight seeing a holy deer in the forest?

I saw this around a couple times. Seems to be Jesus nailed to a va-jay? No idea. Endless weirdness.

Another puzzler. Statue of a guy who skinned people? Nobody seemed to know the story. This is going in a drawing for sure.

A lot of churches had mummies in them, on display. This dude was bones wrapped in cheese-cloth, covered in jewels, in an elaborate vivarium. He had ceramic eyes over his eyes. One of the creepiest things I've ever seen. You can't see it, but in the box above him there's a jeweled skull, I couldn't get a good picture. There was also a real skull painted gold incorporated into a picture frame. This whole church was full of dead people, and it kinda smelled like it I have to say. We had a mass here as well, so this crazy place ended up being the first time I ever went to church.

Then we were off to Oberammergau for this passion of the Christ play. The village was in a picturesque mountain setting, and many of the houses had murals and decorative painting work that was surprisingly excellent.

The play had these "living pictures" segments where they staged bible, umm, stuff, with real people and props, all staying perfectly still. We weren't allowed to take pictures though. There was like flaming swords, skulls, snakes, lions, and angels, but I really have no idea what any of it means. Looked sweet though.

On to a stop in Altoetting, we saw a little church with "the black Madonna" in it. It was a sculpture of Mary that was unpolished bronze or something so it looked black. Not nearly as metal as it sounds. The room was filled with silver and covered in small paintings. Like walls, ceilings, inside and out, covered. It was obsessive looking. No pictures allowed though.

Mermaid angel child spitting water? I guess.

I took a lot of pictures of sculptures.

Onward to Salzburg Austria, which translates to "Salt Castle." I like that.

The salt castle, I think it's called Hohensalzburg.

I was drawn to sculptures on this trip. I think I like them so much because they remind me of Mike Mignola's work, as well as the statue in Conan the Destroyer that turns into the monster when they put the horn in place. A childhood favorite.

This Baroque church was amazing.

Again, the macabre is everywhere. I don't even know how many skulls are in here. There was like 4 of these, and 2 of them had skulls with pope hats on. I guess I didn't get a picture.

Then we went to Melk, this crazy monastery/school/museum in Austria.

Early treasure chest lock. Nutso.

This library was right out of Harry Potter. I don't think you were allowed to take pictures, but I guess Jerome took a couple.

One of the (chapels?) inside.

Another priest mummy shrine.

I took a few pictures of these murals. They reminded me of some of James Jean's work on Fables. I think it's the palette and rosy shadows.

Terrible shot. I was trying to get this one head, but I didn't zoom in or anything because I'm not camera savvy. Any good shots you're seeing are probably Jerome's.

On to Vienna, on the way we stopped in a little town called Mariazell and saw their basilica.

The town.

On the way to the bathroom I found the remnants of a human skull placed randomly in the ground, of course! There was a plaque talking about it, but it was in German. I assume it said something like "we found this dude's skull in the ground when we were fixing our septic system, and we didn't know what the fuck to do with it, so here you go!"

Ok. God damn this is taking forever. Vienna. By this time we were all physically sick from German and Austrian food, which is basically meat and potatoes covered heavily in clarified butter and salt. We are not used to such rich food and it was quite a shock to our systems. "The young ones" meaning Jerome, Joe (Jerome's brother), Saskia (Jerome's brother's girlfriend), and myself, so called because we were the only people of the 27 on the tour who were under 50, broke away from the scheduled tourist trap dinner and found a nearby Sushi restaurant. Joe and I tried to split this sushi boat for 2, but didn't get too far. The sushi was excellent though. Tora Lee (or Toka Lee?), Vienna.

Meat flower....uh, yep.

Always love stuff like this.

We went inside this Gothic cathedral, but it was way to dark and dirty to see anything.

Cool sun dial.

Alright, On to Prague. What an amazing city! It's half Dracula, half Art Nouveau. What could be better?

Saskia, Joe, Pepe (Jerome's Dad), and myself.

Art Nouveau train station. A lot of masonry work, it was in disrepair though.

The seal of Prague is awesome. I love the knight's arm with the sword popping out of the door like "Gotcha!"

Last thing I saw in Prague was the Mucha museum. Man, what a treat that was. I didn't realize his posters were so big! Many were probably more than 6 feet tall, and actually they were pretty loose. In almost all of them, the head was at least palm sized. You see them in a book and they look almost mechanically tight. He was more than capable of drawing small and tight though, which I also saw. You would have thought he was using a .3 mechanical pencil, but I guess he just kept his pencils super sharp! Nothing like seeing it in person, floored me!

Couldn't take pictures in there, obviously, but Jerome got some pictures of this stained glass window we also saw. It really made my trip. stunning.

Spongebob

2010-09-03T21:18:00.000-07:00

Today I actually had to draw Spongebob for a project Sunken Castles is doing. Kinda weird to have to draw a cartoon character for professional reasons. I'm happy with the way it came out, but I realized that there must be a better way to do this because it took me all day! I edited some things out since I should maybe not talk too much about it. Just to be safe. Anyway, it was fun doing something different, switch it up, show that I actually CAN use illustrator haha.

Update 8/29/10

2010-08-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

Things have changed a lot in the past few months because I'm working on larger projects with long time lines and levels of secrecy. The past 2 months I've been on a project, an app for a TV show, and I literally did like 100 illustrations for it. It's uncertain when this app will launch at this point, so I don't have any new artwork I can share.

For the first time in about 10 years I have real days off. I'm realizing now how important they are! Sunken Castles has given me the ability to draw all day for a living (finally!), so when I get off work I feel fulfilled. Before I would always have deadlines or I'd be working on my illustration career in any off time I had from my day job. I'm feeling much more relaxed and healthy :)

Not really knowing what to DO with a days off is another issue. I've been studying 3D and loving it, as well as animation. And I've been playing the Scott Pilgrim game. I was blown away by the movie, and the game is extremely fun.

Trailor:

I'm going to be studying this pixel art retro game style for an upcoming Sunken Castles game. It's daunting to have to do all the artwork and animation for an entire video game! Starting your own company is rough, but I still think it's worth it.

BRIGHT BRIGHT

2010-07-03T15:43:00.001-07:00

I know I've been AWOL for a couple months, so here's the scoop! This is Bright Bright (as seen in the iTunes store), just the beginning of the work I'm doing for my own company, Sunken Castles. I'm not doing gallery work for a while, or freelance illustration, because this company is like 2 jobs. I'm very excited though! We are four people strong, meaning that I ONLY do art and design, which I love. As an illustrator I spent tons of time doing peripheral work, not drawing or creating, but now there's other guys handling that so I can focus. We have some really exciting projects in the works, so stay tuned!

PS: Of the Bright Bright drawings, I only did the guy with the mustache :)

Show At Flatcolor

2010-07-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Little late on this, but I have at show at Flatcolor in Seattle, check it out if you can!

Behind the scenes

2010-06-23T18:43:00.001-07:00

I have been out of the spotlight for a while working behind the scenes on my new game company, Sunken Castles. We've been working for about 2 months on an app, and it's currently in the approval process. We're hoping it will be approved in the next 3 days. The ultimate goal of this company is to make awesome games for the iPhone and iPad. It looks like things are shaping up nicely, but what it means is that I have very little time for personal work, and what I'm making for the company has to be kept under wraps until it's released. I'm happy with what I'm doing now though. I like working with other people, I'm working on art full time, and at this point it seems like I'll be able to make a much better living for myself than I ever did on my own. Things are really crazy for me right now, but sometime down the line I'll be able to make personal artwork again. In the mean time, I'll be at ICON6 next month, and I'll just have to share what I've made with Sunken Castles in giant and infrequent posts.

