031: Hat

I love a girl who can pull off a baseball cap. Especially if they pull the ponytail through the back. There's something about it that's so cute. They are probably athletic too and can kick my ass in sports. Snootch.

030: Pierced

Every time I see a girl with a lot of piercings, I think of Rosanna Arquette in PULP FICTION. You know, the one with all the shit on her face. Haha. I love using my Pentel White Ink Pen for the highlights on the hair, skin, etc.

29: Afro

I love drawing afros. If you follow me and my convention sketch posts, one of my favorite things I've ever drawn was Spider-Man with an afro and a pick webbed to his hair. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Anyhoo, with my new brush I got for Christmas, I noticed I can pull a lot of texture from the cardboard and the ink gets darker the more times you go over so it gave the hair some depth and volume. Fun stuff.

028: smokes

Whenever I drew a girl character in high school I always gave them a cigarette. I thought it looked cool leaving a long exaggerated smoke trail from her mouth or the cigarette. I have since learned how to draw girls not holding cigarettes....no matter how cool it looked. Haha.

027: Glasses

I'm guilty of watching award shows and then seeking out the shows that won to see if they are any good, then saying I've been a fan all along. :P

That being said, Nic and I started watching the show, GIRLS. It recently took home the Golden Globe for Best Comedy and Best Actress, Lena Dunham. We are only two episodes in and it has potential. The pilot was a little uneven but we are getting introduced to these characters and we haven't lost interest, so that's always a good sign.

I thought it'd be fun to draw some girls this week. I dig a girl with glasses. Especially huge nerd frames or I like to call Clark Kent frames.

026: MOUSERS

I had a blast drawing the TMNT-verse for you guys this week and will definitely be tackling more characters in future weeks of the cardBOREDsketch box. To end the first TMNT week I went with strength in number, Baxter Stockman's MOUSERS. Have a great rest of the weekend, folks! We will see you tomorrow!

025: Slash!

Woo hoo! 25 sketches in! I'm so grateful to everyone who's constantly checked in to see what's in the box. so tophatsasquatch on Instagram requested a Slash after seeing my Rat King post from the other. Slash recently made it's way into the new TMNT series put out by IDW and they did a great job portraying him as somewhat of a Frankenstein character. A misunderstood monster. I can't wait to see how he unfolds later on in the series.

024: Genghis Frog

Genghis Frog was one of those toys with awesome accessories. He came with a boogie board spiked shield and a tongue gun....A TONGUE GUN. Where do they get these wonderful toys?

I think he was the leader of the Punk Frogs which had members such as: Attila the Frog, Napoleon Bonafrog, and Rasputin the Mad Frog. Seriously where do they come up with this radical awesomeness.

023: The Rat King

The last TMNT toy I remember getting was The Rat King. Again, I don't remember him that much in the show or the comics but I remember getting the toy and opening up and all the weird accessories he came with like that cat belt and the green cross bow. The toy itself was creepy. He had a weird flat top haircut with bald patches, green bandages all over his body and face, and random bones attached to his body.

022: Mondo Gecko

Casey Jones is my favorite TMNT character ever, but Mondo Gecko was absolute favorite toy from the turtle-verse. He was so colorful and bright and came with this kick-ass rocket boosted skateboard. I used to pose him in all these amazing skateboard poses and his hands were molded in away that he could hold on to an edge of a play set with one hand and be grabbin' his board with the other. It was endless fun for me. I actually saw this toy vendor at my last comic show and he had an entire set of opened turtle toys in little baggies. Thinking back on it now, I probably should've rummaged through those and dug up a Mondo Gecko for the ride home. I will definitely be checking the bins when my convention season starts back up in March.

021: Casey Jones

Happy Monday! Casey Jones is my favorite character from the turtle-verse. Mostly do to the stellar performance from Elias Koteas in the '90s film. He was the right kind of crazy with that comedic charm. I've enjoyed the different iterations of Casey Jones since then and he is really missed in the new series. I hope he pops up soon. I also really love drawing the character, such a simple design that can be varied and altered in fun ways. More TMNT awesomeness to come!

