Happy Mothers Day

For my Mother, Mary Anne, who put up with way more than she needed to and was still ever so amazing! To Grandma Boone and Grandma Stigall for the love and encouragement of all of my crazy dreams. And most of all, to my muse, my best friend, my wife, and the wonderful mother of my two sons (and of this kid-at-heart most of the time), Tessa...

Fender Headstocks

Most people know that I am a guitar nut these days. Having a musical outlet in my life again has been a great release for me. I'm still not very good at it, but I have a damn good time with my Stratocasters. That said, I have also become a very big fan of Fender guitars and am completely involved in the artful design and engineering of these wonderful instruments - especially the Strat. I was messing around with some freelance work last night and got the urge to recreate the Fender spaghetti logo for no particular reason. Sometimes I'll do that - recreate images. In Illustrator it's good for practice. Not really knowing what to do with the logo when done, I decided to make some quick wallpaper images. I thought I would post them here for all of my fellow Fender players and fans. Cheers!

Another Octopus...

...what holds a pencil.

King of the Blues

Well, I'm hoping this drawing made it into the hands of Mr. BB King. I took the original framed version of this piece to BB's show at the Boulder Theater last Friday - which, by the way, was absolutely incredible - with some small hopes of being able to give it to him personally. Well, that didn't work out so much. I was, however, able to get it into one of his managers hands. He assured me that mister King would get it after making sure he had my contact info. After the show I wondered around to the back of the theater as I headed to my car. I saw a tour bus driving away from the back doors of the Boulder Theater and caught a glimpse of my drawing being passed around. That was good enough for me. :D

Please excuse the poor scan quiality. I had to piece the drawing together from three seperate scans - my home scanner is a small one...

Sketch Book Dump from Dallas and Beyond

One of these days soon I am going to finally finish up this colored-paper sketch book of mine, I promise. On my recent trip to Dallas for the ConceptArt.org workshop I was able to knock out a few pages in the "warm color beast." Enjoy...

Some girlies.

Rock Man! There is a great story behind this sketch, actually. Ask me about it sometime.

I have been somewhat obsessed with the octupus lately. Here's some goofy sketches.

Sketches of Mr. Bill Stutte and Mr. Nate Storm sketching in Dallas.

Golden Era Hip Hop Zombies! Yeah, I donno'... :P

Doin' the Worm - Literally

A few very quick character sketches of a B.boy worm for one of my ongoing clients. I like the way these guys turned out. :)

Eye Candy for the Average Deviant

Some recent logo design explorations for a new client. This project is looking like it could be quite the adventure... I really like how these came out, personally. Fun stuff!

T.P.A.C.

Wearing my TPAC t-shirt on my latest ghost-hunt. I swear that I felt something lick me...

I'm a sucker for all things paranormal. I like ghosts, ghost hunting, and the idea that the spirits of the dead haunt the living. That said, I jumped at the chance to help a friend out with some logo design when he told me that he was setting up a website for kids to share ghost stories. The above designs are explorations/finals for the Teen Paranormal Adventure Club logo. You can see my buddy Michael's ghostly website by visiting www.teenpaclub.com. And don't ever avoid that creepy feeling - you're being watched...

Ken Foree

Ken and I at Crypticon in Minneapolis, September 2006

Some of you might know my good friend Ken Foree from 1978's Dawn of the Dead - George A. Romero's genre defining zombie film. I have had the great pleasure of getting to know and working with Ken for the past three years. These are a few (of many) of my favorite design explorations for works I have done with/for Ken. Visit www.kenforee.com to see what Ken has been up to. Be sure to check out the merchandise section on Ken's website where you can choose from three Ken Foree t-shirts designed by yours truly. And remember... When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!

Had to Give You a Little Bit of Myself...

Papercraft is fun. You can print out the flat version and have your very own little Jim! It's simple. Cut along the solid lines - fold along the dotted lines. Glue the tabs and put it together. Insert the neck tabs into the slots on the bottom of the head to attach body. Yay!

Yeah...

So Long, 2008

Holiday gifts for friends and fellow artists. Happy New Year!

Aaron...

In memory of my friend and co-worker, Aaron Beck.

Fun Faces

Some fun face sketches from photo reference. Yes, that's BB King on the left. I am going to see him in Boulder this coming April and am stoked! Been playing a couple of simple BB licks on the guitar - over and over - I'm sure my wife wants to punch me...

Holiday Greetings

A quick bearded-angler I did for Holiday type uses at NetDevil. Painer & Photoshop.

JIM-E

A quick doodle of Wall-E (Dad, show me how to draw Wall-E) I did this evening after dinner with the markers my son got in his Spiderman Art Set for his birthday. A nod to my love from the greatest digital romance story of our time... and a bit of longing for that position at Pixar, I suppose. ;)

Improv Logo

From time to time my graffiti career comes around in my professional art life. It's cool to have that background to draw from, ya know - one more thing that makes me unique as an artist. Sometimes I want to push my graffiti further - do all the trendy things that writers are doing these days, like making collectible vinyl art toys and custom sneakers that sell for too much money. For now, the occational 'hey, bro! I need a custom BeastOH handstyle logo' will suit me just fine. Here's one I just finished for local music producer Improv. Cheers!

Mage

Digital. Photoshop/Wacom Intuos3

Monsters & Dinos

Newer sketchbook pages. Cheers!

