Ever Lasts Forever.

I miss having music titles for my blog - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock

Here's a little freelance work I did for a local company. Pretty rad gig, and it was a lot of fun. I did three different backgrounds and I think they all came out quite well! Plus the client was happy so nothing wrong with that! I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season.

peace
zak

TShirt Designs at Threadless

SO, you hopefully know the drill by now! I've submitted TWO designs into Threadless and YOU can vote on it to make it a reality! So click the links below, hit a five and click on the notify me box on the right... I will love you forever if you do! And don't be shy, let me know what you think! 


And here is the full design. Clicken to Embiggen.

Here's the second one!

Space Splatter

Another violent space girl picture. I'm thinking of collecting all of these into a Cowgirls and Spacegirls illustration booklet.

Arthas The Lich King

Black and White with ink wash commission of The Lich King from the World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3 series. Easily one of WOW's best villains.

Some "In the Land of Lunatics" Pages

I've been working on a book pitch with the awesome Shane Houghton of Reed Gunther fame for the past month and I thought I would show you guys some of the promo material I have going into it! These are a few random pages and  a promo image/future cover. I think you'll dig it when we get to release it!

So yeah I've been a busy bee! There's quite a few more pages but... well... spoilers as River likes to say! 

God bless,

Zak

Working on a book...

So just a quick update.... I've been incognito because I'm working on a book. A secret sexy book. But anyways here's a little preview. More to come soon!





Hope everyone is well!
Zak

Coloring a Balrog

So after a bit of time my colors of the Lord of the Rings illustrations I was hired to do have been approved and as I finish them out I'll be posting them here. I'll be posting both b&w and color versions so you can see how it all went down.


Smote His Ruin Colors by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


Smote his Ruin by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

Remembering the Macho Man

Macho Man Randy Savage by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

No music cue for this entry. I just thought I would reminisce a little about one of my favorite wrestlers of all time; The Macho Man Randy Savage aka Randy Poffo. He passed away from a heart attack last Friday & thinking back on it all this week I can definitely say I lost a big part of my childhood. I just wanted to draw something that would give an adequate homage to one of my favorites. I did the color as just his famous pink that he'd wear to the ring. Almost did the whites in the yellow he wore with it but decided against it.

For as long as I can remember I've loved wrestling. I've had my years of drifting in and out of it but I always remember Savage's era fondly as watching it with my Dad and brother. Then getting worked up and wrestling with Dad in the living room or on the bed. Much to Mom's chagrin. I was 6 years old when the first Wrestlemania happened and the same age when Randy debuted in the WWF. I'm trying to pick out all the stuff I concretely remember because I also have a lot of nerdy stuff like GI Joe, Transformers and Voltron clogging up those memories.

It's funny, with my Dad we always watched WWF. And when I went down to visit my uncles in Lubbock we always watched NWA. I got more figure four leg locks there than I care to remember!

But getting back to Randy I just really remember him standing out sooooo well. Throughout his entire career the man stood out. But especially in the 80s. That insane voice. How he opened so many promos with his back to the camera. The weird color choices that no other wrestler would run with (well aside from Flair and maybe Valentine. Oh and Rick Martell... maybe). Plus I just remember Savage being quick! In the era of the big, lumbering slow men Randy brought the speed. And of course Ms. Elizabeth. Oh manzies... it was so insane that he had a female manager. I loved that they built up to her with all the male managers courting Randy. That was just an awesome angle! Just the intensity... so amazing, slightly making no sense but amazing intensity. Time distortion anyone?

What I think really made me actually bummed out & sad about all of this is the fact that Savage was so engrained in my childhood. I mean, these days you just get numb to the fact that wrestlers die way too often. I don't even want to think about how many of these guys have died due to substance abuse - mainly from issues stemming from back pain. Falling on your back often most days of the year no matter if there is a mat or not is going to make your back hurt a lot. I know, I've seen it - especially when we used to run Fusion here in Colorado. You'd see how guys would walk after that adrenaline wears off. So sadly you kind of get used to it. But with Randy it's different... I was just reading how his brother was saying that he was happy, newly remarried and how he'd never return to the ring again. But man was I ever hoping to see him one last time at a Hall of Fame induction or something along those lines. So hearing that he's happy and living his own life after this amazing career... it's kinda just nice to hear about something finally ending nicely for a wrestler.

