Joebot

Adult Swim @ Gallery 1988

2012-01-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Adult Swim is coming to Gallery 1988 Friday January 13th! They've kindly asked me to participate in the group show. I'm admittedly not 100% familiar with all that Adult Swim has to offer, but I do love me some Venture Bros. So it was pretty clear what my subject matter would be when I was asked to be a part of the show.

Venture into awesomeness with The Venture Bros. and Friends!

A very limited signed and numbered print run will be available exclusively through Gallery 1988.

If you're an Adult Swim fan and you live in the Los Angeles area, you definitely don't want to miss this show.

Adult Swim @ Gallery 1988 Melrose
Friday January 13th, 2012
7020 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90038
http://www.gallery1988.com

Buffy and The Scoobies

2011-12-19T18:35:00.000-08:00

2011 has been an excellent year. I was able to participate in some excellent Gallery shows, most notably "Crazy 4 Cult" at Gallery 1988 where I debuted my "Sing Along with Dr. Horrible" album. I also got to participate in a great charity event for Equality Now where I got to meet Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day.

I worked with Teefury to raise money for Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon and her Walk for Lupus Campaign, and in return I got some AWESOME stuff in the mail from some pretty awesome people:

As the great 2011 draws to a close, as does my series of Whedon inspired albums with my latest piece:

I created this artwork for one of the most important people in the world to me. My new Fiancé Kristin. She is amazing and there are so many reasons why I love her. One of which is that she was wearing a batman t-shirt when I proposed to her. She also happens to be a HUGE Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. When she came into my life, she brought Buffy along with her. I had seen and loved Firefly, Dollhouse, and Dr. Horrible, but I had yet to experience Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Well now I am happy to report that I get it... Buffy is pretty awesome. It may have taken a while, but by the end of 2011 I will have finished all 7 seasons of Buffy.

I know that Kristin isn't the only fan of Buffy, and so I wanted to share this with you. Yes YOU! If you're reading this right now... YOU are awesome. YOU are also very good looking and YOU smell nice.

Hellmouth Records has just issued this press release:
"Fresh out of Sunnydale, here comes Buffy and the Scoobies with their debut album "Chosen"! Choose your weapon and get your blood boiling with heart pounding songs such as "The Big Bad", "Out For A Walk, Bitch", and "Hush". Buffy and the Scoobies take aim at your heart and will have you begging for more. Fortune favors the brave when you are Chosen."

Here's a look at the track listing:

This is what the record label looks like:

Prints of the artwork are available to purchase exclusively through my Etsy store located at joebot.etsy.com
Buffy and the Scoobies front: HERE
Buffy and the Scoobies front and back set: HERE
If you're extra good this year, this design may appear in t-shirt form very very soon.

I always appreciate hearing from fans of my work, so feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts! And remember what your mother should have told you, if you have nothing nice to say, write it on the internet.

Here's to 2012, let's all hope the Mayans are wrong!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Legends of Hyrule - Gallery 1988

2011-09-07T10:52:00.001-07:00

**UPDATE**
On Saturday, November 19th, this design will be available exclusively at Shirtpunch.com for 24 hours only, then it's gone forever. The shirt will cost $10 (or about 100 Rupee's depending on the Hyrulian exchange rate). So be sure to mark your calendars and tell your friends!

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I grew up playing video games. At the tender age of 5 years old my family got a Nintendo Entertainment System and I got REALLY into it. Mario was great, but then about a year later, The Legend of Zelda came out. I must have sunk months... maybe years of my childhood into roaming around Hyrule, I really should have been granted dual citizenship. From then on, I was a gamer for life.

So when Gallery 1988 asked me to participate in their upcoming Video Game Show, I was beyond honored. Zelda is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year, so it only seemed appropriate to create a piece celebrating one of my favorite game series. Combining three of my favorite things: Music, Video Games, and Illustration, I followed along my theme of creating retro children's albums for Firefly and Dr. Horrible I decided to set my sights on The Legend of Zelda.

Link and Zelda have taken a break from their adventures. The Princess is tired of constantly being kidnapped by Ganon and Link needed to relax and fill up his heart containers. During some downtime, the two came together and decided to put pen to paper and out of that came The Legends of Hyrule's new album "Songs of Time":

Here's the back of the album and it's track listing:

Click the links below to find out more about the meaning behind the song titles!

Side A:
Heroes of Time
It's Dangerous To Go Alone
Excuse Me, Princess
A Secret To Everybody
The Wind, It Is Blowing

Side B:
Come On!
Grumble Grumble
I Am Error
You Got A Piece Of Heart
Hey, Listen

In addition to prints, I always make one physical album that is mounted and framed. Since all of the Zelda games have shipped on gold cartridges I thought it would be fitting that the album would be pressed on gold records:

Here's the label printed on the record:

This framed album will be available exclusively at Gallery 1988 at the show opening: Purchase it HERE!

The album's Front and back prints will be available exclusively through my etsy store. To purchase high-quality prints, all you have to do is click HERE!.
Signed prints of the album front will be available exclusively at the gallery and online through Gallery 1988's Website.

If you love video games, or at one point in your life you did, then you will not want to miss this show. With about 100 featured artists, the Old School Video Game Art Show is likely to have something that interests everyone who ever picked up a controller at one point in there life.

The Old School Video Game Art Show
Friday Sept. 16th - October 8th
Gallery 1988
214 Pier Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
http://www.gallery1988.com
http://www.joebot.etsy.com

Gallery 1988 - Garbage Pail Kids Show!

2011-08-29T14:46:00.001-07:00

Let's travel back in time to 1985. The world was a different place back then...

-"We Are the World" was the #1 song in the country.
-New Coke is released and immediately despised by everyone (everyone but Bill Cosby)
-"Back to the Future" opens in theaters around the country and the DeLorean becomes the ultimate time machine.
-Windows 1.0 is released by Microsoft, Steve Ballmer suffers from insanity... sorry Nebraska.
-Nintendo releases the NES packed in with Super Mario Bros. to America (my life is changed forever).
-Topps produces a series of trading cards called "Garbage Pail Kids". Parents everywhere cringe in disgust.

