8x5=40

Been slacking. Here's some digital sketches of some personal pieces I am working on. Also have 2 freelance things, so these may take this week and next to finish.

The penultimate piece in the 40 series, titled "the onion" in my sketchbook. I posted a sketch of this a couple weeks (a month?) ago, but it has changed since then. It's now 8x5, with an alternate drawing that repeats 40 times. As seen here:



The actual "onion" drawing is the one thats different. I think it would be mainly shown as the single panel, but when possible, as all 40. Close-up of the onion:



Possible layer effect to be applied to the clouds. The way they look in the previous 2 sketches will look ugly once all that foghair is colored. Just something:



--

Since it is way easier to draw (no repeating pattern), this is the actual next piece I am working on:



Similar to the beach house piece in that this is also an old idea that I am finally getting around to doing.

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New Girl Talk CD is nuts.

Honorable Mention

Just found out about this today via Email.

Vamp. Cactus is Honorably Mentioned.

I think what happens next is there a competition of all the honorable mentions for a give time frame, and some of these can not slip through the cracks again.

Pretty neat.

spore some sugar on me

Downloaded the demo of the Spore Creature Creator tonight. I will buy the full version, but want to wait til I get a new mac.

Here's my first creature. He's called Venumare.





I'm sure that this Creator is a small taste of the full game, but the taste is delicious. This thing is easier to use than any thing I can imagine. Build your creature. Super simple. Record a video of him doing things with a built in uploader for YouTube. Snap pics that you can mail to people's emails. Upload your creature to the online database of creatures for others to download/etc. It's all pretty fancy.

Habit forming

Trying to keep track of a hobby so that I can pinpoint when it starts to become too much. Don't mind me.

June 4th, 2008



Abe Sapien: The Drowning (#5 of 5), Angry Youth Comix (#14), Astonishing X-Men Sketchbook, The Boys (#19), Brit (#6), Duostar Racers (#1), House of Mystery (#2), Kick-Ass (#3), Omega: The Unknown (#9 of 10)

-

June 11th, 2008



Top Shelf - 2008 Seasonal Sampler, 100 Bullets (#92), B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs (#1), Doktor Sleepless (#7), Invincible (#50), Superior Showcase (#3), Young Liars (#4)

-

In other news: Greenville is covered in smoke. Going out side is horrible.

Post 82: Vampire/woot!

Green is the theme this week on Woot.

the vampire cactus is green.

votes are appreciated.

Post 81: without

altho I recently renewed it, wburkert.com is now dead. it will from here on out forward to withoutbones. (well, right now they just share an index page, but once i learn how to make it forward, I sure will!)

sleepy and full.

beachhouse

beachhouse
Originally uploaded by wburkert

light, sound, water, hands. everything is blanket? no–everything is waves.

-

we sat and chatted at Helios. waves were mentioned. you laughed.

candy rain

dear sister
Originally uploaded by wburkert

i'm trying to complete all the drawings begun and thought of in greenville. i don't want the greenville ideas to travel with me. i need to purge.

stuck in my head.

between the bars

home from busch gardens. the griffon is amazingly fun in the front row. the coaster has a 205ft vertical drop, 90 degrees straight down. they stop the coaster right over the lip of the edge so that the front row is facing straight down and just stuck there, legs dangling in the wind. then they release and you are floating in between your harness and chair until you hit the loop. from there on its crazy fun on one of the smoothest coasters i've ever ridden.

also apollo's chariot was awesome.

how can catbeard escape this acid trap? lucky for him, the whole nine lives deal.

if you knew what i knew

i'm thinking that when wburkert.com/test goes live it will be under a new url. wburkert works and all, but the trouble with burkert is that no one knows the arrangement of the letters when it is spelled correctly. sure, i could be helping educate them about the name...but i could also not. have some idears, will think about them.

here be dead ideas; this was a t-shirt for a life insurance company. it is dead because we are no longer using the circular logo this idea was based on. if the print was thin enough, i would probably like this t.

