Chach Rules!

This past weekend I hauled my butt back to DC for the Max Levine Ensemble's 10 Year Anniversary Show.  It was, without a doubt, one of the best shows I've been too.

I started playing in a band right around the time TMLE started up; the Konami Code for anyone interested (we were once mentioned in Game Pro at the height of our "success").  We dabbled in the same DC/MD/VA punk-ska-anything scene, and knew each other from hanging out at the Corner Kick- this indoor soccer place where our friends from DC Ska / Rude In DC would put on these awesome shows with local bands.  At any rate, fairly early on my journeys as a teenage songwriter it became evident that TMLE were operating on a much different level than I was.  Their first songs right off the bat were so insightful and nuanced, yet still fun and catchy at the same time.   Whenever I heard a new song from them, I would say something like "Oh yeah, I've thought about that too" or "So you don't have to slam a slogan over someone's head to make a statement".  Plus, on top of all the punk rock, they had a sense of humor.  So seeing them live was always a rad time. 

I'm rambling.  Point being, I was impressed with them when they started and I'm still impressed with them today, and super glad they've been going 10 years strong.  It was so fun to see everyone come together for the show, see all the old faces and friends, and feel all the super posi vibes.  And of course, it was great to hear them play Pizza Guy again.

That's the second longest Monkey Island post I've ever seen!

Over the holiday break, I had the chance to get reacquainted with an old friend. Not one of my high school chums, I see them fairly often. I'm talking about graphic adventure games.

The story starts when I got an iPhone! (<-- Read in Oprah voice) First app I purchased proper- THE SECRET OF MOTHERFUCKING MONKEY ISLAND! 
 It is so awesome to have that game in my hands. I'm not too hot on the Special Edition graphics (though it's fun listening to the new voice overs), but with a simple two finger swipe you're back in original game mode. Only complaint, I think the music from the forests on Mêlée Island™ weren't included. That was one of my hauntingly favorite synth reggae tracks.

After all the excitement of having an app everyone else played months ago, I got sick and was stuck in bed with a fever. I found myself rocking even more graphic adventure games. Legend of Kyrandia 2 and Telltale's Back to the Future: The Game and Tales of Monkey Island. I love the writing, acting and graphics in both of Telltale's ventures. Tales is an especially welcome sight for sore eyes. Between the third and fourth iteration of the Monkey Island series, the graphics had moved from this, with Curse of Monkey Island:

To this, with Escape from Monkey Island:

I was sad too, Guybrush. Personally, nothing tops my nostalgic love for the EGA graphics in the first two Monkey Island games, or the way the box art captured my imagination (I know at least one guy feels the same). But we can't live in the past, and I really dig what Telltale is doing.


So I was moved to do a little Monkey Island tribute. Click HERE to see the original.

to every kid who ever got picked last in art class

I got some new Ronin Dojo Community College DX artwork finished up. Hum some Pokemon music and watch this one evolve. Dum dum dum dum. . .

Did some experimenting with a lot of elements in these. I really wanted the characters to pop off their surroundings, but I didn't want to paint everything by hand. Since I had drawn the characters and the background on separate layers in Photoshop, I decided I would just make the background lines lighter.

When coloring, I selected each background object using the magic wand, expanded the selection at least 3 or 4 pixels into the line, and filled it with the paint bucket on it's own layer. This really bit deep into my line, and made each layer essentially over lap one another.

I stacked the layers in the order they actually be on each other. Then I dropped the line layer down to 30% opacity. This left the line slightly gray, and because I had 'over filled' each object, no uncolored white space showed through.


I also added in shadows and highlights with a textured brush, and made a layer with the blending mode set to "overlay" and lightly brushed some flat areas to give them a faux, painted feel. Again, an attempt to make the characters stand out from the background.


For a final touch, I tried putting a slight airbrushed vignette around the edges. To help keep the focus. Just brushed some black on a layer with the blending mode set to "overlay".

I'm still experimenting with diff ways to color and paint backgrounds, if anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. I'd really like to try some with no lines at all, but that might involve just straight up painting in Photoshop. That is not my forté. Also, these three drawings will have text on them, if you're wondering why there's so much extra space on the top and bottom.

