The Mental Kavity

Sebastian Bach, WIP

2011-11-14T22:55:00.001-05:00

Sebastian Bach, former lead singer of Skid Row, has always been one of my favourite metal/hard rock vocalists. If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend checking out his new album, Kicking & Screaming.

Pencil on 110 lb marker paper, still a work in progress.

Comic Book Culture

2011-11-08T13:23:00.000-05:00

There is just so much more to comic books than superheroes. I love superheroes, but fully understand they are not everyone's cup of tea, so much so that they tend to turn a lot of people away from comics. This, to me, is sad, because comics are a simply amazing art form - the very first art form I learned to appreciate. I already know that comic books have so much more to offer than just beefy heroes in tights, but this article is for those that have not yet made this realization. Read, discover and enjoy.

PS - just click the title, "Comic Book Culture" in order to get to the iFanboy article I'm talking about.

Residence Life Bookmark Project

2011-11-07T01:27:00.003-05:00

Spent all weekend on this project for work. Pending any tweaks or edits, this image should wind up on a bookmark by the end of the week. I'm too tired to do much of an explanation now as it's pretty late here and my eyes are buggy out of my head from staring at the computer screen for far, far too long.

Here's the basic process low down: hand drawn, digital inking with Illustrator, coloured with SketchBook Pro, lettering in Photoshop.

The Wicked Witch of the West

2011-10-02T17:17:00.003-04:00

Fall is here and Halloween is fast approaching. Summer time is easily my most favourite time of the year, but Fall is very special in a different way. It gets cool and cozy as the temperatures drop and the leaves fall from the trees. Dusk comes earlier and the night grows longer as the Earth tilts away from the sun. My imagination always starts to run wild and often takes a turn toward the macabre in the witching hours and there's just more of those hours at this time of year. Thus, I thought it most fitting to creep into the season with some aptly wicked subject matter. She's probably the most recognizable witch in history - The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

This is pencil on 140 lb, cold press watercolor paper, approximately 10 x 15 inches.

Enjoy!

Babydoll from Sucker Punch, WIP

2011-09-10T16:09:00.000-04:00

Admittedly, not a great film, but damn if there isn't a lot of awesome character designs and visuals. I felt the need to churn out my rendition of the main character, Babydoll.

Hornet, WIP

2011-09-07T21:01:00.000-04:00

A couple weekends ago was FanExpo - Canada's big comic book and popular culture show. I'll probably get around to posting some photos from that eventually. For now though, I'm posting my penciled rendition of Hornet, a villainous character from Heroes of the North - a Canadian produced, episodic, multimedia franchise consisting of video webisodes, comics and novellas. A rather ambitious and impressive project indeed. Suffice it to say, having the real, live Hornet, as portrayed by Marie-Claude Bourbonnais (below), at their booth was a rather major attraction.

I'll definitely be interested to see how Heroes of the North develops going forward. For now though, I think I'll scour their website for some contact information and see if I can't send them my fan art. Who knows, perhaps they'll like it enough to post it on their site.

Harry Potter - Friends and Foes, WIP

2011-07-25T16:50:00.002-04:00

Harry Potter - Friends and Foes, pencil on 111 lb Canson drawing paper. Still a work in progress.

With the motion picture release of Harry Potter 7.2 I realized that the end of an era had arrived for a particular generation of young folks. I realized that Harry Potter was the Star Wars of this particular generation. Having only watched up to the third movie, it was high time I got caught up. So, I've been watching Harry Potter movies non-stop for the last several weeks and felt more than a little inspired to pay tribute to an amazing story and incredible set of characters in my own way.

Hope everyone likes!

The Fonz - Happy Days

2011-07-25T11:34:00.003-04:00

This guy is the reason I pop my collar and will always do so. Original and eternal cool - Fonzie.

Pencil on 111 lb Canson drawing paper, work in progress.

Speedball, the Masked Marvel

2011-07-04T21:19:00.001-04:00

Speedball - finally completed. PITT pen and Prismacolor marker over pencil on 110lb marker paper.

Any other Speedball fans out there? Care to own this artwork for your wall? $20 plus shipping and it can be yours. Drop me a line and we'll work out the shipping to your location.

Speedball, the Masked Marvel - Inked, WIP

2011-07-04T20:00:00.000-04:00

Speedball, all inked up and ready for some colour!

Speedball, the Masked Marvel - WIP

2011-07-04T17:56:00.002-04:00

Yes, I drew Speedball, absolutely no one's favourite character. I'm not sure why, really. Speedball was a character that launched in the early 90s by which Marvel comics seemed to be attempting to recapture the magic of Spiderman with a flawed, teenage character. His super powers were almost secondary to his personal life and problems. Me, I was just on the lookout for new characters and new #1 issues that would one day be worth a mint (wishful thinking, lol).

I guess I'm just really entertained when I read Marvel comics these days and see that Speedball is still bouncing around the universe with his wacky powers and colours. In core concept, he's a lighthearted character, but over the years he's been to some dark places in the Marvel universe. As it turns out, he's REALLY fun to draw. And, I have to say, I'm really pleased how this has turned out so far. I feel like the perspective and odd angle is working and I've managed to capture the more innocent years of this character's life and personality.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

2011-07-04T14:07:00.002-04:00

I've got a couple days off work so it's time to spend some time at the drawing board. It's been a while since I posted my Buffy pencil work so I figured it was high time to get a finished, colour version up.

If you like this one, it's for sale. $25.00 plus shipping. Drop me an email at mentalkavity@hotmail.com and we can figure out the shipping to your location.

Thanks for looking and hope you visit again!

Rock 'n' Roll Toon #1 - Ozzy Osbourne, WIP

2011-06-12T13:24:00.003-04:00

I'm hoping to start a bit of a "Rock 'n' Roll Toon" motif here for the next little while and I'm kicking it off in grand fashion with one of my all time favourite heavy metal showmen and vocalists, Ozzy Osbourne. I kicked off the decade of the 80s being totally infatuated with Michael Jackson and closed out the decade being absolutely enveloped in the decadent and dominating rock and heavy metal of the day. It's still my favourite music now.

Not convinced? Just watch this:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, WIP

2011-06-08T18:24:00.002-04:00

I think I like the concept of this character far better than I ever liked the show itself. Sarah Michelle Gellar isn't hard on the eyes either, of course. Deck her out as vampire slayer and she's actually really, really fun to draw . This one was by special request and came together relatively quickly last night. I will probably tweak the pencil work a bit more before I take to it with some ink and markers. In particular, I'm thinking it needs something a little more in the background in order to give a greater sense of the space she's in.

Anyone have any suggestions?

The Rocketeer - First Flight, WIP

2011-06-06T10:18:00.003-04:00

As I've grown older and my taste in, and knowledge of, artwork has matured, Dave Stevens has become one of my most revered artists. Not only do I love the style of his artwork, the look of his signature character, The Rocketeer, and the retro feel and idealistic of his Rocketeer stories, but I also love and admire his personal story and journey through the industry. For anyone interested, I highly recommend picking up and reading Brush Wish Passion: The Art & Life of Dave Stevens. I assure you, you'll not be disappointed with either the quality of production on the book, nor the inspiring story and artwork it contains.

And while you're at it, I hope you enjoy my little ode to a great character and even greater artist. I'm calling this one, "First Flight". One of the great things about The Rocketeer stories and character is that they always seemed to have just the right amount of humour for me, never quite taking itself too seriously - just a whole lot of fun and over-the-top action, adventure and drama. I tried to capture a bit of that magic mixture with this drawing.

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu - completed inks

2011-04-24T13:32:00.002-04:00

Shangi-Chi is looking pretty snappy here in black and shades of grey.

Hope everyone is having a very happy Easter!

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu - completed pencils

2011-04-23T13:01:00.003-04:00

Not very much to say here - Marvel comics' Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu. I gave him a bit of a 21st Century update based on his appearance in the current run of Secret Avengers.

Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu - WIP

2011-04-22T11:55:00.002-04:00

Went on a late night drawing binge last night and woke up face down in this... Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu. Shang-Chi's popularity was high in the Marvel Comics universe of the 70s and the character makes sporadic appearances to this day. I've always had an affinity for the more street level characters in the Marvel stable so Shang-Chi has always been one that has fascinated me. However, I've known little about him until recently because, as I said, his time in the spotlight was just slightly ahead of my time. I've been reading the very excellent Secret Avengers series from Marvel most recently and Shang-Chi figures prominently in the second story arc so I was both inspired to draw him and now hunt down some of his historical comic book appearances.

More to come...

X-23

2011-04-17T12:34:00.002-04:00

Managed to finish up X-23 this morning - PITT pens and Prismacolor markers on marker paper. Hope everyone likes. I'm looking for what character to draw next so if you dig what you see here and want to make a request just drop me a line!

Cheers!

X-23 sketch

2011-04-16T01:16:00.002-04:00

Got me a new pad of marker paper a few weeks back and just got around to breaking it in tonight with this little X-23 sketch. I've been reading the Wolverine family of comics from Marvel recently and was thus inspired. Next up will be the addition of some ink... and marker of course.

Hopefully I'll be able to get to the ink and markers soon too because these PITT pens I ordered off EBay just arrived in the mail earlier in the week and I'm dying to use them.

Dracula... slowly, but surely

2011-04-12T22:11:00.002-04:00

I finished inking old fang face here several weeks back, but never got around to posting him. I'm about ready to add some colour now, but as I'm looking at it on the computer screen I'm thinking I may need a castle in the background.

Kraven, The Hunter

2011-02-26T03:08:00.002-05:00

Keepin' up with the Scotts over at SkottieScott this week has proven to be quite the challenge. But, I've become accustomed to biting off a lot to chew. It's part of my nature. It's probably not the most realistic expectation to keep pace with two professional artist who draw all day, every day for a living when I work 8 hours a day in a completely unrelated field. Regardless, I intend to do the best I can and that will most likely translate to catching up on the weekends.

So, without further delay and excuses, I present my interpretation of Spider-Man arch nemesis, Kraven, The Hunter. I'll admit, I did a Venom drawing earlier in the week, but I felt it was so crappy that I chose not to post it. I may change my mind eventually or make a second attempt. Tonight though, I chose to move on and render Kraven as he's a character I don't think I've ever thought to draw, but have always been somewhat intrigued by. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the leopard print pants or the handlebar mustache, lol. Whatever, I had a great time penciling this guy into the wee hours of Saturday morning and rockin' out to Iron Maiden.

