Pixel Pushing

A while back I helped Act 3 design and build a videogame for the photographer Scott Smith's website. I did a bunch of "pixel" drawings of locations, characters, weapons, bikinis, etc. Here are some of 'em.It was a neat project and pretty different from most of my other work. The idea was to emulate the look 'n feel of old adventure games and their EGA graphics, like the early Sierra Online games. My middle-school years included a lot of Space Quest, Police Quest, and (of course) Leisure Suit Larry:It was fun turning real and semi-real people and places into pixelized versions of themselves:More challenging was designing all the games-within-the-game. This was was sort of a Frogger-style deal:For those interested in tech talk, all these drawings are 100% vector. I won't reveal any more of my secrets. Unless you ask me.This is an interstitial loading screen:This is the climactic photo-shoot, sketched then rendered:This was the celebratory duck-hunt afterwards:Anyway, if you've got a few minutes, you should go play the full game!

Annals of Beerstory

My friend Will over at 600series/infoshots and I have been doing these illustrated infograph charts for a blog called Manolith. This time around it's an epic 2400 vertical pixels describing BEER through the ages. My rough sketches: We shared research duties, Will did the heavy design work (be sure to check out the full timeline!), and I did all the little spot illustrations. Here are some of 'em:Know when to say when!

Wet Socks

I've got a drawing today on the COVERED BLOG, an awesome site where artists pay tribute to other comics covers. I "covered" one of my favorite books by one of my favorite cartoonists, Surviving Saskatoon by David Collier. The top one is mine, this one is Collier's:The strip "Milgaard & Me" is a mix of biography, auto-biography, and true crime that really hits my narrative sweet spot. I thought of Collier's cover when I was painting the cover to my Drawn & Quarterly book, which treads similiar biography / graphic journalism territory.(If you were curious how to pronounce the name of this blog, the first part rhymes with my grandpa's war-nickname "wet sock".)

Morrissey vs. Agnostic Front

These legends are in all town next week (on the same night) and this illustration for the RFT pretty much drew itself. "TOO MUCH PRESSURE 'n YOUR MIND IS BUSTIN'!"