Just checkin' in...

I'm still around. Still continuing the Mario characters, but with all the internet attention it's made me quite a bit busier. I felt weird not updating in so long again, so this is that update. I'm trying to make some time to sit down and broadcast one but it doesn't seem to be happening. Soon though. Soon.

And I'm trying REAL hard to mean that.

Well... Hello Kotaku.. - News

When I first started the Mario things I was like. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if these got plugged on kotaku?" As a daily reader I must say, I just about spit coffee everywhere when I scrolled down and saw my art on such a huge site. So you can bet I'll have an extra skip in my step today. I'm I so happy and nervous about the sheer amount of people that will see those today.

Prints are still coming. Possibly latter today. Fingers crossed.

http://kotaku.com/5821124/the-horror-of-marios-enemies/gallery/1

It would seem... - News post

It would seem that the Mario Enemy series has gone a tiny bit viral. It's being featured on quite a few website all over the world, and I'm suddenly getting new twitter/blog followers. First, very flattered that people are digging them. Most artists are modest, but they still love to hear nice feedback, even if they don't know how to react back to it. So let me just say thanks.

Also, a few things:

1. Prints are definitely coming very, very soon. I wanted to get my new portfolio site up before that, but the response to these has been quite overwhelming, so for the safety of myself and people buying prints I will have a storefront up where you can purchase prints and original artwork.

2. I'm still going to be continuing the series. I have maybe 7 more left I intend to do, and 2 full illustrations. So stay tuned. Next monday I will be resuming my update schedule of every M,T,W,Th, F... so keep on checking back.

3. I'm also going to continue streaming while I paint. So if that interests you, follow me on twitter at:

http://twitter.com/mpuncekar

And you'll be notified of when I start the stream, and you can watch me paint.

Again thank you, it truly is flattering if not also a bit surreal.

Mike Puncekar... Not so Live

Well, Ustream banned me for copyright infringement... of what?... I have no idea. So until I work this out with them I guess no live shows.

I think maybe they got me on the music I was streaming as I painted? But I've seen a heck of a lot of channels do that. So I'm at a loss as to why it was a problem now. And if it was because of the tiny bit of nudity I was painting at the time, why does it say I've infringed a copyright, hell if that isn't defamation. Need that off of there fast. Not exactly words I want attached to my illustrations. If it was Terms of Service thing I get that... but that is way different.

So Ustream... I take all the nice things I said about you back.

UPDATE: I worked it out with ustream, as in I am still banned and never allowed to stream again due to a boob violation. So, when I get the time I shall resume again on justin.tv since I have a much better grasp on live streaming now. It's sort of irritating that they offer an education/drawing channel and don't allow the human form in it's entirety. If it was lewd, I may understand, but it's sort of a big part of drawing otherwise.

The Humble Indie Bundle number 2.

Well, the folks at Wolfire Games have put together another Humble Indie Bundle this year. If you aren't sure what this is, it's a bundle of five games, really good games, for Mac, PC, and Linux. The catch is you pay what you want like Radiohead's In Rainbows album. The really good thing about this, and why I'm bothering to post it on here is that you can choose how what you pay is divvied up.

So, you get the games, and the money can go to two good charities, Child's Play in particular which is a wonderful organization run by the Penny Arcade guys. Child's Play is very relevant right now because this charity sends video games and systems to hospitals to entertain the ill children every Christmas.

So get yourself some games, and give to charity at the same time. Only 7 days left though, so be sure to click below. They've already raised a substantial amount of money for the short amount of time it has been available. Gives me the warm and fuzzies.

CLICK HERE TO BE A GOOD PERSON   

I'll post some art up real soon.