But no one really walks off into the sunset, and life is tough like that. But what I can say is that I was always entertained by Randy and will continue to. The day I heard he died I came home and watched hours of videos of his on YouTube and his WWE dvd. It was great then, and it's still great today. He's had amazing runs with virtually all of my favorite wrestlers and I can faithfully say that I was entertained by every one of those feuds. Especially the big Flair feud. And the amazing Michaels match that followed after the Wrestlemania finish. I could go on and on, but I think I'll let what I've said above be the extent of it.

Heartbreaking.

R.I.P. Macho Man Randy Savage and thank you. Check out the WWE video below if you haven't seen it and you'll know what I mean.

We're Gonna Burn This City!

I thought a little Franz Ferdinand was only appropriate for this post. I come to you this week with a four page short story I did for my boy Dave Hendrick for an anthology comic he'll have printed up for your lovely consumption at Heroes Con weekend after this one! I was really super stoked and flattered that he asked me to put my work in on one of his stories. And I'm especially excited that it involved carnage in the form of SPACE BUGS! Man, I love drawing two things... shit from space and robots from the future.

Also The Macho Man Randy Savage (R.I.P. Macho!)

SO without any more rambling here are my four pages. Get ready for carnage! Glorious glorious carnage!!


The Look PG 1 by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

1st page... The only page I took a more subtle tone to. I wanted it to stand a part from the other three.


The Look PG 2 by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


The Look PG 3 by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


The Look PG 4 by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


Mmmmm... love those blood splatters! I found some pretty amazing zipatone splatter brushes and I was pretty stoked for that. I think using that with my toned down colors really made the reds pop! And therefore making the carnage oh so much more awesome! What can I say? I love the gore... I like that a lot of people don't expect it when they see a style like mine and I find that super awesome. When Dave first saw the alien taking out one guy's jaw he said "WOW! You weren't kidding when you said you were going all out with the gore!" hahaha nope! Rock n' roll baby!!

What can I say? This was a lot of fun & I really hope to do more in the future. But for now I'm finally going to be able to focus on my webcomic, Tokens Only. You'll be seeing a lot more of that in the next couple of months!

Hope all is well & God Bless!
Zak

Get yourself to bed, blow out that cherry bomb!

I could listen to Spoon's You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb all night tonight.

Music always makes my mind swim. I love drawing to it, and I thought I'd do more sketchbook crap to post. Kept this to the entirety of the above song, and I love being scribbly. I loves the motion, you see.

Anyways, I got nothing else. Just wanted to say I love Spoon and drawing way too much.
God bless
zak

I Wonder If She Fancies Me, Yeah.

At The Indie Disco! That's my song lyric/ blog title of the night for ya... nothing wrong with a little brit pop from one of my favorites; The Divine Comedy. Always love Neil's songs, oh yes.


No City Page 9 by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

So there's that! It's a page from NO CITY that I was hired on to draw late last year. I got the ok to post one page since, ya know, it's yet to be published. I believe the book will be published by October of this year. Radical! There's no colors to this even though I did color it. I honestly hate putting out anything older than, well, a few minutes really but I wanted to put up some actual comic work. Man I love comics!

Um, so in other news I have decided to hook up with Hire an Illustrator! to help promote my work. And it's  been working pretty well so far! I don't think I have to tell a lot of you that self promotion on top of doing the work and a full time job is a relentless onslaught. I've been working myself to the bone so I decided to finally get a helping hand. So hopefully this will lead to more time drawing and drinking beer on patios. More so the latter if I have my way! Oh beer, I do love you. Uh... yeah so you can see My Page and if you'd be so kind as to click like I'd love you forever.

