Banana Splits

One of my first tasks when I started working at Funny Garbage was to create 3/4 back views of the Banana Splits characters that were designed by the great Chip Wass. Really, I drew as little as possible. Chip had already created the front, front 3/4, profile and back views. It was mostly a job of cut and paste. And admiring really great vector character design.

Smart Community

Another example of being too smart for my own good. The kids were supposed to report how many of these types of stores they saw in a given period of time. The kids interpreted that as how many times they saw the specific store that was parodied in my drawing instead of the type of store. ie: they were supposed to report how many fast food places, grocery stores, coffee shops, drug stores, electronics stores, banks, etc. instead of Taco Bell, Target, Wal-Mart, etc. I eventually had to dumb this drawing down to really generic terms, which made it lots less fun to look at.

Smart Chart

These are some comps I did way back when for a project called "Start SMART." SMART stood for Students Making Advertisements to Reduce Tobacco use. Part of the program was a workbook where kids had to find existing advertisements that promised to deliver something it couldn't necessarily fulfill. A lot of the art was reviewed by kids. I sat in one of the sessions and it was a real eye opener. I'm not always the most confident when it comes to some of my art, but geez, some of these kids were dense. I figured the kids would be rolling on the floor laughing with the LIES icon..."liar, liar, pants on fire." But the response was more like, "What does a burning pair of jeans have to do with lies?" And they didn't get the star on the sidewalk with the hand prints. As well as, "I don't see what lightning has to do with power." I believe the kids were in 7th grade.

Just another reminder that as a designer/illustrator, I don't always communicate what I think I'm communicating. It's always a challenge...giving the viewer enough credit to be smart enough to figure stuff out vs. beating them over the head with the message.

I still kinda like these little graphics.

Monday Journeys

I was totally stoked to see a few Robbie Conal posters in my hood. And the orange hand grenade was nice, too. It's a nice change of pace from the NOSY/Satchmo/Beast/JDI tags everywhere.

Devo

Devo is suing McDonald's. The toy looks kinda cool. Too bad it's got that horrible American Idol logo on it. I hope Devo wins the lawsuit.

Autoneurophobia

I'm still compiling and weeding through work to go into my book, which is a portfolio of sorts. Today I started working on the cover. This is the first draft. Maybe the final. Who knows? So far, the book is clocking in at around 200 pages.

Self Portrait

Another gem from my DC days.

Winners

Another forgotten nugget from my DC days. As much as I hated it, I did have some productive years there. This was one of the annual company posters with all the Winners of various company awards from the previous year. With the addition of monkey heads. In the 3 years I was there, I never won anything, not even the Creativity Award. People at the company didn't have much of a sense of humor and the monkeys didn't stay up long long.

All Eyes on the Big KaPow!

Candy Corn

Preliminary art for candy corn emoticons. It's Halloween in June.

Up Around the Corner

Zombie Game Art

Some art from a zombie game that never got completed...

Rotten Apple

Stalker

I did this for a coworker who jokingly said she wants a stalker.

Treasure, Traps & Mishaps

The fun keeps on coming tonight. I found this game I worked on years ago online. It's been updated a bit since it left my hands.

Planet Tic

I'm finding all kinds of stuff tonight (as well as finding out that I'm missing loads of stuff, too.) The above is a screen saver kids can download from Planet Tic, a web site for kids with Tourette Syndrome. Somewhere along the line I thought it got killed, apparently not.

Organ Trail

Ha ha. I'm compiling work for a book I'm putting together with all my work from the past 10 years. I was trying to remember what government agency(s) I did work for during my stint in DC. I ran across this clip while looking up The Organ Trail. I did all the art for the board game and came up with most of the Body Bandits. Stephen Karp and Waymon Harrold did all the 3D animation and DVD stuff.

Mazine Samples

Some quick snapshots of the Savage Monsters shirts Mazine produced...

Things I Saw On My Journey To The Post Office

Blech & Bleu!

The Blech & Bleu winks I did for Kiwee are finally live. I did the character designs, storyboards and cowrote the spots with Dan Reiss. Chris Kennett did an amazing job with the final animation...and posted links before I did, so I just swiped his thumbnails and links. Thanks, Chris!

Click the images to view each animation.

WTF Lamp

Homeless Hut...Gone Again!

Looks like the homeless guy has moved again.

Happy Halloween!

I continue to mess around with sticker designs. Like the rest of my life, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do.

And....John Coulter's take on my design...

New Homeless Hut

The new Homeless Hut continues to evolve. I haven't seen the guy since Sunday, though.

Stuff in the Mail

When I got back from NYC, my test print of This Is You! was waiting for me. I need to make some adjustments to it before it's ready to be unleashed on the world.

And...I had a big box from Mazine waiting for me. Filled with samples of the shirts and hats with my designs on them. It's always cool to see my work out there in the world like that.

Inferno

So...here I sit, listening to INFERNO by Motorhead. I've been back from NYC for a few days now. It was a great trip. And a heavy trip. I had a great time and got to see lots of friends. I got good, constructive criticism on my work.

And I also received news that one of my coworkers who was previously diagnosed with cancer has been given 2 weeks to 2 months to live. She's back in Ohio. We were never really close, but we shared the same dark sense of humor. She's a great, funny person. And it weighs heavily on me that she could soon be gone.

Just another reminder to live like there's no tomorrow and make all your dreams come true. Or something. Of course, if that's the case, why am I sitting in front of a computer right now?

The New Homeless Hut is Being Erected

I saw the guy lounging in it yesterday afternoon. This morning the mysterious blue Volvo station wagon was parked next to it.

Back From NYC

I'm back from NYC. And it looks like my homeless pal may be back, too. There's a few pieces of cardboard where the Homeless Hut used to be. Looks like the foundations are being laid for another one.

More NYC...

Hastings-On-Hudson

NYC