Doc Oc

2011-02-21T23:22:00.002-05:00

I tend to follow the blogs of a LOT of other artists, the vast majority of whom are better artist and certainly more successful. Pouring over the artwork of others whom I admire really feeds my own creativity and drives me forward. One such artist is Skottie Young. If you don't know him or his work, then I won't waste your time telling you about him; hit the link and check him out for yourself. A REALLY neat thing that I discovered when visiting Skottie's blog today though is that he's started a new blog - SkottieScott - with artist Scott Morse where they are picking one character per day and each drawing their interpretation of that character as their warm up and posting it online for all to see. As an added bonus, fans can purchase each artists' original work for $100.00 should they desire.

What I like about this idea is that these two artists are collaborating in order to drive one another's creativity. It occurred to me that I could definitely make use of a partnership and some motivation like this. As I thought about it more I came to the conclusion that there's no need to re-invent the wheel here. Why not just draw my interpretation of whatever character these guys are doing. After all, looking at their work certainly fills me with the desire to draw and this way, each day, I'm basically told what character I have to draw. No questions asked, no belly aching, whoever they're drawing, I'm drawing.

I'm kinda hoping they don't mind me riding their coat tails like this.

I'm also kinda hoping I can keep up. Both Scott and Skottie seem to be tremendously fast artists and I'm definitely way slow. But, perhaps trying to keep up with them will also force me to look at my own artwork and figure out a way that I can speed it up. Heaven knows, getting faster is something that I really, really have been needing to work on. Already, both of these guys have not only drawn their character and inked it, but Scott has gone so far as to colour his. Mine's just pencil so far, but I figure at least I got the bulk of the work done.

Oh yeah, there is that issue of the original being available for sale for $100.00. Obviously I don't expect any of my drawings to sell for that kind of coin, but I suppose if there's anyone out there who's interested in any of my drawings enough then I'd be willing to negotiate a sale for a very reasonable price.

At any rate, there ya have my drawing of the day, Doctor Octopus.

Life's A Beach

2011-02-19T11:16:00.002-05:00

I figured I'd choose something quick, simple and fun to draw. This turned out not to be it. Despite a bit of a struggle I persisted and in the end the subject and perspective were fun to conquer. Plus, I listened to some great podcasts along the way. I have some ideas for colouring this one and a bit of a crime story has sparked in my mind while drawing. We'll see...

Errr... Happy Valentine's Day?

2011-02-14T11:50:00.002-05:00

Found this over at Hell Yeah College and thought it was in keeping with Valentine's as well as my love of social media, amongst other things.

So ya, happy Valentine's Day all!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

2011-02-13T12:24:00.003-05:00

I started this little ode to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom earlier in the week, added Mola Ram and Short Round yesterday morning and Willie Scott today. I have some plans for doing both an ink and watercolour version of this as well as a digitally coloured version. That may all take some time, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

People tend to frown upon this second installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, but growing up it was always my favourite. While it's certainly the darkest of the movies, and perhaps a touch too dark for younger audiences, it's just enough off kilter and strange that it seems to spark younger minds. If I had to go back and re-evaluate today, I'd probably have to go with Raiders of the Lost Ark as being the best of the lot. But, for sheer, mindless adventure and fun, and of course the nostalgia, The Temple of Doom is it.

What's you're favourite Indy film? Or maybe you've always been more into the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles? ;)

Me, in Stormtrooper Disguise, UPDATE

2011-02-05T15:47:00.004-05:00

Just a quick update with the finished pencil work for my main character, here - that's me in Sandtrooper disguise. There's still more work to be done on this project, but I think I have enough done now to skip ahead a few steps and actually see if what I have envisioned will actually work out in the end. Stay tuned and I'll let you know if I'm successful.

And purely for interest sake, here's a quick snapshot of my workshop today. I've got my 12 inch Sideshow Stormtrooper figure down off it's shelf to use as reference as well as some images I found on the internet from a fellow in Germany who made his very own, very keen looking Stormtrooper costume.

Me, in Stormtrooper Disguise, WIP

2011-02-04T06:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, so technically it's a Sandtrooper disguise. But you get the idea. This is for a bit of a personal project I'm experimenting with. I won't go into too much detail here until I figure out if it's really going to work, but if it does, well, I'll be happy and I'll definitely brag about it here.

Until then, enjoy the unfinished bits and keep checking back for further updates and progress.

Weekend Plans - Toronto ComiCon

2011-02-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

The folks at Hobbystar run Toronto's big, annual comic and pop culture show each year at the end of the summer, FanExpo. Stuck here in the dead of winter though, that show seems a long way off. So, it's become a tradition in recent years for these same fine folks to throw a little comic con in February. I see it as a GREAT way to tide us (we, the comic loving masses) over until spring time when there are a few other comic book shows that start coming to town.

This is how I plan on spending my weekend, or at least Sunday.

How 'bout you?

Tropical Dip, WIP

2011-02-02T14:42:00.002-05:00

It's the dead of winter and my blog has been neglected for far, far too long. As has my artwork for that matter. So, it's high time that I kicked things back into high gear on both these fronts and there is no better time to do that than on a snow day! That's right, most everything is shut down here in Toronto and throughout Southern Ontario due to a winter storm which blew in from the US and was responsible for shutting down many states south of the border earlier in the week.

I most often like to operate a little against the grain so, true to form, I thought it was most appropriate to re-sharpen my drawing skills on this bikini clad (or not quite) damsel wading into the water for an afternoon tropical dip. Enjoy!

And here's to the summer months ahead!

York Lions, colour - WIP

2010-12-22T23:12:00.002-05:00

That just about does it for this illustration of the rare and endangered red lion. Now I'll just lay in the appropriate text with Photoshop and this should be good to go.

York Lions, ink - WIP

2010-12-22T17:14:00.001-05:00

Ink. Done. Colour coming up.

York Lions - WIP

2010-12-22T11:09:00.001-05:00

Completed the basic pencil work for this York Lions project that came up recently. Due date is tomorrow so I'm going to have to hustle today to get this thing inked and painted. Stay tuned for updates!

Remember Remembrance Day With a Social Media Twist

2010-10-28T00:02:00.004-04:00

I saw a story on the news tonight that struck a nerve with me. It talked about certain shopping malls that were intending to reduce the amount of time they allow The Royal Canadian Legion to carry out their annual Poppy Campaign from two weeks to just a few days. Fortunately, the story ended on a positive note with the malls in question reversing their initial intent and some even donating to the Poppy Campaign and The Royal Canadian Legion who's purpose is "to serve veterans and their dependents, to promote Remembrance, and to act in the service of Canada and its communities."

However, the newscast reminded me that I see stories like this each and every year and they make me worry and wonder. My blog and much of my personal, day to day interests and obsessions are rooted in popular culture and events and goings on that when compared to war and sacrificing one's life for one's country, are stunningly trivial by comparison. But, it is this ultimate sacrifice by the young men and women of Canada that came before us that have paved the way for the rights and freedoms we enjoy today. I cannot say that I'm a big social activist, nor do I subscribe to a great number of causes. I do have my personal beliefs and opinions though and my concern and respect for Remembrance Day and the Poppy is chief among them. Without the individuals for whom the poppy signifies remembrance, none of us who call Canada home, whether born here or immigrated, would have the freedom to speak our minds or exercise our rights and live the lives we desire and mostly take for granted each day.

With this in mind, I urge people young and old, who are likely already wearing ribbons, buttons and pins signifying any number of worthwhile causes, to please make room for the symbol that made all the others possible - the Poppy. Click the links I've provided above and take the short amount of time required to read about the history of Remembrance Day and the Poppy. Then, be sure to donate to the Poppy Campaign and once you've shed your Halloween costume, replace it with a Poppy.

If you really feel like raising awareness about Remembrance Day and the Poppy then you might consider joining me in pinning a digital Poppy to the online avatar you use for blogging, Facebook, Twitter or whatever other social media platform you may frequent. We belong to a new generation and it's our responsibility to pass on these important goals and traditions. There's nothing saying we can't do so in a new and unique way that speaks to the digitally inclined.

Social Media Super Heroics - a presentation for the Glendon Leadership Conference

2010-10-23T09:16:00.003-04:00

Click the link to view an online version of my presentation from the Glendon Leadership Conference, Social Media Super Heroics - Harnessing the New Power of Web 2.0.

Dracula, WIP

2010-10-11T18:26:00.002-04:00

Halloween is fast approaching and I like scary stuff. A lot. So, I figured I'd try my hand at a very classic style Dracula. Pencil on watercolour paper. Ink and paint to follow.

Lennon - completed, colour drawing

2010-10-11T16:24:00.002-04:00

Here's the completed colour version of my Lennon drawing.

When I first scanned the colour version I made a boo, boo and scanned in grey scale. I liked how it looked though, so I kept it. Happy accidents are always fun :)

Now, let's see if I can get Sean Ward's attention with this because he has some passes to see Nowhere Boy that I'm very interested in.

Lennon, ink - WIP

2010-10-11T01:00:00.002-04:00

Just finished laying down some ink on my Lennon drawing.

Lennon - WIP

2010-10-10T19:12:00.003-04:00

John Lennon, a legend who was selfishly destroyed before I was even old enough to fully appreciate the wonder that he was.

Hello Soundgarden...

2010-09-20T01:07:00.002-04:00

... where have you been for the last fifteen years or so? This new, animated video recently emerged on the web as hype continues to build just days away from the September 28th release of Telephantasm - A Retrospective. The album will be an historical look back at Soundgarden's entire body of work. This video is for the song "Black Rain" which was originally recorded during the Badmotorfinger era, but never officially released. The video is directed by Brendon Small of Metalocalypse and the album will be released in conjunction with Guitar Hero 6 which will also feature the song.

Rock never dies...

My Command Centre Got an Overhaul This Weekend

2010-09-19T23:14:00.004-04:00

The command centre underwent some refinements over this past weekend. The 32 inch Samsung LCD had been rotated out of the line-up for a while, but got added back onto the roster and is pretty awesome. In this case, bigger really is better. I'm seeing things on my desktop and the web that I was missing before. Not to mention YouTube is a dream on here. To the right of the Samsung LCD is my travelling companion - a 12.1 inch Asus netbook equipped with Windows 7, a dual Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA Ion graphics. The screen is large enough to read comics, magazines and books quite comfortably and there is an HDMI out if you want a larger view or want to play some movies. Under the desk is an old Dell tower that's still kickin' and my desktop replacement HP laptop which with a 21 inch screen and weighing in at 15 pounds is a real beast. Also new - at least since the last time I took pics - is the PS3, Blackberry BOLD and iPod Touch.

