SNAP INTO THIS ILLUSTRATION, OOH YEAH!
There are some people in this world that just scream “draw me.” And then there’s Macho Man Randy Savage—who leapsoff the turnbuckle and demands it.
I recently had the absolute pleasure of illustrating the Madness himself in a commissioned piece, and you better believe I went all in. I chose his early pink-and-yellow gear (because peak ‘80s wrestling should look like a highlighter exploded), and I captured him mid-flight, elbow cocked, coming right for ya. If you ever had the joy of watching Macho Man sail through the air with all the grace of a sequined missile, then you know exactly why I had to draw him this way.
A Little Madness Goes a Long Way
Randy Savage wasn’t just a wrestler. He was a force of nature. The voice? Gravelly perfection. The promos? Unhinged genius. The in-ring ability? Unreal. He could go from top-rope acrobat to technical wizard in the blink of an eye, making every match feel like the main event.
But here’s a fact that might surprise you—before he was snapping into Slim Jims, Savage was swinging for the fences. Yep, Macho Man played professional baseball! Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals right out of high school, he spent a few years in the minors as a catcher. When an injury took him out of the game, he did what any reasonable person would do—reinvented himself as one of the most electrifying wrestlers of all time.
A Flying Tribute
This illustration is my love letter to one of wrestling’s greatest performers—a guy who made everything larger than life, from his wardrobe to his elbow drop to the way he said, “DIG IT!” And if you have a favorite athlete, musician, or pop culture legend you’d love to see immortalized in art, you know where to find me.
OHHH YEAH!
The Babe with the Power
I've been making a bunch of t-shirts!
Inspired by the cult classic, Jim Henson monster-filled 80's movie, Labyrinth, this design is available at my TeePublic shop on apparel and other ostentatious articles of amazingness.
Inspired by the cult classic, Jim Henson monster-filled 80's movie, Labyrinth, this design is available at my TeePublic shop on apparel and other ostentatious articles of amazingness.
George Newman, Director of Channel U-62
I recently painted this portrait for Gallery 1988's Crazy4Cult show. UHF is one of my favorite movies of all time. I knew as soon as I saw the list for the show's eligible movies that I couldn't resist painting Weird Al Yankovic as George Newman.
The painting sold on opening night of the show and as a ridiculously fun and mind-blowingly cool bonus, Al retweeted the painting as well as reposting the picture on his own Instagram! I had to take a moment to breathe...
So here is George Newman, Director of Channel U-62:
The painting sold on opening night of the show and as a ridiculously fun and mind-blowingly cool bonus, Al retweeted the painting as well as reposting the picture on his own Instagram! I had to take a moment to breathe...
So here is George Newman, Director of Channel U-62:
After a lot of coercion by my Twitter friends (I'm @itsbillmain on Twitter) I'm releasing this painting as a print as well through my TeePublic shop. So if you want Al on your wall, on your shirt, your kid's shirt or even on your phone, I'd say this is probably the safest way to do it.
Check it out HERE
A comic that basically recounts my childhood in one sitting
A wonderful friend recently asked me to participate in a little collective of artists and writers creating all ages comics. The group, called The Slumberland Digest, posts nightly installments of comics so your dreamy head can go to sleep on a good note. Follow them, as there are little differences my comic that you can only see on the IG. Here's a link: The Slumberland Digest
That being said, here is my pretty true to life comic. I was a Nintendo junkie.
That being said, here is my pretty true to life comic. I was a Nintendo junkie.
A little update
Wow! I haven't been updating my blog as regularly as I'd like to. Reason number one is going to be that my wife and I are going to have a baby!!! Cue the fireworks and cymbals crashing. Baby Main is due February 23rd and we're really excited to meet him. It's crazy how much I already love him even though I haven't officially met him. If you're at all interested in hearing more about our joyous news, please go and peruse my wife's WAY more updated and professional blog Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe
In the meantime, I will try to update some more work here!
I was asked to speak at my old school, Calvary Chapel Bible College, by a good friend and former student. He wanted me to share about life, faith and Art and how those things mingle in the post-social media mayhem-ish world we live in. He teaches an Apologetics class at the school so the students were sharp. Probably much sharper than myself. Nonetheless, it was a really encouraging night and I think it was really fruitful.
In the weeks prior to speaking I was feeling pretty unsure of myself in respect to sharing. The old, "Oh, what do you have to share anyway?" monster kept popping up. It got me thinking some deep thoughts. Now cue Jack Handey.
