'Bucky' WIP

Here's a another WIP before I head over to the Kid Robot Pirate Store for the Joe Ledbetter Tiger Dunny signing in about an hour!

Toober Shaded

A quick, vector shaded version of Toober. Thought I'd try Illustrator's gradient mesh tool as opposed to painting the volumes in Photoshop like I typically do.

Toober

Been doodling this tubular character for the past few days now.  Think it's about time to give him a full-up 3d treatment next.

Look what washed up on the beach

Day 5 - Last Walk On The Beach

Originally uploaded by sketchguy

Came across this Portuguese Man O' War during our last stroll on the beach in Playa del Carmen before returning to NY last Tuesday. Many more pictures from Chichen-Itsa and Tulum can be found in the "Riviera Maya" photo set up on my Flickr page.

Weekend Art Openings at My Plastic Heart and Jonathan Levine Gallery

For the 2nd week in a row, Jonlyn and I attended a few really nice art openings.

Friday night was a joint show by Krista Huot and Parskid at My Plastic Heart.  Both artists have really unique characters, and their respective worlds crossed over nicely in the few collaborative paintings that accompanied their own pieces.

Saturday night, Jonathan Levine Gallery hosted two incredible shows, Tara McPherson's "Lost Constellations" and Lori Earley's "Fade to Gray."  Definitely try to view these up close before the show ends.  Especially exciting to see were the fiberglass sculpts of Tara's skull flower and "Mr. Wiggles" characters.

NYC Toy Fair

On Sunday, Kidlew and I hit Javitz Center for the 2008 NYC Toy Fair. This was my first time attending. Now, i've been going to Siggraph for 20 years and have been to NYCC once, however, this convention is HUGE. Easily occupied both levels of Javitz Center.


The Uglydoll booth was one of the most fun designs on the show floor.


Kidlew looks on as David Horvath tags his sketchbook. Despite having major jet-lag, David was very generous chatting with us at length about his experiences in the toy industry. His main piece of advice - get insurance. If some kid chokes on a piece of your toy, the courts don't acknowledge anything "designer toy" and you could be sued and ruined.


The "Urban Bazaar" downstairs was the place to check out some of the latest offerings in the vinyl world. It was here where I met Matt Doughty of Onell Design and William Vaughan of Tofu the Vegan Zombie fame. Both were great sources of information and really nice guys to talk with.


Near the end of the day we bumped into artist Ron English. Another really nice guy to talk with. I told him I got to see his triptych at the 'Beyond The Cel' show at the Mesa Arts Center over the holiday break, and he told me he and his family just returned from a trip there last week for the end of the exhibit and to be part of a small toy workshop.

Since I'm not really involved with the buying or licensing of toys, I pretty much stuck to the few booths that were of particular interest and gleaned some information into the workings of the toy industry. Got some great feedback on my character designs and will be seeing more of the vinyl manufacturers at New York Comic Con in April.

More pictures up on Flickr.

Additional websites to visit:

MINDstyle
kidlew
Dark Horse Comics

'Friends With You' at Yoyamart

This past Saturday, February 16th, Jonlyn and I accompanied Kidlew and Annie to Yoyamart for the Friends With You signing. Jonlyn got the last "The Boy" plushie just in time for Sam and Arturo to sign.

More pics up at Flickr.

Mac Pro Un-Box Pr0n!

Today is a great day. My new dual 3 GHz Quad Core Xeon Mac Pro with 4GB (soon to be 12GB) of RAM and NVidia 8800GT graphics card arrived!

Having never before documented a new computer purchase, I figured "what better way to spend the almost three hours of Adobe CS3 installation than to shoot and post some un-boxing pr0n?"

Back in the Land of Equilibrium

Inner ear infections are NOT fun. This is the third time as an adult that I've had vertigo, and this spell had me out of commission for 4 consecutive days.

Anyone remember that Six Million Dollar Man ride at Universal Studios back in the 70's, where the ride goes through a long, rotating snow tunnel? (I think it was a tie-in to the Steve Austin vs. Bigfoot storyline?) That's vertigo in a nutshell.

Super 7 - Ghost Land

Super 7 - Ghost Land, originally uploaded by jonlynw.

Uh oh, I got the HB hooked on vinyl toys! ;) We picked up the first few during our visit to Super 7 when in San Francisco over the holidays, and Jonlyn completed her set after our trip to Toy Qube this past weekend!