It's been a while...

Why hello there. I saw you from across the room and couldn't help but come over and introduce myse...wait! BLOG?!?!?! IS THAT YOU? My God! I didn't even recognize you! Have you done something different with your hair or perhaps contacts?

Alright enough of that. Yes the blog has looked a little different for about a month now. The font colors have changed and the banner no longer has those thousand weird little eyeballs staring back at you...judging you...and there is good reasoning for this: BRANDING! Over the past few months I've been developing a unified look for myself and that big, grinning face at the top of the page is the core of that look.

So what's the reasoning behind these seemingly unnecessary changes? The birth of A BRAND NEW WEBSITE! (is this coming off sarcastic yet?) Yes, DAVEARMSTRONGART.COM is now up and running and waiting to delight you with whimsical, daveish delights. I strongly advise everyone in the blogoland to go there and tell your friends what a fun time you had. "Life Changing" is not too strong of a term. I also advise you to send me expensive gifts, but we can discuss that at a later time.

So take a look at DAVEARMSTRONGART.COM and snoop around the blog and let me know what you think. Maybe it's a childhood of punk music influencing my thoughts but all this branding sickens me slightly, but only slightly. Chalk it up to a fear of becoming an adult/professional (shudders).

I'm currently touching up some finals from last semester and trying to get my sleep schedule back into existence in hopes of fixing my brain, so expect some new work to find it's way on here. And if it doesn't, just assume I'm actually enjoying the holiday season and hope you do the same. Don't over nog yourself!

My name is Sue. How do you do?

For one of my classes, we had to pick a song from the 60's and illustrate it. After sketching out ideas for some Zeppelin songs, "Space Oddity," a few Beatles songs and some Hendrix I decided on "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash. This takes place just before people start kickin' and a gougin' in the mud and the blood and the beer.
This piece is a little different for me as I don't do a lot of finished work with Photoshop anymore and I definitely don't typically do work with flat elements like wood grain and flannel pattern. Overall, I like how clean this is and how well the line drawing shows through. Maybe I'll do some more stuff like this...

"We're All Quite Mad"

Illustration of the mad tea party from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
I'm putting an honest effort into more complex environments and having multiple characters in pieces. I've started getting my portfolio together and realized WAY too much of my stuff is one figure sitting with a fairly boring environment around him. So this should be a step in the right direction. The color is still a bit crazy though...maybe that fits?

Hemingway

This is a book cover for a fictional biography of Ernest Hemingway. The man hunted lions, fought with alcoholism, married four women, and managed to write a few novels so I tried to convey his mythic life in the illustration.

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Witch Doctor

These are some concept sketches for a witch doctor character I'll be using in an upcoming project. There's a lot more stuff I could show for it but I'd rather just save it up and unleash it in one massive project post (I clearly don't get the point of blogs, do I?). I just thought this guy's face was delightful enough to earn him his own post. ENJOY!

'Appy 'Alloween

This was a lil in-class assignment where we were given four columns of partial horror movie titles and asked to put one from each column together and make an illustration around it before class ended. So here is "Attack of the overflowing toilet from beyond outer space the musical."

What clogged the toilet? HUMAN FLESH!
But in all seriousness...there really isn't enough of the musical element in this.

Luck of the Cricket

For our professional practices class, we were each given a superstition to create an illustration around. Mine was "a cricket in the house means good luck." Originally the cricket was sitting on the mantel next to a portrait of a lucky family. My teacher suggested that the cricket should be the one who owns the house and have the wall covered in images of his lucky family. So here it is, looking like something out of a bug infested Wes Anderson movie.

We then took the images and designed them into a deck of cards and created a box with type to put them in. Mine was based off a cigar box to go with the wood in the picture frames and fireplace...not to mention the cricket is smoking a stogie.

"Let em hear ya in the produce section!"

So my first semester of senior year is half over but you'd never know it judging by the amount of final products that have shown their faces on here (I think we're at a grand total of one line drawing). There are actually four finished pieces sitting on my desk right now...
staring...
waiting...
but the endless onslaught of work (and this pesky sleeping thing I keep doing) manages to keep them from getting scanned, touched up and posted. Rest assured that they will show up soon along with some 3-D work, sketches and maybe even some new branding (this blog could use a facelift). So check back soon, the posts should keep on chuggin in.

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Laser beats scissors

The internet just doesn't have enough crappy fan art about 8-bit video game characters...
Nerdy nerdy nerdy nerdy.

Not-So-Daily Sketch: Hootenanny

Happy October...here's an owl?

Comic Book Environment

Here is the first project from my comic book illustration class. We had to create an environment with multiple characters interacting. A bar seemed like a good place for some mingling to happen so this is what I wound up with. Later in the semester we need to come up with a two page comic book, so if anyone out there is thinking "Geee, I always wished Dave would do a comic book about ______," let me know your ideas, as I have none of my own.

Oh and if anyone has been checking this thing going "what the heck is Dave doing with his life? Where are all the updates?" I'm hoping to get a few more finished projects up as the week grinds on.

...hoping...

Devil went down to Georgia

The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind: he was willin' to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot.
And the devil jumped upon a hickory stump and said: "Boy let me tell you what:
"I bet you didn't know it, but I'm a fiddle player too.
"And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you.
"Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due:
"I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, 'cos I think I'm better than you."

Then Johnny was all like, "Aw crap."


Over the summer I had the idea to illustrate some songs. Now I'm two weeks into school and somehow this is the only one that went anywhere. All the credit goes out to Charlie Daniels and his mad fiddle skillz.