020: Shredder to kick off TMNT week

It's TMNT week here in the #cardBOREDsketch box and I am excited to kick it off with the big bad baddie, The Shredder. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are an integral part of my childhood and to this day I am still a fan and excited that they have come back in a huge way in the form of the IDW comic and the new Nickelodeon show.

My older brothers had the original Eastman and Laird books with the gritty black and white art but I was never "allowed" to read them. When the Adventure series came out by Archie Comics those were the ones I read.. The cartoons series, the toys, the movies, flooded my world. I love the universe and continue to dive in especially now that those Ultimate Hard Covers have been coming out by IDW. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Kevin Eastman at the Detroit Fanfare two years ago and it was one of the highlights of my artistic career and my life for that matter. To meet someone who has influenced you with their art, stories, and characters, is a great feeling and it further fueled me to be a better storyteller.

Since you've seen me draw the turtles endless amounts of times I thought I'd kick it fresh and start it off with the Shred-dude. I love his fight with the turtles in the first movie and this scene:

Shredder: Ah, the rat. It has a name. It HAD a name.
Leo: YOU LIE!
Shredder: DO I?


So. Damn. Good.

019: Lamb Chop

Happy weekend  folks. Remember Lamb Chop's Play Along? Remember that annoying song? Yeah, I do too.

018: Lion-O

TGIF kids! Hope everyone had a good time looking inside the #cardBOREDsketch box this week. I got something special lined up for next week starting this Sunday, so stay tuned!

Today's drawing is of Lion-O, leader of the feline super group, The Thundercats. I don't remember as much of the show as I do the toys. A lot of these action figures had the lever on their back which you would push down causing their arms to thrash back and forth in a slicing-karate chop action.

I remember having a Lion-O toy... that really wasn't mine. It was my older cousins. I remember him visiting from somewhere like Canada. I remember him letting me play with it. I remember holding on to it. I remember him getting on the plane without it. I remember claiming that he let me have it since I didn't give it up and "he forgot".

I was kind of evil.

Man if he only he had a Sword of Omens to give him sight beyond sight, he wouldn't have let me play with it his entire visit.

017: Ice Man

Came out to a car covered in ice. I had to chip away to get my keys in and brrrrr it's cold! Anyway that little story lead me to today's sketch. I'm diggin' the new Ice Man look I've been seeing in recent X-titles. They went with a hard edged icicle look as opposed to the sleek ice sculpture we've seen in the past. It's pretty cool and adds to Bobby's cooler than cool character. I think this is the first comic book character I've added to the #cardBOREDsketch box. More will definitely be coming. Stay warm out there kids.

016: Pancakes

Unlimited pancakes are back at IHOP! It's strange I don't like pancakes normally but when you put the word unlimited in front of them, they sound a lot more tasty. What can I say but, "Challenge accepted." 

More so I also don't really like IHOP's food but my best friend and I make it a point to try and hang out once a month and catch up. That place of meeting ended up being an IHOP by my house. It was just there, not to far from home, but far enough so that we didn't have to hang out at each others houses. 

We've been doing this for the past three years now and I feel like we've been closer than we have ever been. Nothing like bonding over pancakes and syrup. Here's to traditions:

015: Luchador

I've been watching a lot of those WWE wrestling biographies on Netflix lately. I sometimes turn one on when I start working on the day's sketch. I was a huge wrestling fan back in the day, especially during college and the attitude era. (wrestling fans know what I'm talking about) My favorite wrestling game of all time is No Mercy for the N64. The create-a-wrestler was so in depth and intuitive. I would spent countless hours a school night making my own wrestlers. It was like drawing comic book characters w/o the pencils and paper. I don't mind coming back to wrestling every now and then and seeing what kinds of characters they are working with now. Here's a sketch I did of a luchador I designed before named, El Fuego. I should dust off the old controller and make him in the game, heh.

014: Heart & announcing the 14 'til 14 sale!

