Mystery Train

TOM - I recently saw a fantastic movie called Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch. The movie is made up of three separate stories that overlap at this one cheap hotel in Memphis Tennessee. All of the stories somehow revolve and connect around Elvis, Graceland, and a mysterious gun shot. I did this illustration based on a scene in the movie in which two Japanese tourist on a quest to Graceland are sitting in a park at night staring at a big statue of Elvis. The girl is completely mesmerized, while the guy who is a huge Carl Perkins fan could care less about Elvis. I'm not really good at describing plots all that well, so I recommend netflixing it. It stars Joe Strummer, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and Steve Buscemi just to name a few.
Check out the trailer here.

Tweet

'Shout'

TOM - Here is the next piece in my series. My goal is to have each one be different in setting and/or time period, but all share the same theme of girls and flowers. I really got into the graffiti on this one, trying to make it seem like the wall was tagged up by several different artists, then of course tagged over with drawings of beautiful, sensitive flowers.


The black and white was done with a #2 brush and ink for most of it except for the flowers which were done with charcoal. I wanted to have a contrast of textures and style without making it look too busy and chaotic. It certainly was a challenge, but I feel the color helped distinguish all the elements, and making it less one dimensional.

Tweet

'Prom Queen'

TOM - Here is a recent illustration I did. It's part of a series of drawings that I'm setting out to do, all with some sort of loose narrative tying them together. I want to try an explore themes and ideas that I deal with in my sketchbooks and make them into more finished illustrations while experimenting with different techniques along the way.
With this one, I worked at "14x17", normally I work around "11x17" or smaller. It allowed me to use much more of my arm and I was able to whip out a big brush for the large black areas with the feathering. It felt god to stand up and work over it at times, a bit more physical than usual. I'm looking forward to doing a few more of these and seeing what comes out.

Tweet

Say Cheese!

TOM - Girl takes picture of her date peeing. That was the scenario for this week's 'Flavor of the Week' column in the New York Press. I decided to treat it as if it were a panel from a comic page. I added some 'manga type' gray tones and just a spot of color for the flash.

Tweet

Super Heroes!

TOM- A few months back, Tim Leong of Comic Foundry Magazine contacted me to do an illustration for their number two issue. It turned out to be a great opportunity to do a published illustration where I would get to draw a whole bunch of characters from Marvel and DC battling each other! My own comics work leans more towards the 'indie' genre, but many cartoonists that I admire are from the 'mainstream' section of comics, so the pressure to do something even close to their standards was a bit nerve racking. Tim eplained to me the premise of the article. Pretty much, Marvel and DC are involved in two huge storylines to help sell books: Marvel's Secret Invasion and DC's Final Crisis. Both include events that will dramatically shake up each of their universes. The basic idea was to show Marvel and DC's prominent characters facing off. The first two sketches (above) are sketches I initially came up with. Tim liked them, but decided he wanted to do a play on the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths cover by George Perez back in the 80's. It's a pretty recognizable cover to most die hard comic fans, so the challenge was to do it justice, but at the same time make it my own. The third sketch (above) is what I came up with, a compromise of both ideas.
Here's George Perez's.

Here's mine. I inked it with the usual #2 brush and Windsor Newton ink. There was alot of challenges in this piece including composition, character recognizability, and trying to keep it energetic. As I mentioned earlier, I have always had a huge respect for super hero artists ( especially the monthly ones!), so I am still VERY critical of this piece. Looking back at it now months later, I realize all the ways I could have made it better, but I'm glad I got the chance to take a crack at it.

Here's what the tear sheet looks like. The magazine looks really great, I recommend checking it out. It gives a much more interesting take on comics than most other publications out there.

Tweet