Transforming Optimus

I need to explain my geeky reasoning behind this before going too far.  A few months ago, I was researching modeling.  As in, car model kits.  Not modeling for Victoria's Secret.  As much fun as it would be to see me in heels, cars and actual models don't go together.  Oh wait.  Yeah they do.  Nevermind.  As I was saying...concerning car models...I discovered that no one as of yet, had manufactured any Transformer models.  They have diecast models and things like that, but nothing you could actually build  and paint yourself.  At least yet.  In my search, I found that people (modeling folk like myself) had actually started buying the Transformers toys and painstakingly detailing them, with weathering, more accurate colors, etc.  I thought it was an interesting idea and am going to try it.  So, when my wife said, 'honey, I need your Christmas list', I added Optimus Prime to the list.  In toy form.  Yep.  That's right.  Optimus freakin' Prime.  For those that don't know, he's the semi. 

Much to my wife's dismay, she obliged, and believe it or not, I unwrapped him at Christmas with no shame.  I felt like a kid again.  It was great.  I think I did hear her say at one point, 'I can't believe I'm bought a Transformer for my 35 year old husband.'  Like I said - no shame.  I have a plan for this dude.  

As I opened the box, I noticed on the front cover it said '5 years and up.'  I thought, shit, I can handle this.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  As I removed the packaging surrounding Optimus, I pulled out a folded instruction sheet.  My eyes widened as I unfolded the sheet, outlining all 27 steps to transform him.  27 steps!  It came 'untransformed' as Optimus in character form.  So, my goal became to transform him into the semi.  My attempt lasted a few hours before I gave up and handed it to my brother.  

Could Justin do it?  Nope.  He gave it a valiant effort though.

Could Amber do it?  Nope.  Although, she got him farther along than my brother or I did.  (Notice the instruction sheet she's holding.)

After even more dismay, my wife, never to back down from a puzzle challenge, decided to try it.  90 minutes later, she got it.  

Remember the part where the box read, '5 years and up?'  Yeah, how in the world a kid is supposed to be able to handle this, let alone a whole series of these things is beyond me.  It took 4 grown adults to transform one toy.  I'd hate to see what Megatron is like.  Mean little bastard.   

Now I'm afraid to try re-transforming him.  Could be another whole day shot.  I know these things weren't that complicated when I was a kid.  I know it.   

Maya Christmas

Thanks to the chump who took my parking spot at Meijer the other day.  Despite the fact that I had my turn-signal on, waiting for that spot.  I used to not care about things like that, but at the end of the day, at times it can be hard for me to make a long walk like that.  So I'm patient-er in finding a better spot than what's in the nosebleed section sometimes.  That's okay though chump.  Remind me to run you over when I come back out.  You and your tattoo that's on your leg.  Wait.  It's 20 degrees out and I can see your leg?  Wait.  Oh.  It's 'cause you're wearing shorts.  When it's 20 degrees outside.  Gee, that's smart.  You're awesome...dude.  Now I'm really gonna run you over.

I'm happy excited though.  It's Christmas.  I think my shopping is done.  I'm sure there will be that - 'oh crap...I forgot about them' - gift...but oh well.  That's why they created the iTunes gift card.  It's for all those times when you forgot the real gift.  It's the fake gift that's to the rescue.  But everyone loves them.  I can drop $25 on iTunes in 4.8 seconds flat.  In a pear tree.  


And now, a word from Maya - 

 

 

 

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday.  Merry Christmas!  

~Jonathon

The Betrayal with the Reward - Part III (Final)

What if we all got together and started a photography blog?