Happy Monday! 14 is a great number. In a little over a month it will be February 14th, Valentine's Day. A day for love, romance, and friendships. It's a day full of Heart. Today's sketch is full of two hearts actually, LB & Thump, the two main characters in my first hardcover children's book, HEART. I ran a successful kickstarter campaign for HEART last year and it was one of the best experiences of my life getting to make this book.

So starting today, the 14th of January, I am kicking off the 14 'til 14 Sale which will allow you to purchase a signed copy of HEART for only $14! And as as special  bonus, until the 14th of February you will get free shipping on it! All you have to do is go to my store and add a copy of the book to your shopping cart, and when prompted enter the code: VALENTINE and you receive *FREE SHIPPING! See I told you 14 was a great number!

If you missed out on the holiday sale, now is a chance to get a signed copy for that special someone! I will be rolling out some more special items for Share Your Heart Month, so be on the look out for that!

*note: the free shipping only last 'til the 14th of February after that, you will have to pay shipping BUT the book will still be on sale from now and all of February.

013: Shaun of The Dead

Following up on my post from yesterday, I really feel like the zombie craze became huge once Shaun of the Dead was released, at least for me anyways. I wasn't a huge fan of zombies or anything but my college roommates were way into it. I remember owning a copy of Night of the Living Dead and I thought it was a great piece of film but I never wanted to seek out anything else zombie related.

So I remember going into that theater and laughing hysterically. It's all anyone would ever talk about at school. From then on the zombie infestation spread like wild fire. Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost changed the game, did something different with the genre and since then everyone's been trying to put their own spin on it.

012: Zombie

This past week I caught a screener of the movie Warm Bodies. The new rom-com-zom by director Jonathan Levine. I was sadly disappointed because I wanted to like it so much. Anyway the zombie craze is everywhere. You can't stop it. It's like a plague, you can't kill. (pun intended) That being said you can't escape it in the cardBOREDsketch box. Drawing zombies is pretty fun because you get to add a lot of texture and do really cool things to the piece like unhinge jaws, remove eye balls, and use a lot of red. Happy Saturday folks!

011: Game Boy

One more video game themed sketch here on the #cardBOREDsketch box, I give you the Game Boy. Man I logged a lot of hours on this thing back in the day. It was a brick in my tiny hands when I first got it. Later on, my brothers and I got creative and painted and glued toy accessories to them so we can tell each others apart. Mine was a sky blue and I remember my brother attached a makeshift joystick to it. On the back I wrote 2 Legit 2 Quit.

Yeah we were innovators.

Then the Game Boy Color came out and we felt Nintendo owed us some money. I mean they did do stuff better like make it slimmer and even the games were in color. Oh and they didn't put some lame ass rap lyric on the back of it's case in sharpie.

010: Aladdin

Moving right along! We are getting into double digits with Day 010! Woooo! So not only is this one of my favorite games, but it is also one of my favorite animated films ever. Capcom put out Disney's Aladdin on the Super Nintendo and it was an amazing game. I remember when I first played it like it was yesterday. It was Christmas Eve and we had opened all our presents. My two cousins and I played the game til the sun came up. We made it all the way to the Genie's lamp level before our eyes weighed heavy and our thumbs hurt. I'm pretty sure this was the first music cd I ever bought too. I was big into the soundtrack and listened to Friend Like Me and One Jump on repeat. I was a dork.

009: Make me a Sammich!

I'm hungry. I wish I had a sandwich. But I'm too busy drawing. Anyone want to make me one?

008: Earthworm Jim

Annnnd we're back! Continuing once again with videogames, today's sketch is Earthworm Jim. I absolutely love this game and it's sequel. I spent countless hours with this game and laughed at every level. I especially loved the level where you had to bounce Peter Puppy's puppies from one area to another with out making them go splat.

It wasn't til much later I discovered the man behind the worm, Doug TenNapel. I've been a follower of his work ever since. I may just revisit EWJ and other TenNapel works in the cardBOREDsketch box later in the year. But for now, feel groovy with this:

Are these for sale?

