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Legal Pad Sketchbook Pg. 3

Hey blog, ain't posted on you in a while. Thought I would share a page in progress from my new legal pad sketchbook with ya...and by new, I mean an old legal pad I've had laying around for a few years now just taking up space.

I'm pretty pleased with how this thing is turning out. I'm doing all of the initial sketches with a red crayola marker. I dig all of the crazy under layer stuff that's left after I start coloring.

Anyway, it has been great reconnecting with you, blog. let's do it again soon, okay?

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Babys and Saints...but not in that order.

So it's a Wednesday. How ya doin'? I'm doin' good. Went to Wal-Mart today. Picked up the "travel system" for the baby-to-be. Crazy business this baby stuff. I remember when a stroller was just a stroller, but now, because we can remove the seat and put it in the car, it's a "system" of some kind. Whenever I hear the word "system" I think of large complicated things that work together toward some ultimate goal. I suppose the baby "travel system" works to keep the baby safe no matter the mode of transportation, but the word "system" seems like an embellishment.

The wife says: "Hey, I did the research. This one won't cut the baby's fingers off on accident."

I can always trust my wife to put things into perspective, as I was unaware that there were other "systems" randomly amputating the digits of newborns across this crazy globe. I would hate myself if I bought a "travel system" for cheap, only to have it be some monstrous contraption that fed on baby fingers. That would put me in the "Not a Good Dad" category, and I definitely don't want to be there. At least, not yet. I gotta let the baby give me a reason first. That's only fair.

Oh, and hey, I drew something for the blog today. Well, I didn't actually "draw" it today. I drew it a couple weeks ago, I just never got around to scanning it. Well, consider it scanned. It's of a dude called The Saint, and he's the ultimate good guy of a little off-color comic book called "The Pro." If you haven't read "The Pro" you're really doing yourself a disservice. It's a great book, full of inappropriate material. Really...go pick it up and read it to your kids. I've already read it to my unborn baby...thrice!

Well, gotta go. Gonna pull the "travel system" out of the box and see just how damned complicated it's going to be to put together. Any extra parts I'll sell on craigslist.

Ninja Heatwave

Powered by the magic of Illusion-O!

Ain't that crazy? Dig all that crazy moaning!

Who you callin' a Goon?

I am. The Goon f'n rocks! If you're ain't reading it, you should be. And if you haven't seen the trailer for the new CGI movie based on the books, then you REALLY need to hit up youtube! It looks brilliant!

Sagat the Giant Asian Ass-Kicking Pirate

I don't know, but regular ole Sagat is pretty intense. His Tiger Punch is pretty scary. Dude is so slow, but he's got ups that a moon man would admire. And the eye patch! Holy crap the eye patch! He's like a giant Asian ass-kicking pirate, with a gnarly scar across his beefy chest. That's just awesome.

Mr. Incredible

This was today's wind-down sketch, that I decided to ink...with a brush! HAH! Can you say "pimpin'"? Well I'm sure you can, because it's a fun word. It's amazing Billy the Kid once called a guy a "pimp" as an insult, resulting in a threat of violence, resulting in Billy the Kid shooting the guy he just alleged to be a "pimp." Why do I keep putting the word "pimp" in quotations? Maybe it's just because whenever I say "pimp" I feel it needs to be emphasized? Maybe it's because I'm crazy? Or maybe...just maybe, it's because "pimp" and quotations go together like biscuits and "gravy"?

What, you didn't think "pimp" was the only word that got the quotation treatment with me, did you?

The Elephant Man

Louis C.K. Digital Sketch

Louis CK is really f'n funny! If you ain't hip to this ginger mister's hilarious stylings, you better get hip before you get broke!

Just readin' the prompter people. Just readin' the prompter.

Axe Cop & Dr. McNinja

Here's an all digital piece of two great webcomic characters, Axe Cop & Dr. McNinja! They're embroiled in a big crossover event this week, so go check it out!

SDCC 2010 Sketchcards...

Ain't wrote up an SDCC 2010 recap yet, and y'know...I probably won't be anytime soon. Not that I didn't have plenty of shit to write about (I certainly do), I'm just not in the mood to write about myself or the things happening in my life currently. Sorry. I'd rather sit at the keyboard, upload some of the latest sketches I've done for people, and possibly just ramble on about whatever pops into my head at the time. Like now. I'm not thinking about anything I'm writing in this blog post now. I'm just letting my fingers dance...

Sorry, I just picked my nose and lost my train of thought.

