Just finished up a new avatar for some of my online accounts this evening. Felt I should take a break from the client work and mess with this. I’ve really been getting more and more into heavy textures and utilizing them for implied shading. These textures are from some cool brush sets I’ve found but I’m starting to make my own from various materials such as a toothbrush with ink, a spraypaint can, and my airbrush gun.

On a side note, I’ll be in a poster show this Saturday at Artlink, a local art gallery here in Fort Wayne, IN. I’ll be posting some pictures of the work I did for the show. Stay tuned!

Was at one of the best shows I’ve been to in awhile last night. Metavari was holding their vinyl release party in downtown Fort Wayne last night. They played alongside The Sight Below and Svarte Greiner. All three bands’ music is just great to relax to and let it simply take you over. If you get the chance to see any of these guys live, do it.

Just picked up a wonderful piece this afternoon by tattoo artist Ryan Hadley. The drawing is done completely in graphite. I told him the woman has such an iconic face it belongs on a cd cover. Reminds me of Converge’s Jane Doe in the memorable face sense. Ryan does some amazing work. Be sure to check out his ink work on his website.

If anyone lives in or has been to Fort Wayne, IN you should stop by my favorite pub — J.K. O’Donnell’s. And because I’m such a nerd I made a checklist of all the beers offered and have been making my way through the list for the past 5 months or so. I decided I should get more people hooked on this place and share my checklist. So it is now available for download. The fantastic people over at One Lucky Guitar handled and did a knock up job on the branding for J.K. O’Donnell’s. Check out J K O’Donnell’s website here.

Download the checklist.

I recently finished a total of 30 illustrations to be included in a little side project for a very close friend of mine. I wanted to keep them simple and playful utilizing some fine textures to bring depth. The final Illustrations were printed at close to 4 in. in height as there is a bit more detail than these small images let you see.

This past Saturday, some friends and myself participated in the annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event. This walk raises awareness and funds for the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau as part of an initiative to stop rape, sexual assault and gender violence. I believe the The Bureau reported close to 500 men walked the mile this year.

It was actually moving looking around seeing all these people supporting such a worthy cause. The walk was obviously a mile but what probably seemed like ten if you were to ask my size 13 feet.

This past Friday a group of us went to a local show called Dessert. The night was full of some art openings and then topped off with this fun event. A couple of my local favorites, including Metavari and the B-Sharps, were playing that night. As the name implies, desserts along with food and drinks were available throughout the show. Good times. Hope Fort Wayne sees more frequently, shows and community events like this.

This past Friday I had the chance to travel to Indy to celebrate a friend’s birthday. The night couldn’t have been better with the perfect combination of food, friends, and a gorgeous sunset. We celebrated at the Eagles Nest restaurant situated atop the Hyatt in downtown Indy.

A few hours ago I just finished setting up my new graduation present to myself. I purchased a brand spankin’ new Mac Pro complete with a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core, 6 GB of DDR3 ram, and a 24″ cinema display. I’ve been waiting for this bad boy for quite some time now. Before this, I was using a custom built pc who decided to crash three consecutive times upon returning from Europe. I thought I almost lost a complete hard drive worth of materials after multiple trips to the computer repair shop. That computer’s sole function will now be testing future websites.

As you can see my pc was a little jealous…

Last week I returned from my trip to Europe. Every year some of the student body of USF travel to Europe with a focus on the arts. I had gone the previous year for a two-week stay in Italy which was simply amazing. Our trip this year ran from London to Paris and then on to Madrid.

They were all great cities, however, I felt connected to London the most — probably due to the lack of a language barrier. Madrid would have to be a close second only because I didn’t get to explore as much as I wanted to. Also, I would just love to visit Barcelona to see some of the gorgeous architecture. This trip only solidified the fact that I must return to Europe in the near future.

I only posted three photos but ended up taking close to 2200. I was prepared this year as last year in Italy I seemed to be buying a new memory card every other day.