ULTRA MAN

OK folks, first of all I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and an equally fantastic New Year holiday.  This year, without a doubt, has been my most successful year to date having met so many new people, making so many new friends, and accomplishing more than I could have imagined.  With more shows under my belt this past year, I have more confidence going into 2014, and I hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have and continue to ride it with me!

Having said that, the picture above was a commission I did for a friend as a Christmas present for his son (or just him, it's open for interpretation).  He came to me asking to do an Ultra Man piece in the style of my Avengers and Walking Dead prints.  In case you're not in the know, Ultra Man is a precursor to the Might Morphin' Power Rangers of sorts; a superhero grows to towering heights to fight monters and destroys cardboard cities in the process.  There, now you know as much as I do about it.  Regardless of lack of knowledge on the topic, it turned out better than I had hoped for...and my friend loved it.  In fact, he couldn't stop talking about it.  This is what makes doing what I do worth it.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, there is a new format more or less for my blog.  I have added a few category tabs under my banner so you can easily navigate through my work in graphic design, convention work, sketches, and a little bit of freelance work to boot.  If you even feel so inclined to purchase something, I have a store as well.  Check it out!

Again, thanks for going on the ride with me in 2013, let's see what 2014 has in store!

Wizard World Chicago

Next week is Wizard World Chicago from August 8th - 11th at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.  This will be my first Wizard World show and I will have the usual tricks up my sleeve along with a few extra goodies inCLUding (see what I did there?):

I'm very happy with how these turned out and hopefully they will have a good reception.  I will also have my (in)famous Avengers prints along with my Walking Dead and 007 prints as well.  I will be at table J8 so stop by and say the obligatory "hello!".

This and that.

Once again it's been a minute since I've updated here, but bouncing from project to project really puts and damper on it.  At any rate, I'm back with a few of those said projects.

Back in April at C2E2 in Chicago I met a gentleman who loved my Avengers prints (he loved them so much he bought the set, then two more for his friends after the show!).  He asked if I had a Tron print, which I did not, but it was on my list of pieces I wanted to do sooner or later.  Well, sooner it was.  He contacted me and wanted to commission me to get one (or two) off the ground.  The one shown above is the first one, as I started a second, featuring the antagonist of Tron Legacy, CLU, but I wasn't too keen on it, so I'm reworking it. Once CLU is finished, both of them will be available to purchase.

I recently wrapped up a set of cards for the upcoming "Civil War Chronicles" from Cult Stuff.  Major wars such as this (and World War 2 in particular) have always fascinated me.  The thing that fascinates me the most, however, are the soldiers themselves, particularly the pictures of them not on the battlefield.  I chose to go the route of portraits of soldiers mainly because I always wondered what their story was; for the most part, I couldn't find their names (save for John Wilkes Booth) making them more or less "lost" in history.  I don't know if they had wives, children, I didn't know what they did for a living, what their personality was like, etc.  I did 30 cards for the set and I really enjoyed this trip down history lane.

'Til next time...

Short Stories on Amazon.com!

Hey folks, here's some exciting nuggets for you all to chew on.  Back in April a gentleman by the name of Douglas Esper contacted me through my artist page on Facebook (which is http://www.facebook.com/jasonwestlakeart if you weren't aware).  He had seen my Avengers prints and wanted me to design 4 covers for short stories he would be selling on Amazon.com as eBooks.  Well, they are now available!  Here are the covers I designed and I also provided the links to check out the synopsis for each and to also purchase them.  The best part?  They're only $.99!  If you have a Kindle, do yourself a favor a purchase a copy of each and support local artists and authors!

The Day We Hung The Tallest Thomas

Buy it here:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Hung-Tallest-Thomas-ebook/dp/B00CE2N6H6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369946203&sr=8-1&keywords=the+day+we+hung+the+tallest+thomas

The Quitter

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/the-quitter-ebook/dp/B00CFCAE3Y/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1

My Wife's Favorite

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/my-wifes-favorite-ebook/dp/B00CEN9UBG/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1369946275&sr=1-2 

The Baby Book

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Baby-Book-ebook/dp/B00CENW8GK/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1369946383&sr=1-3&keywords=the+baby+book

Thanks for reading!

C2E2 is coming up

Hey folks, I've been meaning to post again for quite some time, but I'm glad I head off a bit as I have quite a few things to show.  C2E2 is coming up next month in Chicago, Illinois and I cannot be more excited for it.  I've been busting my rump trying to get new stuff done and ready.  Here we go.