If you pan to the left of my computer desk you'll find 50 inches of Samsung plasma. This is of course hooked up to both my computer and my PS3. (Star Wars poster still needs to be relocated.)

Where do we go now?

2010-09-11T12:49:00.002-04:00

In this video the question is posed, what makes a classic song? To me, how much a song resonates throughout your life - from the first moment you hear it, through all your ups and downs - is the true measure of what makes a song a classic. Music has always been a HUGE part of my life. It's a huge part of the pop culture I'm obsessed with. It was the late 1980s and the music of that time that has probably had some of the most influence over me, has taught me the most and made me feel the most. One of the greatest albums released during that time was Guns'N'Roses' Appetite for Destruction. This album blew the doors of rock WIDE open for me at a very impressionable age. While nearly every song on the album is a favourite of mine today, Sweet Child of Mine is easily the most instantly recognizable and by far elicits the most emotional response. The moment I hear that opening riff a shiver is sent up and down my spine, my hear rate speeds up and something like iron winged butterflies flutter through my stomach.

I've heard this song played live twice this summer - once at a street festival by an amazing local band I just happened upon called Tamin' Thunder and again just last night by one of the song's creators, and a living rock'n'roll legend, the inimitable Slash. It sometimes saddens me to think that Guns'N'Roses had to break up and will probably NEVER be re-united, but it's also sobering to realize that everyone goes through their ups and downs no matter what their lot in life. At the end of the day, if we're still truckin' on then we know we're okay. And if you're truckin' along with a classic song blaring through the radio you're probably a little more than okay.

Here's a Blackberry photo I took of Slash at last night's show at the Kool Haus in Toronto.

Adam, Rob and I getting ready to rock just before the show kicked off.

Thoughts about the show:

Slash is one of the coolest cats around and really is a living legend
Slash still shreds the guitar like it's 1987
Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge does a very impressive Axl Rose impression
The acoustics at the Kool Haus kinda sucked. And someone needs to rename this venue. I remember when it was called the Warehouse and that's WAY better.
There was a HUGE fists flying fight right in front of me in the pit just about as soon as Slash and the band took the stage. Since I didn't get hit in the process I'll say it was kinda cool and just added to the fun and dangerous attitude that always follows anyone involved with Guns'N'Roses.
The Slash concert shirt I bought is one of the best fitting concert shirts ever. It was also slightly better priced than most and has all around cool colours and graphics.
Slash said he'd be back to Toronto next year... and I can't wait

Stan and Spidey - ready for FanExpo2010, Toronto

2010-08-27T09:34:00.004-04:00

FINALLY finished this sometime after 3am this morning. Me and my big, fat, last minute ideas. Now to see if I can convince Stan Lee to fill in the dialogue and autograph it today!

Stan and Spidey get some ink

2010-08-27T00:19:00.002-04:00

After an extra long day at the office it's turned into and extra, extra long evening at the drawing table. I just finished the ink on Stan Lee and Spidey and now it's time to launch into the watercolour and get this puppy finished for FanExpo tomorrow.

Thanks for looking. Hope you like. No time to chat!

Excelsior! Stan Lee at FanExpo 2010

2010-08-25T22:31:00.005-04:00

I've been a life-long fan of Marvel Comics and its creator Stan Lee. More so than any other comic book publisher, Marvel has always been my favourite. Meeting Stan Lee is to a Marvel fan, as meeting George Lucas would be to a Star Wars fan (which I also am). I've been anticipating Stan's visit to Toronto at FanExpo ever since I heard the official announcement many months ago. To me it is the opportunity of a lifetime to meet one of the greatest pop culture icons our time and one who has had a particularly huge influence on me personally.

However, as the big day draws near - this weekend - I've been having an increasingly tough time deciding what I should bring with me for Stan to autograph. Even though I have a pretty large comic book collection I don't have a whole lot of Stan's original work. I'm sure I could dig through boxes of comics and find something, but digging through boxes is never any fun and I've just had this nagging feeling that it needs to be something better than some random comic book. It was Monday of this week when and idea finally hit me. Why don't I draw my interpretation of one of Stan's creations and bring that for him to sign. It's not like there aren't enough to choose from - Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, The X-Men just to name a few. As I thought about it, the idea began to blossom further. What if I were to include Stan Lee himself in my drawing? Many comic book artists have drawn a comic book version of Stan Lee over the years, but this would be all mine. And I could include Toronto's CN tower in the background. Perhaps I could even have Spider-Man swinging from it! I knew I really had something at this point. But my flourishing idea wasn't finished yet. Characters in comics are always talking. Everyone's familiar with the iconic word balloon that originates from comic books. What if I were to include word balloons for Spider-Man and Stan, but leave them blank? Might Stan Lee himself fill them in with something quirky and witty and creative? Wow, okay, stop the presses because that is exactly the Marvel Way of how to draw comics that was perfected by Stan Lee himself. Stan would write a loose script, an artist, quite often Steve Ditko in the early days, would draw the pages of the comic and make sure to leave room for the word balloons. Then, at the end, Stan would come back to the creation and fill in the empty word balloons with the character dialogue. It's even said that sometimes Stan would make up the dialogue from scratch at this point.

What started as a worrisome, nagging problem, became one hell of an exciting idea within moments. Well, it's an exciting idea to me anyway, and now I REALLY can't wait to see what Stan has to say and write on my drawing.

This is just my rough pencil work for now. I've got a lot of work ahead of me tomorrow night, adding ink and watercolour. The real trick now will be to get the artwork completed for Friday afternoon.

Keep your fingers crossed and, if your half as interested as me, keep watching my blog to see how this drawing turns out and what Stan Lee will add to it!

Patrizia and Primo character designs

2010-08-22T22:15:00.004-04:00

Same prospective side project, new drawings. This time we've got Patrizia, who's the main character, and her pet pug, Primo. They just narrowly avoided being thumped by Prospero's soccer ball. Actually, I didn't have this planned when I started drawing today, but when I started thinking of ideas for Patrizia this just sort of came to mind. Kind of fun to have the two drawings interact with one another.

Prospero, character design

2010-08-22T15:23:00.002-04:00

This is a quick character design sketch. Prospero is a soccer loving tyke who's one of the main characters in a little side project I'm getting to work on.

Hope you like. More to come in the near future!

Elektra, WIP - Ink

2010-08-22T13:24:00.002-04:00

I inked Elektra using a combination of Micron technical pens and some old fashioned brush and ink. The brush and ink was used mainly for her pitch black hair and the background buildings where I diluted the ink with water to get various wash effects. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with those results. In this version I've left the sky blank as I'll now be adding colour with watercolour paint.

In this version I played around in Photoshop a bit and added a completely black sky with some stars. I figured it would look cool to have the sky defined like this as it gives the piece a more finished look at this stage. I'm also thinking it may lead me down the road to doing a second version that is simply black and white wash with no colour at all. Or, perhaps just a splash of red with the black and white. We'll see.

For now, I'm going to forge ahead with the watercolour edition.

And yeah, perspective buffs will be disappointed, I know. I'm not happy with it either and that aspect really ruins things for me. There really isn't any way for me to go back and make adjustments now though so I'll just have to finish this off as is and move onto my next drawing with an aim for making sure my perspective is bang on.

Thanks for stopping by and looking :)

Luke Cage's Thunderbolts

2010-08-19T22:15:00.005-04:00

For the past several years Thunderbolts has been a title that has figured prominently in all the big story lines going on at Marvel Comics. One thing that has always kept the title fresh and interesting is the often odd cast of characters which is also frequently shifting. The one mainstay criteria for being a Thunderbolt seems to be that a characters is either very shady or is simply a full on villain.

Since the conclusion of the Siege storyline, Luke Cage has taken over as leader of the Thunderbolts and the direction of the title has become focussed on rehabilitating super villains - specifically, several of those most involved in the Dark Reign storyline. Cage's new team consists of Juggernaut, Ghost, Moonstone, Crossbones (yes, the guy who shot and killed Captain America) and Man-Thing of all creatures.

Issues 144 and 145 are largely set up issues, getting the team in place, defining the new concept and direction and basically working out the kinks. The writing in these issues is solid and the art is appealing with a noticeable hitch here or there. However, by issue 146 everything seems to gel and kick into high gear. The writing is tight and the dialog is quick and witty. The odd bunch of characters and their development REALLY start to pay off with rapid fire scenes full of suitable, natural humor and nerdy, Marvel-style fun and excitement. The Thunderbolts team in full action, exploring caves and fending of fiendish mutated Shield agents is the stuff of classic good, clean, comic book fun. It's also issue 146 where the art goes from quite good to absolutely awesome. The one small gripe I have is the way Moonstone's hair is rendered - it often looks like some hideous, hard blob with a life of it's own - but after the splash page at the conclusion of this latest issue I'm more than willing to stick things out until artist, Kev Walker, figures out Moonstone's mane.

Thunderbolts is published monthly by Marvel and is written by Jeff Parker.

Elektra, WIP

2010-08-18T01:51:00.003-04:00

I started working on this Elektra drawing tonight after receiving a request from @lourdes_g on Twitter. Like her, I've always been a fan of this character, minus the abysmal movie interpretation of course. She's a ninja assassin who figures prominently as one of the love interests of one of my all-time favourite comic book characters, Daredevil. So, what's not to like.

Needless to say, a request for such a cool character whom I already have a devoted interest in is not a difficult one to fill. I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out so far even if there's still some more pencil work to be done. In the end, this will be finished with ink and watercolour.

I hope you like what you see and that you'll keep checking back for more progress.

Can you tell the difference? I can't tell the difference.

2010-08-17T18:58:00.003-04:00

I was more than delighted when I woke up this morning and logged onto MSN to discover this striking side-by-side comparison. It's Oprah! Or is it Aughra from The Dark Crystal? Personally, I'd take Aughra any day.

I mean, really, am I the only one who can't stand Oprah? Am I the only one who sees how fake and completely contrived she is? Well, I suppose that's just my opinion and perhaps it doesn't count for much in the grand scheme of things, but I have to say it warmed my heart and brought about a mighty chuckle this morning just thinking that somewhere out there the person who put this comparison together was getting just as much, if not more, joy out of it than me.

Fun.