Supreme let-down

2010-05-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

I think I've mentioned that I'm co-founding a game company with some friends. This has lead me to do extra homework on what's happening in gaming. I came across this WiiWare title "Zombie Panic in Wonderland" published by Akaoni Studio out of Spain. After watching about 3/4 of the promo video, I had seen enough, I had to get it. It costs $10, and pretty much couldn't be more ideal for me. It has zombies is varieties I never would have imagined, ninja zombies, sumo zombies, one that looked like Abe Lincoln that throws corpses at you, plus other cool monsters and gods, and you pretty much destroy the entire level. All this wrapped in a clean and bright, but still spooky style, and a completely ridiculous story. The illustration is also excellent, even though I'm not an especially big anime fan. After playing this game for a while, it was high in the running for my favorite game ever, and I was really excited about it, until I got to the final boss. I couldn't find a screenshot of him anywhere, but I was really offended. He's basically a vain and ego-centric demon prince, who is an obvious gay parody. As much as I want to believe that no game developer would consciously make something so offensive, I just can't see it any other way. Along with his dead colored skin and small bat wings he has effeminate lashes, glossy lips, and pretty hair, he holds his pinky out, and he blows flaming kisses at you in between his ballet moves across the stage. All his mannerisms are that of a "flaming gay" stereotype. I'm just plain offended, and let down. I thought it was 2010?

Exhibitions this weekend

2010-04-21T13:57:00.001-07:00

I have a full 10 paintings in this show!

From intheparlor.com:

CIGAR BOX BEAUTY
Opening reception Saturday April 24 2010, 7pm-11pm
Available through May 22 2010

Miss Scarlet in the Parlor
1282 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

ARTISTS
Naja Conrad-Hansen
Jeremy Forson
Eliza Frye
Soey Milk
Yana Moskaluk
Mateu Velasco

Free admission and seraphic refreshments

They have style, they have face. Drawing influences from fashion and propaganda, the art of Cigar Box Beauty explores the concepts of style and appeal with aplomb. The exhibit features an international group of young guns, including Jeremy Forson (US,) Eliza Frye (US,) Naja Conrad-Hansen (Denmark,) Soey Milk (US,) Yana Moskaluk (Russia,) and Mateu Velasco (Brazil.) Suave, complex, and admittedly fetishistic, the pieces in Cigar Box Beauty engage in a conversation exploring the exploitation and exaltation of beauty.

FACEBOOK IT

My painting "Lyon" will be in the exhibition at Ronin Gallery. It's at the location that used to be Thinkspace Gallery.

from theroningallery.com:

The Ronin Gallery is very proud to present “NEX GEN twenty ten”: the grand opening group show at our new location!

We have put a lot of energy into renovating the space and are very excited to present it to the public for the first time as The Ronin Gallery. Please come out to be a part of this very special show! This move represents a big upgrade and a change of direction for The Ronin Gallery. We are enjoying great momentum and have some amazing projects in the works for the future.

We will have custom made home brew flowing provided by Selenes’s Ego and Don Chow’s fusion taco truck out front.

New Space, New Blood, New Work

Featuring works by:

Chor Boogie
Codak
Ryan De La Hoz
Downtimer
Ego
Asia Eng
Blinky
Daniel Fleres
David Florez
Jeremy Forson
Thom Glick
Jason Graham
Andy Haynes
Charlie Immer
Martin Kanshige
Larkin
Daniel Lim
Matthew Linares
Dave Macdawell
Vicki Nerino
Peekaboo
Allison Reimold
Jose Rodriguez III
Justin Rose
Jason Sho Green
Sarah Soh
Luci Myna Sonou
Mary Spring
Josh Taylor
Jasmine Worth
Weirdo
Zoso

At our new Silverlake location:

4210 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90029

BLUES website

2010-04-20T22:57:00.001-07:00

jeremyforson.com/blues

I made another Flash website for my portfolio. Originally this was for a project I was working on at Goodby, but it never got built out. As you may know, I'm in sore need of employment, so beefing up my portfolio to show my diverse range of skills is high on my list of things to do. I actually loved making this. I badly want to make another site with papervision, but that will have to wait for a while as I'm slated to start work on some ipad projects.

Young Lions 2.0

2010-04-15T18:16:00.001-07:00

http://jeremyforson.com/young_lions/

I have some down time so I've been working on my more marketable skills. I am in need of employment, and I've been applying for jobs doing Flash, but I didn't have anything to show what I can do. Basically, I worked for a year and 4 months as a Flash developer, but when I was laid off I didn't have anything I could keep or claim as my own. I have another site I designed for Blues that was never built out, so that will be my next project. Fact is that even though the past year and a half of painting has been fun, after doing my taxes the numbers were clear: I need to put that part of my life on the back burner. What's nice, though, is that I'm not too sad about it. I miss working with people, and getting out of the house, a steady paycheck, and being challenged.

I'm happy with the way this site turned out, and the improvement over the original is pretty drastic, if I say so myself. I think the time I've been spending studying design sites has helped.

If you're a glutton for punishment you can see the original site here:

http://jeremyforson.com/young_lions/younglions.html

Beware!

Art on hiatus

2010-03-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

I will not be having any new artwork to post for a while. I'm not too happy about it, but I'm not able to draw and paint every day. I'm going to be designing and coding a website www.daisyisondmdinc.com as my next project. It's a job I'm doing as a favor without a specified time-line, so if somebody wanted to hire me for a project, they should feel free to contact me. I'm also going to be in San Diego most of next week, and I have to do my taxes for the year, which hopefully won't be too painful. So, unless I have some sudden news, this blog will be inactive for a couple weeks or so.

Montana skate show

2010-03-05T19:44:00.001-08:00

For this piece I wanted to re-visit an older illustration I did for Unified School District. I always liked the concept, and I thought I could do a better job. I wanted to give the piece more depth and less rigidity.

Difficult to scan a skate deck, as you might imagine, but I actually like the way the sides fade off.

3/4/10 - WIP

2010-03-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

This piece is coming along. It will probably be finished tomorrow. That forest took a lot out of me! I had some issues when I started painting the statue because the surface of a skateboard is so slick, but I had some Clear Gesso lying around, and I finally found a use for it! I've had it for about 8 years, and I didn't like it because it's VERY toothy, it feels like sand paper when it dries. I had problems using it before, but it actually worked well this time. It's surprisingly absorbent, which was great, and I didn't have a problem making a hard line as long as I thinned the paint a little. Time to go to the gym!

3/2/10 - WIP

2010-03-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

I got a sketch I liked today, so I started on the final.

Working with glazing, transparent layers, lot of washes. This is in the beginning stages. The paint is behaving strangely because of the shape, and the lack of absorbency, but it's also doing some cool stuff.

Sometimes the transfers look more cool than the finals. I wish I could figure out how to get that expressiveness into the finish. I know that if I tried to draw like this it wouldn't be the same.

Sketch today

2010-03-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Did a sketch today and applied a few coats of gesso to the deck. I tinted the gesso with light blue for a unifying color. I'm not sure about this sketch, so I'm going to keep messing with it and maybe do a few different versions. Mostly re-arranging. I've been working pretty slowly lately. It's nice to work at a more leisurely pace than I usually have to, at the same time, I feel guilty for not working as hard as possible.

Mixed bag

2010-02-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Working on some ideas for the skate deck. I'm thinking that it will be something like this one I circled, with a forest like the one I painted for the shoes recently.