First up: The Avengers.  These have done very well at the past few shows I've done and this time around I wanted to get top-notch quality prints done.  Long story short, when I got a new laptop the chord that went from my external hard drive to my old laptop didn't match up, so I finally got a new chord and when I went to get the files from the hard drive....they weren't there.  So I figured, what the hell, I'll just do them over and spruce them up a bit; I think they look infinitely better.  I even completely redid Thor (truth be told I never really cared for the original one), and come to pass the new one is probably my favorite.  If you've seen the original ones and compared them to the new ones, you'll notice I've made some changes, and I think they were for the better.

OK, next up is Bond.  James Bond.  I'm a HUGE 007 nut, and after seeing Skyfall I wanted to do a series of 007 prints somewhat similar to the Avengers ones.  Well, I didn't get to do Quantum of Solace, nor Skyfall, but I did do Casino Royale (easily in my top 3 favorite Bond films).  Somewhere down the line I'll do the other two.

Whew.  Almost done.  OK, onto the last two I will have on hand.  Season 3 of The Walking Dead has been kicking me in the nuts...and I actually enjoy it.  I've decided to give my original piece a facelift, much like The Avengers, but in the process I decided to do another one altogether.

OK, so there you have it.  These are a few of the things I'll have on hand at C2E2 next month AND Motor City Comic Con in May, but obviously I'll get to that soon.  I hope.

Catching up

WOW. It has been a hot minute since I've last updated this. I've been incredibly busy with work, but I've also been doing the art thing. Couple things to bring up:

First things first: People are still asking me about the book I did the coloring work on, as well as Ted Wood's lettering work, "My Father's Keeper". Things are moving along with that and I hope to have a few on hand at the upcoming Motor City Comic Con in May, which I will touch base on in a bit. Not only that, but I got the opportunity to do the cover for the book:



In other news, I'm tapped for a few more sets for Unstoppable Cards. I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say which sets I'm on, but as soon as I can say, I'll let everyone know.

If you have me as a friend on Facebook, you'll notice I'll post stuff from my work at TGM Skateboards from time to time. For those who don't know what I do, I design graphics for skateboards, promotional material, website design (actually just the designing, not throwing it together for the web), etc. For those who haven't seen any of my board designs here are the first batch I did for the in-house Paradise Longboards line:


PARADISE CRUISERS


TOMMY 1


GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS


FROM BELOW


TIKI


VOLUME 1


ZOMBIE PANDA


TOTEM


NAUTICAL MAP

A new batch of Paradise Longboards is slated to come out around June, and I'm very excited and happy with the work we came up with. I'll keep everyone posted on that as well.

Getting back into the sketch card scheme of things:

Phoenix and Rogue from the X-Men universe.


Red Skull and Bane, from Captain America and The Dark Knight Rises, respectively.

Ok, finally I will be in the Arist Alley at the 2012 Motor City Comic Con, which takes place May 18-20. I'll be posting more news about that in the weeks to come.

Until next time.....

The times they are a changin'.

Well, it's been a minute since I've last posted anything so why not. I'm going to deviate from the norm this time around and put some graphic design stuff up. For the past few months I've had an internship for "Couples Magazine" in Southfield, MI., but unfortunately it couldn't take off. In a world where everything can be read online it is very tough to get anything print off the ground.

During my time there I worked on the look of the publication (including page layouts), a promotional board game that would have been sold through the website and as a free gift with a subscription purchase, and other odds and ends. I'll be going through all my work there and posting it here as a way to show what work I've done in Illustrator, Photoshop, and hopefully Indesign (once I figure out how to turn the files into JPG's).

This is an advertisement for Art Van to be pushed as a sponsor for the publication. Note: This is in NO WAY endorsed by Art Van Furniture. This ad and the following were created to be taken to the companies to show how their business could be incorporated with the publication (The loveseat ad for example is pretty self explanatory, whereas the car ads incorporates the family side of the coin, and the Greek Town Casino ads were to attract the younger demographic of couples.). Whereas the Art Van ad would have been a two-page spread, the following ads would be single and quarter page advertisements.

Having said that, I will post the next ads I have created, and the same disclaimer applies to those as well.

*As an additional update, I have completed preliminary color work for the upcoming comic "My Father's Keeper", one part of a three-part graphic novel published by Shot in the Dark Comics. Refinements are being done and I'm very happy with how it's turning out. I don't know when it will be published, but Amazon.com already has it up, but without a preorder. Once I find out when, I'll let you all know. In the meantime, here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Wet-Dirt-Nicholas-Grabowsky/dp/0982253001/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296125826&sr=8-5

Whew! That's alot of ground I just covered. Til' next time...