As if I needed one more blog to manage or be a part of.  Here's the rub:  This one will benefit not only the readers, but also the users.  Different, right?  Well, in my mind it is.  With every photo that's posted, we're going to do our best to describe what it is we did to achieve it.  For instance, for those that are photography-savy or just want to learn, we're going to tell you what we did to the camera's settings prior to taking the picture and after.  (i.e, f-stop, shutter speed, ISO settings, flash usage, etc.)  We'll also tell you what camera gear we used and what we did in the editing room post-shot with Photoshop, Lightroom, or other editing programs.  In the end, we'll not only be educating our readers and dazzling them with what we hope are only great photos, but learning ourselves about the different ways we all shoot things and edit them afterwards.  I'll be the first to admit, there's not one photo out there from me that hasn't been in some way altered by my 3rd wife, which still remains to this day, Photoshop.  It's become as natural as getting in the car, putting on your safety belt and driving.  You take the photo; edit it in Photoshop;  done.  It's the way of things.  And then a few days later, you look back on it and think crap, I should'a done that instead.  Damn you, hindsight.   Reminds me of something Leonardo da Vinci said, and this is not a joke:


"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."

This is true for so many things besides photography and art.  I don't have a man-crush on Leonardo da Vinci, but when someone says exactly what you're thinking, but you can't express it in words, you tend to remember it.  Like you won't forget that one time when you came walking out of the bathroom with toilet paper hitchhiking on your heel.  And then your co-worker said, Um...dude...

There.  Write it down.  Copy and paste it to your forehead.  Tune in next week for another episode of Jonathon's Stolen Catchphrases.  I'm going global with this.  

Don't say you weren't warned about my tangents.  I do this.  A lot.  


Re-routing...


If we don't do this with every photo, don't come chasing us with baseball bats and the I told you so fingers, please.  We will do our best with the details based largely on all of our schedules. 

Details are still forthcoming, but I'm trying to get several of photographers I know involved in this.  The site will launch January 1st, 2011.  We will try and post as frequently as possible to keep it fresh, hopefully around 2-3 times per week, maybe more, depending on how big our author-base grows. 


More to come.

The Betrayal with the Reward - Part II

...I'm pretty sure Coke came out my nose at one point.  And that wasn't too far from the truth.  

It's not that I'm not familiar with commissions.  Because I am.  Relatively.  Maybe not as much as my buddy Matt, but close enough.  I've done all sorts of projects for people.  Some of which have been a lot of fun and some, well, not so much.  When I tell people what it is that I do, they usually follow that up with hey, could you make me a (insert your desired goofy project here) comment.  I was once asked,  

hey!  You know that Photoshop program!?  Okay, this is what I want you to do...take this picture, see me in it there?

Uh-huh.  

I want you to take away some weight on my body, remove all my wrinkles, and change the color of my shirt!  Can you do that??  

Why?

Because it would be great! 

Oh, so you want to look like one of those Cosmo cover models that are so digitally painted on the magazine cover that if their Smashbox makeup kit saw them in the mirror, even it would freak?  Um...no.  Scram.  I didn't say that, but I really wanted to.  I got off on a tangent.  I do that sometimes.  Bear with me.  

My point is that I'm used to commissions in all shapes and sizes.  Like, this one time...oh crap.  I'm doing it again.  Nevermind.  

But this wasn't a commission.  This was something bigger.  Three childrens books.  Thuureee.  300-350 drawings.  I want this project.  I need this project.   So, I started writing a letter...

Dear Photoshop,
I know you and I have been close over the years and all, but sadly, I have to go away for a while and have an affair with Illustrator for a -

No, I didn't actually start writing a letter, 'cause that would've been stupid.  But I did reply to the initial email and the progression bloomed from there.  This was back in October.  On December 14th, I signed the contract and fully committed to the project.  I can't reveal much more about the books themselves other than that.  The first book is tentatively scheduled to be on the market sometime next Spring.  Having said all that, special thanks to Kallie for giving me this opportunity!  

Now, I'm going to switch gears, turn around, and back up the truck to about a week ago.  And you thought we were moving forward...ppffff.  Nope.  But I have good reason.  Stay with me.  I have to keep my 3.8 readers a day coming back for something, right?
  
