Now when I say commissioned, I mean I did this in exchange for a corn casserole and a green bean casserole. I'm hoping I can renegotiate and get a cake too. I think I was trying to convert to the barter system when I settled on the price about a month ago.

It says ,"immer stärker" on it which means "always stronger" in German and was my personal touch to this design. Needless to say, the guy getting this on his back is of German heritage and looks like Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart or Tank Abbott so, knowing that, I'd say this should fit him pretty well. The different animal skulls represent each of his sons and are their Chinese zodiac signs. I also placed the Greek Zodiac symbols on the skulls.

That's not a 69. It's the sign for Cancer, you pervert.

On a more personal note,"immer stärker" has been my mantra to get me through these past few weeks. Although, mine is "어제보다 강한" to be more specific. This loosely translates to "stronger than yesterday" in Korean. It's weird but it motivates me to become stronger in everything I am. To become better in everything I do. You'll see this incorporated soon enough into a design for myself.

On a side note, while I only have one on my left shoulder blade, I'd like to get half sleeves on both of my arms and another on my chest. In my more sane moments, I'll agree that this might be a bit much so I'll probably settle on a half sleeve for my right arm.

Just for fun, I took the same design from above and did it in black & green which I might turn into a banner for this page (assuming I'm not lazy about it.)

Thanks for dropping by and smell you later.

In the meantime, here are a few marker sketches that I've recently done. I'm not really crazy about these, but I thought I'd share some of my shame.

Here's Hatake Kakashi, a character from Naruto, when he was in ANBU. Just a quick marker sketch that I did in my sketchbook.

Another marker drawing that I did for a friend.

It's Wolverine, fool.

As soon as I figure out what I'm doing next (which I'm currently thinking about), I'll be back like Ahnold.

Day 29 was tough since I couldn't get into drawing so I went with Hellboy. I think he's become my favorite established character to draw.  For Day 30, since my first thoughts on finishing strong were, "High five!" I thought making Borat my final 90 minute sketch for June was appropriate.

With 28 sketches in the bag, I've got 2 more days left.

This past weekend wore me out more than I thought it would.

Referenced from the soon-to-be infamous shot from Transformers 2 of Megan Fox.Scud: The Disposable Assassin created by Rob SchrabOmega Red, an X-Men villain

On a more personal note, I did the below to be auctioned this Sunday June 28, 2009. It's in benefit for a friend of a friend. The lady in question, Isabelle, passed away last week of cancer and left behind a new born daughter, Chloe. Obviously all proceeds will go to Chloe.

Here's the info on Sunday:
The Beacon Tap @ 1374 Lee St in Des Plaines, IL
Sunday, June 28, 2009 7-10PM

It's the King, Elvis Presley, if you didn't know. And yes that's a hound dog in the corner. It's about 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide so I wasn't able to scan it. You can see where the flash hit.

Thanks to Photoshop for making this look more impressive than it is.

To be honest, I'm only 25% pleased since I'm not crazy about 3 of them.
The Usagi Yojimbo is my favorite of the four and I'm least pleased about the Ares sketch.

These are only sketches so they're more experimental and I can say that I've learned quite a bit from doing each one.
Granted I've learned how wrong I can make something look but that only pushes me to figure out how to make it right.

22 days are now in the bag and I've got 8 more days of my promise/proclamation.
Time to up the awesome.

I'm trying to make the sketches a little bit more complete so I'm spending more time on backgrounds as opposed to the figure. It's hard because I usually start with the figure then move to the background so I'm going to have to stop exactly at 30 minutes to leave the rest of the time to the background.

Here we've got a zombie inspired by Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead, one of the few trades that I'll always buy, sight unseen.Not much to say here other than my hand got tired from doing the background. I referenced this from a shot from a photo shoot of korean pop star Hyori Lee.

I thought I'd pay homage to the ones who came before me and made me want to draw all the time. This is Calibretto from Joe Mad's Battle Chasers. I could go into a small tirade about how I wish it had finished and/or continued but I won't. This is Shishio Makoto of the manga/anime Kenshin. This cat might be a bad guy but he is bad ass.

Kitty: For this one, I used a photo reference that I can't seem to remember where I got. I'm certain I got it from somewhere on deviantart though. I don't really understand the whole thing where a girl will suddenly have cat ears in anime/manga. I know what a nose bleed means though.

Victor Zsasz: I have no idea what compelled me to draw something as disturbing as this. Zsasz is a Batman villain who keeps a tally of his victims as scars on his body. Maybe I got tired of drawing the typical Batman villain or maybe something's wrong with me. Probably both.

Sabretooth: I went with Sabretooth in the Jim Lee-designed costume. Got a bit aggressive here with trying something new but I'm not too thrilled with it. Ah well, mas y menos. 

I did Battlecat from He-Man and now we've got some Thundecats action thrown into the mix. Sad to say, I've tried watching Thundercats again and I can't figure out why I loved it so much. I think the Thundertank was what kept me going.

Here we've got Lion-O and if we have Lion-O, we should have Mumm Ra the Ever Living. One awsome thing about Mumm Ra was that he had an eternal companion, Ma Mutt. If you're going to be known as the Ever Living, you might as well have dog that won't die too.