(No relation to the other Tiny Showcase)

Long-time listeners may recall me mentioning a future group show that I was setting up, a show in which I hoped to include artists from all over the world. Well, I realized what a massive undertaking that would be, so I scrapped the idea and decided to only include people from my school, PNCA. Here’s the poster I made to get the word out. This probably took far longer than it’s actually worth, but I do so love to lettering (and drawing myself on items that will be seen in public).

I also made this little plush robot over the weekend; mostly for fun, but also as a prototype for some other plush bots I’ve got in the works.

I think I’ll sign all my future plush robots this way.

Click for a larger view

This is a comic illustration that I did for Portland State Magazine, the alumni magazine for Portland State university. The article it runs with is about workplace communication differences between the Baby Boomer generation and Generation X.

Here are two of the three illustrations that I did for the Portland Mercury’s special “Back to School” pullout section this week; featuring the ghost of Rodney Dangerfield, from the movie Back To School. Les McClaine worked up the cover, and the design for Ghostly Dangerfield, and I had to take it from there.

The Portland Mercury runs a column called “I, Anonymous” in which Portlanders write in anonymously with their various rants and the best one gets picked to be run alongside an illustration every week. They are usually some of my favorite illustrations in the Merc each issue. The regular artist couldn’t do it this week, so I got to fill in, and boy was it a doozy! Here’s a link to the article, if you’re curious, but I will warn you by saying that the last few words of it are “roast beef-smelling VAGINA PANTS.” Click at your own risk.

This ran alongside an article about Portland’s recent street renamings.

Here’s an illustration of mine that was in today’s Portland Mercury. The article it accompanies is about renters’ rights. In Portland, many apartment buildings are being converted into condos. The renters of those apartments get evicted, some on very short notice. There is a proposed law that would make the owner of the building pay the moving expenses of the renter if he/she was evicted for this reason.

Also, the last thing I will post about my new uke:

I really wanted to bike around to parks and play the thing, as well as take it on a trip I will be leaving for shortly, so I made a carrying case for it. It’s made from a pair of cargo pants that had been ripped. (My bike saddle has the reputation of ripping out the crotches of many a pair of pants; other than that, it’s perfect) I had been holding onto them for just such an occasion. I took a bunch of the pockets from the pants and re-sewed them onto the case, so it has two big pockets (one on either side) and three smaller ones for picks or spare change or other doo-dads. The shoulder strap is part of an old bike tube, a favorite material of mine lately. The tube makes the perfect strap, it’s made of very pliable rubber so it just sort of stretches itself to whatever size it needs to accomodate. You can’t see it in the photo, but the interior is lined with 1/4″ thick thermal fleece, the leftovers from Rembrandt’s hair.

There were a few requests to actually hear the uke so here’s a quick mp3. I apologize for the poor quality of my computer’s internal microphone and for the fact that I’ve only been playing ukulele for a few days. DOWNLOAD

I’ll be taking a little bit of a summer vacation for the next two weeks, so I probably won’t be posting much as I won’t have access to my scanner. I plan on having quite a bit of free time to finish up a few necessary projects and comics though, so I should have a glut of material to show you when I return.

My first foray into the wild world of flyer design, I suppose. Every August, as Portland tradition states, groups of adults shall race homemade cars down the trails of beautiful Mt. Tabor. Intoxicating drinks shall be consumed (except for the drivers) and good times shall be had by all. I’m helping organize the first soapbox derby team for my school, PNCA. We need a few more crew members, so I whipped these up last night and plastered the school with them this afternoon.

You’ve all visited the site of the new Robopocalypse Comics Collective by now haven’t you? Things are going quite well for the group. We will be debuting our first anthology “Creation” at the Spokane Comicon on May 26th and it will be for sale on our site a few days later. If you’re hip to the Livejournal, you should be our friend. You can see unique content such as group jam comics and get all the news about new or upcoming releases. On that note, we have just had our first comic released since the group’s founding. Aidan Koch’s Tierd Barr and the Unibrow Forest is a funny story about a barr, a barr that likes drugs and Days of Our Lives. Click on the link to read some preview pages and perhaps purchase a copy for yourself or loved one.

I’ve been super busy on a top secret website project lately, but today was a studio day in class, so I had some free time. Just messing around with some character designs for a comic about a guy that turns into sasquatch. Ink, marker, and Photoshop.

Another illustration for the Portland Mercury. The article was about turning a very major street downtown into a one way.

I haven’t posted for a few days, as I’ve been working on some longer-term projects, but here’s something I did a while ago but never put up. My friend Terry has a book that he’s currently passing around, in which he wants everyone to draw him a mermaid. The book finally got to me and all I could think about was one of my favorite Futurama quotes. (This is about as collage-y as I get)

Also, I’ve been working on my first linocut print in almost a year and I’m totally in love with printmaking. I built myself a drying line too so I wouldn’t have to dry prints on my bed or floor anymore. It works pretty slick. Here’s the first color of three hanging to dry. It’s on metallic silver paper and has a robot in it, that’s all I can say right now. This picture also gives a little glimpse at what I stare at while doing most of my work.