Ben Folds Five Fraggle-ized:

At the New York Comic Con I was given a great opportunity to present the members of Ben Folds Five Fraggle portraits of themselves. The idea came from MTV Geek who wanted to celebrate the band's recent music video featuring Fraggles and my past Fraggle work and love of all things Henson. The video below can also be found at the band's site or MTV Geek

Get More: Geek: Event Coverage, Full Episodes

While the MTV Geek video below makes it look like I did the artwork at the show, I actually did it the night before leaving for New York. I was too nervous to try and slap together the art at the show while the band waited. It's hard enough to draw likeness, and even harder when confined by Fraggle features, and most difficult when done on the spot. Here are the pencil sketches with digital color mock-ups I used to do the final paintings.

I looked at photos of them online as well as a few performances to try and get a likeness and caricature of them. Unfortunately I didn't get scans of the pieces before I handed them over, but they were all pretty cool guys and were kind enough to gather back together after the interview ended and they were told they could leave, to come back and get a photo with me and their portraits.

Detroit FanFare & Commissions:
This weekend I'll be at Detroit Fanfare in Daerborn, MI. Unfortunately I won't be doing any of the detailed inked commission pre-orders for the show like I planned because of my schedule and what I have due at the moment (the end of Black Axe 6, Black Axe Hardcover epilogue, & Next Year's FCBD cover). However, I will be doing watercolor commissions like the examples below for $120 (single figure, limited detail, & wash background). I'll take about 5 names per day of these per-day.

Watercolor Wednesday:
In case you missed last week's Watercolor Wednesday paintings, here's another look. First up is the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. All the white was achieved using a gel pen after the paint had dried. From time to time I enjoy doing my take on a classic illustrated character...There have been a number of versions of the Caterpillar so I did a quick google search to see what had been done in the past before I set out to do my own take.

The next is a Mother Goose type goose character. I love fairy tales and children's stories so with this piece (and the next) I was doing my best to evoke the feeling of being read to and peeking over at illustrations by Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham.

Last is another fairy tale archtype, the old woman who may -or- may not be a witch. For sake of leading you on further, I say she is a witch, but a good one who saves most of her conjuring for unthanked deeds and improving baked goods.

Tomorrow I'll post more original watercolor paintings for purchase in the online store.

2012 Appearances:
Detroit Fanfare: Oct 26-28
Thought Bubble: Nov 17-18

2013 Appearances: Emerald City: March 1-3
Fabletown Con: March 22-24
C2E2: April 26-28
Spectrum Live: May 17-19
Heroes Con: June 7-9
San Diego Comic Con: July 17-21

*more 2013 dates coming*