It's been a loooooong time since I've played some poker.

My better half...

PARDON ME WHILE I TOOT

LONG LIVE DEAD TREES!

I find it's far more economical to buy copy-paper rather than waste money on expensive drawing pads. I keep this stack of paper in a magazine rack next to my drawing board, and it's convenient in every aspect of working when rendering roughs. I know a lot of artists are drawing on a Cintiq these days, but there's still nothing better than graphite and ink on dead-tree products. Long live dead trees!

I wish I had time to clown around with music, but my guitar strings are rusty and remain untouched these days.

I keep trying to get the right shot of the my desk, but something is always off. In this case, the watch was supposed to be in focus, but it's way off. I'll try it again later. I really could use a macro lens. The one on my current wish-list is the new 100mm f/2.8 macro... Right after I get my wife her new kitchen floor...

My daily contribution to the great smoke-off of 2010... I'm listening to a lot of OTR while I work ("Richard Diamond", "Johnny Dollar", "Sam Spade", "Philip Marlowe", etc.), which put me in the mood to knock this out during my break.

Listening to Phil Harris' orchestra right now.

Way cool, daddy-O.

Another shot during my jaunt through L.A. 

Evening lighting can make ordinary architecture much more interesting. 

Like I already said, I don't smoke. 

But for some odd reason I enjoy drawing a character with a smoke.

I'm like that.

Remember that Missing Persons' song, "Walking In L.A.",

where the line in the chorus is "Nobody walks in L.A."?

Well, this must be the "nobody" of which they sang.

Is this equivalent to a Big-Foot sighting or something?

Went to L.A. yesterday with a buddy to do some shooting. I'd like to go out shooting more often, but one really needs to have a partner to shoot with if one intends to roam the streets of L.A. at night. As much as I enjoy going into the city and taking in the hustle and bustle with all its towers, traffic, and city lights, I enjoy coming home to the family and settling down in my cozy nest.  

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES...

When I was growing up, smoking was just a part of life. It seemed like every other person smoked, and no house went without an ashtray on practically every coffee-table, end-table, nightstand, kitchen counter, toilet-tank, and anywhere else one might drop a potted plant. No kid made it out of an elementary-school crafts class without making an ashtray out of clay to bring home to mom so she would have someplace to drop her ashes with pride. 

Being a big fan of pulp fiction and noir films, it seems like people in those yarns lived on alcohol and smokes. Although I don't smoke, I don't have the tobacco-phobia so common amongst many today. Oh, sure, it's not a healthy past-time, but it's also not the evil that some portray it to be. Cheeseburgers are probably worse for your health than smokes. It seems like the people most paranoid about things like "second-hand smoke" are those who wring their hands over global-warming and overpopulation; two of the stupidest ideas driven by junk science if ever there was a stupid idea. So here's my doodle for the day-- my non-conformist rebellion against all such stupid phobias. 

ROCKETEER!

Woo-hoo! My IDW Deluxe edition of Dave Steven's Rocketeer collection just arrived on the doorstep ten minutes ago! Anyone who knows me knows that I have an addiction for books, but work was so slow last year that this past summer I only bought one book at the Con -- so out of character for me. So this is the first book I've purchased in the last eight months, and it'll probably be one of my favorite art books ever. Amazon and IDW are sold out of the Deluxe edition already, but you can still find it on eBay. If I weren't swamped with work at the moment, I'd spend the rest of my evening pouring over every page. It's truly a work of art. (Incidentally, I swiped this image from the web, because I wanted to post this and didn't want to take the time to shoot a pic. My apologies to the photographer)

Well, I squeaked my way through 2009. 

This year seems to be off to a good start, 

but we'll see what's in store.