So anyway, I will say that while at SDCC (San Diego Comic-Con if you don't know what SDCC means) I had the pleasure of getting to meet a lot of great folk, and had the double-pleasure (that's like, "the pleasure" but times two!) of getting to draw for some of them. Actually I think I ended up drawing like 20 sketchcards in like two days, so that was something. On the spot shit, too. And a bunch of characters I've never head of before, so yeah...it was good times.

Above are a couple of the cards I did. The Panty Dropper and Oink Oink Baby cards were my own. The other two were requested by folks who bought books. I got to play with paint pens which I promptly fell in love with.

Maybe I'll post some of the pictures I took with some of the celebs I bumped into while I was there. No guarantees or anything. I can guarantee more sketches though. That will happen. So if you like that kind of thing, feel free to hang out for a while.

Pigs

Working a story that calls for some pig designs. These are the ones I liked the best. I plan on doing more of these, cause they're fun and easy.

Trixie Dynamite

Trixie Dynamite is a futuristic cheesecake chick created by my buddy, Ben Schwartz. I'm trying to talk him into letting me draw a story with her, but so far no luck. I'll keep trying.

Uncle Ruckus

I love "The Boondocks." Uncle Ruckus is my main reason to watch. The character is hysterical.

Tinkerbell

She's cute. She's feisty. She's Tinkerbell. That's all I got.

Noxious Rude

There here be Noxious Rude. He's the main character of a story I'm slowly developing. He's a redesign of a character I original created when I was ten. Fun fun.

Super Jack

I've got a character named Jack. He's the embodiment of everything that's wrong with me. This is he dressed in a superhero costume with the letters "ED" on the chest. That's because if he were a superhero, he'd need endorsements...and erectile dysfunction is as good as any.

Ravage 2099

Sometimes I like to grabs some old comics at random and draw the characters from it. On this occasion I happened to grab a couple copies of Ravage 2099. I don't remember much from the book, and I don't know the character very well, but I had fun drawing this dude. Didn't have a pencil handy, so I had to do it with a bic pen.

Captain Hammer

I did this as a birthday gift for my good friend, Jenn Lee. She's all kinds of awesome, and she's got a thing for Nathan Fillion...but then again, who doesn't, am I right?

Monster Concepts

So, I'm doing some concept work for a project I won't name...not yet anyway. It's something the creator and I have discussed a few times over the last couple of months, and our schedules have finally freed themselves up enough for us to really take a good crack at it. With any luck, this thing might go somewhere.

Sorry for the crappy picture. I did these concept sketches on my giant 14x17 drawing pad. I've had it for years upon years. I like to sketch rough ideas out on it sometimes...as opposed to piece ideas which I'll sketch in my little sketchbook.

Anyway, hope ya'll dig some of these. I don't know how many (if any) will make the cut and move on to the next round. This is just the start.

Sketchbook 06292010

So yesterday I did a couple things: I started a Big Trouble in Little China art group on deviantart.com. I watched the series premiere of Louis C.K.'s new show on F/X, "Louie." I agreed to "Machete" themed art trade with my good buddy and fellow artist Chad Fuller. And I finished that Darth Vader piece. Pretty productive day. What will today bring? New bedding for my new Cal-King, Cherry Limeades for the wife and I, and mailing off the rebates we got with our new phones? Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Might even take that Louie sketch to the next stage. We shall see...

Darth MF'in Vader

Love this character. I hope I did his big beautiful black visage justice.

It's time... It's time...

IT'S...VADER...TIME!

Oh, droppin' Big Van Vader refs up in this bitch! Smell the professional wrestling geekery. Smell it!

But yeah, this isn't Big Van Vader. It's Darth Vader. I have a feeling Darth Vader would destroy Big Van Vader in seconds. Wouldn't be much of a fight. Big Van Vader would never get close enough to doing one of his patented moonsaults. Too bad. That would be pretty cool.

All too easy.

Follow-up from yesterday's post...I busted out this quick Vader sketch last night before passing out.

All the Star Wars you can shake a lightsaber at...

Been a busy bee. Here are a couple Star Wars themed marker pieces I've done in the last week. Thinking about doing one more of Darth Vader...since it just don't seem right to draw Star Wars characters, and not draw Darth Vader. I dunno...we'll see. Any suggestions?

WIP: Yoda & Count Dooku

Here's a work in progress. Started it last night, I'll finish it today after work. It's for a local art show being held at my favorite Sacramento comic book shop, Empire Comics Vault this weekend. The show is gonna feature a lot of local artists, and as far as I know, all the pieces will be for sale. If you live in the area, you oughta come check it out!

