jessface and randy go to the grand canyon

after seeing my little photo paintings of tim and i, my friend jess wanted one of her and her boyfriend at the grandcanyon.  she sent me a photo of the canyon and i painted their cartoony portraits on top for a cute combination of their own personal memories/photos and original painting.

how cute. to refresh your memory, look back at my past photo paintings here!

tym nutcracker

this is how far behind i am... i am just now posting this nutcracker i made back in december for a christmas present.

i've made far too many pieces of tim, for tim, but he loves himself more than i do so i think he's okay with it.  i had the idea to make a custom nutcracker for him and figured it would be amusing and appropriate for the holiday.  i really wanted to have a photo of him side by side with his little nutcracker self for fun comparison, but he's a pain. just a side note, he wears this robot shirt (constantly), shorts (constantly), and the black hat with 3 buttons (constantly).

my quick (lazy) rendition of his donatello and brain slug tattoos

my choice of buttons: 3e love (i have to remind him that he loves me, by forcing disability awareness onto him), laughing boy comics (hilarious strips), and big d (one of his favorite bands and common button choice)

if you're wondering what that blotch is in his hair, tim has a white spot. i guess it's a birthmark, but that one circular spot is and always has been white in his hair. people think he does it on purpose, like some weirdo cool, hip statement or something.

the infamous robot shirt and tattoos

whether or not you know tim, it's still a fun little thing to share. i probably shouldn't admit this, but the night i finished painting him, he was just standing alone on my desk, at probably 3 or 4 in the morning. i don't know why (i assume i was watching some horrible b-movie horror flicks that scare me when they shouldn't) but i was staring at him in my dead silent art room, with his creepy nutcracker face. i have irrational childish fears, and i legitimately feared him coming to life and murdering me. i don't know why, he just creeped me out beyond explanation. when i laid my eyes on his crazy little face the next day, i had no idea what i was thinking. so i'm crazy, but it was late and i was tired and watch too many horror movies. you'll be happy to know i no longer fear him.

shark bait

i'm still not back in the groove of posting, but i'm working on it. this is a kritter painting of my sister back from 2009, but i just got a photo of it a few months ago. i have nothing else to post (which means i'm too lazy to edit photos or write...)  so here's nicole, my surf and beach loving sister.. with her scary great white friend.

dl pez

custom pez ! after seeing me make so many figures and customs for tim, of tim, my sister has bugged me about making something of her. her biggest life-long fantasy came true on her 26th birthday when i gave this custom pez dispenser with her own head on it! completed with her signature short spikey hair, huge smile, and big gangly earring. is gangly a word? i don't care.

i poked teeny tiny holes in the ears before the clay dried so i could stick through the earrings, made of thin wire, once her head was fully painted.  i used an iron man pez to build off of, hence her too-long-of-a-face. but overall it's a fun depiction of my dear sister. love!

free art giveaway: remember to check out my fun free art giveaway contest ! check my post for info and rules to win a free painting or sketch. contest ends february 14 !

custom pez

who wouldn't want their own head on a stick? my very supportive aunt asked me to do some custom pez of my cousins for christmas.  it's a little bit tougher to get likenesses of kids than adults, at least for me, but i think i got all of their basic characteristics that helps distinguish who each pez is.

since i use clay to make the custom heads, they become very top heavy. i've dropped them a dozen times, luckily without breaking or cracking, so that shows how durable they are. although if they hit at the wrong spot, there could be some damage. nick's hair was made of little pieces of clay coming out from the head, so that was much more likely to break off if it were to fall onto a hard surface. an easy way to prevent any accidents is to mount the pez on a heavy stand, possibly cement (as i've used in the past for other 3-dimensional projects.) here are some process shots of these two pez.  nick was made from homer simpson, and mikala from belle (beauty and the beast.) i just needed to figure out the best way to work with the existing pez to make it fit the new character. forunately for these two, i was able to use the pre-existing clothes and neck and work around it.  in my first attempt at a pez (tym pez), i had to carve and cut the pez to create an easier shape to work off of. 

to avoid damage, my aunt put each one in a pez container. unfortunately nick didn't quite fit well thanks to his cookie monster hat, but here's mikala, beaming in her fancy christmas pez stand!

i really enjoy making custom pez dispensers, so if anyone is interested, feel free to contact me!  i plan on making more, of myself, of cartoon characters (that don't already exist on a dispenser), of whoever else i might feel like making.  unfortunately my time may become limited in the near future. it's likely that i'll be working.. full time.. for the first time in years. more on that later, but in the mean time, love yourself or others by ordering some special customized pez !

affection connection

another commission from christmas time! this was by far my favorite commission to do for the holidays, not only because dark and romantic is my favorite type of artwork, but also because of the amount of freedom i had to design and paint it. the girlfriend wanted a painting of her and her boyfriend expressing dark, dramatic love, intensity, sexual attraction.  she listed a bunch of previous pieces of mine that she liked, so basically i took elements from them and made up a new, personalized piece. she left me with no restrictions, and in her words, whatever you "see", make, which is what i did. i had a few drafts, but felt they were too abstract and even more so, too impersonal. i ended up using the first draft as my first painting of 2011, so keep a look out for it in the near future.

the other reason i enjoyed this project, was the boyfriend was fully unaware of the romantic painting present. she asked me to wrap the painting so that come christmas morning, they could open the present together.  even though she knew it was coming, it became a surprise for the both of them. i thought that was a cute and pretty awesome idea to be able to share that moment together. i was happy to be a part of their special holiday. i'm a sucker for this kind of stuff. it's the one and only time i become girly.

