Not-So-Daily Sketch: Rico

Here are some sketches of Joe's fat dog, Rico

Joe Cottrell Photography 2

This is the first image for Joe's blog. I'm happy to say this is hands-down the most serious of the ones we have planned. You know a series is good when an obese, anthropomorphic chihuahua named Rico in a beat-up car with a winking, bearded man who is slamming on a typewriter is the most serious of the images.

Also, I promise to stop making Joe winking in all of these. I don't think I've ever seen the man wink in real life. Winking is just fun to draw, I suppose.

Oh, and Joe has a fat dog named Rico in reality. I feel it's important to note that concept wasn't created just for this image. God, I wish I was that creative.

Joe Cottrell Photography

So is the new blog layout tickling everyone's fancy? There are still some minor tweaks I want to play with, but for the most part, this is how it's staying.

If you've looked through the updated "mildly enjoyable people" sidebar, you'll notice a new name has been added. Joe Cottrell is a dude that I've known for a majority of my life and we worked together at Great Lakes Life. I strongly urge you all to check out his photography and if you like discussions about Burger King and bro-montanas, his blog is the place for you.

Joe recently decided to update his branding so he asked me to do an illustration of him for his new business cards. He liked it so much that I'm going to be doing some additional illustrations for his website and blog in the upcoming months. Here's the first image from his business cards. More goodness to come.

New Banner/Branding?

Is anyone else sick of Mountain Dew colored smiley faces and punk-rock lettering?

I'm hoping to get some feedback on this rough idea for some new branding. I think this look fits me a bit better and looks a weeeeeee bit more professional.

Anyway, tear it apart with honesty and let me know what you think. Any input is GREATLY appreciated. If the blog winds up looking nice, I'm going to revamp the website and update all my branding. If it doesn't look nice, I'll do none of that and see how long it takes me to chug a box of Bugles.

George Romero

I love that the godfather of zombie directors looks like a cross between Stan Lee and Colonel Sanders.

Known for Night of the Living Dead, The Crazies, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and a whole lot of other films with "Dead" in the title, Romero's is the last of the regional director images for GLL. This piece was a great break from the various political pieces I've been doing for the magazine lately. It turns out regional family magazines rarely want hordes of zombies. Who knew?

Below are some of the original concepts:

Vincent Gallo

This is the second piece in the series of regional directors and it features Vincent Gallo. I don't really expect anyone who reads this blog to be familiar with any of his films, but he's known for The Brown Bunny and Buffalo '66 but probably better known hexing Roger Ebert and calling him a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader."

The editor of GLL has a little thing for Gallo so exaggeration wasn't as encouraged with this portrait so it wound up being a lot more realistic than I typically enjoy. Hopefully the screen tone and crazy colors make it a little less dull.

Tune into tomorrow for Mr. Zombie himself, George Romero.

Jim Jarmusch

Part of the upcoming January/February issue of Great Lakes Life Magazine is a feature called 25 Reasons We Love the Great Lakes Region. One of the reasons listed is that the region has given us some visionary directors and I was asked to illustrate them. This is the first one and features Jim Jarmusch (best known for Coffee and Cigarettes and Broken Flowers).

While researching Jarmusch, I found this really interesting quote on originality:
"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to'.”
-Jim Jarmusch

Here are some of the original concepts:A few more of these guys are on the way. Stay tuned...

Not-So-Daily Sketch: New Year's Resolution

My New Year's Resolution is to stop being such a glob of a human being.
Maybe a better resolution would be to stop posting so many strange drawings of fat things...