It has been a while, as they say. I’ve been workin’ on stuff.

Red

Here's a little concept art I did recently as I was trying to nail down a look for a short Red Riding Hood picture book story I was thinking of writing up some day. While it's not the best stand alone illustration, I'm happy with the look of the character and her world. I'm sort of working on figuring out two styles, one more of what some might call a more traditional "comic book" style for my stuff that is geared toward kids in the middle grade age range and something more like this for the younger, picture book set.

Portfolio A-Go-Go!

I updated my portfolio site. I hope you love it. odditycomics.com

Time Turtle!!!

Time Turtle's adventure through...Time!!!

New piece, hopefully for my portfolio. We'll see if it makes the cut.

I'm gearing up for the Northern Ohio SCBWI conference in September and I'm trying to revamp much of my portfolio before then. I'm wicked excited about this conference because it has been about 2 years since I last attended one. It's always really informative and a good time.

I love looking through old Polaroids.

Look how cute Mongo was back then.

He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast...

And he's gotta be fresh from the fight!

Gym Sock!
Hero to all the kids of Squaresville Middle School!

The Raging Cycloptic Janitors of the Fifth Dimension don't stand a chance.

It's Beach Time!

I've been hanging on to this one for a while because I just couldn't seem to get the crab right. I think he's looking pretty good now.

Mysterious tales of suspense... and mystery!

If you were a kid who was into mystery novels, would you judge this book by its cover and beg your parents to fork over cold hard cash for it?

Mind you, this isn't a real cover to a real novel. Not yet anyway. For now it's just a new portfolio piece that I worked up this week.

I think I'd like to do more book covers. They're a hoot.

I don't really keep a proper sketchbook...

but I should. I do sketch quite a bit, mostly little character heads on scraps of paper that I find around the office. I was taught in art school (and I've heard countless artists say it since) that I should keep a running sketchbook at all times. I'm not the biggest fan of drawing in the bound books. I dig my loose leaf. So instead I have tons of loose paper that I shove into folders for projects or just a random sketch folder. Using an actual sketchbook would probably make sense, but I've stopped buying them because I usually only fill them half way, put them away and forget about them. I did once fill a small moleskine which was a cool experience because it gave me this sense of accomplishment. Maybe there's something to sketchbooks after all. I'm rambling because my brain still waking up. Rambling to end in 3...2...1...

The sketches above comprise some of my favorites over the last couple months. Except one, which is a few years old and has appeared on this blog before. I needed it to fill a space. One of these is a character sketch from a project that I'm working on now, but the others are just random characters. However, who knows, they may show up in a story somewhere down the line.

Tremont Art Walk

Attention People of Earth: Will you be in the Cleveland area this Friday? Will you be in need of activities to stimulate your mind and entertain your eyeballs? I implore you to consider spending your evening at the Tremont Art Walk and swinging by Studio Le Beau for free refreshments, free pizza and the opportunity to freely stare at images of cartoon characters fighting robots. A smattering of artworks, created by me, will be available for public viewing this Friday at Studio Le Beau in the historic Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland. 2360 West 11th Street.