PSC: Lion-o

My buddy Nu and I decided to each draw Lion-o today. Since I've been on this sketch card kick, thought I'd just marry the two.

PSC: Phantom Limb & Capt. Hook

I don't know if you can get any further apart than these two. Two of my favorite villains...both so incredibly flawed. Come to think of it, maybe they have more in common than I thought!

PSC: The Green Ghost

Here's another personal sketch card (PSC) of a cool little indie character by the uber talented Scott Godlewski, The Green Ghost. Go check out Scott's stuff at Two-Fisted Art or his dA page, scottygod.deviantart.com!

Sketchcards - The Thing, Megaton Man, the Maxx

Been doing these sketch cards. Having lots and lots of fun with them. Here we've got The Thing, Megaton Man, and the Maxx. Not too happy with how the Maxx turned out, but it was also the first one I colored, so consider it my broken egg of the batch.

Got more on the way, so keep a look out!

Sketchcards - The Watchmen

Had so much fun with the last batch, had to do another. This time I thought I'd try a theme. Decided to try my hand at the Watchmen. As you can see, I used the book versions of the characters. Hope ya'll like!

Sketchcards...

Here's my second attempt at doing some legit 2.5 x 3.5 sketchcards. Actually drew these pretty quick. The hardest part was picking which characters to draw. This was a lot of fun, though, so I think I'll be doing more soon!

In order: Ash, Lady Death, the Maxx, Mr. T, Savage Dragon, Megaton Man, the Creech, Aquaman, Batman.

Trixie Dynamite Sketch...

This is sort of an old sketch. Drew this back in March during the Emerald Con in Seattle. This is my buddy, Ben Schwartz's character, Trixie Dynamite. I saw her and instantly fell in love with the bubble-gum cheesecake potential. I've pushed Ben to give me a Trixie story to draw, but ain't got nothin' yet. I'll keep prodding though. Oh yes I will!

Digital Sketchcard: Zangief

Continued practice working completely digitally. Thought I'd do a Street Fighter character tonight.

Darth Vader

This is original artwork of everyone's favorite evil Jedi, Darth Vader.

This piece was done on 9x12 Bristol, and colored with prismas, sharpies and colored pencils. It's available for purchase for $65.00 (includes US shipping). If interested, please email me.

Darth Talon & Cade Skywalker

Here is some original art of a couple of characters from the extended comic book Star Wars universe. Darth Talon and Cade Skywalker.

This piece was done on 9x12 Bristol, and colored with prismas, sharpies, and colored pencils.

This piece is for sale for $65.00 (includes US shipping). If interested, please email me.

Puttin' the Toy in Toy Story...or just another lame blog title, maybe?

Was actually ACHING to get home today and do some work. After the good times that went into creating yesterday's post, I could help it. Here's a digital sketch of Toy Story's Rex and one of those crazy little squeak aliens. This was fun. Big Pixar fan. Word.

the private files of the FOWL

Gonna be practicing my coloring. Cell shading mostly. None of this painting crap. I can appreciate it, I just don't like it. Personal taste thing, you see. First piece is of The Fowl. He's the creation of Dan Schkade. He's a good kid. Bright future. Going to college and all that. Someday he'll rule the world. Until then he's passing the time writing and drawing comics featuring the character above. You can read those at CrankyOctopus.com. For more of Dan's art, check out his dA page at dan-sch.deviantart.com.

In other news - recently moved. Scanner isn't hooked up yet, so no new sketches to show. Maybe I'll leave it unhooked for a while and just work digitally. That would be different. Could be fun. We'll see what happens.

Peace.

Pulling an all nighter. Gotta be to work early. Tomorrow is gonna SUCK.

AWE SHEEE-IT!

Yo dawg. I'm just sittin' here...allergies kick-kick-kickin' my caboose all over the place. I hate Spring. Right now I'm waiting for my wife to get home so I can run Ninja Assassin and Love Happens back to the movie machine inside my favorite grocery store. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the new Sherlock Holmes and Men Who Stare At Goats movies. Love Happens was okay. Decent for a chick flick. Aaron Eckhart is dreamy. Ain't watched Ninja Assassin yet. I know, and I'm taking it back. I'ma still watch it though. I'll use my stealthy DVD-ninjary skills. Word.

Oh hey, lookit the top of the post. I'm posting the pencils to page 2 of a story that'll be coming out this May in "Tales from the Torn Universe vol. 1" at Phoenix Cactus Con! I do all my own pencils...and stunts. I also do everything in red. I like red. It makes me happy to then go and ink over the red. Yeah, I ink my original pencils, too. I know...crazy. Lock me up, I'm outta my mind!