Side note: messy rooms are a pain to draw. Lots of details, lots of colors to pick out. But it pays to push yourself extra mile, otherwise it just feels empty and flat. If you can't push yourself to do it, just find someone to yell at you about it. I had Ms. Jordie Bellaire on my case this time around.

I need to get better with my background details I think, more photo reference or something. There is an awesome example of a fully fleshed out, messy room over at Meaghan Carters blog. Great specifics. It's the little things. . .

Rough Drawings from a Person Who Does What Is Roughly Considered Drawing

Here are some rough pieces of Ronin Dojo Community College DX artwork I've been working on. Thought I'd share them with the interwebs.

These first couple might be used for posters. I was attempting to work in some interesting angles; trying to emulate the classic epic, anime ensemble pose. I had to keep pushing myself to make the gestures feel kinetic and alive. Still don't think I pushed it far enough.

More fun with perspective and faking a fish eye lens type effect. In this one, you can see an unmasked version of David, the mysterious third nerd from IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR.

A more standard use of perspective with this one. Unlike photography and live action, cartoons don't have that inherent sense of depth. You have to go out of your way to build up that sense of space and reality. If someone had battered me over the head with the rules of perspective starting when I was like five- maybe I'd have mastered it by now.

While working on these, I was paging through Rad Sechrist's blog, along with the Art Center blog he contributes to. Lot of great tips and inspiration up there. Definitely check it out if you're an animator, illustrator or if you like ducks in steam punk looking suits.

I'll try to be a little Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance here, and say that it's a good thing that I'm 27 and still learning about drawing and animation. Embarrassing, but good.

Last post with a weather theme

My lasts two posts referenced the snow, and this one again is about the weather. I know, very mundane. But I was super pysched about it getting a tiny bit warm in New York. So I drew this.

Initially, I couldn't decide which warm weather outfit to put her in- so I made outfits for each season. I was pretty much playing dress up with my drawings. Whatever, I'm comfortable with that. I may break up each figure and make a separate season surrounding for them. I dunno.

Everyone in New York gets excited when it's a tad bit warmer. We're so brutally demoralized by walking in the winter, that any warmth feels like the Keys or something. Ok, enough weather talk.

In other news, I've almost finished updating the Ronin Dojo Community College DX heads. Last up, Mark. If you can't tell the difference between the old and the new- JUST LOOK AT HOW CROOKED THOSE EYES ARE. Man, so glad I have guides in Photoshop.

I also gave a little update to the For Tax Reasons website banner and logo. Following the nice pixel art tutorial on Derek Yu's site. I took our old logo:

And made this!
Whoops, that ear should be self-lined. Whatever, this won't probably stay as is for long. I am totally losing my hair, so eventually this will have to be updated to reflect Bald Ben. Comparing the two logos you can see I receded my hair line a little bit to keep it true to life.

Anyways, thanks to Derek Yu. That tutorial is super helpful. Also, thanks to Andrew WK. I just came back from his NYC show, and oh man it was awesome! I partied so hard I got diarrhea. Shwarma is not the thing to eat before you're gonna go jump up and down for an hour. I can't stop telling people about this.

Snow Stopping Me Part II: Bad Boy. Can't Stop. Snown't Stop.

Last time I updated, it was totally snowing. And now I'm updating again- and it's totally snowing again! What are the odds of that. . . in the month of February.

Well, it's fitting because this post is kind of a sequel to the last post. I'm still fixing up the head library for Ronin Dojo Community College DX. Right now I'm on Barry. Watch him evolve:

Eh the skull was kinda just for fun. I don't know why I drew everyone with such flat pointy heads, and hair stuck straight to them. It just goes to show how much your skills can progress even within a few years. Or if you want to see it half empty- it just goes to show that you never know how much you suck until it's too late.

And in continuing with the sequel-ity of this update. Here are the t-shirt designs I finished for the band The Heat Machine.

And here's the other one I posted the other week that the band didn't end up using.

I hope they turn out good on the shirts.

I was gonna draw another snowy girl drawing, but I already did a lot of drawing today and I'm all drawed out. So next time, another girly drawing.

