diving into docks

2011-12-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

Another illustration is up and about. This one took something I picked up while working on A Tale of Sand. Figured it would fit the season but the snow level around town is barely a fraction what's represented here.

Wishing everyone a great end to 2011 and I'll see you in the New Year!

Continue? No >Yes

2011-12-16T17:23:00.003-05:00

The remaining 2 pieces of the series.

World 3 was dominated by water and featured the Frog Suit. I felt it was essentially useless when not under the sea but they made a big deal out of it in the cartoon series when it was raining. A plumber who can breathe underwater doesn't really need these abilities. Water Land also contained a strange canoe that could be used to freely roam the map. No doubt this was the inspiration for Wind Waker.

World 8 features Dark Land and a fire ballin' Mario. Everything was dark, depressing, or on fire in this world. Bowser also had a tank.

Both are available as prints at Society6

Tumbling Through The Skies

2011-12-05T16:07:00.005-05:00

Late but I wanted to get some more work finished so I can do a followup post soon after this. I joined Tumblr to spread my work around and that can be found here.

This newest piece is 1 of 3. The 2nd one is finished and the 3rd one will be completed shortly. They are depicting the various places and powers you run across in the critically acclaimed game starring plumbers, Super Mario Bros 3.

I always liked World 5. I remember feeling ripped off when I first arrived because it seemed so short, that was until I realized there was a 2nd level to the world once you venture through that creepy deserted castle and warp into the sky.

Also it had the shoe level.

Hope you enjoy!

(There is a print available at Society6 if you're interested)

Update!

2011-11-15T12:14:00.002-05:00

2 projects just finished up so I will be back from hiatus shortly. One project can be viewed here, Tale of Sand Preview. It took a month of non-stop work and long nights to complete. Thanks goes out to Ramon Perez and Stephen Christy for letting me be a part of it. Further thanks to everyone who helped me during that month.

The 2nd project should be out in January and I can't say much about it. It was a fun, smaller project that was a good followup to the giant-sized task that was Tale of Sand.

Updates should be in a week with some new illustrations.

Layton's Farewell

2011-09-15T11:52:00.005-04:00

A few weeks ago the leader of the NDP (a Canadian federal party and the official opposition), Jack Layton, passed away after losing his fight with cancer. Before he died, he left Canadians with a letter(click to view). He shared his vision that we can all work together to make society a better place to live and that we must never give up hope when someone tells us it can't be done. People of all political stripes came together after he passed to celebrate Jack's life and hopefully his message wasn't lost.

The Many Kinds of Murray

2011-09-03T14:33:00.004-04:00

Zissou squad.

3 styles from the Life Aquatic in the style mentioned a few posts down.

Also, I launched a mirror version of my website that deals with colouring. Take a look HERE

Let's Kick Shell or Some Kind of Drome

2011-08-10T21:05:00.007-04:00

Long time away from updating, just like the last time.

Here is a tribute to that fun beat-em up TMNT 4: Turtles IN Time. I also came back with a store.

Trying out Society 6 because I've heard good things and uploaded a few of my prints for purchase including this latest one. Let me know if you think I am being fair or not with prices, I can only control so much because they take care of printing/shipping. The store can be found here: Society 6 Turtle Drome Print

A TMNT4 music link for anyone interested in reliving some past memories.

Soldier On, Little Dudes

2011-05-31T01:00:00.003-04:00

Small preview of a little project I've been working on in my spare time. More to follow... Also busying with colouring which helps explain the lack of blog updates.

Free Market Afterlife

2011-04-03T16:18:00.003-04:00

Charon's monopoly of the river Styx just suffered a setback. Tubing will follow. This was done for Erika Brouwers's Canvas Collective. Enjoy!

Barrel-Chested-Collared-Quilling-Skeletons

2011-03-23T17:05:00.005-04:00

Kill Shakespeare issue 11 is currently underway, 10 should be out soon, and the series will be wrapping up with number 12. For Vol. One I did a pinup of Richard the 3rd mixed with Hamlet. This is for the next one.

Fungus Stalking Canvases

2011-03-23T16:36:00.003-04:00

January contribution to Canvas Collective. This site is setup by Erika Brouwer who invites or takes submissions from various illustrators to produce some eyecandy for your desktop. Thanks for the opportunity Erika. New wallpaper released every week!

Trying to make 'Mushroom Hunting' more hunting and less gathering.

Of Anniversaries & Artest

2011-01-14T22:15:00.005-05:00

Long overdue update. Blaming the holidays but they went well so I guess it's not so bad. The first piece was done quickly over 2 years in time for my father's 65th birthday. He had mentioned the phrase "Where there's a Will, there's a way" because his nickname is Will. I don't remember why. I left the phrase in the back of my head for a long time before developing an image to match. Our last name is Herring by the way.

Second update which should of come before this is... Ron Artest. Special thanks goes out to illustrators Steve Manale and Michael Cho for helping me take part in this show. Artest himself decided to make an appearance and I attempted my first traditional work in a long time. The entire show can be viewed at www.lovablebadass.com

3x Post (8bit + Shakes & Mash + Hungry Hungry Charge!)