A Love Letter

My laptop lives a strange life. This evening I hooked it up in my kitchen so that I could surf and gather notes and things while I watched a pot of water. Maybe it was just the power in the other room, but it is actually staying powered this time. Altho, for whatever reason, it won't charge past 87% of its battery. That's OK.

I was cleaning out my bookmarks and RSS feeds that had died or were no longer of interest and I came across one called DVR DV5. I wasn't sure what it was, and so I clicked it. Turns out, that's my TiVo on my network. So I downloaded the Mac TiVo Desktop app and found that I could stream my iTunes library to my television. That is really really awesome to me, as my computer doesn't seem happy when iTunes and Photoshop are running together. And I really have to hear sounds while I work or else it goes slower.

So, I love TiVo. I loved it when it just taped shows. Then I loved it more when it let me download select music videos and reoccurring Adult Swim shorts (Professor Bros, mainly). Now I love it again for letting me listen to my dust-covered iTunes on my TV. If this laptop could accept and read CD/DVDs than I would be in a higher state of bliss – but this older music will do just fine.

-

Been pretty slack on doing work lately. It is a problem I am trying to fix right this moment. I need to get that website up like crazy.

Back to drawing and listening to the Goatrider's Horde on my TV. Yay.

slowly, but its happening

random scans and also some things from today.

we got these promo postcards in the mail for a photographer. i doodled all over the Moby one in the same way I would a People magazine. This is a worm fighting a blob guy.



Was looking at a site online today where a guy writes a 101 word short story each day. They were recently collected in a book, and this was the supposed definition of the title of the book/site. all of these things, it turns out, are links to specific stories, but the word choices and ideas and visuals were too much to not screencapture.



really really rough comp for the next in the 40 series. I'm thinking about buying a screen or two while I am still here in NC and screenprinting some stuff. I would want to print + overprint this. But if that never happens, than it will be digital for sure. The peeking fella is from the first (comic strip) piece in the series, of which there will be another. book ends of graphic narrative.



moleskin scan. still thinking about redesigned Invisibles covers. For what reason? None, but I like to imagine and what not. Also some studies of Elliott Smith. Been wanting to re-do this haggered Elliott piece I did in college for like, ever. Saw a really good book of photos of him (hard to find pics of him, I've found..) while in DC. So I bought it off Amazon because I hate full price. Been drawing a little from it. Not going so well so far, as you can see.



Some more Elliott. Also: Tonight, the Gnome and this bearded cat I randomly drew on our whiteboard here at work and have been drawing quite a bit since. I call him Cat Beard, but he is going to have to get a better name than that. At first he was just a head, but when I hit the sketchbook he gained scale mail armor and a cat of nine tails/sword/shield. I like fantasy because I have glasses. Also, Elliott with a city head. I dunno. I think thats from the Hellboy 2 trailer or something.



This is an older Elliott from a rolling stone magazine. I dunno if I threw it out or not. Crap, I hope not. Anyways, this is from like the 2nd page of this sketchbook. So it's probably from the middle of last year. Also with Elliott are a mountain range and a hyperbolic shape. Back then I was really obsessed with doing a pop-up book of these mountain range drawings, and I still think it would be cool. I also liked hyperbolic shapes but its really hard to get reference for things that are impossible to see in three dimensions. Plus a line from a Joanna Newsom song, "These lives do never end" which played over the ipod while drawing this and I thought it fit with Elliott and these mountains of ghosted memories/dashed dreams.

less defined

I just ate a cupcake and it was a totally sugar filled bad idea. Something about sugar really doesn't sit well with my stomach.

Drawing dolphins and lightbulbs for two separate projects which I hope come to fruition. They could both be cool things to show in NYC.

Anyways, while sitting here, I thought I'd like to listen to the newest Official Lost Podcast if it was online. Hoped on iTunes and found a much better surprise.

remix.nin.com is a cool site, but what if you forget to check it on the regular? Well..

