Nuts and Bolts

I’m not much of a handy man…and it’s all my fault. My dad has been involved with hardware and remodeling his entire life. He never ceases to amaze me with his work and his attention to detail. He mixes cases of paint by eye, constructed a 20×20 barn without using a single nail and has rejuvenated countless homes. Yet when I was growing up my head was buried in cartoons and comics.

I was reminded of this yet again as my wife and I battled a bathroom cabinet for 5 1/2 hours this weekend. In my defense, there was a bow in the drywall which didn’t want to play nice with metal rails. Somehow we found a way to laugh about it as we were entangled around the toilet all afternoon. It’s all about the adventure right?

I figured the best way to cap off the weekend was with a drooling grumpy robot. You can’t ever have enough of those in your life.

Hittin’it Old School!

Well it’s been busy getting back to work, hitting the ground running and trying not to trip! Things are going pretty well, even though we nearly killed ourselves re-skinning the site, I feel pretty refreshed and am excited to get back to a normal schedule. I haven’t had too much time to fill the moleskin these days though. That’s one thing I will find a way to squeeze back into life. I picked it up this morning and was re-inspired to hit the ink again and see what not having “undo” can unleash! I’m back to being scared.

On another note, I’m about to submit this snapshot I took this weekend of our dear friend Thorndyke for the contest! Without any other postings of him on the flickr site, I think I’m gonna win! Who’s gonna stop me? Let’s see ‘em!

Villians

Weeeeeeee’re back!! Hope you guys like the fresh coat of paint! Wow, I’ve never seen weeks go by so quickly. The time spent with the family was a blast and my wife and I even had a chance to visit Washington D.C. That’s one heck of a town filled with amazing art. I only got tazed once while trying to jump the White House fence.

The days were certainly busy but fortunately we’ve been able to get plenty done during our time away. Aside from the website redesign (which you can read more about here) Greg and I have been planning out some new content. We have some designs and webcomics in the works which you’ll see updated regularly. It seems as though we can’t stop giving ourselves things to do. I blame Greg.

We’re excited to be back and hope you all had an awesome holiday. I guess we should get started on 2010. Onward!

That Time of Year

It’s tough to believe, but December is right around the corner yet again. For the last couple years, Greg and I have made a point to take a break from the site to spend some quality time with our families. This certainly doesn’t mean we’re disappearing – this is merely our “Summer Break”. However the good news is we have some big plans for the site.

Over the next several weeks we’ll be putting the finishing touches on CreatureBox 2.0. We’ve been meaning to refresh the site for quite a while but life has a way of filling up quickly. The new site will allow us to stretch our legs a bit and offer a clean way of displaying a range of content. We hope you’ll all join us for the launch at the start of next year.

In the meantime we’ll be updating our progress via Twitter so if you have an account, we’d love to have you on board. Also, now would be a great time to subscribe to the RSS feed to get all the latest happenings with the ‘Box. We’ll also still be checking email so feel free to drop us a line anytime with the Contact Form.

This has been a wild year and Greg and I can’t thank you guys enough for the support. The sketchbooks were a huge success (all sold out!) and we look forward to making ground on the 2010 book during the break. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday – keep it safe, and we’ll see you in 2010!

*Update*
For those who are still interested in the 2009 sketchbooks, head over to our friends at Stuart Ng Books (in the U.S.) and The Labyrinth (in Canada). They should have some copies. Thanks!

Messenger

About this time last year I was making my way to the new office here in North Carolina for the first time and was aghast (a descriptive term circa 1920) at the number of deceased animals littering the sides of the road. There were five deer on one road during my 15 minute commute! I immediately imagined the messenger of the woodland critters whose job it was to report the news of the fallen beasts to their loved ones.

Right? I mean, how else would they find out? As the year wore on, the frequency seemed to dissipate to a more typical, dare I say palatable amount of unfortunate critters.

This past week, the phenomenon repeated itself, only this time the final of the fallen beasts had only just departed this existence and I was again aghast at the site of it as was the woman driving the vehicle involved. I was instantly reminded of the messenger and his awful burden of terrible news. I’m not used to it, and I hope to never be. So, this is the Messenger, the forest’s most haunted creature.

Moleskine Brush

As Greg mentioned a couple weeks back, we’ve been playing with ink and brush pens. It’s been a good deal of fun and lessens the guilt when I’m plopped in front of the television – blast you Netflix PS3 Disc!

We get emails from time to time about how to get started in concept art. The response tends to be the same and almost always starts with “observe and draw from life!” To that end I’m really trying to follow my own words and have taken to carrying my sketchbook around. I lucked out and found the perfect bag at the perfect size – though some would say it could double as a purse. At least now I have something to smack a mugger with.

*Update*
I’ve been getting some requests for more details on the bag so here’s the scoop. If you head over to Amazon, you can find it as “Travel Portfolio Bag“. There are several independent resellers offering the thing which can get a bit confusing. I went with the Olive Drab to hold on to the remaining shreds of my masculinity. The bag doesn’t have the best construction, but it’s been great for me so far.