Portfolio Website Up!

All decent, respectable illustrators who operate their business in a professional manner should have a portfolio web site.

So why do I have one, you ask? Good question, smart ass.

Well, justified or not, I have one. And hopefully within a few days, my domain name "theagilebadger.com" will point directly to my portfolio site rather than to this blog. The site will have a "Blog" button that will send all my faithful readers (my mother-in-law, my wife, sometimes the dog) to these pages, which I intend to continue updating on a regular basis. The portfolio site will showcase only my best work, and this blog will concentrate more on describing my process and lessons-learned.

Once the site is fully active, you get to this blog either through the site, or by navigating directly to http://www.theagilebadger.blogspot.com/. You'll figure it out, I'm sure.

For now, you can see a beta version of the new site here. Please let me know, either through email or by commenting in this post, about anything that doesn't look right.

Now, back to the drawing board.

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Good-Guys 7th Midwestern Nationals

What an incredible weekend at the Kansas Speedway! Thousands of hot rods with over-the-top fat tires and gargantuan blowers, hot dogs that cost more for one than an entire six-pack of my favorite beer, and of course, lots of good old fashioned Kansas sunshine.

Check out these beautiful beasts:









You can see all my photos of this event here. Read on...


For those of you whom I met and talked to, thanks for chewing the fat with me and helping me to learn more about these amazing machines. And if you're just stopping by this blog because of the business card I left for you, thanks for checking it out. Much obliged.

One of my most marketable skills is drawing hot rods, either in exaggerated form (like here) or in more realistic portrait styles (like here). Photos are great, but there's nothing like a custom artistic rendering of your one-of-a-kind hot rod. Tee-shirt designs and promotional posters are also in my bag of tricks.

Leave a comment here or drop me an email through the About Me widget. We'll talk. S'all good.

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Faster Than Hell Poster

(Cropped Image)

Just your typical werewolves on motorcycles band promo.

Motorcycles by me, werewolves and poster design by Justin "Killer" Kite. To see the full poster, visit the Killer Kite website.

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Gear Grinder Hot Rod Show

Do what the bad ass poster tells ya. If you don't go, prepare yourself for deep sadness.


Illustration by The Agile Badger; poster design by Killer Kite Productions.

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Bitchin' Camaro! Bitchin' Camaro!

Here's a 1967 Camaro SS that's going into my personal stock images collection for future use. It's modeled after the Deathproof promotional poster. Duh.

Disclaimer: The title of this post in no way condones the behavior depicted in the lyrics of the song "Bitchin' Camaro" by the Dead Milkmen. I do not believe that running over old ladies is a good thing. Really. So chill out already. It's a cool song though.

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I'm a WIENER! No, I mean, WINNER!

Maybe I'm both, actually.

Anyway, I just won a free copy of Swift 3D from the good people (person?) at Bittbox.com! Swift 3D is modeling and animation software that integrates with Adobe Flash, a product that came bundled with my beloved Adobe CS3 along with Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and a wad of other programs that I'm sure includes Tetris and Solitaire somewhere. My imagination is swimming with ideas, and as soon as I've mastered this electronic Lego kit, I'll be able to offer my web clients a world of creative possibilities for their sites.

And that won't be too difficult to achieve, I'd warrant. I spent over a decade performing 3D modeling and analysis of aircraft and automotive components for the likes of GM and Rolls Royce. Now that I have a copy of Swift 3D, I'll be able to relive those wonderful days as an engineer, only this time I'll actually have fun doing it! And the best part is, no more ties, high-water Chinos, hip-pocket calculators, or socially awkward moments with icky girls.

Now, back to the drawing board.

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Software Logo

The client, Dru Sellers, wanted a logo for his new software application that manages data traffic through a very complicated system of...well, trust me, it's complicated.

To emphasize the bulletproof quality of their coding, he wanted to use an image of a bus that looked so tough, it couldn't be busted by a sledgeroller, which is his term for a steamroller made out of sledgehammers. (edit: The term "sledgeroller" actually belongs to my buddy, Jim Sowers, who is known among his peers for highly creative use of language, as evidenced by his nickname for me, "Slappy Bitch-Pants.")

Here's the logo we came up with:

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New Website Up and Running

My first toe-dipping into web design has turned into a full-fledged cannonball into the deep-end of electronic commerce. The web site for Aveena Natural Cleaning Services is now live, and aside from a few CSS tweaks to accommodate the fussiness of MS Internet Explorer, I think it's looking pretty good. If you see anything wonky, please leave a comment so I can get it fixed.

