Improvised Weapons

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T18:30:00.001-07:00

To celebrate the solstice, here's Odin and his brothers Vili and Vé felling the frost giant Ymir.

Mishka Feature

2011-04-21T21:27:00.003-06:00

The guys at Mishka were kind enough to do a little feature on me on their bloglin. Thanks, guys!

Mishka Shirt

2011-04-07T18:21:00.003-06:00

The first Bear Mop shirt I designed for Mishka is now available in their online store.

The black version is almost sold out already. As of this post, it's only available in size small. White and blue are still available in several sizes.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

GRIND Deck

2010-11-21T22:57:00.002-07:00

I've got a piece on an upcoming "GRIND" show at Hive Gallery; all work on skate decks.

Here's a little preview of mine:

Moray Eels -> Ghost Clam

2010-06-10T22:19:00.004-06:00

Back in April my good buddy from Brookyn Dan Bones was visiting, and I showed him the moray eel piece, posted here previously. His take was that I could go further with the stipple shading. I decided he was right and revisited it, spending some more time with the work on paper, then re-importing it and separating out the colors.

I'd had in mind that this might look good as a "band shirt" and have been rattling around the idea for a collection of t-shirts for bands that don't exist. So here it is re-worked:

I would like to turn this into a shirt, and have it be the first of a series of shirts for bands that don't exist.

Trannysaurus Rex shirt

2010-05-19T11:39:00.006-06:00

I made this one-off shirt on request for my friend Mel's birthday. Everyone was like "woah, I want one!" So I'm going to have a run printed. They'll be $20.

If you'd like one, here's how to get one:

PRE-ORDER INSTRUCTIONS
Send an email to shirts@nickjam.es with "Trannysaurus Rex" in the subject. Include in the body of the email your name, address if outside of the Salt Lake Valley, and most importantly, your size preference. Once I've got the data together, I'll put in the order. You don't need to pay now, but like, don't burn me on this and cancel your order after it's been produced, 'cause I'm paying for the run out of my own tiny little pockets.

Per & Silvanus Prints

2010-05-05T15:23:00.003-06:00

I had 25 archival giclée prints made of the Per & Silvanus piece, which I'm selling for $40 per, plus a small amount for shipping, $5 or less. They are the same size as the original, 12"x12". If you're interested, please email me at nick@nickjam.es and I'll put you on the list.

Moray Eels Ink

2010-04-13T14:06:00.001-06:00

Playing with some color options for this. Would you buy this as a shirt? Like maybe if there was a band name on top.

Moray Eels Pencil

2010-04-08T16:49:00.002-06:00

I saw Under the Sea 3D at the Imax theater last week and I couldn't stop thinking about moray eels. Thus: this.

Sketches

2010-03-30T15:13:00.003-06:00

Every polished piece starts with a really rough sketch, usually on cheap sketchbook paper and sometimes on scrap printer paper. I don't usually sketch out the whole scene, just the figure. Here's two side-by-side examples of the original rough sketch next to the finished piece.

Wow, I just noticed that these two figures are in very similar poses! That was not intentional.

Muse Poster Finished

2010-03-29T15:28:00.001-06:00

Muse, Lined

2010-03-29T01:50:00.001-06:00

Did I invoke the ghost of Mucha tonight? I've never made anything that looks like this before.

Muse

2010-03-28T22:21:00.000-06:00

Dragon Colored

2010-03-25T15:06:00.001-06:00

As done with hand, colored inks

Manipulation of the inverted image, hued, plus a multiply color channel of a color range from the original

Dragon

2010-03-24T22:53:00.002-06:00

This just... came out. From a blank page to this in about an hour.

Xylophone Track Up

2010-03-21T09:12:00.000-06:00

Xylophone Track is finally up!

Little Dudes

2010-03-19T18:12:00.002-06:00

These guys are each about 6x6.

Happy Late St. Patrick's Day!

Xylophone Track

2010-03-14T12:16:00.003-06:00

I'm still waiting on http://howfuckingromantic.wordpress.com/ to post this - I submitted it over a week ago. I'm sick of waiting. Here it is, complete.

Strangulation

2010-03-06T17:52:00.002-07:00

Here's how that one looks colored. This will be accompanied by a second piece titled "A Man Fires a Gun into a Crowd", which I'm working on.

And the Xylophone Track piece is finished - just waiting until it's posted to "announce" it here.

Strangulation Pencil

2010-02-23T23:33:00.001-07:00

Pencil for one of two pieces for an upcoming group show.