I have a few friends that are awesome photographers.  'Bout 3 or 4 to be exact.  I don't include myself as one, because I don't think of myself as one...yet.  But I learn from them and they learn from me.  We're symbiotic that way.  But not in a Venom meets Spidey kind of way.  Anyway, a week ago, I asked this question to myself:

What if we all got together and started a photography blog?

To be continued...tomorrow.  Again.

        

The Betrayal with the Reward - Part I

Being that I work with most things graphical professionally, I'm no stranger to using Photoshop or Illustrator on a daily basis these days.  When I was first hired however, I'd never before used Adobe Illustrator.  In the days that followed, I avoided that program like that creepy dude who talks too much around the water cooler at work, because the task of learning it seemed too daunting.  I can do that in Photoshop, I thought.  I don't need Illustrator.  Vector-shmector.  My PSD file in Photoshop might be 500 megabytes when I'm done, and take up more hard drive space than the entire HD capacity of my old Macintosh II, but by golly, I'd make it work!  I'd stick out my tongue and tilt my nose upwards at the thought of using Illustrator.  Don't tell me what I can't do in Photoshop, dammit.  I'll show you.       

At some point in the months that followed, my job slowly, eerily, and blindingly moved towards the more frequent of use of Illustrator.  Those irritating vectors.  Who's idea was this anyway?  I was not comfortable with this, but strangely intrigued.  I was not happy at all that I was gradually allowing this program to nestle itself in my life, like a cute stray dog I had taken in, at an emotionally weak and absent-minded moment.  Crap.  I'm turning to the dark-side.  The Emperor would be proud.  Him and his wrinkles.  And his finger-lightning-baddass-ish-stuff-I-wish-I-could-do. 

I couldn't betray Photoshop.  Or, at least I thought I couldn't.  Or, could I?  Could I learn both and not offend the other?  Could I use both in harmony?  Screw it, I thought.  I'll be the one that brings the gun to a knife-fight and see what happens.  Photoshop's got my back, right?  Right?

More time passed and I grew more comfortable with using it.  

One day, in the Summer of 2008, I had an idea.  An idea that would not only change things, but help others to see this infamous vector-shmector program as the brilliant, loving stray dog that it is.  Only then, I thought my idea was small and minute compared to the huge-ass world known as the Internet.  And it still is.  Really.  Slow your roll...my idea wasn't that big.  My idea was actually more of a question than an innovation, at first.  Why couldn't I use Illustrator as a means of digitally inking artwork?  Black ink over pencil drawings, but digitally.  In other words, I can make a mistake on my linework, erase it, redo it, all without having to apologize for it.  Change the line thickness (stroke) in one click?  Re-size without having to worry about resolution?  Someone's doing this already...has to be.  I'm just not that cool or innovative.  And so I searched.  Google told me nothing.  Yahoo said even less.  Youtube had a few faithful Photoshop inkers at the time.  But not like my traitor-ass was about unveil.  If I was going to betray my world known as Photoshop, which I've been using since version 3.0, I was going to do it with my boots on.  Illustrator style.  With a smiley face.  And boots.  

After experimenting with different stroke weights, brushes, and probably a few curse word combos, I discovered that it could in fact be done.  Holy shit.  Someone needs to know about this;  Someone needs to see how this could help things, I thought.  This result led me to one conclusion: Youtube.  Use a screen capture program, record myself doing this, upload the video to Youtube and save an inker's day.  And his boots.

On November 22, 2008, I uploaded the video to Youtube.  Little did I know where my delicate betrayal of Photoshop would land me.  And I still don't, really.  It's officially out of control.  Spinning.  Unraveling, yet soothing.  I'm buried, yet resting on the surface in the sun.  With my sunscreen on of course, or my wife might just kill me.  Her wrath is worse than cancer.  Believe me, I would know.  

