Big Works In Progress

Here are a few works-in-progress photos, featuring two new drawings. I haven't worked larger than 14 x 18" in awhile, so pieces this big make for an exciting workout. It's nuts how much of your body you can put into the drawing process, when you do things at a larger scale.

Putting my back into it,
- Dave C.

Act Now for Tr!ckster & Comic-Con Sketch Pre-orders!

Look out & shout! I'm now accepting pre-orders for convention sketches, in anticipation of next week's San Diego Comic-Con & Tr!ckster conventions! 

I'll only be in San Diego on Friday through midday Saturday. We can make arrangements for you to pick up your finished artwork during the time I'm there, at the Tr!ckster space (www.trickstertrickster.com). I can also mail your art directly to your home, for a small shipping fee.

I’m accepting sketch pre-orders up until Wednesday, July 17th. Contact me at hiredmeat@gmail.com for pricing info, order placement, questions, and all that good stuff. Serious inquiries only, please.

- Dave C.

Here are some examples of my previous convention sketch commissions:

"I Ain't Afraid of You."

I started a new sketchbook, recently. It's a pretty common thing, for artists to be nervous about drawing on the very first page of a new sketchbook. So I thought I'd start this one by kicking that notion square in the teeth. It was also a fun excuse to sketch an old character of mine, whom I haven't played with in a very long while.

"But I, somehow someway, keep comin' up with funky-ass shit, like every single day."
- Dave C.

Halloween Art Contest Winners!

What's that going bump in the night? It's the winners of my Halloween Art Contest!

"Mallory, Mary & Maude" by Marco Mejia

"Bride of Frankenstein" by Jake Standley

"Happy Halloween" by Savanna

The winning artists will be receiving complimentary printing from my friends at MOO (moo.com), plus a series of collectible prints from yours truly.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to submit a piece for the competition! You proved to be worthy contenders, and will be receiving a lovely consolation prize for your spooktacular efforts.

Happy Halloween!
- David "King Gum" Crosland

Final Prize Print for Halloween Art Contest

"Bewitch" / 11 x 14" / pencil, watercolor, acrylic & ink on paper

This piece is the last in a series of three prints I'll be awarding to the winners of my Halloween Art Contest (sponsored by MOO). 

Ghoulish gratitude to those of you who have already turned in your Halloween-themed artwork. Everyone else, remember, the deadline for submissions is this Friday. And the three winners of the competition will be announced on an eerie October 31.

Check this blog post for all the details: Halloween Art Contest

"Bodies in the street, killin' overhead, marvel at the sky as it turns blood red."
- King Gum

Another Halloween Art Contest Prize Print!

"Urk" / 11 x 14" / graphite, watercolor, acrylic & ink on paper

Here's another illustration that will be a prize print for the winners of my Halloween Art Contest, sponsored by MOO. Nothing says, "All Hallows Eve," quite like a vampire corpse reanimating, only to find itself perpetually boned by the ol' stake-through-the-heart trick!

*Peep the previous blog post to see the first prize print image.*

"Salem's Lot's my vacation spot. Often hoppin' out of coffin, steady rockin' while you're rottin'."

-Dave Crosland

Halloween Contest Update & Prize Art Sneak-Peek

Hey all you ghouls & goblins. We're halfway to October 31, so here's an update on the Halloween Art Contest!

The fine folks at MOO and I agreed, it would be a lot more fun if the competition lasted a bit longer. So we're extending the submission deadline to next Friday, October 26. The judges will go over everyone's creepy-cool, themed artwork that weekend. And winners will be announced right on Halloween.

Along with the deadline extension, I wanted to share a new piece, titled "Lantern" (see above). This image will be one of the art prints included in the prize packages for our three lucky contestants. Oh, how we sweeten the pot!

Click here for the complete details of The Halloween Art Contest.

"Shame on you, when you step through to the Ol' Dirty Bastard! BROOKLYN ZOO!!!"

- King Gum

Halloween Art Contest, Sponsored by MOO!

At long last, October is upon us! And what better way to celebrate my favorite month of the year, than with a HALLOWEEN ART CONTEST!?

Yours truly is teaming up with the printing gurus at MOO for a spooktacular promotional competition. Entry is simple. All you need to do is create an original piece of Halloween-themed artwork (skulls, bats, pumpkins, spiderwebs... you know the drill). Then email your eerie work of art to hiredmeat@gmail.com. Size and medium are entirely up to you. Illustrators, designers, fine artists, photographers -- all are welcome!