Anyway, I was thinking a lot about how my struggle to walk in a way that's in line with my faith in Christ and according to God's word is 1. super irritating (I know what I believe but so often fail to live it out) and then 2. most certainly an opportunity for God to show His goodness.
So, although pretty frustrating, the struggle becomes one of the most potent bases for artwork. My sketchbook becomes a place where I can work out questions I'm having or play with ideas I find in scripture. Sometimes, these become finished drawings or paintings, sometimes they just stay rough pencils.
In the meantime, I will try to update some more work here!
I was asked to speak at my old school, Calvary Chapel Bible College, by a good friend and former student. He wanted me to share about life, faith and Art and how those things mingle in the post-social media mayhem-ish world we live in. He teaches an Apologetics class at the school so the students were sharp. Probably much sharper than myself. Nonetheless, it was a really encouraging night and I think it was really fruitful.
In the weeks prior to speaking I was feeling pretty unsure of myself in respect to sharing. The old, "Oh, what do you have to share anyway?" monster kept popping up. It got me thinking some deep thoughts. Now cue Jack Handey.
Anyway, I was thinking a lot about how my struggle to walk in a way that's in line with my faith in Christ and according to God's word is 1. super irritating (I know what I believe but so often fail to live it out) and then 2. most certainly an opportunity for God to show His goodness.
So, although pretty frustrating, the struggle becomes one of the most potent bases for artwork. My sketchbook becomes a place where I can work out questions I'm having or play with ideas I find in scripture. Sometimes, these become finished drawings or paintings, sometimes they just stay rough pencils.
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| From James 1:5-8 |
Mr. E pity the fool that doesn't eat their vegetables
Seriously, he does pity those fools.
He's part of a little something I've been working on that's in the final stages. Updates soon(ish)!
He's part of a little something I've been working on that's in the final stages. Updates soon(ish)!
Bookmarks!
I've been reading a lot more as of late.
I keep finding myself using little index cards or scraps of paper to hold my places in those books. Although I am probably fighting against the "print is dead" movement, I really find myself in need of a good bookmark. So, uhhh...I just made some.
For one of my bookmarks, I decided to make a Bilbo Baggins because I just love that sweet little hobbit. Everything about him. Everywhere he goes, he just wants to go and eat. He just wants to eat breakfast. I can relate Bilbro.
He's got his Elfen blade, Sting, with him...glowing because there are always goblins around, of course.
If you would like a Bilbo for yourself, or a bookworm friend, you can find him here.
Fat Elvis bookmarks are a multi-tasker- they are perfect for cookbooks and rock n' roll biographies.
Then again I literally have this fat tub-o-lard bookmark sitting in my bible. I giggle every time I look at it.
Literally singing his heart out, Elvis is shaking what his mama gave him. Thanks Mama Elvis.
If you are interested in picking up this bookmark for yourself of your friends, you can find them here.
Her Eyes Can Be So Cruel
Hey!
This piece up at the Say Hi To the Bad Guy show at Gallery 1988 West. The show is covering the love of the bad guys in cult classic film. Opening night is Friday, October 18th, 7-10 PM
This piece up at the Say Hi To the Bad Guy show at Gallery 1988 West. The show is covering the love of the bad guys in cult classic film. Opening night is Friday, October 18th, 7-10 PM
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| Her Eyes Can Be So Cruel Acrylic on panel 8.5" x11.25" x 3" |
I felt it necessary to paint Jareth from Jim Henson's Labyrinth as a total creepster. Here he is doing a little research on his super inappropriate love interest Sarah. Look, if it makes you feel any better, it seems like Jareth, although actually super old, is really a tween at heart. From his super cool hamburger phone to his constant need to create angsty prose and art in his dream journal, Jareth is developmentally arrested. Give the guy a break, all he has to hang out with is goblins.
Show up and I'll say,"Oh hello there..."
Undertaker sketch
Here's a quick little sketch of the pro wrestler, the Undertaker. I hope to tune this and a few more of his "friends" up and update again soon.
the Undertaker is ©WWE
Some Etsy custom orders
I recently had a pretty cool Etsy order from a very cool girlfriend who has a very lucky boyfriend. She wanted to surprise her man for his birthday and she had seen an old wooden cutout of Randy Savage that I made long ago. Asking if I could make another AND a Ric Flair was like asking a if I'd like like another cinnamon roll cake for my birthday....yes I would like that very much thank you.
If you're wanting to order some custom wrestlers, why don't you head over to my Etsy and send me a conversation?
Process shots:
These are hand cut, hand painted, ready to be hung on the wall original pieces of art. They are painted on 1/4" birch panels and they're fun to have staring at you. Albeit, I only get to see them staring at me for a couple days before I send them off.