Fast-forward to October of this year.  At time when many inkings, photographs, videos, and curse words had passed, I receive an email from a publisher.  In a nutshell, the email asked, I'm publishing 3 childrens books, would you be interested in inking all of them?

I'm pretty sure Coke came out my nose at one point.  


To be continued....tomorrow. 

ThanksForGiving Life

At time of year when families get together for turkey, potatoes and those awful cranberries, we often need to be reminded of gifts we have in our lives.  When I say gifts, I don't mean bags with streamers hanging off of them;  I don't mean glitter-ridden, wrapped boxes either.  And I certainly don't mean the score you brought home last year from Macy's Black Friday sale.  


I mean life.  The life(s) that are in your life.  Not lives.  Life(s).  One of the many definitions in our dictionary under the word life, defines it as 'the animate existence or period of animate existence of an individual.'  Well, we all have people who exist in our lives.  That's not a new development.  What we have few of, is people that bring life to our lives;  People that bring light to areas of darkness;  People who won't walk the path for you, but show you the clearing through the forest to get there;  And people that pick you up when you've fallen down.  Each of us have an amount of people in our lives that do that for us.  It doesn't matter how many you have, only that you do.  


A friend of mine once said, 'It doesn't matter how much wealth you have or had;  but rather how many people showed up at your funeral.  That says what kind of a person you were.'  I don't truly believe in this statement, but it does hold some validity.  Are you more likely to be remembered as an asshole?  Or, are you more likely to be remembered as the person who'd do anything for anyone, regardless of personal benefit?  You choose.  Because at the end of the day, it's your actions that people judge you from, and your own conscience that you have to go to bed with.  


I present a challenge to my readers.  I wouldn't normally do this, but I'm in the spirit of Thanksgiving, so deal with it.  I challenge you to do something uncharacteristically nice for someone.  It can be a random someone, friend, wife, husband, family, etc.  No monetary gifts.  Just a simple act of kindness.  Why?  Because you DON'T have to;  Because it's NOT required;  Because everyone needs a little life brought into their life once in a while.  Gives them hope.  Reason.  Even humility.  Once you've completed the challenge, you must post what you did here on the blog, or on my Facebook post about it.   

When you're sitting around at the family tables passing around that nasty cranberry sauce, think about that.  Think about those that have brought life to your life, and wonder to yourself about how to pay them back for it.


Have a great Thanksgiving.  

~Jonathon

The Karate Kid Reviewed

Read about it now in my film blog.  No spoilers!

~Jonathon

Vortex

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my buddy Matt Martin created this character named Vortex.  He was published in several books and became pretty popular with the local comic masses.  In our on-going effort to do a book together of all his characters, he drew this one up of the original version of Vortex.  Similar to our Snowman project, he did the pencils and I went over them with inks in Illustrator, using my Wacom Tablet.  Vortex has since undergone some revisions and Matt has kept those under wraps for now.  Perhaps they will find light soon in another project.  I actually used this drawing for my latest inking tutorial video that was posted on Youtube a few months ago.  

 

Site Updates

It was brought to my attention recently that I have all this stuff on my website with the exception of an email address.  Oops.  Not sure how or why I omitted that.  It is now listed under my 'bio' section.  There.  Now, you have no excuse.  

The photography section has a few new photos as well.  Some of which I've already posted here in the blog.  And in case you haven't noticed, the main banner was changed.

ND takes on Michigan this weekend.  Hopefully, at the end of the day tomorrow, we will be 2-0.  Go Irish!

Long Weekend for Labor Day

These past two weeks have been just a little short of insane.  Is there an adjective stronger than that?  If there is, I'm too tired to try and find it.  Putting in over-time at work coupled with last minute deadlines has been breakfast for days.  And dinner for that matter.  I really wish I had more time to post things, 'cause I always have a lot to say about nothing.  I'm pretty sure recent history is written on my down-trodden face.  If one more person says to me 'dude, you look tired.'  I might have to strangle them with both hands.  Not just one.  Better yet...I'll use the Force Choke on your ass.  Make you suffer a bit.  I'm sure a lot of it is attributed to the meds I'm on...but that's a whole different blog.  