Angler-O-Lantern

A quick painting I did for this year's NetDevil company Halloween Party invite. It's supposed to imply an angler fish jack-o-lantern.

Velma Records

A series of designs for a certain client of mine. I really dig how these came out.

Bluesman in Orange

I continue with my orange paper sketches.

Goofy Sketches...

The Rock-Ness Monster. A quick challenge by a friend at work. "Draw me a Rock-Ness Monster and I'll buy you sushi." So I did. Very quick - maybe 20 minutes... I'd like to fully render this. Maybe someday...

The monster what stubbed his toe...

Um... yeah. Not sure about this guy...

Here is some of the progression involved in the design of the logo for Ghetto Golf, the first title being developed by indi-game design studio, IllFonic. I have done a bunch of UI and Graphic Design for this game - all graffiti inspired and very fun.

Strange Tattoo

Well, subject-matter wise, this is one of the 'softer' drawings I have ever done. It was a request for a tattoo design from a lady on our HOA board. My wife, Tess, is on the board and I happened to attend one of the meetings with her. Doing what I do and doodling through the meeting, the client in question, after seeing my doodles, emailed Tess with the design request the following day. Honestly, I took on the job mostly because Tess told me I could not draw a pretty unicorn. Ha! I didn't spend too much time on this, but I like how it turned out. The top is the finished pieces, below is the initial sketch. I like the butterfly in the sketch better, personally.

Tess Sketches

Muse.

Denmark Sketches

I was able to do a few personal sketches while I was in Denmark last week meeting with the nice folks at LEGO. For some reason I kept drawing large creatures? Maybe it was because I was browsing Bernie Wrightson's creature designs for The Mist before leaving - none of which look anything like these, really...

New Personal Brand

One of the new designs I played around with for the update of my personal website. I like the feel of this a lot. Check out the entire update! www.jimstigall.com

Quickie Characters

A series of very quick character sketch studies. Photoshop, about 15min. a piece.

Orange Dream

Sketchy action.

IllFonic Logo Design Progression

Some logo design done for a friend. The first image shows my initial explorations. I really dig the ones with the phonograph speaker, personally. The second image shows variants on chosen logos from the initial set. Image three shows where we ended up. I can dig that too. Adobe Illustrator.

Vulture

Quick digital sketch from late last year. I like him, so here ya' go.

The Littleague

The latest round of character drawings for a developing kid oriented cartoon hip hop group being put together by a good friend of mine and former frontman of Yo! Flaco. Check out The Littleague at http://www.myspace.com/thelittleague.

Best Christmas Gifts, like, Evar!

I did these quick zombie-fied portraits of the owners of my studio for Christmas this past December. Done with Derwent Studio Indigo 36 pencil (thanks again, Dave!). In order from top - Ryan Seabury, Scott Brown, & Peter Grundy.

Older Vector Work

Some vector work from last year. The blue portrait is one I did for Tess' card on out first Wedding anniversary in October of '06. The Deviled Eggs logo is my interpretation of the goofy name of an in-studio band we put together for the NetDevil 10th Anniversary Party. The second portrait was done upon request for a friend named Brenna. The two images with the LEGO Skulls are ideas for LEGO art team t-shirts here at ND... I'm not all together sure what is to come of them, if anything. Enjoy!

Side Project

The very beginning of something I am working on with some friends. More to come!

Concept is Watching You!

This is what happens when you leave my team of concept artists alone in a meeting room. My stickies on top, Dave K.'s stickies on bottom. Ha!

DJ Vajra

The following images are a few pieces of a CD package that I have put together for my good friend and amazing disc jockey - DJ Vajra (www.djvajra.com). All elements here are vector based, created in Illustrator.

Under the Sea

The end rusults of the sketches shown a couple posts down. Aerosol paint on, uh... the wall. :D

Jimi

ADDITION:

I wanted to add one more Jimi image to this post... As most of you know, here at NetDevil we are working on a MMO game with LEGO. As a concept artist I've drawn more LEGO mini-figures than I care to count. Sometimes we have to do things to keep it fun. So, my lead, Jerry, paints up a Bootsy Collins mini-figure and throws down the challenge... This is what I came up with. We now both have guitar slinging mini-figs as in our email sigs. Goofy...

My latest passion in life has been learning to play the guitar. It's something I've wanted to do since my days as a drummer when I was in school. My lovely wife helped make that dream start to become real when she got me a beautiful Stratocaster for Valentine's Day this year. I call her Gladys and she's indeed the other woman. Ha!

Anyway, like many aspiring guitar players since the 1960's, I am heavily inspired by Jimi Hendrix. I have been listening to The Hendrix Experience constantly (even more than usual) and watching all of the live performances I can.

And like any kid who likes to draw, I tend to draw what I am into. This was also a fun little play around with Painter - an art program I am slowly becoming more comfortable with. I tend to use Photoshop exclusively for work, but I am having fun with Painter. Perhaps soon I'll start integrating it into serious business. :P

Dr. Sketchy's

A few sketches from Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School Life Drawing in Denver last night. Enjoy!

First Official Post!

Welcome to my blog! I hope to showcase a range of artwork here, from doodles to finished paintings. I will try to add updates often, so please come back and visit often.

This first post includes some quick digital sketches. The sea turtle and diver are sketches are for a mural job I will be doing. The heart was a very quick image I came up with to send out in a Valentine's email at the studio. Goofy, yes.

Cheers!