MikeLaughead.com

Cute + Pink Batman

2009-10-25T01:02:27Z

Sometimes you just want to draw Batman.

I really liked these colors by Dylan McCrae, so I stole them from his site.

2nd Vulcan Sketch + Detail

2009-10-23T22:42:54Z

I've been thinking about Vulcans because I'm dressing as Spock for Halloween. This is a painting with a "Rake" brush I found online. It's very similar to a brush in Corel Painter.

Spanish Dude Sketch

2009-10-21T19:06:41Z

I'm having fun doing these sketches and digitally painting them. Maybe I should see how I can match this to my usual style.

Ninja Elf Sketch

2009-10-19T21:12:58Z

Drew a Ninja Elf today. Is the color stuff with the lines too much?

Vulcan Paint

2009-10-14T20:55:53Z

I decided to try painting a sketch I drew today. In some ways I love how it turned out, and in other ways I think it's just weird.

And thanks to Melanie Matthews for sending me some brushes to try out and suggesting one of the photoshop default ones.

Vulcans on the brain

2009-10-14T15:07:29Z

I plan on dressing up as Spock for Halloween so I've been thinking a little about Vulcans. I usually draw with a lead holder using non-photo blue "lead". I do this because I draw really hard and so I can ink or pencil over it and remove the blue in photoshop. Today I decided to use a darker blue pencil I have sitting around. I kind of liked it. Also, this guy might be related to Mic Jagger.

Madman Atomic Comics #17 Pinup, Twitter & Some Stuff

2009-10-10T20:41:48Z

So this might be a little long and random. In September, Madman Atomic Comics #17 was released. Click the image to buy it.

Well a while back I did a Madman Commission for Simon Miller. (Click his name for his Original Comic Art Shop website). He is connected with everyone involved in creating Madman and offered to send them a copy of the commission I did. I thought that was cool but forgot about it. It turns out that my commission is one of the pin-ups printed in the back of issue #17!

(I look scuzzy in the pic because I need a shave and a haircut, but I'm happy)!
Looking at my artwork printed next to some amazing artists, not to mention Mike Allred, has shown me how I can improve on my inking and details. I'm especially into the pin-ups by Rafael Grampá and Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.

In other Mike Laughead news. I have a Twitter account now. You can follow me under the username mikelaughead. Very original!

I recently visited Iowa for a friend's baptism. While there I got to meet Phil Hester who is an awesome guy. If you ever see him at a convention, say hi and talk to him about being from the midwest.

While I was in Iowa, my nephew Bob showed me this abstract art pen drawing he did. Bob just started middle school and is on his way to becoming a great artist.

I haven't been doing much artwork that I can post on my blog recently, but I'm posting a sneak peek of my current big project. It's a children's book about a little hippo girl that goes with her mom to buy her first pair of shoes. I'll post more when it's further along.

Finally, here is a poster I just finished yesterday. This is the art minus the type that will be used to promote GamingForCause.com. I was so happy to just mess around on this as a break from working on kid's books. The colors seem to have the "growth" feel that I was going for.

Thanks for reading, or just looking at the images like I sometimes do.

3 Hands?

2009-09-11T16:59:49Z

I'm now working on the 8th and final Robot & Rico book. I just started coloring this page and I realized that I gave Robot 3 hands without really noticing it. Have any of you reading this done something similar in a drawing? I thought it was kind of funny. I'm going to end up taking out the left hand holding the paper.

My mom and little sister are coming to visit today with my little sister's 3 boys. I'm really pumped. I hope her oldest is impressed by my artwork.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Robot & Rico Books 1-4

2009-08-17T14:01:21Z

In my last entry I posted the covers to some easy reader books I did earlier this year. I realized that unlike before, I haven't posted much of the work I've done this year because I've had bigger/longer assignments. This is the first of a few that I'll be able to post. The following is an image of 4 pages, each from one of the first 4 Robot & Rico books.