Captain America - completed

2010-08-09T20:43:00.002-04:00

I had a blast working on this drawing over the weekend and couldn't wait to get home from work tonight to finish adding colour to it. So, what we have here is Prismacolor marker and ink (brush pen and Micron technical pens) over pencil. The markers are definitely a little tricky to work with and much less forgiving than watercolour but I'm feeling like my results aren't all that bad. I see some professional work done with these or similar markers and I still kinda eat my heart out, but, as always, practice makes perfect... or at least makes ya better.

Soooo, what's up next? Well, I'm kinda jonesing to draw Daredevil and I have a request for Elektra. Those two characters go together like gas and fire so I may just try to work both of them into the same piece, but we'll see how it goes.

Stick around.

Bucky Cap - inked

2010-08-08T20:12:00.002-04:00

Captain "Bucky" America continues to come along today and the sense of accomplishment makes me feel rather good. Not sure I'll get to finish the colours tonight but you never know, I may get some done. However, I'm kinda feelin' the itch to go read some of Brubaker's Captain America comic run at the moment.

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes

2010-08-08T16:08:00.001-04:00

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes - a new Captain America for a new era.

Rainy Sundays make for good drawing days :)

Pin-Ups, WIP

2010-08-01T00:15:00.002-04:00

Here's a couple pin-ups I currently have in progress. The first one is a bit more polished and probably close to moving on to inking and colouring.

This second pin-up was just started tonight and still needs some fine tuning before I'm happy enough to finish it off.

Amazing Empire Strikes Back Poster

2010-07-28T20:39:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow the above, officially licensed Star Wars print will go on sale on the MondoTees website. This ingeniously designed poster is from artist Tomer Hanuka and is titled Father: Encounter on Dagobah.

The poster takes the potential genius that the Episode 1 teaser (below) promised and applies it to a movie that really was genius - and one of my all time favourites - The Empire Strikes Back.

As I look back now it's sad to say this subtle and impressive teaser poster for Episode 1 was the single best thing to come out of any of the three prequel trilogy movies.

If you enjoy the Tomer Hanuka poster it will be available for purchase sometime tomorrow but you'll have to follow @MondoNews on Twitter to find out exactly when.

What a tees, eh?!

(Original story found at SlashFilm)

OMG - Thor and Hulk Trailers from Marvel!

2010-07-26T21:19:00.003-04:00

Wellllll, probably not what you were hoping for, but they're new to me. And damn funny at the same time. All the more reason to be thankful I grew up in the 80s!

Space Girl - WIP

2010-06-13T22:24:00.003-04:00

Getting back to business here with a little 1940s era retro-future inspired Space Girl. This is a work in progress at the moment but will soon get the ink and colour treatment. I've been buying books and reading up on Frank Frazetta, Dave Stevens and Al Williamson lately. These are all groundbreaking artists who have inspired me from a very, very early age. I won't pretend that my artwork does their lofty names much justice, but they provide many stars to shoot for none-the-less.

Anything But A Good Time

2010-04-23T21:32:00.002-04:00

Four months into 2010 and things still don't look like they're shaping up for icons of the 80s. We saw the sudden passing of Michael Jackson last year and more recently, that of Corey Haim. Today, news hit the airwaves that Poison frontman, Bret Michaels was rushed into intensive care after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage.

There's no doubt the aging rocker is more than a little cheesy with his don't-leave-home-without-it eye liner for men and train wreck of a not-really-reality show, Rock of Love. But I can't deny that this guy and his band played no small part in defining much of what I loved and still love about the 80s and the music from that era. Raz me all you want - and I've been razzed a lot for being a Poison fan - but I'll stand by Bret and Poison's brand of glam metal for the rest of my life. It's a little bit sleazy, a tad raunchy, a whole bunch of decadence and 100% fun.

Here's hopin' you're back to doing the Unskinny Bop and havin' Nothin' But a Good Time in no time at all, dude!

Keep an eye on Sleaze Roxx where you're sure to hear the latest on Bret's condition as well as get caught up on all the news from the world of hard rock, glam and heavy metal.

Now a Contributor for Digitally Blonde

2010-04-21T00:17:00.002-04:00

This week I officially expand the blogs I contribute to by one. Don't miss my first post for Carol Zara on her Digitally Blonde blog. I met Carol several weeks ago at Wizard World Toronto where we drew a custom Princess Leia and Jabba the Hutt t-shirt together. You can check out that full story at The Geek Effect.

Carol Zara artwork by Cameron Stewart.

Some rough artwork for Carol Zara

2010-04-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

This is just some rough pencil work for a piece of art I'm working on for Carol Zara's Digitally Blonde blog. I doodled it late last night while watching Zodiac on television.

Hal Jordan, Green Lantern - completed

2010-04-19T01:43:00.002-04:00

I finally finished my Hal Jordan, Green Lantern drawing on Sunday afternoon. The final product is a combination of watercolour paint and ink over pencil and measures approximately 8" x 10".

It's been a while since I've had any serious time to draw so this was a lot of fun to do and much less painful than I thought it would be after such a long lay off.

A very stoked Sunday. Last Sunday that is.

2010-04-18T18:27:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday was a day spent with my good old high school buddy, Adam. I don't often get to the downtown core of Toronto these days so this sunny afternoon was especially fun. Of course, our first stop had to be the near legendary Silver Snail comic shop. I remember when I first moved to Toronto this was destination number 1 for me. I still feel like a kid in a candy store any time I set foot in here.

Ahhhh, Castle Grayskull. This brings back the childhood memories for sure. I can recall the first time I saw a television commercial for this toy line back in the early 80s. Up until that point I had been obsessed with one thing only - Star Wars. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe marked a radical departure from the Star Wars universe and the beginning of a new obsession.

A curiously labeled section of books at The Silver Snail - "Naked ladies, usually with a sword or a dragon."

A giant, tooned up Princess Leia. I've seen this statue in much smaller scale before, but never this big. It would be a little impractical for home decor, but cool nevertheless.

Adam has always been the biggest Queen fan I know. This is the biggest Freddie Mercury figure I've ever seen.

Growing up, I was more of a Michael Jackson fan. I'll need to own this Hot Toys figure someday soon. Pretty funny that they have him seated on Cobra Commander's throne at the Snail.

So Hip It Hurts. Coolest skate/surf/snow shop around and one of my favourite stores ever.

Inside if come across the most bad-ass door mat ever. Even if it is a tad unwelcoming.

Raddest store display of the day goes to SPY Optics. The sunglasses manufacturer's name is spelled out in fake cocaine with a rolled up hundred dollar bill and razor blades laying nearby. Oh, and that's a huge gun in the cabinet too.

So Hip It Hurts has a wall of shame that I noticed on the way out. These are photos of everyone they've caught trying to steal stuff. Hilarious idea. Not so much for the perps though I guess. Take a look and make sure you don't recognize anyone.

The final stop of the day was the Oakley store. This place is pretty much heaven on Earth for me. I've been a huge fan of Oakley sunglasses since my early days of high school. I was trying on a few pair when the guy in the shop said I should try on the big daddy of all Oakley shades, the Pit Boss. That's $800 worth of sunglasses right there. Youch!

Anyway, that was last Sunday in a nutshell.

A little Green Lantern progress report

2010-04-17T19:05:00.001-04:00

As promised, here's a little update on how Green Lantern is coming along. The inks are pretty much done at this point. Time to start adding some colour - fun!

Hal Jordan, Green Lantern

2010-04-17T11:33:00.004-04:00

Not sure how much blogging will get done today. Working on grinding out some new artwork - Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814.

I'll for sure get up some more process pics though for those interested in seeing how this comes together. Check back later ;)

Today's working soundtrack includes:

Pretty Maids
Crashdiet

Dokken - Re-recorded Greatest Hits

How awesome was yesterday, eh?

2010-04-16T19:28:00.004-04:00

Well, for starters I won another free coffee via Roll Up the Rim at Tim Horton's. This is about a week an a half after the contest ended. Clearly some contest cups are still lingering out there.

Accident avoidance number 1: The guy ahead of me in traffic, passing through an intersection suddenly slams on his breaks, screeching tires, the whole bit. Apparently some dolt a few more cars ahead had the sudden urge to turn left. Fortunately I had just picked up my coffee and was liesurly sipping it as I was driving - ie, relaxed and not speeding, making me alert enough to avoid ramming this guy from behind.

12 noon - work day done! Head to Yorkdale Mall where I'm meeting KeriCDN for lunch and geeky social media chat.

Shortly after 1pm, Keri arrives, hit Moxie's, get seated, surfin' the menu. I lucked out when Keri pointed out the half sandwich and bowl of soup deal. I would have ordered something else, unless she'd convinced me otherwise. I was pretty delighted with the cream of broccali soup with cheese.

Keri is just awesome. If you checked out her site that I linked to in my previous post, The Canadian Explorer, and you read some of her stuff and watched some of her videos, that's her, exactly. There's no web persona or anything fake going on. She is who she is, 100% genuine and easy going. We pretty well hit it off right away and our chat about social media, the web, technology, ideas, the Olympics, work, more ideas, more social media, making pitches and getting payed was all exciting and never dull. I think the biggest thing I took away from our lunch meeting was an affirmation that I'm doing the right things and making the right moves. For those who read my previous post and wanted me to post some pointers about making it in the world of blogging/social media/new media, here you go:

Have a good, solid, fun and straight forward idea.
Be persistent but not annoying.
Have a personality, but be yourself.
LOVE your idea and what you're doing because life on the web (and in the media in general) is 24/7. It never stops, but you will have to at times. It's key to be able to identify when you need to go offline and recharge or else burnout is imminent.
Be social on the web, but be social in the real world too. You're gonna need to step out and rub elbows with people the old fashion way at times. It's all networking and it's all good. Your friends on the web from around the world are totally awesome, but getting to know the locals will serve you very well. Don't be shy, make a date, go meet them; I guarantee you have a lot in common.

Ohhhh, lunch was interrupted by a crazy woman. I kid you not. Screaming and yelling errupted from the other side of the restaurant and very quickly the place went silent. It was like something out of a movie. Rarely does one get to witness such an incredibly foul public display. Two security dudes wasted no time in hauling this batty lady away who continued to kick and spit and yell as they carried her out the door. Ahh, that's lunch time entertainment for you in Toronto.

2:30pm, Accident avoidance number 2 - leaving Yorkdale and this place is annoying to get out of. I'm driving around in loops when my Spider-sense begins to tingle. There's a lady sitting at the intersection I'm passing through and she's clearly looking to pull out into the oncoming lane. She's looking to her right but definitely not her left which is the direciton I'm coming from. Vrooom! She guns it. I knew it. I had my foot over the break. About three quarters of her car is broadside in my lane by the time she realizes what she's done and comes to a stop. Yikes!