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=280145429

the remix.nin.com best of the day podcast. This is one of the greatest things I've come upon in recent memory. Remixes of old favorites fit better into my heart than newer songs that I don't know just yet. Besides, I'm home on my PC and don't have the newer albums downloaded here.

turns out I heard from a source that I should no longer trust -- The Fall isn't actually playing in Greenville this weekend. Next weekend, maybe.

Happy Mother's day, all you mommas out there.

Surfwise

The current HD movement in both TV and Movies is something I care nothing about. It doesn't bother me to see Ben Linus slightly pixelated or not crisp or anything like this. But tonight, an HD only channel finally made an appealing claim. The channel was HD Movies, which I don't have as I don't have cable or an HD TV -- but Hani does. Tonight they were doing a "Sneak Peek" of the documentary "Surfwise" which I have been very interested in seeing. As far as I know it hasn't even come out in theaters, let alone DVD or premium cable channels. So, this was a plus.

I should just look it up real fast on Amazon or something to see when it drops, but my kettle is whistling. Anyways, however you can see this movie, you really should. The idea and premise are both very interesting and I think that Doc Paskowitz has the perfect mindset on his life. Maybe not so much on his children in the current world, but still.

Anyways.

Barton

I've been on something of a movie kick lately. For a person that enjoys movies and likes the idea of a movie, I really find it hard to sit through a movie. In the past couple of weeks I have watched a couple. I watched Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. It was alright. I'll never watch it again, but alright. Then I watched The Savages. Not bad. Kind of slow. Won't ever watch again. Watched Fur, the Imaginary Bio of Diane Arbus. I enjoyed that. Strange and seemingly taking place in a day dream. Then, Iron Man. This was fun. I didn't stay til' the bonus scene after the credits, but I caught it online. Interesting to see where that goes. Theres a trend here I just noticed. The first two movies star Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and the later two star Robert Downey Jr. Those two guys need shorter names. Phil Hoffman and Robbie Jr. Today I finished up Barton Fink, and early Coen Bros movie. It was enjoyable, as their pictures normally are.

Theres a scene in Barton Fink where John Goodman's character feels saddened by the fact that (paraphrased) a man can work his whole life and fit all the things he owns and cares about in one small box. While un-pack-ratting my house, I feel a similar way. Except, I'm fairly excited to live out of a small box. I have three piles growing: Things I want to take with me, Things I want to have once my life settles down there and Things I don't really care if I ever see again. The things in the third pile will either end up in the dump or on a yard sale blanket/ebay auction block. Lots of just...accumulated stuff. Also some comic books that I've read and either don't care about or would rather have in a collected format. Theres really no need for almost every issue of Fables or 100 bullets or Preacher or anything. The collections are easier to store, read, handle, etc. If only they would collect Flex Mentallo I would be able to start to trim down the Grant Morrison stuff.

Threadless finally accepted/put up my 1st Submission today. You can see it by following the link below. If you aren't a member and want to vote on it, you'll have to sign up. But I plan on having a few more up there soon, so go ahead and join. Quite a few people have already voted, and I hope they are all positive. Can't find out for a week.



Tomorrow I pick up a new book from the post office that I hopefully will gush about tomorrow or the next. Good bye.

speaking of heroes...

doodled while watching this week's Lost. this came out. digitally recreated it and submitted it for crit on threadless. probably will never be anything. would it be lame to admit that the color scheme is based off some shoes i have? a shirt to match them would be nice.



headed home to watch Fur and Battlestar Galactica now. enjoy your saturday.

the calm

sneak peek at my new site with work I haven't posted here or anywhere yet.

http://www.wburkert.com/test/

i'm sitting right on the brink of two pieces that i'm pretty excited about -- if they turn out how i picture them. i think they will. before or after that i will be drawing and submitting a handful of shirts to threadless. would like to have one picked and use the money for a new laptop as mine is a brick with a hard drive attached. i'm thinking this could happen. as long as i think it, than it can. it's like thought sigils.