Xylophone Track, Page 1, Rough Color

2010-02-21T13:43:00.002-07:00

Here's the first of three pages with a rough color layer done quickly in photoshop to get a sense of how the final will look. The final will be colored with watercolor.

Xylophone Track

2010-02-18T17:36:00.004-07:00

I found out about the 69 Love Songs Illustrated project and had to get involved, so I got in touch and put myself down for "Xylophone Track".

Today I penciled out the first two pages (it'll be three pages, one for each verse). That's the first panel. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished.

Improvised Weapons 5

2010-02-17T15:35:00.003-07:00

Fifth in the Improvised Weapons Series is finished and up for sale on Etsy.

New Improvised Weapons Piece

2010-02-16T13:35:00.003-07:00

Working on a new one. Will be for sale on Etsy when complete.

Props to Niki Yoshiuchi for suggesting the grandma grabber claw in like 2008. I finally got around to it.

Etsy Shop Open

2010-02-05T16:40:00.002-07:00

My Etsy Shop is now open.

First piece for sale is the finished Per & Sylvanus painting.

Comic Storytelling

2010-02-04T16:42:00.003-07:00

The writer of the comic has a big job, creating the story, the characters, the setting, plotting overall themes, etc., but it is the job of the artist to carry that story, to communicate it to the reader. Here's an example of a very simple moment in the script that required some subtlety on my part to put into pencil and ink.

The scene is of Adrian dealing with his crying daughter by taking her into the bathroom and dabbing her forehead with cool water. All the while, he's singing her a song to calm her down. The script has the dialogue (lyrics of the song), and explains that Adrian is getting progressively more frustrated.

For a starting comic artist, the first challenge is to be able to draw the same character over and over, the same but different. Same face, different positions. The second challenge is to imbue that face with emotion without losing the features that describe the character. This is very difficult to do, and if you look at most cartoons, you'll notice a lot of conventions we've come to rely on to describe emotions, most of them very exaggerated and over-the-top. Manga has a very specific set of indicators that look weird to first time American readers.

So here's an example of me trying to express these emotions subtly, without resorting to cartoon conventions.

In the second panel is Adrian squinting as he turns on the light.

Black Magic and a Princeton 20/0

2010-01-29T19:15:00.003-07:00

When I have to do detailed line work like this:

There's nothing better than a bottle of Higgins Black Magic waterproof ink and a 20/0 Princeton liner:

And that is all I have to say about that.

We Ride Boards Show - Friday Night

2010-01-28T17:25:00.004-07:00

This will be up at MICA Gallery for the We Ride Boards show tomorrow night. The event is from 7-11pm, I'll be there for part of it. Sounds like a bunch of different types of art will be up, from graffiti to video.

MICA Gallery/Mestizo Coffeehouse
631 W North Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

We Ride Boards
Friday, January 29th, 7-11pm
Free Addmission

The event will also be at The Wing Coop towards the end of February.

Per & Silvanus Progress

2010-01-16T23:52:00.003-07:00

This is getting close to finished.

Per Gjenganger stumbles upon Silvanus Passerio summoning a cicada swarm.

Pieces like this always start out with a very loose idea -- something from a rough sketch, a previous drawing or an incomplete vision -- and then take on lives of their own, and what could have been a one-off character ends up with an identity. So with these two.

I Love My Studio.

2010-01-14T22:32:00.001-07:00

CHE LA Cityscape

2010-01-13T18:32:00.006-07:00

Oof.

I have such admiration for artists like Geoff Darrow and Katsuhiro Otomo. I can draw people all day, but cityscapes wipe me out. Hard Boiled is one of my favorite graphic novels, but I have to wonder what kind of mental state it takes for a dude to spend that much time drawing meticulous buildings and cars. I'd love to see Darrow's studio or watch him work.

Here's a panel I was working on today, from CHE LA, featuring a ramshackle future downtown Los Angeles.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make bacon tacos and watch Dust to Glory with my lady.

GBTW

2010-01-12T11:36:00.004-07:00

New Year's Day I woke up next to a beautiful lady, in a tent, on a beach, south of Loreto, BCS, Mexico.

Now I'm back in Salt Lake and back to work.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-24T09:10:00.002-07:00

Enjoy yourselves! I'll be unreachable until January 4th. I'm leaving today on a ten-day road trip from Utah to Mexico and back. See you in 2010.

Progress

2009-12-15T22:52:00.003-07:00

I don't have a title for this piece yet, but here's the progress on it. Most of what I do, I outline in either micron pen or brush and ink, but now and then I like to leave them out and use just the watercolors for the sense of shape. It's good practice and has a very different feel.

