What Were Neanderthals Like?

I recently worked with John Sandford at Muse Magazine on a feature article about the characteristics and lifestyles of Neanderthal man. 

How easy would it be to recognize a Neanderthal if you ran into one at a bus stop? Our Neanderthal here is characterized by his heavy brow, long nose, wide brain case, and primitive reading material. Homo sapiens are notable for their hot dog skateboards, bubblegum, handheld videogames, and a propensity for putting shirts on dogs.

Neanderthals may have been smarter than we typically give them credit for.

Life sure was rough for these guys.

Alakazam

This is my finished piece for the Pokemon Battle Royale show held next month at the Light Gray Art Gallery in St. Paul, Minnesota. Alakazam is some kind of psychic jackal, I think? 

There will be a few prints of this dude available at the show if anyone is planning on attending. From what I've seen, it's going to be a great show.

I drew this a few weeks before Moebius died, and it kinda ended up as a weird tribute to him. Kali bought me "40 Days Dans La Desert" a year or so ago and it's been one of my favorite books ever since.

Something in the Air

I have a two-page spread in this week's edition of Adweek Magazine, accompanying an article about retails businesses using subtle perfume as a sort of olfactory branding to draw people into their stores.

Super quick turnaround on this guy -- assignment comes in Friday night, final goes out Tuesday night.

The magazine is printed with scratch-and-sniff ink over the perfume areas, which is grass scented. Fun!

AD Nick Mrozowski

55/52 - A Frog

And we end on a selfish note. After doing all of these drawings for other people, I was getting pretty bummed out that I didn't get to keep one of the set, and I figured I could stand to do one more. This is my D&D character (who I'm picking up after I finish DMing). He is a psychic frog.

So, that's the series. I'll hopefully have some more of this stuff to put up in the not too distant future, but for now, that's it. If everything goes according to plan, I will have a book of these drawings available at SPX in the fall, and I'll sell them online afterward.

Hope you enjoyed the series!

54/52 - Braid

Second to last!

53/52 - Sludge Knight

Self portrait as a knight.

52/52 - Ogre

You know he's a bad dude because of the spikes and skulls and stuff.

Because of a few APs, this series will continue through the week before it's done forever.

51/52 - Skull

I think this was the last one that I did? Maybe.

ANYWAY, the numbers say I only have one more of these to post, but you can't always believe numbers.

50/52 - Orc

Orcs have pig faces. Don't trust anyone who tells you otherwise.

49/52 - Sahaugin

Sahaugins are fish lizards from the bottom of the sea. Aquaman has met some, probably.

48/52 - Bard

This is the bard in my D&D campaign, who is a party dwarf of the finest caliber.

47/52 - Bugbear

Bugbears are the biggest and meanest members of the goblin family. Here, I made this handy chart:

46/52 - Golem

Everybody needs their own animate construct every now and then.

45/52 - Ranger

This is Borlo. He is the ranger in my D&D group. His favorite pastimes include being thrown over pits of spikes and being strangled by bugbears.

44/52 - Knight

I think I was reading "Best Served Cold" by Joe Abercrombie and looking at Soul Caliber art books and thus: ladyknight.

Spore

Another one of my short stories.

Detail:

Larger image.

43/52 - Kobold

A perennial favorite D&D monster. Anyone who's ever started as a level 1 character in Dungeons and Dragons has assuredly mown down a field of Kobolds in their day. 

Kobolds are also trickster sprites in German mythology, but those ones don't looks like little dragon-goblin jerks so who cares.

42/52 - Fighter

This is the Fighter from my D&D campaign, whose name is John Rhys-Davies. He's kinda like a Kratos made out of rocks. He is one of the strongest characters in the party, and as such, it is my job as DM to try to kill him.

41/52 - Lich

I think I'll always have a soft spot for skull-faces.

40/52 - Captain Falcon

Captain Falcon drives race cars in space and has hands and feet made out of fire.