It was the beginning of rush hour on my drive home but it gave me time think and in that time I came up with some cool ideas. One or two just might involve Keri. We shall see. To be continued?

Stay tuned...

PS - I mentioned that a good, clear, simple and well thought out idea that you totally love is crucial for your blogging endeavours. Check out Keri's manifesto video to see just exactly what I'm talking about:

I Read You My Manifesto from KeriCDN on Vimeo.

On tap for today: Meeting KeriCDN

2010-04-14T23:41:00.003-04:00

So today I'll only be at work for the morning. I'm leaving early because I have a 1 o'clock lunch meeting with KeriCDN. If you follow the local Toronto blog scene then you may know of her from her quirky and always entertaining site, The Canadian Explorer.

Truth be told, I can't quite recall where it was that I first made Keri's acquaintance - Twitter, blog or Facebook. It's more than likely that someone I was already following on Twitter either retweeted her or linked to her blog and I followed that Tweet or link. Whatever the case might have been, the acquaintance began when I asked Keri a couple of questions via Facebook about how long she'd been in the field of blogging and how she got her start. This is when Keri offered that we should perhaps meet for coffee and she'd give me some pointers, highlight the pit falls I'd want to avoid, etc. I thought to myself, "Whoa, cool offer!"

Of course, that was right around the time Keri was hired and sent off to Vancouver to cover the Olympics. Talk about a major score for her! She was cool enough to assure me she'd still meet up with me once she'd returned from British Columbia.

Fast forward about a month and here we are. Keri and I are grabbing lunch and I'm going to pick her brain a bit. Can't say I'm not more than a little excited. I started this blog over 2 years ago. I now write for The Geek Effect, I was recently made an official contributor to Carol Zara's Digitally Blonde blog and may just be working out the details of playing a slightly larger role there as well. Who knows where things will go next? All I know is that I've been having a ton of fun, doing a lot of great things and meeting a lot of cool people. As long as that vibe continues, so will I.

Yesterdays

2010-04-11T10:37:00.004-04:00

"'Cause yesterday's got nothin' for me
Old pictures that I'll always see

Time just fades the pages
In my book of memories..." -- Guns'N'Roses

I finally got the opportunity to get back to the drawing board yesterday, but although sunny it was colder out than it appeared. I went out to get coffee - fuel for the drawing - and nearly froze. Had to don a trusty hoodie to keep warm. This one's starting to get a little old, but it's still a fave.

Later in the day Casie Stewart pointed out she'd posted some pics of old hot rod tees on her blog so I was forced to shed my hoodie and show off the Poison shirt I was sporting. Yes, Poison. Love 'em.

Here's the drawing board after I've managed to flesh out my Hal Jordan, Green Lantern flying through the cosmos pose. There's the coffee I went to pick up earlier, drained by this point. That's my relatively new little Asus netbook I'm using to snag some references from the net. Unlike the iPad, it has full computing capabilities plus USB and HDMI ports.

And this is just a quick Blackberry photo of Hal with rendering nearly complete. I'll do a proper scan and post it up here when I get the chance.

These two photos are actually from earlier in the week. I went to Giant Tiger with Courtney and was absolutely appalled by this horrific comic/graphic novel display. Just sad.

Graphic novel book? WTF? More sad.

"Look, sir... lamps."

2010-04-06T09:36:00.002-04:00

Self professed do-it-yourselfers will absolutely love the site Instructables. It's chocked full of crazy, cool and some decidedly nerdy projects that will provide any bored enthusiast hours of entertainment and experimentation.

As long-time readers will know, I happen to be a bit of a Star Wars geek so a particular lamp to R2-D2 conversion project caught my eye. I actually came across the story via ManMade (which is a very humorously male slanted blog that you should definitely check out), but you'll find the full project details as originally posted at Instructables.

This geeky DIY project is also featured in my Star Wars Oddities column over at The Geek Effect.

Drawing Custom Tees with Carol Zara

2010-04-04T23:40:00.004-04:00

While at the Wizard World Toronto Comic Con I had the opportunity to meet up with fellow Toronto blogger and web personality, Carol Zara. We drew a custom Star Wars-themed t-shirt together and I've posted a photo essay that documents the process over at The Geek Effect.

It was a lot of fun so please check it out and let me know what you think of the finished product!

Some friends I made at Wizard World Toronto 2010

2010-03-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

Carol Zara of Digitally Blonde and I have been Twitter friends for a while. We finally got to meet at the Wizard World Convention in Toronto and we drew this custom shirt together. Carol drew Princess Leia and I drew Jabba the Hutt. I may have a little more detail about the creation of this shirt later in the week.

Me and Wolverine! This guy looked WAY too much like the real thing. Winner of the best snarl, hands down.

Miss Prestin and I. Laura Michelle Prestin is a full-time university student at McMaster, fitness instructor (come to think of it, I could use a personal trainer), and cover model. Nothing overly geeky about this girl so why she graced the comic con with her presence I don't know, but I'm not going to complain.

Me and Supergirl. Technically, her costume isn't entirely accurate if you compare it to the costume being drawn in the current run of the comic book... but I wasn't over put off by this.

Getting Read and Getting Promoted

2010-03-29T18:24:00.004-04:00

Saturday morning I awoke to a pleasant surprise. There was an e-mail in my inbox saying that someone had linked back to one of my Geek Effect articles from another site. This is always a pleasure because it generally means you've produced something that other people appreciate on some level or have found some value in.

I tracked the link back to a site called Sequential - Canadian Comix, News and Culture. This is a site that had been on the edge of my radar in the past, but had unfortunately slipped off like so many other sites simply because there is just so much to explore on the internet and only so much time to explore it all. In their effort to aggregate the swell of internet news buzz around this past weekend's Wizard World Toronto Comic Con, Sequential linked to both a short article I wrote for The Geek Effect as well as some photos from the Con that I posted right here at The Mental Kavity. They even saw to it to mention me by name in their post which was very nice of them and most appreciated. You'll probably have to click the image above to enlarge it and see just exactly what the Sequential post looked like.

Or, better yet, click on through to their site and check it out. If you're Canadian (or even if you're not) and your into comics and you don't know about Sequential, then I'm sure you'll thank me for pointing you in their direction. They host a mighty fine site chock full of smart and exciting content.

So, a big, hearty thank you to the fine folks at Sequential for showing me some love. They've even made mention of some of my Wizard World coverage again today which appears on The Geek Effect site. Thank you folks.

And just one more bit of happy news. On Sunday I was promoted from a contributing writer to a site administrator over at The Geek Effect. Thanks so much Bob and Luc, for trusting me with the keys to the little project you guys started. I'm most honoured and appreciative.

Some photos from Day 1 of Wizard World Toronto Comic Con

2010-03-27T02:21:00.005-04:00

Here are just a few of the photos I snapped at day 1 of the Wizard World Toronto Comic Con. I'll have many more up by weekend's end. (Celebrity profiles that follow are taken from the Wizard World website.)

For five years on nightly network NBC TV, Erin Gray was the American public’s image of the ideal woman. Her “Kate” in Silver Spoons managed to have it all—marriage, family, and business career. And for the two years before that, she had redefined our public image of the beauty with brains, when “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” became a hit series, her sleek, sophisticated “Colonel Wilma” became a role model, and Erin Gray became a household word.

Erin’s success as the face that launched some of America’s most glamorous beauty products was already legendary before she made the dramatic career change from model to actress. As the original “I’m worth it.” woman for L’Oreal, and the Bloomingdales’ spokeswoman for Ten years, she was launched into a starring role in the critically acclaimed television mini-series “Evening in Byzantium” with Glenn Ford. Ms Gray continued to star in numerous Movies-of The-Week, “Born Beautiful”, “Starman”, “Coach of the Year”, and “Code of Vengeance”, and also starred opposite Kenny Rogers as Lilah in the feature film “Six Pack” directed by Dan Petrie.

In “Silver Spoons”, in which Ms. Gray met and mastered the triple-challenge of the television sitcom—comedy, television, and live audiences, she further honed her “live audience” comedic skills by doing theatre, starring in “California Suite” and “Six Rooms River View”, and not only achieving critical success with “Social Security”, but bringing audiences to their feet with standing ovations.

Ms. Gray continued to co-star in numerous MOWs such as “Breaking Home Ties” with Jason Robards, “The Avenging Ace” and “Addicted to His Love”. In three fascinating roles Ms. Gray was again able to express her versatility and range, as a psychotic killer, and “evil duchess” opposite John Rhys Davies, a brilliant and twisted femme fatal in “Dark Justice”, opposite Frances’s leading comedic leading actor Thierry L’Hermite in a hilariously funny farce as an American writer who while hiding out in a French Chateau, becomes involved in a murder mystery.

In the mid nineties Erin starred in three feature films, “Jason Goes To Hell”, “Dangerous Place” and “T-Force”. She also starred in the first original movie for the USA/ Sci-Fi Networks, “Official Denial” with Parker Stevenson, and Dirk Benedict, as well as, the challenging role as the intense prosecutor, Pam Bozanich in the controversial film of the high profile Menendez trail, “Honor Thy Father and Mother”. Erin also made appearances in guest-starring roles in the CBS MOW “Crowfoot”, and in the very popular “Baywatch”.

In the summer of ’97 Erin starred in the award winning play “La Moure N.D. 58458” at the Bitter Truth Theatre in Los Angeles, as part of the cutting edge NoHo Arts Festival. Erin went on to guest star in recurring roles, as Congresswoman Karen Archer in NBC’s highly acclaimed drama “Profiler”, and the coldhearted Nicole Devlin in ABC’s “Port Charles”. And in 2002 Erin was honored with the Entertainer Award at San Diego Film Festival.

Erin and Co-star Joel Higgins from Silver Spoons delighted in working together again, in 2005, this time performing in Bernard Slade’s “Same Time Next Year” at the Buck County Playhouse in New Hope, Penn.

Within the new millennium, Erin has completed filming 14 independent feature films, “The Last Producer” with Burt Reynolds, “Woman’s Story”, “Social Misfits”, “Touched By A Killer”, “Delicate Instruments”, “S.W.A.T.”, “ManFast”, “Serial Intentions”, “Clover Bend” with Robert Urich and “Caught In The Headlights with Stacey Keach. In 2006 there was “The Wedding Video” and “Loaded” with Jesse Metcalf and Chace Crawford.