I included in this post a recent panoramic shot I took at a lake.  It's my first one.  Took the shots and then edited them in Photoshop.  But now I'm looking forward to spending time with friends and family this weekend.  Enjoy the weekend everyone, and be safe.  

Under the Knife

My Camaro is in surgery.  For those that don't know me, I'm extremely anal picky about who works on my car(s).  But I'm not saying who's doing the work.  It's classified.  If I told you, I'd have to kill you.  Ever since I installed my headers, my A/C hasn't worked because of a punctured line.  That happened back in 2002.  That was one of those - oh c'mon just one more shove to the pipe in there and BAM!  PSSSSSSSS!  Oops.  There goes all my freon.  Literally gassed myself out of the garage.  That wasn't any fun.  Good thing my wife wasn't in there at the time.  Pretty sure I would've heard it about that one.  That stuff doesn't smell good.  But all that comes to an end soon, while my mechanic works to restore the line and freon to working order.  It'll be nice on the few hot days we have left for the year.  Hopefully, I'll get her back tonight in time for me to enjoy this gorgeous weather.  

New Video Posted on Youtube

It's only taken me nearly two years to complete another tutorial video for all my friends on Youtube.  That's not bad right?  You guys screamed for another Illustrator inking video, so I obliged, this time using Illustrator CS4.  This is the fourth video I've done, and being under the scrutiny of a screen recorder is still uncomfortable.  I used a new drawing as well.  My buddy Matt Martin drew this for me to ink, so with his permission, I figured this would be a great opportunity for a new tutorial video.  The drawing is great rendering of a character he created in high school called Vortex.  Special thanks to him for that.  The pleasure is mine, really.  I respect him greatly as an artist, so being that he allows me to ink his drawings is a real treat. 

One of the reasons it's taken me so long was that I was trying to figure out a new way to present an old method.  Well, I shouldn't call it old, but this method of digital inking has been around for awhile.  So, I figured I would just use the same method with an updated version of Illustrator.  I'll admit, I used to really dislike using Illustrator.  But my job has forced me to learn it, and now that I'm used to how it works, I like it.  It's great for this kind of a process.  

A few people have asked if this is possible in Photoshop.  And the answer is yes, partly.  Photoshop is a completely different program than Illustrator.  With PS, you're constrained by pixels and resolution.  Or, as we call it in the business, PPI.  (Pixels Per Inch.)  Not to be confused with DPI.  (Dots Per Inch.)  They work together, but they are not the same thing.  Illustrator is basically a vector program.  It's not limited by pixels.  I may explain in more detail in another post.  But, if this video is as successful as its predecessor on Youtube, I'll consider doing one in Photoshop.  I know a lot of people would like that, because Illustrator doesn't seem to be as common to users as PS.  

My original inking tutorial has almost 80,000 views as grows every day.  Thank you to all of you who viewed it and asked questions.  And I hope you enjoy this new one that I posted today.  

   

The Book of Eli

Over the past few months, I've heard a lot of good things about this film.  I didn't purposely post this in my film review blog, because I wanted to talk a little more about the content of film, not so much the film itself...if that makes any sense.  I'll try my best to avoid any spoilers...

I love post-apocalyptic films.  For some reason, it's of great interest to me to see how the human race would handle such things like nuclear war, fallout, or just extinction in general.  It's probably why I'm drawn to the Terminator franchise.  However, this film doesn't deal with advanced cyborgs that look like us, or the events that lead us to a war of that scope.  There's no fish people running around with webbing between their fingers and toes, and no dreadlocked aliens coming to dinner.

