Wanna Piece a' Me?!

I got ahead in work this week and just didn't have the energy to start a new book today. So I instead used my time to construct the following poster. I think it was time well-spent, honestly.

Greg White Illustration

Characters

These are a few characters I did for a book last month. Sadly, the mouse ended up being a more conservative version of what I have here, but it was still pretty fun to work on.

Greg White Illustration

Samurai Slim

Well, February turned out to be a pretty good month for me, so I had the time to sit down and work on the pulp poster series and this is what I came up with. And no need to point out that I failed in my earlier promise to do the rest of these posters more quickly. I am painfully aware of my own shortcomings, thank you much. Now, if "Meat Quest" came out a little like a romance novel cover, this one came off just a little more R.L. Stine-juvy-paperbackish than I meant it to. I think it has something to do with the lighting and color scheme, but I can't be sure. I'm still pretty happy with it, though. It's not often in my line of work that I'm afforded the opportunity to draw a zombie horse after all. And while "Meat Quest" presented me with the challenge of removing articles of clothing from my models, "Samurai Slim and the Zombie Tribe" challenged me in adding and altering the clothing of my model (which was my former roommate in this instance). I'm working on some big ol' fat plans for the next in the series (which will be based on the photo of yours truly) but as March is kind of promising to be pure unfiltered liquid insanity, I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to complete it. But maybe I'll get lucky. Oh, by the way, if you can think of a nifty tag-line for this thing, send it my way.

Greg White Illustration

Dominate. Part Deux

This latest post comes tinged with a tiny bit of disappointment. My second "Dominate" design was selected to be the official t-shirt, but was ultimately overturned for common decency issues. I don't begrudge that decision at all. The design that's going to print is fantastic and I shall wear it with pride, I shall. Still I kind of wish that they had just made that decision behind my back on Monday rather than giving me a day or two to get all excited about it. It's kind of like being handed a wonderfully delicious Klondike Bar on a hot summer day, but then your loving grandmother trips on her walker, bumps into you, and knocks it to the ground before you can taste it. You really can't be mad or anything, I mean she's 83 for crying out loud. And she feels really bad and wants to make it up to you but you tell her it's okay and she should just sit down for a minute because on the list of things you'd do-oo-oo for a Klondike Bar, risking your grandma's health is not one of them. But you still want that Klondike Bar. And in the end you kind of wish you'd never even set yourself up for a Klondike Bar in the first place cause you had it in your hand for just that one second. Yeah, that's kind of what this is like. And so, the design will instead reside here in the blogosphere, which, depending on which way you look at it is either an eternal hall of records or a graveyard.

Greg White Illustration

dominate.

At work this week we decided to do an illustration t-shirt. Our group mantra is simply the word "dominate," so I decided to take that and run with it. I figured an innocuous looking little fellow like this wouldn't raise any eyebrows, but whether or not he could be our department's mascot is yet to be seen, (bondage gear, after all, is still bondage gear no matter how you dress it). If not, I'm still planning to make it a t-shirt, even if I have to go the iron-on route.

This month has turned out to be a lot busier than I anticipated, but rest assured, the pulp posters are still on their way. How can I be so sure? Because I know how to dominate.
Greg White Illustration

Meat Quest: The Quest for Meat

This project was put on the back burner while I finished up the office art and has just been hovering over my head for two months. It's a continuation of the pulp series I've been doing ("Thag!" and "It Came From Beyond the Moon" being the others). One of the biggest challenges was that every title and tag line I came up with made it look more like a cheesy dime store romance novel cover than a pulp magazine. I'd hoped the mastodon carcass and general over-the-topness of the image would make it more obvious, but I still think it has a touch of the Fabio factor that just won't wash out, no matter how much blood and misogyny I pour on it. But I'm okay with that. It's sort of the result of a late night impromptu photo shoot I did with some friends at my place a while back, during which I promised to do a poster for each of the attendees (myself included). And no, the models did not strip down to loin cloths. I had to make believe the muscles and belly buttons. So you can expect to see more of these in future months. Hopefully the other ones won't take so long to complete.

Greg White Illustration

My Art Cave

So posts on this site have been pretty sparse for the past couple months. A big part of that has been due to this project I've been pouring all my extra time into. I ask you, how can an artist create anything in a room that makes him want to vomit? My home office had been a nursery for the previous owners, and what a mess they made of it. I'm talking blue sponge paint and wallpaper trim level damage here. So I worked up a design plan and have made it my mission to transform the revolting nursery into an art office that I could actually spend more than five minutes in without wanting to drive a screwdriver into my eye sockets. It's still got a little work left to go, but the centerpiece of the room is finally ready for unveiling. Witness the transformation:

Ugh, this is what I had to start with. What's with the 5 foot high chair rail? Honestly, the things people inflict on children.

Here's the completed design. It's supposed to represent my journey from the structure of the daily world into a creative zone in which I have total freedom. And yes, that's my brain in the middle.

After ripping off half the wall with the wallpaper, chair rail, and book shelf removal, I had to retexture everything before putting down the cream base coat and penciling in the design.

So close and yet so far. The cityscape proved to be a complete pain, which only reinforced my decision not to use any straight lines in the rest of the design.

Ignore the clutter on the desk and floor. Here is the wall as it stands today; a tribute to extended adolescence.

Bleepity bloopity, it's a big scary robot sending radio messages from his head!

And look! A Godzilla-like creature emerging from the sea of my subconscious!

Here the straight lines and oppressive structure of the city melt into a river, bamboo, and a curly tree. Very Zen.

Finally, here's the comparison to the first picture (which, funnily enough, you can see in the computer screen on the desk). Eventually I'll find a place for all that junk lying about, but I still have plans for the wall in front of my workspace. So for the moment, the office will have to stay in a sort of limbo state. Until I can complete the design on the other wall, finish out the cleanup on the main wall and slap some posters and bookshelves up, I've at least got a space that I can stand to be in to do my work. And that's good enough for now.

Greg White Illustration