michyeomichyeo asked: Matthew, I am a big fan of your work. I am considering getting one of your pieces as my first tattoo. The piece I am wanting I came across several years ago- it is the two vertically paneled piece with a man in a skeleton suit drowning in the ocean with a bird flying above. I can't seem to find it! Would you please send it to me?
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After receiving a lot of notes of concern, I wanted to clarify that the last week or so being absolutely miserable is not directly related to my wrist pain. Though, being a cripple is by no means helping me feel better about things. Generally things aren’t getting all that much better, but they also are not getting worse. So while things are pretty shitty, it is by no means the bleak apocalypse I was bracing for last week.
I spent a little time over the last few days working on this illustration. More than anything, it was test for myself to see how bad my wrist had actually gotten since it had been a few weeks since I had drawn using a brush and ink. And while it took a bit of time getting used to, I am pretty pleased with the results. Since moving my wrist hurts like an absolute motherfucker, I had to rely more so on using the side of the brush and in turn using bigger motions and gestures while pivoting from my elbow. It created this nice loose textural feel that I think contrasts nicely with my normal tight grouping of detailed lines.
It’s kind of amazing for me to look back at illustrations I did just a few years ago (like this), and compare them to how I am working now. The biggest change obviously being the lack of complexity in how I use color now. I think I struggled for a long time with trying to show shape and depth in color, when really what I needed to do was rely on my actual drawing skills to do those things.
On a side note, yesterday I posted from Instagram to my Facebook fan page (because I have yet to figure out how to directly post to this Tumblr, considering it is not in fact the default blog attached to my Tumblr account). And from that I got a lot of people trying to follow me on Instagram. Unfortunately though, the vast majority of people attempting to follow me on there are going to be ignored due to the fact that I am for the most part keeping Instagram private. And anyway, who wants to see me take pictures of the same goddamned apartment day after day after day?
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It’s been an absolutely awful couple of weeks, and from the look of it it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. I sketched this up this morning in hopes of cheering myself up. It’s a bit of a revamp of this drawing, which I was never particularly happy with but liked the concept. Something about the angle always seemed off to me. Well regardless, I hope that I might get a chance to actually refine and finish this drawing sometime in the near future…I guess time will tell.
I have been working so much over the last few months that the arthritis/carpal-tunnel/tendonitis is my drawing hand/wrist/arm has gotten so bad that I basically am incapable of functioning as a normal human being. I have been wearing a wrist-guard 24 hours a day, which has just lead to other problems. My debilitation has gotten to the point where I can even see it in my line work. This can’t be a good thing.
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Here is a practice drawing I did during some of my (very limited) downtime today of something I may or may not be able to talk about yet. Hint: It might have something to do with Spider-man.
I tip my hat to anyone who has ever had to draw the web-head professionally. That costume is one son of a bitch to draw well consistently.
Also I have joined the rest of the population, and finally caved in and bought an iPhone. As much as I hate to admit it, I am kind of in love with it. One of the main reasons I decided to finally buy an iPhone was to have easy access to a decent camera, and more importantly easy access to getting those photos from my camera to my computer. Not only will this be great professionally with photo reference and such, but it will also allow me to overload the Internet with photographic evidence of my solitary and mundane life. As example, here is a picture of my terribly distracting juvenile Black Roughneck Monitor (Varanus Rudicollis) named Gregory who as of recent has taken to accessorizing himself with whatever he can find in his terrarium.
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I guess this is alright for me to talk about now since this is all over the internet as of this morning. I recently finished this poster for Mondo Posters (who I did The Innkeepers poster for) of the new Tim Burton movie “Dark Shadows”.
Unfortunately due to my humungo secret project, my time has been worn very thin of recent. So working on this poster was a nice change of pace from everything I have been doing for the last few months.
The poster will be sold in very limited numbers through Mondo’s site soon, as well as through me personally once I get my hands on some copies. So be sure to keep posted for news on that.
And as someone so casually mentioned on Ain’t It Cool News, this a very humble nod to one of my favorite paintings Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.
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I ran into this picture on Facebook that (sort of) shows my contribution to the Phidias Gold “Stack the Deck” show from last month. It’s a shame that it doesn’t show my deck better, because I have yet to actually see the thing. If anyone out there by chance did take any pictures of my deck at that show, please send them to me because I would love to see them! This still stands out as one of the more exciting projects I have done in recent years.
In other news, I have completely crippled myself by drawing too much over the last month. For seriously.
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I unfortunately use this blog as a platform to complain about a lot of things. Though the majority of the time, none of these things are actually illustration related. I have been considering cutting out all of the “personal” crap on this blog, and just making it a blog about illustration and my process. But since that is a long way away, let’s find a middle ground as a sort of a warm up.
I get a lot of compliments for the amount of detail I put into my work. Which to me is an extremely odd compliment. I draw things the way I see them. Hair looks like hair, eyes look like eyes, and asses look like asses. To explain this a little further, I was recently told “You draw eyes the way eyes really look…ugly.” Which is true, if you really get down to the details of what an eye actually looks like with all it’s dewy glistening whites and pinks and creases and folds….they are extremely fucking ugly. But somehow there is beauty in that grossness, and I guess that is what I am trying to get out while I am drawing. But there are varying levels of detail…from the minute creases in someone’s knuckles, to what I like to call “functional detail”. Functional detail is when you draw something so it looks like it would actually work and function in real life. This sort of detail is so engrained into how I draw, that I can’t understand for the life of me how someone could overlook it while drawing. So let the complaining begin.