Laser Cats at Gallery 1988
I had the distinct honor and
privilege to participate in the Grand Opening show for the new location of Gallery 1988
West this past Friday. The show; titled,” Is This Thing On? #2”
was a secret blackout show. Specifically, that means that people had
no real idea of what the show's theme would be until the doors were
opened that night! Of course, the artists were aware ahead of time and so we
had some decisions to make. The theme was Saturday Night Live- any
era, any characters, anything.
It was a fantastically broad area to
work within but was so rich with fun imagery and story -so I was really
excited.
I made a ton of sketches from a bunch of
different skits. I really liked what was going on with the sketches I got from the digital short I chose. Ahem, this may be the only time I ever paint nine cats
into the same painting. Ok, then again, it may not be. At any rate,
cats with lasers shooting out of their mouths happened all over this
painting.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I chose Laser Cats. The boys from the Lonely
Island (Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, and Andy Samberg) have put
together one of my favorite series of short films in SNL history so I
thought it fitting to pay a little homage to them through this.
Gathering reference for the painting
was super fun since I got to go back through and watch all the shorts
over again. You can find them on the Lonely Island website, NBC.com
and Hulu if you'd like a quick refresh.
I've always loved 70's and 80's movie
poster art so I used one of the greats from that era of genre of
illustration, Frank
McCarthy, as reference. Here you go:
Double the Dragon, Double the Fun
Double Dragon.
This is a game with so much awesomeness going for it that its hard not to love it. I grew up playing the arcade version of the game at a local neighborhood convenience store. This was one of those places where they had maybe two or three fluttering flourescent lights and what must have been 20 year old pickles in jars on the counter filled with Reanimator bright green pickle juice. Tucked away in the front corner of the store was a line of literally the cream of the crop arcade stand up machines. It really puzzles me, looking back, to understand how this store had such great games. I doubt that the crotchety older gentleman who owned the place knew what he was doing when he was picking which games to put in his store. Maybe he was a time traveller, knowing that his proper selection of grade A game choices would set up a lifetime of illustration fodder for me. Yeah, thats it. Thank you, you space-time continuum tripping sourpuss. Thank you.
Ah, but I digress. The home version of Double Dragon on the Nintendo, as well as the arcade, was perfect in its simplicity. The main difference being the one player aspect of the NES port (but I’ll go on about that later.) The game is perfectly simple; it tells you all you need to know about your motivation for the coming beat down that will be laid to the evil Shadow Warrior gang in the first couple seconds of gameplay. There is no long written out intro, there is this:
WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAT??!!
Those dudes just gut punched your girl and walk away with her like an evil marching band! It’s on like Donkey Kong.
And so you travel through this relatively short yet ridiculously difficult game learning new moves, fighting new enemies and getting closer to rescuing your girlfriend.
As I said, the main difference between the home NES version and the arcade game was the number of players. The arcade game, which came out first, offered two player, simultaneous beat em up action. The players would work side by side, as brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee. The storyline was to rescue their uh, collective girlfriend from this rival gang. So kids around the world got used to fighting side by side with their primary color clad brother in a display of brotherly love that was downright sickening.
On the other hand, the NES port of the game disposed of the two player together aspect entirely. I’ve read online that this was because programmers had problems making the NES work well with the simultaneous fighting but I offer you a different reason. I think that the way Jimmy Lee is revealed in this game offers a bit more exitement to the storyline. In the arcade game, you work your way through the gang until you meet machine gun toting Willy. He is the boss of the gang and when you defeat him, you save your girl. In the home port, after defeating Willy, it is revealed that the until now invisible Jimmy Lee was behind the capture of your beautiful girlfriend. WHAT?! Bro come on, really?
So the game takes on this underlying sibling rivalry that wasn’t really present in the original. I like it, you can do what you will with it.
SO anyway, whew! On to the illustration. This game always makes me think of the Warriors film. Gosh I love that movie. Can you dig it? The costumes, the feel of the atmosphere and the ridiculous attitudes of the characters just made it so fun. In a way, this illustration is dedicated to the fun of that film as well as Double Dragon. In my mind, they go hand in hand.
The characters, Abobo and Chin Tamei even make an appearance in this illustration because what fanboy doesn’t remember the sheer terror when an Abobo appeared or the utter frustration that was fighting Chin?
This is an original illustration made for the bros at PaletteSwap. I was honored to be able to choose the theme for January for the video game cover art blog. My theme: Double Dragon of course!