Garbage Pail Kids were basically cards that made fun of Cabbage Patch Kids with gross names which most of the time translated to real life teasing of kids that were unfortunate enough to share a name with an existing card such as "Scotty" or "Amy"

I was safe... It's hard to rhyme Joey with anything that's too embarrassing. Slowy and Doughy aren't all that bad... Anyway, coming up in the first week of September, Gallery 1988 is holding a Garbage Pail Kids show! They asked artists to re-imagine their favorite Garbage Pail Kids card in their own style.

I was a huge fan of the 1960's card series "Mars Attacks" which was later turned into a Tim Burton film.

Luckily, there was a Garbage Pail Kids card "Alien Ian" that had been done in this style, and so I was more than happy to work on this. Here's my piece for the show:

The show opens Friday September 2nd at Gallery 1988 on Melrose in Los Angeles and runs through October 1st. I will have prints available to purchase both at the Gallery and through their online store.

Come on out for the opening! It's sure to be disgusting and entertaining!

The Garbage Pail Kids Show
Sept. 2nd, 2011
7020 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
http://www.gallery1988.com

** UPDATE **
Some good reviews of the show! Hayley Williams of Paramore makes an appearance :)
http://thehundreds.com/blog/2011/09/03/grossed-out/
http://dailydujour.com/2011/09/02/seen-garbage-pail-kids-gallery-1988/

Our Lady of Sunnydale Shirt!

2011-07-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Attention all Buffy fans! Yes... that means YOU. I know this is late notice, i'm very sorry, but I've been busy! Comic-Con isn't just going to see itself. I have a new t-shirt going up for sale on Teefury starting at Midnight (Eastern) tonight and 9:00pm (for all of us west coasters). On Tuesday July 26th, you can buy "Our Lady of Sunnydale" from Teefury.com for the very low price of just $10. I spent that on nacho sauce this past week at Comic-Con, so $10 for a t-shirt is a pretty good deal. It's only available for 24 hours so go go go!

(Edit) It seems that the image that Teefury has displayed is burning peoples retinas resulting in hate-filled anger that would make Satan himself proud. These above images more reflect the actual design and the shirt.

Crazy 4 Cult 5: President Camacho

2011-07-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

It is a fact that as a society, we are becoming dumber. Mike Judge, creator of the brilliant "Office Space", realized this several years ago when in 2006 he wrote and directed one of the best documentaries on the future. Idiocracy is the story about an average man that in 2005 is frozen as part of a military experiment. He is forgotten about and awakened 500 years in the future where he has now become the smartest man alive due to the dumbing down of the rest of the world. The movie only showed in a few theaters around the country and was was all but ignored by 20th Century Fox's marketing department, as demonstrated by this terrible trailer:

The movie was dumped onto DVD which is exactly where I found it. This movie is definitely not for everyone. My girlfriend Kristin hated it because "of all the trash and stupid people everywhere". How can you not love a movie that contains this scene:

My favorite character from the film is easily President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho A.K.A. President Camacho, a former porn star and professional wrestler portrayed by the always excellent Terry Crews. For this years Gallery 1988 show "Crazy 4 Cult 5" I submitted two pieces. The first one is a Dr. Horrible piece and the other is this tribute to the future President of The United States of America: President Camacho

Signed prints will be available at the show and on Gallery 1988's website!

Crazy 4 Cult 5: I'm Too Old For This Sh*t!!!
July 8th, 2011
7020 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
http://www.gallery1988.com

Crazy 4 Cult 5: I'm Too Old For This Sh*t!!!!

2011-06-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

It's like Christmas in July! Gallery 1988 is having their 5th annual "Crazy 4 Cult" show in Hollywood on July 8th, 2011! I am more than honored to be a part of this show for the 2nd time.

Crazy 4 Cult has become a summer tradition in Hollywood. Every year a group of around 100 artists come together to celebrate our love of cult movies. There are always so many to choose from and this year I had a hard time deciding which movie to choose. I was torn between 2 different films. Well, technically, one was an internet film, but it has quite a cult following nonetheless.

Last year I had chosen a film that I felt was very under-represented but loved by a very vocal and awesome group of fans that call themselves Browncoats. While I was creating "River Tam and the Fireflies" for last years show, I knew I had made something special... but I had no idea it would take off like it did. The internet was very kind to me and that artwork took me on a strange adventure over the course of the year.

I made some new friends:

I got a lot of press coverage on some of my favorite websites. I sold a few T-Shirts, and received quite a few justified complaints about a missing Shepard.

Last week I was asked to participate in an awesome event called "Can't Stop The Serenity" here in Los Angeles. More on the event can be found by clicking HERE. I had donated some artwork to be auctioned off for a charity called Equality Now. I made a few more friends at the event:

I was able to show Joss, Nathan, and Felicia the new artwork I had created for this years Crazy 4 Cult show. I was a little nervous showing them but it seems like they enjoyed it!

They each requested some of the artwork, so i'm currently putting together some special gifts for them. This was an amazing opportunity and I thank Gallery 1988 for allowing me to be a part of their show. For this years show, i'll be contributing two pieces to the Crazy 4 Cult show. I'll be writing another blog about the 2nd piece, but for now, here is my artwork submission for "Crazy 4 Cult 5: I'm Too Old For This Sh*t!!!"

I consider this to be a companion piece to the "River Tam and the Fireflies". If you're not familiar with Dr. Horrible, then you owe it to yourself to pick-up this movie. It's a 45 minute musical set in 3 acts. It was self-funded and produced during the writers strike a few years back. The writing is fantastic, as usual, but the music is the real star of the show. I'm a big fan of musicals, and this short film doesn't disappoint. A framed album will be available at the gallery. Unfortunately the soundtrack wasn't released on Vinyl, so i've included another record in it's place.

Here's the back of the album:

And the framed album that will be available at the show:

The album's Front and back prints will be available exclusively through my etsy store. To purchase high-quality water color prints, all you have to do is click HERE!. Signed prints of the album front will be available exclusively at the gallery and online through Gallery 1988's Website.