So let’s take a look at this miserable Beggin’ Strips packaging above. See anything “off” about it? Well other than the god awful depiction of a cartoon dog, the retina melting color scheme, and the fact that it is trying to entice you to buy processed crap for your dog so that it can slowly die from malnutrition? Let’s take a closer look at the collar. See it yet? What’s up with that buckle? Well, the “tongue” of the buckle is facing the wrong way. If buckles were actually made like that, any tug that dog gives on a leash and that dog is halfway to New Mexico before you can get off of your cellphone to realize what has happened. Serves you right for feeding your dog fucking Beggin’ Strips.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am very aware that I am probably the only person that has ever noticed this. I can’t see this packaging without cringing. How could the artist overlook such a thing? Granted, if I was hired to draw this thing I would want to get it over with so quickly that I wouldn’t be paying any attention to which way a goddamned buckle was facing. But seriously, I don’t know how an artist could ever let something like that slip by them.
Out of all the times I have been accused of it (usually self inflicted), this is probably the first time on this blog that I would actually say that I was in fact being an asshole. But this packaging has driven me crazy for years, someone had to say something about it! I don’t even think they show the buckle in the newer packages anymore. I may be an asshole, but at least I can draw a dog collar that makes sense.
Disclaimer: If the illustrator that actually drew this ever comes across this post, please know that I do not fault you for how you drew that buckle. I wouldn’t want to draw that shit either, so trust me friend…I know your pain.
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After nearly 6 years of not having gas in my apartment (and therefor no working stove) due to a stubborn refusal to pay off an outstanding $1000 + gas bill that was 85% an ex-girlfriend’s doing, I have decided that with my next largish paycheck I will be paying off the gas company and getting my stove turned back on in hopes of attempting to live my life like a normal human being.
To celebrate my arrival into modern society a group of my friends have decided to throw a pancake party at my house…because honestly, who doesn’t love pancakes? To accompany said pancake party, the elusive Stephanie Brown and myself were trying to come up with a movie that would go along well with such breakfasty gluttony. The conversation quickly disolved into this:
me: The Day the Pancake Stood Still
Attack of the Giant Pancake Monster
Pancake 9 from Outer Space
Pancake By Pancakewest
Pancake: The Last Crepebender
Escape from Pancake York
Pancake Plissken
The Pancakes Must Be Crazy
Das Pancake
A Thin Red Pancake
Stephanie: Honey I Shrunk the Pancakes
me: Honey I Blew Up the Pancakes
Stephanie: A terribly tragedy starring Rick Moranis
me: Pancakesbusters II
Stephanie: 2001: A Space Pancake
me: A Clockwork Pancake
Fullmetal Pancake
Stephanie: Dirty Dancing: Pancake Nights
me: Citizen Pancake
Gone With the Pancake
The Pancake of Oz
Lawrence of Pancakeabia
Schindler’s Pancake
It’s a Wonderful Pancake
The bridge On the River Pancake
Pancake Wars Episode I
Stephanie: The Last Pancake Bender
me: I ALREADY DID THAT ONE. jeez
Stephanie: The Pancake Strikes Back
me: The Pancakes of Wrath
The Maltese Pancake
E.P. the Extra-Pancake
Stephanie: In the Mood For Pancakes
me: Apancakealypse Now
Apancakealypse Now is the name of the party
me: Butch Cassidy and the Pancake Kid
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Pancake
We are the fellowship of the pancake
Raiders of the Lost Crepe
Stephanie: One pancake to rule them all
me: Frodo Pangins and Syrupwise Gamgee. Ganenberry the Grape
Now mind you Stephanie was at work cleaning her tattoo machines due to a Steinbeckian dust disaster during this conversation, so her participation was unfortunately limited. But clearly we are using out very expensive art-school educations, knowledge of film and pop-culture, and childhood obesities to their fullest.
Don’t worry, I will post something real soon.
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Anonymous asked: I'll give you a few more nickels if you know what I mean.
As long as you can start giving me quarters eventually, so that I can at least do my laundry.
The plot thickens to the mystery of the anonymous anal sex requester! I will be sure to post any breaking news with continuing coverage of this developing story.
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Anonymous asked: Would you take on an intern?
This is actually a question I get asked a surprising amount. I have even gone so far as to interview a handful of people, and other than meeting a possible russian spy…they haven’t exactly been fruitful.
The real problem being, I have no idea what I would even use an intern or assistant for. My job is pretty self sufficient, and the fact that I have no social life and an agent kind of cuts out anything an intern could do for me.
Honestly, I would feel bad having an intern. The majority of their job would probably be making me sandwiches, playing Call of Duty, walking my dog, and watching eBay auctions for me…which I can’t imagine is what people have in mind when it comes to being an “artist’s assistant”. There would be no real art involved other than maybe “hold your hand in this position for a minute and don’t move”.
What little experience I have of teaching people anything about art has been extremely ill-fated. From completely destroying the hopes and dreams of some poor ECP student (sorry kid, I hope you have learned how to draw proportionate breasts by now), to a gestapo-like tutorial on breathing techniques while doing brush work (sorry Jenna), to letting people watch me flounder through Photoshop.
I think another problem being that my studio is in my apartment and I work from home. I have enough trouble as it is letting my friends into my apartment, let alone trying to come up with activities for a stranger to occupy their time with. That would also mean I would have to wear pants more often, which would seriously cramp my artistic output.
So to make a long story short; unless you have absolutely no interest in learning anything, don’t mind being yelled at constantly by an overly OCD pantsless stranger, can make a mean club sandwich, or are an idiot-savant at videogames and/or bluegrass harmonies….I really don’t know what I could offer an intern.