brinks

my oh my do i need to go to bed. my eyes are on fire while i'm covered in paint attempting to create an underwatery background to prepare for the octo-trunk (future painting), as i'm watching the old mtv show "undressed" from when i was in high school (?) that is making me dumber by the second. i shouldn't have just admitted to that.

so here's my quick post! this is brinks the bulldog! yet another pup commission from christmas. who can resist that face? brinks is very affectionate, like a bull in a china shop. i hope brink's owner enjoyed their new painting of their little darling, because whenever i look at it, it makes me giggle.

puppy kritters

some more kaotic kritter puppy commissions from this holiday season.

meet jack the jack russell/pug mix and tatum the mutt

 next meet roxanne the little dachshund, flapjack the boxer/beagle mix, and zelda, the chubby long-haired dachshund

i'm pretty sure these two paintings were the last paintings done (i worked on them at the same time) in the year 2010. i don't know why that means anything, but i felt the need to point that out. but don't worry i have an even better piece (non-painting) that was my official last piece of the year, to be posted in the near future.

these were fun ones because they were a bit larger in size than i normally do for kritters.  they were each 18"x24".  i definitely love working on a bigger scale, something i really wish i could be doing more frequently. so that will be my goal, to make larger pieces this year. i have a whole bunch of plans for new projects this year, and i'm really excited to test them out. some are revisiting past projects, some are reworking past projects, and others are brand new. they are definitely all experiements, but i really hope to find something great through it.

sassy and hershey bear

 some kaotic kritter puppy commissions from christmas. i especially like the colors of sassy, the golden retriever.  i was told sassy was a very playful and loving dog who never barked. the name sassy makes me giddy because it sparks my memory of the movie homeward bound, even though sassy was the lame cat. dogs rule, cats drool.

 i also made hershey bear, the cocker spaniel. hershey bear loved coffee and snow, so i tried to give a snowy feel to the background, without actually making it look like a winter scene. i don't look at it and think snow, but since i know hershey bear loves snow, it's the perfect background to me. and so i hope it's new owner think so too.


more puppies on the way! when i told my dentist was doing lots of commissions for christmas, i mentioned a lot of them were pets. he said, "what is with people and their pets?" and then he stuck a bunch of giant, painful needles in my mouth, leaving my face and ear completely numb for the rest of the day. but it is true, people are obsessed. i can't wait to have my own dog (and only mine) so i can be crazy, too.

chef erEEK!

this is chef erEEK!  my sister wanted me to paint her chef boyfriend as a kritter for christmas this year and this is the outcome.  erik is kind of a neat freak so my original intention was to make it a nice, clean, organized kitchen, but it ended up pretty cluttered because it's more fun that way. it's much less hectic than it could've been though.  so hopefully i did a good job of portraying his personality, and his profession as a chef. i can't tell you if he's a good cook or not because he hasn't made me enough meals for me to judge fairly (hint hint), but what i've tasted has been delightful. so make me more. i loves my foods.

chloe

happy birthday mama! her birthday was technically a week and a half ago... but as many of you know, my mom's love for our dog is far larger than one's love for a dog should be. not really, but she is obsessed. i've made her several chloe drawings/paintings, and since i feel it is a safe assumption that she can't get enough of chloe artwork, i made her her very own chloe kaotic kritter customized vinyl toy! after winning the munny munth contest for two categories (yay! that's excitement, not bragging) i've had lots of kidrobot mini DIY toys lying around and used this as an opportunity to start (and actually finish) one.

i took the body of a raffy and the head of a rooz and made a puppy (you can see the original figure shapes here) by adding clay for her fur, face, sweater, collar, ears, and tail. very simple stuff that i spent two long nights on each night after my mom went to bed before her birthday. 

pre-paint photos:

i felt bad that we weren't celebrating her birthday until the day after so i made her a cake and used the chloe figure as a cake topper to surprise her on her actual birthday. it was amusing

chloe does love the turkey

tym pez!

i spent this weekend celebrating timmy's 27th birthday, and my present to him is his squid tattoo that i'm paying for next month. it just didn't feel right to be present-less on his birthday sunday, so i made him a customized pez of himself! who's sick of artwork based on tim? i suspect he is, but then again he is way too in love with himself for that. i'm still amused, so they'll just keep on coming.

tim's was (is?) a huge pez collector. apparently he has 700+ pez stored away in the attic ready to someday be displayed god knows where. his collecting has slowed down significantly sometime after he spent about $700 at one time on pez.  who would've thought pez could be such expensive hobby. every now and then i pick him up a pez that i like/he likes, but he really doesn't collect them anymore otherwise. since i've met him, back when i was 16, i've always connected him to pez-- through his aol screen name, sticker on his car, old bedroom filled from top to bottom (literally), including the ceiling in pez, and the stories i've heard about him wearing pez on a necklace around his neck in high school (what a dork).  so, now he is a functional pez dispenser.

to make this, i searched for a green pez dispenser (for green bay packers colors). the shape of the head wasn't right for what i wanted to do: his chin was way too wide, his ears and hair were unnecessary, and his snout stuck out too far.  so i got papabear to carve off each of those parts for me (see picture to left); i don't trust myself with sharp tools since i'm 90% likely to cut myself.  then i just build up clay and added some details and paint while praying i wouldn't break it.  i put tim's new customized pez back in the original bag and used two-way tape to seal it back up, and you could hardly notice unless actually looking for it.  my intention was for him to open up his little present, see the pez bag and wonder which one it is, like he has with the plenty of other pez presents i've given in the past, but this time to realize it was of himself!  it was a success and i tricked him (so he says).  either way i was excited and it was a fun mini project