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