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Even though I have been illustrating for as long as I can remember and I had begun my career as a graphic designer nearly 30 years ago, at one point I found myself joining a small group of individuals with similar goals: to make comics. In the mid-'90s this collection of four young men set out to create a "studio", if in spirit only, to share their talents and learn from each other as they grew into seasoned illustrators to collectively create comics catered to our specific taste. A solitary banner they could nurture and publish their creations. A brotherhood to help weather the comic industry. The seeds of that collective produced the pin-up comic "Bad Girls". A selection of pieces to highlight several of our personal characters foretelling the stories we intended to tell as the studio grew. As time passed and we matured we also drifted apart. Life pushed past and our collective dreams were set aside to make way for responsibility. Careers began and pulled us further and further apart as a studio. I developed my career as a graphic designer working for several companies always keeping my dreams as an illustrator in view. Now that I've made the decision that I want to again tell those stories started so long ago, what better time to revisit the studio that supported those ideas?! New for me this year (and the foreseeable future) I am going to reopen the "doors of the studio" that housed my early creations. To again have the banner to publish under and maybe encourage the return of a brotherhood. This is going to be an exciting year! Long live the King!

I'm often surprised at the direction that life takes a person. Where it wants me to be. Where I need to be! In most respects, I'm exactly where I should be. I went to school for production art and graphic design and that's exactly where I am. Designing t-shirts, banners, logos and more. The idea was to help my illustration and find a way to pay bills while I fought to become the next Todd McFarlane, Walt Kelly, Michael Golden, or even Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri! I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. After school, I found work designing shirts, my first professional illustrations! The work began slow, learning how to apply these new found ideas of layout, text, and color. Taking a clients idea or suggestion and fleshing it out into a coherent design. I enjoyed it. The rush of a deadline, the praise of a client. Hell, I even enjoyed the struggle to pull from a client the idea that they could not voice! Then I noticed that design had taken over and I wasn't drawing as much. My plan had worked but at what cost? My bills were being paid (barely) but my dreams were becoming distant and faded. The whole idea was to enhance my illustration, not replace it! My work continued and I got better and better. I would apply an illustration every now and again but only when the budget allowed for the time to do so. I became fast at graphics. The workflow was more intuition now. Muscle memory. Like a puzzle, all the pieces just fit together. Color, font, graphics all seemed to pour out and into the design quickly and efficiently and I was getting to be known as someone who could perform. Illustration was drifting further and further from my mind as design work became the priority. Then I said "NO! I will not lose my passion!" and I began again to illustrate. Filling the minutes away from work to practice and study. Utilizing my newfound knowledge of layout to tell stories. I threw myself into my illustration. And it nearly cost me everything. My design work was slack. Relationships floundered and disappeared. Friends grew distant and my life had little direction outside the fantasy worlds I wanted to create. For years now I've struggled with a balance. Doing illustrations and performing at design. Then just as I find a balance, life throws me a curve. The biggest supporter and critic of my dreams, my father, passed away. It's been nearly two years and ache of that wound is as fresh as if it were cut moments ago. Even now as I type this the tears are welling with his memory. Design and illustration were thrust from my mind replaced by grief. I was consumed with despair. Work was easy to get back into the swing as it had become routine but illustration...that was harder. The desire was there but not the will. Sure I forced a piece or two out but the passion was gone. Vacant. Then earlier this year I was asked to do a pin-up and thought "sure, why not?" and I picked up a pencil with little hope for the quality. Scribbles became defined and images emerged from the darkest corners of my creativity. Like a flower blossoming my illustration began to open and grasp for light. this spurred me forward! I began to practice again and feel the images struggling to appear on the page before me. They wanted to be seen. Projects began to form in my mind. Projects that had lain buried in the recesses of my imagination. They claw and pound and scrape at the wall that keeps them contained in my mind, a wall that is giving way. Stories I want to tell, I want to create! 

I refuse to make a new years resolution as I tend, like everyone, to forget them nearly as soon as I make them. I will, however, make a vow to allow that barrier that is blocking my ideas to fall. To let the ideas flow and to share the "fruit from the tree". I may only illustrate one piece this year, maybe a thousand. I won't know till it happens. I don't know what life has in store for me this coming year and I no longer plan it's course. I simply ride the wave and let it take me where it wants me to be. Where I need to be. 

Well I haven't posted much in quite some time and I apologize for that but I have been feeling extremely "burnt out". I've worked all day doing artwork for banner & t-shirt companies for 23yrs and then freelance for t-shirts at night leaving no time for personal projects or any desire for that matter. It's a struggle to pick up a pencil and create and then depression sets in when ideas or creativity flounder and I'm left with a blank canvas and I retreat into movies and video games to lick my wounds. Well all that needs to change. My freelance work is dead now, I quit doing it. No more tracking down clients for work or to pay their bills. No more will I exhaust myself in a direction I no longer have heart in. My focus needs to be on me and my goals and my creativity so that's what I'm doing. A few friends have asked me to create some illustrations for them and I found the projects interesting so first off I will knock those out and try to regain my focus and then on to more personal work. I've started for the first time writing stories of my own. With this as a springboard I plan on working more OC illustrations as well as commissions if I get requests. I'm tired of feeling "tired" and I miss the illustrator I once knew and look forward to seeing him again and I hope you can enjoy the ride with me. It won't be a fast recovery but I will recover. A close friend and brother told me recently I need to just "grind it out" and no stronger words could have been said to me at a lower time in my creative process. It was a slap to the face I truly needed (thanks Dirk). And with that I leave this journal to pick up pencil and paper and go grind it out. Thiings are in the works and I can't wait to share them.

I know it's cliche' but I'm going to try to start fresh this year. I've allowed a multiple of excuses to keep me from doing the artwork that I've enjoyed for so long and get my ass in gear. To start this change I've uploaded the first page of a book I'm working on with a friend. It's still a bit rough but hey I'm trying to find my groove. Keep watching and don't be shy about telling me how I'm doing. I can only get better if I know what I'm doing right or wrong. Enjoy 2014 as I hope it will be more productive and more focused on my first love: story telling.

Recently my mother and I drove from Oklahoma to California to visit family and just enjoy a well needed time off from everything. I sincerely enjoy road trips and this is one I've driven a few times now but this is the first time I was able to actually snap some photos along the way. We stopped at a few places for me to shoot as well as just snapping pics out the car window. Please take a look and let me know what you think.