Can you dig it, Jive Turkey?

I don't know what the flip side is, but I assume it looks like this.

This was a good excuse to mess around with some bolder colors.

Happy Thanksgiving

Have you ever looked at the head of a turkey? I mean have you really taken a moment to examine the details of a turkey's face? Before drawing this piece, I took a look at some google images of turkeys and they look like some sort of Lovecraftian demon bird.
All the saggy nastiness probably isn't helping. Someone needs a plastic surgeon.

And a fun side note: I actually own that disgusting green button-up sweater in the picture. That's how Dave rolls. HAPPY THANKSGIVING, INTERNET!

Bigfoot Loves the Funk

Sasquatches are naturally drawn to the Epiphone Jack Casady Bass. I'm not sure why. I'm not a bigfootologist.

Also, I'm just now realizing how much easier the photoshop line tool makes drawing a guitar. That's number 398 on the list of things you'd think I would have figured out by now.

Family Road Trip Survival Guide

With the holidays just around the corner, lots of families will be loading into vans for loooooong rides to Grandma's house filled with I Spy, missed turn, fast food and the buildup of silent rage. Great Lakes Life Magazine ran a survival guide to help make the venture a little more...jolly. The first image (above) was the main image for the guide, the others are just sidebar illustrations.

Fun fact: the car they're driving is some strange mixture of a Honda Element, a VW Beetle and a PT Cruiser. It seems like the perfect combination of ugly cars.

The next image is a family who isn't having such a good time. I wanted to go very simple with the coloring of the sidebar illustrations. I find with very small illustrations, simple looks better (I also realize this isn't really ground-breaking information).
Another one of the sidebars talked about the greatest family road trip movies. Number one was obviously National Lampoon's Vacation so I did a lil drawing of Chevy Chase. I'm amazed how much more difficult it is to pull off a good likeness of someone when he have pants on his head. For some reason facial features take a backseat to the fact that there are pants up there.

One of the other movies mentioned was The Muppet Movie (yes we know the Muppets aren't technically a family) so I was originally going to have Kermit in the back seat of the car, but thanks to Conan O'Brien, I can no longer draw him without adding vomit. That sort of thing doesn't tend to fly.

The final sidebar deals with taking the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's (kids need to eat on the road, right?). I'm amazed how ridiculous I was allowed to go with this one. The only major change was the removal of three hanging children. The image got a little hard to read with so many little fellas coating the mouse.

Who Wants a Free T-Shirt?!?!

Great Lakes Life Magazine (where I work) is teaming up with Last Exit to Nowhere to provide 5 people with free t-shirts of their choice. If you're not familiar with Last Exit to Nowhere, they make some of the coolest movie-reference shirts I've ever seen and I strongly encourage everyone to enter for a chance. If no one does, I'm just going to enter a bunch of fake names and try and win them for myself.

Visit HERE for your chance to win and if you aren't feeling lucky, there's a 15% off code that you can use on shirts.

Battle for Cuyahoga

Ohio's Cuyahoga County has developed a reputation for political scandal and corruption. Hopefully, the upcoming election will solve all that with the restructuring of the county's government and the creation of the position of County Executive. This illustration was done for a Great Lakes Life article on the subject titled "The Battle for Cuyahoga."

Below are some concepts for the piece that didn't make the cut. Because the article went to print before the election, we couldn't feature the actual winner, so a faceless politician sounded like an interesting visual. Once I actually started to render it out, however, it took a creepy turn. I still like the concept, but it doesn't really fit the article. So instead we went with something flat and graphic with a lil Russian propaganda influence.

Anyone else find it odd when actual political subjects are raised on this blog? It gets oddly serious. Maybe the next post will have a fart joke...

Happy Halloween

I hope everyone had a fun night of ghosts, goblins and supporting childhood obesity. I know I did.

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Wolfman

Halloween fun fact: I've heard that the term "werewolf" comes from warg-wolf, which in Old Norse, translates roughly to Outlaw Wolf. I like this substantially more than werewolf because "outlaw wolf" sounds like:
1. a late 80's metal album
2. a terrible anime
3. A news story about a mutated wolf who has learned to use a firearm and has yet to be caught

*Note- When I use the word "heard," it often means "according to wikipedia." This would be one of those occasions. Also, you can expect my solo album Running with the Outlaw Wolf just in time for the holiday season. It will be hoooooooooorrible.

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Candy Apple

Halloween is almost here! What's everyone going as?

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Grimace

You know the Grimace from McDonalds? Well, years of stealing milkshakes and scarfing McChickens have caught up with him and now one of these bloated beasts resides at every McDonalds. They hide in the darkness of the basement and do quality control.

Also, I feel obligated to quote Clerks: The Animated Series: "Nothing can kill the Grimace!"

Fishing Derby Promo

The Mechanical Contractors Association of Northwest Pennsylvania wanted a teaser image for their fishing derby. I showed them this version and a much cleaner, bluer version and the reaction I got was, "go with the dirty one. It looks like Lake Erie."

Kathy Dahlkemper

The latest issue of Great Lakes Life was centered around power women and included an interview with House of Representatives member, Kathy Dahlkemper. One of the issues raised was the hostility toward Dahlkemper from tea partiers, which lead to the first illustration. Initial sketches had Kathy taking on Alice's role at the mad tea party with the March Hare and Mad Hatter, but with the fairly recent Burton movie, Alice in Wonderland references seem a bit overused.

The second illustration focuses on the duality of Dahlkemper. While she is a politician and partial company owner, she is also a mother (grandmother at this point) who stresses family values. The old phrase "bring home the bacon and fry it in the pan," came up and I've been wanting to play around with a split illustration like this for a while.

Here are some of the original concepts for the illustrations.