Trust!
God keep ya
Zak

When I live in the newer places I'll make sure I'm further from you.

As always, starting off with a song lyric for the title. Toro Y Moi - Minors I got to see them at the end of last year. Awesome band... fitting mood music for how I'm feeling these days. Give'em a listen.

So I don't often post sketches... I dunno, my sketchbook is kind of my own personal idiot mess. And no, it's not full of naked women and creepy things... Just a place for ten ideas that I like and a hundred thousand more that I don't. Plus I go there when I'm mad or sad and no one wants to see sad bastard art. Cause really, there's enough of that bullshit in galleries out there.

Anyways, personal sketchbook rant aside, when I went to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco I had a little change in heart about my sketchbook material being public. To me it's super cool to see people who I consider my betters to be throwing their unstructured work out there. The original sketches for Mickey Mouse and the Snow White movie are amazing to see up close. So maybe I can update this more, and when I don't feel like they suck - post some sketches. I said earlier this year that any good artist is full of self loathing, and my sketchbook is a lot of that. But what the hell, people have asked me before so here ya go. I didn't doctor or clean anything up so this is just raw crap from the book.

I've been watching the new Avenger cartoon, and I gotta say it's pretty cool. I may come back to this idea later, but you get the idea. It's the Bruce Banner / Hulk thing. I really like Edward Norton Banner so that's what he looks like. And hopefully not Hulk giving him an awkward poke... I really don't do a lot of superhero stuff because I've lost a lot of love for that genre. I just want to be able to do my own stories, but this show is great & it's brought back a little bit of that love. Plus the style is akin to my own so that's quite nice indeed. 

The next couple of sketches are redesigns of my Tokens Only characters. Still sorta messing around with his hair. 

I was trying something new with the main character while still trying to keep the John Cusack look to him. He kinda looks too smug for the style I've laid out for the character. But I kinda do like the hair. Mmmmmmm 80s Mullet. 

I'm definitely finishing this one up! I LOVE Akira... and I've always wanted to do an Akira piece. If you've never seen the movie or read the books you're an idiot. Just kidding, I love you, but do see the movie. It's, well, weird but still awesome. Our buddy Tetsuo here is one of the main characters. Not sure if I like how his big robo arm blob is coming along tho. 

The next couple of images are all Star Wars : The Clone Wars style. I'm a little obsessed with the show and I put my portfolio in with LucasArts recently cause I would kill to work on this show. 

LUKE. He looks a little like the Anakin from the Clone Wars... but I think they should totally do a post JEDI series about the continuing adventures of Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia. Because honestly Clone Wars is pretty damn good...  way better than the prequel movies IMO. His proportions are a little wonky... I was focusing more on the style. 

Another Luke Skywalker. I wanted to make him more individual and well I fell on my fat face doing it. He looks a little too femme here. But I like his pissed off Return of the Jedi look the best. 

And if I get my way there will be a Sam Elliot : Western Jedi. Yes that is the Great State of Texas on his Lightsaber, why do you ask? Tell me this wouldn't be badass!? "Draw yer saber, ya sumbitch!"

And now we get to my favorite part of what I need to work on. Women. I am pretty particular about the women I draw. I don't like fan service (dem big ol' titays) because honestly there's enough horned up dudes drawing crazy huge boobs for other horned up dudes. And I guess I'm just numb to it really. Gerhard and I were talking about this tonight... I just think -personally- women are more attractive how I manage to see them day to day, and I tend to take notice of more subtle things. I know that sounds arrogant as hell, but I'm alright with it. So with that in mind here are some of the lady sketches I've actually liked lately. 

I will admit I like the hair in the face thing a lot. The uneven look is not only fun to draw but literally makes my willpower go to 0% ... I've also been working more with the eyes... I'll admit it, eyes are what grab me. 

