CHADES CHALLENGE XLIV:
BEWARE OF FALLING ICICLES

Vi and I collaborated this week. That is to say, I stole his awesome design. Vi's design below reminded me of Donkey Kong, perched on his lofty ledge, waiting to bombard unsuspecting climbers; so I illustrated him like an 8-bit boss launching into the air for a rad ice attack.

If you have any illustrations of your own, let me know and I'll post them below. Everyone is welcome to participate! If you didn't have time this week, you can join us March 4th for:

CHADES CHALLENGE XLV:
INTERSTELLAR TYRANTS

Vi-Dieu Nguyen

Tom Soulen

Jonathan Feria

9 days...

A Doodle and an "I Do"dle

You've got to love restaurants with paper tablecloths to draw on. Before long, Hil and I had riddled the table with doodles. This is probably the only post-appropriate of the bunch.

This guy was doodled at Flora, a restaurant across the street from the Fox Theater in Oakland. If you go, you've got to have the Death in the Afternoon cocktail (not truly an afternoon-exclusive menu item at all, apparently).

We followed our dinner up with one of my favorite bands, The Decemberists. The highlight of the evening was probably when Colin Meloy revealed that their drummer is an ordained minister and asked if anyone in the audience wanted to get married.

The couple gave their vows, were announced man and wife, and The Decemberists went on to play a medley of popular wedding reception songs. It just doesn't get more Valentine's Dayish than spontaneous marriage.

12 days...

Happy Valentine's Day!

This may just be my sweetest piece of art yet. My girlfriend, Hilary, has a character she likes to draw, which I call Mick Jagger Mouse (long story). For Valentine's Day, I gave her these Mick Jagger Mouse M&Ms. They melt in your heart, not in your hands.

She gave me a way cooler gift, this wooden watch! I love anything that looks like it came from the Nature Company Store (remember those?), so this was right up my alley.

What did your loved ones give you for Valentine's Day? If you're single, what did you light on fire today?

14 days...

Quar

An illustration for my compadres at Zombiesmith.

16 days...

It's no Hollywood Blvd Star...

...frankly, it's better! I mean, who wants their name and handprint slept on by a coked-up hooker, right? New cement was being laid down here at Pixar last week, and the employees were invited to leave a permanent mark on the studio.

After debating weather to do a hand-print or a full-face plunge, I thought it only appropriate to draw Micro Rex from last December's gallery show. He may never make it into a feature film, but now he'll always have a place at Pixar!

20 days...

CHADES CHALLENGE XLIII:
WINTER WOLFMEN OF WESTEROS

If you have any wolfman designs of your own, let me know and I'll post them below. Everyone is welcome to participate! If you didn't have time this week, you can join us February 18th for Chades Challenge XLIV: "Beware of falling icicles."

Zane Yarbrough

Vi-Dieu Nguyen

Nate Villanueva

23 days...

My First Faculty Box

First day of teaching at the Academy of Art University in the city. Great group of students, I can't wait to crush their souls.

25 days...

Sketchbook Dump

Sorry for the lack of posts, guys. I'm knee-deep in animation on Cars 2, which means I don't have a lot of time outside of work to draw. Fortunately, I've found time INSIDE work to do some sketching. Lots of work means long dailies, so I started bringing my sketchbook.

The Chades Challenge (Winter Wolfmen of Westeros) will be posted next Friday. Everyone is welcome to participate. Just send me a link to your blog, and I'll post your art.

Here's the first group of random sketches. Enjoy!

Puff, the magic dragon. Everett and I came up with this b-string X-man. He's still just a student at Xavier's school, and he's a bit of a stoner.

A skrang, from Earth Dawn. This guy was actually sketched at a gaming session a while back. I just figured, while I was at the scanner....

An orc, giving advice to all those animators still at work at midnight.
Dudes freaking out. I wonder if this is a subliminal expression of crunch-time stress. Or maybe I was just hungry.

And, of course, Batman villains. Aside from dinosaurs, Batman villains are probably among my most common default villains. Especially the ugly ones.

29 days...

Dr. Eustace Plebe

My Gamma World character is quickly becoming one of my favorite to draw. He's your run-of-the-mill post-apocalyptic genetically engineered prescient super scientist whose best friend is a walking refrigerator. Needless to say, when it came time to do a birthday card for our GM, Ev, it was easy to choose which character would be popping out of the cake:

(Erick plays our robot Artech)

Ev's take on Dr. Plebe and his blobby pal, Grimm:

Last session we ran into some radiation-shooting butterflies, illustrated here by Chris Chua.

Dr. Plebe took one in the taint.

I even started working out some expressions for a model sheet in case I ever need to animate this ugly sucker.

Neutral/Sour

Surprise/Taint Burn

My gaming group, the Dandies, is filled with artists, so we're always churning character and story sketches out. You can check out the Dandies' gaming blog, Dungeons and Shenanigans, for more of our gaming art and geekdom.

"Dungeons and dragons...it's thirty minutes of fun packed into four hours."

-Victor Lane, Dandy

While I'm in total nerd-mode, I should mention that Spawn 200 comes out today. This comic was a huge influence on me as a kid. Aside from my dad and brother, both artists, Todd McFarlane was probably my earliest artistic hero.

I haven't followed Spawn for a while, but I think I'll pick this one up for old time's sake.

48 days...

Re-resolution

My New Year's resolution last year was to learn how to cook. Aside from a botched batch of chili and the occasional lumpy pancake, I didn't get that far. This year, however, I'm all over the kitchen. My girlfriend even invited me to her parents' for New Year's Eve to help them cook up some lobster.

This was our thank you card to her folks, letting them know that our little lobster pals made it safely to crustacean heaven.

If you guys have any recipe recommendations, send 'em in. If I try your dish out, I'll post the results.

50 days...
(remember to always check out the countdown links...this one's particularly good)