Brothers don’t shake hands, brothers hug.

I have two brothers. One older, one younger. None of us have the ability to shoot fireballs, fly, turn into statues, frogs, raccoons, jump over lava pits that are ten times as long as we are tall. I know two brothers who do have those abilities and more. You may think that those abilities would make these two guys an inseparable team that could work through any issues, but I say nay. Nay I say!

The Mario brothers were two skilled tradesman who were mystically transported to the Mushroom Kingdom just to be inundated with trials and tribulations of an unearthly degree all in an attempt to save a princess they had just met. We can assume they were benevolent guys since there is never any mention of a reward for saving said princess. That makes me think the the princess became the reward for both brothers. There is an instant set up for sibling rivalry.

If you notice, the brothers are rarely shown on screen at the same time without being pitted against each other. I can say for myself that playing Super Mario 3 with my older brother was a lesson in pain. Every time I passed by one of the levels he had beaten, he would initiate the Mario Bros. mini game and steal my lives and inventory items. A worse frustration was never known. Controllers were wielded like nunchucks, brotherly beatings happened-usually quietly so our mom didn’t make us stop playing. Craziness. I’m sure I did something equally as irritating to my younger brother through a later Mario game. My point is that the Mario brothers breed rivalry even if it is funny at times.
So I decided to paint these guys locked in a forever stare that lends us some insight to their family dynamics. Things were simpler when all they had to do was snake drains and unclog toilets.

I am currently offering these two 3D wall paintings on my Etsy! Luigi measures at about 9.25″x6.25″ while Mario is approximately 8″x7″. These guys would look great up on either side of a wall, on separate ends of a bookshelf, over a TV, etc.

These guys sold super quick but if you're interested in a custom order please contact me via my contact button above or via my Etsy shop! 

Elvis Presley, your hunk o’ burning love.

Random facts about Elvis Presley:

He made 31 movies.

He only played 5 shows outside of the United States. 100% of those were played in Canada.

Nicolas Cage is the only person outside of Elvis’ immediate family to have seen the inside of Elvis’ bedroom at Graceland.

In the 60′s Elvis had a pet dog and a chimpanzee. Because he was Elvis.

Elvis was abducted by aliens on August 16, 1977

He became supreme overlord of the Klatuu nebula on September 20, 1978. This was the fastest rise to power since the Glarkon debacle of Lerdnon 7.

Elvis’ first act of power was to abolish the stardate system and transfer all dating to the Gregorian calendar. He felt star dating was “like, too far out man.”

thanks to hollywoodscoop.com for the great facts. You guys are great.

Weird Al print over at the Etsy...

That’s what the kids call it right? The Etsy? Ok, good.

If you’ve been following this here blog, then you may remember that I painted a painting of the incredibly talented and super hilarious “Weird” Al Yankovic a little while ago. If you wanted to, you could see that here. If not, that’s ok…I won’t judge you.

I reworked the image a bit and I am now offering it as a print in my Etsy shop!

I chose to give Al his vintage look back in the new image. This decision is coming partly from my overwhelming obsession with the movie UHF and partly because it just makes the image more “Weird Al-ish.”

At any rate, here it is!

If you are so inclined, and I do recommend it, you can go and purchase a print of this here painting here.

Ikari Warriors arcade game art

So when I heard that the Summer theme for PaletteSwap was golden age arcade games I was like, “Whaaaaaaaaaat gurl?” What was weird was that there was no girl there, just my cat Mustachio and she looked at me like I was going to give her pets. I was like,”No Mustachio, this is my time. Go do cat things.” Then my wife came into the room and we started breakdancing. 15% of that story is true. I will let you decide which parts.

Alas, the PaletteSwap theme WAS Golden Age arcade games. I was and am still stoked.

I grew up in San Pedro, California. Why is this important? Because that means I was only a hop, skip and a jump away from Torrance and in Torrance resided the Del Amo Mall. What was in the Del Amo Mall you ask? A Game Stop? No! Game Stop wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of a tiny nerdboy yet. What lived in a dark and greasy corner of the mall was far better.

Aladdin’s Castle

photo from snk-capcom.com

I actually just found out it was the testing center for new Neo Geo games too. Thanks internet!

Aladdins castle was a real video game arcade. As soon as you walked in your senses were going coo coo crazy. Your nose was greeted with sour b.o. as soon as your feet crossed the threshold. You cant keep a good nerd from sweating profusely when he’s playing Rushin’ Attack. Ears were met with the cacophonous sound of a hundred different games blasting at full volume and your eyes were full to the brim of colors, lights, and a huge array of multicultural nerdfare.

Of all those games I played back then I think Ikari Warriors was my chosen illustration this time because it most fits what I really like about the eighties, which take up the bulk of the Golden Age of arcade. I like, nay LOVE, eighties action movies. I actually can’t separate myself from the notion that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best actor ever. I won’t attempt to justify that. I just lost some of you. I know that but it doesn’t matter. At any rate, Ikari Warriors celebrates the idea of two dudes taking down a whole army, armed with nothing more than a machine gun and a couple grenades. It was super fun and SUPER hard. I chose to model my characters after Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris and what came of it is a poster for the greatest eighties movie never made.