Took a bunch of photo reference. I have hundreds of embarrassing photos of myself like this, and some of my friends who were unlucky enough be be around when I needed some ref shots. You would think that by now I would have all the poses I could ever need, but no.

I've been thinking a lot lately about improving my digital artwork, and doing more of it, so I worked on some textures today. I don't especially like working on the computer, but recently I've been seeing cool stuff done, and I could save an enormous amount of time. Art directors like digital artwork, I believe, because it's so much easier to change. Also, I'm starting to think it's hard to make your work look current without some digital elements. Naturally, I'm thinking of a traditional/digital hybrid which is really where it's at right now. My thoughts are still forming on this topic. Now that I think about it, I almost always have to work on my paintings digitally to correct changes the AD wants, so how traditional they are is debatable.

Sean "Cheeks" Galloway on Chiustream

2010-02-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

Watched this interview with Cheeks. More and more I think I should try to get into animation. Seems like every artist interview I hear, they all say that at one point or another they got a job in animation.
http://chiustream.blogspot.com/2009/12/sean-cheeks-galloway-interview-by-bobby.html
I think listening to interviews with artists is astoundingly helpful. I tell people to listen to Sidebar all the time. After listening to all of them over the summer, it helped me figure out some hangups in my work and process. Additionally, you can listen to them while you're working, which is always a plus.

Secret Shoes

2010-02-25T13:28:00.000-08:00

So my secret project came out. They're custom shoes for Artsprojekt. You can see them here.

I had to keep this under wraps because it's a new collaboration between Zazzle and Keds. They had womans Keds before, but now they have mens ProKeds. I got a pair to customize the old fashioned way, and I had to take a lot of photographs of the process to use in a video that goes along with the launch. I wasn't in love with the colors after painting the shoes and wearing them, they looked too loud, so when I did the painting I went for a more subtle palette. I'm happy with the way they came out. The shoes themselves can be customized in many different ways. This was just the setup I thought looked the best, but you can change all the different rubber parts, the stitching, the laces, etc.

Shoes are one of the only things I don't like illustrations on, which made this an interesting challenge. I typically wear simple shoes. I think it's easy for shoes to look tacky with drawings on them, like Ed Hardy territory. I had to come up with a way to avoid that at all costs. I wanted more of an illustrated design then my illustrations applied to a shoe. I suppose the difference is you want the drawings to be secondary to the design of the shoe, instead of overpowering it. I hope some folks buy these, I get a little cut of each pair sold, so uhhh...tell your friends :)

Featured today on onethingandanother.com

2010-02-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

A really fantastic illustrator named Matt Taylor posted my work on this site today. I recently discovered his work through his twitter and I'm really into it. I especially like his film posters and book covers.

I've found a pretty interesting community of artists to talk with via twitter. It's nice to meet new talented artists, even if it's only through the internet.

Working on skateboard sketches today, but I don't have too much to show for now. I suppose my ideas are forming.

Skate deck

2010-02-23T15:56:00.001-08:00

I'm starting a skate deck project today. I got an email from the Montana Skatepark Association a few weeks ago asking me if I'd contribute to their art show/auction to raise money for skateparks. I applied, was accepted, and got a deck in the mail a little while later. If you didn't see, I posted a link on my Facebook fan page, and at least one other person was accepted into the show as well. Cool stuff! I haven't painted a deck since I was a sophomore (I think?) in college. It's been a while, and I'm looking forward to making another one. It's not due for a while, but I like to be ahead of schedule, and it's still my most pressing deadline.

More info: http://www.montanaskatepark.org/ondeck/index.php

Shirt Designs

2010-02-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

Today I worked on these shirt designs. The final version can be seen and purchased from my store here:www.zazzle.com/jeremyforson/tshirts. I was getting enough requests to make them into shirts that I obliged.

I posted a photo of the large drawings I made to make these shirts. I blew up the small drawings from my recent mash-up piece, and traced them with a sharpie. These are much larger than the maximum printing surface for these digitally made shirts, but I wanted them to shrink down and look sharp. I could have taken the original drawings and put them through a "Live Trace" in Adobe Illustrator, but I really don't like the way vector tracings look. So much so, in fact, that I'd rather redraw them and spend hours cleaning them up. I doubt that anybody else would care...at all...but it bothers me. I also tried redrawing them in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet, but I stopped pretty quickly. I'm still not comfortable with a tablet and stylus; I find them frustrating and slow. I used the tablet to fill in the blacks, and for knocking out large areas of flat color and such I think they are great, but drawing lines kills me.

I'm a little embarrassed about the state of my tracing paper, which I had spilled some inky water on years ago, and you can see how it seeped into the side of the pad. I don't use it that often.

In other news:
My story is up at sixwordtales.com and the sixwordtales facebook page. Check those out. I like Stiles' 6 words stories a lot, they get my mind spinning.

Forrest

2010-02-21T17:49:00.001-08:00

I did this painting today as part of my secret project. I'm not breaking any rules by showing this, so don't worry.

2/20/10

2010-02-20T22:44:00.000-08:00

Today I was painting stuff for a project I have to keep under wraps. These are annoying because I like showing what I'm working on, and often what I make under such situations never see the light of day, or they do, but after such a long time that you don't care about them anymore. This one, luckily, should be shown at the end of the month.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share this little texture image I used yesterday to complete the sixwordtales.com illustration. I've been haunting design related sites lately, and I'm finding the cross-pollination fruitful. I read this tutorial on blog.spoongraphics.co.uk, and thought I'd give it a try. I didn't really learn anything new about Photoshop, but I did learn a different way to use it and think about layering and light. Basically the first thing this tutorial calls for is a stock image of smoke, which I cannot afford and probably wouldn't buy anyway; I'm more of a hands on/DIY type of artist, and I like the control it affords me. I have a luxury that a lot of graphic designers don't, which is a wealth of art materials and old paper, and a place to get messy if I need to. Usually GD pros or production artists are at a desk all day and don't have the option of making their own textures, so they rely on stock images.

This is a wet-on-wet ink wash, sprinkled with some salt for the white spots. I actually have a lot of textures I've made over the years for use in digital artwork. Spray-paint, spatters, ink washes, all kinds of papers, wood grains, etc. They're always good to have on-hand.

Time ended when Night captured Day

2010-02-19T23:30:00.000-08:00

Today I had jury duty, so much of my day was ruined. It's even more inconvenient when you're self-employed. Normally your job would be required to pay you, even though you're not there. Another example of how freelancers are neglected and overlooked. I did get this guy polished today and ready to ship off. Words written by Stiles White, art/design ma'self.

theispot.com and "save for web" solutions

2010-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

I have a portfolio on theispot.com now - www.theispot.com/artist/jforson. I spent today setting it up, resizing images etc. Hopefully I won't get lost in the mix. One thing I noticed about the site, like most illustration venues, my work doesn't seem to fit the mold. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. On one hand I think it's good. It could mean that my work is original and breaks from the conventional. On the other hand it could mean I have a style that doesn't attract clients. I think a lot of illustrators compromise their artistic integrity in order to have a more salable service, and attract those ever lucrative advertising budgets. I'm not willing to go there just yet. Maybe when I have kids to feed or something, but for now I'd rather do work I'm proud of.

Something I've been irritated with for a few years has been how my images look when I save them for the web. I spend a lot of time getting them just how I want in Photoshop, then I save for web, and suddenly they look washed out and dead! I thought this was just because they were being compressed, and that was the nature of the beast, so I would up the contrast and saturation before saving them for web to counter this phenomenon. Well, yesterday I did some digging, and found out that there IS a solution! It has to do with the color profile, something I knew nothing about until I read this creativepro.com article. I read it, I tried it, it worked beautifully. I love finding the answer to an annoying problem!