No new sketch today since I had Mario and Luigi cover days 6 AND 7 but I'd like to address the Are these for sale? question.

I get asked this question a lot. The answer is yes. The fact is I just don't have time or store space to post every single cardBOREDsketch I do. But if you are ever interested in any of the ones I post for the blog, just tweet me, facebook me, instagram me, or email me which one you are interested in. First come, first serve.

Here are the specs for the sketches and how much you can get them for:

• cardBOREDsketch size is 2"x3"
• they are $5 for a single sketch
• you can get them framed in a nice 4"x6" black frame for $15
• shipping is $5 for either the single or the framed
• Paypal address is wheniwaslittle@gmail.com

From time to time I also put a variety of sizes on my online store. If you do not like any of the ones you see currently you can always order a set of your own. When you place your order just tell me in the comments or additional info which characters you would like. I do 5 cardBOREDsketches for $20.

*on a side note, if you follow me on instagram, twitter, or facebook the ones that I hash tag with #cardBOREDset are not for sale.....yet. :)

006-007: The Mario Bros.

Nintendo played a huge part in my childhood. We had every system and almost every game. We collected Nintendo Power magazine and I would copy the pictures in there. Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong I drew it all. I was amazed at how incredible my brother John was with the Mario Paint program. It was Photoshop before Photoshop. My older brother Jeff, is still a huge gamer and he keeps me updated on all the coolest games and going ons in the video game industry. I don't consider myself a gamer so much any more. Every now and then a game will absorb me for weeks and months but most of the time I am at the art desk. Here are the Mario Bros. for days 006-007. I hope you've enjoyed the first week of The cardBOREDsketch Box! More awesomeness and trips down memory lane to come!

005: Moustache

I don't really get the moustache craze. It is everywhere. So I slapped a 'stache on a cardBOREDsketch my way. He's a gentlemen but he's kind of blunt. Enjoy!

004: Alf

I was watching the movie, TED, the other night and I was laughing at the line where Mark Wahlberg wishes he got a Teddy Ruxpin instead. I was thinking about what my favorite toy was. I remember I did have a Teddy Ruxpin but the talking ALF doll was definitely my favorite toy when I was kid. I used to drag that thing everywhere and for a while it hung out in my art studio. Of course I was a brat and didn't value my toys as much as I should have and I broke the voice box that went into his back.

003: Glow Worm

I kind of like the idea of exploring the toys, comics, and movies of my childhood. I feel like this cardBOREDsketch box project could serve as an extension of my children's book series. So it's fun to draw and take a look back of these things. As this year progresses, I plan to move towards my current interests and influences but for now let's take a trip in the way back machine shall we? Does anyone remember Glow Worms? I totally had one of these when I was little (see what I did there!?)

002: Unicorn

As I mentioned in the last post, I took down some notes of things I am a fan of: movies, comics, games, etc. I fought with myself back and forth with the content. I wanted to draw stuff like The X-Men or Batman but I also didn't want to be that dude who just draws fan art all the time. I also didn't want to draw new characters from upcoming books and comics I am working on either. I wanted to reserve those for when the time is ready.

So I decided to throw out a rule book of any kind when it comes to drawing for the cardBOREDsketch box. If I feel like drawing Batman then f' it, I am going to draw Batman. Maybe in the 365 days I draw Batman 5 times. I can guarantee you that those 5 drawings of Batman will look different. The challenge is to keep it fresh and mix it up. I just want to draw whatever. With that being said, here' a unicorn making kebobs.

001: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

So as I was prepping for this project, I took some notes on all the types of things I wanted to draw and it goes back to things that influenced me and my art style. Movies, comics, toys, cartoons, etc. I have to say Tim Burton and his films have been a huge influence on me growing up. The man was just weird. His vision on things was weird. I liked it. It was different and because of that he stood out. Movies like Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice were films I loved watching when I was kid. His films definitely shaped my tastes and made me want to seek out strange, weird, and wonderful things as I got older. So on day one, I decided to draw Beetlejuice.