I thought I would post the small PDFs of the books so you guys could all see them and hopefully I could get some advice on which spreads/pages are the best for my portfolio. I've asked some of you before, but I'm still considering.
Book 1 PDF | Book 2 PDF | Book 3 PDF | Book 4 PDF

You can buy the books here:
Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, Book 4. Or you can check on Amazon.

I'm working on the next 4 books right now. I'm especially proud of how the sledding one turned out. I can't wait to show you guys!

Robot & Rico Covers 1-4

2009-06-26T21:09:47Z

I've been busy on a few projects recently. The biggest one being the Robot & Rico picture books.

These are the covers to the first 4 books, I'm currently working on the next 4 of them. These are beginning reader books geared towards boys. Robot & Rico are friends that do fun stuff together and run into a few problems along the way.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some spreads from these books soon.

Threadless kid's shirt up for voting...

2009-04-28T15:30:22Z

Score this design: "Butterfly Star!," to help it get printed on Threadless!

Family Portrait + 2 Shirts for Voting

2009-04-17T14:16:39Z

I do a themed family portrait for my wife every Valentine's Day. Well, I was crazy busy with work and... I dunno. So I just finished it. My 2 year old, Penelope, looks and talks just like an Ewok, so that's why I went with the Return of the Jedi idea. And as for why I made my wife and I brother and sister, well, I wanted a lightsaber. When I saw this as a kid I sure wasn't wishing I could be Han Solo.

--------

I also have 2 shirts up for voting.
The first is at Threadless.

The second is one LaFraise.

My Wooden Robot by
MikeLaughead

Please check out the shirts and comment on them. I appreciate constructive criticism so please tell me how you feel.

Record Shop, a Logo, Sketchiness and My Favorite Disney Princess

2009-04-16T13:30:01Z

This is an illustration for the Night & Day section in The Pitch. The section has a blurb about Record Shop Day or something. I had fun doing the album covers, please add comments for your guesses if you are inclined.

This Winter semester I have been teaching a Digital Painting class at KVCC here in Kalamazoo. I have the class upload their work to a blog for viewing and critiquing. Halfway during the class I made this logo for the class blog. I like how it turned out so I figured I would show it here. If you want to check out the class blog, here is the address:
KVCCDigitalPainting.BlogSpot.com
Much of the work uploaded is in progress, but there's some really great work on there.

Just a little sketch I did during a church meeting recently. I think this came as a result of reading Pride and Prejudice recently. The book is seriously awesome. I'm amazed that Jane Austen could write so well and so finished without an editor to help cut and change what doesn't work. The biggest problem I have with it is she sometimes doesn't say who is speaking in a conversation. That is frustrating!

Because Disney distributes the Studio Ghibli films in the US, I thought this little thing was funny. I guess I could have included Nausicaa in there as well, but that might not have worked as well. Just as a clarification, I did not draw this, I just photoshopped it together one day. I figured it should be available to everyone who wants it.

New Animated Website Header

2009-04-09T06:36:45Z

I finally fixed the bugs and added this animated header to my website. Check it out: MikeLaughead.com

Skeleton Kat, Squid Head, Buildings, Butterflies and Reptiles

2009-02-19T02:48:49Z

I was asked to do a sample for a children's book. The basic premise is a skeleton cat that likes to play the drums. Well, I went a little overboard with it. But the back and forth with the editors and art directors was really great. They had some great insights and advice. This is a progression of the ideas from first to last. There are things I like about all of them. I'm not sure if I like the 3rd or the last one best. But there are some great things going on in the first one as well.

I did this a while back as a t-shirt design. I really like inking with a brush, but my illustration style has veered away from it. This was an experiment.

This is from an old job. I had to do some building "caricatures". I'm posting a couple of my favorites.

My wife requested that I design a wallet she would actually like to own. This is the result. I think the tinymeat folks are pretty busy with their new store so I haven't heard back from them about it.

I did some spots recently and these were my favorite ones.

Dead Jr. Rides Again Tee = up for voting!

2008-11-10T16:34:07Z

Here's a design I have up for voting on Threadless.

