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Long Lost Friend Studio is my self-publishing imprint, the studio space where we work, and a YouTube channel featuring videos about art and creativity. This blog covers everything happening with me and Long Lost Friend Studio.
Looks Like A Cold, Cold Winter
Bit nippy out there, isn’t it? Hope everyone’s keeping warm in 2023. Michelle and I spent the last couple days of the year shivering in our sub-zero studio and painting Rankin/Bass snow monsters for fun.
Journey with Ichabod Crane through this Sleepy Hollow Poster
Ichabod Crane, the itinerant schoolmaster who ran afoul of the Headless Horseman, is journeying once again through the Hudson Valley. And now that I’ve finally finished my latest passion project, you can join him as he ventures into and through Sleepy Hollow in my new story poster.
Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives
The Long Lost Friend Studio YouTube channel started as a fun way to bone up on traditional brush-and-pen inking (and an excuse to discuss famous monsters in pop culture). We’ve since expanded the channel into an opportunity to learn all kinds of art techniques (watercolor, sculpting, diorama building, etc), but this week we went back to basics and inked a couple of classic Looney Tunes monsters.
That Witch Does Not Kill Us
That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger. That’s the theory, anyway. That’s why I stumble through watercolor illustrations every so often, like a bull in a china shop, trying to smash out something decent. This week, it’s a storybook witch and her two familiars. Maybe it’ll be easier to find my path through this familiar territory.
Good Graveyard Fences Make Good Neighbors
Two years ago I put together my first miniature haunted house. It’s a little wonky, and in need of repair, but most haunted houses are. This October, in an effort to improve curb appeal, Michelle and I built a miniature cemetery on the plot next door, and we experimented with making the headstones out of foam, wood, clay, and cardboard.
Handmade Halloween
I’ve got a top five for the Halloween season and it’s remained unchanged for most of my life. Trick or treating, scary stories, pumpkin farms, haunted houses, and Halloween cards. I think the practice of sending Halloween cards might’ve fallen off in recent years, but I’m an old-school holdout. And while store-bought is just fine, I get a kick out of making my own.
Ding Dong, It’s The Dearly Departed
One of the more recent illustrations I’ve posted to the gallery since redesigning the site is this Trick or Treat image of a boy spending Halloween with his ghostly friend.
Making A Monkey Out Of Me
This week on our YouTube channel, we made Ben Cooper-style Planet of the Apes masks (and accompanying window boxes). We don’t have a vacuum forming machine, so we sculpted them out of papier mache and foam clay.
Investigating Colored Pencil Solvent with Scooby Doo’s Velma Dinkley
This week I worked on a Scooby Doo tribute featuring Velma Dinkley and the Ghost of the Black Knight — the very first spooky villain Scooby and the gang encountered back in 1969! — and experimented with some colored pencil techniques for the first time.
Making An Eight-Limbed Villain With My Own Two Hands
Recording stuff in our studio for our YouTube channel means someone’s always hovering over your shoulder with a camera, capturing everything you work on, warts and all. But sometimes it works out. Like when it caught most of my Doctor Octopus sculpting process and gave me some relatively-wart-free content to post this step-by-step this week!
Burying Myself In My Work
Long Lost Friend Studio is back from our summer YouTube break. As Herman Munster would say: Oh, goody! This week we ink and tone those classic horror-sitcom characters, The Munsters. And it’s all because that zany Rob Zombie trailer is on everyone’s lips.
A Bone To Pick
A little over two years ago, on our Long Lost Friend Studio YouTube channel, I drew and inked this skeleton sailor from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World.
Process: Kermit the Frog Thank You Note
I ran across some snapshots I took while working on a thank you card for a client. I haven’t posted in a few weeks, so I figured I could turn these pics into a quick, informal, process post.
My Long Lost Sketch Wallet
Working in a Sketch Wallet for the first time (after receiving one for a gift and promptly losing it).
Morels 10th Anniversary Booster Cards Are Here…and Gone!
Ten years ago, Brent Povis asked me to illustrate his vision for a card game he was developing. That game was Morels, and it was an indie hit, earning multiple awards and getting phenomenal ratings in all the gaming forums where it was discussed. As of this writing, the game has a solid 7.0 on Board Game Geek.
Untold Tales of Bigfoot Gets A Bizarro Shout-Out
You’d think I’d pulled Bizarro cartoonist Wayno out of a burning building at some point in the past from all the times he’s referenced my Bigfoot graphic novel in his nationally syndicated comic, but no. He’s just a real sweetheart.
Work In Progress: New Website
Hey everybody. You’re looking at the skeleton of a website undergoing an overhaul. A work-in-progress. And the reason for this overhaul is organization.