Still scribbling away, doing comic-book pencils for a current client.

This panel had to be revised and won't be used as is.

Final Christmas Pic of the year of my lovely bride...

Here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas Eve!

A photo I shot while at the library recently...

Three more days till Christmas...

Okay, almost done... Just one more illustration... It's 11:30 in the AM and I've still not gone to bed. This thing is due tonight, and if I go to bed now, I'll sleep until sundown, and I'll never finish by tonight, so the little wife put another pot of coffee on, and I'm chugging away. Every time I take a swallow of java, I fell like my heart starts racing. I NEED SLEEP!!! I can't wait to hit the sheets. These marathon projects run me down... Ah feel like drool awn a dawg's lip. I feel like this guy... Hopefully I don't smell like him... but this studio is getting stuffy. You know what it smell likes when you keep a hairy critter in a box for too long? Yeah, pretty bad. I need a shave real bad, too. 

Still got a few pages before finishing my current project. Deadline is Thursday night...No time to clown around.

I just read about the attempted robbery of Frazetta's gallery. I wondered if Frazetta's kids would fight over his art when he passed. Since his wife, Ellie, really controlled the museum, her passing was the actual thing that brought about the alleged family feud. It's really so sad.

Just thought I'd take a moment to post something before getting back to work. I'm pulling another all-nighter, because I have a project due pretty soon, and I need to put in as many hours as possible so as to complete it on schedule. My listening-while-I-work bounces between Christmas tunes and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar OTR programs. It's almost 3AM, and I'm still nursing my second cup of coffee, but it'll be enough to keep me up. Hopefully my hands can remain steady as I attempt to ink and color another comics page... Rats, I just realized: it's trash day tomorrow and I forgot to take the cans out to the street... Guess I'll go do that before I get back to the drawing board. 

FORGERY UPDATE
Well, for those who read several posts ago (12-4-09) about the possible fake sold at Heritage Auctions, here's what's happened so far. The person whose site I originally had noticed the image of the possible fake decided to post my suspicions to a site which he believed Heritage frequented. Sure enough, they took notice of the buzz and responded with the following:


"We appreciate this being brought to our attention (thanks to the fellow who called us as well [that would be me] ). As I think/hope everybody already knows, we guarantee the authorship as stated in our cataloging on any painting unconditionally. We feel that the painting in question is indeed the painting used to produce the final pulp cover. There are a number of possible reasons for the visible changes between the painting we sold and the printed version: all kinds of alterations were often made in the production process, and there may well have been restoration at some point to the painting. Anyway, we\'re contacting the buyer and offering to inspect the painting first-hand, and will offer to refund the purchase price if our opinion should change about the veracity of the painting. -Barry Sandoval" (Insert mine)


Well, I don't buy that the "production process" accounts for the discrepancies. It is possible, however, that the painting was damaged with age and was poorly restored, but that remains to be seen. 

Since Trinity, my eldest daughter, spends so much time reading and writing, I recently suggested to my wife that we set up a blog for her, wherein she can post her book reports and other writings. Trinity naturally embraced the idea with enthusiasm, so I took a few minutes to set up the account on eBlogger. Other than setting it up initially, my only contribution to the blog was to come up with the name and add photos I took of my daughter. Cristina, my wife, will be helping by proofreading for grammatical errors, but other than that, the writing will be all Trinity's, so it'll be interesting to see how that develops. 

BUBBLE-GUM PINK

This is a shot of Noel at Universal City Walk. I really want to get a page on this site for photography so I can use this blog for artwork only, but I haven't had the opportunity yet. And sure, I also post this stuff over on Facebook, but I post it here so as to consolidate things. This way, if Facebook goes belly-up, I still have my stuff here. Now, if I go belly-up, that'll be something else altogether.

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT CANDLE

Well, I have a project that'll probably keep me awake for the next week and a half. I'd better get all the sleep I can tonight.

(Still tinkering with photography. This is the little lady and my little dude.)

DeRailed

So the train, after several years of use, has finally given up the ghost. Joe had the thing on practically nonstop, and the motor either burned out, or something came loose, but it won't even turn on. Well, it still looks nice...so far. Joe's been playing with it off-track, so we'll see if it remains intact throughout Christmas.

