Is today! So I did a little update to the earlier painting.

In response to the continued death threats and victimhood complex from radical (and increasingly ‘moderate’) Muslims towards cartoonists and animators for depicting Muhammad, May 20th has been designated by the internetz as Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.

Freedom of speech and belief are linchpin virtues that civilized society and discourse are dependent upon. You have every right to believe that Muhammad was a prophet and that he instructed not to be depicted, and you even have the right to be offended when people don’t follow that. You do not have the right to demand that people who don’t share those beliefs adhere to them and you remove yourself from serious discussions of respect when you threaten censorship and violence upon other people for exercising their freedoms.

So here he is, in all his tribalistic, superstitious, 9-year-old-wife-raping glory.

Haven’t done much personal work, or even sketching, recently. Trying to get back in the habit of that so I don’t forget how to draw. Which apparently has happened, as this person is totally androgynous.

Also, I feel awful about that ear. I didn’t even attempt sub-surface scattering. This deficiency in my painting ability demands rectification.

Had been sitting unfinished on my HD for wayyy too long. My brother and his fiancé.

Recently been breaking out the old acrylics.  I hated painting. In my mind it meant way too much forethought than I was willing to put in to get the kind of results I’m accustomed to with my digital art. So in an effort to give myself a more relaxing artistic outlet, I thought I’d just abandon what I “know” about painting and just go. So far it’s been a lot of fun.

But mostly, it gives me something to do when my girlfriend is painting… hahaha

03 micron and Pentel pocket brush pen in a moleskin sketchbook while I was backpacking. Lots of fun and I really like the results.

*Irazu

I really like the results I’m getting from this process. I can be loose where I want to be and tight spots aren’t intimidating because I can undo and erase. It might be a while ’til the next time I break out the real stuff again.

Short break from work stuff while I frantically clean and organize.

Happy Birthday!

(Ok so it was two days ago, but I was too busy spending it with her to post this.)

Bill was a friend from high school and a fucking awesome kid.

He died last week and this is a tribute to him. He was wicked adventurous and totally unstoppable at anything he wanted to do. He was a huge Batman fan (the memorial was littered with Bat symbols) and a big barefoot enthusiast. The shoes are Vibram Five Fingers and once I showed them to him he hated to wear anything else :).

Bill was one of a kind, and I miss him a lot.

For anyone who might be interested, prints are available here.

Just a little side project, testing out my new desktop. My younger brother built himself a new machine and I bought his old one off him. He’s a pretty hardcore gamer/programmer so he builds INSANE machines. For instance, he built this one 3 years ago and it still runs any game coming out today on near maximum settings without fail. So I upgraded to Photoshop CS4 and I’m in love with how it integrates graphics acceleration (among other perks).

This is what I was up to yesterday testing it out. Still not finished, but I thought I’d show the process.

If you don’t know Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, you should probably check out her solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer.

Ps. Windows 7 was temporarily the bane of my existence, and now I’m fully satisfied being back in XP. It owns.

Pps. As I’m typing this in Firefox, I’m also listening to iTunes, running Photoshop, and I’m about to return to my paused game of Mirror’s Edge, which can function at full speed with all the above still going.

I fucking love my brother.