There Snow Stopping Me From Updating

Mr. Matt Burnett (the other half of For Tax Reasons) and I had a fun radio interview last Friday. We called in to the Popmedia Primecast, to have a chat with Dom and Dusty. The show was originally broadcast on KANE Radio AM 1240 but you can listen to the whole episode in mp3 format here. We kinda rambled a lot, so if you get bored with hearing our voices, check out the other episodes they've got posted. There are some sweet guests talking about fun nerdy pop culture stuff.

In other For Tax Reasons news, I've started updating all the head files for the Ronin Dojo Community College DX characters.They were originally drawn on paper and scanned in. So I'm redrawing them straight into the Photoshop using my Cintiq. Making them hi res enough for HD, and doing some slight redesigns along the way. And by that I mean, fixing my shitty drawings.
I've also been working on some sketches for this band The Heat Machine. They're an awesome ska band from Nebraska, or NebraSKA as I say. I definitely urge any third wave fans to go to their myspace and check 'em out. One of my favorite new bands out there for sure. Or at least, new to me. They just released a "No Coast Dance Party" on Asbestos Records. BUY IT. It is good.

Not sure which of these we're gonna use, but I thought I'd post the roughs here anyways.

That's all for nows, I'll post the final stuff when it's done.

Back to (the) drawing boards

Matt and I started drawing boards for Episode 2.5 and Episode 3 of Ronin Dojo Community College DX: The Digital Pirates of Dark Water Saga. 2.5 proved to be particularly difficult, as it takes place in a parking garage. It's a great location, with all sorts of cinematic possibilities-angles and perspective and repeating patterns vanishing into the distance and all sorts of other things which are hard for me to draw.

In these cases, photo reference is key- and the internet is the lazy animator's god. There was a beautiful spread of photos of vast, empty parking garages on Flickr. But even with an array of moody photos at our fingertips, it was still hard to turn the space around in our heads and fit things to what we wanted. If this weren't for a minute long piece, we'd probably have to haul our asses out to a Home Depot or something.

In other news, I've started experimenting with brushes and inking. I've been kinda frustrated lately, wondering why my drawings never look smooth and sweet like everybody elses. And I guess reading Bone was the last straw.

I went out and bought some small water color brushes, india ink and a pad of vellum. Not sure if these are the right tools or not, I was just kinda winging it on some advice my friend Kudlick had given me. So, here's a new Ronin Dojo t-shirt design I've been working on, which I inked with a mix of brushes and Micron pens.



I was mixing the brushes and pen out of necessity, my hand isn't steady enough to make thin details with a brush. However when I found Youtube vids of Jeff Smith and Jim Lee doing it too, I realized it was kosher and felt a bit better about myself. I really have no concept of how professional people go about things, cut me some slack.

Anyways, now I'm gonna go paint with some smashed berries.

Back to the back- with a tat!

I'm starting 2009 with a first. This is the first ever tattoo of something I've drawn.
That's the right leg of my buddy Darrell, freshly inked with a tattoo I designed for him this past summer. It's a tribute to our friend Dan Hess, and the ska shows that he and Michelle Chin used to put on at this indoor soccer place called the Corner Kick.

Originally, shows were held on the Corner Kick's indoor field, but majority of the shows were put on at the upstairs bar area. This meant that someone had to go downstairs to check that empty, darkened field and locker room every once in a while. Thus, Make-Out Patrol. Dan would take some of us down with flashlights to make the rounds to make sure no kids were screwing around or making babies.
Those shows at the Corner Kick were lots of fun. They were all ages, and you could see local bands goofing around and playing ska, reggae, punk, rockabilly, and rock. Sometimes there would be some sweet out of town bands coming through, but you knew there would always be Dan and Alex's band The Ratchet Boys playing, with Dan making all sorts of ridiculous jokes and throwing donuts at you.

Dan and Michelle and Rude In DC productions enabled an entire local music scene to exist. They put on these shows, ran dcska.com, made t shirts for bands- they brought the scene together by giving local bands a place to play and everyone a place to dance and have fun and get a Krispy Kreme in the face. Seeing that Michelle and Dan could make things like this happen on their own was definitely a big inspiration to me.
Dan passed away in 2007, he'll always be missed and never forgotten. Especially, now that Darrell's got a tribute to him emblazoned on his calf. That thing is not coming off in the shower. I went with him when he got the tattoo, there was blood.

