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Dates Completed: Mid to late February, 2004
Both of the pictures to the left were created out of wistfulness. Fireside (top) I drew on a subway ride home from my first "paid" night working for a non-profit fundraising organization, canvassing for support (i.e. bugging people for money) for Save The Children. There are those who have some kind of special gift for this: An ability to break the ice, deliver the pitch, and extract money from someone on their own doorstep before they can slam the door. I do not have this gift. But I did spend many hours outdoors in Riverside IL, trudging from one rich Republican's house to the next in the freezing mid-February weather, dreaming of nothing more than a firey hearth, a steaming mug, and the one I love most next to me. The other piece is a picture inspired by a brief glimpse of a Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles preview before a Return of The King screening. It showed a boy and girl sitting at the back of a covered wagon cart, rolling along a road. I had not seen any of the actual game by the time I drew this picture, so nothing in it really resembles anything in the game. I decided that the cart should be drawn by a conspicuously large ram-like creature (shown glancing at a squirrel). The piece to the upper right is a sort of tribute to our friends, Michael and Caroline, and to a game that became quite popular among us, Animal Crossing. This picture shows all four of us as our Animal Crossing-inspired characters (from left to right) Carrie, Mikey, Tabi and Sonny. Carrie and Mikey go together, and Tabi and Sonny go together. The last piece (lower right) is a bit of fan-art for the amazing sci-fi series, Babylon 5. By the time I drew this picture, we had already watched the first two seasons on DVD. Original Sizes: Varous, mostly 5.5" x 8.5" each Materials Used: Pen and ink |
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Date Completed: June 6, 2003
Two pictures created during some down-time at work. The knight is meant to be a steam-powered mechanical thing, inspired partly by a work by a fellow artist at the Gaia online community. The girl is a picture of Chocobo Princess on the farm, giving Paffy, her puppy, a big hug. Original Size: (4" x 3" each) Materials Used: Pencils, pen and ink, brush pens |
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Date Completed: January 17, 2003
Four little self-portrait drawings, depicting myself in different ways I'm liable to show up: In casual work clothes, in my trusty red Transformers gear (cap, jacket and backpack), in my "I mean business" suit, and bundled up against the Chicago cold. Original Size: (3" x 5" each) Materials Used: pen and ink, brush pens |
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Dates Completed: Various, December 2002
A few wintery, Christmas-themed pictures from the last few weeks, plus a long-overdue one of Cyberpumpkin playing with his Nintendo Gameboy Advance (with the latest Kirby game, or perhaps something from Square). The darker piece on the far right features Rad and Jack and the brand new game system. I thought it would be fun to illustrate a passtime that's a favorite for many of us: Staying up late eating pizza, drinking caffeinated beverages of choice, and mashing the buttons on that game controller until you fall asleep or your fingers fall off. I should mention that the cat-eared girl baking cookies is the big sister of the little bundled up fellow standing in the snow, not his mother. Materials Used: Pencils, pen and ink, brush pens |
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Date Completed: 7/23/02
This character is actually a sort of revival of some designs I did over a year ago of a long-haired man with a blunt-ended sword that had large revolvers built into it. Although one may jump to the conclusion that I am merely drawing from the "gunblade" design from the Final Fantasy VIII game, this weapon actually has honest historical roots. In the first days of swordmaking in Europe, the blades actually had blunt ends, rather than points, since they were mainly for swinging and were too unweildly to make worthwhile stabbing weapons. What's more, weaponsmiths did experiment with building duelling swords that had small flintlock pistols built into their handles. Original Size: 8.5 x 11 Materials Used: Pencils, pen and ink, brush pens |
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Date Completed: 06/21/02
I don't often do pictures of Chocobo Princess out on adventures, so I'm glad to present this one! Here, she is pictured taking a daring plunge down into the mossy-stone depths of a dungeon, with her trusty chaser-blade at the ready! Original Size: 5" x 7.5" Materials Used: pen and ink, brush pens |
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Date Completed: 06/19/02
This little guy is named Tedwick Bandring. He was originally created as a doodle on the back of a church bulletin. I ended up liking him so much that I did a full colored piece with him napping under a tree. His little owl friend is named Lopp. Original Size: 5" x 6" Materials Used: pen and ink, brush pens |
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Date Completed: 01/06/02 A picture of Rad and Cyberpumpkin in a mysterious, spooky dungeon. Spoooky! Original Size: 8.5" x 11" Materials Used: Mechanical pencil, pen and ink, brush pens, photocopier, PC |
