Monster Mania Artist Commentary - Bacon And Egg

This Monster Mania drawing is part of a series within the series that I call “Monster Buddies.” Several Monster Mania drawings feature two monsters. Sometimes a monster needs a buddy.







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Monster Mania Artist Commentary - Brain

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Over a decade ago, I was a freelance illustrator for Grantland, a now-defunct sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. Working for Grantland was fun because I got paid to draw Kenny Powers, Walter White and Johnny Utah. The downside to working for Grantland was the extremely tight deadlines. It was common to receive an assignment on a Thursday afternoon that was due Friday morning.     When you are working under a super tight deadline, you don’t have time to brainstorm or incubate ideas. You don’t have time to explore or experiment. You don’t have time to make refinements or fix mistakes. You do the best you can with the time you are given.  When It comes to the Monster Mania series, I serve no master, and I have no deadlines. I’m not in a rush to finish a drawing. I’m allowed to enjoy the process. I’m allowed to play and experiment. I’m allowed to explore multiple paths. I’m allowed to have a deeper conversation with the drawing. I can redraw somethin...
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Monster Mania Artist Commentary - Kaiju

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When I was a child I was obsessed with Dinosaurs.  I filled dozens of spiral notebooks with ballpoint pen drawings of my favorite dinosaurs. One of my favorite books was “The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs” written by Dr. David Norman and illustrated by John Sibbick. I would copy Sibbick’s illustrations over and over and over again. That book never left my sight. I had a Fisher-Price PXL2000 video camera and I would make dinosaur documentaries with my plastic dinosaur toys. I used my mom’s red nail polish to paint battle wounds on my Dinosaur toys. Sometimes the Dinosaurs would fight my Gobots and Ninja Turtles. I was inspired by Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien’s stop motion animated dinosaur sequence from “The Animal World” documentary. I wanted to make my own dinosaur movies.  I also had 3 giant inflatable dinosaurs and I would battle with them using my incredible wrestling moves. I also had dozens of wooden dinosaur skeleton model puzzles. I ate Chef Boyardee's Di...
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Monster Mania Artist Commentary - Melt Man

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The first batch of Monster Mania drawings were created in the fall of 2017. One of those drawings was called “Melt Man” and featured a radioactive skull with melting flesh. At the time it was one of my favorite drawings in the series. In 2021, I gazed at that irradiated skull and the little voice inside my head said “You can draw this better.” I like to believe that my drawing skills have improved with each new drawing. To be honest, that little voice is always screaming inside my skull. I constantly fight the urge to revisit all of my old drawings and George Lucas them to death. It would be easy to get trapped inside a Star Trek style time loop and just keep drawing the same 10 drawings over and over and over again. The original “Melt Man” was different because it was hastily drawn and considerably less refined than all of the other drawings in the Monster Mania series. The drawing stood out because it didn’t fit the aesthetic of the other drawings.  The new “Melt Man” drawing is ...
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