Here's a link to a big image of the design.

Here are some rough character designs I drew on the train.


Matt and I are still working hard on Episode 2 of Ronin Dojo Community College DX: The Digital Pirates of Dark Water Saga, but nothing new to show yet. However if you're looking for a For Tax Reasons fix, we'll be guesting on the Otaku Generation podcast this coming Monday. I believe the episodes go up every Wednesday, so be on the look out for it on the 26th. We'll also be posting a mini RDCCDX short as well.



Hold Tight & Robot Rights

And I could write you the perfect song, and you could sing along...

The final Ergs! shows were this weekend and I trekked out to Asbury Park, New Jersey to see them. Both shows were amazing and sad and awesome and full hilarious pop/punk culture references. What other band would quote both the Simpsons and two different live NOFX records? NO OTHER BAND, that's who.

I'm going to miss them and their sweet, sweet melodies. They were definitely one of the best punk bands of today.


Everything falls apart (and robot rights)

Lost In Space

I just roughed out head rotation for Agent Wilkins, a new character in the RDCCDX universe, voiced by Emily Tarver. Usually, I wouldn't make a full set of heads for a secondary character, but she's featured in the next two episodes of Ronin Dojo Community College DX: The Digital Pirates of Dark Water Saga, so she's getting the full treatment. We spare no expense here at the For Tax Reasons Spa, Resort & Drawatorium.

For those of you who don't often read my blog, I'll be pairing these with sets of mouths and eyes to be used for whenever she's on screen, yapping away.And as if I didn't spend enough quality sedentary time at a scribbling around with pencils, I've started working on a music video for the awesome pop punk outfit Teenage Bottlerocket. I'm pretty psyched about it, I've been a fan of TBR since I saw them in Mrs. Jones' basement back in Silver Spring, MD. If you like solid catchy pop punk tune-age, check them out. By the way, that flyer above is old so don't go to the Cake Shop in 8 months and expect that line up.

She's a Dove, She's A Fucking- Robot Rights

If I'm Ever Bored And Want To Write A Musical-

-I'll know what to write.

Once I figured out the colors I felt like I had to put a title on it.


Foot Lights & Robot Rights

For Batter Or For Worse -and- Backgrounds

The Cake Farmers of America commissioned me to draw this. I thought they were joking when they said they'd give me lots of dough to do it, but guess what showed up in the mail the other day? Yep, a can of frosting.

Anyways, here's some backgrounds for the upcoming Ronin Dojo Community College DX mini saga.

Backgrounds are real tough for me, I've never been good at building stuff and somehow that translates to drawing buildings. I don't know, but if you want to see a real master of design and layout and color- check out this blog entry on 101 Dalmations. This guy has a few interesting posts about the color and layout of the Disney/PETA classic, and man, it's the real deal stuff.


Cellulite & Robot Rights

She's got bangs! And she knows how to use them!

I fixed up and inked up this possible t-shirt design I was working on. It's a ska t-shirt design. I want it to say "i still like ska" on it, because I feel like that's something people want other people to know- that they still like ska.

I tried to draw this semi-90's rude couple, but I can't decide which hair style to go with. In topical Olympic style, here are the three that would get some sort of medal.

1. long hair with head band:
2. long bangs:
3. short bangs:
For some reason, most girls prefer the design with the short bangs. I can't decide yet so I might end up using multiple designs.

I tried out shading them with dots since I'd like to silk screen it myself and I can only do one color. It took me a while to figure out how to do this, but it's pretty simple:

Make a circle of color on a really small canvas and then go to Edit>Define Pattern. And you can make a pattern to use with the paint bucket tool. I would make little white circles over a black background, they weren't as harsh as black circles on white. Since I was working in 400 DPI, my dot canvas' were ranging from 11x11 pixels - 25x25 pixels- anything below 8 was looking like like gray.

Anyways, I'm worried all these details might be too small for my silk screening skills. I don't know. I might try to just do a print them on paper or something. Anyways, here are the other runner ups:

Step right up folks-I got glasses or no glasses, long bangs with no little side thingies, I even have ones where the guy is in a hoodie with or without sunglasses.
Man, all this gray is making me tired.


Shanghai(r) Knights & Robot Rights