If you love film and you love artwork, you won't want to miss what is becoming THE gallery event of the year in Los Angeles. Come on down to Melrose, see some awesome artwork from some amazingly talented people, and then go across the street to Pink's Hot Dogs and get one of the best tasting dogs of your life!

Crazy 4 Cult 5: I'm Too Old For This Sh*t!!!
July 8th, 2011
7020 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
http://gallery1988.com

Crazy 4 Cult Book Signing!

2011-06-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again when Gallery 1988 puts on their annual "Crazy 4 Cult" show, more on that soon. This year they have decided to put a book together with a lot of artwork from all previous "Crazy 4 Cult" shows and in honor of that, they're holding a book release/signing party!

Come on down to Gallery 1988 for what's sure to be a fun time. My "River Tam and the Fireflies" artwork from last years show is featured in this book along with work from some amazing artists including Shepard Fairey and Scott Campbell.

As for the book, I haven't seen it yet, but the reviews are starting to roll in and it sounds like an awesome collection that film fans will surely want to pick up. The first review can be found by clicking here.

Gallery 1988 celebrates 10 years of "Wet Hot American Summer"

2011-06-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

I loved the Mtv show "The State" when I was a teenager. The show lasted 3 seasons with a total of 26 hilarious episodes, with great characters like Louie who wanted to dip his balls in everything, Doug, who was outta heerrrreeee, old fashioned guy, and this gem:

Well, 10 years ago, these guys decided to make a movie. Wet Hot American Summer is a comedy that is sitting at a cool 30% freshness rating on Rottentomatoes.com. I wasn't even aware of the movie until Gallery 1988 asked if I was interested in being part of the gallery show celebrating it's 10 year status as a cult classic. Once I googled it and found out it was the guys from The State I was in.

Having never been to camp (aside from a horrific weeklong trip to "outdoor school" in 5th grade), It was hard for me to relate to a movie about camp life in the 1980's. What wasn't hard to relate to were some pretty funny characters, in particular Keith Stat from Millburn, New Jersey who really only had this little bit part in the film:

So for the show I decided to illustrate my tribute to camp nerds everywhere who loved D&D and a good ol' fashioned home-made cape.

So if you have $240 worth of pudding, be sure to head down to Gallery 1988's Venice Gallery.

Defenders and Destroyers of the Universe Now in T-Shirt Form!

2011-05-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I submitted my "Appetite For Eternia" design to teefury.com and I was blown away by the success of the sales! Teefury.com is awesome! They also recently printed my "River Tam and the Fireflies" design. I love making t-shirts, so I submitted some designs to a few other shirt sites.

Nowherebad.com is a brand new t-shirt site similar to Teefury and Ript. I will be featured as their third artist, which is pretty awesome. Shirts here are $15 with free shipping, and are available for 3 days as opposed to the usual 24 hours of some of the other shirt sites. They have chosen my VolTRON design which is a loving tribute to two awesome 80's icons of Tron and Voltron. The shirt will be on sale Monday through Wednesday, May 16th - 18th for $15. This will be the only place to get this shirt, so I hope everyone that wants one will find out about the sale!

Also going up next week is my loving tribute to Cylons with "By Your Command". I had to alter the design a bit from the original but hopefully BSG fans will still love the design. This shirt will be available for 24 hours only at Riptapparel.com for a low fee of $10! This shirt will be available Tuesday, May 17th only and then gone forever (or possibly brought back to life on Ebay).

A special thank you to both Nowherebad.com and Riptapparel.com for featuring my artwork, and thanks to anyone that orders a shirt or two!

Leftovers from Springfield

2011-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Back in 2006 I worked as a Concept Artist on "The Simpsons Game" for Electronic Arts. I've recently been backing up some files when I came across a few images that I had created for the game. I'm not sure if these even made it into the game. I know for sure that "The Shims" was cut because, as I learned when I moved to The Sims team at EA, they weren't very pleased with the image and didn't give it the go-ahead.

One of my producers on the project had tasked me with creating some images that would appear either at the Game Stop store in Springfield or somewhere in the game later. So I decided to take some of my favorite games as well as some beloved EA Franchises, and "simpsonize" them. Here are a few!

I believe this one was a dual effort of mine and another artist. I basically took his rough sketch and cleaned it up.

I'm a huge Half-Life fan, so I would take any chance to squeeze in a reference to that series. Flavin!

Little did I know when I would create this image as a bit of a joke at The Sims expense, that the next year I would be working on "The Sims 3" designing clothes for all of the characters... I don't know why they didn't approve this image.

This was my attempt to remind the fine folks at EA that they used to have an awesome football series that didn't include the word "Madden" followed by a number. I'm not a sports guy at all... I avoid sports like the plague, but I LOVED "Mutant League Football" on the Genesis. I would happily take an XBLA reboot of Mutant League Football.

This was an interesting one. I had moved onto Dead Space after wrapping up work on the Simpsons, but the game was still in development for about another year. I had some downtime on Dead Space, and I was lent out to The Simpsons team for about a week. I drew this up for the studio as an homage to what I knew was going to be a great classic game. The problem was that the Simpsons Game was going to be released before Dead Space was even announced. I'm not sure if it made it into the game or not, but they did turn this into a poster that was hung up around the studio for a while.

The Frakkin Toasters

2011-04-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

In honor of my shirt sale at Teefury , I have created another image in a similar style to the River Tam and the Fireflies piece. This time however I set my sights on one of my other favorite Sci-fi series in recent years, Battlestar Galactica.

I had so much fun trying to work Battlestar into an album cover, but there were so many characters... and they're ALL awesome!

I wasn't sure which direction to take it at first, so I started with a name. I had thought of a few that weren't quite working for me, and when I wrote down "The Frakkin Toasters" I knew I'd found my direction.

Of course it's a sorta punk-new wave-metal band. I imagined they would sound something like "The Network" but instead of Billie Joe's vocals (you're not fooling anyone Green Day) Caprica 6 would handle lead singer duties. And as much as I loved the Centurions from the rebooted BSG, I still feel the Original Cylons are much more iconic.