The Hound of Kings

Recently I was contacted to do a quick sketch for a silent auction in alabama. The subject was weimaraners. More specifically for a an event to raise money for a rescue foundation for weimaraner's in Alabama, Mississippi, parts of Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana. The event is march 6th in Homewood, AL. Looks like a good time, so if you live around there check it out, and bid on my drawing, please. Thanks to Vanessa for giving me the chance to contribute. The idea behind the drawing was that Weimaraner's are considered the dogs of king's since their breeding came about as a result of the king's wanted decent hunting dogs to accompany them. They did their job so well, that it was among one of the first breeds to be accepted in the home to live with their owners, so in a sense, they have a royal bloodline, as well as one of the most historic.

More information on the event by clicking here.

In other news this place has been a bit quiet since I have a lot of projects going right now, but I'll be updating soon enough. Want to thank everyone for the support lately. Gives me the ol' warm and fuzzies in the heart regions.

Society of Illustrators - Student Competition

Edit: Thanks for all the kind words all. What a great few days. Coincidentally, at the time I made this post I hadn't known that Irene Gallo had posted the Undertaker on her blog in the image attached to the post about the competition. Which really made this something special for me, just being on the same page as posts with Tor Books artists. So exciting.

Here's the images that made it in for those that asked.

Groff: This cloud is pretty comfy. We will see.

Thanks again everyone

Let me start off with a WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

....and compose myself....

When I came to CCAD I only had one goal after freshman year, and that was to get something into this student competition for Society of Illustrators. Man, is it a good feeling to have gotten two pieces in, The Undertaker and Lincoln's Secret Letters. I understand that judging is more of a matter of taste on the judges panel, and the best piece that I may think will get out in the first round, but as a general feeling towards this, I feel like I've been assured at least a shot in the illustration world.

Holy hell I'm excited right now. Have to get back to work on an assignment I'm way behind on, but be sure to check out everything that made it into the show this year.

Society of Illustrators Student Competition

A New Year, A New Sketch-a-day

It's time to start the new year. As far as new years go, this is sort of a big one I would think. School will officially end and I'm gonna have to grow up or some such nonsense, and hopefully, I'll be able to make something out of this hobby turned career called "Illustration". But that's not a for a few months. So besides that, and realizing that all the little kids I knew have entered high school which weirds me out, things are gonna be normal for a bit. So I thought, this is the perfect time to revamp sketch-a-day.

I used to be pretty on the ball about sketch-a-day. If you check out my back logs over there you can see I was doing alright. Then once last summer hit it's been spiraling downward. So I made a resolution this year: to update this blog four or more times a week. I have some ideas ranging from using it to develop a universe of sorts, or to turn it into an ongoing comic for at least an "issue". But my hopes are high that this is one resolution I won't break.

2009 was a good year though.I made a bunch of break throughs as far as art goes, and met a lot of artists I've always respected. Got in my first book, won my first art contest, and made a few pictures I actually like quite a bit.

In 2010, look forward to a limited offerings of prints, and I'm hoping to do some sketch trades or something with a few people on here if they will have it.

To kick it off I'm going to update everyday for two weeks straight. Keep on checking back.

Sketch-a-day Vol. 2 001

15xThirteen

15xThirteen is something I am really excited about...

The very talented Coey Kuhn and Shy Custis have put together this book of 15 different artists, each with a few pieces and some info about them. It's a good size, full color assortment of a lot of great work, no back door bragging intended here, they got some talented artists from all over the globe in on this.

Here's the thing, there aren't that many of these. Only 250 are going to be printed, then it's done forever. And I assure you that they will start to disappear, especially once Coey and Shy go to sell them at a con. They are the cool popular kids on the indie artist block. So if you want one, grab one now, because once they are gone... no more art book.

Heck, if you do buy one, send me the book, I'll do a sketch for you in the front. A nice one. It will involve ink, and pencil, and whatever else I can use without ruining your nice new book. And I'll send it back to you. No extra charge. If you are interested, just shoot me an e-mail about it and I'll tell you where to send it. No shenanigans please.

Here's the stats of the book:

-Only 250 being printed!