2010-10-16T23:15:00.009-04:00

Busy working as a colourist left some time between issues to illustrate.

1) Sendup to Super C (Contra's sequel) complete with a mimicking of Konami's weird cartridge elements. Photoshop did up an 8 bit version using only 16 colours!

2) Richard III meets Hamlet. Pinup to be included in November's release of Kill Shakespeare Vol. 1. In case you didn't know, I colour that series.

3) Finally, a friend wanted an illustration of some Hippopotamus-themed cavalry . So this is what he got. Completed a few months ago but I never posted it because I was waiting for some text to be written. That text never came so I filled it in with my own gibberish for now.

.subject title ---! >

2010-07-12T23:33:00.005-04:00

Something to pass the time while roasting in a laundromat. Sketch ontop of scribbles.

Birds and Nieuports

2010-05-26T20:33:00.004-04:00

With regards to the song by that french band for the header, M83. Continuing to add colour to The Great War. Spiraling outta the air, next stop... the SEA!

"All Quiet on the Western Front" IN TECHNICOLOR

2010-05-13T17:07:00.009-04:00

Work after some other work. These were pointed out awhile back, old photos from WWI and they were shot with an early colour process. Usually I associate that war with muddy, black & white images so this was a surprise.

Let's add colour to the era.

Terrible enough?

2010-03-24T21:48:00.009-04:00

Trying to channel some cheesy elements from book covers and album art. Galaxies with laser grids seem to do the job. Further research can be found at everythingisterrible.com

For the scrubs at the end of the bench...

2010-02-09T19:06:00.008-05:00

The colouring of Issue 2 for Kill Shakespeare wrapped up last week. I was staring at dozens of foot soldiers for about a month so it's no wonder this is what came out. Playing with text, google image search, and blend modes.

Onto Episode III.

"Cond. / Rest. : Lacks Brain / Pas Cerveau"

2010-01-15T00:45:00.006-05:00

This was sitting on the desktop all year due to colourist work. Work on "Kill Shakespeare continues but I found some time to mess around with this thing. Maybe more will go into later, but for now it's being thrown to the wolves.

Tear away.

Returned & Established

2009-10-14T00:26:00.005-04:00

Long trip totaling over 7000 Kilometers not including those damn ferries. To anyone who ever takes the Sydney to Argentia ferry know this, they close the bar very early.

Sketches and thumbnails of this were left in Ontario while I explored the Eastern Shores. Figured it was a good way to get back into practice but the background is sparse right now. Hope you enjoy my interpretation of the plumbers who haven't found work in their field for a long long time.

Hiatus

2009-09-05T21:48:00.000-04:00

Temporarily on Hiatus. Will Return in October from a long trip out to Eastern Canada and everything in between.

Have fun all.

diving into docks presents "Diving Into Docks"

2009-07-31T02:11:00.007-04:00

Prone to squid and octopi attacks, a lumbering diver plods along the seabed. Dark waters and poor field of vision mask the behemoths.

Now watch as he's pretty much done for...

Maybe some process shots in the morning? Sure! Stay tuned.

**Edit** Process shots! Animated! Thanks to the 3 people who helped from the scribbles. Irma and Jerry who questioned anything funny about it. Thirdly, my friend who asked 'what the hell is this even for?' and is now sitting on an illustrated dock.

Inverted Finger Slip & Battery Liar

2009-07-27T16:21:00.006-04:00

My camera is forgetful with batteries and sometimes claims they have no more power before remembering that they are in fact charged. During this downtime I sat down at the harbor front and drew parts of the skyline before giving up on accuracy. This is the result.

Mission Hill was a show filled with an interesting colour palette. I set up the preliminary flats similar to their backgrounds (pastels, blues, purples) but was curious and inverted the scheme.

"Something's wrong with the G-Diffuser!"

2009-06-29T11:30:00.004-04:00

Back in the day it was your dozen of triangles versus the enemy. A creepy voice over told you "SCRAMBLE", "Good Luck", and "Wing Damage!". That plane could still fly despite the loss. Partnered up with gibbering animals, you went off to fight a monkey in a box hiding behind a face that ate too much geometry for breakfast. That was their story. This is STARFOX!

P.S. There was a secret level where you could fight a giant slot machine to the tune of 'When the Saints come marching in', after that you were forced to blast the end credits until you quit out of boredom.

2.75$ = Chaos + a whole whack of KMs

2009-06-25T13:36:00.008-04:00

Promotion to get myself started in a few days. I was working a job previously that had me spend 2 hours of my day on the TTC (Toronto Transit system) so I had some time to kill. The system which seems to work well one moment and horribly the next. Their ambiguous enforcement of transfers can also irk you on the wrong day.

Hope this pleases some people.