I'm happy to report that the client is pleased. And that's especially important because I'm married to her.

Now, back to the drawing board.

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Craft and Commerce

"In commerce, the musician makes music. In craft, music makes the musician."

That's a quote from one of my favorite guitarists, Robert Fripp from King Crimson. It's always refreshing to hear musicians speak about their profession in thought-provoking ways rather than the usual, "How hard to we rock? SO F***ING HARD!!" Anyway, Mr. Fripp wrote it in a short blurb he called, "Craft" which appeared in the May 2006 issue of Guitar Player magazine. He's a smart cat, Mr. Fripp, and the line has stayed with me for quite awhile. Recently it's been popping into my head quite often, mostly as it applies to illustration assignments that I'm tempted to refuse. I use it as a mantra of sorts, and it reminds me that no job is too big or too difficult.

Read on...

Though he wrote the quote and the column for guitarists, clearly his point applies to any creative profession, including illustrators. On the surface, it appears that he's trashing the idea of art made for the purpose of commerce. I don't think he is, though; it's really a refreshing and encouraging take on the age-old dilemma of commercialism versus creativity. Rather than seeing the two forces as an "either / or," I think he's seeing the two forces in the light of "both / and." Creating artistic work for the marketplace does not necessarily mean an artist is selling out, nor does the artist's work have to suffer in the name of commerce. And artists who can survive independently of the marketplace - pursuing their own visions without concern for its marketability - are the exception rather than the rule. For the rest of us, seeing both sides of the art/commerce coin is more than just survival, its truly inspirational.

Here's an example. The next time you're asked to create an illustration that at the outset may seem beyond the current state of your abilities, remind yourself that it's not you that's making the art, but it's the art that is making you. If you view your job as entirely a commercial endeavor, then you'd be tempted to tell clients with seemingly impossible illustration assignments to find someone with greater abilities or experience. But viewed in this new way, there's no other answer to give but, "Yes, of course I'll do it. And I'm gonna rock your little world, sucka!" (The "sucka" part is optional, and not typically recommended for most clients.)

Confidence comes from knowing that the art - the creative vision that's just waiting to be placed on paper - is going to pull you through the process. The art will make the artist.

Then, of course, the artist will make money.

Back to the drawing board.

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Which Pit Bull would you pet?

(Loosely to the tune of the beloved Sesame Street song, "One of these things"):

One of these Pit Bulls is not like the other.
One of them's happy and the other one scowls.
Can you guess which Pit Bull is feeling much better,
Before the angry one growls?
And now the angry one's growled..."



Funny how really good clients can point out subtleties that I somehow missed. My first attempt at drawing this client's Pit Bull for a logo I'm developing with Justin Kite, turned out to look meaner and angrier than what the client wanted to express. I was going for "tough and strong," but I guess I ended up with "pissed off." And a pissed-off pit bull is not the message we want here, kiddies. So, I reworked the eyes and the mouth, and softened the sharp shadows.

Still, I don't think I'd try snagging a bone from either one's mouth.

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I'm on Myspace now, and I'm not ashamed.

So for years, I puzzled as my teenage daughter frittered away hours on her Myspace.com page, conversing feverishly with friends from every corner of the globe. Thankfully, we made it through those years without so much as a peep from sexual predators, would-be boyfriends with borderline personality disorders, or polygamist cult recruiters. If there were any such peeps, I never heard about them.

I'm sure I rolled my eyes more than once at her near obsession with the look of her profile or whether her face was clearly visible in the mosh-pit photo. But now, in a bizarre twist of fate, I now have a myspace page of my own. What's worse, I catch myself checking it several times a day, updating my "mood" and eagerly scanning my messages and bulletins to see what my friends are up to. So far, it hasn't interfered with my personal or work life. But I have noticed that I'm starting to use the words "like, y'know" a lot more often. I've even considered posting one of those arms-length, emo-ridden self portraits to, like y'know, show the deeper, thoughtful side of me.

I tell myself it's a marketing tool - and it is. But it's also damn fun. So, like, go check it out. So, um, yeah.

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1967 Chevelle SS

Gawd, I love drawing hot rods! This was rendered in full vector format, so posters of any size are no problem. Drop me an email if you're interested.

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