Once I had the band name and the album cover sketched out, I needed a catchy title. Since it was a cylon themed image, it was pretty clear what the album should be:

Here is the album cover:

I love doing all of the design work, but I also really enjoy coming up with songs that would be on an album such as this. It wasn't until I started doing some research for song titles did I find out that Caprica 6 has a phrase that she repeats multiple times throughout the series. When she meets a human for the first time, she asked them, "Are you alive?" which in both deep and awesome, so that's definitely the song to open the record with. I also learned that the term "CYLON" was an acronym created for the re-booted series, and if there's one thing I love, it's acronyms! The 5th song on the album is called "The Final 5" for pretty obvious reasons. As for the rest, they're pretty straight forward. Okay... maybe not, "End of line" is awesome because I look at is like a Tron reference, but it's also often spoken by the Hybrids in the weird Cylon bathtub. I thought about including the song title "All Along the Watchtower" but that song really pulled me out of the fictional world on the show, so I decided against it.

I'm hoping that Teefury will turn the design into a shirt. I've submitted it, but have yet to hear back from them, so if you happen to come across this site, feel free to visit http://www.teefury.com and send them a friendly message of what you'd like to see. Also, as always, prints are available on my Etsy store, just click here :)

Live long and prosper... oh wait, wrong show.
-Joey

Happy Valentron's Day!

2011-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

For that special someone in your life who loves Tron almost as much as you do...

Save Ferris! The Nintendo Game That Never Was

2011-02-01T13:59:00.000-08:00

Last year I had great success with Gallery 1988's Crazy 4 Cult show in Los Angeles. They were kind enough to invite me to contribute work to multiple shows this year, the first being "The Road To Shermer: A Tribute To John Hughes". I'm a little bit different then most kids of the 80's, as I really am not a big John Hughes fan. I have seen his movies, and some of them I really like, but i've never been a huge fan of Sixteen Candles, or The Breakfast Club. But there's a reason for that, and that reason is video games.

I was born in 1980. When I was 5 years old, a brand new shiny Nintendo Entertainment System came into my life one Christmas morning, and me in all of my 5 years of life knew that things would never be the same. We had an Apple II as well as an Intellivision, and they were great, but something about the squatty little Italian plumber and the simple 2 button controller really spoke to my 5 year old sensibilities. Also, it came with a robot that I could play with when my brother wasn't around.

So movies of the 80's came and went, and I saw and loved a few here and there, but I was a video game fiend. It came time to create a piece of artwork for the John Hughes tribute and I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a concept. I started to think about what it was that his movies main draw was, and I thought about the great characters he created that became cultural icons. I quickly drew a comparison to the old Lucas Arts adventure games. Tim Schafer was my John Hughes. Games like Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Sam & Max had characters developed as deeply as any in a film like Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club. But those games came out in the 90's. John Hughes movies exemplified the 80's, and so I would need a more 80's theme to the art piece.

There were some awful Licensed games released for the NES.
Exhibit A:

The thing I love about those old NES boxes was that the artwork was really representative of the gameplay.

Then somewhere down the line someone in marketing decided it would be cool to imply amazing graphics with the box art because you should always judge a book by it's cover:

For a tribute to John Hughes, I thought I'd like to make a game based off of my favorite of John Hughes movies, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". It would have to be an action game set in chicago. It would also need Cameron's dad's Ferrari. Inspired by the Super Mario Bros. box art, my goal was to create a fitting tribute to both John Hughes and Nintendo.

and the finished image:

But as I learned with my "River Tam and the Fireflies" piece, if you build it, they will come. It's cool to have artwork, but it's cooler to create a collectible, one-of-a-kind item. So I made the box:

And you're gonna need a game cartridge and instruction booklet:

(The cartridge doesn't contain an actual Save Ferris game, it was however at one point my copy of "Back to the Future Part II")

All of this and more can be yours if you come down to Gallery 1988's new location in Venice, CA on Friday February 11th. There are 50 artists participating in the show and Gallery 1988 always puts on a fun gallery opening.

Prints will also be available both at the gallery and online in my Etsy store.

P.S. Gallery 1988, how about a "Tribute to Tim Schafer" themed show?

Masters of Paradise City

2010-11-17T17:12:00.000-08:00

Finally, i've figured out how to combine my two favorite things from the 80's!!! I HAVE THE POWER!!!!!
Prints available soon from my Etsy store.

Getting Up and Leaving

2010-11-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

It has been quite some time since my last blog update. I had attended the SCBWI conference in LA and it was an excellent experience. I met with quite a few people that were able to give me some great feedback on my work. It was my first venture into the world of Children's Books and the publishing industry, and it was very informative. You can hear me sum up my experience in 32 seconds right here on youtube

Since the conference, several great opportunities have come up. First of all, I recently signed with East West Literary Agency. They are representing me as both an author and an illustrator and i'm very excited to be working with them. I have already started work on two books, and it's been a great experience so far.

Earlier this year I was in a gallery show at Gallery 1988 where I entered a piece based off of the cult tv/film series "Firefly" and that thing caught internet fire and spread like a bad case of herpes... or a good case of herpes... This clip came to mind when I started seeing my name on the internet

anyway, my work was featured on many of my favorite websites. The actual artwork itself was purchased at the gallery by Seth Green He is awesome! Kenny Fisher, Scott Evil, Oz, Chris Griffin, etc. etc. etc.

It was awesome having having Seth Green buy my artwork and meeting him. I didn't think it would get much better than that. About a month later I got an e-mail from River Tam herself, A.K.A. Summer Glau. My girlfriend Kristin and I had a chance to meet her, but I'll save that for a whole other blog post. There's some exciting things happening that I can't share yet, but it will be awesome!

As a result of the success of that gallery show, i've been invited to 5 gallery shows next year for Gallery 1988 that i'm pretty excited about. Most of the shows have excellent themes that I'm really looking forward to doing something for. More on that later as well.