Still waiting for HBO On Demand to throw up the second half of season two of "The Wire." That's a good show. Another show I'm loving right now is the Starz original, "Spartacus: Blood and Sand." Talk about a wow moment! Good shit that show is. Reminds me of "Rome" (another classic) for the NASCAR sect. I don't like NASCAR, but I do like anything that vaguely resembles "Rome," so there you go.

I'm gonna start posting some movie reviews here soon. Just so I can have a reason to post stuff, since I haven't been very good about posting sketches. It's not laziness of drawing--I'm doing shit tons of that. I just haven't been wanting to take the time to come here, write something, and upload the work I've been doing. So, y'know...slap me around for that if you're down.

Gonna go do other things now. Check you later!

Random Bad Guy Day

Hey yo. It's random bad guy day here at the YourBuddyBuddy blog (I say that as if this is some kind of office, and not just some dude sitting at a computer in his office typing away late into the night), and with that comes the random bad guy of the day - I'm calling him Bubble Head, because his head is in a bubble. Seriously though, I have no idea what this guy is about, other than climbing out of my pencil as I sit half asleep during "The Informant" last night. Decent movie, but not as funny as I was expecting. It was actually kind of sad.

Anyway, I've sort of had no real time to draw for myself in a LONG time, so my warm-up sketches hence forth are going to either be A) devoted to prepping future projects or B) spent cranking out weird bad guys for future Cracker Ace stories. Either way it's a plan full of win.

On that note: It's time to go watch the season finale of "Burn Notice."

Sac-Con 2010 & Snuggies R EEE-VIL

Howdy! So yesterday was the first Sac-Con of 2010 and I had a pretty good time. The place was small, but surprisingly packed! I got several looks, but not many takers. I sold one copy of Torn Comics "Twist in the Night" and two copies of my sketchbook, "Snuggies R EEE-VIL."



This first picture is Craig, a nice fellow who hung out for a bit and bought a sketchbook. He asked me to draw him a "naughty zombie fairy." You can't see it too good from the picture (camera phone--all I had on me) but she's wearing fishnets, a short skirt, taped nipples, holding a brain, and her bottom jaw is missing. This was actually the last thing I drew at the con, so it was nice to finish things off with something different. Thanks for pickin' up a book, Craig!

Here's Rorschach. He (although I'm pretty sure it was a "she" under the mask) also picked up a sketchbook. She gave me free reign to draw whatever, so I figured I might as well draw Rorschach! Good times. Thanks Rorschach...you demented little person you!

I currently have about 12 copies left of my first sketchbook, Snuggies R EEE-VIL. I won't be printing any more of these, so what you see is what I got. I'm selling these for $10.00 each, and you get a free inked sketch in the back of the book of the ONE character of your choice with each purchase. I'm hoping to sell a few of these at Emerald Con this weekend, so if you want one, please let me know ASAP so I know what not to take. I have a "Buy Now" option over on the side of the page under "Commissions." Just select the last option in the drop down menu and hit submit. The total charge will be 12.50 (10 plus 2.50 for shipping). Just shoot me a not or comment regarding who you want me to draw for you.

I got a few new sketches and sketchcards to post later.

Sketch Card: Axe Cop

Can't sleep. Thought I'd wind down the day with another sketch card. This one is of Axe Cop. If you haven't heard of him yet, I highly recommend checking out the Axe Cop website and reading the webcomic. It's a pretty novel idea, and the comic itself is pretty damn funny.

Okay, off to bed.

Axe Cop © Ethan Nicolle

Sketchcard, 2012, and the start of the Con Season...

Thanks to everyone for the love and support over the loss of Cooper. I'm so glad I've got such a great group of people watching me (as I them).

Still inking like crazy. Pretty strange working today without Coop at my side. If we didn't have the new puppy, Sookie, things would probably be a lot worse emotionally. Of course, it's pretty tough to get anything done when you've got an 11 week old, 4lb peekapoo attacking your feet every chance she gets. Despite all that, though, I got quite a bit done today. Two and a half pages inked, and this sketchcard here.

The sketchcard is something I crapped out while watching "2012." Man, is that movie shitty. No offense to those who like the big dumb disaster movies of today...everybody has their thing. I prefer my disaster movies to be from the 70's, and to star Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, or George Kennedy.

The character on the card is nothing special. It's not a character I've had in my head or anything. Might tweak him up and use him as a villain for Cracker Ace or something. We'll see.