I was more so messing around with the hands on this one. She kinda has that Mary Jane from the Spider-Man books thing down. Lips when people smile drive me a little nuts. I dunno why... but for some reason I like to save that for special occasions. 

I caught this girl in a quick sketch at a cafe last week eyeing some dude. I like catching moments like that. And PROTIP: when you're out and about drawing people a) have another sketch ready to cover it up b/c some people do NOT like being drawn haha and b) because of that you get usually just one glance to get the sketch down. It's a fun challenge and keeps your work loose. 

And this is a sketch of a lifetime of one of my Tokens characters. I need to start drawing different noses too... I'm getting a little too similar in this sketchbook... anyhoo... I hate two out of the five sketches here.  But for weird little reasons. I hate her chin in the last one, and the second one has a way too typical 'hawk for a punker gal. I wanna make her a little more original. But I think I got the early 30s female look alright in the last one. 

So there's some sketches for you. I really can't believe you read all of it, so if you did I owe you a dum dum lollipop. Man, I love the mystery ones! 

Anyway, I need to go do that sleep thing. Hope you're all well!

God keep ya.

Zak

You saw that only my blood lust could tear us apart.

Electric Six - Watching Evil Empires Fall Apart
This might be one of my favorite Electric Six songs. I had been listening to them for two months before Nick and I saw them live. And ever since they're on a majority of the time... this is one of their rare, well, semi-serious songs. Usually it's all about nuclear war on the dance floor! See For Yourself! It sure beats listening to Skeletor McHorseface... I mean, Lady Gaga.

Uh, so anyways...

Awhile back I was asked to do a pinup for Moon Girl which you can read about here. It's a pretty fresh little comic book limited series and it's only available online from Comixology & Red 5 comics.


Moon Girl by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

It's been a little while since I did any superhero style comic work, but this is more so 50s crusader stuff so I'm pretty happy how it turned out. She kinda reminds me of The Rocketeer so that was cool. I kept it to three colors. The cream for the highlights works pretty well with blue. Blue's my favorite color and I kinda use it way lots. I actually almost went with light shades of pink, but I didn't want it to come off as girlie girl. The character is a strong female lead, not a Disney Princess. And don't get all salty at me with that comment... they're just two different styles. Both have their merits.

I zipped the blues in the background to create a sense of space and add a little texture. I do love me my zipatone brush in photoshop. Speaking of, photoshop was being a supreme pain in the ass on this one. I used a new brush with a dissolve setting for the colors on the figure and ladder. I literally had to save every couple of minutes because it kept crashing photoshop. >:( I probably need to upgrade to a not so old version of it I guess.

Regardless I'm happy with how it came out. I spent my Easter afternoon finishing her off and it's been raining all day so it's been a good day. Love the rain. I also got to see my Mom for Easter since I spent all of a whole week with Pops in San Francisco. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and talked a lot about conspiracy theories. Haha I love talking about crazy stuff with my mom. She's the best!

Anyways, I hope your Easter was nice and that life is good.
God Keep Ya.
Zak

No Games, No Drama!

Look, I'm gonna be straight up and just say this post is gonna be mad offensive. So family, friends, impressionable children (really?) just be warned before you roll down this alleyway.

Ok, disclaimer over, let's get to the damn goods! I was hired by the gentlemen that have brought me literally to tears laughing when I listen to their podcast to make some images for their live show in Los Angeles last week. This was kind of a huge honor for me as they're just so on point. Their show is now being produced by some pretty high up big wigs... I don't wanna jinx their jam but it was the biggest thing I've ever been involved in! The podcast is called Uhh Yeah Dude and you should really get on it! It's hilarious... here's a clip:



Ok, so going from there I did 6 out of 18 bumpers for their show. Like I said I was super flattered and these are those bumpers which are like title cards for the segments of their show.