Back in business

2010-02-16T22:24:00.001-08:00

I've been out for a little while because my Grandpa passed away, and I had to go back to my home town. Now that I've returned to San Francisco I'm working on getting back up to speed. Today I joined theispot.com. I've got to format 24 illustrations to fit their specs, but I'll be displaying my stuff soon. Being a member of this site was recommended to me by some of my peers, but I've been putting it off until I was sure that it was worth it. Oddly, the biggest job I had this year came from theispot.com, even though I wasn't a member. I got the job because somebody wanted to contract a friend of mine off the site, but he was too busy (with a different job he got from there) so he passed the client my information, and I got the job! This speaks well for the theispot. If you think about it, it makes sense. Say you want to hire an illustrator, but you don't know of one, or they aren't available, what do you do? You can't google "an illustrator who I like" or just "illustrator" and go through the thousands of pages one-by-one, so you need to find a place with a lot of talent you can sift through. Why this simple idea never dawned on me is a mystery. Maybe because I follow art and illustration so closely, it's hard for me to look at it like a potential client. I can hardly imagine not knowing a single illustrator, but there's people out there like that who need a person with drawing talents.

Also, thanks to booooooom.com for showing my work. I got quite a spike in my site traffic today!

***Sorry if this post is odd. I'm having an allergic reaction to gluten, and I had to take a Benadryl.***

Show recap

2010-02-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

What a relief to be done! It was awesome, and I met some nice people. If you're in SF, it will be up until March 21st. Artwork is for sale online though Doublepunch: http://doublepunch.bigcartel.com/

Lots of photos from the show are on Fecal Face:
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1850&Itemid=90

I'll post more as I find them.

Haven't been able to post what I've been working on lately because it's secret. Details sometime in the future. Projects you have to keeps under wraps frustrating like that.

Disgrace & Embrace tonight at Doublepuch

2010-02-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

The show is installed and everything is lookin nice. Here's some photos ryan took of the installing process. http://www.doublepunch.com/?p=1475. Come out tonight if you can! 7 till late. There are paintings, sketches, and prints for sale. I'm excited!

In other news I got a blank skate deck from the Montana Skatepark Association and I'm going to be working on that soon. I haven't painted a deck in many years. Looking forward to it.

Alright, I gotta get pretty and go to the show!

Shadow Boy

2010-02-02T19:26:00.001-08:00

Sometimes paintings do not go the way you hope. This was one of those paintings. Although it can be frustrating, I know that it's where I learn the most, and it shows that I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone. That's how we grow! The main hangup with this one is the glowing and soft blurs I wanted. It's so easy to do in photoshop, but that doesn't help me since the goal for all my work is to be able to show it in a gallery, even if it's an illustration like this one. Besides that, I think that it's always better to do as much as you can by hand. I've been trying and failing to achieve a foggy haunted effect for months. When I was painting San Francisco houses with women I wanted to paint the ever-present fog, but it's difficult to do in acrylic. I finally understand out how to do it from studying Eric Fortune and Sam Weber, but that's something I'll be working on in the coming months. Too late for this piece. I got some soft edges with the spraypaint I used in the background, but I got lucky with the overspray, and some parts had to be painted over. Too unpredictable, and painting over it can be tricky. I posted the original scan of the painting, and then the final after I worked on it in PS. In this case I had to repair it in PS, and that's never good.

A few months ago I was contacted by a writer named Stiles White who has a blog called Six Word Tales. Basically, he writes stories that are six words long, and has an illustrator make an image for it. I would normally turn down things like this, but he lets the artists "do their thing" and I actually really like the tales. I read a bunch of them, and felt my creativity firing up! That doesn't happen a lot, so I decided to pursue it. The final words are not settled, but I was going off of "They finally captured the shadow boy." Fun stuff!

Hope some of this makes sense. I've been sick the last few days and I'm kinda loopy.

Work for Disgrace & Embrace

2010-02-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

I've got to install the show on Thursday, so it looks like this is going to to the show as I've still got to frame the sketches. Doublepunch is a small gallery space, so I'm hoping this will be the right amount of paintings for it. I did a Munny because Doublepunch is half toy store after all, but I don't know if I'll be able to show it due to a conflict of interest that I didn't foresee. Word to the wise: Don't expect to get a lot of work done during the holidays. I'm not even a heavily festive person, but I still lost many working hours to family obligations and Christmas shopping. Creativity is like a train that takes a long time to get up to speed, so having to stop and start over and over is very disruptive.

The painting in the top left might be unfamiliar, I've been toying with it for a couple months because it wasn't coming together and I have yet to scan it. I think I'll do that now actually....

bright raven

2010-02-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

This is what I've been working on today. Same idea as the last 2, just a fun little painting.

I listened to the Sidebar interview with my favorite illustrator Sam Weber today. Check that out:http://www.sidebarnation.com/my_weblog/2010/01/sam-weber.html

Fancy Octopus and Black Flower

2010-01-31T22:37:00.000-08:00

Little paintings. 5x7 on panel. Didn't blog yesterday because I didn't get much done, I've been feeling ill. Today I managed to do these little fun guys with the aid of DayQuil. With every show it's a good idea to do some smaller paintings for people to buy, as large ones can get quite expensive. I like doing paintings like this because they can be like little painted sketches. You don't have to worry about messing up too much and it allows you some freedom.

Psychobilly

2010-01-29T19:20:00.001-08:00

9x12 Acrylic on panel.

Well, that was fun. Definitely exploring. I've realized that I had so much fun drawing all the random tattoos that I don't even want to draw the women anymore! This show is going to have a lot of bats. That's gotta be that last one.

01/28/2010 Work in Progress

2010-01-28T22:19:00.000-08:00

I got randomly inspired to do something Psychobilly themed the other day, so this is my work in progress. A lot of the imagery in the Psychobilly scene is the sort of thing I like to draw, so off I went. If you don't know the music, it's basically rockabilly with the stand-up bass and all, crossed punk rock, then injected with evil. I'm not into some things, like hot rod flames, so I'm avoiding that. I'm letting this one have some things left to be resolved as I'm painting because I'm getting tired of being so "tight."

On another note, I'm going to try to blog daily when possible. I think it will make my blog more interesting if you read everything I'm up to, as opposed to just seeing the finished products. This will probably mean blogging about whatever is inspiring me, which will largely be other artists. Let's see how this goes.

Animation on the mind

2010-01-26T15:53:00.000-08:00

Thinking more and more about animation, and contemplating doing one of my own. I've got a show opening February 6th at Doublepunch with the fantastic Nate Van Dyke, then a website to build, then I'm free to do new projects. I've always loved animation and wanted to do it, so I think that now with my not having a job or other obligations it might be a good time to expand my horizons. I'll be doing most tasks, but I've asked a good friend of mine to handle the music and audio because I'm not great at those kinds of things. I like being a one man show, but in the interests of time, and quality of the finished product, I need somebody to help. Anyway, that's a long way off.

Here's some animations I saw today that I thought were rad.
SUGIMOTO Kousuke, MANABE Takayuki http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9YtJC-Kd8&feature=youtu.be

Pearl Jam - Do the evolution. Great animation, very dystopic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAKdck1OOM0

Snow Ninja 2: The Comeback

2010-01-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

Continuation of my Popsicle Horror theme I suppose. The finish is very different from the color rough, but luckily it looks better (to me). Sometimes it goes the other way. I'm seeing my work moving fast away from reality. I think it started with tattoo's, and now that's transforming into a tattoo/comics/animation hybrid. I'm going to be playing with that. I really envy people who can draw characters well, and I want to improve on that part of my game. A lot of painters tend to depict the same character over and over again. Here's some links to people I've been admiring lately.