In other news, a comic that I colour was launched by Zuda, drawn and written by my boss/friend AndyB. First few installments can be found here and is updated twice a week. Bottle of Awesome

"You're not cool enough for this box!"

2009-04-28T23:18:00.007-04:00

Was stuck colouring for a long while so there was a hiatus in work for myself. A larger project is coming but I needed to get warmed up first so I drew a snooty mime thing. Is he smug enough?

I suppose you could write something thoughtful in his smoke bubble on this handy post-card sized image.

In other news, congrats to any and all 2009 Sheridan Grads of Illustration. Next up, the OCADers.

Hail to Conchordia

2009-03-24T18:52:00.004-04:00

The 2nd season of Flight of the Conchords has ended and if Wikipedia is to believed it was also the series finale. This was conceptualized through some contest HBO put on. A bit of fine print later states that the contest was only open to US residents. Went ahead with it anyways because it would be a fun wager with Vicki Nerino to see who could finish first. Beer for me cause I won!

Sidenote, I need to get a hold of some old-timey 3D glasses.

"He only used you for your honey!"

2009-03-02T23:46:00.005-05:00

Mr. Nimit invited a bunch of artists and myself to contribute to an Illustration fundraising event. The name of the show is the Birds and the Bees which will be held on March 20th at the Jerome Jenner Gallery. Here's what I came up with. 'Plaquing' isn't a word according to spellcheck but that is definitely how I am handling the print of this. Musical birds to follow soon!

In Lieu of Candles and Flowers

2009-02-02T20:53:00.004-05:00

2 pieces which were actually cards for friends (one birthday, one less-birthday) have eaten up a bit of time. Along with those, a bunch of work colouring came my way for the month of January (not pictured). Production was down due to a busted heater which left me chattering away from the chills during anytime I wasn't cozy in bed. Laptops are a good source of heat when everything else fails...

Anthropomorphic Attack!

2008-12-21T00:01:00.009-05:00

2 unrelated projects uploaded here. The Manatee Brown's fan is a Christmas card for a Boss's girlfriend's brother-in-law.. Yea! Go Browns?

The second board design is below. Deadlines crept in and it didn't deliver the message I wanted it to but it does have 3 monkeys. Half of the goal was met with this and may be revisited one day. RIDE competition is in February and in the meantime check out Miss Lee's entries.

Update on the War for 1.56 Metres.

2008-11-29T22:19:00.004-05:00

Contest deadline closing in, second design on its way. These files are monsters... mostly because they are to size. Enjoy.

In Honor of R. A. J. Warneford

2008-11-16T22:52:00.001-05:00

This is a crop of a snowboard design I am working on. It depicts one of those air raids performed by Flying Lawnmowers & Steel Balloons. The full design of "Dirigible 156" is on its way later this week followed by a second, unrelated snowboard design.

Warneford was the first pilot to take down one of those Zeppelins that was more known to scare the shit out of everyone rather than for the actual damage it dealt. His achievement earned him singed eyebrows and the Victoria Cross.

(Source: WWI Aviation book that has seen better days)

Chanticleer NOW!

2008-10-30T22:28:00.002-04:00

I used to play a game with someone who went by the name 'theRooster'. He sent the Alice in Chains song to me and explained the lyric listed below describes him. It was fairly accurate much to the frustration of his opponents.

The song can be heard here.

This concludes another 'Adventures with Postering'.

UPDATE: Alternative version because I was bored while doing some work between sketches for the next project.

Absentee Voting Status: Missing

2008-10-15T02:23:00.001-04:00

I was gone to Montreal to learn the basics of the French language. Didn't go that well but it's a start. I have since moved to Toronto and have started work on various posters. Here is the first featuring everyone's favourite power consolidator/greasy French dish.

"Do you believe in the eyes of Putin?"

Twitched w/ Silent Rage

2008-06-21T18:24:00.001-04:00

Colouring job of a sketch by Miss Kniivila. Drawn off the term 'Captain Bringdown' describing someone who has no relation to this masked character, I think.

Tuesday's Charge

2008-06-17T22:47:00.001-04:00

Reasearched with Google Imagesearch, the hussars were the formation crushing chargers that dressed as flashy as possible. In Risk they made up 5 units and suffering one loss broke them up into a pathetic bunch of regulars. Sad.

Tally Ho!

2008-06-08T22:19:00.001-04:00

The bulk of the army is here to sing a happy tune. Flood the map with these little buggers and pretend to look excited when you draw one from the deck of cards. Every plan to conquer the world starts with these brave little plastic men.

They've Fortified Australia & Found the Key to Western Europe

2008-06-01T18:18:00.005-04:00

As someone said, they've made plays out of dumber things. The text at the bottom if you can see it is what I imagine a fake poster about a musical based on a board game would say.

RISK: the musical would follow an epic campaign fought between friends. Interludes of Napoleonic battles would break up the players as they vied for power with coloured armies. Alliances, betrayals, and a cavalry charge. It would probably end with someone choking on dice.

Come on double 6s!

(There will be more of these)