Movin' on UP!

This weekend we pack up our paints, buckets and weird painting stools and head in to the heart of Cleveland to start a 2 year painting endeavor with our friends at Graffiti Heart.  Like our time working in Ben's family barn these first few pieces will be done away from our audience's eyes but this time IN A WAREHOUSE!  So in a way, we are movin' on up!  When these are done and available for public consumption we'll share as well as keep you up on further murals with Graffiti Heart  (big, BIG things coming!).  But until then here are some shots from our time in the Hale family barn working on the barn mural.  enjoy!

Craig's Gauntlet Final Day! Popeye

The Invincible Hero       Seafaring        Father

With that combination of words how could I NOT draw Popeye!?!?!?!  He's a fun one to draw and I think I may have to draw him some more, get the proportions a little better.  But there ya go, Popeye!  Enjoy!

P.S.  If you want to see Popeye done right head over to the site of the incomparable Gary Dumm at dummart.com.

Craig's Day 2 : Usagi!!!

Today's random word and phrases is:

The Reckless     Marooned      Sensei 

It's funny, I'm finding these random words are stirring up very specific stories.  The first one, "Treasure Island", this one the Legend of Miyamoto Musashi and the duel with "The Demon of the Western Provinces".  You can find the full story here.  Essentially the story goes that Musashi traveled Japan finding teachers and swordsmen of renown to test his skills as a samurai.  The long and short of it is he challenges a swordsman, this 'Demon", to a duel on an island.  He makes the Demon wait, making him angry that he had been disrespected and about the time he was blinded by his anger.  Musashi shows up, does not draw his sword  but instead brandishes an oar from his boat, further disrespecting the swordsman, and kills the Demon.   

So why is he a rabbit?  Cause I wasn't the only one inspired by the story of Musashi, The amazing Stan Sakai created this amazing character, Usagi Yojimbo who is a combination of the great Samurai movies and the story of Musashi.  You should check it out!

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

Tim the Enchanter

This portrait is both WAY late and WAY early.  

After last week's Rust Belt post on birthdays I remembered I hadn't yet finished my portrait of Tim!  So here it is.  I have been inspired by Tim's work long before we started the RBMC.  Ever since seeing his work at Doctor Sketchy he was one of the reasons I came back every month, someone to marvel at and someone to push me to draw better!  He still does that weather he knows or not.  As one of the new Doctors at Doctor Sketchy Cleveland not only does he inspire but supplies a jungle gym for the rest of Cleveland to learn on.

He's an amazing guy with an amazing talent and a friend I wish everyone to have: honest, level headed and always there when you need him.

Happy WAY late and WAY early Birthday Tim!!

Boop Boop be RARRRRRRR!

Inspired by our pals over at Scribble Nerds I came up with this monstrosity!  Their topic was mermaid but they didn't specify which end had to be fish!  This lovely little lady is part Marilyn Monroe and part Dunkleosteus - Terrelli.  What's that? Just a huge, armor plated fish from the Devonian era.  Enjoy!

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.  

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.

The creation of Ringworm: The Beckoning......

Howdy.

Rev here...

I've made it my goal to quit complaining about how I'm too busy to post to the blog...and start posting to the blog.
This is something I worked on for the Breakneck Gallery Rock N' Roll Show on Saturday November 8th. I had fun with this one...letting the pen and brush just wander around and play with textures.
I selected the band Ringworm...because...well...I like their music and the other was...I like the name. So I thought I'd post up some of the roughs and the progression of the work, along with the finished results.
Working on this I went into the bands past album covers for inspiration and listened to the music. As in some cases with metal music, the subject matter can be of questionable subject matter. I'm picky about my metal...I look for bands that have an unusual sound... out of the norm. One image in particular I came a cross was of a young woman...long flowing hair sporting horns. I didn't want to repeat the same image and I didn't necessarily want to use the all to familiar demonic symbols usually associated with some covers.
I began thinking of the the term "ringworm" or rather the skin decease. A disease of the flesh...of rot and decay. I also began thinking of what it must have been like many years ago when the world was much younger...and more naive. Superstition...monsters...demons and ghosts invaded the minds of humans to explain many things we see as a mere fact of science now a days.
So...I have this old deer skull that hangs in my garage. Coming from a family of hunters, but not one myself, I got it from one of my relatives. I was in the garage looking for Halloween decorations..and saw it hanging there, forgetting its there most of the time. And that's when the idea kind of took shape...This being the first rough..
As I said...I did want to incorporate the nubile young woman from one of the bands cover...just not in the same manner. And I also wanted to incorporate the worm shape...The name Ringworm taking on more of the name of an ancient  demon god...maybe the birthplace of the name for the disease.....instead of the disease itself.