What's Ailing Seth by ~spicypeanut on deviantART



Who is Parenting Harder by ~spicypeanut on deviantART



Monsterweb by ~spicypeanut on deviantART



Jah and his Poetry by ~spicypeanut on deviantART



This Week in Florida by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


I swear, I'm not exaggerating ANYTHING that happened in Florida.



Things Dudes Say Whilst Boning by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


Yeah dudes really have been caught saying these things... 


I really would go into describing these... but I think they speak for themselves. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and how they were received. As always you can click on the images to see larger versions AND read my comments on each one. The only thing I really wanted to say about them is that I've taken a lot of people's advice and muted my color palette. I went back to classic children's book illustration (haha I know, kind of ironic considering the subject matter) and just kinda had fun with it all. 


Anyways, yes offensive images galore but I had fun (even on quick turn around) and I hope to do more with these guys. Their podcast is definitely worth it so give it a listen!


I also just got back from San Francisco, and man I had a blast! I took some much needed time off from, well, everything. I went out with my pops cause I really don't get to see him all that much and we had a pretty awesome time out there. I got stop by both Lucasfilm and Pixar while I was out there and that was fantastic! Loved both places out there, and will definitely be pursuing both of those venues. I'll leave you with one bit of advice if you're in SF soon - go to the Walt Disney Family Museum. It's an AMAZING museum and they have the very first sketches of Mickey Mouse housed there. They also have work from two of my favorite Disney Artsits : Mary Blair and Gustaf Tenggren - seeing their original work was staggering and inspiring. Amaaaaazing work! So seriously, go check that place out if you're out there. Then you can walk to Lucasfilm (!) and go see the Yoda Fountain. Nerdy goodness ;) 


That's all I got right now!
Much love
zak

Tokens Only aka I Could Be Happy On My Own

Franz Ferdinand - Live Alone

I'll be talking a little bit about my comic, Tokens Only, today. It's something I've wanted to get back into for awhile, and I wanted to give a little explanation on it's hiatus.


Tokens Only Strikes Back by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

So here you can see the new promo image from the series. High contrast, muted tones, it's what my art is morphing into. It's weird when you steer your work into new territory. It's actually frightening to venture into unknown places with yourself, and get amazingly overwhelming responses from it. I've been getting a lot of thumbs up approvals from peers and editors. And more work as well & that's the important part. But I've been feeling I wanted a change in my art for awhile, and while it was a little scary to take that dip into the deep end, I'm glad I did. Risk is a good thing kids. Take your chances.

A couple of things: When I started Tokens Only I originally wanted to write something that was akin to Scrubs. I'm not gonna lie, it's my favorite sitcom. It hits all my nerd and emotional buttons in one fell swoop, and it made for a lot of comfort nights when I was going through some rough shit. I still watch the seasons when I get depressed over something. It's literally my comfort food. But the more and more I watch it I realize that while I love it, I want my own book to be it's own thing. I am very much a guy who has gone his own way in life, and I want my work to reflect that. Just look at my work - I could easily conform to making superhero stuff (which is totally fine, I still love me some Batman!) but it's just not me. And that's all I know how to be. But enough wearing my heart on my sleeve...

So I got a great book from my pal Zach called Story and it's helped my writing tremendously. We sat down with the story and he walked me through the story points I had. One of the greatest compliments I've received from him is that I'm a naturally gifted storyteller... man that's awesome! So anyways, when we took these story points down I started to realize I wanted to go deeper and add elements of classic literature character development to my story. While broad comedy with good character development is a great approach (Scrubs) I find myself wanting more.

Tokens Only will still be a Webcomic and free online. The goal will always be for it to be a finite story, and collected into book format though. I have other stories I want to tell, but this is the one I wanted to do first. It's closest to my heart right now. I also will be veering away from traditional webcomic traditions. I'll be on a consistent schedule when work allows, but it's going to be a long form comic. Not in strip form or short arc format. Much love to my webcomic brothers and sisters out there, but the story I wanna tell just doesn't fit into the typical webcomic mold.