So, if you’d like to hang this guy on your wall and remember the good ‘ol days with a couple of spiteful, angry brothers, you can go and order a print at my shop.
Abobo lives, brother!
Still working piecemeal on this illustration project. If you don’t know Abobo at this point you really should.
He’s a Double Dragon villain but more importantly he is the star of his own video game:Abobo’s Big Adventure. I had no part in this game…I just think it’s fantastic. It is fun and highly playable. Did I mention it is free? If you are the kind of awesome that I think you are, you can figure out how to hook up a controller to your computer and play it that way. Do the Googles bro.
Original Abobo:
This is something like how my Abobo will be looking:
Original Abobo image courtesy of the Sprite Database
Bullet in the Brain - Tobias Wolff
I was feeling a little stuck in a rut so I enlisted the talents of a good friend and former instructor Jeffrey Smith. He acted as Art Director on this and sent me on a little tour of short stories about the extraordinary within the mundane. This story, written by Tobias Wolff, is called Bullet in the Brain. You can read the story here. Synoptically speaking, its about an older cantankerous book critic standing in a line at the bank. Bank robbers come in, the book critic mouths off to them and he receives a bullet in the brain. The real bulk of story actually occurs in the microsecond that the bullet hits the brain and travels through his head. It delivers a shock of memory as his life passes before his eyes.
I’ve found myself wondering from time to time if a person’s life does indeed, “flash before their eyes” if they are killed with no warning.
For the image, I set the scene in a bank. I cropped Anders’ head so it was more of a framing device. Because I chose to use the moment of action as the image, I felt like if the viewer’s eye was panned out too far to see the gun’s muzzle flash , Anders’ bodily reaction to the gunshot, and the masked robber it would be a little heavy handed. (At least the way I kept drawing it.) For color, I kept the "present" in monochrome, as I feel that Anders had lost his zest for the life he was living. It is telling of his nature that he doesn’t think of classic, pivotal moments that one might remember in their last moments. Anders keeps this interaction with his childhood peers deep in his psyche. He feels the heat, smells the air, and sees the yellow summer grass on the baseball field. So, instead of having this meaty, bloody spray shooting out of this gentleman’s head,(as I initially drew) I kept working until I saw something a bit more visually interesting and ethereal. I like the play between the figures in color and the cropped out figure in B&W. For myself, memories are often triggered by something I see right in front of me, so I wanted a little play between the “then” and the “now.”
I started with a simple line drawing with a wash. I used a #6 sable round just to get my major shapes in order without having to fuss later on.
From here, I just started dropping in tone and color. Its kind of an intuitive process when it comes to color choice. There are certain colors that don’t make natural sense to go a certain place but I’ll put them there just because I like how it reacts with the color next to it. I like this stage. Its like a patchwork at this point and I can decide what to leave out and what to push a little further. Now is when I reassess my initial thoughts on where I want to lead the eye, value and which colors to bring out more.
I add a little more focus on the “memory” part of the image and call it done. Last image is the final image.
For the image, I set the scene in a bank. I cropped Anders’ head so it was more of a framing device. Because I chose to use the moment of action as the image, I felt like if the viewer’s eye was panned out too far to see the gun’s muzzle flash , Anders’ bodily reaction to the gunshot, and the masked robber it would be a little heavy handed. (At least the way I kept drawing it.) For color, I kept the "present" in monochrome, as I feel that Anders had lost his zest for the life he was living. It is telling of his nature that he doesn’t think of classic, pivotal moments that one might remember in their last moments. Anders keeps this interaction with his childhood peers deep in his psyche. He feels the heat, smells the air, and sees the yellow summer grass on the baseball field. So, instead of having this meaty, bloody spray shooting out of this gentleman’s head,(as I initially drew) I kept working until I saw something a bit more visually interesting and ethereal. I like the play between the figures in color and the cropped out figure in B&W. For myself, memories are often triggered by something I see right in front of me, so I wanted a little play between the “then” and the “now.”
I started with a simple line drawing with a wash. I used a #6 sable round just to get my major shapes in order without having to fuss later on.
From here, I just started dropping in tone and color. Its kind of an intuitive process when it comes to color choice. There are certain colors that don’t make natural sense to go a certain place but I’ll put them there just because I like how it reacts with the color next to it. I like this stage. Its like a patchwork at this point and I can decide what to leave out and what to push a little further. Now is when I reassess my initial thoughts on where I want to lead the eye, value and which colors to bring out more.
I add a little more focus on the “memory” part of the image and call it done. Last image is the final image.