My iPod is charging...

And I am killing time while it does. I lost my real life charger so the only way to get power is to charge it at the office.

Here's a very small detail of a cover for a book [that is not to be named yet but will be out October 2006] and I have only just finished the painting this morning.


Things have been nuts around here. There was a bad ice storm that shut down Greenville for a few days. My mom and sister were out of power for 5 days straight. Somehow my roomate and I managed to keep power the entire time. So, I dragged my Mac over to the place and set up shop there. It was like old times.

I had a set up in the basement of my mom's house that was perfect and I've only ever come not really close to capturing it again. You know.... I think I can find a picture of it. Hold on.

This is not it. But it is a picture I found while I was looking for it.

Here it is. The best set up anyone ever wanted to look at.


(circa, junior or senior year of college)

I would sit in the lawnchair thing and watch [mostly listen to] Raiders of the Lost Ark or whatever and just go. Man.

And here's the drawing I was working on in the last picture...

...and what I did later.

Dragon's Christmas Carol: "Silent Night"

"Silent Night"

The Portland Studios Christmas card

* * *
And some of the doodles before:

Presenting the mostly finished...

Offical Portland Studios Christmas card.

Illustration Friday: "Surprise"

The Blue Goblet

Blue Goblet surprise.

Some explorations are surprising. Some are scary. This is more scary than surprising.

Merry Christmas is coming...

Yesterday's Doodle

A man in the waiting room. He was wearing all camoflague. I could bearly seem him but for the fact he was 300 lbs.

While I nodded, nearly napping...

So Peter Jackson and I are driving around and we're talking and laughing like old college buddies.

Peter Jackson

"Man, Pete, I say to him, "I feel like I've know you my whole life! I mean, I've watched all the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings, I've listened to all the audio commetary! I've watched all the extras! We must be best friends!" And Peter's just laughing and shaking his head, with his New Zealand accent, "Yeah, I know it, it's crazy..."

So we're driving around and stuff. "So, Pete, what are we out looking for?" I say as I'm looking over my shoulder merging.

"Well, I'd like to look for some shoes." Peter says.

"Well, look over there!" I say excitedly, "It's a Pay-Less Shoe Store! Great!"

So we pull in the parking lot and suddenly I'm tying my shoes and Peter Jackson is like, "Say, Cory, do you have a vacuum cleaner?"

Puzzled I respond, "No, Peter, why, is my car dirty?"

"No," says Peter Jackson. "I was just going to get that off your leg for you."

And I look down and there's the most terrifying Metroid kind of creature wrapped around my leg. As I look at it, it opens its mouth and lunges up towards my head. And I woke up.


9:30 A.M. And I was late.

Illustration Friday: "Blue"

Whatever else could "Blue" mean other than The Blue Goblet? Not too many other things in my book. I've posted a good bit about The Blue Goblet and all that's happened. As it stands the story is finished, book is boarded, and our agent in Nashville is taking it around to publishers.

Here's to waiting.

But in the mean time, here's two pages right from my sketchbook and below them, links to all the Blue Goblet posts in order:

* * *

Previous Blue Goblet posts:

The Blue Goblet
*an introduction as well as 3 rough watercolors of "The Trek" sequence and an excerpt from the story.

More Blue Goblet
*a rough photoshop of a doodle and all around info about the font comission.

The Blue Goblet Font
*the completeed font as well as information on how to purchase it.

Or Some Old Thing Like That
*a portrait of the young queen Julia.

* * *

More Old Photoshop

I did these a couple weeks ago. I still enjoy them and felt like posting again. Here goes from rough to finished drawing to final painting.

Draygon the Magic Dragon

Erin drew me a magic dragon during lunch today.
And he has three legs.

Illustration Friday: "Small"

"I feel small."

Here's a more finished version of the Thanksgiving piece. Most of the work was on the donkey, a little on the back ground and cleaning up some shadows. And I took the color the littlest bit closer to a red-violet.




Click on the details for some closer views.

Happy Thanksgiving

Or some old thing like that.

The Blue Goblet Font

Hey people, Blue Goblet font is out and, check this one out; you can now write like me.

What's that? You've always been envious of the silky way the indigo filled Windsor-Newton so effortlessly glides across the rich and creamy sheet of Strathmore 500 Bristol forming numbers and letters of sweet joy? Do not weep, or rather, weep no more my ones.

Look no further than http://www.myfonts.com/WhatsNew and thank your lucky DooleyType stars.

[And so I took a picture of my screen and drew a red arrow to guide you....]

Here's the direct link, the above is just to the actual site. Go for it.


You've also got to try the this thing and take the font for a test drive:

I like the "Alternate One" kind.

Epilogue

An older drawing I found packed away under things.

Still makes me laugh. Man I love Star Wars.

Illustration Friday: "Strength"

Strength. Courage. Fortitude. Tenacity. Endurance. Or whatever.

what I found on my desk the other morning

And the worst part is I didn't even now I had those estates.

Illustration Friday: "Night"

(final)

(finished drawing)

This is something I did for a client to bolster my portfolio several months ago. They asked for one more image of something to seal the deal on this book.

I had done a very rough version a few months before, just for fun, however, this needed to be good. Loaded with Dr. Pepper and Indiana Jones playing, I worked that night and went from start to finish. Bed time was around 3 or 4 AM. Up at 6.

I was wiped out the next day but it was fun. Ah, my job :)

Wednesday Highlights

Tweaked some of the Oxford roughs and revised two or three this morning and surprised Erin for a late breakfast. This afternoon's highlight is this gator fellow.

Its been a while since I've worked in Photoshop this way. More like watercolor, painting transparently onto of the lines rather than this which is more like oils.



Another Wednesday Highlight is this mornings iTunes purchase.

"BLAG!"

This poor beast even with a model can't seem to make a good drawing. BLAG!

Here's a quick photoshop break from Oxford work. I've been pounding through a ton of roughs the last few days (20 to be precise) for Oxford University Press and so far I've got about 16 knocked-out. A head of schedule but much work remains to be done.

And so I say "BLAG."

The Great Mythical Flying Beast

Old college Illustration class drawing. Senior year. Final drawing; first sememster. Why do I post this? I can not say.

Illustration Friday

He Suddenly Remembered the Ticket

Haven't entered the Illustration Friday for a week or two. Work has been very busy and all of Fridays in the office are now focused on internal story development.

These are very busy, very productive days.

The Illustration Friday theme for today is "Broken." Hoping to not fall into the obvious hole this topic presents, my post is about breaking out, not being broken and despairing.

Despairing never fixed one broken thing.

More Blue Goblet

The Blue Goblet has little to do with rain except for an atmospheric moment once or twice. This was a little side doodle that I liked. In anycase, things are developing nicely. This morning marks the completion of stage one of the Blue Goblet; the finishing of part one of the rough thumbnails for the story.

This afternoon involves fitting those thumbnails (18 pages full of work) onto a frame of the actual book layout and set number of spreads and such.

In other Blue Goblet related news, I've been commissioned to create a "Blue Goblet" font based on my hand-writing by a designer in Savannah, GA. Here's a sample. More to come on this later. We'll see.

Where on earth have I been?

Jack Patch

Where on earth have I been? Gracious goodness knows and lots of other places.

Deadlines at work and a 103 degree fever, for starters. This past week has been spent mostly on the couch at home with a fever and tomato soup and white grape juice. I like soup and white grape juice when I am ill. Somewhere along the way I picked up strep throat. I am not sure where. Probably off the floor. I am not sure.

And work has been full and busy. But there is always time to draw Jack Patch.