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Date Completed: 03/12/01 Since I did this drawing, which I've come to call Journey, I've grown to love it more and more. I've set it as the backdrop on my computer desktop, and I just keep looking at it and feeling rather proud of it. I hope I'm able to produce more works I feel this way about. I'm sure a lot of folks' first reaction might be to say "Hey, that's Vivi!" They may or may not know that the character of Vivi draws from a long tradition of wizards who dress very much like him. Also, Square doesn't have the market on pointy, shadowy hats and bulky clothing completely cornered! --  |
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Date Completed: 05/19/01 This picture, done spur-of-the-moment on the back of a 3 x 5 notecard, was done for someone as an example of the sort of picture the original Journey was, and ended up being a sort of companion piece. I never intended to have a story to go along with these, although perhaps there is one simmering unseen in my creative stew and has yet to surface. |
Huge Size | Pocket Size |
Date Completed: 03/06/01 This is another picture featuring Chocobo Princess on the farm. As you can see, the Harvest Sprites are eager enough to help out, although, just like in the game Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, they aren't always quite right about what to do. Here, Kami explains to the Harvest Sprites that eggs should not be planted, and the puppy does not need to be watered. |
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Date Completed: 02/28/01 This picture features my girl, "Chocobo Princess" on CyberPumpkin's farm. Since she has been greatly enjoying Natsume's Harvest Moon: Back to Nature game on the Sony Playstation, I thought it would be fun to do a few pictures depicting some of the things one deals with when running the "virtual farm" of Harvest Moon. As you can see, the Harvest Sprites are not always as helpful as can be. |
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Date Completed: 03/02/01 CyberPumpkin and Rad out on an "adventure". I've had an idea germinating in my head about a story involving Rad riding on a ram (the biggest sheep in the pen; he's too small to ride horses), so I thought I'd try putting Rad on his "steed" in this picture. |
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Date Completed: 02/28/01 This picture started out as an idea for a CyberPumpkin business card, with the wooden sign and some background. As you can see, it sort-of grew out of control and filled up the rest of the paper I was working on. Even though Rad wants to be a hero, he doesn't mind doing things like feeding the little birds in the forest. I'm not sure if I'll ever have Rad grow up: It's nice to have a character who is adventuresome but still pretty young and open to doing things like feeding birds, even if they aren't all that adventurous. |
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Date Completed: Early 2000 A small colored pic of CyberPumpkin done to put on a note that I handed out to the kids I was working with. That particular evening, I didn't have a copier or anything available, but I had plenty of time and paper, so I traced and colored one of these for each of the five kids! In this picture, CP is holding a hoe in one hand, and an unusually large trowel (his sword) in the other. |
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Date Completed: Sometime in 2000 Although this makes a pleasing abstract piece by itself, this was once part of a much larger work where the actual paper was cut into small sections to be worked on individually. Unfortunately, there was a liquid spill a little too close to the work in progress (which explains the purplish haze). |
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Date Completed: 10/19/1999 Well, here it is! A scan of the o-riginal drawing of the character known as CyberPumpkin! As you can tell, CP hasn't gone through many changes since his creation (only three years ago, as of this writing). |
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Date Completed: 10/21/99 The second-ever picture of CyberPumpkin. This time shown in his "native" setting, the farm! Incidentally, this piece is also one of my first works to feature the woodgrain pattern you can see in the pieces of the barn. |
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Date Completed: 11/15/99 Just a quick little sketch of CyberPumpkin out in a stream that runs through the farm. The CyberPumpkin character was conceived completely during the time when I lived in Pasadena, California. In Pasadena, a lot of the houses were either designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, or do a very good impersonation of his style. At one point, I wanted the farmhouse to be in a Frank Lloyd Wright style. This may still happen, but to date, this little picture is the only one to sport any architecture remotely resembling Wright's style. |
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Date Completed: 01/15/00 A picture of CyberPumpkin in the realm of the datasphere (the part of the world that is all data; like the all-biological biosphere or the all-air atmosphere) receiving a message from ... where? This picture originally started out as a doodle on a strip of paper that I was going to use as a makeshift bookmark, and it became one of the first (the first?) CP work to be colored. It's also one of the last to have the color applied to the original drawing, rather than a copy. |