We get the general idea early on that the world is wiped out, cities leveled, and anarchy reigns over territories.  Money is of no value.  Things we now take for granted, are treasure.  Like, books, water and simple comfort of a warm bed.  In this film, the war or fallout took place so long ago, knowledge of religion and law has been long since forgotten, or lost.  People have no idea who God is, or where they came from as a species, with the exception of a few educated people in places of power.

Denzel Washington plays a character who has a vision of a society that needs brought to order.  A society or collective race rather, that simply needs direction.  The simple, age-old-cliche solution - bring order to chaos.  How do we do that?  Yep.  With a book.  But not just any book.  The book.  That's right.  The Bible.  You can figure all this out just from watching the trailers, so don't worry, I'm not ruining anything.  Gary Oldman, who I think is freakin' great, plays a man who's in charge of town that needs guidance, or direction.  Remember that $2 bill that your grandpa gave you on your birthday?  That has no value here.  But your bottle of water does.  Hell, people kill for it here.  People need direction.  People need purpose.  What better way to provide that than with the book.  The book.  Knowledge is power.  Religion is power.  It can give societies power to rule, or govern your way of life.  The Roman Catholic Church did it.  Islam did it.  You can see where I'm going with this.  Imagine that.  A society of people with no order.  No law.  No knowledge of evolution.  What once was, is lost.  But, the Bible could change that.  Or could it?  If you were in that situation, and suddenly a book is found, describing the origins of life, sins of man and miracles, would you follow it?  Or would you follow its message?  Would it be enough?

It was an interesting film, both from a viewer's perspective and a speculative one.  It leaves much open for debate and will leave you talking with your friends about it afterwards. 

More HDR with CS5

I keep looking for excuses to keep messing Photoshop CS5's HDR toning tool.  Here's a photograph I took at the Gilmore Car Museum in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  The barns there were tough to photograph because they had so much natural light coming in through their windows and they didn't have any lights on.  Using flash was practically useless.  But I'm biased to using the flash anyway.  The photo on the left was the original and the right one was edited using CS5.  

I'll be adding these to the gallery soon.

Enjoy.
~Jonathon

Photoshop CS5's HDR Toning

Photoshop CS5 was released in April I believe.  Usually I don't like upgrading things on my computers because  because often times it breaks things, or plug-ins and other things aren't available right away for what you need to use. I was anxious to try this out because of the HDR Toning adjustment capability.  For those that don't know, HDR Photography (High Dynamic Range) is a method that's used to bring out other tones and variations in the image that are captured by the camera, but not necessarily brought out correcly at the time of exposure.  There's a long winded explanation behind the 'actual' process of shooting this way and editing it later.  But, the bottom line is, is that now there's a 'backyard' way to do this in the latest version of Photoshop that I think is pretty damn cool.  Tutorials on how to do this and which settings to use are starting to pop up all over the net, so I'm not going to waste time with that.  What I can do is show you what I did in less than a few minutes of editing.

The photo to the left is the familiar shot I had of a train engine. Nothing wrong with photo in particular.  The one next to it was adjusted using the HDR Toning adjustment.  It makes the highlights brighter, the shadows darker, and detail more readily seen.  It's a more vibrant photograph.

It's fun to play with the settings and see what you can come up with.  I'm sure I'll be messing around with it more in the future. 

Snowman Colored Preview

My favorite time of the day is when I lay down to sleep.  Everything is dark, quiet and calm.  The hustle of the day has diminished and the noises that accompanied it have gone silent.  All that's left in the air is the sound of my wife breathing or the occasional movement of one of my dogs.  A fury a thoughts soon race over my mind.  I find myself reviewing the day, action by action, wondering what I could've done different.  Like, the things I said, the places I went, and the debates I took part in.  If an argument took place, I always come up with things I should've said, but didn't.  I think about the next day and look forward to what it has to bring.  And at some point, I drift off to sleep, only to start over again the following night.  It's my time.  I've grown to love my 'me time.'  

