Oct 13 2011

Animal Alphabet Watercolors On Sale!

As you know, Alpha Beasts is cranking up next week and I’m pretty excited. My gut’s telling me there’s going to be a pretty big turn-out of folks for this go round. In the meantime, though, I’d like to find new homes for my remaining Animal Alphabet watercolors…. so I’m slashing prices. I’ve gone crazy, I tell’s ya! Just enter “AlphaBeasts” at checkout for 20% off–that’s less than $10 each!

Purchase them here: Animal Alphabet watercolors at Storenvy.

There’re still some nice ones here. I’m pretty surprised no one’s snapped up the mandarin duck or the white pelican.

Oct 11 2011

Portrait Night 10/11 (Hank Williams, Sr.)

I did a caricature/likeness of Hank Sr. a while back for my old mini-comic, American Music A-Z. I’ll have to dig it out and look at it for comparison’s sake. This isn’t a great likeness, but hopefully it’s an improvement:

If you’d like to suggest a #PortraitNight subject, you can do so either via the comments section here, or via my Twitter.

Oct 07 2011

Sketchbook 10/7

I’ve been neglecting sketchbook posts of late. Partially that’s just because I’ve been super-busy and haven’t been working in it as much as I should. Also, though, I’ve been tending of late to post stuff to Twitter or G+. Anyhoo, here’s a recent page:

Oct 04 2011

Portrait Night 10/04 (David Yow)

Last week I finished up my Our Band Could Be Your Life-themed drawings, but right in the midst of that I received a portrait request that I had to shelve until now. Thematically, it fits in pretty well, though: David Yow of The Jesus Lizard. I may be misremembering–it was a while back–but I believe it was Christian Sager who put in the word for a David Yow drawing.

There’s a bit of nice synchronicity to this Yow drawing as well: Just a few days ago I managed to get a hold of a really nice-sounding recording of The Jesus Lizard’s never-released BBC Peel sessions, so I was listening to those while I drew this.

I saw The Jesus Lizard perform only once–opening for Helmet–but it was a truly amazing show. Also: David Yow had pulled one of his testicles through a hole in the crotch of his jeans, where it remained on display throughout the performance. So there was that.

If you’d like to suggest a #PortraitNight subject, you can do so either via the comments section here, or via my Twitter.

Oct 03 2011

Come One, Come All! AlphaBeasts: It’s On!

What Is AlphaBeasts?

AlphaBeasts is the follow-up collaborative project to the now-completed Animal Alphabet. This time, instead of drawing real animals, we’re drawing fictional ones each week–one for each letter of the alphabet. On the first day (Monday, October 17th) everyone will draw beasts beginning with the letter “A.” The following Monday, everyone will draw beasts that begin with “B.” Rinse and repeat…

Who Can Participate?

Anyone who wants to! No one cares whether you “can’t draw” or you’re Gustave Doré. It’s just for fun!

What Am I Supposed To Draw?

Put simply: fictional beasts.  It (1) should be an animal and not a person and (2) should be imaginary or fictional, but not made up by the person doing the drawing.

The fine print:

  • No creatures that actually exist or have actually existed in the past. So, no dinosaurs or giant sloths.
  • Generic creature names are legit, but NOT proper names. “D is for Dragon” works, but not “S is for Smaug” (the dragon from The Hobbit). Yeah, there are some gray areas, but generally if you can put the word “the” before it–as in “the Lorax” then it’s probably a name for a type and not for an individual.
  • Fictional does not equal “creature.” Hedwig the owl from Harry Potter is not legit. Owls are real animals.
  • The creature must be from something–a book, movie, myth, legend, whatever–but you can’t just make up an original creature yourself.

How Do I Submit My Beast?

Twitter: We will be begin with beasts starting with the letter “A” on Monday the 17th of October. Post your completed drawing somewhere–an image hosting site, your blog, whatever–and post a link to it to Twitter sometime during the day each Monday with the #alphabeasts hashtag. Include the name of your beast–like “M is for Manticore.”

Google+: Same deal, but instead of the hashtag, share the post with Andrew Neal (in addition to whomever else you want). Andrew has generously volunteered to post each week’s AlphaBeasts to a tumblr but he needs to know you’ve posted one in order to grab it.

Do I Have To Draw Something For Every Single Letter?

No, you don’t. You can draw just one letter/week’s beast or you can do all twenty-six.

I Don’t Draw. What If I Just Want To View Each Week’s Beasts?

Awesome! There’re two easy ways to do that. First, you can follow the AlphaBeasts tumblr and each beast will appear in your stream as its posted: http://alphabeasts.tumblr.com. Alternately, you can watch the beasts appear throughout the day each Monday by watching the #alphabeasts hashtag on Twitter.

What If I Have A Question?

You can email me at the address up in the header of this blog, or DM me on twitter: @ben_towle.