Cheeks
Kizer

Found this article about making caricatures from Mad Magazine. Interesting stuff, I'd like to tone it down a little because sometimes those types of caricatures look too distorted and freak me out.

I've always been a huge animation fan, and I guess that's starting to come through. Definitely worth checking out is John K's blog (creator of Ren and Stimpy). Ren and Stimpy is one of the best shows ever made.

Also Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl, Gorillaz) who is apparently too big to even need a website.

There's a lot of good English and European comics guys, I think, that I just don't know about, so I'm looking into that. Check out Mick McMahon (the site's being weird, sorry if it doesn't come up). Cool Stuff!

Popsicle Horror

2010-01-19T16:12:00.001-08:00

I got into doing this pattern yesterday. It's for my twitter page. twitter.com/jeremyforson. The last couple years I've been struggling to reconcile two very different parts of my personality. One part comes from my teenage and college years being influenced by punk and hardcore, and the other comes from my post college years where I came to realize that I was gay. The ensuing dawn of all pervasive happiness strongly affected my tastes in almost everything, but especially in my art. There was a difficult time when my affinity for pink was seeping into record covers for metal bands. The way I've dealt with this duality is to do some pieces that were very dark, and others that were total pop. Now I've figured out what I need to do, which is combine them. I think it's been occurring in the last few paintings, but now that I've got my head around what's happening, the direction is much more clear. I'm calling the style Popsicle Horror because it sounds exactly like the look I have in mind. It has a nice ring as well. I would characterize the style as mixing horror and macabre with a touch of comedy, and fun, saturated, colors. I don't think I'm the first or only artist with a "Popsicle Horror" style either. I'll leave it to you to judge who might be described in that way.

Snow Ninja

2010-01-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

I think people like seeing process on art blogs, so I take the time to post the preliminary images. This is pretty straight forward. I'm basically following the same idea as in the last painting: I should just paint whatever makes me happy and not worry about anything else. As is the norm, it seems that the energy of the sketch is lost by the time I get to the finish. One of my goals is to balance that out. I tried doing watercolor-ish washes this time by not sealing the wood, and found it unpredictable, but it worked out pretty well for the clouds. I want to figure out a way to achieve soft washes like Sam Weber and Eric Fortune without working on watercolor paper because I hate framing paintings, and I like working on wood. Anyway, I have a lot of work still to do, so that's all for now, wish me luck!

Octopus Girl

2010-01-08T13:39:00.001-08:00

I was bummed a couple days ago because I was rejected for yet another job, so I decided to make myself happy by drawing things that I normally don't allow myself to. Let's face it, the world doesn't need any more tentacle or raven art, and certainly not together, but I still had a lot of fun doing this. I guess that some birds will take the eyes of baby animals, and I've been thinking about that lately. I saw a cat on TV with one eye, and I couldn't help but think "Maybe a raven took it when it was a kitten." Pretty much the most horrible thing I can think of! I really hope that doesn't happen.

Mini Munny

2009-12-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

I got this Mini Munny for Christmas last year, and I finally got around to painting something on it. There's some challenges in materials here, so I'll have to touch up some of the acrylic because it seems to rub off pretty easily. I'm going to have to figure out how to protect it. Suddenly it seems I have a character developing...hmmmm. I always wanted one of those, and never thought it would just happen naturally. I have a show at Doublepunch in SF in February, and since it is a toy store, I might just have to put this one on display. My favorite part is the butt crack. Makes me laugh every time.

Funswant Interview, Taiwan

2009-12-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

I did an interview for Funswant Magazine (beware the loud gunshot sound) out of Taiwan. I think it's safe to say that most of the people who follow my artwork can't read Mandarin, so here's the questions and my answers in English. I tried to keep the language in my answers simple to make it easier to translate. I have no idea if it worked.

FW- Please u introduce ur background with art.

JF- I was always interested in drawing. I've drawn for as long as I can remember. I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. As a child I mostly drew cartoon, comic book, and video game characters. When I finished High School I went to College at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I majored in Illustration.

FW- How do u know that u like to draw and make it as ur career ?

JF- Drawing is a part of my life I can't live without. I have to do it. It just makes sense to me that if I'm going to spend so much time drawing, I should try to make it my career. All of my jobs so far have been doing things that aren't drawing. I washed cars, cleared tables at a restaurant, then started doing website coding after college. I would always draw at work when things were slow, even if I got into trouble, I still want to draw all the time. Right now I don't have a day job, so I just draw. I know I need to draw as a career, because I'll always be drawing, even if it's not my job.

FW- How do u imagine so many interesting subjects and then create them ?

JF- Sometimes images just jump into my mind, sometimes ideas happen while I'm drawing, and sometimes I plan to make a painting that expresses an idea in my mind. If I find something interesting, even if I don't know why, I try to include it in my work, then figure out why it appeals to me later. I draw whatever feels right in my heart, even if it doesn't make sense in my mind.

FW- What are ur tools for work and how do u define ur style?

JF- I use acrylic paint on wood panels most of the time, pencils, brushes. Traditional materials mostly. Lately I've been planning my paintings in photoshop with good results, but I don't like to make finished work in the computer, I find it unsatisfying. It's difficult for artists to define their style, I think nobody wants to think their art fits easily into simple categories, like it's common. I'd say that comics is the biggest influence in my work, as well as street art, and tattoos. I love good line work and draftsmanship.

FW- Who inspires u ? Other artist or designers u admire ?

JF- There's a lot of artists and designers that I admire, most of them are either from the art nouveau movement, or other movements from around that era, and people from the comic book industry. Names that come to mind are Klimpt, Mucha, Mike Mignola, Sam Weber, and of course James Jean, who everybody seems to like.

FW- As a creator, what's the most important thing u think that a creator should always keep in mind?

JF- I think all creators should try to be as true to their intuitions as possible. It's very difficult to make art that is your own, and to keep your influences out of it, but if you listen to your heart instead of your mind, you're much more likely to make work that is purely yours. I've only recently learned that, and I think it has made my work much better. Art today is too cerebral.

FW- What will u do if u changed ur career ?

JF- If I changed my career, I would be a very broken man. I think that art is a vital organ for me, so if I wasn't doing it anymore I would only be a shell of myself. That being said, I sometimes do web design, and that's probably what I'd be doing. It's not my ideal job, but I do like technical things, and there's lots of opportunities to be creative. Plus, you make a lot of money doing it, and there's a high demand, so it wouldn't be too bad.

FW- From ur personal portfolio I saw that “2005- Osaka University Print Exchange - Osaka University, December 2005, Osaka, Japan” , could u share with our readers that how the life in JP affect u most ?

JF- That was a group show I was in, but I wasn't able to attend. A screen-print of mine was selected by my college faculty to be in the show. I did, however, go to Japan last year, and I'm going again in about a month. I love Japan, and I find it's art and culture very influential. I like manga, anime, and ukiyo-e prints. There's a delicate quality to japanese art that I would love to master, but I've been unable to so far.

FW- How do u spend a day ?

JF- I wish I could say my days were exciting and full of parties, adventure, and debauchery, but in truth my days are pretty predictable. I draw and paint in the day, or work on something related to my art career, then often I do martial arts at night. I don't drink or do drugs, so I don't have fun a parties or clubs. I think my life would be better if I did more fun activities, but I'm kind-of addicted to working. I'm the kind of person who has more fun spending a night alone making things then at a party with tons of friends.