Magically last year brought Gil Gerard and Erin together for the first time since “Buck Roger” in a made for TV movie called, “Meltdown.” In addition, Erin thoroughly enjoyed working on David Kelley’s short lived but very funny comedy series, “Wedding Bells”, and starred opposite William Atherton in the Sci Fi Channel’s “Ghouls” which was shot on location in Romania. Erin has just completed filming on location at the mystical Mt. Shasta a much loved project called “Dreams Awake.” This very special film reunited Erin with Tim O’Connor, Dr. Huer from “Buck Rogers,” who portrayed her dad, and Gary Graham as her husband.

Throughout the nineties Erin and friend, Mara Purl managed to co-write “Act Right”, a professional guide for actors which just won first place in 2007 for the Evvy Award give by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.

In addition to raising two beautiful children who are a constant source of pride and joy, Erin and her husband, the noted Director of Photography Richard Hissong, are currently producing a video on one of her favorite subjects, Chi Kung & Tai Chi. Erin teaches these moving art forms 4 days a week at the Encino Acupuncture Center and travels around the county sharing her passion for Tai Chi and the healing arts.

Within the last eight years, Erin established, Heroes for Hire, a company which books celebrities at personal appearances and speaking engagements, and a production company, Wu Wei Entertainment.

Possessing a highly developed sense of public service, Ms. Gray, as spokesperson for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence & as an advisory board member for Haven House, the oldest battered women’s shelter in the U.S., co-produced & wrote PSAs with Women In Film. For over a decade Erin has been speaking out against domestic violence, a topic that is close to her heart.

Erin also takes time out of her busy schedule to host such programs as lifetime Cable’s “Drug & Alcohol Intervention Program”, and give motivational speeches for such organizations as UPS, AFLAC, and Lady Remington. Erin is the recipient of 9 community service awards, such as the leadership Award by the county of LA & The Guardian Angel Award from Mothers Against Sexual Abuse, the YWCA’s Women of Achievement Award of Distinction, the 1999 Women’s peace Power Media Award. & the 2002 Women of the year award by the LA commission For Women and 2 Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Staite played Kaylee Frye in the short-lived science fiction/western television series Firefly and its subsequent 2005 film, Serenity. She also wrote a chapter in the book Finding Serenity, called "Kaylee Speaks: Jewel Staite On Firefly".

She also played Heidi Gotts, the antagonist in the TV series Wonderfalls and appeared in a Season Three episode of the X-Files.

Staite played the role of head of medicine Dr. Jennifer Keller in the Stargate SG-1 spinoff Stargate Atlantis, making her the third actor from the Firefly series to move on to appear in a Stargate series (the first being Adam Baldwin and the second being Morena Baccarin), and the second to take a recurring role. She replaced Paul McGillion (Dr. Carson Beckett). In the fifth season her character was changed from recurring status to part of the main cast. Before taking on the role as Dr. Keller she previously played the Wraith child Ellia in the Stargate Atlantis episode "Instinct". She will star in the 2010 RHI Entertainment thriller, Mothman, under the direction from Sheldon Wilson.

MAX BROOKS is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. His previous book, The Zombie Survival Guide, formed the core of the world's civilian survival manuals during the Zombie War. Mr. Brooks subsequently spent years traveling to every part of the globe in order to conduct the face-to-face interviews that have been incorporated into this present publication.

Off to See the Wizard Today!

2010-03-26T09:14:00.002-04:00

Off to Wizard World Comic Con Toronto today. You can watch my Twitter account for all sorts of updates all day long and then check back here later for pics!

Joe Hill's "Horns" Book Tour

2010-03-23T00:24:00.003-04:00

Here are a couple quick photos from the Joe Hill book signing tour I went to last night here in Toronto. Joe read from his new book, "Horns", for about about 15 minutes, then answered a good number of questions from the audience and finally signed everyone's stacks of books.

I got volumes 1 and 2 of Locke & Key signed as well as a paperback copy of Heart Shaped Box and a hardcover first printing of Horns.

Geez man, how did this photo turn out so awful?! I guess the positive swing I can put on this is that the scariness of the pic is well suited to the reputation of the author I'm posing with.

Meet Joe Hill... isn't that a movie or something?

2010-03-22T13:40:00.002-04:00

I didn't find this out until I read a friend's Twitter feed early this morning, but writer Joe Hill, son of the one and only Stephen King, is visiting Toronto today and will be doing a reading and autograph session tonight. Of course, this meant that my plans for tonight immediately had to change, and change they did.

I hope to have some photos from the event that I can share tomorrow.

Mr. Hill will be appearing at the Lillian H. Smith Library, 239 College Street from 7 - 10pm. I'm leaving work a little bit early to ensure I get there on time.

Joe Hill is probably best known for his debut horror novel, Heart Shaped Box and his comic book series, Locke & Key. His latest book is Horns.

Wizard World Toronto Comic Con Press Passes - CONFIRMED

2010-03-21T12:37:00.010-04:00

Confirmation arrived last night via e-mail from Wizard PR that I will be able to pick up my press pass for the Wizard World Toronto Comic Con this coming Friday at noon. Woohoo! This makes me feel very super! I'll be there all weekend covering all the nerdy shenanigans with other members of The Geek Effect crew - another nerd new blog that I write for, in case you didn't know.

Here's the really fun part. The e-mail from Wizard gives me a contact to get in touch with if I'd like to arrange interviews with any of the guests who'll be at the show. So, immediately my head started to spin with the possibilities. There are so many cool guest. How can I possibly decide who to request for an interview?

That's when I decided this is exactly what social media is meant for! Why not put the question to all readers and friends I've made via blogging, tweeting and Facebooking. So here it is:

Who do you think I should try to get an interview with at the Wizard World Toronto Comic Con?

You can see the complete list of guests by following the link above and you can leave me your feedback below! Can't wait to hear from you!

Wolfmother and Slash - Making Magical Music

2010-03-20T16:17:00.007-04:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about music so let’s change that. Music is important to me.

Some bands are magical.

Not every band is magical to everyone, but everyone has their magic band. Wolfmother is one of those bands for me. Like Pearl Jam in their hay day of the early 90s, Wolfmother stomps all over other new rock bands, and a whole lot of old bands while they're at it. Their musicianship is second to none and the vocals of Andrew Stockdale are both unique and powerful.

Their latest effort, Cosmic Egg was easily my favourite album of 2009. Their staticky, buzzed-out, 70s, fuzzidelic vibe places them squarely in the stoner rock genre. But, while stoner rock often implies loose, sloppy playing and arrangements, that couldn't be further from the truth in the case of Wolfmother. They are tight, deliberate and undoubtedly musical craftsmen with a serious amount of passion.

Let’s take a musical interlude here and check out Wolfmother covering Led Zepplin’s Communication Breakdown at Zepplin’s induction into the UK Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame:

Stockdale, singer, guitarist and only original member of Wolfmother has written and sings a song on Slash's upcoming solo album called By The Sword. They've performed the song live several times and it will apparently be the first single from the album.

Check it out:

Slash's album will feature an array of different vocalists which is a concept I've seen done before and to me the results have traditionally not been all that favourable. That's really just my opinion of course, but I tend to like a certain consistency across an entire album and if the vocals keep changing, well that tends to irritate me a bit. However, I've now heard three tracks from the forthcoming album - By The Sword, Sahara and a cover of the Guns'N'Roses classic, Paradise City, featuring Cypress Hill and Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas of all people – and they are all awesome.

Don’t believe me? Check out Slash tearing things up with Fergie on Paradise City:

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Fergie is way hotter as a rocker. But then again, everyone is ;)

Here’s a way cool trailer for Slash’s album:

Alright, this started out as a Wolfmother post and morphed into a Slash solo album preview so let’s bring it full circle and round things out with the video for my current favourite Wolfmother tune, White Feather. Honestly, I got shivers the first time I heard this song and still do:

Team Conan Fan Incognito

2010-03-19T00:32:00.004-04:00

At first glance this guy looks like a typical Tonight Show fan who's pleased as punch to get a pic of himself with newly reinstated host, Jay Leno. However, upon further inspection we can tell this is actually a Team Conan fan incognito for the purpose of punking poor old Jay. That certainly looks like it says "CoCo FTW" on that young man's hand.

What do you think?

This image via BuzzFeed.

Kudos Facebook, Your New Weekly Fan Page Update is Very Useful

2010-03-18T09:42:00.003-04:00

Much to my delight last night I received an interesting e-mail from Facebook with the subject line "Your Weekly Facebook Page Update". At first I though, bah, more social media spam. But, oh no. How wrong I was.

I'm the administrator for three Facebook Fan pages in addition to my own personal page and this new e-mail initiative by Facebook provides a succinct roundup of the analytics for each one of my Fan pages. Not only are the stats very interesting, but they are hugely handy and having them all in one place, all assembled for me is massive pain in the butt reducer.

I could ramble on about this new Facebook feature, but Joe over at Joe's Gone Social has already beat me to the punch and done a bang-up job of highlighting all the main features and interesting aspects in one jim-dandy video which I've embedded below.

I do have one question though - is everyone getting this e-mail or are those of us who received it part of a lucky test bed?

I ask this because I know of one person who did not receive the new Weekly Facebook Page Update and she's rather jealous of me at the moment. I won't mention any names, but she does go by the online handle of wunderbug.

Sometimes the most simple post is the most popular

2010-03-18T00:06:00.002-04:00

Court was running a little late picking me up yesterday morning so I took the extra ten minutes to do a quick, but apparently popular post for The Geek Effect. I found this little Star Wars and The Bounty Hunter mash-up via Twitter about two days ago and decided that it fit perfectly the theme of my recurring Star Wars Oddities column that I write/compile for The Geek Effect. Little did I know how much retweet attention this post would get on Twitter where I always tweet new blog posts. Interesting how social media works sometimes.

Click on through if you're interested in checking out the full image.

Funeral for a Lost Boy

2010-03-16T09:31:00.003-04:00

Corey Haim will be buried here in Toronto today. Actually, in Thornhill to be exact. I wrote a short memorial piece for The Geek Effect on the day of his passing called Lost Boy Lost Forever. There's only a 2 year age difference between Haim and myself so it was fascinating to me, in the 80s, watching his meteoric rise to fame, and then, of course, his tragic plummet back to Earth and seemingly even lower. There seems to be no end to the tragedy and sadness in Haim's life as even in death controversy swirls about him. The local news has been buzzing over how Haim's funeral will be payed for and I've heard angry protest on the radio over the idea that the city of Toronto may actually foot the bill. I find it all rather distasteful and exceedingly inappropriate. His fame and name have surely waned over the years since his peek stardom, but being connected to the Hollywood machine as he was, surely there must be someone who could help his family at his dire time. Enter Haim's old friend Michael Kronick, owner of www.startifacts.com. Kronick was also perturbed by the fuss around Haim's burial and fortunately, along with his conscience, comes a rather sizable wallet. Kronick has offered to pay for Haim's entire funeral.

