I get by with a little help from my friends....

Ever hear the saying "a good friend will help you move, but a really good friend will help you move a body"? Well I personally believe in that wholeheartedly. My Boys Momma (MBM)and I often discuss how I am anti-social and don't make new friends often (or at all), and she considers that a negative aspect. I on the other hand, consider the fact that I have a small cadre of amazing friends to be a HUGELY positive personality trait. If I meet new people, I often forget their name and sometimes I don't even remember if I had met them previously. I attribute this to the fact that my brain is at 110% capacity, and I often have to clear out space to retain new information. I'm a whiz at trivial pursuit and pop culture knowledge, but I can't remember the names of the parents in my kids' school, so sue me.

I have a small group of friends here in the Phoenix area that I have known for over 10 years, 1/3 of my life. They are great friends and I see them as often as I can and I enjoy hanging out with their kids and BBQ's and bar sessions and everything that it entails. I am blessed to have such great, loyal companions.

There is a smaller group though, that I consider my greatest friends, my brothers, my family, I have known since I was 13. 18 years ago I met these guys, and if a really good friend will help you move a body, then I have 3 that will commit multiple heinous felonies and help me flee the country, after burying the bodies and aiding me to exact my bloody revenge. And I would do that for them, because that's what true friendship is about. Not that I have anything liked that planned, but it's good to know that it is an option, if such an extreme situation arises.

I'm going on a short vacation this weekend to Vegas and seeing 2/3 of the trifecta, and I can't wait, I'm like a child on Christmas eve. Nothing overly amazing ever happens on these weekends, nothing to write home about, but a good time is guaranteed, and it's always nice to visit family.

I can see MBM's point about me making new friends though, if I don't learn how to be more sociable, I might never date a woman again. My apologies for the weepy eyed sentimentality, here is some art for no good reason.

Dear Diary

Friday night was the first ever meeting of the Arizona Chapter of the Drink and Draw Social Club, it was a fun time, we had about 17 people show up and I hope everyone had a good time, I know I did.



Hop on over to The AZD&D site for more pics and fun!

Also this past weekend I took 2/3's of my brood to see Surf's Up, the Sony Animation feature about surfing penguins. This movie was really, really, really, good. The way they "shot" it and animated it, f-ing brilliant, I loved the story too, although it was super predictable, but the performances the voice actors and animators put on were amazing. Go see it, if you're local to Phoenix it is showing at the budget theatres now. It actually touched that sensitive spot in me as well, you know, the tiny little spot I keep far behind the anger and bitterness I usually project. I really need to learn to let go of my aggression and negativity of the way things have been going the last year or so. I need to learn to absorb and be "in the moment" when positive and calming events are happening. I think I have started to take advantage of that over the last few days, but it's a work in progress and I need to to adjust 10 years or so of negativity.

Okay, diary, enough of that, I am also doing a bunch of inking while waiting on more script pages, jump on over the SKETCHJAM! blog to see a Kirby page and Wieringo pin-up I did.

Dear Diary - Thursday

I feel like I should post something to get into a rythym of some kind. I made the decision, for the first time in years to put together a proper portfolio to show around to try and line up some more work. My first target is the Marvel Adventures line, I got a script from one of the MA writers so I'm going to pencil a few pages from that. Meanwhile, I am also putting together some inking samples as well. So I spent tonight inking a 'Ringo pin-up and a Kirby Thor page. Here's a shot of my table -



Since I don't have an 11x17 printer, I printed up the Kirby page in 3 parts and I'll put it together in Photoshop.

Also, I got the hardcover collection of Ultimate Spider-Man #100 Project from Marvel & The Hero Initiative yesterday. Once again I can't believe how great it was to be a part of this thing, and the book will only raise more money for the charity. To date it has raised over $81,000. Here's a quick shot of my page in the book, it's alphabetical so I'm next to the amazing Frank Cho.



Tomorrow night is the first ever Phoenix Drink and Draw session, so I'll post about that over the weekend.

hmmmm

I want to start posting at least 3 times a week, even if it's just something small.

A Noble Causes pin-up I did because I like the look of the character and Jay seems to like my stuff at least a little bit. I totally used every cheat and was very lazy on this one.



My weekend was uneventful, but fun. Got tipsy on Friday and finally saw Borat. Saturday I cooked myself a lovely little bit of seasoned catfish with roasted potato. Yummy.

I'm bored 99% of the time, even though I am busy 150% of the item. I need someone to talk to that's over the age of 10.

Yes, I am a dork.

One of those "you are most like" quizzes, this one for Harry Potter. Pretty dead on tho.

Ron Weasley		78%
Hermione Granger		78%
Remus Lupin		75%
Harry Potter		75%
Bellatrix Lestrange		72%
Oliver Wood		72%
Sirius Black		63%
Neville Longbottom		63%
Luna Lovegood		59%
Percy Weasley		59%
Severus Snape		59%
Draco Malfoy		56%
Lord Voldemort		44%
Albus Dumbledore		44%

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

A sad day

I heard this morning that Mike Wieringo died yesterday from a heart attack. I never knew Mike personally but I did exchange an email or two with him in the past and I never heard a bad word about it from a fan or a pro. By all accounts, one of the best guys around. Whenever I feel like I need to decompress and ink something, to loosen up or to study how another artist spots blacks, I always grab and image from Mike's blog and use that. His blog posts were always insightful and honest and he always seemed just a tad bit sad that he wasn't doing more personal, creator owned stuff. I will miss him although I never knew him, and the industry just lost one of it's classiest creators. Here is a Tom Strong of his I inked earlier this year, and I totally screwed the right eye, but Mike only said nice things about it.

Projects update -

Finally started work on my new book last night, had a lot of fun on the first page, I will post more on that when an announcement is made. Still doing a fun little inking project and I'm looking for an artist to work with on a book I'm developing. I've been searching DeviantArt and man is there a ton of manga art on there, and a lot of it is really bed. I am not, looking for a Manga artist,

a face

SketchJam

Hop along over to the sketchJam blog, I've posted a few new pieces there done on the Wacom. I like it alot, but I'm nowhere near ready to ink actual pages on it yet.