Sam & Max Blog!

Check out the new Sam & Max blog now open for business. I'll continue to post obscure artwork here and will direct all Sam & Max-related art and links over to the other blog.

FUN!

I just needed something to post and found this image buried in my hard drive. I feel like I've posted it before. Maybe it's in one of the sketchbooks.

It was done for the animated series - I would pitch in on characters and locations whenever possible. Usually quick pencil sketches with some ball point pen and a bit of tone.

Posting this will force me to get on the ball about launching the Sam & Max blog. Let's call the launch date October 31st just to plant a stake in the ground.

Pen and Marker 8 1/2 X 11

--Starchie

Sam & Max Blog Coming Soon!

Miraculously, I've managed to keep posting here fairly regularly for about two and a half years. I still have loads of material to post as long as people continue to show up and look at it.

I thought it might be worth creating a blog strictly for Sam & Max while Spudvision can remain a catch-all for any other kinds of art, especially Toybox which is the home of your very own host Starchie Spudnoggen.

I'm working on the format for the Sam & Max blog and will post a link here as soon as it launches.

--Starchie

Maybe a Print?

Here's a comp I did for Telltale's Sam & Max Season 2. We didn't choose it but I thought without the text it might make a fun print to do in the near future. As far as hyper-over-stated detail it seems to show some potential that hasn't nearly been tapped in this sketch.

Digital 8X10

--Starchie

Misu Mina

I don't do too many pin-up type gals. This one has been seen before. She is the better half of the pair of gangland villains from the un-produced game design "Sam & Max Plunge Through Space." This image started as a super rough pencil sketch. I pulled it together with acrylic washes and was pretty happy that it retains a lot of the roughness that can sometimes get worked away too much in this kind of painting.

Acrylic 8X10

--Starchie

MAX IMP SAYS VOTE!

Telltale Games is currently fielding votes for which of their series of games should be the next to release for the Mac. Max Imp insists that you go to their site and cast your vote for Sam & Max.

Imagine Max Imp's disappointment if Sam & Max is NOT chosen or perhaps loses by the one vote YOU may have cast. He might be inclined to take up residence in your furnace, compelled to skitter around in your attic during the night or crawl up into your sinus cavity while you sleep to lay his terrible eggs. Do your part!
Go to TelltaleGames.com and cast your vote for SAM & MAX!
Thank you. That is all.

--Starchie

Trinkets

I normally post something for the holidays but was sick this year and my efforts to paint something new proved fruitless.

I'll be at it again soon but right now, here's something I had forgotten about - a quick sketch for a company who said they wanted to do promo Sam & Max PVC figures. It didn't happen and I forgot all about it but now that I see them I want to look into doing something in vinyl like the old Pogo characters that you would get on the soap package. If you waded through my office you'd see that I'm knee-deep in stuff like this. Would be fun to add my own guys to the din of visual noise.

8X10 Digital

--Starchie

Devils

Here are a few super quick character sketches from a couple of years ago when Telltale Games was thinking about Satan designs for the Sam & Max series.

Each 8X10 Digital

--Starchie

Shameless Promotion

Thought someone here might care about this Ebay listing. It's a crew jacket from the Sam & Max animated series. Not mine but was my wife's who I don't think ever wore it >snif<. Size Large.

UPDATE: The jacket is on its way to a good home in southern California. Thanks for playing!

Real post soon.

--Starchie

Sam & Max and Stuckey's

I'm writing this perched on a box of Stuckey's Pecan Log Rolls. YES, Stuckey's is a real place and has paid tribute to Sam & Max in their corporate newsletter. In the first of a series of articles on Stuckey's contribution to pop culture they have called out Sam & Max for their multiple interactions with the iconic roadside America gas and gift shop. Whew! And I thought they were calling to sue the crap out of me!

--Starchie

The Aftermath

ComicCon always makes me think I should be making a new comic book.
Let's see if I can keep that pilot lit for awhile.
Will post some new artwork soon.

--Starchie

Off to ComicCon...

I'm traveling to San Diego any minute and will be around to sign stuff at Telltale Games booths #5364/#5365 from 2:00 to 3:00 on Friday and Saturday and at Symbiote Studios booth #4533 from 4:00 to 5:00 Friday and Saturday.

Traveling light but will bring along some original artwork and out of print copies of The Effigy Mound Sketchbook. If you're in the neighborhood come and wade through acres of brash, unrepentant geekflesh to say hi. I'll scrawl you a Max or a Guybrush or some damn thing. See you there!

--Starchie

On the Subject of T-Shirts

Though I'm too late to create any new T-shirts in time for San Diego's Comic Con I'm tossing ideas around for the next round of Sam & Max shirts for the Fall.

My last shirt was a skull Max and crossbones in green and cream. I liked that it was not a literal rendition of the character and so it doesn't come off as an ad for something.

