I Have A Headache!

This is another entry for WeLoveFine's Power Ranger's T-Shirt contest, playing on a double entendre with Rita Repulsa's catchphrase and the implications it could have on her marriage to Lord Zedd. While I sketched this out in traditional pencils, finished linework is completely digital, a first for me.

  

While I thought that this entry, since it didn't involve tracing a pre-existing logo, would be the jewel in the crown of my submissions. However, much like "I Got a Frog", I received an e-mail from WeLoveFine. “We like your concept, however, since this cartoon is aimed for children, we cannot add your design into the contest.  Is it possible for you to rework it so that maybe Rita isn't lying down in a bed, but maybe sitting in her chair?  Once you rework the design, we'd be happy to enter it into the contest.”

While this sounds like a frustrating let down, after reading it I had a strange realization, “If its rejected before the contest… Then it can’t be a failure!” Yeah... just keep telling yourself that. Though it is subtly amusing to me that a gag about rejection is ultimately being rejected.

I've got a week before the deadline to submit something else, so I just have to decide if it's worth the effort to compose a new image from scratch. With that kind of time crunch though, I might just let it go and be thankful I didn't go with any gags about "Make my Monster Grow."

Let's Make A Show Of It!

Captain Marvelous' catchphrase from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger juxtaposed with the classic "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters. These pirates may not care much for "Keeping Calm", but they know all about carrying on. 

Originally this was something I just did on a lark, but it was a big hit on tumblr, so I decided to try submitting it to WeLoveFine's Power Ranger T-Shirt contest, even if it is based on a Sentai series. Well low and behold, this design was approved and is eligible for voting when the polls open on February 18th. Here is a link to the design page were you can share it on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus.

http://www.welovefine.com/vote.php?id_contest=32&m=gallery&id_submit=11203

ZYUniversity

 Now here's one of my T-Shirt entries that did manage to make the cut. Its a parody of the classic "NYU" shirts from New York University, replaced with "ZYU" referring to Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the series on which Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was based.

I was originally going to put a bar under the Power Coin Logo saying something like "Est: -170 Million" or "Est: 1992" but thought that would be confusing since Mighty Morphin' uses in 10,000 years and/or 1993 as its years of establishment for that particular team.

Regardless, the design is viewable here: http://www.welovefine.com/vote.php?id_contest=32&m=gallery&id_submit=11177

The voting period begins on February 18th, but you can also tweet, facebook like, or share on Google plus any time before then to help promote my hard work.

I Got A Frog

For the past month now I've been working on entries for WeLoveFine's Power Rangers T-Shirt contest to celebrate the franchise's twenty year anniversary. Since my generation was on the ground floor of this series when it first started, I figured I could give it a shot.

This was one of my first entries for the contest. The joke is taken from a line in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie when the team is receiving new power animals. While the others get strong creatures like the wolf, the bear or the falcon, Adam expresses disappointment in being given a frog.

It reminded me of another expression of disappointment from my childhood TV viewing;

However, shortly after I submitted this entry I received a message from WeLoveFine that stated;
"Although we love the idea of merging together two classics like 'Peanuts' and 'Power Rangers', this is something that we unfortunately can't proceed with due to licensing terms."

Fair enough I suppose and its certainly understandable. I guess it didn't occur to me that the juxtaposition could be a problem, especially given this company's other pop culture mash ups particular with their Doctor Who/ My Little Pony crossover shirts, but those are of a different sort. At least this design didn't take as long as some of the others I worked on. 

Angels on the Airwaves

This is the cover for a Christmas card I sent out to some of my college friends and artistic peers this season. (Hopefully all recipients have gotten it by now) Facebook and the internet are great communication tools and all, but I feel like I've lost touch with a number of fun and influential as a result of the growing years and miles. I figured this would be a good way to reconnect, let people know how to reach me, let them know what I've been up to and planning on doing in the next year and find out what they've been doing too, etc.

I'm hoping for a spark in establishing a stronger community and maybe even build some traffic for this very blog.

I had been cooking up the notion of doing the cards since Thanksgiving time, but it took me quite a while to come up with an idea for the cover. I was shooting for a "scene" like something out of the old Saturday Evening Post covers, but wanted to avoid Santa imagery, feeling it would come off as trite. That and I already did Santa for Sleep Care last year. In the end, I fell back onto my strengths; heavy darks and a mid century period setting.

Here are some of the works I found particularly inspiring. Consider them your online stocking stuffers!

 

Edit: And wouldn't you know it, after everything is all done, that when I discover an image that I have never seen before that looks almost identical to the end result. Go figure.

Deja Vu: Santa Surprise

NC Wyeth vs. Norman Rockwell

Talk about a gift that keeps on giving! I think its great when you can see the clear influence on another artist's sleeve like this.

While I've posted about such similarities before, there are people who have been doing it a lot longer and more throughly.

Myth Riders

Just an idea I've been cooking up since Halloween. Long time viewers will know that I love surreal juxtapositions of pop culture characters; Tommy Wiseau and The Joker, Rick Blaine and Indiana Jones, Andy Griffith and Optimus Prime, The Doctor and Zardoz, etc. On Halloween night I cooked up this idea of a crossover between The Headless Horseman and Lady Godiva, playing on their status as legendary, near-mythical, horse riders and contrasting the large black Horseman horse against the Lady's gentle white equine.

I spent about three weeks since this doodling compositional ideas to get to this point (and taking a crash course in drawing horses too) Unfortunately for all the effort I expended I'm not satisfied enough with the project to continue it just yet. I couldn't really decide if they were racing, flirting, just passing by or what. Not to mention Lady Godiva's lack of clothing and how to creatively conceal it and still be identifiable was causing problems with generating a legible composition.

So yeah, this ones going on the discard pile unless I can come up with some new solution to turn this idea into an illustration. Any thoughts?