Nice work Mr. Kronick.

This full story can be found at thestar.com.

Pushup bar for Wii Fit Balance board - just about as bad a promo video as you could ask for

2010-03-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

I purchased a PS3 back in September (LOVE it!) and have recently been considering expanding my gaming arsenal with the purchase of a Nintendo Wii. Sure, the games for the most part aren't exactly hardcore, but that whole motion control thing seems pretty fun and then there's the whole fitness aspect of the Wii... rrrrright?

How could one go wrong with this cool looking Wii Fit Pushup Bar? It's designed to be compatible with:

New U Fitness
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
Jillian Fitness Ultimatum 2009
Jillian Fitness Ultimatum 2010

Sounds pretty good, right? That is until you watch the promo video for this product that is. It is so incredibly poorly done and all together lame that... well why don't you watch this video and then tell me if you'd buy this product.

An extra special thanks to Engadget for the heads up on this FAIL.

The Wizard World Toronto Comic Con - I'll be there with The Geek Effect crew!

2010-03-14T16:17:00.003-04:00

For many years Toronto has had one big, yearly comic convention that always takes place at the end of August. That con is FanExpo and is put on by Hobbystar Marketing. For several years The Paradise Toronto ComicCon has been trying to run some competition and this year I think they just might have really succeeded. This is of course because the Paradise show was bought out last year by none other than Gareb Shamus of Wizard Entertainment.
Shamus brings a whole lot of extra star power to the show and helps tip the scale from a "pretty competent con" to something of more "spectacular" proportions.

Personally, I'm dually excited because myself and the rest of the crew from The Geek Effect have been promised press passes to get into the show all weekend long. Now, the press passes haven't yet arrived, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have one in my grubby paws very shortly.

Of course, this means I'll be reporting about the con all throughout the weekend of March 26, 27 and 28 and you'll be able to catch all that coverage over at The Geek Effect. In fact, I've got some details about the show over at The Geek Effect right now so be sure to go check them out!

When enthusiasm wanes, suddenly inspiration strikes!

2010-03-13T22:37:00.004-05:00

I'm feeling bad here tonight because I've really, seriously been neglecting my personal blog lately. I'm also trying to compose a post for The Geek Effect (formerly Two Geeks and a Blog) and I really, seriously can't get in the writing groove. On top of this I'm attempting to work out a blog post for The Flickcast which is yet another blog I'm supposed to provide writing for which is based out of Los Angeles.

Add to this mix of too much to do, a lethal case of my mind spinning out of control in about 80 directions, thinking and pondering new ideas and projects and back-burner plans - all of which I want to work on and complete right NOW!

Phew. Definitely driving me a bit batty. But Court had a good suggestion; "How 'bout you hang it up for the night?"

Yep, very good plan. So, I put aside the notion of really accomplishing anything tonight and started doing some lazy surfing. That's when I came across the Toronto Blog Stars event:

Whoa! How did I not know about this event before now!? Talk about a timely dose of "just what I needed". This event just might be the ticket I need to take a much needed "next step".

Definitely going to look into attending.

RRROLL UP THE RIM season!

2010-03-01T14:48:00.009-05:00

The Vancouver Olympics may be over and done with, but as the calender rolls over to March first Canadians can rejoice in RRROLL UP THE RIM season at Tim Horton's. Next to hockey, beer and poutine there are few things that say "Canada" more succinctly than a steaming, hot cup of Tim Horton's coffee.

I just finished my first RRROLL UP THE RIM coffee and got a big fat "Please Play Again" message under the rim. However, I just discovered that there are more chances to win on the Tim Horton's website. Specifically, you can win coffee for a year by registering on the site and going back daily to enter your e-mail address. This gets your name in the contest to be the daily winner of coffee for a year.

In addition, Tim Horton's seems to be getting their social media act together this year. If you're checking out their site and entering their coffee for a year contest you may also want to create your own Tim Horton's branded profile picture which you can in turn use on Facebook and Twitter.

And if that's simply not enough Tim Horton's interaction for you for one day, you can write your personal RRROLL UP THE RIM ritual or win story and post that to their site.

All in all, this RRROLL UP THE RIM season promises a whole bunch more interaction than simply drinking your coffee and rolling up that rim afterwards.

Looking for Inukshuks

2010-02-22T19:00:00.003-05:00

I'm just finishing up a three day weekend and figured I'd share a few photos I snapped yesterday. It was about 5 degree celsius here in the Toronto area and that's pretty nice and warm for this time of year. It was also sunny which is a bit of a rare thing at this time of year too. Courtney's sister had been to Rouge Beach Park the other day and told us she'd seen some inukshuks that people had built. Naturally, Court wanted to go take some photos.

However, by the time we arrived there wasn't an inukshuk to be found. Destructive kids had probably laid waste to them. Undaunted, Court decided to take matters into her own hands and built her own inukshuk; you'll likely find photos of this on her blog soon enough. Meanwhile, I wondered along the beach and found some interesting driftwood and ice formations. Unfortunately I only had my Blackberry with me and not my DSLR so these photos aren't the greatest, but nevertheless, I think they capture the curious, natural effects well enough.

Having done a good deal of growing up in the northern Ontario community of Marathon, such spectacles were a common site for me along the frigid shores of Lake Superior. I haven't been back to Marathon since the summer of 2002, but my walk along Lake Ontario has spurred a small itch within me to visit my playground of yesteryear.

Of course, thoughts of the mysterious and great lake Gichigami, as the native Ojibwe call it, will also always recall for me the classic Gordon Lightfoot song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. If you've never heard it before, it's definitely a magical and moving piece of music.

Olympic Protesters - What the Hell is Wrong with these People?

2010-02-13T17:31:00.004-05:00

I can totally understand people who aren't big supporters of the Olympics. Perhaps they're just not sports fans or perhaps they don't think the competition is fair. What I've been reading in this particular case is that the main point behind much of the protesting in Vancouver is over allocation of funding. Basically, the protesters aren't keen on the idea that so much money has been put into hosting the Games, yet people go hungry and homeless on the streets. Whatever the case may be, everyone has a right to their own opinion. What people don't have the right to do is smash the property of others and to intimidate innocent bystanders. As reported in the Toronto Star, amongst many other media outlets, these are exactly the things that protesters of the Vancouver Olympics are doing.

Protesters have gone so far as to smash the windows and spray paint the buildings of major financial partners of the Olympics such as Hudson's Bay Company. To me, that's just shameful. What good can they possibly think will come of these actions? Furthermore, what right do these people have to tell other people how they should spend their money? Will a vegetarian activist pummel me if I decide to purchase a big, bloody steak?

Sounds ridiculous, right? That's because it is. I earn my money so I decide how I want to spend it and no one has the right to force me to do otherwise. The Hudson's Bay company earns its money so it's only logical that the board of representatives that make up The Bay get to decide how they spend that money. If they want to spend it on the Olympics then let them. Perhaps those who disagree with how The Bay and other Olympic partners are spending their money should come up with a logical, planned suggestion they can present to these financiers about various other ways they might be able to use their significant finances to help the less fortunate. But I don't think smashing windows and defacing their storefronts is going to deliver that message in the best light.

You won't often see me being the voice of support for big business, but this is the Olympics and this is a group of jokers trying to enforce their will through violence and it's a national embarrassment. Sure, nothing is fair in the world. The Olympics aren't completely fair and neither is it fair that some people have to sleep outside on the street while others get cozy beds and bathtubs. I might even be convinced that there are times and places where a show of force is the only means to an end, but I'm far from persuaded that a tiff over the Olympics and the homeless people of Vancouver is one such instance.

KeriCDN is a Toronto blogger - The Canadian Explorer - on assignment in Vancouver to cover the Olympics for Canoe.ca and she recently posted this video about the Olympic protesters:

And here's some more video coverage of the protesting as featured on Canoe.ca:

MacGruber VS The A-Team

2010-02-02T00:11:00.005-05:00

After watching the A-Team trailer I'm thinking that this MacGyver spoof, MacGruber, based on the Saturday Night Live sketch, might actually turn out better than the A-Team.

It pains me to say this because I loved the A-Team as a child, but I just can't get past the parachuting tank with Face hanging out of it and firing a machine gun at a helicopter.

Have a look for yourself:

Based on the rest of the trailer, that scene just really looks out of place. Maybe the CG will see some more rendering before it hits theatres and maybe that will make it better, but I'm not so certain.

Oh yeah, and the tag line is kind of lame. "There is no plan B?" That doesn't make much sense. They're not the A-Plan. They're the A-Team. What does planning have to do with any of it. Sure, I get the joke they're driving at, but it's a bit of stretch.

A weekly rundown of my articles for Two Geeks and a Blog

2010-01-31T10:17:00.003-05:00

The Karate Kid, 2010 - No Substitute for the Real Thing (January 25, 2010)

No Pat Morita. No Ralph Macchio. No thanks.

Star Wars Oddities - The Star Wars Weather Channel (January 27, 2010)

My new periodical featuring the odd and wonderful Star Wars curiosities I discover while roaming the web.

Bag and Board - Jan. 27 Edition (January 27, 2010)

My weekly comic book rundown.

Bag and Board Supplemental - The Heroic Age Begins at USA Today (January 27, 2010)

A supplemental column to my weekly comic book rundown spotlighting what's new, exciting and controversial in the comic book industry.

I'm not the Joker you're looking for

2010-01-24T13:34:00.002-05:00

Awkward. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this look of death courtesy of Jack Nicholson. It's a classic look for him in the movies, but I have a feeling it wouldn't be so entertaining in person.

It seems the autograph seeking fan who's just out of range of the camera has gotten his Jokers mixed up and is handing Nicholson a photo of the version of the Joker played by the late Heath Ledger. Heath's happens to be my preferred interpretation of the Batman antithesis, but by the looks of things here, Nicholson is still pretty fond of this own 1989 Batman romp as the leering villain.

Fake or not, I thought this photo was pretty humorous when I came across it last night on the blog of comic book writer and inker, Jimmy Palmiotti.