FW- What's ur next plan ?

JF- My plan is to have more gallery shows, and try to make the best work I can. Illustration work has been rare for me lately, so I've turned my efforts towards making paintings on my own. I like being able to paint whatever I please, and I've learned a lot about what I want to paint, and I am improving my style. There's a lot to think about in an artists career, and for the last few years I got so caught up in the business of it, that I forgot I needed to make great work. Now I know that all I should concern myself with is making the best work a can, so that's what I plan to do.

FW- At last, could u give some suggestions for the freshman in illustrations ?

JF- My advise for people starting off in illustration is to think of their art as emotional instead of mental. Art today is all about concept, and I want people to realize that art with emotion is not a bad thing. A lot of illustrators try to come up with some clever idea, like a punch-line you need to get out of the picture. There's nothing personal or emotional in them. I encourage illustrators to put their voice into their illustrations. Do what you want to, not what you think people want to see. That mindset will only get you into trouble. Finally, KEEP DRAWING!

Gold Metalist

2009-12-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

I had a bit of rant about this earlier today on Society6.

"I feel that there's too many paintings of women that look sedated, mannequin or doll-like. Those paintings don't properly reflect reality, where strong, confident, and capable women like this are something I see everyday."

I want to add that there are many other paintings of women where they look unnaturally vacant, lobotomized even, as if the point of their lives was to pose and look pretty. As if the acuteness of their minds, and the achievements of their lives were irrelevant. What I find especially odd is that most or many of these paintings are done by women? Oh well, I can't concern myself too much with what other artists do.

I'm starting to fear that people aren't getting the play on words in the title. She's Metal, get it?

12x24 Acrylic on Panel.

Gatekeeper

2009-11-23T17:35:00.001-08:00

The scan didn't come out very well for some reason, so I had to take a photo of it.

Acrylic on wood 5x7. It's for an art auction at Gallery Nucleus in LA to benefit the American Red Cross. There's some REALLY great artists lined up for this event, and I'm proud to be part of it. If you're in the LA area, check it out! I probably won't be able to attend, sadly. All the artwork is 5x7, and $100, but some of them are going to be auctioned.

More info:http://gallerynucleus.com/gallery/exhibition/212

Difficult to paint so small, but it looks really pretty nice in person. This one was inspired by my recent trip to Asia. If you look hard there's a little Tori gate in the background. I really like this idea and composition, so I might paint another, larger version for my show in February. Due to the size of this one, tattoos were not an option, but I think it looks good without them anyway.

Other news: There was an opening on Saturday at Doublepunch with some great artists. I was there for about an hour and met some cool folks. It will be up for about a month, my painting "Kissy Face" is hanging in it.

Barron Storey has republished The Marat/Sade Journals and I got a copy. It's amazing, get it! I found out about it here: http://graphicnovelart.blogspot.com/2009/09/marat-sade-journals-are-back.html

Furthermore, I met up with a bunch of people from Artsprojekt over the weekend at the Thread Expo, and they were super cool! If you're an artist you should submit and get yourself an account. It's easy to use to make all kinds of products, and there's going to be some neat stuff you'll be able to do in the near future, so get on it! http://artsprojekt.com/

Photoshop Photomerge: The most useful tool I own.

2009-11-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write about Photoshop's Photomerge function for a while. Basically, it's amazing, and it saves me a ton of time, money, and headaches. I feel like I tell people about it all the time, and it's not as widely used as it should be. For traditional 2D artists, it is essential knowledge in my opinion.

What you need:
Photoshop, I think they first added it in CS, but I'm not sure.
A decent professional grade scanner.

The first thing I do is scan my painting in pieces. This painting is 18x24x1 on a wood panel. I scan a painting this large in 6-8 passes, and I try to keep it straight. You only need about an inch of overlap to make it work with the Photomerge function, but I've found that the more information Photoshop has to work with, the better. I scan at 300 dpi. Important things to note: I'm using an Epson Perfection 1250 from 2001, and it still wrecks shop! There's also a lip around all the edges which does make a shadow, but Photoshop is smart enough to see that and correct it. My scanner is standard sized, I think the bed is 9x12. You don't need to buy outrageously expensive over-sized scanners.

Here's a shot of all the individual scans. They're tif's, but I usually save my scans as psd's. All your files need to be saved to use this function.

Now Go to File>Automate>Photomerge

This screen will come up. I always open all the tiles first, then choose "Add Open Files." I leave it on Auto, but maybe "reposition only" is better for this? I don't know for sure, but I've always been happy with the auto mode. Hit "OK."

About 30 seconds later I've got this! I check it to make sure everything looks ok, then flatten it. If you rotate the image without flattening it, the seems Photomerge made appear. If your paintings have a lot of similar areas Photomerge can get confused, so just do a couple other scans to help it figure out what goes where and you should be set. I don't recommend using Photomerge to scan large textures. I once tried to scan a large watercolor wash for use in my digital artwork, and it doesn't work for that. Also, sometimes if you change programs while Photoshop is doing the Photomerge magic it will mess it up. Overall though, I rarely have a problem.

Cropped and finished! I didn't even have to mess with any levels or anything on this painting. It scans VERY accurately. Good luck!

Got a few Copies of POE

2009-10-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

I got a few copies of POE in the mail. It looks really good! Nothing like finally seeing the end product. The interior art looks great as well. Happy to be a part of it.

CCA Illustration Faculty and Alumni Exhibition

2009-10-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about the line-up on this one! I think this will be a great show. It's open to the public, so come if you can.

Kissy Face

2009-10-02T18:28:00.001-07:00

I have this list of characters I want to do paintings about. Many of them are popular fiction or occupation related. Milk man, astronaut, caveman, etc. My next painting was going to be of a gymnast, but a fellow asked me to do something zombie related for a book he's putting together, and that was on the list to, so I thought "Why not?" Here's a web version he's put together: http://www.jadedpublishing.com/projects/zombiemosaic.php. I guess the book will be different, I dunno. Acrylic on panel 18x24.

Lost Fight Review

2009-09-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Show review from artbusiness.com:
"Comment by AB: I'm here early, but the kind folks at Edo Salon are nice enough to let me in. Thank you for that. This time around, Jeremy Forson, essays on life in San Francisco-- elegant, genteel and Victorian for the most part, but sometimes it can be a long hard night. His tattooed tarts appear to basically update the Patrick Nagel idiom. Nice quality work overall."

Pretty accurate I'd say. I'm happy with this review. I hadn't thought of my work as being in the same vein as Patrick Nagel, but now now that he mentioned it, I think that's true, especially in the more stripped down compositions.

Photos from the show

2009-09-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos from my show. I can honestly say it was one of the best days of my life to date. The show was a success, lots of people came, and I had a great time. Showing at Edo is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. Nicole runs the show and she was great to work with, and a sweety! The show is up till 11-4. so check it out if you can!

End of the Night.

The DJ agreed to do it the night before, and even brought his records on BART from the east bay! He came through. They had bought the DJ equipment that day for the Salon, and were having some problems getting it to work. Luckily Eli and Alex were there and they got it working. Things went smoothly :)

Mural painted by myself, Nicole the curator, and Jerome. We painted from 9pm till 3 or 4am 2 nights in a row, and Nicole had to wake up crazy early after both nights. She's a trooper!

Buckets of Sangria!

Showing TONIGHT at EDO

2009-09-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

Come out tonight to my show "The Lost Fight" at Edo in San Francisco if you are capable. There will be drinks, and a DJ spinning punk and metal classics. I'm excited for it.

