Character collage that includes all our characters from 1999-2009. Wow, 10 years!

2009 marked the 25th anniversary of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo comic book series.

I’ve been exhibiting at Comic-Con International for 5 years and counting now, and have been waiting for Usagi to have some kind of celebration before finally submitting an illustration to their program guide.  This happened to also be the first year that they printed the program guide in full-color.  I had a lot of fun creating this piece, which is of Usagi Yojimbo (left) and his son, Jotaro (right).

Stan has been a profound influence on my art career. As a child, I studied his works and learned a great deal about storytelling through his example. The day I finally met him in person (at a very small comic convention) was indeed a momentous occassion.

When I started to draw my own comic works, Stan surprised me by writing a personal critique.  I mean, here I was, just a fledgeling artist, and this prominent established comics creator was giving me props, as well as pointing out thing I could be improving on.  Overall his review of my first work (it was “Babysitter,” a story published in Antarctic Press’ Ninja High School Yearbook anthology) was generally positive.  Definitely blew my mind that he took the time to handwrite a personal critique!!!  (I must have that letter somewhere…I hope my mom didn’t throw it out…)

At any rate, it is my pleasure to finally be able to draw a tribute to Stan Sakai. Thanks Stan, it’s an honor to be your friend and colleague

I was commissioned by the Japan Society of San Diego & Tijuana to create a 2-page black & white comic for their JCAP event.  This is the work done for the 2009 event.

J-CAP ( Japanese Culture and Academic Proficiency) is an event run by the Japan Society of San Diego & Tijuana.  In their own words:

The goal of J-CAP is to reward and encourage the study of the Japanese language by offering a full day of challenging and enjoyable competitions. Teams of students compete in two activities that test their knowledge of facts and communication skills.  J-CAP also celebrates the study of Japanese through experiential learning, interactions with students from other schools, and Japanese cultural presentations when students are not competing.

Students filled in the word bubbles on the comic with Japanese characters.  Seems like a pretty fun and creative way to apply your knowledge of a language, if you ask me!

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson is one of my all-time favorite comic strips. I learned a lot about cartoon expressionism from studying this comic strip.  One thing that always sticks out in my mind is a comment that the late great Charles Schultz said, which was that Bill “drew the best watersplashes.” (This was in one of the forwards of a Calvin & Hobbes collection; I forget which one it was.)

Something important to note is that I drew this when I was supposed to be cleaning my studio. Oh well.

We collaborated with the creative consultants at Vostalgic to create Flash environments for Yahoo! Messenger.

This was our favorite background. Do you feel the love in its creation?

We’re fans of Sakura’s Pigma Micron pens for our own comic work, so when we heard they were developing an entry-level version of the product we were intrigued. The concept of Pigma Sensei was that it uses the same industrial quality of ink as the Pigma Micron, but at an entry-level price point.  In addition, the art set includes a mechanical pencil and eraser, making it a very handy kit for drawing and inking on the go.

They asked us to develop a package design that not only demonstrated the possible uses for each nib size, but also hint at manga art instruction.  The result was a synergy of illustration and graphic design, our favorite type of project.

A collaboration with Gama-Go for their Spring 09 Women’s Tees.

We worked with the wonderful artist Wednesday Kirwan, and polished off the art render in Adobe Illustrator.

(Sorry, we don’t have a pic of the shirt on a model this time.)

A collaboration with Gama-Go for their Spring 09 Women’s Tees.

We worked with the wonderful artist Wednesday Kirwan, and polished off the art render in Adobe Illustrator.

Ah, the GigaFin website. This is our baby. We implemented a content management system and designed the entire user experience from scratch. We worked on the company/product messaging. They even let us draw a shark for the front page.

Truly a labor of love.

Sakura of America typically markets to retailers and distributors, and much of their marketing materials reflect those targets. As we deal with both B2B and B2C clients, they asked us to develop a single brochure to summarize their company and products.

In terms of design, we wanted to give equal emphasis to Sakura’s products, logo, and messaging as the company that empowers you to be creative. (As big fans of their products, we know this firsthand…go Pigma Micron!)

We worked with the corporate team in establishing the art direction and gave feedback on copywriting. We provided final design and illustration.