The Sac-Con is coming up this Sunday, March 7. I'm gonna be there with my Little Carbon Robot buds. I've been told we're gonna be sitting on a panel talking about what it's like to work in an art collective. I'm not exactly sure what to expect, other than a good time, and that's all I really care about. The following weekend I'll be headed with those same buds to Seattle for the Emerald City Con. I've never been there, and I'm horrifically unprepared, but it should be fun, and provide ample opportunity to meet new folks. I'll probably end up spending 80% of my time sitting at the table drawing sketchcards, or working on project stuff. I don't have a lot of free time to create a lot of non-project work, so I might not be able to fight the urge not to "work" while there. Whateverthecase, I'm definitely gonna be busy doing something.

Here's where me and the LCR Crew are gonna be Emerald. Make sure to stop by and say hello. I'm the big white guy with glasses and a Jimi Hendrix hat. I know I look scary, but I'm really not...I'm just really shy when in big groups of people (even in groups of people I know), and thus tend to look a little menacing. I promise you, I'm not mean! Yes, I'd love to meet you and chat about stuff! So come on by, or stop me on the floor...just don't talk to me in the bathroom. That's just weird.

JB

Cooper 2001-2010

So this morning I wake up to scratches on my back. Cooper, who had a history of epilepsy, started to seizure early this morning. Because of his inability to eat or keep anything down, we weren't able to give him the medicine he takes every day for the last day and a half. These seizures coupled with his already deteriorated state, we thought the humane decision was to go ahead and put him down. There is more to it than this, but it's not necessary to go into all the little details here.

Cooper was the best dog I've ever known. He was sweet, he was a snuggler, he was always ready to climb into my lap and just chill. I still don't think his passing has hit me yet--it probably won't hit me until I come home from work tonight, and he's not there to greet me in his way.

I'm gonna miss you, little buddy.

Cooper, the Blog, and some Raph...

I'm pretty worried about my dog. His name is Cooper, he's 9, and he's a toy poodle. He's the coolest dog in the world (I know every dog owner says that about their dog, but in this case, it just so happens to be true), but for the past four days he's been really sluggish, won't eat, and at times throws up a brownish-orange foamy goo, with tiny pieces of hair mixed in. I've got a vet appointment for him on Monday and I'm hoping everything checks out fine and they say he's just got a bug of some kind. It's been pretty rainy here, so it wouldn't surprise me if he ate something growing wild in the backyard. He's like that...eats anything that looks or smells like food. It doesn't have to be both. One or the other is good enough.

Right now he's laying on my arm, so I'm literally typing with one arm on lockdown. I've owned dogs before, and I've been around a lot of dogs--I've always considered myself a dog person--but I've never had a bond with a dog like I have with Cooper. He's made it clear that I'm his person, he wants to be with me at all times (without being possessive or aggressive). He's either in my lap or at my feet, and rarely anywhere else. I'll stop rambling on about how great he is, I guess. With some luck, his visit on Monday will put an end to my worrying.

On a lighter note, been sprucing up the old blog. Been meaning to do it for some time really, just never took the time to drop in the changes. I like the fact that Blogger has brought back the option of dropping a widget between the header and the body sections of the blog. It's perfect to doing a webcomic or placing ads and the like. I seeing how it looks with a Cracker Ace page up there (if you don't see it, don't worry you're not crazy, I'm only leaving it up for a few hours). Maybe when I get some free time I'll bust out some quick comic strips or something to run here for kicks. Always got ideas, just don't ever have the time to do them. I also like how you can create unique pages for different things as well, instead of everything being in posts. I think Blogger is trying to compete with Wordpress, which is a good thing. Competition means great things for the consumer...even if I don't actually pay for anything here. Anyway...

Below is a sketch of Raphael I did a few months back for my local art group, Little Carbon Robot. I had it finished in time, I just never took the time to scan it on account of being both busy, and lazy. Maybe more of the latter. Whateverthecase, it's posted now, so enjoy.

Big Honkin' Dump!

How-DEE! It's been a while since my last confession, so let's just do one big massive dump today. Gonna start things off with some sketches I did a few months ago of Brock Samson, Err, and the Hulk. Don't know why I chose these three at that time, they just popped into my head.

Next up is a piece I did earlier this year of the dreaded, Green Goblin! First time drawing this cat, and I rather enjoyed it! More detail here than I normally do, too, so yay for me!

And lastly here's a recent sketch I did while watching American Idol of Kratos. I was originally only going to draw Kratos, but then I thought, "Hey, I wanna draw some boobies, too!" so I drew some boobies too, on the lovely form of that wicked hot temptress, Medusa. Thought I'd get all goofy with it by throwing a wood texture underneath it, y'know, because I can.

Woot!