Conversations with Dean Cornwell

2009-09-04T17:19:00.001-07:00

This illustration is for the a book called "Illest of Illustration 09: Conversations with Dean Cornwell" (I think that's the title) that's to be published by Ringling College of Art and Design. The first thing I want to say is that if you're going to be in a book with "Illest" in the title, what you submit should be nauseatingly good, or at least the best of your ability. Also, some of the other illustrators who are in line to be in this book could put my skills to shame, so I needed to step it up. This book is a tribute to Dean Cornwell, one of the forefathers of American Illustration, So if I'd hacked out some 2 hour drawing, and polished the turd with cheap photoshop effects, the piece would only serve as another reminder of how far the craft of illustration has fallen. Now that I've established the stakes, I can say with confidence that I've never worked so hard on a painting. For me this painting was epic. It's a long shot from Mucha's history of the Slavs, but I consider it a personal best in effort. If you've been keeping up with my blog, you know that the level of polish in my paintings has been on the raise. This is largely due to spending much more time working out the drawing in the sketch and rough phase, so that when I get to the finish there's little or no guess work. You can see here the the thumb is remarkable close to the finish in terms on composition. This is because I scan the thumb, blow it up, and trace if making is very polished, then scan that and blow it up to trace onto the painting. Since I've started doing this, I've realized that is is the way to go. The drawing gets to be much better by tracing, reworking it so many times. You also realize when lines or elements are not necessary.

Many people don't know who Dean Cornwell is, and I didn't know too much about his work before I started this project either. Here's some of the images which most directly influenced me during this process. This was a difficult project. Firstly, these are from the peak of representational painting, and much of that knowledge has been lost because art schools stopped thinking it was important to know how to paint, draw, or compose, and started teaching purely based on concept. The biggest challenge is the composition. He was brilliant at it, and I don't have a clue how he came up with them. I noticed a few things that I liked, and used them. Having a colder foreground character, rounded shapes at the bottom with vertical lines above, and making the focus of the painting higher contrast. I'm no Cornwell in compositions, but I did learn and improve from studying his.

I had this idea that I would add little notes at the end of blogs for any odds and ends that are on my mind.

NOTES:
1.Jason Shawn Alexander's work for Abe Sapian is killer! I always though he was a good painter, but found the similarities to Kent Williams disturbing. His new work has really come along, though, and it is fantastic.

2. Stopped looking at most other artists, especially my contemporaries because it's been too influential.

3. Stopped reading blog posts about me because what people say on them influences my decisions and often leaves me feeling trapped.

4. Painting a mural on a textured well is WAY more difficult than you'd think!

Studio in demise

2009-08-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Marci, Deth, and Stacy have already moved most of their stuff out. Michelle has moved a lot of stuff too. I'm sad to see this place go, it was nice to have a community.

studio shots

2009-08-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

There was this awesome sunset the other day, I didn't get that great of a shot, but you get the idea. I always want to paint that sunset, but I'm not sure if it's possible without an airbrush, and I sure can't afford one of those. Then a shot of my part of the studio right now. I've got paintings everywhere just waiting for the show. It looks like I'm going to be losing the studio soon, but it was great while it lasted.

Egyptian

2009-08-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

I've been spending more time in the sketch phase lately, with good results if I say so myself. Here you can see basically the whole process, except some of my other thumbs. Spending more time working out the colors in Photoshop before going to the final saved me a lot of time and frustration. I don't know why I wasn't doing that before, but I will from now on. It's taken me a while to become patient enough to spend a whole day just making sure the rough was settled, I've always been so eager to get into the painting. The background in from another painting, and the wood didn't match, but I'll make sure to correct that next time because it makes a big difference when you're particular about colors. I was lucky to find a large lid to use for the large circle. I'm in a great place right now, after working hard all summer I've sorted out A LOT of issues. I'm really happy doing these paintings, and even though I'm not sure how they will be received, I don't care, and that's a first. I love them, and I don't care if I'm the only one. My paintings are building on themselves and there's a progression that's apparent, which is a great sign for me. In the past I've been extremely fickle stylistically, and I think that stems from a lot of insecurity, and worrying too much about what others thought. I'm glad I finally understand that. I can thank sidebar for helping me get my head on straight. The interviews on there with weathered illustration professionals pretty much got me back on the right path. Like I said, I'm in a great place.

Light Thief

2009-08-16T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm having a lot of fun drawing people and making up tattoos. I don't want to say too much about this one, I think it speaks for itself. This is 9x12, acrylic on panel.

the perfect predator

2009-08-09T22:14:00.001-07:00

Haven't done a process post in a while! My process changes, but I'm happy with the way the last 2 paintings came out (I did it this way). I think they were most successful because I spend more time in the sketching phase, so that when it came time to bust out the painting it was like "the 1 inch punch". You can see here the thumbnail sketch, which is actually about 4 inches high. I like this size because I can still see what I'm drawing, but it doesn't take me too long, and altering it is easy. I don't feel too committed to the drawing. I liked this after much erasing and scanned it. Then in PS I did some compositional variations and worked some backgrounds until I had something I liked. Here is the pencil sketch from phase 3, but originally it was the thumb. The large puff of smoke wasn't working for me compositionally. So, then I took the girl out, blew her up to fit as big as possible on and 8.5x11 sheet of paper, and traced her onto another sheet of printer paper. Her right boob was in a place normally seen on much older women, so I moved that up and tightened things. Scanned this new tighter drawing and blew it up to the size it would be on the panel. I printed that out in 2 pieces and taped them together. Then I traced that onto the wood panel using graphite tracing paper. This only really works if you have a couple layers of matte medium or something on the wood already. So yeah...painted it up. It came out really clean for some reason, I don't know where that came from, but I like it anyway. Sorry for the rush, but I've been here for 10 hours, and I gotta bike home and go to bed so I can wake up early and do it again tomorrow. Hearts!

Tattoo SF

2009-08-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

Lately my paintings have been about San Francisco, and whatever I'm seeing that influences me. You don't have to go far in SF to find pretty, well embellished women like the one I depicted here. I should note that I put the REBEL8 logo on her right arm. REBEL8 is a notable name in the tattoo culture in SF, and even though I'm not part that crowd, I still hear about it constantly. I also added it because I have a lot of respect for Mike Giant as an artist. I hope they don't feel slighted about it, and understand where I'm coming from.

I personally only have a couple tattoos, even though I like them. For one reason or another it's never a good time to get more work done, usually because I have no money. Lots of people have tattoos from my drawings, and once I even did a tattoo on a guy. A lot of people have asked me over the years if I wanted to do tattoos, and I would because any job where you draw is awesome for me, but there's a few things that give me reservations.

1. I don't have the book for it. I'd have to do drawings of a bunch of different designs, and I've usually got something more pressing to work on.
2. Just about every tattoo artist I've met told me not to get into it. They apparently don't like their line of work. You have to deal with a lot of surly or ghetto folks, and often they don't shower, high risk of blood born illness, things like that.
3. Tattoo shops are often not ok with homos. I'm sure some are, especially in SF, but I don't know which ones. Even though that's something I mostly keep to myself, and am not flamboyant, it still could be and issue.
4. Apparently getting and apprenticeship in SF is really tough in spite of the large number of shops, and it's even harder if you're not already well tattooed. Also, I've noticed that tattoo shops are much more receptive to people they know, or even friends of friends. If you're some random dude that comes in off the street they aren't so nice.
5. I'm drug free, including alcohol, for various reasons. I'm not a prick about it, I hang out at parties and it's no big deal, it's a personal decision. I don't even like to bring it up, but I think that wouldn't go over well in a lot of shops.
6. Tribal and dolphins.