Nighttime 3, a Praying Gorilla & Madman!

2008-10-16T17:43:56Z

I just wanted to drop a quick update of some new work.

3rd Nighttime cover. This is as far as the series is going for now. I can't wait to see these in the bookstore. This is my favorite of the 3. Anyone think one of the others is better?

This is a spread for Insight Magazine. I don't get to read the articles so I'm not 100% sure what this one is about. But I do know that the gorilla is very pious.

I was recently asked to do a Madman commission. (If you are interested in a commission, I charge $50 for an original ink drawing.) I also colored this one for fun.

I'm on Jeff Smith's Blog!

2008-10-14T13:35:59Z

Due to my recent interview linking to Jeff Smith's website, Jeff Smith himself took a notice of my artwork and the few comics I've done. As if that weren't awesome enough, he then decided to write a little blog entry about me!

Now, as I said in my interview, Jeff Smith is one of my favorite comic book creators and frankly one of my favorite artists as well. I first discovered Jeff's amazing comic 'Bone', when I bought issue #13 at the comic shop when I was in high school. It immediately was appealing in every way. The story was fun, intriguing and well told. The black and white art was full of life with tons of amazing brushstrokes. I went on to buy many other issues and eventually all of the graphic novel collections. Later on, in order to improve my inking skills, I copied a panel from the comic. Please, please, please check out Bone and give it a read. Here are some ways to buy it:

1. Directly from Jeff Smith. The one volume addition is the best money you will spend this year.

2. You can also buy from Amazon.com

It also might be at your local library. Either in the black and white version or the new color versions printed by Scholastic. Start with the collection "Out From Boneville".

I need to check out Jeff's other comic stuff, Shazam! and RASL. Both look awesome and the storylines sound great.

Jeff, thanks for checking out my artwork. You are really one of the best.

I did an interview!

2008-09-26T19:01:42Z

Tricia Aung of StickersAndDonuts.com sent me some questions and I totally answered them. Read it and find out about my secret obsession with: Taco Bell's Meximelt!

Read the interview here:
http://stickersanddonuts.com/2008/09/26/poster-party-day-8-mike-laughead/

Two shirts for sale at LaFraise.com

2008-09-19T14:55:22Z

These two shirts are up for sale on LaFraise.com now. Got check 'em out.

Tyson Schenk will someday have a mustache

2008-09-14T05:21:46Z

My wife pointed out to me today that I forgot to thank Tyson, my partner in crime, for the critique help he gave me on this cover.

Tyson, I am so sorry. I bet you were "just really T.O.'ed" when you read this last post. I do appreciate your help.

Everyone, you should check out Tyson's new blog:

KeepYourFaceRadical.blogspot.com

He is seriously insane and so are the girls that buy his hoodies at Ruehl.

Nighttime Covers

2008-09-13T00:44:26Z

Doesn't "Nighttime" seem like it should only have one "T" in the middle? Anyway, here are the first two covers for a series of books by Todd Strasser. Each book contains short "spooky" stories meant for the age group a little under the "Goosebumps" group.

This first cover is supposed to feature the haunted house and the little skeleton kid. He is the mascot of the books. Each cover will feature him in some way. I don't think he is in any of the stories, but he is the thing that unifies all the covers together. Fun fact: The peeling paint texture is from photos of actual peeling paint on my old porch.
Also, I got the main idea for the house from the Henderson Castle in Kalamazoo.

The second cover has the skeleton kid a little scared of being in the graveyard. I'm not sure how visible they are, but I put names on the headstones like "Mumee", "Wolfy Kid", "Boo Boy" and "Mon Store". Also, the texture on the headstones is actual texture from photo reference I took of headstones. (I live right across the street from a graveyard.)

I am currently working on the third cover. I am assuming that as long as Mr. Strasser keeps writing these stories and they keep selling, I will be doing more covers. Just so you know, I was already drawing skeleton children for fun, so these covers are pretty much dream jobs.

