Currently I am working on a painted nine panel comic strip. Following are the first few character studies for the protagonist.

Here is my contribution to the Heavy Hitterz: Manila show. I basically went with the same theme as in the last paintings I did for the show in San Francisco but now it is all glorious technicolor. Again a happy kaiju monster that takes a particular interest in planting things into an urban landscape. This time “happy beans” are being planted. The buildings are actually in Kyoto, Japan albeit with some little changes. The type, a new addition as well, reads プランター or “planter”. It is supposed to be as artificial and multicultural as the monsters: Japanese and Western.

The painting is 14″ by 11″ and painted with acrylics on construction cardboard. It took me a bit longer to get it finished but I am happy with the result. Look out for more paintings in the future. I am also planning to make small limited edition print runs of these paintings. So stay tuned.

This time the show is sponsored by the company with the fancy shoes: Royal Elastics, IMEEM, Scion, Lost at E Minor, Distinction Gallery and Fabric8. On April 4th there will be a Launch Party for HH:Manila at Club 6 in San Francisco, dubbed “HOW WE DO”. There will be Art displayed and some of the best local underground MCs and DJ’s are performing. LINK

You can keep updated on things leading up to the show and during at our custom IMEEM page, there will be 4 artists that will be traveling to the Philippines for the openin. We will be posting blogs, photos, and video and a lot of other goodness – whatever that means. LINK

Last but not least there will be a new microsite that is launching soon, that will have the artwork posted and for sale. LINK

A few days ago I’ve been blogged by the kind and awesome Jenn Porreca and the Raw Art Blog mentioning my previous contributions to the first Heavy Hitterz exhibition at the AgeSong Gallery in San Francisco… Here is a little shot of my painting for the upcoming Heavy Hitterz in Manila. As you can see I am using a bit of Photoshop for planning my next steps into the painting.

As advertised earlier (here), I am participating in a group show in San Francisco called “Heavy Hitterz”. Well, I just send the two paintings off over the ocean and if you’re in the bay area why not check out some of it.

For those two paintings I wanted to show some of the things that inspire me a lot here in Japan. Strangely compelling skylines created by ugly buildings that hardly leave the space for plants or breathing, larger than life monsters that destroy cities within the blink of an eye and of course all of that featured in the ever present mangas. Still, I couldn’t let go of my favorite way of inking and those cuddly cute faces inspired by early 20th century cartooning art. Realizing the differences between all those various elements I tried to bring these down into a working contrast. The result is a mixed media diptychon with screentone, acrylic colors and ink.