Summer Projects

A couple of projects I am working on this summer...

1. The Book of Celestina, Part I
As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently created a character drawing for a band called 17 Pygmies. Well, that drawing was just the beginning! I am tremendously excited to announce that I will be working on a graphic novel with the Pygmies that corresponds with their upcoming album The Book of Isabel Part I. If you are curious, here is where you can learn more about the project, and show your support.

This, of course, means that I've recently upped my science-fiction-watching and comic-reading (all in the name of research and inspiration, I swear), and am finding myself with the delightful dilemma of how to make 15th century clothing look futuristic (as the story is based on a 15th century Spanish classic.) Below are a couple of other character sketches.

2. Blue Parka
An East coast friend of mine commissioned me to do a piece for him inspired by a group of friends/dancers and their house called the "Blue Parka." I fell in love with blues dancing while I was living in San Francisco, so I'm especially excited about this little project. In case you're unfamiliar with this type of dance, here's one of my favorite clips (I used to dance at that venue in SOMA!):

3. Miscellanea
There's been a number of other things keeping me busy, including a puppetry workshop with Gabriel Ponti a couple of weeks ago (which I was very fortunate to take through the University of Oregon.) It was a short workshop - only 4 weeks - but I learned a lot, and got to make a couple of puppets, including the leaf/moss guy below.

I also made an appearance at Faerieworlds...I wasn't a vendor this year, but did have a chance to play with new materials, and made some horns, kind of as an experiment. They came out great, and got us a ton of complements (perhaps I'll make more to sell next year?)

And finally, I've been making coloring books again - hopefully they will be available at Paxton Gate's Curiosities for Kids at the end of the summer!