"Cthulhu"
I wanted to make my netbook less desireable to steal, so what better way than paint an enormous monster from another dimension on it?

"Art Nouveau"
I was sick of the shiny silver blah lid of my laptop, so finally decided to paint it colourful. It looks much more interesting now.

"Nevermind"
36"x24"
Ghostly Kurt Cobain. 'Cuz, you know. He's dead.

"Me & the Devil Blues"
16"x20"
This was a donation for the Gateway Theatre of Richmond's art fundraiser in June 2011. It's Robert Johnson (look up the legend. I was thinking of it when I painted him sinking into the darkness). I used a technique for this painting I've never tried before to get the blurry, old-timey-photo look, like the original photo from the '30s.

"Purple Haze"
12"x10"
Jimi Hendrix. Friend's birthday gift. I love not having to spend money on gifts, especially when they only take a weekend to make. Though why I don't consider my time to be worth anything is a mystery. Probably because I waste it so much.

"The Good"
40"x30"
Clint Eastwood posing for the showdown in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. A gift for my grandpa, who likes Westerns and Clinty in particular. That background was a bitch. Mostly because I couldn't make up my mind, and ended up repainting it three times. I finally decided to set him on fire, more symbolic (and Western-y) than my original desert idea.

"Warrior"
16"x16"
This is a cover of an Aya Kato. Aya uses Photoshop to create her detailed pictures. I used acrylic paint and india ink on canvas. And when I was doing the gradations I cursed Photoshop for making gradations such a breeze. Another gift for another friend. I do have more than one friend.

"People Are Strange"
30"x40"
My first dead rocker portrait; I wanted a cool picture to hang in my new apartment that expressed my love of classic rock so of course I had to go with Jim Morrison, probably the coolest rockstar ever. I may have listened to "Light My Fire" a few dozen times while painting this...

"Samurai"
16"x16"
Another cover of an Aya Kato. And the first painting I've ever done on canvas. I guess I felt like challenging myself or something. All the painted details were bad enough, but then once I was done I had to ink the entire thing. I did not get a tan that summer.

This is a label I created for my bee-loving Aunt in England (see bags below). She owns her own bee hives, and sells the honey, but she needed some professional-looking labels. The flower surrounding the bee is a white clover, whose nectar is regarded as producing the best honey.

I created these cartoony classic monsters in Illustrator for my old website, and didn't want them to be wasted so I made a nice graveyard for them to hang out in. On. Whatever. Wolfie is my fave. I totally made his shirt in real life. But better.

I sketched this ages ago and then wanted to test out some blending brushes in Photoshop and voila. The background is a cemetery I photoshop-painted; you can kind of make out headstones, but there's no names written on them. It was either put names on them or take a nap, so...

This is an image I was "commissioned" to make for a bachelorette party. By "commissioned" I mean I received no reimbursement other than my friend's gratitude. I'm just raking it in. I think I made it from scratch in about two nights, which is why it's not on the ultra-creative side, but at least it's not wedding bells and ribbon. Or something else disgustingly stereotypical of women. Plus, I didn't get paid, so I don't think expectations were high.

Another bachelorette-party-shirt. I spent a bit more time on this one, though. My parameters were "something sexy" so I thought, what's sexier than a sawed-off shotgun that's been recently fired? TWO sawed-off shotguns that have been recently fired, that's what! By the way, never agree to silkscreen ribbed tank-tops. Really hard.

When you go to England, you should keep off the moors. Especially at night. When it's all misty and spooky. You could get lost. And a werewolf could attack you. Then you'd be running around London half-naked turning into a werewolf. And that's so clichéd.

A bee-bag I did for my bee-loving Aunt in England. I don't remember making the first (below) cuz it was so long ago, but this one was a bitch. I drew all the bees, then when I made the screen I found out the lines were too thin to make a useable print with, then once I dealt with that problem I had to actually screenprint the bag. And if you've ever screenprinted a ridgy-canvas-super-ink-absorbing-bag by hand then you know how annoying that is.

Coheed and Cambria concert? I'm so there. I'm going through a steampunk phase so this shirt got the steampunk treatment. Lettering from scratch, and I re-imagined the band logo into a giant cog. Steampunk!

We went to see the Colbert Report in New York, so I had to make shirts that would appeal to his pretend-ego and get his attention. Unfortunately, they also got the attention of a security guard who told us we couldn't all wear them and sit together otherwise they'd cause glare on the camera. Our winter-pale skin and blonde hair probably didn't help.

Another concert tee. I made this when I was teaching myself Illustrator, and like an idjit I thought my first project should be creating complicated lettering. It ended up taking a little longer than I thought it would, but we were all wearing matching shirts by the concert.

This is one of my first screenprints, done on a canvas grocery bag. This was the first bee bag I gave to my Aunt in England, who likes bees. Actually, I didn't give it to her, my grandma did. But I made it so nyah.

I had been wanting to make this shirt for forever and finally got around to it. I'll have to make a Snkt! one next. Bub.

This is a tooth necklace I made for an Evil Tooth Fairy costume. I made the teeth out of bakeable clay, and varnished them after painting so they'd be shiny. If I had the resources I would have made them out of dental acrylic so they'd be slightly translucent like real teeth, and added ligament strands because they were supposed to have been yanked out of people's heads unwillingly. Oh man and then splattered them with fake blood, like that high-quality fake blood not the crap you buy at Value Village for a dollar. I did have multiple people ask me if they were real teeth throughout the night, though, so I'd say they were a success.

I made this mask for an Evil Scarecrow costume a few years ago. I used leather scraps glued together and then distressed by cutting and burning, waxed cord and thread to make sutures, and black pantyhose for the eyes so my eyes wouldn't show through. It got fairly hot when it was on, but at least I did scare some people. Though maybe they were just scared because of what an uber dork I was for not wearing a "Sexy Nurse" costume. I quickly learned the main disadvantage of full-head masks: makes it much harder to drink beer.