ah, l'emur… a courtship in cartoons

here it is everybody! the super secret post i've been mentioning for a while now. monday february 10 was amanda and my third anniversary and i figured i should get her a legit present this year. so i finally sat down and started work on the fabled someday book project. 
a little more than 3 years ago amanda was my supervisor at work and i had done a drawing on a daily form that was turned it to her and it apparently made her day. when she told me that the following day, i went back and did another drawing. and did so every work day for the next 7 months even after we started dating and after she was no longer my supervisor. there ended up being 164 specific drawings in that particular series and she kept all of them. over the past few years i scanned all of them and tricked her into recording the date and titles of all of them.
then about 2 months ago i started researching online publishers to find someone with the large format i was looking for and nice finished products. i settled on blurb and set up a 12 by 12 layout and set to work. 
i may not be speaking for all designers, but this was super fun. title pages, credits, layout, flow, font choices, text layouts, bleeds, overlaps ooh man. i love the meticulous, finicky layout parts of design. i think it balances my goofball illustrative style. after spending most of the time getting everything to fit in place and look (if i do say so) very very nice, i set to work on a new illustration for the cover. the title is 'ah, l'emur… a courtship in cartoons' so obviously, lemur+beret+wine+baguette=dumb cover joke. it took a while and a bunch of sketches to get the lemur where i wanted him but i am quite pleased. 
so in the end amanda ended up with a 60 page 12 by 12 hardcover book with custom image wrap cover  filled with what amounts to my daily love letters to her over the beginning of our relationship. there's also a spread of art on our puppy too. she made it all the way to the front cover before she started crying but luckily didn't get any tears on the pages. :P
what's that guys? you went to the store and bought your lady something? awwww… that's so sweet. (j/k don't hate me)
anyway, this is my crowning achievement in design to this point. an entire book written, illustrated, and designed all by myself. there is nothing quite so satisfying as holding a real book that you made in your hands for the first time and flipping through it and it all looks just like you wanted it to.
if you really wanted to, i could post it as is for sale on blurb and you could buy a copy. however, the large scale hardcover image wrap format is super expensive, so i might get ambitious and scale down to a paperback at some point. probably not any time super soon, but i'll keep you posted here.

after all them words here's some pictures. first, cover illustration then some photos of the book and some of the drawings and some color art and some screen grabs of the spreads and what not. i'm very proud of this project.

thanks everyone for looking at my dumb little blog.
-z

ohhh yeeeeeeaahhhhh! it's vader time!

double wrestler post tonight! going old school with the macho one, randy savage! i love some macho man promos, that dude was nuts. also one of the 2 greatest elbow drops ever. but definitely the greatest dry, over-processed, formerly meat, protein-based snack spokeswrestler ever. then… it's time! it's time! it's vader time! i'll be real, the first time i remember vader was as ethan suplee's dad on boy meets world. he is also the dude who punched off mick foley's ear and one time broke his nose with a vicious series of forearms. also vader bomb. 
anyhow, zach's on a roll! regular blog postings for like a week straight now. 2 fresh tasty illustrations tonight AND super secret blog post coming tomorrow! the secret part is not so necessary any more but you'll have to wait anyhow.
thanks guys
-z

i am the tag team champions!

check it folks. another wrestler and another timely post! goodness gracious me. daniel bryan is pretty awesome and one would think on his way to a championship. i got back in to wrestling around the time he got his first heavyweight championship push and loved his work as a heel. see also his tag teamery with kane for more funnies and great matches. he released a pretty awesome shirt last spring with respect the beard on it and what not. it is eerily similar to a design i had sketched out a month before. soooo…. wwe should probably hire me to design tshirts and merch and then become best friends with all the wrestlers and then become the greatest champ since bruno sammartino. probably gonna happen. probably like next week or something. le sigh….

oh yeah. posts. so here is the sketch and final of the dbryan illustration and that tshirt sketch and the actual shirt made. i promise you i did that sketch a month before they debuted the shirt and pooped my pants when their design showed up on raw. so did amanda since she was being forced to watch wrestling as well. needless to say, i bought it immediately. crazy whacky happenstance. (my design is better).

also, SUPER SECRET PROJECT post coming within 72 hours folks! its a good'un! 

stay tuned!

later,

-z

world's strongest man!

part the second in the cute and/or cartoony wrestler series. he is the world's strongest man and arguably one of the greatest monster heels of all time, mark henry. this guy deserves another title run before he retires. he's too good not to get it. anyway the drawing turned out pretty decent AND i posted another entry within a week! you're going to get spoiled. i've got another pencil drawing in this series done and another half way through and another not far behind that so keep watching. 
also, SUPER SECRET PROJECT news! there should be a post up for it next week by wednesday for sure. i doubt you're as excited as i am, but it is pretty cool and a fairly impressive project. stay tuned!
thanks guys,
-z

best in the world!

listen guys, i've a confession. i love me some pro wrestling. for reals. it's a thing and we're all going to act like adults about it. that being said i stumbled across this artist online who does adorable illustrations of wrestlers which are amazing and so i took a crack at it this week. here is the first finished one, the best in the world, cm punk! he is indeed the best in the world and a favorite in our house here except for abe whose favorite is still the undertaker, because he is after all, abe's middle namesake. here be the sketch and the final colors. those tattoos were fun to scribble on there. probably going to do a few more of these so keep an eye out for them!
also! coming soon! like within 2 weeks! SUPER SECRET PROJECT POST! STAY TUNED?
later
-z

papa's bday card!

Following the previous xmas card post, we find another greeting card. Following in the tradition of the cut paper birthday cards I've been doing for a couple years, here is the one for my dad this year. This time it's themed with the present. We got him the first few seasons of the X-Files on dvd because it's a super awesome show and I am going to be Fox Mulder when I grow up. But I digress. The card is an alien and the message on the back has the obvious pun of "happy b-day to the most eXcellent papa ever". I used a different method in the cutting and assembling of this card so here is the original drawing and the process of the final.
 Anyhow, I have a backlog of sketches that might show up in some posts in the near future and hopefully in the next few weeks a post about a super huge, super secret project I've been working on for quite some time now. Stay tuned!
-z

belated xmas post

This is the holiday card I designed for us this year. It's basically Amanda's birthday card with winter gear instead of a birthday hat. I figure Cartoon dog > Picture of kids, plus I don't have kids so yeah. Happy belated holidays folks.
-z

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