Duck The Zipper - aka Merganser aka Morgue the Zipper

So I've been fiddling around all day with this Duck idea, and I've come up with some strange and interesting solutions that have very little to do with the DJ's initial idea. I just kind of let myself go in any old direction that my pencil felt like and this is where I ended up. The first series was what you might expect to see, an anthropomorphic duck creature thrown into a zoot suit for good measure. But as I started doing my thumbnails and getting some action out of the bird, I began thinking to myself, "What if the bird is a symbol, Like BATMAN! So instead of being a bird, the character just has bird-like equipment and he's actually more of a Kick-ass superhero type of character. So what kind of equipment would make him cool, birdlike, and stealthy? How about a wicked looking bird helmet! I know, right? that's what I said. Freakin Sweet! So I sketched it out and then decided to do a full body character study and colored it up a bit in photoshop. These probably aren't sketches that will stick around for the final draft, but process is as process does and I just wanted to show you all what kind of fun you can have with a pencil.

Duck the Zipper - A Hooded Merganser

My brother Jesse is a DJ who goes by the name N'YaBass. He's on the verge of putting out his first Album entitled "Duck the Zipper" about the emotions of his own fictional character of the same name. We had a discussion about the character and he asked me what ideas I had and if I would create an image that he could use for his Album Cover. The first thing that I thought of when I heard "duck" was that I definitely don't want to make yet another Daffy, Donald, or even Howard rip off. So I told Jesse that we need a new distinctive duck like a Wood Duck or a Merganser. He hadn't heard of a Wood Duck and thought that I literally meant a duck carved out of wood. I described the birds to him and he said "Cool." So I've been stewing over this for a night and I started working on some thumbnails and some other sketches of ducks. I had a list of other ducks including the Harlequin Duck, the Bufflehead, and the Barrow's Goldeneye. All very distinctive and ornate waterfowl in their own right, but I decided that the Hooded Merganser was the way to go. I saw many Common Merganser when I was in Alaska, last summer and remembered how much my grandmother really got excited when they came around the cabin.

A little info on the Hooded Merganser: The Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) is the smallest of the three merganser species occurring in North America. Male hooded mergansers have a large white crest surrounded by black. The top of the head, neck and back are all black, and the chest, breast and belly are white. Wavy black lines can be seen on the tawny sides and flanks. The hindback, rump and tail are dark brown. The long, narrow, serrated bill is black. The iris is bright yellow and the legs and feet are dull yellow.

These ducks feed by diving and swimming under water to collect small fish, crustaceans and aquatic insects.

I Liked this picture because all of the rest of the pictures were really nice and fluffy. This one shows the true and terrible nature of the savage male Merganser, preying upon this helpless crustacean. HAHAHAA!

Drifter update #4!

So I've been working like crazy trying to get this piece ready for the show on Friday. Which means that it needs to be printed, framed, and at the The Great Frame Up before tomorrow night! OUCH! That's a tight deadline. But I decided that the front end of the motorcycle was looking a little sad and needed some beefier forks and such. The tires were looking a little wonky, too, so I've fixed those. Really just tightening things down, now, and getting the drawing really solid before I start really rendering everything in great detail. We'll all just cross our fingers and hope that I can get this thing polished up in time. If there's anything I'm missing that looks a little weird, I'm totally open to critique, right now. Thanks!

High Plains Drifter Pin Update! process #3

I've been pretty busy getting things ready for my show on Friday night at The Big Frame Up in Littleton. So I'm really getting in gear to bust out this last pinup so that I can have it ready to hang before Friday Night. Here's just a quick process shot of where I am, I'll have a more refined version to post, tomorrow, but I just wanted to show you that I'm still working and revising.

High Plains Drifter - Process update 2

I'm playing around a little with different hats. I tried a straw cowgirl hat and didn't like it, so in sticking with the Man with No Name theme, I gave her an Eastwood hat. Not sure if I like it brown, but I'm going with it, for now. I haven't tucked all of her hair in, yet, because I might get rid of the hat completely in the future. So here's a little bit more rendering on the skin and face, haven't gotten too much into the bike yet, but I'll get there soon enough. I'm just glad that my Kawasaki Drifter 1500 doesn't have too much chrome. The American Ironhorse Chopper took a long-ass time because of having to render all of that chrome. I recently found out that my buddy Eric has an 800 Drifter, so now I'm getting ideas of doing a piece with two girls and two Drifters.

High Plains Drifter Pinup

Howdy Fans, Working on something that is very close to my black little heart... My OWN BIKE! Freakin Sweet! After nearly a month long Holiday away from pinups I'm back on track and this time I'm using my very own 1999 VN1500-J Kawasaki Vulcan Drifter. That's 1500cc's of fuel-injected, shaft-driven, two-wheeled rolling classic beauty with all the classic flavors of a '47 Indian Chief but all the kick-ass power and performance of the 21st century. This will also be the first pinup in a line that will be exclusively designed for print on tons of novelty items from buttons to posters, coffee mugs, sweatshirts, and whatever else is available to print on. This is still in the early stages, obviously, but I thought I'd post a quick process shot to show you that I haven't been entirely sedentary since my last post. My bike currently has Vance and Hines pipes on it, but I still have the original 2 into 1 Fishtail pipe, as well and I thought that the original pipes have a nice classic look to them that I wanted to preserve in the painting.