A lot of that is what has led to the hiatus. I did have all intentions of launching and updating consistently after NYCC last year but the opportunities I got from that convention were too good to pass up. In that time I've done work for Threadless, Lord of the Rings, Uhh Yeah Dude, 3 independent comic anthologies and I'm working on a short story with my pal Dave Hendrick. But what it really came down to was that I got into a story that wasn't feeling quite right and even though I wrote it out before hand I wasn't happy with it. I refuse to churn out crap just to be productive. Like I've said before... Tokens Only is my heart comic. It's me talking about life through my characters & a lot of my experiences are in this book. I'm not one to really wear my heart on my sleeve all that much, so it's been a challenge but it's what I want to do.

So that's what it is. My goal is to have the book back and going by June and I'm excited to be working on this again finally.

God keep ya,
Zak

I Wish Things Had Started Before They Finished.

This lyric is from Good Shoes - Wait. They're really everything I want from a band... light pop/punk music with really dark lyrics. It's beautiful, but kinda fucked up ya know? More and more people have been describing my artwork like that... and I LOVE it! What a great compliment! Anyways, give the song a listen: Good Shoes : Wait

Anyways, here's the next Lord of the Rings piece.

This is from the Second movie/ book where Gandalf smotes the ruin of the Balrog on the mountainside. There is a distinct lack of the word "smote" in most things this day. Use it next time you watch a UFC event! But did you know that the Balrog here in particular was the last of it's kind? Yep. I read the Silmarillion and while it was dryer than 20 crackers at once... it was interesting to get some Middle Earth history. Yeah, so I do love me some Tolkien.


Smote his Ruin by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

Anyways, Inks and inkwash. I'm going to use some very subtle colors on this one. Which is going to be hard but I really want to get across that they're in the snow and even the fire in these scenes was muted.


So wish me luck!
Zak

While you try to find the lines to speak your mind...

Continuing my string of angry/miserable musicians streak, this is from a Fiona Apple song.

So anyways, I've been hired on to do Lord of the Rings illustrations as of late. They're progressing well and I got back in touch with an old love of mine : inkwash. Oh man, how great is that stuff?! Seriously, I love it, and coloring over it has given me more freedom to make textures with the pieces I make. Nothing wrong with that. The art director I have seriously likes the work I'm doing and hopefully that'll mean more work from them in the future. So here's the first piece... 

Great they have a Cave Troll by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

This is a scene from "The Fellowship of the Ring." In probably the second best scene of the movie a cave troll bursts into The Chamber of Mazarbul which is in the Mines of Moria. Yeah, Tolkien wrote some crazy stuff right? The title of the piece is one of Boromir's best lines in the movie version. So here you have the troll wrecking shit like no one's business and chasing Frodo there. Boromir and Legolas are doing their best to help out. Putting the entire fellowship and the billions of goblins/orcs in there would have made my brain explode. So I concentrated on one hot minute and went with it. 

I used a lot of white to really weigh in the impact of the big f'n mace the Troll carries. The inkwash helped with the strong light, and the contrast of the characters and the white hopefully stands out well. 

Getting this gig came at a pretty fortunate time because it's kept my mind off of a lot of things. A friend of mine, Dwayne McDuffie passed away on February 21st & he was really the guy who convinced me to go my own way to get into the art industry. He once told me in San Diego that he could tell my heart wasn't into all the superhero stories, but that it also wasn't into the slice of life scene either. He said I have too much fun drawing monsters, aliens and the goofy stuff you see on here. He then told me that I didn't have to bend to the ways of our industry and I could tell my own stories if I really really want it. I never even said a word during all of this - he was just a smart guy and we formed a friendship over the years of me coming to San Diego. So it really sucks losing someone super awesome like that. 

And literally right before he died something I was pretty excited about fell apart right out of nowhere. I'm still super confused about it and really don't have any idea what to do about it. The less said, the better... it just really sucks that this & Dwayne passing happened at the same time. That was a rough rough weekend for me. 