If I could find a place that would take me on as an apprentice and not mind that I'm a drug free homo, that would be awesome. I'm looking into telemarketing and security jobs because I haven't been able to find anything for the past 10 months, so in spite of the disadvantages, it couldn't be worse than that. Can't beat drawing every day and getting paid for it.

Talking and untitled

2009-08-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Ya, couple of new guys. Getting down to the home stretch for my show in September, and I've spent a little too long on some of my paintings. The second one is a prime example. I spent like 6 days painting things out and making new elements, changing colors. Too long, but I'm not a factory, and some times paintings don't go very smoothly. The portrait was a day painting. Often day paintings end up being the best ones. Tentacles was a day painting, so was GFP, Lipstick, and others. They end up being more fresh and the strokes look confident. The last one is one of my favorites so far. I started using acrylics in a wet-on-wet technique as one might with watercolors and I'm happy with the results. Can't write a long blog right now, gotta bust out more paintings.

The rumors of my death....

2009-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd try using oils again, and after so many years I thought I'd need a warm up painting. The was a lot of buzz recently around the rumor that Jeff Goldblum had fallen to his death while shooting in New Zealand. Happily, this is not true. This portrait was meant to be a warm up sketch, but I got into it and ended up spending a whole day on it.

Aside from several spells of dizziness I enjoyed the experience of working with oils again. I found it relaxing because there isn't the pressure of trying to use the color you've mixed before it dries. It's nice to be able to blend as well. I did this on one of those bunk pre-made-canvas-wrapped-around-a-piece-of-cardboard-things and was surprised at the fact that I didn't have any problems with it. One thing that did happen, is that I drew him in pencil, and as soon as I did the underpainting wash it completely dissolved. That was definitely unexpected. I didn't rub it in hard or anything.

Some brighter colors

2009-06-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Stargazer

Dichotomy

Green House

I've been working on incorporating brighter colors into my paintings to make them more fun looking, while staying away from anything hippies might enjoy on acid. I've been in a transition for some months now, trying to find a new direction, and am finally feeling ok with being lost and generally aimless. Columbus wouldn't have pillaged the Americas without heading the wrong direction first right? Maybe that's a bad example, I don't want to be Columbus. Conan the Barbarian had a lot of fighting and boning and running around the countryside to do before he got to decapitate Thulsa Doom right? He had no idea when the opportunity for revenge would show itself. That's where I'm at, I'm talking to people, getting my name out, telling people I'm looking for the two headed snake cult, and someday, I'll get to brutally hack James Earl Jones' head off.

My goal lately is to not compare myself with other artists or worry about what they're doing. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how James Jean was basically famous right out of college, but I have to let that go. It's great for him, and he deserves it, but life is not linear or predictable. I know that if I keep at it my time will come too. Comparing my art and the path of my career to others is stressful and ultimately unproductive. Focusing on making things that I'm proud of is the best path I can follow. I think the first painting, I'm calling "Stargazer" is a good example of acting on this new outlook. Like a stray bullet on the fourth of July, the image popped into my head suddenly for no reason whatsoever, so I painted it. It used to be that I would always draw those kinds of things, but lately I've been more worried about what I think I'm supposed to be doing. Don't get into that habit, kids, it will choke your creativity or lead you to making generic paintings in a factory-like fashion.

There's 3 other paintings that are not coming along so well and maybe some thoughtful critique of these will help me resolve them, people. nudge nudge

You can still see my painting at Double Punch, it's up for the rest of the month if you make it out there, it's also for sale here.

Double Punch He-man tribute show

2009-06-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

I got to North Beach at around 7:30 on a Saturday, which is not a good time to be trying to park in that area (I was driving my bf's car because I only have a bike). North Beach is the Italian district of San Francisco, and there's a lot of great restaurants, so couples were amassing for dinner dates. I had to park a few blocks away, but I got to see this stunning sunset scene.

Another nice sunset scene of San Francisco. North Beach is pretty, but I don't know anyone who lives there besides Barron. Apparently Jeremy Fish lives somewhere over there, but I don't know him personally.

Crowd when I arrived and art. There was a really good turnout. It was tropically hot up there. They probably have to keep the doors open today so it doesn't smell like a fight club. I was standing near the stairs where you enter the gallery area, and a guy came up and jokingly said something like "Wow...it is...uh....fragrant. Smells like nerds!" Once the sun went down it cooled off, and it didn't smell so sweaty.

Some shots of the store, which has some awesome toys and art books. I could probably mill around looking at their products for a good 2 hours without getting bored. They also have some toys designed by local artists, as well as art and zines from them. It's cool that they're involved in the community.

Josh Ellingson

Pellet

Matty Cipov

Steve Seeley

Bunch of pictures of the art. Unfortunately, I forgot to take note of the names of the artists.

Thanks to Ryan for putting me in the show, I had lots of fun. My painting will be for sale on the Double Punch website soon for $300.

Florescent colors

2009-06-15T17:25:00.001-07:00

Playing around with some florescent colors. I painted over a tiger drawing I did a while back. A couple notes: The colors don't scan well, they're much more vibrant in real life. The smell terrible. They make my eyes and skin itch, but I'll continue to use them because that's life.

New colors

2009-06-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

After doing the He-man painting I've been itching to use more bright colors, so I ordered a fleet of them from dick blick. Sadly, the florescent red was damaged during shipping. I noticed that it smells weird, almost like Play Doh, and I don't approve. Most of the colors in the He-man piece were derived from the background paintings of She-ra, which was supposed to made for girls, but seems squarely aimed at the gay community to me. I've been inspired by cartoon background paintings before, mostly Ren and Stimpy, but that influence never made it to a completed painting. Lately, I shamefully admit to finding inspiration in Jem and Sailor Moon after watching them with my partner. I'm more interested in the backgrounds and use of color, especially the softness achieved with an airbrush, but he swears that they are also shows worth watching. My pallet alters based on my mood. Most of the time I feel like an alligator at the zoo, so my paintings have all the vibrancy of a World War 2 movie staring Tom Hanks, but on the off chance that I'm well rested and recently received good news, my work becomes worthy of a call from the gay pride poster commissioning committee. I'm going to try to paint with brighter colors now matter how I'm feeling, as I understand that thinking positive directly leads to feeling positive.

Side Note: I tried to make this post more entertaining by adding personal information, and by "writing" it, as opposed to treating it as a straight-to-the-point email like I have been doing. Takes much longer, but I'm hoping it makes reading my blog more enjoyable. If writing this way entices a more positive response, I'd be willing to write more in depth in the future. Reactions?

Radish

2009-06-09T16:16:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a painting, and for some reason I wanted to draw this radish on it. It didn't fit so I'm about to paint it out, but I thought I'd scan it first. It's a little larger than a quarter.

POE comic book cover

2009-06-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

This is a comic book cover for Boom! Studios I did in March after Wondercon. I finally got the green light to show it! It's scheduled to be released as cover B for issue number 2. I designed the logo too, which was rad. I made a similar logo to what you see here in my sketches just for placement, (edit:added sketches)and they liked it so we tweaked it a little and there you go. I'm glad to have finally done a comic book cover, it was on my list for a very long time.

Heman and the masters of sparse clothing

2009-06-05T20:05:00.000-07:00

For the aforementioned show. Acrylic on panel. 12x12. I'm really happy with the way this one came out. I normally stay away from a lot of colors and elements because it hasn't worked out in the past, but this time it did! I need to think a lot about why this one went well and others have been crushing failures.