The Beret Makes The Man

I am a huge fan of the British TV show Doctor Who. Particularly the 1970's episodes. This phony recruiting poster for the fictional United Nations Intelligence Taskforce features U.N.I.T commander, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Although the Brigadier is obviously meant to make you think of Field Marshal Montgomery, the design of my poster was deliberately meant to remind you of the famous graphic image of Che Guevara.

Behold! Strongman!

One Fantastic Sketch.

Very, Very Reworked Aquaman Sketch

(Very Slightly) reworked Aquaman Sketch

The Lone Ranger Rides Again! Or At Least Punches Again!

I just found this the other day. Seems pretty clear I had been reading a lot of old Dell and Gold Key Lone Ranger comics at the time. Sadly, I WILL draw on any handy piece of paper, no matter how crappy.

I loves me some Star Wars

Here are couple of sample pieces I did .

Batsketch

Sooner or later, everybody draws Batman.

Coloring book time!

My 4-year-old son and I were having our "Craft time" (or "crapt time" as he calls it) and we were coloring in a Mickey Mouse coloring book. One of the pages asked us to "draw a Disney character". Well, since the book was already chock full of good drawings of Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy, I chose to draw the Aracuan Bird from "Three Caballeros". I thought it turned out pretty good for a crayon drawing from memory. Not sure which is dorkier, my choice, or the fact that I'm posting a coloring book page for everyone on the internet to see.

Lee Van Cleef

In Widescreen, no less. Over the weekend, someone asked me who Lee Van Cleef was ("Death Rides a Horse" was coming on Encore Westerns.). I tried to explain by describing him and listing a few of his films, but to no avail. Finally I whipped out my sketchbook. "Oh, HIM. That hawk-faced guy!"

Professor Ludwig Von Drake

the world's smartest duck and Donald's less talked-about uncle. Here's a very self-satisfied looking sketch of the good Professor. Doubtless he's contemplating all of his Phd's and his many, many areas of expertise.

Drawing from life.

I decided to get down to basics and spend a little time drawing from life to re-strengthen my drawing skills. I was trying to capture an animal in motion. However, since our overweight long-haired dachshund doesn't move much, he wasn't much of a challenge.

In a Goofy mood.

Four sketches of Goofy from today. Kinda speaks for itself.

Old-school character.

Belphry Bat is a completely original creation. Any resemblance between Belphry Bat and any other cartoon character is purely coincidental and is the subjective opinion of the viewer. Belphry Bat is copyright Aaron Bias.

Cute little ducky.

I'm not sure why this duck looks pissed. It just sort of happened that way.

Funny Animals

I'm going to lay off the fantasy/ Sci-fi art for a little bit and focus on Funny Animals. I LOVE old animal comics. Carl Barks, Paul Murry, Walt Kelly, Tony Strobl, Don Rosa... They all rock. Here are a few animal head studies I did the other night:

Finally back!

My scanner was out of commission for a little while. But now I have it hooked back up and ready to post.

Live from Ceasar's Palace!

Here we have a sketch of Mortis Gratuitus, champion gladiator of the arena during the oh-so-short reign of the emperor Pompous Ignoramus. Gratuitus was known for his particularly brutal slayings and was often sent to the penalty box for continuing to kill his opponent long after he had already cut him into small, unidentifiable bits.

Mazes and Monsters, part deux

Here we have Theseus, Hero of Athens, battling the Minotaur of Crete. According to what I've read, Theseus found the Minotaur sleeping and stabbed him to death. That's not very sporting, and it's not much fun to draw. This will have a background...eventually.

An ass-kicking of Biblical Proportions

Out of all the brutal accounts of carnage in the Old Testament (The Tanakh, for those who prefer) perhaps my favorite is the part where Samson lays waste to 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. First of all, it's incredibly violent in a Frank Frazetta sort of way and secondly, it makes your Sunday School teacher have to say "ass" which causes uncontrollable giggling. I enjoyed this sketch so much, I'm going to work it up as a full-color piece.

Barbarian Hero

Let me be clear about this: This is not a picture of Conan (TM). This is a distinctly different and legally unrelated barbarian hero. I've never even READ Conan and none of you can prove otherwise. In fact, I've never even HEARD of Conan. Conan who??

Mazes and Monsters.

It always comes down to dragons

You just can't look for work doing fantasy illustrations and not do Dragons. They're just expected.

The Horsey Set

There's more to this, but my scanner isn't big enough to show you the wolf that just got an arrow thru the kneck.

Cyke!

Lift with the knees!!

A decent Herakles and a fairly weak Cerberus. I kinda phoned in the 3-headed dog. Steve Prescott Makes multi-headed canines look so effortless. Yeah, I based my Herc on Steve Reeves. Who doesn't?

man with a point-ed stick.

I still haven't seen "300".

A day with the classics.

Okay, so I'm still really jonesin' for retro sci-fi, but I need to market my portfolio to as many RPG companies as possible, and Fantasy seems to be where the bread and butter is. To that end, I started this morning on some more fantasy pieces. I wasn't in the mood for medieval stuff, though, so I decided to get Bronze Age on your asses.