the collaboration that the previous post was apart of is done. only 1 of the pieces got finished. there is a chance the others will get done in the future. until that time, i have an increased interest in coloring/finishing them myself. they are last in the queue.

hellboy library edition vol. 1 came in the mail this afternoon. pretty amped to reread those trades in a larger format + new sketch books and junk. i hope it includes the extra stuff from the trades as well so that i don't have to buy trades to go with my issues and hardcover. that would just be silly.

also: started clearing out my pack rat den of goodies. many things are getting thrown out. magazines i was keeping for some future rereading. junk. etc. for the big move i would like to have a small bundle of clothes, a new laptop, some drawing supplies, some comics and a little pile of cash.

i was going to say more tomorrow, but Lost is finally back. so, probably not.

Day 3

The colors were getting to be too much for me on the previous version. I played with it some more today. Then I decided I would try a 3-color approach like I used on the Gocco prints. Then, if it calls for it, I may add a 4th. I'm still just toying with this. Currently uninspired, and this is what happens.

objects

process day 1:



process day 2:



i was using pink to block in shadows on the clouds and when i finally zoomed out i really liked the way it looked... so this will probably end up looking way different than it does in these two shots.

that's it.

"objects of importance: dear sister" graphite + digi '08

like a shifting shape when your glasses are off

coloring my woot word-bubble/sonar guy for a possible threadless submission. here is the very very early work in progress:



practicing coloring this without using the wacom cintiq monitor/tablet i have here at work, because when i move away, i don't see myself having access to one again for a long while. or, until i save $1000 for the small portable one and feel like i could actually need it. so, lots of pen tooling and careful mouse work. i think it will turn out alright, which is comforting. one less thing i would need to save for.

i gave up on those post-its for now. not really happy with how they are looking. i have about 7-9 total that i will put together and post here soon, probably in the next couple days. i have an idea for a possibly weekly set of drawing which i actually care to do and continue with. something i didn't have with the post-its yet.

friday, the birthday party with fellow march 26er + redhead, will goodyear, went off pretty well. cake and a pinata and cowboy outfits. pics when i can have lorna email me them from her iphone. thanks to ryan and ryan and lorna for coming out.

Post-B+C

Was too rushed to upload yesterday, but I kept the dream alive and got a drawing done. Yay. Here is yeterday's + today's (b + c)

b


c


if you can't tell, these connect. i'll put them all together here in time. maybe over the weekend (this is a during the week thing only. my weekends are too all over the place).

Post-A

Going to try a little post-it note drawing every day. Keep busy. Do stuff. You know. That kind of thing.

Here's today, Monday's:



Off to a good start. Or, a start, at least.

Woot II

I've entered another Woot competition. The theme is Lines. 1 color only. No fills. All the way up my alley, so I did two.

A. Vampire Cactus


Click here to view/comment/vote

B. It's kind of like sonar...


Click here to view/comment/vote

'dats it.

go go gocco

quick process shots from the front of the first real print off of my gocco pg-11

the blue run (i forgot to photograph this run the other day) sitting ready to print


registration plate to make sure everything will go in the right place


pulled print + my thumb


a "good" print


a "bad" print


prints that didn't make the cut of the 40 pulled for the series


the 40 winners drying


and that's it! going to add a back tomorrow and this will be finished.

Beasts! (process)

Beasts! was an anthology from Fantagraphics Books put out last year featuring ~90 current illustrators doing their takes on classic beasts/monsters/etc. This year a spot was open and they put out a call -- submit your beast and they will choose 1 from the masses to fill the spot. So I figured what the heck. I don't think I could be selected, but what harm is there in trying?

Anyways, I started today and here is the process/progress so far. My beast is the Brocken Bow. As soon as I read about it, I knew it was the one I wanted due to a couple of elements: clouds, mountains and fog. What better way to break out of my current drawing obsessions than to draw them some more? I know, right? Also as soon as I read about it I pictured the final drawing. Here's the first couple of doodles, drawn on the lower portion of the list of beasts already being used.



I had two ideas for the Brocken. Either horizontal hatching or this clockwise continuous line scribble thing I have been drawing for gocco prints.