My lovely bride, of whom I am not worthy.

YOU BE THE JUDGE
A couple of weeks ago, I was perusing a website that featured pulp art, with side-by-side comparisons of the original art next to the published version of the cover art. Well, I noticed one sample featured an "original" that differed significantly from the published version (by Edward Dalton Stevens). Being an artist, I know the difference between editorial changes and a different painting altogether. I also understand that printed versions may be different in color due to the age of the printed material, or due to the printing color formulas, or due to registration shifts, and so forth. But the differences between the original art and the printed version of the art in question had nothing to do with those kinds of things. The two were clearly not that same illustration -- at least not to this artist's eye. 
So I decided to email the website and let the guy know that he possibly had a fake on his hands. The owner emailed me back, agreeing that he looked closer and saw that the two images were not of the same painting. He let me know that the art was not a part of his collection, but that he was just featuring the images on his site for public interest, and that the comparison images actually came from Heritage Auction Galleries. He also sent me a link of the auction page. So off I went to view the page, and there were the images. Seeing that the painting had been purchased, I emailed Heritage to let them know that they possibly had sold a fake to a customer. This was all about a couple of weeks ago. 
This morning at 9:14 AM I received a call from a representative of Heritage Auctions, and the rep assured me that the painting was original. He also assured me that they have "experts" who verified the item. He also expressed incredulity that anyone would find an old canvass frame on which to paint a forgery, and go to all that trouble for only six-thousand dollars (it actually sold for $6,572.50 at auction). Well, which is a better forgery scheme? To forge something like the Mona Lisa, of which everyone knows where the original resides, and which, if it were offered for sale by an individual, would raise eyebrows and be placed under the strictest tests, x-ray exams (or whatever kind of technology they use to see "beneath" an existing painting), and scrutinized to the nth degree? Or would one be more likely to get away with it if one forged a rather obscure work of art, of which no one would likely know where the original resides (if it even survived), and which wouldn't be worth enough money to warrant spending thousands of dollars to subject it to technologically advanced testing in order to verify its authenticity, and which could fetch six grand for a days worth of work? How difficult is it to run down to the local antique shop, purchase a worthless antique painting (of requisite vintage so as to have an authentically aged canvas and canvass-frame), and just paint a forgery on top of the existing painting?
Now, am I 100% certain that this is a fake? Well, no, I'm not God, so I'm not omniscient. I'm also not Descartes, and my suspicions are not indubitable. But I'm also no dummy, and I can see that the two paintings are not identical. And though I am an artist, I don't think it requires an artist to see the difference. But that's just my opinion. The representative at Heritage Auctions wouldn't relent, and I think he took the time to actually call me personally (instead of just emailing me back) because he was duly concerned that perhaps I might be correct, even though he insisted that the painting was authentic. Well, you be the judge.


Note: After I tipped off an acquaintance about the call I received from Heritage Auctions this morning, he started a discussion thread with these same images, only he added indications where the differences are most notable. If you can't see the differences yourself, you may want to check out his thread and see the images there: http://www.munchkinpress.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=969

Found this to be an interesting ad. If only I had the funds, I'd place my order today (click on the image if it's difficult to read at this size).

IF THE SHOE FITS...

As usual, the Christmas tree went up at Thanksgiving. Here are two close-up shots. These are a couple of the many baby-shoe ornaments I designed while at Cast Art. I got several before we went out of business, so they go up on the tree along with every other shiny dingus we can find.

TEKSTSTRIP
I was recently asked to do a sample character sketch to match characters from a Dutch comic-strip called Tekststrip, and I was given a link to view samples of the strip for which I would use as reference. For reasons I won't go into, I declined to work on this project. However, when I viewed the samples of the strip, which were produced around the sixties, I was duly impressed. The art is great, and I thought it was too bad that American audiences haven't had a chance to view it. It's got a wonderful animated feel, and the backgrounds and overall design are tops. The artist that did this really didn't cut corners in any way. I suggested to the person in charge of the project that they approach an American publisher to have the strips published in a trade form (which would require translations of the text and new scans of the art). We'll see how that goes. For now, here's a sample of the strip.