Finally someone came back into my life... well tried to at least, and as hard as it was I had to keep that door shut. I really can't deal with this person being around me. Too much to ask.

So when they say everything hits at once, they're damn well telling you the truth. Good & bad.

But I'm fortunate enough to have great friends to get my back. Steering this back to the art blog, I was out with my buddy Zach Howard on Friday night. Over way too many beers we got into a long talk about being good artists. All good artists hate themselves and their work. It sounds absolutely insane from someone's point of view that's not an artist - because when you see us create in a way it's like a magic show. We make something out of nothing. But all we see are faults & mistakes. Mind you, there's a great amount of confidence in the work I do. I know I don't suck and I'm on the right road. But when you sit there & look at what you're doing you always see improvement to be made. And it screws with your head. You can be super confident and still hate yourself. 

Trust me I've screwed up more than I like to think about. Blown a lot of good opportunities ya know? But being resentful and hating yourself isn't the awful depressing state that it sounds like. The idea is to take that hate for yourself and turn it into productivity. Like, I hate that I draw lines so unevenly - I suck super bad at it & I really hate that I'm super bad at it! So what do I work on? Line quality. Anyways, we just sat around for hours drinking and talking about how self loathing brings out the best in artists. I guess I'm a little more inclined towards that line of thinking right now, but I don't really think it's a bad thing. It was a really motivating discussion & really something I haven't seen eye to eye on with a lot of people. Gerhard and I have talked about being our most productive when we're depressed but I've never talked about how hating myself has always motivated me to do better. Zach and I see eye to eye on that & it was good getting it out. I know it sounds really weird, but it's really the truth of it all. I've been training with him to get into better shape because I hate my body. And always will. I've been becoming a better artist because I hate my art and I want it to be better. But that's the sign of a good artist, so there ya go.

This is a long rant, but a lot has happened to me and my blog has to be good for something. 

I hope you're doing well.

Zak

Pioneer to the Falls

I have been on a serious Interpol kick lately. Don't worry - I'm not going to kill myself or anything. I just seem to want to work a lot harder and get much better when I listen to them while I draw. It's kind of one of those things - their subtlety and sense of foreboding gets me into a mood to really knock it out of the park. So that's what today's stupid blog title is all about. It's the first track off of their third album.

On with it then:

I have a few dope things to show off... mostly in black & white. The first is another zombie commission. I'm planning on closing these off in the future because I'm kind of bored to death of gore & guts (!!) and I just want to move onto different things. Some dudes love drawing this shit - I like a more light hearted feel to my stuff. BUT if I'm getting paid I won't complain too much... haha so anyways they wanted their dogs in this picture as a "family unit" kind of thing. I drew the dogs as I saw them as a kid - utterly terrifying! Man I had the WORST fear of dogs when I was a kid up until, well just a few years back when I got my Basset Hound. She was a great dog... gotta get another one sometime soon. Anyways, so here you go. Dillion, Allison and their three demon dogs from the bowels of hell. For kids!


Allison and Dillon by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

The next item is a b&w version of a pinup I'm doing for a book. Awhile back I did a few pages for my buddy Richard Carbonneau's webcomic Zoroaster. I was the first artist to interpret his character "Atreus" and I grew a bit of a sentimental attachment to the big guy. Being a big guy who gets dicked over kinda sounded way too familiar... Anycrap I jumped the gun a little bit and put together a dope ass pinup for the collected edition that will be coming out... sometime. I dunno when but I wanted to make sure I got to do something for it while my schedule was open. So here he is before I color him:


Atreus Black and White by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

As always you can see bigger versions by clicking the pieces and heading over to my DeviantArt site.

That's probably it for now. I was hired over the weekend to do three Lord of the Rings illustrations for the official website so that will most likely take up the rest of my week and I'll post those as soon as I can.


I hope you're all well!
Zak

I just wanna walk away.