Then I read another post about him and they were saying that in most cases his head appears as a "halo" of lights. So I had to decapitate the poor guy. I really was enjoying the way his head looked too. So I scratched out a tiny rough of the thing again.



And here's one of the scribbly-ones that was a final drawing but I didn't like how he looked so I have since redrawn him.



The current working version of the illustration has both variations of the monster (lines or curls) but I am leaning more towards the curly one. I may redraw the horizontal line one to see if I can get it closer to what I want, but I think it's a bit boring and less of a shadow monster thing than its curly brother is.

Here's the little mountaineer guy with the file's base purple color on top of him. Trying some minor differences in the way things are colored here.

Alas,

Well, there it is. The end of Y: The Last Man. It now rests, upside down in the pile of comics I have recently read. It has been a long journey, and it is very sad to see things like this end. I looked forward to every month for this comic. This was my introduction to Brian K Vaughn and I will read anything he writes from here on out. Now I get to re-read this story for the (roughly) 5th time, but the beauty here is that I can finally read it all the way to the end.

60 issues. Collected in 10 volumes. Do yourself a favor and read (or re-read) this soon.

wburkert '08

working on a new design for my personal site. trying to cut down on the cluttered look of the current one as much as possible. this is a constant thing. one day this site will be 1x1 pixel thumbnails with no text and portfolio pieces that will scale as big as your monitor will allow. i just want a simple way to navigate work, and lightbox is not it anymore. also, having unique URLs for each page will help linking to pieces and sending URLs to friends/artdirectors/enemies.

here are a couple screen caps of the design as it stands now.



professional work category. simple nav. simple titles & info.



personal work category. stopped after 3 pieces, so the thumbnails on the left are all in their comp placeholder state.

and also...



all i can show (because this is all i have done!) of a sister site that will be designed/launched after my own is finished. pretty excited about it.

behance :: wow

was flipping around drawn earlier and came across this creative-oriented social networking site called behance.net.

I quickly stumbled upon this page and was completely in awe of how awesome these things are.

the best and the second best:

i can't breathe with these words in my mouth

Decided that a way to produce more work would be to join in on these online competition things. A couple for shirts, one for skate decks. Plus working on some stickers/submissions for a local skate zine.

Sketched this at work the other day while the 24x36 inch poster I was finishing was saving. Came back in to work this morning and drew and colored it. This is for the shirt.woot weekly competition, this week's theme being "dreams". So I pieced together some of the usual suspects and floated them as I so typically do. They are always supposed to be dreamy, so I guess it fits.

Here it is along with how it would look on the shirt.



If you have ever bought anything from woot! (and you should check it daily), you can vote on this shirt. If it wins, you'll be able to buy it for $10 next week some time.

Here's a link to it on the site.

http://shirt.woot.com/Derby/Entry.aspx?id=9364

As of this posting, it is in 103rd place!

Also, since it has been sitting here incomplete forever, I decided to "finish" this in the spirit of dreams.



That is Martian Luther King. It's like Martin, but from Mars.

For today, that is all!

The Same Words, COMP

Here's a quick comp of a 2-Color Gocco Print I hope to be running this weekend. Just need to cut down a bunch of paper. Planned edition of 40. Black & Blue on Reeves BFK (or whatever I have in my studio). Roughly 5x7.

still going strong; xo, mom.

dear elliott,

at all times i wish you were still here.

xo to you.

Yo part 2

Scored a whole box of yopurplehearts shirts today. 44 in all.

2 quick pics, with my camera + its horrendous flash.





As my mac comes closer and closer to death, I wonder: a new macbook pro or an 8 core big daddy mac pro? oh computers.

the horse

finally getting back into productivity mode. here is another piece in a series of fog covered objects. i'm not sure if i'll do more. maybe if more objects present themselves as important. this piece has 5 titles. or, will have 5 titles once i pick the ones i want from this ever growing list.



we'll always have paris / debris / new achilles' heel