Entries will be accepted until midnight on Friday, October 26. After that, a panel of independent judges will choose 3 winners from the bunch. Each lucky & talented winner will receive complimentary printing from MOO and art goodies from me, including:

- One set of 25 MOO Holiday Cards

- One set of 50 MOO Classic Business Cards

- A set of three limited edition art prints (see below)

- My latest pair of collectible postcard prints

 

So go ahead and get those pencils, pens, paintbrushes & styluses moving! Feel free to play with the Halloween theme... go creepy or cute, blood-curdling or comedic. The only real rules are 1) have fun, and 2) make sure your submission is "Halloween-y."

The Gory Details:

- All entries must be received by midnight, the night of October 17, 2012.

- Please submit artwork as low-resolution JPEGs or PDFs -- 72dpi, RGB, longest side no larger than 1200px.

- Judges will review submissions on October 18 & announce winners on Wednesday, October 31.
- DO NOT submit works featuring trademarked characters.

Since 2006, MOO has been a provider of quality products for all your business-related and personal printing needs. To learn more about what they can offer you, visit www.us.moo.com.

"Black cats & bats & ghosts, make most attractive hosts!"

- Dave "King Gum" Crosland

Black Eye Beastie

I guess even lippy demons get smacked in the eye, sometimes!

This little ditty came from my morning warm-up sketches, before diving into a stack of comic page layouts. Up and down, and one and two, and sketch and paint!


Your art-fitness instructor!
- King Gum Crosland

Crosland + Artsprojekt = HELL YES!

"Beauty Is The Beast" 24" x 36", acrylic on canvas

Andy Howell and the amazing folks behind Artsprojekt and Zazzle.com invited me out to the Thread show in San Francisco, this weekend. It was an amazing gathering of fashion designers, artists, and creative enthusiasts. The Artsprojekt booth was a massive combination of all that stuff, complete with art prints, apparel, assorted merch, and original artwork. They also had live art going on all weekend long. On Sunday, I rolled through and knocked out the beastly piece up above. Rawr!

To see lots more photos from the weekend, peep the Artsprojekt blog, The Projekt. Enjoy!

Sailing the seas of cheese,
- King Gum, skipper extraordinaire.

La Grippe!

Oog... sorry for the lack of posts, lately. But I've been "hella-sick" (as the kids say) for the past week and a half. Still, evil influenza be damned, the show must go on! I've been creep-creep-creeping along with work on "Everybody's DEAD", my minicomic "Soft Coeur," a new DeadMeat t-shirt design (that's a collaboration imprint I do with my girlfriend, who runs Deadbeatsister), and work on a top-secret project with "Edgar & Ellen" (Simon and Schuster). Whew!

Of course, I'll be dropping tidbits from all that stuff here. For now, I'll focus on a little ocular tease of the new cover for "Everybody's DEAD #4." The whole thing has already been inked and colored (and Len's colors on this one are simply DELICIOUS), but all I'm showing you here are the pencils. Hey, I gotta keep SOME of this stuff as a surprise. If you're really anxious to see it in all it's finished glory, just check out next month's issue of Previews.

Also, here's some of the groundwork for "Doughboy." It's mainly sketches of monsters, along with some random doodles in my little pocket-power book.

Here we have some of your garden-variety beasties in the afterlife world where "Doughboy" takes place. Though my story refers to them as "demons", they're far from fire-and-brimstone devils.

Oh, being sick has also meant spending a lot more time in bed. In between rounds of writing and inking amidst my mounds of pillows and blankets, I've also been digging up old books to read. One of my favorites that I unearthed a few days ago, is "The Complete Soulwind," by my homeboy Scott Morse. At 520 pages, the book is beyond epic. It's magically fantastic, and grabs my imagination the way books and movies used to grab it when I was a wee Crosland pup. I highly recommend it, to the infirm as well as the healthy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go pop another Airborne tablet and work some more before passing out.

Bunker, out.

"Everybody's DEAD"!!!

After a short break from comics last year, following my work on "Scarface: Scarred For Life," I'M BACK! This time, it's with the motley fraternity vs. messy monsters epic, "Everybody's DEAD"!

Written by Brian Lynch (writer on "Angel: After The Fall", the comic continuation of Joss Whedon's Angel), this book follows the post-apocalyptic adventures of "... the last people on Earth you'd want to be the last people on Earth." It's a 5-issue miniseries. I'm working on the third issue now, and it's a blast. I'm talking, like, the Tunguska Blast of 1908! Simply put, it's a handful of dorky fratters and one badass kick-boxing chica, against the undead hordes. It's classic cult stuff. But there IS a twist to these undead hellions. For that, you'll just have to pick up the book.

This series has me drawing all sorts of fun items -- muscle cars, gore, sexy costumes, MORE gore, fraternity brawls, and did I mention the gore?

I'll be dropping plenty of updates on this blog, as I progress thru the books. For now, you can click the issue 1 cover to the right. Enjoy!

ps-- Len O'Grady (the colorist on Scarface) is also coloring this series. The man's a demigod of chroma.