They call him......Tim

Our Pal Tim is all sorts of good.  

Good dude, good Illustrator, good builder of giant easels, good friend, good everything.  Exchange those goods for great and my description may be getting close.  One of the most generous Artists to paint with, happy to throw down and amazing, upside down frog or to be the glue, painting in background elements or give things just the right touch ups to make other elements shine.  He possesses a keen eye, a quick brush and a steady hand and we are fortunate to to have him as a fellow Monster.

Want to see Tim for yourself?  Going to be in Columbus, Ohio July 18,19?  Then stop by the Small Press and Comics Expo THIS WEEKEND at the Northland Performing Arts Center.  And while you are there make sure to see some of our favorite people: Clare Kolat (conveniently located at the table next to Tim), Angela Oster and Ashley Ribblett!!!

..and proud we are of all of them

2015 Bay Arts "Interns" mural

Like the Big Lebowski we too get to work with a fine group of Junior Achievers!  The last three years we've been invited to work with a few select "interns" for a couple weekends.  First weekend getting them comfortable working as a group and the second week, painting in front of an audience at the Bay Arts Fest!  We love working with these budding young talents and are always impressed with how well it comes together.  If you would like to see these in person all three are lurking at Bay Arts in Bay Village, Ohio!  Enjoy!

2014 Bay Arts "Interns" mural

Erin Schectman Caruso, WILD CARD!!

Erin! Doer of only good things. Teacher, Painter, Designer, new Aunt and Auntie to a flock of RBMC babies, our adopted little sister and secret mentor to ALL of us here in the Rust Belt Monsters.  When this group was forming we thought Erin would be a great addition because her style was the wild card among ours, that kick of unexpected flavor, the person who would make us see more and think differently.  Well, we weren't wrong but we got way more than that!  Most of us who couldn't call ourselves painters before after painting shoulder to elbow with our Swearin' Erin, can.  She's our Broadway singin', ear to ear grinnin' comic sans lovin', paint slingin' powerhouse known as Erin!  Check out a few of her amazing images below and be sure to check out SUPER GROUP HUGS, her latest foray into hot, pop culture character on pop culture character action!  Really great stuff!

Find more Erin here:

erininartland.com

supergrouphugs.tumblr.com

society6.com/erininartland

DISCLAIMER

Erin doesn't actually LOVE Comic Sans so much as she is in love with Comic Sans, a love that dare not speak it's name.   You can ask any other member of the RBMC ltd. and they will say it is so.  It is also fair to note that all other members of the RBMC are notorious goofer-offers and their opinion on human/font love is spurious at best.  

BRITE WINTER 2015!

   

A couple of weekends back, in the middle of a snow storm Cleveland came out to one of the city's best music and arts festivals of the year!  In the warm, luxury of the Great Lakes Brewery Company's tasting room, nestled next to one of the festival's many stages we painted our first mural of 2015!  We had a lot of fun, listened to a ton of great bands and talked with many of Cleveland's heartiest of festival goers.  

We will be getting this piece properly shot soon and will share when we can but until then here's a few of the detail and action shots we took during the night.  

Thanks so much to everyone who came out and braved this snow filled winter.  Thanks to Brite Winter for putting on this great festival and special thanks to Great Lakes Brewing Company for supplying a warm room and great venue for music and art.

AND!

It's Cleveland Scene Magazine, Best of... voting season again.  If you have the time we'd be honored to be considered for nomination again.  Thanks!

(you can find the voting here)

Brite Winter 2015!

Brite Winter 2014

Brite Winter Festival 2015 is upon us again! We've been a part of this festival for a couple of years now, great food, drinks and music in celebration of and in SPITE of Northeast Ohio's fabled winters.  

  

We will be inside again at the Great Lakes Brewery Tasting room, painting and enjoying some of the area's best bands.  This year, we will be offering these shiny new buttons for the occasion!!

So if you are out and about, stop by and say hi!

2013 Insane from the cold

Birthdays!

We like to celebrate birthdays here are the RBMC compound! So much so that we've started doing gift portraits for each other on our birthdays.

Ben by Erin

Erin by Ben

Jim by Craig

Tim by Ben

Randy by Craig

Craig by Erin

So got a friend with a birthday coming up?  Give them a portrait, they will love it!

An Evening with the Monsters

Wednesday Feb, 11 7:00 P.M.

Cleveland Institute of Art

11610 Euclid Ave.

Cleveland, OH

Room 408

We have the great honor to join our friends at NOIS, Northern Ohio Illustrators Society, to talk about who we are, what we do and how we do it.  It's really a great opportunity to present to this amazing group of professionals and students at CIA.  If you are interested in dropping by contact NOIS for details.  

Happy Hour

For your Friday's festivities Our 2013 Great Lakes Brewery Block Party mural.  

How many Great Lakes Brewery Beers can you find?

Ben Hale is a WIZARD!!!

Not one of those showy, pointy hat style wizards like Merlin or Gandalf more of a stealthy, do wizardy things and fade into the shadows like Batman.  He is the Batman of wizards.  A quick disclaimer; this is NOT a post written by Ben cause our Bat-zard don't work that way.  Our man does the work, puts it up and moves on to crushing another crazy difficult task! 

Who else do you know illustrates....

Does animation and video production...

.....and is single handedly creating his own video game!!!!

Click here for the current game build.

It's true, we are very lucky to have Ben in the collective.  In many ways he's our secret weapon.  So be sure to keep an eye on his work here,on his blog, needyourdisease.com, twitter, tumblr, facebook, everywhere you can consume media.


I know I'll be watching.

Our 5th Beatle

Not like Pete Best, the could-have-been drummer of the Beatles but GEORGE FLIPPIN' MARTIN!!!  The grease in our crank case, the guy we lean on when we are in need of a third arm the sometimes our Face man, Ron Caruso!!  Sure he's married to the lovely and talented Erin which would give anyone the reason to show up but our man Ron has gone the extra mile time and time again.

For example, the man is a talent in his own right and he's bent that talent to this fine, short documentary of our work that you can find on our YOUTUBE page.  

Surely we've posted it before but it bears posting again, it's great and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every time I watch it.  Thanks a ton Ron!

And while I'm at it throw us a subscribe on youtube.  We do post things from time to time, important things like this mustache tutorial:

As this year starts moving and we get out and about expect to see more moving images of your favorite Rust Belt Monsters!!

Excelsior!!!