What's goin' on?

It's been a while since I posted here and truthfully, I probably wouldn't have again except that I joined a sketch blog with some friends and needed to log into my profile.

If anyone is interested, I still have my Deviant Art gallery up, although that hasn't been updated in a while either. The last couple of years have been mainly about storyboard work, which is a lot of fun but doesn't really make for a lot of nice finished drawings for posting.

The big news is on the webcomics front. I finally got my first book together! It's called Starting Tomorrow - The First Promises Promises Collection. I'm very pleased with it. Lots of comics and a bonus selection of my favourite Q&A from The Baroness Knows Best. It's available for sale in my online store and the comics are still archived on the main site. www.promisescomic.com

Going Deviant

It's been advised to me on more than one occasion to put up a Deviant Art gallery. The format is nicer for portfolio display so I finally got on it. I'll still update here with new work, but here's the link to my new DA gallery if you're interested. LINK!

Tea Party

A while back I made a gift for a friend of mine, it was one of those travel mugs that you put your own photos in and an assortment of loose leaf tea. Seemed kind of dumb to give her the mug without something in it so I whipped up the drawing below.

I'm kicking myself for not making a copy of the finished inks, it was really cute, all I had was this scan of the pencil sketch that I just found in a mess of files I've been sorting through. It may be unfinished, but I think it's worth sharing.

In other news, I'll be at Toronto Fan Expo this weekend pushing Promises Promises, with my buddy Brian. He'll be there with his book Lucy Legacy and a sneak peak at his new magnum opus Jim and Jenn, which I can't wait to see. I also hear we're parked beside Blair Kitchen of Possum Press again this year. That delights me, the Possum is one of the funniest comics I've read and Blair is a super nice guy. So if you're in the neighborhood, stop by and see us sketching out little hearts out in Artist's Alley.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Mardi Bras 2!

On Friday July the 10^th at 7:30pm, my WEBC team will be presenting the second annual Mardi-Bras at the Ballroom of Toronto’s own Historic Gladstone Hotel!

Lending their support, more than thirty professional artisans from all over Canada have created unique pieces of wearable art from an otherwise utilitarian garment. These bras will be presented in a runway show and silent auctioned throughout the evening along with some wonderful gifts donated by artists and businesses from all over the GTA.

Guests at Mardi-Bras will enjoy runway-style fashion show complete with musical introduction and belly dancer, followed by cocktail reception, music, silent auction and door prizes, (including tickets for two to see Jersey Boys!) culminating in the crowning of the King and Queen of Mardi-Bras!

Tickets are $25 and selling quickly, to reserve yours go to the “contact us” page at www.mardi-bras.com. With your continued support we will see an end to cancer in our lifetime!

Glenn Martin DDS

Well they have the official website up, so I'm guessing it's good to talk about this now.

The latest project I'm on at work is Glenn Martin DDS. It's a new stop motion show we're working on at Cuppa Coffee Animation and is the first show to come out of Michael Eisner's production company, Tornante.

It's a fun show about a traveling dentist and his family. The writers are really on the ball. It's very character driven, and funny. My favourite character is easily Connor, the 13 year old son. He's not too bright but always a lot of laughs. The crew have outdone themselves, the production is really beautiful. The highest attention to detail goes into each prop, set, costume and the lighting is brilliant, (no pun intended). The puppets are phenomenal. The nicest I've ever worked with. Sturdy, well articulated and you can get a lot of performance out of each one. The main character voice actors include Kevin Nealon, Catherine O'Hara and Judy Greer. They've done a great job and sure make animating them easy.

Everyone involved is really working hard to make it great. It never fails to amaze me the levels of skill you get in a place like Cuppa Coffee. Each person is incredible at their job, and most of them have something else on the side! Animators are also illustrators, musicians, builders are also writers, performers, digital artists, compositors, the list goes on and on.

It will be airing on Nick at night in the fall, but I don't have a date on that yet, I'll keep posting as I know more. In the meantime check out the website: www.meetglennmartin.com, there are some fun clips up from the first few episodes.

Utopia Kingdoms

Finally got the Ok to post the stuff I did for Utopia Kingdoms. Pretty pleased with the project, these guys are a lot of fun to work for. I didn't do a heck of a lot on this one, just the avatars for the character classes, a male and female for each. I think the centaurs were my favourites.

Colours by Rob Ruffolo and Espen Grundetjern.

Avians

Centaurs

Dark Elves

Dwarfs

Elves
Humans

Orcs

Trolls

Legends of Zork

I've been doing some work on the new Legends of Zork online. Here are some of the character profile critters I did for them. The colours were done by Espen Grundetjern and Jim Zubkavich.

Jackanape

Hoping Claw Monkey
Giant Spider

Devil Doll

Reaper Squirel

Giant Toad

Luck Sucker

Mutant Yellow Grotch

Roc

I also did some stuff for Utopia Kingdoms, but that hasn't been posted yet, so I'll have to wait.