Today I wanted to bring attention to Eric Heinz, an amazing illustration major from Pratt Institute.  His class was assigned a “mentor” project and he chose one of my previous pieces called “The Man of Tomorrow” to influence his assignment.  Needless to say I am incredibly honored and flattered that Eric took the time to contact me about my work and process.

Its important not just as an illustrator but as any artist in general to be aware of who is influencing your work.  Every artist will be influenced by the previous generation in some way but it is necessary to maintain your own identity.  Eric did a fantastic job of taking what he liked about my piece and making it his own.  Not to be too self deprecating but I believe he produced a much more successful illustration.

I particularly enjoy the tiny robot hands lifting the mans arm up to the control panel.  Presumably that button will bring on the Cheetos tube which will be crammed directly into the mans gaping maw.  Compare this to my piece where the man can’t even be bothered to have his arm lifted for him or even maintain his facial bones.

Thanks again Eric, and keep up the good work!

Also the Comic Book Guide to the Mission gallery show is going on at Mission Comics until April, 29th.  If you live or are visiting the Bay Area head on over and check it out!

Page 5: For those who read the original comic you might notice a few of the same gags here.  Specifically the furious Bonsai Tree!  That little bugger might become a spin-off later, who knows.

That wraps up Happy Earth Day for now.  WonderCon was pretty great this year, I was at “The Comic Book Guide to the Mission” table with creator Lauren Davis and her partner Bill Heil.  They were both amazing people and I wish them all the luck in the world in getting their comic anthology out there.  You can pick up your own copy at Skodaman.com or even Amazon!

Thats it for now!

I was particularly excited about this first piece.  Its actually an actor playing a character, playing another character.

For those of you who haven’t seen Parks and Recreations (which you should, immediately before you finish reading this post) this is a character named Ron Swanson who is played by Nick Offerman.  I would say Nick Offerman could play the Flash, but I would really just like him to act like Ron Swanson.  So in this particular scenario we’ll just say that Ron Swanson somehow gets the same powers as The Flash.  This is in a similar format to Bill Murray Spider-Man to add consistency to the project as i ease in to it.  In the future i’ll bump it up a notch with the composition and pose.

Also I will be taking requests for those of you who have a particularly inspired actor/super-hero pairing.

More Later!

In the mean time, enjoy this sketch of Battle Cat from He-Man i drew a little while ago.

Just imagine he is an awesome green with yellow stripes!

So that’s it for today folks, more posts are on their way, just hang tight.

Thanks for coming.

Unfortunately I could not include text with my pages, since the script was written by another individual, and I didn’t have the rights to it.  So if you want to know what the story is about you’ll just have to purchase the book!

Hopefully I won’t get into trouble for leaving the title in, I just feel like a little bit of text needs to stay.

There it is! For this comic I used all nib pens dipped in ink wells, instead of the brush work you have seen in my previous posts.  If I were to do it all over again I would most likely use brushes through the entire comic.  I love using pens but I always feel like i’m rushing  through the artwork.  Brushes force me to slow down and really attempt to get every stroke absolutely perfect.

These pages were a lot of fun, and the research was equally as fun.  I look forward to working on similar projects in the future.  Well that’s it for today folks!

Since seeing Casablanca years ago my friend Dave and I have been obsessed with Ingrid Bergman.  After he saw the Bill Murray Spider Man below he proclaimed that there was only one person he would ever draw portraits of (if he could draw).  Well as the only one of the two of us who can pull off a decent likeness, this one is for you buddy.

Since one Ingrid Bergman is never enough I went ahead and sketched her up on another page (or page and a half).

Ingrid Bergman, damn your seductive Swedish smoking!

That’s it for now, thanks for coming.

I seem to have odd dreams every night that Brynn finds interesting.  The other night I had a dream I was Bill Murray.  Though he is an impressive man in his own right, in this particular dream I was also Spider man.  Bill Murray as Spider man, seems like the perfect combination when i think about it (maybe in a Wes Anderson directed movie).   So I went ahead and drew something up in my sketch book and added a bit of color.  So without further delay!

Also sometimes I say odd things during the course of the day and Brynn requests that I draw them for her.  For some reason I said the word Drunkopotamus at some point the other day and she wanted a visual.

Also here are some fish.

who doesn’t love fish?!  I’ll be posting a few other things this week that are unrelated to Monday craziness.

This is a character line up for my upcoming comic The Tunnels.

Here is the line work for the same piece, before the flat color is applied.  This is the start of a fantasy i’m creating and will have more of at APE this year.