Bright Idea

An illustration I did for the May edition of the LDS children's magazine, The Friend.

Redneck Bigfoot

A quick painting for my brother in law.  Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've got a lot of things coming soon, promise!

Watercolor Weekend

I found some time over the weekend to do another painting using real paint. Revolutionary!

Happy God of War III Day!

I picked up my copy of the Ultimate Edition last night at midnight and played until 3 am. Between this and Final Fantasy XIII coming out last week I'm a very happy gamer. KRATOS!

Love, Love

A goofy cupid I painted for my wife for Valentine's day. Happily, she likes it.

The Girl Who has Everything

What? Actual Paper? Real Paint?

I got an awesome set of Watercolor paints for Christmas (thanks in-laws!) which I finally used to paint something. It's been far too long since I've painted with anything other than digital paint and I had a lot of fun. I think this turned out moderately well and I'm excited to try more.

New Year

Hello 2010, year of Greek Mythology! In the first 3 months we'll have 2 new films based greek myths and 1 new video game (Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightning Thief, the remake of Clash of the Titans, and God of War III). So I've decided to ring in 2010 with a piece of the god of sky and thunder himself.

As for 2009, it was okay I guess. At least it brought us one truly magnificent film (Drag me to Hell) and one spectacular game (Uncharted 2).

Christmas Presents

My wife has been asking me for a while for a few pieces of art and I guessed she ultimately deduced that the only way to get me to do them was to ask for them for Christmas. So above is the portrait of our son, Max, and a personalized bookplate. She seems pleased with them.

Palate Cleanser

As promised, I've done something more appealling to male sensibilities after all the Twilight stuff. I hope you enjoy viewing my sexy, bikini clad, jungle inhabiting, panther riding woman as much as I enjoyed painting it.

For the Ladies part 2: Team Jacob

The females in my family requested this and I wanted another Twilighty piece for the Avalanche blog. I did not paint it of my own volition. I think I'm going to do something tough and testosterone filled next. I need to cleanse my palate.

Kratos

The God of War Collection ships today and I've been playing the God of War 3 demo over and over so I've been in an angry greek mythology kind of mood. I have a hard time pinning down what I like so much about the games. The main character is a horrible person. The fighting system is fun, but not incredible. The narrative is frequently cheesy but always feels appropriate for the subject matter. The rush of pure testosterone laced adrenaline the game provides is nice. I also really appreciate any franchise in any form willing to tell an epic fantasy story without just feebly copying Tolkien.

I also recently had a Final Fantasy 7 marathon. I played Crisis Core, Final Fantasy 7, (watched) Advent Children, and Dirge of Cerberus, all back to back which was quite an experience.

Currently Playing:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves - Game of the year! I'm just a few trophies away from platinum (I finished it on Crushing the other day). Phenominal in every way.

Metroid Prime Trilogy - I like the Wii controls and all the games are great so I'm loving this.

Recently Finished:

Batman: Arkham Asylum - So much better than any other Super Hero game I've played. Finally someone got it right. Incredible game.

Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus - The great production values and fondness felt for the characters by FFVII fans isn't quite enough to make up for the uninspired gameplay.

That's it for me, pretty dry until my birthday/Christmas next month and I get all the great games that have and are coming out this holiday season. I really want to play through the campaign of Modern Warfare 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii looks awesome. Anything else good out there?

For the Ladies...

Not a big fan (like I'd admit it if I was), but I think the two main characters have interesting faces. So I painted them. You're welcome.

Halloween Pumpkin '09

This year I entered the Lehi City pumpkin carving contest and won the grand prize, a year membership at the Lehi Legacy Center (which is our city's pool/track/gym place). I also won a game at a Halloween party we went to wherein one eats crackers attached to a sheet of plexiglass while wearing a blindfold with goofy eyes on it. My finest hour. So generally a great Halloween with one exception: Trunk or Treating. I hate, hate, HATE Trunk or Treat. I loathe everything about it, the practice, the name, everything. It is ruining Halloween and slowly destroying society. In the future when civilization has collapsed and we live in a post apocalyptic wasteland and people wonder where it all went wrong, I'll be there to answer, "Trunk or Treat." If you were someone who engaged in this practice over the weekend then you should be ashamed. Classic Trick or Treating forever!

Coffin Character

Quoth the Raven...

"Nevermore."

Death in a Red Dress

I try to keep the spirit of Halloween in my heart the whole year round so it's nice to have the season here again for real.

Sketch Trade with Jordan

There's an explanation here, but I don't want to get into it. Thanks Jordan!

Sketch Trade with Virginia

Another trade with another great artist. Virginia Critchfield gave me one of her trademark pencil sketches of Tonberry (a Final Fantasy monster) and I gave her some creepy wall-eyed dude in brush pen and marker. Thanks Virginia! Good luck in Texas.

Ol' Jack Burton Always Says...

The topic on the Avalanche blog is "Childhood Re-Drawings" where we're taking stuff we loved and would draw as kids and rendering them now with our more developed artistic skills. I was obsessed with the movie Big Trouble in Little China as a child. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would answer "a truck driver who fights monsters," which is how I interpreted the occupation of Jack Burton from the film. So I decided to paint him, my childhood hero.