-55 pages

-8.5"x11"

-$40 USD each

-$5 shipping US and Canada, $9 worldwide

The Contributors (in no particular order):

Shy Custis/Coey Kuhn/Rachel Britton/Renee Britton/P.Gaither/Lois van Baarle/

/Ms. Rosek/Kelly Bastow/Mike Puncekar/Kaite Ryan/Ash Evans/Kai-ou 'msh' Tang

/Agnes/Andreia Parreira/Hamlet Machine

And remember my sketch offer. Shipping is all that it would cost. If you wanted something in particular, just write it on the inside cover.

Click Here to Buy

Portrait of a Mobster

Apologies for the lack of posting as of late. It's finals week though. Here's a quickie from tonight that I had to do for a homework figure drawing class assignment. I just sort of pulled this one all from my head so it has some issues, but it's also doubled as a bit of a skin tone experiment for an upcoming moby dick illustration I have due friday.

Here's everything due this week:

-One Exam

-4 four corner illustrations for monkey project

-25 11"x17"concept boards based on the monkey tale and present

-2 out of class figure drawing assignments, second one is going to be a painting. Over-gesso'd the canvas, though. Still drying. Need to Start!

-2 Editorial illustrations, one based on the tour de france, one on moby dick

-one artist paper

-and some other odds and ends like a contact list of companies, portfolio reviews, and a artist compendium.

In other news: Last week I had my website due. And now you can go there and look through my work without stumbling through this blog here. A lot of really dated work on there, but hopefully I can really start overhauling my portfolio soon, because in my opinion it's pretty weak right now haha.

Anyhoo: Check out the new website, hmm?

I'm alive! But sick.

Just popping my head in to tell you I'm still here. But I got some sort of sickness that involves my head feeling like it's about to pop. Sinus medicine seems to really be helping though. But the fact that my brain is punching it's way out of my head means updates on here aren't my first priority, but I'll try to get something up on here really soon since I know it gets boring fast without me updating and coloring sketches.

I'm off to get some ibuprofen and sudafed now.

Ok. I'm a little behind on my promise.

Updates are coming. Ended up just completely vegging out for the weekend and was pretty much just lazy. It was fantastic. But I got about 4 drawings to scan and a few photos (including the finished astronaut coming).

Consider this post "Mike's peace of mind." I felt weird not updating. But I'm pooped and I'll get it up on here tomorrow.

Till then, I put together this series of progress shots I was taking to pretty much document how I did the "Mad" Jack one for myself. Only missing the original pencils, but those were only a 15 minute sketch. You shouldn't miss it. Just a tiny bit of paint on the face on the first panel. If you want to know anything about the process, just ask.

Do not ever buy...

Black Cat India Ink from Dick Blick. It's crap and it's screwing my black and white inks badly. Worst ink I've ever used in my entire life. Goes down like black watercolor. I can't believe it actually is even labeled ink on the bottle. 

Don't let the glass bottle fool you into thinking it's high end, especially with the HIGHER price tag. I feel like I've committed a sin by using this poor excuse for pigment.

Anyway... warning aide.. will have some fun stuff to post tommorrow... even my extremely poor black and white. Can't believe I'm going to turn this in.

No More Header Header Header

Well. Changed it back until I get a finished banner all done up, one that can coincide with a future website. So... back to what it was. For now.

Thanks for all the input on the last one. Definitely ready to make the next one after finals.

Header Header Header.

So if you've been on here and noticed weird things, it's because I was getting a flash header in place that I could later add an about me and contact, and possible links on it. So for now it's a place holder, and I can't figure out how to get rid of the tiny gap I used to be rid of... but I'm still pretty happy I finally even got it working with help from a few blogger tips blogs. If I have to design around that tiny gap... I will. As far as I can tell it's caused by the quickedit icon, as when I'm logged in the wrench appearance to edit makes the gap the exact size as the picture of the wrench. 

Turning off quick edit did not fix the problem.

Well anyways, just thought I'd point it and to apologize for any weird happenings.