I've started working on two new books. Last year I spent quite a bit of time working on my first book, and while it was a great learning experience, I think of it as more of an exercise in storytelling and illustration as opposed to an actual product. I've put it in the vault for now, but here are a few page layout sketches.

Next Chapter Please!

2010-07-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past 2 years, work in the videogame industry has been a roller coaster of opportunity. One minute there's an opportunity to work on a great project, and then a month later, it's shelved with little explanation. I experienced this first hand at the end of 2008 when a game I had pitched to EA had seen quite a bit of interest from the powers that be. In the interest of the studio going a different direction and eventually becoming "Visceral Games", my game was killed before it could even take it's first steps. Too bad, it would be awesome! Sorry Joey, you're just not Visceral enough.

I have always felt that my work was more geared towards children, and well, most game companies don't make games for children anymore. As a result, I've always had an itch to work in the children's book industry. As a concept artist in games, I really enjoyed creating establishing images... images that can tell a story. I decided to make the move over to trying to do more of that with actual storytelling in children's books. Back in January of last year I wrote a story that I felt conveyed a lot of emotion, a great character arc, and an opportunity to explore some illustration styles that I just wasn't allowed to do in video games, and it felt great. It felt like I could finally breath and not be concerned with whether or not adult males 18-34 would find it "cool". I want to do more of that... a lot more of that. Earlier this year I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators And now i'm ready for a dose of reality of starting over

I'm very excited for this conference. I've been working on a portfolio geared towards children's book illustration work, and I'm happy to say there's not a Photoreal image to be seen for miles and it feels great.

For my portfolio I wanted to create some images that told a story in a simple and easy way. I had so much fun working on this image, I think I laid it all out in a day, and then finished it on day 2.

I'm both nervous and excited about my new adventure, I learned the hard way that no matter how many plans you make, NOTHING ever goes according to plan, so I feel a little bit like the kid in my painting above. I'm walking the plank, but smiling the whole time. Hopefully there are some mattresses to catch me if I fall.

Crazy 4 Cult: 4

2010-06-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again! Gallery 1988 is holding their 4th annual "Crazy 4 Cult" gallery show. I have participated in several previous shows at Gallery 1988, and they were kind enough to invite me to participate in this show.

Crazy 4 Cult is a gallery show celebrating the unique love for cult movies. According to Wikipedia, "A cult movie is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans.". They kindly provided me with a list of movie suggestions, and as I went through the list, I felt that a lot of them didn't necessarily add up to cult status. Most of them were films that I loved, but I felt there was a sub-genre of space western missing from the list.

I remember seeing the ads for the show Firefly but I can't say that I ever watched it when it was on the air. I guess I wasn't alone in this because the show sadly didn't make it past one season. The show left on somewhat of a cliffhanger, and luckily there was a rabid enough fanbase that someone somewhere at Universal decided it would be a good idea to greenlight the movie "Serenity"

So, when I sat down to think about what movie I wanted to illustrate for the show, I decided I wanted to join the Browncoats . As with the show, I didn't see this movie in it's initial theatrical run, but instead on DVD... which i immediately purchased after blowing through season 1 of Firefly over a weekend. Anyway, one of the things that always seemed unique about the show was the opening theme song. It's a great little ballad written by show creator Joss Whedon that sets the tone perfectly for the entire series. Apparently the NASA astronauts are fans of this song as well, in February of this year they used it as a wakeup call on one of the last shuttle missions. Click HERE for a cool little article about that, including video from the shuttle!

A few years ago I got into collecting Vinyl records with artwork on the front. I've never really had a chance to design an album cover, and when I started thinking about what would be a fun illustration to do for Serenity, I thought since music was such a strong component of the show, that an album would be perfect. I was always a fan of old vinyl art of children's music so I wanted to incorporate a retro feel. It is a known fact that River Tam is a badass, but for now things have taken a lighter direction with "River Tam and the Fireflies"

And here's the back of the album

and the record itself

Since the soundtrack to Serenity wasn't actually released on vinyl, this record contains something special for whoever decides to purchase the full item from the gallery. Here's a quick shot of the finished product

Prints of the cover art will be available to purchase through the gallery as well as my etsy store HERE

So if you're in town July 9th and want to come check out some great artwork by over 100 artists, do yourself a favor and come check out the gallery opening for Crazy 4 Cult at Gallery 1988. Kevin Smith will be there as the host for the evening as well

Crazy 4 Cult: 4 "the case of the redundant number"
July 9th, 2010
7020 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
http://gallery1988.com/

p.s. I got to meet THE creative genius Joss Whedon last year at a comic-con party... and I just wanted to share this picture because it's awesome! Beards unite!

Let's go away for awhile

2010-04-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

I was working on an environment test for a new game project. I spent a few hours struggling with a different image and composition and I just wasn't feeling it. I quickly realized my problem... It was an environment I didn't want to spend any time in. If i'm going to dedicate some time to a painting, I want to be able to enjoy my time with it. So i threw that painting away and started to think of a place I'd like to visit. I wanted the organic areas to have a pretty saturated color palette, while giving the rocks some character to their design. Once I started laying in colors it all just kinda flowed.

Team Jacob

2010-03-03T13:33:00.001-08:00

I'm a big fan of stories that have two equally strong opposing forces. Jedi vs. Sith, The Fellowship of the ring vs. Sauron, Freddy vs. Jason...

More recently, people have been asked again to choose a side. Teenage girls (and, judging by the screaming crowd of thousands I was surrounded by at Comic-Con last year, Teenage girls at heart) have taken sides between a certain sparkly vampire and a werewolf that always manages to find a way to lose his shirt

But now with the last season of Lost upon us, we're asked to pick a side yet again. Will Jacob win out? or will Smoke-Monster Locke finally make his way off the island? Let's just hope it doesn't end up like Gilligan's Island

T-Shirts anyone?