Most always my blog is titled from some dumb song I'm listening to at the time. This time it's "Fired" by Ben Folds. Oh oh oh oh Fired!! Great song. I used to listen to Ben Folds like a full on mad addict - his songs really described the way I felt throughout my 20s. A lot of that changed when I turned 30 and I just kind of left it behind. They weren't easy years... but it's nice to listen to him now and again. Like reading an old book you love but have out grown. I still respect his storytelling and quirkiness. Like I said, it reminds me a lot of my 20s and all the awful ex girlfriends I've had. Maybe that's why we don't kick it so much anymore.

Anyways, stupid music rant aside,  I've been finagling with how I do things in my art universe. I've decided I like black again and well... here's the result.


My Space Picture by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

I had wanted to radically change some things that have been bugging me for a long time. Mostly saturation (by that I mean how pure the color is... IE: solid red) and how it had been dominating the image. I had been using bold lines to counter act that and it had been working well. But dammit if it ain't been bothering me, and I really just wanted a change.

I have learned a lot, and worked a lot this year. So much that it's changed the way I work and do things. I've also been taking more nods from classic illustrators... like H.A. Rey and an old favorite Charles Addams. Plus working with fellow pros helps a lot, especially Zach. He's been the man...

So a quick word about the process - I used a TON of black ink. None of the black is digital - I do that because honestly it makes me feel a bit more accomplished when it's done. Ya gotta want it. The white splatter in the corner was done with ye olde toothbrush flicking technique with white ink. The only thing done digitally is the color. I used an off white - kind of a cream color and a much less saturated blue.  Space is always something I've had a love affair with. I stargaze, I watch The Universe on History Channel too much and I'd give up everything to travel into it. But space often feels cold to me, so I chose blue. The white splatter came out looking great as a reflected light source from some unseen star. I ALMOST did a bunch of white dot stars in the background but looking at it now it would have ruined the piece.

I've wanted to also bring back classic magazine illustration and I'm slowly making a little career out of it. I've made some pretty awesome deals out of it for the next year and you'll just have to wait until I can talk more about that in the future.

I've probably blathered on long enough. I just kinda miss using my blog, and I have a huge change coming to it so you won't have to read my rants in long paragraphs... more so in comic format.

God keep ya,
zak

And There You Are.

I haven't been using my personal site a whole lot because honestly I've been too busy to really get anything up and out there. Most everything I've been working on I can't show off just yet - but everything I'm doing will actually be published by year's end so there's that.

But I can keep you up to date on the things going on in the next few months: Tokens Only will be relaunching as I've decided to dedicate most of my year to that. I'll also be working on some short stories with my friend Dave Hendrick. I've also been talking with a local printer to start making my own designs into tshirts. So yeah, I've been busy and I'll stay busy it looks like.

As for things to show off, I don't have much but there are two Zombie commissions I was able to do during the holidays that I never posted up. There of two coworkers, Valerie and Courtney. Both of which I've owed a zombie shot for some time now.

So I do hope you enjoy!


Val by ~spicypeanut on deviantART


Courtney by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

I also don't think I ever posted this, but here's my bowling pin I created for the Luxe DeVil art show this past summer.


Bowwwwwwling Pin by ~spicypeanut on deviantART

As always if you want to know more about the pieces you can head over to http://spicypeanut.deviantart.com where I rant about whatever artistic process I go through. And in all honesty I do hope to start using this site more often. I am planning to start using it expressly as a sketch diary. So I can at least rant creatively and not look like one of those people who uses their social sites way too much.


Also I wanted to mention that a friend passed away this week. Clement Sauvé at the age of 33 lost his life to cancer. He was a brilliant artist, a funny guy and most importantly he was a good friend. For the short part that I knew him he was always kind and we had a very good rapport. I'm honestly saddened beyond all words - and none will ever make up for his loss - but I wanted to mention him as I type this. So raise your glass to one spectacular gentlemen we will be counting amongst absent friends from now on.

Anyways, hope everyone is well
Zak