California Ain't Going Nowhere

I threw this effort together for a Matt Artz: Ace Reporter story about all that noise some folks are making about California seceding from the United States. Turns out it might be more trouble than it's worth – surprise, surprise.

Drawn & colored in Photoshop.

Not too crazy about my Trump doodle there. He looked better early on, but toward the end I zoomed in and refined him until he sort of strayed from a decent likeness. Ah well. He's one of those characters that you don't have to have a perfect likeness to get the point across. I have a feeling I'll have to draw him again a time or two over the next four (8?) years. Plenty of practice ahead.

It ran on the Nov. 27, Sunday front page of the Mercury News, East Bay Times, Marin Independent Journal and looked like this:

The End.

Election Stress

I created this illustration with Manga Studio & Photoshop, and it ran on the front page of the Mercury News on Tuesday, Oct. 18.

The excellent story is by Angela Hill, a writer I've paired with many times in the past. When she writes with a smile I think my drawings compliment her work very well. You can read this piece online here.

Drawn and painted in Manga Studio with a bit of Photoshop.

The concept occurred to me immediately when I was given the topic. I put the rough together in the early afternoon, after discarding some other compositions along the way. When the rough was accepted, I discovered I only had a few hours to get it finished, so there was some illustration-about-election-stress stress when I found out it was needed that quickly, but it worked out.

Sometimes I think my art is better when I don't get the chance to polish it up too much.

The end.