Go Home! You Can't Stay Here

While framing this print for the Drawn And Quartered gallery show this weekend, I realized that I never shared it with my rusty buddies.  I hope you guys never go home, stay as long as you like!  It was originally drawn for Cleveland Exotic Dance's winter soiree last year, which I could pretend is the reason I drew a giant naked lady, but you'd never believe that. 

Your Pal,

Randy Crider

Tess And The Dragon

More sketchbook nonsense.

 I facilitate a regular life drawing session in town, and at some point I decided to start finishing the drawings from those sessions. Of course, "finishing" means adding dragons and monsters to the poses.  Be on the look out for a lot more of these, as it's a regular session. The life drawing, and the monster adding. 

Your Pal,

Randy Crider

Poor Lil' Guy

Hi all my buddies!  Here's something that's been floating around my studio for months. This fella started as a doodle in the cartooning class that I teach, and after weeks of making tiny lines in my free time, he's the crosshatched monstrosity that stands before you.  I'm pretty fond of him, especially since I based his hair on the "hairstyle" my newborn daughter had at the time. Good chance you'll see more of him, or in the very least some of his crosshatched brothers and sisters. 

Your pal, 

Randy Crider 

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Hey pals, Randy here with a recent spot illustration. I think we've all been here before, making what seems like a good decision at the time.  At least I hope so, I can't be the only one. 

Cheer Up, Big Guy

Your pal Randy here, and if you've been following the blog this week, then you know that there's a Marvel Comics themed art show happening at Carol And John's Comic shop on Free Comic Book Day.

I like Galactus, and I like eating my feelings so this one came together pretty fast.  If you like those things (they go hand in hand like ramen noodles and peanut butter toast) It'll be available framed and unframed at the event, which you should be going to anyway. 

Stay frosty, kids. 

The Orgin Of The Painter

One of the pieces from SPACES Monster Draw Rally April 12, 2014

Last weekend all six of the Rust Belt Monsters descended upon Spaces Gallery for their annual Monster Draw Rally fundraiser.  We painted two 4'x6' murals in 5 hours (More photos on www.rustbeltmonster.com soon!), and I had a chance to share someone from my sketchbook who'd been tooling around for three years. 

Original concept sketch, with added paint splatters from the mural.

I keep every sketchbook, even if they only have one drawing in them.  They serve as a way for me to communicate with my past, and now as a father, to communicate to the future.  Without a doubt they are my most valuable possession. 

I hadn't been to SPACES gallery in three years, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to look through those sketchbooks and see where my head was at the last time I was there. 

Early sketchbook piece circa 2011

Three years ago was when I started drawing in earnest, and when I started putting double page stream of consciousness spreads in my sketchbooks. The fella in the left corner popped up a lot in those pages usually rampaging a city. Having three years between the pages, it felt appropriate to give him a paintbrush, since that's how I've been rampaging the city since then.   

Searching The Thesaurus For Pirate Treasure

For the past two years I've been drawing every damn day, and I didn't see too much improvement until I directly compared it to past work.  This piece is the same gag as something I did on our Ingenuity Mural in 2012.  It wasn't intentional as I didn't put that together during the conceptual sketches, I try not to repeat myself too much. Apparently my interests remain the same despite my skill level. 

I'll post the final once It's all shaded.  

Your Pal, 

Randy Crider 

I Don't Care What You Do, But Never Do It In Uniform.

This weekend (4-5-2014) the Rust Belt Monster Collective will be painting a live mural for the "Oh Captain!" show at Breakneck Gallery. It's a group show centered around our buddy Captain America,  if you're in the Cleveland area you should come out for what promises to be a stellar show. 

For the past 4 years whenever I ask my friend and former comic partner for suggestions on what to draw , without fail he tells me to draw the dude smoking a joint, and I finally took him up on it. The original piece will be on display (and for sale!) at the show Saturday. Hope to see you there! 

Your pal,

Randy

Brite Winter 2014

Hey pals, Randy here and I'd like to formally announce that the Rust Belt Monster Collective will be painting at Brite Winter this year!  We'll be inside the Great Lakes tasting room, indoors, where it's warm. 

 I did some promotional artwork for the event featuring Fluri, a fun loving yeti I designed last year. If you're in the Ohio City area you've probably seen the black poster around. It was designed by Thomas Fox, who did a bang up job making me look better than I have any right to. 

The poster below is an alternate design by myself, and from my understanding they'll both be available at the event. 

It's a great event , and we hope to to see you all out there as we come out of hibernation with our first action painting of 2014!

Back In The Day

Hey Pals, Randy here.  I'm trying my best to share my world with my daughter as much as possible, so it's only natural the first dinosaur I drew for her room would be listening to a boom box.  Besides, If "Put your hands in the air and wave em like you just dont care" isn't solid dad advice, I dunno what is.

If you've got kids, or you're dinosaur enthusiast, I put the image on shirts and stickers.  Stay cool all my buddies. 

ZAP!

Hey pals, Randy here. Over the holiday I updated my personal website, www.randycrider.com and realized just how many things I've forgotten to share with my rust belt pals. So, here's a drawing of Mr and Mrs. Stein to start the new year of diligent sharing.  

Original Recipe

Feelin' Lucky?

Hey dudes, Randy here. 

Once I found out I was having a daughter, I've been pulled towards drawing tough chicks. I'm not fan of firearms in the real world, but I'd rather her rock an image like this rather than a Disney princess any day of the week.

Threw this on a shirt over at RedBubble, and we'll have stickers at live events (as well as the imminent online store) if you know anyone equally tough as my daughter. 

Also, it looks like I'm doing an "Ohio" series, so expect more like this in the very near future. 

Crunchy Bikini Killer

Hey pals, Randy here, this is my print for our pal Angela Oster's art show; Crunchy:Sugary Cartoon Art For Big Kids.   

Since I've been focusing on RBMC events and freelance work, I've been doing less for art shows.  While the initial drawing started out as a sketchbook piece ignited by a Dr. Sketchy:Akron session, all the embellishments are representations of what I've been doing in lieu of gallery work.  You'd have to ask a therapist why the bloods in there, I'm not going to try. 

I also wanted this to be a response to a piece from a couple of years back that ignited the current arc of  work. 

This is an Adobe Illustrator print from a show I curated called: Easy, Breezy, Beautiful; a little over two years ago. There was a fair amount of overlap of artists in both shows, and I wanted to publicly show the progress I've made by working in Illustrator almost every day for the past year.  While it's easy to put older work down, I think it's important to revisit them so you can see how far you've come. It's why I keep every sketchbook and why this print still hangs in my apartment. 

We're still in the process of putting up a full RBMC store at the main site, and I'll be offering prints of both images soon. In the meantime I put the Bikini Killer image on a shirt over at Red Bubble , and we'll have die cut stickers of the image at our Live Events. 

We'll be posting images from our live mural from the show throughout the week, so keep an eye out for that. 

Stay cool, kids.