40 animals in 40 days: round 3

October 26, 2009 in art by mike | 6 comments

still tweeting animals! here are a bunch more.

click here for the rest!

after the hunt

October 16, 2009 in art by mike | 10 comments

I did a commission trade with the talented Dan Boyd for his wife Christy’s birthday. I got this awesome Galactus piece and Christy got a requested Princess Mononoke.

I was pretty excited to draw this since Princess Mononoke is the film that introduced me to Hayao Miyazaki and who subsequently became one of my favorite directors. it was great to finally have a reason to draw some fan art for such an incredible film. Christy wanted the illo set in the fall so I tried to capture that season by giving Mononoke a somewhat serene quality to her but also indicate how completely nuts she is. Hopefully I made it work! Drawing that wolf at least was pretty fun. Feel free to click HERE for a flash progress thingy of the coloring process.

ALSO- Baltimore was a blast. A very fun, successful show for me so I’ll definitely be back next year. It was also cool to be there to see CBT win the Harvey for best anthology! It’s still kinda surreal to have been part of such a popular book, but I’ll take all the award creds I can take to add to my bio. :)

baltimore comic-con

October 7, 2009 in news by mike | No comments

Many of you probably know this already, but I’ll be at the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend. I’m situated right in between the Kids Love Comics booth and Avengers Mansion. Yeah!

Also, I gave my site a good design overhaul and update yesterday. If you’re reading this via a feed, come over and take a look! This blog in particular received a pretty big makeover.

ALSO- I decided to start using capital letters when I write. I thought it was time now.

40 animals in 40 days: round 2

October 5, 2009 in art by mike | 4 comments

i’m still posting animals to my twitter account. i’m at number twenty-one today! here are numbers nine through sixteen (which consists mostly of creatures living in my backyard):

click here for the rest!

punisher: blood stains

September 25, 2009 in comics by mike | 6 comments

the punisher was the topic of today’s drawergeeks. i drew this little comic for it:

kinda wish i was at SPX right now. i wonder what’s happening there? at least i’ll be at baltimore in two weeks!

40 animals in 40 days

September 22, 2009 in art by mike | 7 comments

for those of you not following me on the twitter, you are totally missing out! i’ve been posting all sorts of fun and silly sketches on there (some of which could probably even be considered more than sketches). one of the fun things i’ve been doing recently is tweeting a new animal every day–well, work day–until i get up to forty of them. here are the first eight:

click here for the rest!

more batgirl

September 10, 2009 in art, music by mike | 5 comments

another b&w batgirl commission. besides my laziness to use vanishing points, i kinda like how this one came out.

speaking of girls, this month has been a great month to be into female vocalists on the music front. it’s been a while since i posted any sort of music lists, so here are five albums showcasing the talents of some very pretty singers right now:

• everybody by ingrid michaelson
• bomb in a birdcage by a fine frenzy
• ellipse by imogen heap
• memoirs at the end of the world by the postmarks
• fauxliage by leigh nash and some guys from delerium (an older one, but i just now found out about it)

ivy

August 28, 2009 in art by mike | 9 comments

another submission to drawergeeks this week. this week’s topic was poison ivy. it doesn’t take much to get me to draw plants and a fetching redhead.

apparently my poison ivy is a naturist- which kinda makes sense, ya know? if you want, you can click HERE for another fancy, schmancy flash animation of the coloring progress.

to him, life is a great big bang up

August 14, 2009 in art by mike | 25 comments

i haven’t had the time to participate as much as i used to, but drawergeeks pulled me back into its web with a spider-man topic this week.

i didn’t want to draw yet another spidey swinging with mj hugging her arms around him, but at the same time i really wanted to draw spidey swinging with mj hugging her arms around him. so there you go.

and here’s something fun! i tend to save snapshots of my coloring process as i go along, so i decided to combine them all into this little animation. you can view it HERE (apologies to my iphone readers for using flash).

shark week!

August 5, 2009 in art by mike | 7 comments

so yesterday, in celebration of tv’s celebration of sharks, i spent the day twittering sharks.

click here for one more

follow me?

July 28, 2009 in art, cleopatra in spaaace!, news by mike | 3 comments

well, i gave in and finally signed up on twitter. you can follow me here (if you want): twitter.com/mikemaihack

i think i’m gonna use it for art and comic updates, probably tweet about music and movies from time to time, maybe throw in some discount codes if i ever find the time to get a decent store up and running- but definitely, without fail, i’m going to make certain to let you all know what i’m eating for lunch everyday.

one fast ball special, coming up

July 20, 2009 in art by mike | 10 comments

this might be one of the funnest commissions i’ve drawn yet. i was asked to draw six sketch cards: definitely a nightcrawler, a collossus and a cow & buffalo one, but the rest were up to me. since curtis was pretty relaxed about whatever i decided to draw, i thought it would be fun to have all of the cards fit together to form one scene—because then i had an excuse to finally draw c&b as part of the x-men. :)

if anyone is interested i am still taking b&w sketch card commissions for $10 a card (or $15 for multiple characters). i have a blast drawing these!

you can click under the cut to see how all of the above cards look separated.

