Merry Christmas!

GRIND Deck

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketches

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

Muse, Lined

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

Muse

Dragon Colored

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

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

Xylophone Track Up

Xylophone Track is finally up!

Little Dudes

These guys are each about 6x6.




Happy Late St. Patrick's Day!

Xylophone Track

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

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

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

Xylophone Track, Page 1, Rough Color

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

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

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

New Improvised Weapons Piece

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

My Etsy Shop is now open.

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

Comic Storytelling

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

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

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

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.

CHE LA Cityscape

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

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.