I also wanted to thank all of my friends that gave me great critiques on that first cover. You guys helped me to really see what I needed to do to improve things. I would especially like to thank Brandon Dorman who helped me a ton with many critiques. Don't worry, I'll probably ask everyone's help again on this third cover.

Halftone Process and Stolen T-shirt Designs...

2008-09-09T02:11:44Z

In response to my recent illustration for The Pitch:

I have been asked what my process is to get the halftone dots. So here is the link to the process:
http://www.mikelaughead.com/HalftoneProcess.html
I hope that helps anyone trying to get the same effect.

Now, I found out about something that kind of drives me crazy. I got an email about a shirt of mine that someone bought in Thailand.

If you haven't seen this before you can check out the Threadless submission here:

So, it never got printed on Threadless, but someone got the image off the internet, made it into a shirt and sold it.
This shirt was also found:

At least this one is going to be printed elsewhere.

I also found a version of this shirt being sold on a site in the Czech Republic:

They were cool and took the design from their site when we told them about it.

So I guess the whole point is, if you want to get a "legal" copy of my shirt from people that have paid me and have high resolution artwork to choose from, follow the links on my site. If instead you would rather get it cheap and easy with some odd colors (that are kind of intriguing), go shopping in Thailand.

So I disappeared for a month...

2008-09-04T20:09:32Z

I had a few people ask me if I died, but that would have been way too emo. Here's what was going on: First, I got a bunch of work, most of which I am displaying here. In addition to the work here I did a couple of book covers for Scholastic. The designer is sending me copies with the title and everything on them so I can display them here. Please be patient. Then, I spent a couple of days chaperoning Boy Scout camp. (Some of you know that I am a Mormon. I have been asked to lead/teach the teenage boys in my ward/congregation. Anyway, that's why I was at camp.) After that I visited my family for my cousin Jimmy's wedding. (Even though I don't drink, it's awesome to order as many Roy Rogers as I want from the bar.) As soon as we came back we had to start preparations to move down the street. We rent from my wife's grandfather and he has a rental house that is one bedroom larger than the house we were in, so we decided to move into the bigger one. The new place needed a lot of painting, cleaning and fixing (thanks Thompsons, Devin and my awesome family.) So we had that plus the packing, moving and cleaning up of the old place. So now we are moved into the new place. My office is still full of boxes but the extra space is way better already.

So, here are the things I worked on:

Spot for Good Housekeeping. The article is about which
technological gadgets are appropriate for children as they grow up.

This is a small illustration for The Friend magazine.

For the "events" section of The Pitch. I really liked messing around with the halftone dots. I'm not sure which color scheme was actually printed.

Panels from a story for Nelson Education. The story is supposed to be totally over the top and this part covers much of the chaos.

For an article in Insight magazine about the dietary practices of 7th Day Adventists (Insight is an Adventist magazine for teens).

I can't wait to show the book covers. Thanks to some great critiques from friends and family, I think they turned out really great. I am working on the third one right now.

Pulling a Sled, Sketchbook and LaFraise.com

2008-07-18T17:19:08Z

These first two are for an article in Guide Magazine. I'm most proud of the boys rosy cheeks and that fact that I actually looked up the word "flour" in German.

These are some images from my sketchbook. I decided to buy one recently. I do like it in some ways, but I am very used to being able to screw up a drawing on regular computer paper and not worrying about throwing it away. I try to be a bit more careful in the sketchbook. I'm not sure if it helps my art or not.

And lastly, I have started submitting some shirts to LaFraise.com And I am having better success than on Threadless. Apparently my stuff is more popular in the EU than in my homeland. Please check out the site. Sign up and vote if you have an inclination. They have different contests for the general EU (in English), France and Germany. So if you know any of those languages you might want to check out those other ones.

I just want to say one more thing. My wife and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica on DVD. We are halfway through the second season. Does everyone else just love this show? I'm a sci-fi geek so I tend to like the space setting anyway, but my wife is way into it as well. Does it keep staying awesome through the next season?