I liked my first Telltale shirt and and I'm not opposed to plugging the characters into these sort of nostalgic motifs once in a while,...

...but more like the skull shirt, I would like to try and get a bit less specific about the characters and try to think of a few cryptic images that are fun to look at even if you don't know Sam & Max. The rat idea at the top of the post is a new one. As I try some others I'll consider posting them here for your opinions, because I think I heard somewhere that people on the internet are more than happy to express their opinions.

--Starchie

A Bit of Process

Here's a cover I did a couple of years ago. The magazine provided the blank cover format so I was able to digitally sketch into it on a Cintiq tablet. For the final illustration I pulled back in the composition so the characters were not overlapping the logo, something the magazine didn't tend to do though they were agreeable about letting Sam & Max cross into the white logo area. Also, I thought showing some of the white floor in the final helped balance that white logo field at the top.

The painting took on a style of it's own as I worked on it, an extra choppy, scumbly effect which I observed happening as I was doing it and didn't try to fight. I sort of liked it at the time though I think I prefer the tighter composition in the sketch.

Acrylic 11 X 14

-Starchie

Surfin the Highway Nominated!

A couple of weeks ago the Eisner Award judges nominated Telltale Game's SAM & MAX SURFIN' the HIGHWAY Anniversary Edition in the category of BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM-REPRINT. Since I've done only a smattering of comics in my career I suppose it's fortunate for me that they have a reprint category at all.

Telltale Games motivated the project and it was tough sifting through all the old material and patching and cleaning up some of the new pages that hadn't been included in the original. Once I got through that I wondered about how a new volume of this book should look. I had scrawled a rough concept, wanting to have fun with the idea of this book being some rare dusty relic from Grandma's attic. Posing as Max I drew and wrote on maps of the Philippines for the interior covers and scanned a real Sam & Max police badge to use in a collage. It was fun to cobble together the disturbing author photo made from an antique snapshot found in my wife's grandparent's basement.

Jake Rodkin at Telltale did the heavy lifting on the project. Pages were scanned from old film and originals, painstakingly cleaned-up, graphic design of the covers, emboss mechanicals devised, colorful personalities wrangled. Two versions of the book were created; a paperback with the embossed cover and the Limited Edition hardcover with signed numbered bookplates. That's the one that's up for the Eisner, alongside some very cool books including Vol 1 and 2 of the Hellboy Library Edition by my old pal Mike Mignola.

Telltale is so excited about the nomination that they have some bundles on sale that offer various combinations of the books, games and other Sam & Max items. Check out: TELLTALE GAMES EISNER SPECIALS.

Some of my extremely talented collegues are nominated for Eisners as well, all in the BEST PAINTER/MULTIMEDIA ARTIST:
Enrico Casarosa's Venice Chronicles
Scott Morse's TIGER!TIGER!TIGER! also nominated for BEST LETTERING
and Jill Thompson for Magic Trixie Sleeps Over

The Awards are presented during San Diego's Comic-Con International at the end of July. Should be a fun night.

--Starchie

Sini-Max

From an old "I Am 8-Bit" show, here is Max the lovable rabbity thing depicted as my all time favorite arcade game character, Sinistar. "RUN COWARD! RUN! RUN! RUN!"
5X7 Acrylic

--Starchie

Max Tat

My scanner is offline for the moment but when it's back I'll be posting a bunch of character paintings and such in the near future. Just to keep things moving here's a glimpse at one fine Max tattoo. The recipient is Matt Kristek, a funny and talented cartoonist/filmmaker who I knew even before he was old enough to make the decision to disfigure himself with such mocking, belligerent skin art. Maybe I should learn to do these myself.

--Starchie

Mod Mecha Max

Here's another version of the terrifying Max robot including a bit of the cockpit view.
10X16 Acrylic

--Starchie

Steam Mecha Max

At one point I had talked to a company about making this toy. The top of the head would pop off revealing the little Captain Nemoesque Sam & Max pilots sporting goggles, top hats and ascots. Sadly it didn't happen but if I wish hard enough...
10x16 Acrylic

--Starchie

Graven Image

This little studio run by Joseph Reiter came to me and asked to do a statue of Sam & Max. It recently started shipping and is one substantial hunk o' flotsam - and I mean that in a good way. I did the sketch on the right and I like the simple lines of the sculpt by Joe Simon. Symbiote Studios offers the statue at their site.
http://www.symbiotestudios.com

Here's a nice shot by Adam B from a review on the site What's Your Obsession: http://www.whatsyourobsession.com/
More shots there although Sam's head is placed weirdly askew in one of them as they are in some of the shots at Captain Toy where, though they seem to like the item, Sam is not quite assembled to the base and is sporting his lid sideways.
http://www.mwctoys.com/REVIEW_011209a.htm

--Starchie