Bachelor Party!

(EDIT: I’m having problems with the images in this post. My apologies if they don’t load.)

Since I’m getting married Oct. 8, some friends of mine decided to throw me a surprise bachelor party. We’ve had a long-standing tradition of keeping it clean and fun while embarrassing the groom-to-be as much as possible. I’m the last one in the group to get married, so I’ve had it coming to me big time. It was an all-day embarrass-a-thon!

It started when my friends gave me a surprise wake-up call at 6am on a Saturday! They came from all over, but the prize goes to Rob, Todd, Kevin, and Dakotah. They left Fargo at 2am and drove 250 miles just to wake me up!

I’ve always been a Superman fan, so to kick things off they made me squeeze into a child-sized costume of the Man of Steel. Since my body is more jell-o than steel, we had to cut it at the waist to make it fit. Even spandex can only stretch so far.

Then they made me wear a yellow sandwich-board sign and took me out to IHOP for breakfast. In keeping with our tradition, whenever someone asks me “When are you getting married?” I have to sing about how much I love my Honey. Needless to say I did a lot of singing (the IHOP manager made sure the entire restaurant knew I was there).

After breakfast it was back to my place, where the guys hung a pinata in my front yard. I’m not sure what the neighbors thought, but I’m guessing they might hesitate before inviting me to next year’s block party.

Next was a costume change (a yellow tuxedo) followed by a drive to ValleyFair, Minnesota’s largest amusement park. I must be getting older, my stomach doesn’t handle those rides like it used to. But they’re still fun! And I don’t care what anyone says, you’re never to old for bumper cars.

For supper we went back to my place for pizza and video games. Then it was a third costume change and off to the Mall of America and Camp Snoopy. (I play a mean Fisher Price Yukalale).

Finally, we rode the light rail train to Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, where we sat down to a nice dinner in an outdoor cafe. While we were eating, a drunk Englishman came over and offered me his congratulations, then gave me a five pound note for good luck (I think that’s about $10 American).

Then it was back to my place for more video games and a good night’s sleep. The next morning Jennie (my fiance) came over and made everyone breakfast.

Was I embarassed? Oh yeah! Was it worth it? You bet. ‘Cause I’ve got the best friends and the greatest fiance a guy could ever ask for!

COW-abunga!

I’m currently working on a project designing a skateboarding cow for a dairy producer. It’s still being refined but this is my favorite sketch so far. It has to be two-color (black and blue). The client thinks the cow looks too old–I can see that–and they don’t like the pose. So back to the drawing board.

New Character Designs

I can’t say what these are for yet, but I’ve been hired to design some characters for an upcoming project. Here’s two of them: A rapping duck and a German apple strudel. (Now I’ve got you curious, don’t I?)

Watch 80′s TV Commercials

Ah, the memories these bring back….
http://www.x-entertainment.com/downloads/

Self Promotion for Illustrators

Things are pretty hectic right now, but I’m committed to keeping this blog going. So I’ll just take a moment and mention a few websites that have been really helpful to me in promoting my work and getting clients. Maybe they’ll be helpful to someone else who reads this.

First, two websites where you can showcase your work to art buyers: The I-Spot and Portfolios.com. Of the two I’ve had a great deal more success at The I-Spot, but both have provided me enough income to make them worth the cost.

Second, if you want to promote your work you’ll need a good mailing list. Adbase.com maintains data on thousands of companies and agencies that hire freelancers, including e-mail addresses. In my experience, some art directors despise spam (who doesn’t?) but many others actually want to receive “art spam” from freelancers. It actually makes their job easier when the artists send samples to them rather than them having to go look for artists. Just don’t send so often that you become a nuissance (an e-mail every 1-3 months is sufficient), and be sure to include a statement at the bottom of your message letting the recipient know how they can be removed from your mailing list.

There you go. Now get out there and toot your horn!

Sketchbook: From the Archives

My wedding is coming up fast (three weeks from tomorrow) plus I’ve got a full plate of freelance work, so life feels pretty overwhelming right now. We spent yesterday evening moving some of my fiance’s furniture into my house, and then sending my twin bed into storage, so for now all I have to sleep on is a sleeping bag on top of a lumpy hide-a-bed mattess. But I’d take this stress over the stress of being lonely and out of work any day. I have a lot to be thankful for.

With all the craziness I haven’t had much time for sketching. So here’s a few drawings from the ol’ archives.

Broken Boombox

I’m working on a Vacation Bible School activity book for a client. I can’t show much of it, but here’s a sample spot illustration. I struggle a bit with drawing ethnicities, so hopefully this reads as an Asian girl without looking too odd.

Need inspiration? Make an Art Screen Saver!

(Turtle artwork by Guy Francis)

Like a lot of artists, I get challenged and inspired by drooling over the work of other artists (like the ones listed to the right, for example). One of the best ways for me to keep that inspiration going is to create a screen saver from the work of other artists. That way, any time I need an inspirational kick all I have to do is look up from my drawing board and watch my computer screen for a few minutes.

Here’s how to create your own screen saver on a Mac with Safari. It’s super-simple:
1. Create a folder (anywhere on your computer) to store all the images. I named mine “Other Artists”. (Within the folder I have the artwork organized into more folders by artist’s name, but you don’t have to get that detailed.)
2. In Safari’s Preferences, click on the “Save Downloaded Files to” drop-down menu and select the “Other Artists” folder.
3. When you find a super-cool piece of art, control-click and select ‘Save Image to “Other Artists’”.
4. To set up the screen saver, open System Preferences and click on “Desktop & Screen Saver”.
5. Click on the Screen Saver tab.
6. Under the “screen savers” list at left, scroll down and select “Choose Folder”.
7. Select the “Other Artists” folder.
8. Adjust your other screen saver settings to your liking, then quit System Preferences.

That’s all there is to it! I hope I’m not violating any copyright laws by downloading other people’s work, but I figure if someone posts their art online for me to view on my personal computer, it must be ok for me to use that art elsewhere on my personal computer…as long as it stays on my private computer screen. But if I’m mistaken on that, I’d welcome anyone correcting me.

"Media Artist Secrets" Podcast

Here’s a terrific artist resource: Media Artist Secrets. With a blog, podcast, and message board, Franklin MacMahon has built one of the most informative and encouraging sites I’ve come across for creative professionals (despite the cheezy clouds). As his homepage reads, “Media Artist Secrets is dedicated to helping you dramatically advance your creative career – Welcome to The Business of Being Creative”. Whether you are an artist, designer, photographer, animator, or have anything to do with visual media, your bound to find some rich nuggets of advice and encouragement from MacMahon. If you have iTunes you can even subscribe to his award-winning podcast for free so that the latest edition is automatically downloaded to your computer. Give it a listen, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Once Upon a Time

Last night Jennie (my fiance) had her first wedding shower. She had a great time and brought home a lot of neat gifts. But my favorite was a book written and illustrated by my goddaughter, Carsen Wetzel. It’s a creative and charming re-telling of our lives, how we met and got married. Pretty impressive stuff from a third grader. I couldn’t resist posting a few pages. (Click on the images to see a larger version). My favorite part is the marriage proposal, where Carsen drew us parachuting down to the lake!

You can view the entire book as a slideshow HERE.