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

Just a Few More...

On the "Tales of--" front, Telltale, a while back, put up a little "in progress' post for the Pre-Order cover art I've been working on. Ultimately I'll post a series of shots showing where it went from start to the finished cover. It should be done shortly. In the meantime, the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island has been released to great acclaim and rejoicing.
And today, here are a few more character concepts from Curse of Monkey Island. Larry Ahern was thinking hard about the Guybrush design and had been pushing his proportions. The one shown here was me enjoying the freedom to stretch Guybrush around like silly putty.
Pen on Paper 8 1/2 X 11 each

--Starchie

Monkey Bucks

Here's a promo coupon I got to paint, probably for some early 90's LucasArts Adventurer edition. It's actually amazing how much of this kind of stuff I was trusted to do with little or no content notes from above, which made it tons o' fun.
I'll see if I can track down my activity pages with the art lesson and the Guybrush paper dolls.
Watercolor 4 X 9 1/2

--Starchie

The Curse

I have a buy off on my rough for Telltale Games "Tales of Monkey Island" cover. Still too early to post any of it as I'm in early stages of the illustration. In the meantime, here's part of my tiny contribution to Curse of Monkey Island. I believe Larry Ahern and John Ackley pitched me their idea of a LeChuck with a flaming beard so I was thinking his skull could be silhouetted in the fire. I think my Elaine is a variation on a design Larry had done, but I do sort of like something about my slender version of the Voodoo Queen.
Pen on paper 8 1/2 X 11

--Starchie

Cartographer's Cabin

I have a rough sketch for the Tales of Monkey Island pre-order cover in the pipe waiting for final approval. I'll post it at some point soon.
In the meantime, here's a color test done for Monkey Island 2 LeChuck's Revenge probably painted in 1990. In this game we had the luxury of being able to draw backgrounds on paper and scan them giving us a greater range. This was my first background test of a cartographer's cabin painted in gouache. Peter Chan was a fiend with color markers and we ended up doing a lot of the backgrounds in marker as it was much quicker than painting.
Gouache 5 X 9

--Starchie

The Dawn of Monkey Island

So I've been invited by Telltale Games to create an illustration for their Special Pre-Order edition of Tales of Monkey Island, a five episode series of adventure games coming this summer from Telltale. It's fun to get a chance to reconnect with Monkey Island since it was one of my first jobs at LucasArts, and I was fortunate to contribute artwork to various Monkey Island projects several times throughout the years.

I'm sketching the concept right now and I will plan to document the progress in stages. I'll have to wait until we are closer to the official unveiling of the cover to let you know what I'm up to but in the meantime I'll post some ancient concept art from the original games. Here's the sketch for my first Monkey Island cover done in 1990.
Pencil on Tracing Paper 8.5 X 11

--Starchie

Vintage Suda

Here's an old one. An early Ernie and Suda portrait. I made this image to fit an old frame I was given which once housed a gorgeous Jeff Jones painting. At one point I had real cob webs and dead spiders draped across the frame to add a little atmosphere. Over time those trappings sort of fell away but I still like the idea of customizing a frame to fit a painting. On that front I've still got a few ideas floating around in my skull.
Acrylic 8 X 10

--Starchie

Blue Bear

Here's a little gift for a friend's new born son painted one evening while watching a particularly terrifying episode of "Breaking Bad". Fortunately the image was immune to the suspense and horror I endured.
Acrylic 3 X 5

--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

Creatures

Here's something I worked on a long time ago. Garett Sheldrew conceived the designs for the human characters and this was my painting of the whole line-up. There's an actual story in there somewhere. Was fun to do a somewhat broad cartoony take on this monster that I'm so fond of.
10X16 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

The Duchess

I have about four or five of these stuffed German chimps who stare at me while I nap. They have a blank authenticity to their expression that you don't commonly see in a toy. The modern version is not nearly as sincere but the old ones are still fairly easy to come by. Like real apes they're often missing earlobes or fingers or the hair is worn off the knees. Better than new.

2X3 Acrylic

--Starchie

A Valentine

A sentimental image to share with your Immortal Beloved.

--Starchie

Ditty

Here's a Toybox piece done for a charity auction. I enjoy doing figures against a chopped-in white background. I can have fun with the characters without getting bogged down in a location. And I like letting some of the under painting peek through.
These characters are still puzzling to me. I can never count on the way they will turn out. I'm fairly satisfied with this version of them, though. Any time Ernie plays the uke, it's a ditty, hence the repeat title. Somebody let me know if I start recycling my posts.

--Starchie

LeChuck Lives!

This posting marks two events - ONE; I realized that I have somehow continued to blog here for just over a year and TWO; The first appearance of a human nipple in a post. This amazing tattoo work was created on the living tissue of brave Monkey Island fan Alex Melgarejo who graciously allowed me to share these shots. I sort of recall posting that source artwork here but for the life of me I can't find it (must be the lead poisoning). The Tat was done by Bulgarian artist Ivasha and just goes to show - Be careful what you draw, because someone may choose to inscribe it on their body for all time.

--Starchie