Ergonomics

Can anyone we know provide an ergonomic evaluation of my home workspace?

I just returned from two weeks away from my computer, and my sore, tight arms loosened and relaxed. Within an hour of working at home, my arms began their familiar ache.

I've got an adjustable keyboard support. When I draw on the Wacom, I move the keyboard and position the tablet in front of me. But that's two different angles - and obviously neither one is right for me. I can't figure this stuff out from online diagrams.

Help!

Sneak Peek-Comic Anthology

Here is the first page for the 10 page story I am doing for our 12-Way with Cheese comic anthology. It is very different from what I usually do. I have had this story idea for years but the art approach did not work because it was not cartoony enough. I scrapped all of my initial concept art and redesigned all the characters.

Below is a worksheet for the characters. They are literally "star shaped" people. I will post more pages as I finish.

Some Work

This may be a little redundant for those who attend the lunches or check my blog but for those who have not and those who have been asking for a post, here you go.

Here's:
• a comic/graphic novel Cover for a Kolchak: Monsters Among Us should be out next month I think
• an inked sketch of Uncle Creepy
• some sketch Cards I did for Moonstone probably floating around on Ebay somewhere except for the Kolchak
• and finally here's an in progress of Hammer's Christopher Lee as Dracula

Jerry Dowling: Rollie and Appearances

Here is some more work from the series of books Jerry is working on. These are for book two but there will be fourteen in the Rollie's Follies series.

Look for it to be out in February.

Also, come to Joseph Beth on January 12th. Jerry will be signing his book about drawing the Bengals at 7PM.

Famous Artist Course

In case you all didn't already see this posted anywhere, please visit Daniel Caylor's blog "On Animation" and see his post of the complete Famous Artist Course booklets. If you're not familiar, it's an artists course from the '60s , founded by Al Dorne and Normal Rockwell. It's 24 lesson booklets, downloadable as free PDFs of great, classic, illustration techniques and tips. It covers everything from the basics and artist materials, to composition, form and painting techniques. I haven't read them all, but for anyone who still considers themselves a student, they're sure to be a fascinating read! And we can all probably pick up a gem or two from lessons created in part by Norman Rockwell and Al Dorne!

Get 'em while they're hot!

Oliver

Giraffe

This watercolor piece was commissioned to be simply hung on a wall —a real rarity for me. The only stipulation was that it should feature a giraffe, so I snuck the little fella in the background (that's him behind the goose).

BIG BLUE BOX

I'm sure alot of you were wondering at the Christmas party what in fact was in that Giant Blue Box of Doom.
Holy Hot Pants Batman! I was expecting a garden gnome or used pair of boxer shorts so when I opened Big Blue with my wife
and family today I was blow away by my Mr Collins swag extravaganza! In fact I have to get back because they are yelling at me to come back down for dessert but I just wanted to say you DA MAN DARYLL! There is no way even if I had the time I could tell you all the things in the box with such nicknacks as a Ford Mirror/Brush and Baseball snow globe mouse but here are some picks of my Booty. The highlights for me were: two D. Collins originals, a snotty Christmas card, Ren and Stimpy Comic, Zombie covers Book as well as a Prince of Persia Graphic novel-SCORE! So to all you that passed it up--- SUCKERS-- to Daryll a huge thank you and to all the other good little illustrators on Christmas eve.... God Bless all of us all, Everyone!

Aak! More Christmas Cards!

I rarely make time to produce illustrated Christmas Cards for myself, but I've done them for others in the past. Here are two I created for The Merten Printing Company way back in the mid-nineties.

The accordian-fold reindeer card was created in 1995. Jim Borgman had been designing Merten's cards in years prior, and I really felt the pressure. Knowing I couldn't compete in execution, I went for a funny concept, and pulled it off as best I could. The words "Happy Holidays" were authentically created by carving potatoes and printing them on paper before scanning them. I had fun exploring every possible way of messing up a potato print and drawing the reindeer to correspond to each letterform. Note the nod to David Carson, who's fame was cresting at that time.

Two years later, I designed the elf card below, and wisely decided to go bolder with the color.

The elf was originally named Skippy the elf (after president, Skip Merten) to the apparent delight of the pressmen and production staff.

Skip had me change it to "Pixel" anyway. :-D

These were a lot of fun and I'm posting them as a tribute to Skip, who continually gives and gives and gives to this city and has taught me more about printing than any teacher or mentor ever could.

Cheers!

2009 Christmas Cards... As Promised

To start off, it was great to see so many of you at the Christmas party last night. What a great turn-out! The only bad thing about it is that I really didn't get to talk to as many people as I would have liked. Ryan Ostrander, his wife and new baby were sitting right behind me and I didn't realise it until they were getting ready to leave! I did get a chance to meet Linda and Al's baby girl and to talk to Ursula Roma, who I've not visited with in years. Proud to be a part of such a talented and great group! Hat's off to Christina for setting up the party!

Now on to the business at hand... As promised here are my two Christmas cards for this year...

Here is the one sent to older relatives, families with young children, etc.

And now the"other"...

Red Dwarf Redux

A variant on the last piece with rings and moon.

A new planet discovered orbiting the red dwarf GJ 1214

Based on a piece by David Aguilar (CfA) published on Sky and Telescope's web site. This shows the planet transiting the red dwarf which it orbits. My version was created in 3DS Max except for the planet texture which was done in PhotoShop. Otherwise all of the other textures are procedurals which makes for very fast renders.

Bugs From A to Z

I finished all the bugs and put them together in a poster. In my "not looking ahead" brain, I never planned to put them all together, so some groups are heavy in one color range, still, it's done. I'm happy. What more do you need...