Michigan State Rose Bowl, 2014

Christmas Gift for my mom's husband, Rex, a big MSU fan (as should be each and every one of us). 

I suspect I'll be asked to produce a few more of these over the next week or two. I am not only not opposed to, but completely encourage anyone who would like one for themselves (an original, not a print, looking very much like the one below) to
send me an email. Price and turn-around will be based very much on demand.

Nami from League of Legends - Commission

A friend of mine who has been a very supportive fan of the blog commissioned this illustration for her boyfriend (who is apparently a big fan of Nami from League of Legends) It's much harder to remain fluid and loose when I'm aware that someone is plans on parting with actual money in exchange for my work. 

Whomever designs these characters with all these intricate little ornamental details needs to be taken out and shot.

Gift card sketches

I was going to sketch some bags for the kids teachers to put whatever "thanks for not throttling out kids" Christmas gift we got them. Then my wife got Greyhouse Coffee gift cards for all the teachers (speech therapist, music teacher, etc.). So I went a different (and less time intense) route.

Snoopy Claus

Last bag of 2013.

Merry Monster Christmas

Young Dracula and the Mummy getting into the holiday spirit.

You're a mean one...

Beppo the Super-Monkey

If you knew there was a Super-Monkey character (shown here in the style of Art Baltazar's SuperPets and Tiny Titans), you get a gold star.

If you knew his name was Beppo, you get all the gold stars.

Beppo the Super-Monkey

Elf on the Bag

While everyone else's elves where busy getting into all kinds of holiday mischief throughout the house, our elf ("Boy Christmas", inventively named by a 3-year old Talia) was posing for lunch bags.

Blue and Gold

I wasn't done with pint sized versions of superheroes, I guess. But I didn't feel like hacking Yale Stewart's style this time. 

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, the preschool years.

Jr. Flash and Green Arrow

Anyone who watches Arrow can probably guess which episode I was watching when I sketched this JL8 style duo.

Olaf

Once again, I was up well passed my bedtime when I hastily sketched up this bag. And its companion, which was more or less identical. Not sure what happened to the other Olaf. Perhaps it melted on the way home from school. This is why I usually take picture before  they go out into the wild.

Olaf

Frozen

A friend of mine checked in on our animals while we were away for the extended Thanksgiving weekend. He has two 8-ish-year-old girls who have become fans of the blog. So these are "thanks" bags. Which works out good for his girls, because they didn't even have to come check on the animals.

Elsa and Anna

Mr. Procrastinator and Little Miss Exhausted

I was so dead tired the night I drew these, I didn't even have the energy to find my phone to photograph them (hence the back from school wrinkles).

Little Miss Fun and Mr. Tickle

Monsters University

Mike and Sully were a little rushed. That seemed to be the trend for most of a lot of the following week or two.

Mike and Sully

Gobble gobble

I thought it would be fun for Wolfboy to make a second holiday appearance. I didn't reference his last appearance; I'm still playing around with character design for him. Apparently, I haven't settled on a color either (probably because I wanted him to contrast from the turkey, which is the color I would have otherwise chosen).

I hope everyone out there (all seven of you) got enough turkey for Thanksgiving.

Hawkgirl

Just because we watched some Justice League this weekend.

Hawkgirl

Smart car

It had been a while since I gave my little motor-head a car bag. And I was hoping to to force myself back into a higher degree of quality (the industrial design precision of things like cars forces me into that. The real challenge is for me to stay loose while working on something that demands I stay tight).

Aquaman and She-Hulk. Limited and limiting resources.

I took my markers to work, hoping to get some bag-time at lunch. I did not. Then I forgot to bring them home. So my marker supply on hand consisted of old, mostly dried out orange, green and black markers. Sure, I could have been innovative and done something with water color or colored pencil or just scrounged up a sharpie and gone black and white, but I just wasn't feeling it.

I decided to use this as a opportunity try to get back into the groove of loosening up and pushing for speed rather than detail. This shows up in a negative way in Aquaman's face, which I didn't pencil sketch (and thus pencil-erase and correct) upfront. On the plus side, I think it worked quite to my advantage by the time I was warmed up and moved on to She-Hulk.  I think that I also managed to make the drying green marker to work to my advantage there.

But just to keep me from getting too proud of myself, my daughter expressed disappointment that there was an angry green man on her bag.

Aquaman

She-Hulk