I love you, Sun-maid Raisin Girl

2009-12-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Behold! The greatest work of art in the history of time! "Genius" and "Masterpiece" aren't words that I use lightly... but when I came across this Genius Masterpiece from my days in art school, I realized I shouldn't hide this from the world. I should have gone into marketing because i'm pretty sure raisin sales would at least double if Salma Hayek was the Sun-Maid Raisin girl. I'm currently having this painting archived and will be housed in my private collection for limited viewing engagements if you're interested.

And Salma Hayek, if you're reading this... I love you. Please come back to 30 Rock

Kevin Smith show at Gallery 1988!

2009-10-14T18:20:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I was invited to contribute an illustration for a Kevin Smith show at Gallery 1988. Each artist got to do an illustration based off of the podcast that Kevin Smith does with his friend Scott Mosier. My podcast moment was a conversation about Kevin and Scott wanting to erect a statue to caveman sex...

If you're a Kevin Smith fan, you'll definitely wanna come down and check it out... and if you're a Kevin Smith fan you probably like comic books... and right next door to the gallery is Golden Apple Comics one of the last great comic book stores in southern california.

I admired the glowing stars and tried to play a tune

2009-07-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

here's another page from the book i've been illustrating. I was having a little bit of trouble coming up with an idea and composition for this particular layout. I really wanted a chance to play around with the lighting on this one.

07.04.2009

2009-07-03T19:00:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday America!

Dead Space - Kendra

2009-06-10T15:31:00.000-07:00

Here's something I never thought i'd ever say... I made one of Maxim's "Hottest Video Game Babes of 2008"!!! Now you might be thinking to yourself "but Joey... you're not a video game babe" and then I'll cry because it's true. But luckily... I can kinda draw, and one of the characters I designed for the Electronic Arts game "Dead Space" was chosen! Kendra Daniels was in good company with Zoey from Left 4 Dead, Sofitia from Soul Calibur, The Lolipop chick from GTAIV, Lara Croft, and my favorite, Chun-Li! See the full list HERE

Here's a short overview of the work that went into creating Kendra. First... I was given a brief description of the character, her traits, role in the game, and a bit about her personality. Then I sat down and cranked out a bunch of ideas in rough sketches. The art director and I would then sift through the pages of sketches, picking out what we liked about certain ideas, shelving the ones that didn't quite work. After a round or two of that process, we had settled on three ideas that felt right for the character

Then once we were happy with a direction for Kendra, i drew out a variety of possible hair styles. I was hoping to go the Ripley route with option I, but in the end, we went with a combination of G and K

Then came the fun part of putting together modeling packets for the character to be modeled in 3D. One is the full model, with the jacket, and then one without. Also, each character had a "gore" pass in case the necromorphs got a little hungry. Texture details were called out for the texture artist to accurately render the different materials on her outfit.

The character of Kendra was brought to life by the lovely actress Tonantzin Carmelo (as well as some very talented riggers and animators). She got a chance to slip into a mocap suit and have her face scanned to become Kendra Daniels! Check out her website, she's awesome!!! Click Here

And here's the final render of Kendra that appears in the game...

The end

"The Blanks" a.k.a. Ted's Band from Scrubs

2009-04-04T13:35:00.001-07:00

I had forgotten to post this before the show, but here's another poster i did for an A Cappella group called "The Blanks"

You might recognize them by their alter-ego's "Ted's Band" from the tv show "Scrubs". I love scrubs, i could watch it all day. It's one of those shows where i put in a dvd to watch 1 episode... and next thing i know, it's 6 hours later, and i've carved a nice ass-groove into the couch.

So Ted's Band is actually The Blanks, and they are an a cappella group that go around and do shows at comedy clubs, colleges, etc. Well i had the honor of creating a poster for their first show at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco. I wish i could have gone to the show, but I did get to meet Sam (Ted on scrubs) at the Vans Warped Tour kickoff party at the Key Club on Thursday where TAT was playing.

"Ted Lawson made a huge mistake"

2009-03-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

There's something undeniably catchy about the theme song to Small Wonder. It's instantly recognizable, catchy, and beyond cheesy, but everytime it came on the t.v. i couldn't look away. I'm sad to say that in it's own little way, Small Wonder is the partly responsible for my love of robots... Though i have moved on to bigger and better fembots, I'll always have a spot in my heart for my dear Vicki.

I was asked to contribute a piece for the upcoming "Idiot Box" show at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. Since i love robots and bad 80's t.v. shows... it was a pretty easy decision of what i was going to paint. This is my first time participating in a gallery show, i had a lot of fun working on it, so come on out for the opening! Besides, when are you ever going to get a chance to meet THE Mr. Belding ever again?

On an island in the sun...

2009-03-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here's another page from the book i'm illustrating! I'm really having a lot of fun with this project. I got caught up with some other things, and i'm just now getting back on track with it. I completed this image some time ago, and i have a few more ready to go, so i'll probably post those soon.

hip hip

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse - Step 1: have a plan

2009-02-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

Growing up in southern california, I was always taught to be prepared for the inevitable "Big one". However, there's something much worse that we should all be prepared for... and that's zombies. Someday they are going to rise up, and I will be prepared. There are several things one must consider when picking a location to survive the impending zombie apocalypse. Most importantly, it should be in close proximity to either your home or workplace.

The second most important consideration when choosing a location to hide out in is familiarity. I grew up in La Verne, i know it's roads like the back of my hand. i've biked the trails in the foothills to the north, i've driven the shortcuts around town hundreds of times. Choose a location that you are not only familiar with, but that you have such fond memories of, you would do anything to preserve it's existence!

I present "Joey's Zombie Apocalypse Survival Plan". The Location i have chosen is Heritage Park in the small town of La Verne. It's about 45 minutes East of Los Angeles... If zombies were going to strike anywhere, LA and it's surrounding suburbs would be the place. Heritage park is a small historical chunk of land (4 acre's) deep in the suburbs of La Verne. Since most people would be fleeing for the desert to the east, i decided that i would stay close to home. The park is split up into two sections. The physical park itself, and then the Historical Citrus farm is it's conjoined twin. The Farm and the park are separated by a deep wash basin that carries water runoff from the foothills above La Verne out to the ocean. The farmland is also surrounded by a high fence, so the zombies are already going to have a hard time getting in, since zombies can't climb.