The rough pencil sketch.

The inking in progress......

At this point I just started having fun going in and playing...adding textures....Paying a lot of attention to the texture of the trees. Allowing the texture lines to add depth, but also help and define shape and form of the tree bark. I paid attention to line direction so that most of the lines moved toward the shape of either the prone figure of the woman or the demon god Ringworm.   

Of extra note are the bell bracelets around each of his wrists. The night I was working on this...I was out back letting our dogs run in the backyard. As I stood on the back steps...the wind was blowing slightly and somewhere out there in the dark I could hear this small bell, like that on a cats collar, or maybe a chime on someones back porch...or maybe...just maybe, the bells placed on the wrists of some ancient demon god, placed there by an ancient race of people as a sign, a warning of the coming of the evil one. Yes...I do let my imagination run wild at times.

              

And this is the end results. Now...you all stay frosty...and listen for the sound of the small bells. You just never know....

Ohio: The Heart Of It All.

The Monsters are cooking up something giant for this years Ingenuity Fest, and it involves Robots.  I've decided to add a bit of local pride into my contribution to our loosely guarded secret project. I couldn't draw a nuclear power plant head without thinking about Perry, Ohio.  With any luck, I'll have stickers of this dude at Ingenuity, and you know he'll make your lunchbox the coolest. 

Just remember. Monsters + Robots + Giant, I KNOW you like those things.

Your Pal, 

Randy Crider 

A Knight in Gotham

Hey...Rev here.

My piece for the upcoming Carol and Johns Comic Shop Batman 75th anniversary party this Saturday the 26th curated by good friend and outstanding fellow artist Ryan Finley. If you were to boil Batman down to his basic essence....take away all the hype....all the crazy nefarious criminals...it boils down to one thing. Batman is just a man. Just a guy that dresses up in a bat outfit. Driven by a relentless desire, a need to avenge the death of his parents who died tragically at the hands of a criminal. Wrong place...at the wrong time. That being said....all he has is his money (being a billionaire and all), his wits and his training.

So I envisioned what it must be like for him at the end of a night, after running around and stopping as many crimes as he can. Muggers, rapists....robbers...taking on all these in one night...only to come home, mend his wounds and go back at it again the next night. 

Ink...ink washes, red ink...and white paint marker. I wanted a really wet look to this as Bats comes in from the rain...so I worked wet. Well....not me personally, but I kept the paper wet as I worked and allowed it to dry before wetting it again.

HANK!

This is not nor will it ever be Erin (that portrait is on the way).  It's the every-lovin' Beast from the X-Men!  A little post Free Comic Book Day commission from a friend who couldn't make it to the festivities.  More fun with my ink brush and watercolor combo.  More to come!

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 

Tim's 2 hour(ish) 'Deadman'!

Hey there lil' Belters', For this week's mini-challenge, I drew 'Deadman' from DC Comics!

Drawn in marker at "Drink & Draw Cleveland" last night (what?! You missed D&D CLE last night? Well...that sucks, it was awesome, you should've been there!), it took me a little over 2 hours to finish.

Next Week: Ellen Ripley! (Sigourney Weaver from the movie 'Alien')

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. 

Snow Sassy

 Your pal and mine, Randy Crider created this lil' fella for the Brite Winter Fest. He's such a great character that I had to throw down a sketch into the old moleskin!

By the way, we will be painting at Brite Winter again this year but this time inside and not covered with snow!!! Come out an join us for some winter time frolics!  Info here.

Round 40: A Pig who can't fly is just a pig

I love "Porco Rosso".  

In writing this "brief" description I find myself writing some, stopping and re-writing, gushing like a fanboy and not getting anywhere near "brief".  SO suffice it to say I love "Porco Rosso" and you should check it out.  It's as much about adventure, slapstick and nostalgia as it is about love, longing and coping with grief and loss.  It's so much more than it seems, much more than a flying pig movie!

This piece is not at all what I intended, it started out a sketch while I was rewatching the movie and turned into this.  Kinda inspired by some of the pics of Charles Lindbergh on this one.  Every last bit of it, colored pencil on toned paper.  The piece I intended my still happen someday, if it does check back here!

Happy Birthday Jim!

 

Yesterday was Jim Giar's Birthday.

Jim is many things.... a lover of white wine, a master of ink, a snazzy dresser, an amazing family man, and one of the wisest men I know. AND, on top of all that, he's a Monster! We are so lucky.

 

Happy Birthday Sir!