Read the rest of this entry »

batgirl rooftop dance

July 8, 2009 in art by mike | 6 comments

this is a batgirl commission i just finished up:

remember when drawing batgirl was like an annual event around the internets? good times…

kin, i’ll have this in the mail for you this week!

mid year music review

July 1, 2009 in lists, music by mike | 3 comments

now that july is prepared to embrace us with her hot, humid unforgiving hands, i thought it was due time for another obligatory music post. here are the albums i’ve listened to the most this first half of 2009:

Read the rest of this entry »

where the wild things fish

June 19, 2009 in art by mike | 19 comments

this is my super late contribution to terrible yellow eyes.

where the wild things are was one of my favorite books growing up. i must have had my parents read it to me a million gazillion times and then, when i was old enough, i read it a million gazillion more times. i reread though it again for the first time in years before working on the above drawing and it’s easy to see why the book  was (is!) one of my faves. the story really locks into that important imagination trait vital to being human, but especially to being a kid. plus maurice sendak’s crosshatched illustrations are so visually real and unique that you can’t help but hope that wherever the wild things are it is a place that really exists out there somewhere. my little drawing doesn’t do justice to their world at all, but it was still an honor to pay tribute to something that inspired me to create and tell stories in the first place. and also quite humbling to be invited to be  part of a collection of so much incredible work!

jen and i are really looking forward to the movie too, which might have a little bit to do with our favorite arcade fire song featured on the trailer.

off to heroes con!

June 17, 2009 in news by mike | 10 comments

even though we just got back from north carolina,  jen and i are driving back tomorrow for heroes con! i’ve never been to this show before so i’m not really sure what to expect. but at the very least i hope to see some of you there! you’ll be able to find me in indy island at table 520. and here is a quickly photographed pile of some of the stuff that should be on top of that table.

EDIT: people keep emailing me about the stuffed Buffalo in that picture. he was a homemade gift from the multi-talented sally thompson so unfortunately he is the only one of his kind. sally, if you are reading this, i need a Cow to go along with Buffalo! :)

red headed angel

May 30, 2009 in art, lists, movies by mike | 14 comments

was able to get an angel done early for next week’s drawergeeks topic. this never happens!

was also able to catch two more summer movies this weekend that were both fantastic in each of their polar opposite ways: up, which is another pixar film in case you didn’t know, and drag me to hell, which is the best sam raimi horror movie since sam raimi directed a horror movie.

my current summer movie rankings thus far:

1. star trek
2. up
3. drag me to hell
4. terminator salvation
5. wolverine

and with that, i’m off to the gideon media arts conference, which i already blogged about HERE. wish me luck!

power girl sketchcard

May 18, 2009 in art by mike | 9 comments

joel carroll and i recently (well, i guess its been over a month now) did a sketchcard trade. he drew me a galactus, and i drew him this power girl:

he didn’t get a colored version though since i’ve yet to find a way to digitally color on a sketchcard. i was just in a coloring mood this morning and needed something to color.

in case anyone is interested in a black & white card sized commission, i’ve been drawing them for about $10 lately. or trading. obviously.

to boldly go…

May 8, 2009 in art, movies by mike | 11 comments

i was lucky enough to catch an advanced screening of star trek a couple of days ago, and couldn’t resist drawing uhura for today’s space girl topic on drawergeeks today.

i always thought it was funny how no matter what planet the original enterprise crew would beam down to, it was always a desolate rocky terrain. like there are no other planets in the galaxy that look like anything else but new mexico.

anyhoo- star trek was super fun! my spoiler free review under the cut:

Read the rest of this entry »

Gideon Media Arts Conference

May 4, 2009 in news by mike | No comments

May 31st – June 4th is the second annual Gideon Media Arts Conderence and Film Festival in Ridgecrest, NC. This year there is a big push towards graphic novels (yeah!) and I’ve been invited to be on staff with Ken Raney, Art Ayris, and fellow parabler Ben Avery. In addition to a panel discussion, a graphic arts gala and some one-on-one time with the students, I’ll also be offering a couple of workshops- one on webcomics and the other on comic anthologies. These are both subjects I feel I know plenty about at this point, even though there are a gazillion more experienced creators in both those areas that might have a lot more to offer. The difference in this case is that all of the workshops and events at Gideon will have a Christian emphasis to them and (hopefully) give everyone involved a stronger insight on how we can use our creative talents to better serve the Lord. Gideon will also be the first opportunity to see Parable in full book form, since I’ll be bringing a few sample copies with me to show around (although that probably won’t be as exciting as watching me try to talk in front of a room full of people).

Gideon is still excepting registrations so if you’re interested in attending, click HERE to find out the details. And for more info on the Graphic Arts section of the conference, including Ken, Art, and Ben’s involvement, click HERE.

I hope to see some of you there. I think it’s going to be a really fun time!

Twitter Updates

i’ll be at