xmas in....August

HAPPY HOLIDAYS. Just kidding?
In greeting card world, these babies really should have shown their faces in about March, but they're here now, and that's what matters! Just in time for the NY Now gift fair (going on as I type this - we are being represented by Crow and Canary, in booth 7843), Dude and Chick proudly presents our new holiday offerings for 2013, available single and in cute little boxed sets of six (see links below, if you so desire). I'm sure you all have about 3.5 months before the idea of holiday cards even crosses your mind, but I'm excited now so here you go. Consider these the card equivalent of giving your loved ones a lump of coal and a flask of whiskey.
097 - Mistletoe
098 - Ugh, Christmas
099 - Warmest Wishes
100 - Egg Nog Season
101 - Stressmess Lights
102 - Mad Stack

pins and needles

I could pretend like this pattern has some sort of deeper meaning, but really it's just that I draw bobby pins a lot because they are everywhere in our apartment, and I wanted to put those drawings to good  use. Also, I am slightly concerned about the vacuum that I just bought (such an adult purchase, a necessity thanks to Peg) and how it it will react to sucking a bunch of these guys up, because the application of this pattern definitely bears a strong resemblance to the area behind our couch. 100% excitement in this neck of the woods, can you tell?
Above is the repeating square, below is the pattern applied. Color palette inspo from the great Kate Miss.

wall to wall

A quick repeating pattern to send you into the weekend...Christmas in July (aka the Dude and Chick holiday release) is scrambling my brain, and sometimes the best way to organize your mind is to just Tetris a bunch of random shapes together. ENJOY.

sketchy dudes

And now, just for a change of pace, here are some sketchy dudes from the past few weeks. I've been drawing a lot lately - practice makes perfect, right? I'm trying to make good on my promise to myself to take an hour or so every day to get a few things down on paper, and it's going well. Now I just need to weed out the good stuff and find the time to finish up a few things...

sketch gallery

Ye olde sketch(e?) gallery is a little looser, a little more varied these days. Looking back through my warm up drawings is weird - so many different styles. There are days when I end up with really weird faces, sketchy faces, detailed faces...sometimes just poorly rendered bad faces. Reminds me of the different handwriting styles I tried on back in the day. You know, cursive, dotting the i with a heart, extra flourishes on a and g. Sometimes it's beneficial to comb back through this stuff and pick out a style I'd like to work in more, but mostly it's just nice to make a little something out of these throwaways because it's Friday and I felt like it.

ladies in blue

Here it is, midsummer, and despite the heat, I'm feeling....productive. I scanned in pages and pages of new inked drawings and texture experiments yesterday, and decided to treat myself to a little Photoshop fun (phun? ha) involving my new friends, the dodge and burn tools. My digital illustration teacher would be fuming if he saw this, but I'm into this seventies blue fade vibe, so I'm going with it.

welcome to the ad industry, bitch

On a Monday, at the beginning of a bonanza of Dude and Chick holiday release madness (in living color on site in St. Paul!) all I can manage is sharing a terrific mashup of my two favorite things. Get ready to have Phantom Planet stuck in your head for the rest of the day (and for the record, if you don't understand the title of this post, you have three seasons of excellent mid-aughts television to watch before we can properly chat).