Planet of the Ayps

Descended from chimps recruited to test spaceships, Ayps have an intense hatred of the Human race. They have renamed themselves Ayps to cast off the names mankind has given them (i.e. Apes, Chimps, etc.). Ironically, they still call themselves by family names given to them by their former Human "opressors". Names like Coco, Ham, Bonzo are all very common and popular, perhaps because Chimps have no previous naming traditions of their own. Ayps call their new homeworld "Bandar Log" and are ruled by His Emperial Majesty, Emperor Zippy I, Ruler of Bandar Log and Protector of Charlie". Charlie is the name of Bandar Log's only moon.

The absolute worst thing you can say in the presence of Ayps is "Monkey". In ANY context this will start a riot.

Something fishy

Beneath the frozen surface of Europa, moon of Jupiter, lies a planetwide ocean of incomprehensible depth. In the murky darkness beneath the crust of ice floes live the Sirenians. The sirenians are best left undisturbed. After all, they're attracted to light and movement and they are at the TOP of their world's food chain.

LGM

Ah the Little Green Men. Look at that smug look of self-satisfaction. The Superior way he holds that death-ray. you can just see it in his beady little eyes, how much he wants to come to Earth and take our women. LGM's are not, in fact from Mars (See previous posting re: Spiders from Mars) but rather from Titan, moon of Saturn. They hate it when people mistake them for Martians(indigenous, or otherwise). They avoid visiting Mars altogether, largely due to the fact that it's populated by those yucky spider-people and a bunch of dull, inbred Terra-Farmers. LGM's don't get along with anyone, but they desperately wish to be invited to all the cool parties. ESPECIALLY the ones on Venus. Little Green Men are NOT from Mars, but Statuesque, sultry women ARE from Venus.

Chariots of the gods.

I'm reading 2001 right now, and it puts me in mind of all those theories about the "Ancient Astronauts" who may have visited Earth when Mankind was young. To that end, I present you with the Ancient Astronaut! Who knows what cosmic secrets are bouncing around in that huge noggin of his? Who knows what inscrutible thoughts lie behind that great stone face? Who knew flying saucers had so much headroom?

But where WERE the spiders??

Okay, so I ripped off another Bowie song/album. The name "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" was just too good to pass up. So HERE are the spiders.

The Planet Mars was recently made habitable to Human life by a planet-wide terra-forming effort. This yielded two results: 1. Earthmen can inhabit Mars and 2. the Spider-people who had long lain dormant in their buried egg-sacs hatched and immediately began attacking the Nova-Martian settlers. In fact, most of the Earthian-Martian populace still mourns the now infamous "Last stand at Fort Wells" and the "Battle of Big Face". Things have improved in recent months since the construction of the new, walled city outside Fort John Carter.

Major Tom

For a little while, I'm going to limit this page to sketches. Right now, I'm in a retro, sci-fi frame of mind. I have been entranced for years by the eerie beauty of the David Bowie song "Major Tom- a space oddity" ( I think that's the right title) as well as the Weird, uber-creepy Peter Schilling version of Major Tom and, of course, Bowie's "Ashes to ashes". I am perfectly aware that Major Tom is a fairly conventional astronaut and not a space-opera hero, but I always sort of see him as a Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers kinda guy. To that end, I did the following sketch of Major Tom... obvioulsy this happened before he burned up on re-entry, or drifted off into the Void or O.D.'ed or whatever. Enjoy.

Sasquatch redux.

I never felt that the previous Sasquatch piece really sold what was going on. So I abandoned subtlety in favor of laughs.

Iron Man

This is what Iron Man is SUPPOSED to look like!

Mugato

One of the most memorable- and dumbest looking -creatures from Star Trek. They just don't make 'em like this any more

Endor

So, if you need to find your way around the Sanctuary Moon, you can either hire an Ewok, or try and find Wilford Brimley. I woudn't recommend Brimley; I saw The Thing

Work in progress

I know, I know. EVERYBODY hates Ewoks! Well, you know what? They suck waay less than Gungans. At least they had the dignity of an indigenous gibberish instead of a patois of broken English. Anyway, those irritating little bears were pretty tough. This one has bitten off more than he can chew, attacking a large forest animal without any of his friends to help.

Jungle Cruise

As anyone who ever bothered to look at my previous postings on this blog knows (anyone?), I'm a sucker for Indiana Jones. This little number was inspired by two things: Indiana Jones and the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World. As you can see, I'm working my way up to full backgrounds. I feel like my work has gotten a little vignette heavy lately.

Run, Redshirt, run!

Yeah, I've been watching Star Trek. Still a great show. Those poor security guys never have a chance, though.

Pow! right in the Sasquatch!

So I was watching this thing on the Science Channel about Sasquatch and...

Okay, I don't want to sound older than I am, but The Six-Million Dollar Man was the shit! And the episodes with the Sasquatch (played by Andre the Giant and Richard Kiel) freaked me out when I was a kid.