AXE Detailer Gets Even the Dirtiest Balls Clean

2010-01-23T18:17:00.004-05:00

Love or hate the product line, AXE has been responsible for producing some hilarious and entertaining commercials. In the days when television was the primary delivery medium for commercial advertising, something this risque would never have been possible. However, the unregulated internet has changed the face of content delivery and will only continue to do so as we hurtle headlong into the future.

Of course, there are pros and cons to an unregulated internet such as the ready availability of content you don't want children to see. But the power to regulate what content is viewed is in the hands of the consumer and I'd rather have that as opposed to a Big Brother telling me what I can and cannot consume.

On a side note, kudos to AXE for embracing social media. Check their website to see all the places you can find them on the web or jump right to their YouTube page for some more crass, yet entertaining videos.

On another side note, I own the AXE detailer being advertised in this video and the red, abrasive side is FAR too coarse to be used on the delicate body parts this video is suggesting. Just saying.

Tiger the Bad - Fun with Reading Images

2010-01-19T09:12:00.003-05:00

If one didn’t know better you’d swear this February 2010 Vanity Fair magazine cover was the promo poster for a gritty, new prison movie. And who’s this bad ass looking new actor who’s clearly playing the leading role?

Poor Tiger Woods. The media certainly doesn’t lend a hand to the wicked. Instead, they kick a guy when he’s down. This is not to say that Tiger hasn’t done any wrong. For all intents and purposes it would appear that he dug his own grave. Now the media is just shoveling dirt on him.

I showed this photo to Courtney and she deftly pointed out that Tiger must have ultimately given the okay for the photo to be printed. This, of course, is a good point and makes a lot of sense. In fact, I’m quite certain he approved the photo rather quickly. After all, I don’t imagine his regular sponsors are exactly falling over one another to get at the sullied star theses days. Notice the very plain, non-descript hat. No sign of a Nike logo within 100 yards. Compare this to the photo below.

Tiger Woods during happier times. The Nike logo is clearly displayed for all to see. Not to mention the lighting and colour saturation is very bright and vibrant. The Vanity Fair photo has the colour drained from it. His skin is dull and almost sickly looking. The grayish-blue wall behind him smacks of a concrete prison.

Whether or not Tiger wins another round of golf really doesn’t really matter to me. I just like watching the media and how they operate. It can be a lot of fun and very enlightening to dig and read into the images they sling around on a daily basis.

Christmas Card, 2009

2010-01-16T14:42:00.003-05:00

This piece of artwork comes a little late, but it's what I created for my Christmas cards this year. They were given out to friends and family and the Holidays proved to be so busy that I forgot to snap a photo of the actual, finished card. I'm sure I can borrow one back sometime in the future and get a photo to share here. This will have to do for now though.

The initial drawing was worked out in 2H pencil on watercolour paper to begin. I used 2H pencil as I wanted to keep the line work very light, knowing that I was going to be painting over the pencil with watercolour and I want as few pencil lines to show through as possible. My process in the past has involved more of a comic book style where I ink the pencil work in black, giving the figures and structures a hard outline. Then I would a add colour with the watercolour paints, not having to worry about forming the figures and structures with the paint because the hard ink lines are already doing that for me. However, with this Christmas card I wanted to go for a more traditional watercolour painting look. This means no comic book inking. So, I kept the initial pencil work as light as possible and once I was happy with the image I used a kneadable eraser to lighten the drawing until it was just barely visible. At this point I was ready to go to work with the watercolour. At first, having only the paint to create the illusion of shape and form and separate the creatures and objects from one another was a bit unnerving but after a little experimentation to build my confidence with this slightly new process I was off to the races.

Hope everyone likes the painting and find my process explanation interesting. If you have your own interesting process you'd like to share please feel free to do so in the comments section or leave me a link to an explanation of your process.

Happy New Year everyone!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering why my posts have been so sparse lately it's because over the Holidays I landed another blog writing position for a site called Two Geeks and a Blog. Check it out if you're into anything geek culture related. I've got several articles live on the site currently and more on the way. And I'm going to redouble my efforts to keep this, my personal blog, a lot more current.

My second article for 2 Geeks and a Blog

2010-01-05T15:34:00.003-05:00

My second article for my new writing gig with 2 Geeks and a Blog was published several days back, but I'm just getting around to sharing it now. It's a recap of events since popular file sharing torrent site, Demonoid, went offline last September through it's timely return to life just prior to the Christmas holidays.

So surf on over to 2GAAB and give it a read. And please feel free to leave lots of feedback at 2GAAB too. Hell, why not just bookmark the site so you're sure you never miss any of the nerdy news we cover there.

My first article for 2GAAB - A Conversation with Geoff Johns

2009-12-30T17:01:00.003-05:00

A late night Twitter chat with DC Comics scribe, Geoff Johns, was the inspiration behind my first published article over at 2 Geeks and a Blog. This is a comical recollection of the chat and it was published a little earlier today. Please surf on over to the site and give it a read. Also feel free to leave a comment or two if you're so inclined.

That would be VERY much appreciated!

New news that's GOOD news!

2009-12-29T15:05:00.006-05:00

T-shirt image leisurely borrowed from Lush T Shirts where it also happens to be for sale.

When I decided to take most of the month of December off work I had high hopes and good intentions for getting a lot of things done. This included reading, gaming, drawing and blogging amongst other things. What I've learned is that Christmas time is not a great time to take vacation. There are simply way too many other things like shopping, visiting and preparing for the big day itself that inevitably get in the way of productivity.

Of course, this isn't to say that I haven't had fun and my share of good times over the Holidays (and they aren't over just yet), but I have missed out on a lot of blogging and definitely haven't kept up with documenting my nerdy exploits and geeky adventures. However, this brings me to a little bit of unexpected good news.

In addition to honing my drawing and design skills I also enjoy a good amount of writing. The explosion of social media (Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc.) over the past couple years has both greatly intrigued me and assisted me in practicing my writing (in addition to my artwork). Social media in all its forms has also helped me to pursue another one of my great passions, all things popular culture and geek culture, and has afforded me many great networking opportunities with similarly minded individuals. Finally, all of these things have collided in the happiest of accidents and provided me with an exciting new opportunity which I firmly believe will only lead to a whole new slew of geeky good times. Starting today, I am officially a contributing writer for the Southern Ontario, Canada based blog, 2 Geeks and a Blog! The Mental Kavity will definitely continue to exist and will document my more personal exploits as well as feature my artwork, but you'll likely start seeing some links driving interested readers to 2GAAB (2 Geeks and a Blog) and the content I cover for that site.

This is a really exciting development for me and something I've been hoping to do for a while. As I mentioned to the guys at 2GAAB, I had an idea for a site similar to 2GAAB's a few years back and I've bounced the idea off some of my friends and acquaintances, but nothing ever really came from it except my solitary exploits here at The Mental Kavity. Joining the team at 2GAAB is a step up in professionalism and adds some legitmacy to my voice. I'm also certain it will do wonders for my portfolio and resume. Without a doubt, it will mean lots more content for those who are already regular readers and geek enthusiasts here at The Mental Kavity.

Be sure to check the link to 2GAAB above and also look for 2GAAB on Twitter. If you're interested, but not already following me on Twitter, you can find me by hitting the link in the right sidebar. I'll be linking to anything I write via Twitter as well as reTweeting everything from 2GAAB. Not to mention, my Twitter account is linked to a plethora of other geeks worldwide so there's always something uber-nerdy being said.

Panties image leisurely borrowed from ThinkGeek where they are also available for ladies to purchase... or guys, I guess, if you really like to keep things snug.

I'll soon be getting my very own profile on 2 Geeks and a Blog, so be sure to watch for that. And you can rest assured that as soon as my first article goes live on the site, you'll hear about it right here.

Hank Moody, you ain't got shit on me.

Merry Sith-mas - Asajj Ventress in colour

2009-12-14T18:10:00.003-05:00

Wow! That title is a little nerdy, even for me.

Ah well, got your attention didn't it? I love being on vacation. The drawing process usually takes me so long because it's most often broken up into whatever little slivers of time that I can find after the work day and all my other basic life chores are done. However, with little else to do but wash and feed myself the whole drawing process from start to finish is much, much more accelerated. I did the rough pencils for Ventress late last night and did the colours in a few hours this afternoon.

Even though I haven't had the opportunity to draw in a while and I picked a relatively simplistic pose I'm really quite pleased with how this turned out once the colours were added. The primary colouring technique employed here was Prismacolor blendable markers and my trusty Micron technical pens for the inking. I used a brush and pure black ink for the space background and then peppered that with dots for the stars using a Pilot Super Color permanent white ink pen. Finally I busted out the watercolour to spruce up the lightsabers with a little more of a light red wash than I would have been able to achieve with the markers.

If anyone is interested in purchasing this piece just leave me a comment saying so and we'll discuss a price that works for you.

Asajj Ventress

2009-12-14T01:26:00.003-05:00

FINALLY got some drawing done. I'm several days into my Holiday vacation and I still hadn't put pencil to paper until tonight. It's been a while and I'm feeling a touch rusty so I tried to keep it a bit simple. So, not the most dynamic pose ever, but the basic sketch didn't take me too long and I'm somewhat happy with the end result. Success. I figure I'll finish her up with some ink and marker colours a little later.

For anyone not in the know, this is Asajj Ventress from the Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon. She also appears in the comic books that are set during the Clone Wars era of the Star Wars mythos and is one of the main Sith villains during that time.

Hope you like this drawing and that you'll keep checking back for more artwork! Let's see, a drawing a day or thereabouts? Sounds pretty reasonable. Perhaps I'll skip, like say, Christmas day and such, but for the most part I really want to get as much drawing in as I can.

Merry Christmas moviegoers and lingerie lovers - Michael Bay directs a Victoria's Secret commercial!

2009-12-12T23:15:00.006-05:00

You can love him or you can hate him - most are in the latter camp - but I just prefer to accept him for who he his and what he does best. Michael Bay is Hollywood's master of disaster; a Jedi Knight of pyrotechnics with a PhD from the super-slick, style-over-substance school of filmmaking. Time and time again Bay's films have proven that he expects very little from his audience (pull up the bucket of popcorn and shut off your brain) so I expect little else other than cool visuals and kick-ass explosions from him. I guess this mutual understanding and level of acceptance is what has allowed me the guilty pleasure of enjoying such glamorous Michael Bay gems as The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island and Transformers 1 and 2.

So, when I discovered that Michael Bay directed a Victoria's Secret commercial I just chuckled to myself and thought, perfect. Who better?

After watching the commercial I can only say, "Thank you, Mr. Bay. You never disappoint."