There are several structures on the property. The farm house is a two-story home, built probably in the early 1900's. The stairs are easily destructible incase there is a zombie breach and you need to get to high ground. The Barn is a quick walk from the farm house, and towards the back of the property is a guest house which i would use to house those in need, as well as extra storage and supplies that weren't essential.

When the zombie apocalypse comes, life as we know it will cease to exist. Man will have to learn to be self-sufficient. The farm provides the perfect solution with it's rows of citrus trees, it's vegetable garden, the barn, and windmill powered water-pump. I have also mapped out supply locations with their distance proximity to the park. Though i expect these supply points to be picked over by the masses before the great exodus, there's still bound to be some useful things left behind. Should the zombies breach the perimeter, and overtake the land, i have multiple escapes routes that will help ensure my safety.
If Left 4 Dead and World War Z have taught me anything... it's stick together, and plan ahead.

Good Hearts Gone Bad

2009-02-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

TAT is awesome! they sound like Green Day and Joan Jett had an awesome baby. I saw them back in October at the house of blues when they opened for Lagwagon, i probably should have left after their set, because they were the best band out of the 4 that played that night. They are hitting the road soon and playing a show at the Glasshouse in Pomona. I got in touch with them to ask if I could do a poster for their upcoming show, and here it is. Check out TAT, you won't regret it!

Have you heard the news that you're dead?

2009-01-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

I took a break today from working on my book. I had downloaded the new My Chemical Romance song from "The Watchmen" soundtrack on iTunes and couldn't get enough. It's way stripped down from their last album "The Black Parade", A straightforward punk cover of the dylan song "Desolation Row" and it's awesome! I can't wait for their new album later this year.
I was inspired to create a concert poster for their show i saw last year at the warfield in san francisco. buy a print here :)

i've gotta live on an island to find the juice

2009-01-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

I woke up on new years morning with an idea for a children's book. I sat down at my desk to write it down and it just poured out. Since working in the video game industry didn't allow me much time to work on my own art, this has been a refreshing start to the new year.
The past few weeks i have working pretty diligently on the illustrations. Here's the first image i created for the book, it's pages 33 and 34 out of 42 pages. I don't know why i started here, out of all the pages it was the easiest one to design. After finishing this one, i felt that i had the tone and style i wanted, and have used it as a template for the rest of the book. i now have about 75% of the book laid out and i hope to be done with it by the end of february. I'll hopefully post some more updates before i finish! What a great way to start out the new year :)

All Aboard the USG Ishimura!

2008-12-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since i've updated, so i thought i'd post some work that i did a few years back on "Dead Space" for Electronic Arts. I came onto the project in November of 2006, so just a little over 2 years ago. I was hired to design all of the outfits for the employees and inhabitants of the USG Ishimura. As I sci-fi fan, this was an awesome project to work on, the visual style even at this early stage was evidently different than anything EA had done in the past and i knew it would be a great opportunity to do some fun work. Here are a few of the characters i worked on...

All Images property of Electronic Arts © 2008

Blast Off!

2008-09-08T22:01:00.000-07:00

2 years ago, on this day, I started this blog. Two years is quite a long time, and a lot has happened that I never imagined! Here's to the next few years:) This started off as a tattoo design for myself, and then somehow i ended up adding a character holding a balloon riding in an old coin-operated machine!

Amazing Adventures

2008-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

I've been super busy with work lately, and haven't had a chance to actually work on anything of my own for a while. Recently i picked up a great book called "Sci-Fi Poster Art", and I couldn't get enough of the old 50's and 60's sci-fi/monster movie posters. I thought it would be fun to throw a quick one together.

=w= Goat Punishment @ the Knitting Factory

2008-06-21T15:10:00.001-07:00

Another awesome show! Goat Punishment shredded up the knitting factory on the eve of new years eve in 2000. An amazing lineup that would probably never happen these days. Please come back Goat Punishment, but this time come to San Francisco =w=

The Network @ The Key Club

2008-06-09T08:10:00.001-07:00

Here's another poster i did for The Network show from a few years back at the key club. The network is a sideproject from Green Day that basically sounds like Devo but more awesome. I thought a rubik's cube was a perfect fit

Weezer @ the Glass House

2008-06-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

I have always had a soft spot for concert posters. It's a nice little memento of a great show that you get to take home. I have recently started collecting them from the shows that i go to. Back in the summer of 2000 i saw one of the best concerts Weezer has ever put on. I decided to create my own poster for the show.

Ode to Miyamoto

2008-06-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Princess Peach

Princess Zelda

Samus

My 3 favorite nintendo ladies!

Whatsername

2008-05-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Mechanical Man

2008-04-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

i've been listening to a lot of mash-ups lately and i came across a Johnny Cash vs. Ladytron mash-up that's kinda an electronic remix of "The Man Comes Around". As i was listening to the song i thought... what if Johnny Cash was a giant musical robot? Well naturally he'd wander through the forrest playing his giant robot heart out!

Fun for the whole family!

2008-03-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

I did this for the EA art blog. The subject was Twisted Childhood Memories... i think it needs more blood.

even monsters get sad sometimes...

2008-03-12T00:43:00.000-07:00

...true story

t-shirts?

2008-02-18T22:52:00.001-08:00

I'm hoping to turn these and a few more into some t-shirts soon.

A girl and her boy...

2008-01-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

Songs From The Black Hole

2007-12-20T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've been a huge Weezer fan for a longtime. Recently Rivers Cuomo released a collection of home demos that included some tracks that were meant to be on "Songs From The Black Hole". I was inspired to come up with my own cover for the album and thought i'd share it.

Contact

2007-11-13T22:33:00.001-08:00

Here's a new illustration i've been working on. I've been trying to do my own work in my spare time that is very different from what i'm working on at EA.

Dead Space!

2007-09-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

It feels nice to finally have this out in the open. For so long when i was working on this project I had to refer to it as "some new EA game"... that new EA game now has a name and it's Dead Space. I worked on this project for about 8 months as a character designer. Can't wait to check out this issue and see what they have to say. I'm really really excited about this project!