Here's also a sneak peak at what I've been working on in my spare time.  It's the colored version Matt's Snowman.  It's coming together very slowly.  I've never colored snow before, so this has definitely been a challenge, but it's starting to shape up.  It's far from finished, but hopefully soon it will be done.  I'm using Photoshop CS4 to do it. 

 

HULK

The first drawing from me of 2010.  I decided to do the Hulk.  For some reason, Matt's previous drawing I inked of Snowman inspired me to do this.  You can see the progress of it coming along.  It's still got a long way to go, but it's getting there.  I'm also busy coloring that drawing of Snowman as well.  As soon as it's finished, I'll post it up. 

Snowman Returns

After nearly a year and a half break from drawing, I'm coming back with a vengeance.  My great friend Matt Martin and I teamed up to do a Snowman piece.  I inked this over his pencils using Illustrator CS3 and my Wacom Tablet.  Love that thing.  I think this artwork turned out really freakin' awesome.  It really tested my ability as an inker and further pushed the boundaries of what I thought I could do digitally.  Not to mention the fact that I've taken so long to return to the dynamic of drawing in general.  Matt didn't make my 'comeback tour' easy.  But, I jumped in with both feet, and I think I came out with my boots on.  

Matt is taking this with him to the Chicago Comic-Con this weekend to show it off a bit.  It's been an honor working with him and we have several projects planned in the near future.  

Stay tuned for more...    

Stupid Busy

I apologize for the lack of posts.  I've been stupid busy lately working on all kinds of projects.  I hope to be posting a new drawing this week of a splash page of Matt Martin's Snowman.  This is my first drawing attempt for 2010.  It's hard to believe that I didn't draw at all in 2009.  'Cept for maybe a sketch or two earlier in the year.  The neuropathy in my hands has mostly diminished and I'm able to draw and write almost normal again.  

So, stay tuned folks.  New works are coming soon!  

Transformers and Tulips

Lately I've been working more with photography than drawing.  One of which, is a collage of Transformers that I put together in Photoshop.  Now, this comes with a disclaimer - I did NOT make the concept art for that.  All I did was find high res images of them on the net and put them together in one photo.  I wouldn't want Dreamworks or Michael Bay mad at me.  Who ever did make these images of them is badass though.    

The other photo is one I took of some tulips we have at home.    


More coming...


~Jonathon

Sketchbook Drawings Available

After weeks of scanning drawings and trying to make them appear somewhat interesting, the sketchbook section is now up.  Don't let the amount of thumbnails fool you, for there is many sketches per preview.  A lot of what's in there dates back to when I was in high school.  But some of them you may recognize as finished drawings that made it past the cut.  There's dinosaurs, comic characters, a Disney character, a few women, comic pages and other various things.  Some of what's in there has only been seen by a few people, and I debated about having this section on my site to begin with, but I decided people may want to see the doodles I've done over the ages.  I hope you enjoy...

~Jonathon  

A Little History That Went A Long Way

Remember that scene in Back to the Future III where Marty and Doc have their picture taken in front of the clock for the tower in Hill Valley?  That picture ends being integral part of the story, just as it would be for anyone's family history.  Having said that, I always love seeing very old family photographs like that.  My Aunt sent me this one today. 

We haven't been able to identify everyone in the photo yet.  However, pictured behind the bearded man who's sitting down, is my great grandmother, Bertha Rose.  This photo was taken in 1910, 20 years before her death in 1930.  The bearded man was her father.   

Almost There...

After weeks of effort, the redesign for this site is nearly complete.  I appreciate everyone's patience despite the lack of updates in the last few months.  All that is about to change.  I'm still working on film blog, and sketchbook sections, so bear with me for a day or two with that.  The sketchbook section ought to be interesting in that most people have never seen my works-in-progress.  Stay tuned for that.  There are new photos in the photography section and my author's bio has been updated.

More to come...

~Jonathon