Once finished, this piece will be put up for sale on Etsy. Stay tuned if you're interested in it.

Gavin McInnes

2009-12-15T15:30:00.002-07:00

I did a little portrait of Gavin McInnes for Christmas:

Studio

2009-12-09T20:17:00.002-07:00

This is my studio.

This is what I was working on today.

Christmas Card Preview

2009-11-18T13:22:00.001-07:00

Just a little taste. Can't give away the surprise...

General Process

2009-11-13T07:52:00.004-07:00

I finished a new Improvised Weapons piece earlier this week, this time on commission. I've done enough of them now that it's a pretty set process for me, and I thought I'd document it.

I have little rules that I follow to keep the series consistent. For one, the kids always have helmets on, and I try to get some variety in what kind of helmets they're wearing. So the first thing I usually do is pick out the helmets, then the objects they're holding. There are rules about the objects, too. First, they can't be weapons. They have to have some other purpose. Second, I prefer that it be something with a handle, something that is meant to be held, to be used for something.

So for this drawing I picked out a SWAT-style helmet and a rake vs. a hard hat with a tennis racquet and dustbuster.

First I block out the general position of the two kids on a piece of scratch paper, which you see at the top of the drafting table. This saves me a lot of back and forth on the watercolor paper, getting the positions right. Sometimes I change my mind between the scratch paper and the final; in this case, I originally had the dustbuster extended in the left hand, and I swapped it for the tennis racquet in the final. On the watercolor paper, I start very rough in pencil to get the general blocking down, then I go around the drawing and get the details penciled, though it usually stays pretty rough until I ink it.

In this case, I'm inking with a micron 03 pen. You can see that a lot of the pencil lines are still rough. Once the piece is inked, I erase my pencil lines and color the kids with watercolors:

And that's it. Here's the finished piece:

September: Gimme Coffee

2009-08-28T01:48:00.004-06:00

Dan Bones and I are going to have some work on the walls at Gimme Coffee at 495 Lorimer in Brooklyn, NY for the month of September. Here's a little sample:

Go check it out but for God's sake please don't get any coffee on the art.

Dr. Ph. Martin's

2009-07-30T00:05:00.002-06:00

Becca Solow gave me a set of Ph. Martin's concentrated watercolors last time I saw her, and I've been playing with them some. They're vibrant. I like what I get out of 'em. Still feels a little unfamiliar, but I'm getting used to making bolder choices.

Haliku

2009-06-24T11:25:00.003-06:00

So this is where it went.

Also, if you're looking for a soundtrack to this image, I recommend The Mofos.

Haliku pencil

2009-06-19T21:42:00.004-06:00

did this sketch on bristol at dinner tonight.

This guy's origin was a drawing I did for my brother Aidan. I think there's more to him than that drawing, so I'm seeing where it goes.

Sometimes you draw something that ends up sticking with you; this is one of those. I always liked the muse take on creativity, the idea that inspiration comes not from within one's self, but from somewhere else, somewhere hidden but for those rare moments when a spark gets through and ends up on paper. This is one of those cases where I feel like there is an idea somewhere telling me to give it a face and a name. So I try to pay attention.

Orcus/Submit to Satan

2009-06-18T22:46:00.003-06:00

My friend Thom asked me to contribute to his heavy-metal-themed art zine Submit to Satan. This is what I made for him: The head on the monster is an orca skull (a.k.a. killer whale), and they're named after Orcus, underworld god of unpaid debts, or something. There's also a metal band named Orcus it turns out, but I listened to some samples on iTunes and didn't really like it.

Anyway, here it is.

Bike Blog NYC logo

2009-05-26T20:29:00.002-06:00

I did a logo for Michael Green of Bike Blog NYC:

It's also a great case study of my process. Michael came to me with a very clear idea of what he wanted: handlebars and stem, fists clenching the grips, visible knuckle tattoos in classic tattoo lettering, with "NYC" on the head tube. With this information, I gave him a few variations from which to mix & match his ideal:

The feedback he gave me was very specific (which I always appreciate) as to which elements he liked and wanted to see in the final product. With some faith that he'd be able to envision the final result from a sketch, I sent him the pencil rough of the final logo:

He loved it, so I went ahead with the ink, and there you have it. The final result, with some minor tweaking in Photoshop, is what you see above.

And that's how I do it.

