Another Christmas piece...

Thought it would be a good idea to put one of these up every couple days, rather than all at once. Keeps em coming back for more, right?

This one is another Christmas piece, this time for my mom.  The snowman is holding cartoon verisons of her two cats, which I actually spent way, WAY too much time trying to get the small details of the colors in their fur right.  She loved it though, so I guess it was worth it.

My favorite part is the purple shadow coloring. As soon as I layed that down I knew it was perfect and was just what I was looking for. 

Also, this was the first time using some new "SNOW" photoshop brushes. before I was just using one of the stock brushes and clicking it ten thousand times in different sizes. This was much better. 

No need to keep them secret anymore...

So with the holidays behind us, I'm finally able to post up some of the pieces I've been working on over the past month. I'm actually quite happy how all of them came out. I will be honest though, I have two more that I've yet to finish, that will be done within the next day or two. What can I say, I worked myself like a dog to get it all done, but didn't, and running on 3 hours of sleep a night,  staying alert by chugging the strongest coffee known to man, left me run down and prey to some sort of virus, so I've been as sick as a dog since Christmas.

Ah well.

Enough excuses. Here is the first one. This was a piece I did for my sister, Heidi. She is an incredible artist and you can check out some of her stuff HERE for now, but make sure to bookmark THIS SITE, because it's going to be her personal website, and it's in the works right now.  PS- last time I saw it, it looked amazing, I can't wait.

So this is a pic of her, surrounded by her creations and inspirations in her tiny little room. 

Lots of little details, and I had fun recreating a few of her pieces here. All in all, I love it. 

Click the picture to view a massive version of it!

UPDATE!

Here's the colored version.  It looks leaps and bounds better in color.  Man I love Christmas trees.

Just as I feared, I'm not updating this thing as much as I'd like, but I think I have the excuse that I'm working on Christmas gifts. Right? Yeah. Anyway, I am working on stuff, so that's a good thing.  This is actually an inked version of a christmas card I'm doing for a company.  It looks alright now, but it will look excellent with color.  I'll post that as soon as I'm done. 

Just real quick...

I haven't forgotten about this thing, I swear. 

I did however forget to post about the Halloween show at Tattoo Junkies though, as Josh pointed out. I don't think it would have made much of a difference. A dismal turnout. 
But anyway, here's the deal, I'm working on lots of stuff, but some of it is going to end up being Xmas presents for people, so I can't really post them on here because they might see them.

Even though I doubt they actually come look at this. Ha ha. But I think I will just end up posting some details of the larger pieces. We'll see.

Until then, I leave you with this sketch of an old man I did today in my sketchbook.

After finishing it, I stepped back and noticed that it looks a bit like my grandfather. Strange. 

Full Color Candy Corn

Here's the colored version. I'm actually really happy with how it came out.  I tried some different colors that I wouldn't usually use with the sky and I gotta say it ended up looking excellent.  My initial thought was to do a huge moon in the background, but I didn't. HOWEVER, I did save a version with some layers so I can try that out.  Maybe I'll post a variant of this piece with a moon.  hmmmmmmmm.  Anyway,  feel free to slap a comment on this bad boy and let me know what you think!

It will be hanging in the Halloween show at Tattoo Junkies, in Portsmouth.  The show got hung today but no word yet on when the opening is. Way to go Josh. 

But it's going to be awesome.  A can't miss opening. I'll post it here when I find out. Woo. 

some Halloween candy

So here is a piece I'm working on for a Halloween show that will be hung this coming week.  Lots of big name artists will be a part of it. How big? Well I heard through the grapevine there's even going to be a work from NYC's own John Thomas in it. More info as I get it.

But yeah, I like how this one is coming out, and coloring it now. I'll post the colored version after too so we can compare and contrast them.

Because I know people dig that. 

And so it begins...

So I have had this thought in my head for a while now, that I needed to start some sort of webiste or blog site for my art.  I'm not sure why, I think maybe deep in my brain there is the idea that if i have something like this to display my art on, that I might get away from the stuff I normally do, FATSQUAD, and stretch my legs a bit in other realms. Not that the squad stuff is bad or anything but sometimes you just want a change of scenery. 

SO here we go.  We shall see how this little experiment plays out. Check back often because I'm sure I'll be posting like a madman.

OR...you'll never see another post from me again.

Those are really the only two ways this thing can go.

-RICH