by odin's beard!

i started reading American Gods recently and it is super fantastic so far. a bunch of talk of folklore and mythology and what not. so i drawed me up the all-father! got his ravens in there and everything. i think i might have to dig into some norse mythology in the not too distant future.
for odin! for asgard!

-z

lil baby turtle

got commissioned to do a little painting of "a baby turtle and a butterfly" as a dual christmas/baby-warming present for my sister's coworker. so here are the sketches i worked through and a quick photo of the finished painting. i think it turned out pretty cute if i do say so myself. i probably could have done this painting much faster than i did but i stumbled across top gear uk on netflix and, despite my utter disinterest in cars, got hooked and marathoned a ton of it in the background while 'painting'. anyhow heres the turtle and i will be posting another quick sketch later tonight as a little bonus post and then i have some holiday projects that will be posted as they are completed.

later

-z

birthday cards... again!

oh hey. its been a while. here's a quick blog post and life lesson. don't start making super cute cut paper birthday cards for people because it sets a standard you have to live up to. it started a few years back with a lion for my mom (see old blog posts for pics) then amanda got a tiger my brother got a baby orangutan my dad got a grizzly my grandma got a toucan there were a couple beagles in there and my sister got a red panda recently. i probably missed a few in there but now people sort of expect them and are disappointed if there are no moving parts in them. anyhow my lady always gets more effort in the artwork because it tricks her into thinking i'm one of those creative sensitive types instead of a slob who makes her watch pro wrestling and listen to me bitch about comics. without further ado, here is the sketch for her card and a scan of the card itself. the hat comes off making him an any time puppy! also a quick pic of the card I made my twinsy for her bday this last year. all of these start as a quick sketch to establish shapes and then I go to town with an x-acto, some scissors, a pile of cardstock, and a small enclosed space full of rubber cement fumes. they are a challenge but i end up really enjoying the results. if you want to commission a fantastically cute custom cut-paper card (alliteration!) for any occasion for a loved one or even yourself, drop me a line! for real! more posts to follow soon. i mean it!

-z

duck fails, woo-oo!

so for some reason i became obsessed with the release of the duck tales: remastered video game this summer. i never played the original 8-bit version and was by no means a superfan of the show (though what child of the 90s can't sing that theme song by memory?) but for some reason this game caught my eye and wouldn't let go. it was finally released and it's gorgeous! the sprites' designs are amazing and the overall style is stellar and the game itself is quite fun if you like frustrating, old-school platformers. anyhow, i ended up drawing a nerd duck character since i had ducks on the brain and happen to be a nerd myself. here i present to you the original sketch, the final character, and him in his natural habitat. his natural habitat happens to be the only place to be on wednesdays, westfield comics on the west side. if you want to see where all my money is spent and a chunk of every wednesday discussing comics and pro-wrestling, this is the spot! 

more posts coming soon i'm sure. 

(also made a watermark for myself if you didn't notice.)

later
-z

sketches from the past...(like 6 to 8 months)

Alright. I said I was going to do this weekly or at least more regularly and I missed the first week. But this is way more regularly than once every 10-11 months right? I have valid excuses though. I had a painting I was commissioned to do last week and was generally more busy than usual. So, with that being said, here are some sketches from the last 8 months or so as I grabbed them from the sketch folder. These are mostly from sketching in my cubicle at my soul crushing day job and are inspired by my wandering imagination and whatever I may be reading at the time. 
First up: an 80's burnout brit punk type fella, then 2 sketch pages mashed together there's some fun stuff in those, then an airborne pro wrestler type, then adventure time y'all! jake's gonna mace yo face!, then bill triceratops with the 7 day forecast, cavorting bear, sea cow!, fancy pants iguana has a request, bulldog sketch, and thome guy who ith thuper thtrong you guyth. 
Also included a picture of the aforementioned commission. That's right, it's the elephant from some 2 years ago. Turns out my mom's coworker fell in love with her elephant painting and offered an absurd amount of money for it and she turned it down because she hates me and wants me poor forever. Now he is leaving their practice and they commissioned an elephant of his own for a going away present. Let's hope that sparks some more commissioned work from some doctors with disposable income! (...seriously though, i will take your money for my arts). 
Also another picture of Abe because he's too cute.  
I shall return soon with more sketches and maybe some finished stuff too.

-z

Oh, hey. I was just over there, you know, doing stuff...

Yeah, its been almost a year since I posted but its only sort of my fault. Last year my scanner died. Then my iMac died. Then my ambition took a backseat to my puppy for a while. Then I got paranoid about the interwebs stealing my arts and such. Then I forgot about this blog for awhile. 

But! I have returned! And I bring some arts with me! 

Here's the rundown! First up: the front of a postcard we sent out with our new address on it. Next: self-portrait as a pro wrestler. Watch out for that elbow drop Yeeeeah! Then: adorable puppy sketch. Keep an eye out, there might be a limited run of prints of a finished color version of this coming soon... Followed by: Adorable lion! Say, that lion is cute. Maybe there should be more animals like him. Maybe there are. Maybe you can see them on my portfolio page (zachwagner.carbonmade.com). Also potentially a series of prints coming from that for sale maybe soon? We'll see.  Then: Part-Time WereWolf pencils version, Klauwn pencils, Abe: distraction extraordinaire!, random daily animal drawing from the Amanda collection, puppy sketch, and an arctic themed card i sketched out. I might find the finished version of this and share it with you soon. It turned out super cute!

So. That's where we are at. Amanda, Abe and I just moved in to a new place (thanks Mark, Laurie and Mac!) I've got a studio set up and a scanner and a new computer and the wacom and we are going to get this thing going here. I've got a backlog of sketches needing scanning and blogging and I'm going to try to get this going on a weekly basis again. I'm always available for commissions and maybe prints of previous work if you're interested. Thanksssss.

-z