Badge Design for Dead River Company

2009-05-26T20:14:00.002-06:00

My buddy Lindsey is in Brooklyn's Dead River Company and asked me to design a badge for the band. Here it is:

John Prolly Adventures

2009-04-23T02:00:00.002-06:00

I made a comic about John Prolly:

See all three pages in full-size at nickjam.es.

More guys fighting

2009-04-12T10:43:00.000-06:00

(I saw Taken)

2009-04-02T21:43:00.002-06:00

Spacesuit

2009-03-31T21:51:00.001-06:00

This reminds me of the kind of stuff I drew when I was a kid.

CHE LA ink

2009-03-11T00:40:00.003-06:00

I've been working with Jim Mahfood, David Brodell-Lake, and Ray Ting on a new project called CHE LA. Not gonna say much more than that for now, but here's a preview:

More as it develops.

For a Film

2009-02-26T19:22:00.002-07:00

Illustration for a screenplay pitch - client wanted Nigerian militants with future weapons.

Tracklocross Flyer

2009-02-24T01:05:00.004-07:00

Made this quickie for Mattio and Drew's race this year. The content was inspired by Luke Stile's photos of the first race in 2008, which I helped plan.
When I have time, I'm going to color it. I'm thinking brown mud, gray cyclist. Keep it simple.

Comic: Dick Jones in Body Modifications

2009-02-18T16:38:00.002-07:00

Just finished this today.

Comic Preview

2009-02-18T00:50:00.001-07:00

Quick preview of something I'm working on (in progress).

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

Maska Linework

2009-02-11T21:44:00.002-07:00

I found this great Russian helmet and decided to start a drawing around it.

Saturday at NYCC

2009-02-08T22:29:00.002-07:00

Dan Bones (pictured) wasn't able to get a day pass, and wasn't interested in waiting outside to buy one off someone leaving for the day, so he got some breakfast with me in the food court, looked over the programs, and then went home to work.

Alexa and Brandon had urged me to go see the Wolverine: Origins game preview, and it was as ridiculous as they promised. I'm not much of a gamer but I'm excited to see more of that. After the Wolverine preview, I caught up with Brandon Bird, and hit up the Image booth where Ming was behind the table promoting Comic Book Tattoo, for which she did one of the 50 stories. It looks great, and it's always nice to see a friend's work in print.

I also chatted with Meredith Gran, creator of Octopus Pie, at the Dumbrella booth for a bit. I've been reading her comic for a while. When she saw my work, she mentioned Jim Mahfood, who I hadn't heard of, but I saw his work at the Nerdcore booth. Model Justine Joli was there for the Nerdcore catalog, I'd actually seen her last weekend at Ellen Stagg's birthday party, but I talked with her for a moment, then met Jim Mahfood himself, a really nice guy who I'd like to stay in touch with. I was actually familiar with a lot of his work without having known he was behind it.

I left Javits around 5p and made a quick stop at Gowanus Studio for dinner and the first screening in their film series. I left a bit early to make Jim Mahfood's gallery reception at YUME Gallery, where I met up with Brandon and Alexa.

I did not return to the Con on Sunday - two full days of it is overwhelming. Until next year...

Friday at NYCC

2009-02-06T20:59:00.005-07:00

Friday: I hit up two panels, one on self publishing, one on the transition from script to pencil work. Tomorrow I'm going to a panel about page layout. I'm still riding the fence about whether or not I want to make comics. I'm curious about what it would be like to draw something someone else wrote, but it would have to be something I felt strongly about. We'll see. Drawing something that I've written would be very satisfying, but I'd have to start with writing something.

I ran into Alexa Rose, Brandon Bird, Ming Doyle and a few other people who I only met in passing on my way out, and Alexa and Brandon and I went for a drink and some dinner near Penn Station.

Alexa Rose

Brandon Bird and myself

Headed back tomorrow, hopefully with Dan Bones, if I can get a hold of him tonight and make sure he wakes up early enough.

American Spectator February Cover

2009-02-05T17:41:00.002-07:00

Picked up a copy at a newsstand today.

Life Drawing

2009-02-03T22:39:00.015-07:00

Went to life drawing at Society of Illustrators tonight. Good session. I stuck to quick drawings, even on the 10/20 minute poses. Trying to get as much as I can out of only a few lines.

Click image to see all five.

New York Comic-Con 2009

2009-02-02T22:18:00.007-07:00

I'm headed to New York Comic-Con again this year, but this time as a "professional creator". I got the weekend pass and will be there all three days. Most of the panels I want to see are on Friday afternoon: one on story structure, one on self-publishing, and then a couple on page layout, inking, etc. I'm looking forward to it.