Sketchbook - Nicasio

2007-09-13T20:58:00.001-07:00

I finally got a chance to get outside and do some landscape painting the other day. Here are two quick sketches of the location we set-up at. It was a little town called Nicasio in Marin County.

illustration Friday - "Visitor"

2007-08-24T19:05:00.001-07:00

somebody gonna geta hurt real bad...

illustration Friday - "Captain"

2007-08-18T11:36:00.001-07:00

I was tryin to go for a different style than my usual cartoony style of character design. I'd like to do some more work in this style and maybe expand this guys backstory into a fun little side project. it was a relatively quick sketch done all in photoshop in an hour or so

I'm Sorry...

2007-08-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

another character sketch done in photoshop. I've been doing 3D work mostly the past few weeks and i needed to get back to some good ol' drawing so i took a break and here she is

the Simpsons

2007-07-31T16:58:00.001-07:00

Last year I was hired as a concept artist to work on "The Simpsons Game" for Electronic Arts. Growing up there were 3 things i loved more than anything else in this world... drawing, video games, and The Simpsons! After a year of living in Springfield, I can honestly say that this game is going to be AWESOME!!! Anyway, check out the trailer below...

Sam & Max Concept Art

2007-07-30T18:28:00.001-07:00

I got a chance to do some concept art on a Sam and Max game for Telltale Games. Growing up playing adventure games, and loving Sam & Max especially, this was quite an honor. Hopefully i'll get to do some more work on this project :)

illustration Friday - "moon"

2007-07-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

delicious moon cheese...mmmmm

it's clobberin' time...

2007-07-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

Don't want to meet this guy at the wee hours of the morning. This is one of several characters i'm working on for a little thing i'm puttin together

Illustration Friday - "Discovery"

2007-07-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

pen and ink mixed with photoshop. a relatively quick concept sketch

Airport Sketch

2007-06-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

a super rough sketch while waiting forever for my plane... I hate southwest

Illustration Friday - "Rejection"

2007-06-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday - "Cars"

2007-05-26T21:20:00.001-07:00

When i was a kid, i figured by this time we would have flying cars... i'm still waiting for them. Anyway, here's an old sketch!

"The Replacements" - Agent K

2007-03-07T00:46:00.000-08:00

Here's a piece of fan art i did for my good friend Dan Santat, creator of "The Replacements" on the Disney Channel. Check out his awesome work at http://dantat.com

Illustration Friday - "Hide"

2007-03-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

I'd probably hide from this guy

Illustration Friday - "Gravity"

2007-02-19T23:38:00.000-08:00

Illustration Friday - "Crash"

2007-02-13T20:47:00.001-08:00

I hope they're friendly!

airport + ipod + sketchbook

2007-02-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

I was at the airport in Oakland waiting for my flight and I was listening to my ipod. I thought it might be a fun little exercise to pick a random song and do a quick sketch based on whatever it was that came up.... Fiona Apple's cover of the Hendrix song "Angel" came on...

Illustration Friday - "Super Hero"

2007-01-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

This little guy has been floatin around in my head for a few years... His name is Jonas, and he is a Space Cadet. He may look small and non threatening but he kicks all kinds of ass!

Illustration Friday - "Smoke"

2006-11-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Character Quick Sketch

2006-11-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

A quick photoshop sketch

Quick Sketch

2006-11-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

A quick pen sketch i scanned in and threw some color on in photoshop

illustration Friday - Ghost

2006-10-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

This ghost is a little too happy to be dead...

Retro Military Assault Vehicle

2006-10-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

A maya render of a retro military assault tank

Illustration Friday - Trouble

2006-10-10T17:17:00.000-07:00

Diseptapede

2006-10-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

Temple

2006-09-29T23:13:00.001-07:00

Charcoal and ink with a quick photoshop color job

oasis

2006-09-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

This is a concept piece i did using both maya and photoshop. I created the buildings as unshaded geometry in Maya, then brought in a render into photoshop and added all the color and lighting.

Agent Blackjack

2006-09-19T00:59:00.000-07:00

Agent Blackjack is a "dark agent" working deep within the goverment to help cover up the story about a UFO that crashed in the desert in the mid 40's...

...

2006-09-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

Borc?

2006-09-13T23:27:00.001-07:00

Here's another sketch I did as a quick concept sketch for an untitled game project. It's some kind of Borg meets an Orc... or Borc as i named him...

This is a slight variation on the big dude riding the creature in the first image...

Telltale Games

2006-09-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last year i did some environment modeling for an awesome game company "Tell Tale Games". As a kid i used to love adventure games that lucasarts used to make. Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, etc. Well, Telltale games is carrying the torch for adventure game fans! I had done some work on their "Bone" series based on the comic book by Jeff Smith. I also did some environments for their "CSI" game. Both totally different styles, both awesome to work on!

The Bone game really captured the spirit of the comic book.

CSI was such a far departure from most of the work i had done before, but i really enjoyed going for a more realistic style

Party on Wayne

2006-09-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite childhood memories! They were filming Wayne's World 2 in my hometown of La Verne, CA. Mike Meyers was so cool! I think i was about 12 or 13 in this picture...

Game concept art

2006-09-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

These are some images from one of the games i'm currently working on. It's been a blast bringing this world to life!

More artwork

2006-09-08T20:51:00.001-07:00

Here is some misc. artwork i've done over the past few months...

I did this quick sketch as a theraputic exercise in visualizing thoughts in my head

This was a quick piece of concept art i did for a game company in the bay area. It only got as far as this sketch. I'd like to go back in and paint this eventually

I try to get out on weekends and go landscape painting. This was my first landscape painting in several years, and it felt great to get back to working with oils. This spot is at a creamery right off the freeway by where i work. Hopefully next time i paint there, i'll attempt to paint one of the many cows wandering around :)

Blastoff!

2006-09-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. As much as i dislike the word, I hope to post often, and look forward to any comments good or bad :)