Here are some shots of the original game:

photo from flyers.arcade-museum.com

photo from gamasutra.com

Did I mention that you only had a limited amount of bullets? What? Ridiculously hard game.

PaletteSwap’s Tumblr is here.

Ok so I must say that while I was making the illustration, I also decided that I wanted to push it a little farther. I’ve never actually made any papercraft toys before but I saw a couple papercraft arcade cabinets pop up when I was searching for the game screenshots. I have always kind of admired the idea of making tiny versions of bigger things and I wanted to play with it. After following a couple directions from other papercraft sites on how to make an arcade cabinet, I decided to mock up my own version. I wanted the thing to be able to print large but not so that you’d have to get any wonky sized paper or use a larger format printer. The plans ended up printing on two 8.5″x11″ pieces of paper. I used a couple sheets of 110 lb. card stock because I wanted to make sure it stuck around for a while. I made the plans available at my Etsy shop for a nominal fee. The PaletteSwap blog is a non-comissioned art blog so we as artists don’t make any money directly from it. We just love what we are doing. However, I thought it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to make this thing multi task for me as I put a bit more effort than just an illustration.

Anywho, these things look super cool on your desktop and if you spray them lightly with some varnish, they’ll last a long time.

Notice, the quarter stacked in the little gutter under the game screen. In arcade language, this means you've  held your place for the next game.

Ron Swanson Approves of This Message

What can I possibly say about Ronald Ulysses Swanson that hasn’t been said more eloquently in the hallowed halls of the Interwebs before? Nick Offerman’s portrayal of manly man Ron Swanson is just great to my wife and I. There aren’t many TV shows we watch now that we don’t serve the cable gods anymore. However, we do Hulu the proverbial crap out of Parks and Recreation.

Perhaps I can’t say it in words but I sure can try with some paint. I kept looking at this blank spot on our dining room wall and I decided that we needed some food related art.

Undoubtedly, Ron Swanson’s culinary leanings tend toward the meaty side of life. Whether its meat burgers made of meat, Meat Tornado burritos, or just a good old fashioned cookout, Duke Silver is a carnivore to the core. I thought it fitting to have him grace our walls with his semi-inspirational slogan for his signature dish, theTurf & Turf. It consists of one 16 oz. Rib-eye steak, one 24 oz. Porterhouse, a cigar and a glass of whiskey. By the way, although commonly thought to be the same, Rib-eyes and Porterhouse steaksare different. I did some research. I’d tell you the specifics but you should really look into the matter for yourself. You know, teach a man to fish…(for sport only, fish meat is practically a vegetable.)

I worked up a little print of this painting over at my Etsy shop. You can buy it here…because you are a free American. Unless you’re not. Then just buy it because you’re awesome.

illustration friday -subtract-

Thats all I see in my bank account…Subtraction. Just like everyone else. YAY! Here's a piece I did for Illustration Friday's theme, "Subtract".

Bullet in the Brain - Tobias Wolff

I was feeling a little stuck in a rut so I enlisted the talents of a good friend and former instructor Jeffrey Smith. He acted as Art Director on this and sent me on a little tour of short stories about the extraordinary within the mundane. This story, written by Tobias Wolff, is called Bullet in the Brain. You can read the story here. Synoptically speaking, its about an older cantankerous book critic standing in a line at the bank. Bank robbers come in, the book critic mouths off to them and he receives a bullet in the brain. The real bulk of story actually occurs in the microsecond that the bullet hits the brain and travels through his head. It delivers a shock of memory as his life passes before his eyes. I’ve found myself wondering from time to time if a person’s life does indeed, “flash before their eyes” if they are killed with no warning.

For the image, I set the scene in a bank. I cropped Anders’ head so it was more of a framing device. Because I chose to use the moment of action as the image, I felt like if the viewer’s eye was panned out too far to see the gun’s muzzle flash , Anders’ bodily reaction to the gunshot, and the masked robber it would be a little heavy handed. (At least the way I kept drawing it.) For color, I kept the "present" in monochrome, as I feel that Anders had lost his zest for the life he was living. It is telling of his nature that he doesn’t think of classic, pivotal moments that one might remember in their last moments. Anders keeps this interaction with his childhood peers deep in his psyche. He feels the heat, smells the air, and sees the yellow summer grass on the baseball field. So, instead of having this meaty, bloody spray shooting out of this gentleman’s head,(as I initially drew) I kept working until I saw something a bit more visually interesting and ethereal. I like the play between the figures in color and the cropped out figure in B&W. For myself, memories are often triggered by something I see right in front of me, so I wanted a little play between the “then” and the “now.”

 I started with a simple line drawing with a wash. I used a #6 sable round just to get my major shapes in order without having to fuss later on.

 From here, I just started dropping in tone and color. Its kind of an intuitive process when it comes to color choice. There are certain colors that don’t make natural sense to go a certain place but I’ll put them there just because I like how it reacts with the color next to it. I like this stage. Its like a patchwork at this point and I can decide what to leave out and what to push a little further. Now is when I reassess my initial thoughts on where I want to lead the eye, value and which colors to bring out more.

I add a little more focus on the “memory” part of the image and call it done.  Last image is the final image.