Happy 4th O' July!

Happy Birthday America and Happy Birthday to myself! This year's been quite eventful and shows no signs of slowing down.
Cape Con, my first time appearing at a convention as a G2 Comics employee, was a huge success! We got a ton of new fans, sold comics and prints, and I got to do a bunch of sketches for folks! On top of all that, I also got a cool sketch from the great Billy Tucci himself. My buddy Wayne and I have met and talked with him at just about every major convention we've gone to, but now I finally got some art from him! A great dude to say the least.



Next up, me and the G2 guys are heading to Wizard World Chicago in august, and it'll be the biggest Con I've been to yet. We'll be releasing a ton of new stuff including my comic-making debut, Raptor Samurai, which I pencilled. In the meantime, be sure to stop by the G2 comics website and pick you up some comics, or even some of my art prints!

Back to work (It's so awesome I can say that now!)

E.T.

Livin' the dream

At the Small Press Alternative Comics Expo I got to meet a lot of cool people, including G2 comics, an indy publisher from MO. We got to talking and before I knew it, I was asked to come on board and create promotional prints and comic book covers for G2's many awesome titles, specifically their new comic Raptor Sniper. I drew up a print of the titular dinosaur character and now I'm officially a freelance artist for G2 comics, making this my first professional illustration gig!

Without further stalling, here's the pencilling for the Raptor Sniper print



The full-color limited edition print is now officially on sale at the G2 comics website.
You can also buy the original Raptor Sniper comic in print or digital format. Keep an eye out for new limited edition prints for sale on the 15th and 30th of every month.

It feels so surreal to see my work up for sale for real on a website, and I may never get used to it. Anyway, a very special shout-out to Eric and Dan of G2 comics for allowing me to achieve my dream of drawing cool stuff for money!


E.T.

Movie Star portrait

Being a resident of Ohio, I am not exactly bumping into celebrities on a daily basis. That's why conventions are so great to attend, I get to meet a lot of people I'd never otherwise get to talk to. At Mid-Ohio Con last November (my first ever booth at a convention) I took a break from my booth and got to meet Michael Berryman, star of many horror and sci-fi films and all-around nice guy. He's probably best known for his role in the 1977 The Hills Have Eyes, but he's appeared in many other films like Weird Science and One flew over the cuckoo's nest. He continues to star in films and works with numerous charity organizations.



The night before the second day of the convention I drew a portrait of his character "Lisker" the alien antagonist from The Guyver, in both his human and alien forms.



I gave the original to Michael, who seemed really touched by it. He signed a copy of it for me, also signing my buddy Wayne's copy of the film. We got to talk with him and he shared a wealth of advice and many stories about working with Mark Hamill, Jack Nicholson, and the movie biz in general. I can honestly say that he's one of the nicest people I've ever met, and it was truly an honor that he enjoyed my work.

E.T.

I'm going to s.p.a.c.e.

March 19th and 20th I'll be showing artwork and taking sketch commissions at S.P.A.C.E. the Small Press Alternative Comics Expo. It will be full of independent comics artists and publishers, so hopefully I can give out some business cards and meet some new faces. I'll have my table next to Mike Eshelman who'll be selling his awesome bead sculptures of 8-bit video game characters again. In the meantime I just sent off my entries in the 18th annual Spectrum competition, I feel I've made some much better stuff since the last time I entered, so here's hoping I make the finals.

Also, as I've failed to explain in detail, I am now living in Columbus taking classes at CCAD, a very nice art school. This week I start my second semester, so I thought I'd share one of my projects from last semester's art history class.



We were assigned to create our own work of art inspired by one of the works of art from an ancient culture we studied. I chose the giant stone statue of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, and decided to draw what she might have looked like in real life to inspire such a statue from the Aztecs. (A tad gruesome, but the Aztec deities weren't very cuddly themselves, and I stayed pretty close to the original sculpture)

Here's looking forward to a great new semester, and more fun art assignments.

E.T.