SKETCHIES AND PUPPIES AND BIRTHDAY CAKE

Summer's (finally) winding down, and here are more gifts and fun stuff that came out of it!

Here is the birthday card I drew for the dynamic bros. themselves, Ben and Scott!


21 years old doesn't mean too much in Canada because I think by 18 or 19 you can do pretty much all the cool stuff you want there. But it does mean that at least you guys can finally go grab a drink with us when you come to the States to visit!


Next is a drawing for my dear crafty friend Jessica, and her brand new dogtography business!!!! You seriously need to check out some of her pup pics, they are to die for. This drawing was tons of fun to do and gave me a chance to visit some of the great cartoon dogs of our time. There's quite a range of stars here: (L-R) John K's Ren Höek, Hanna-Barbera's Huckleberry Hound, Charles Schultz's Snoopy, Nick Park's Gromit, Disney's Georgette, and Tex Avery's Droopy.


Yay!! It's my Mariella! She can cook the most amazing-looking bowl of noodles with broccoli or tofu scramble that you've ever seen. "WE WANT NOOOODLE"


Here's a commission for Trevor! He wanted my character Kiwi taking a nice big leak on Brian from The Family Guy. Man, that show has the flattest character designs in animation history! I thought I'd take it pretty far and make my drawing of Brian as flat and awkward as humanly possible. Funny enough, it still doesn't look that far off from the real thing.


My wonderful friends Cheyenne and Anna visited from Canada over the summer and we had a huge fun-filled day in Hollyweird! Shopping, Daikoku ramen, and sharing a bottle of gin in a hot tub is indeed my idea of a great time. I doodled this in Cheyenne's sketchbook while out at lunch, and she was sweet enough to pose for the cutest picture with it! Hooray!




Well, the biggest surprise of this summer has been saved for last. What's been going on with me behind the scenes these past few months? Hmmmmm....

XMAS GIFTS!!! pt. 1

for Ben! Scribble and Skarfy fawn over the cuteness of Jo Minkus.

(the ink)

for Scott! His lovely character Matildha.

(the ink)

WICKED LITTLE CRITTA

Yes, the title of this post is named after a They Might Be Giants song. But this post is about the CRITTERS I've been drawing lately! Here's a commission for my good pal and Mr. Head Cooker himself, Casey, as a present for his lovely wife (and also awesome budzone of mine) JESS!
Aw, you crazy kids!

JO THE FAUX ALERT!!

Yep, all the gossip and truckloads (yes, TRUCKloads) of online rumors are true: the very talented and magical Ben Forbes has asked me to be his partner-in-crime for his upcoming webcomic, Jo the Faux-Fur Mink.

I'll be writing mostly and helping with some minor artistic aspects of the comic as well as generally getting in the way and making a big mess. I've drawn Jo quite a few times but this (below) is something from last night featuring her and another character from the comics. Just for practicing purposes, trying to get the characters down.

That's all I can share at the moment! Just get ready for fun!!

Oh look, here's a commission I did for my lovely friend Anne! She likes turtles, hehe.


Finally, well since today I'm just giving away surprises by the truckload (yes, TRUCKload), I guess I'll also briefly mention that I'm in the middle of working on some upcoming projects with some VERY awesome people. They are awesome people, who also happen to be slightly... dumm?

...Okay there's NO WAY that that hint could even be considered subtle, but I digress, that's all I can tell for now. Let's just say that if you're a fan of anyone on my links lists to the right-hand side of this blog, then you're not gonna wanna miss this!!! Stay tuned...

FUN BIRTHDAY XTRAS! PLUS: TAKING COMMISSIONS!

Nico Commissions!!!!!

That's right! I'm taking CARTOON COMMISSIONS, folks. Help me survive in this jungle we call Los Angeles! Want something fun drawn by ME, just for YOU? Caricatures, cute girls, famous Hollywood characters? Contact me via email through my blogger profile, and let's talk! Prices will be determined by the subject and medium desired. (psst... I'm pretty flexible!)

Here's a just-finished commissioned piece that Darby hired me for. Thanks for the work, man!

More from the genius of Ben!! Below is Katie Rice and I, straight outta Ben's cartoon world!! He drew the roughs, but the characters below I inked myself, just for fun!

And, here's my contribution from a few months ago to the Our Hospitality blog... the theme was "target practice". So here's what I drew. Ha, ha. Ha?


SO if you like my art and want some made just for you, drop me a line! Okay enough business, PARTY TIME!!!!!

Katie and Luke had a shindig at their house last night!!! We watched bad movies (IMMORTAL COMBAT!!!), admired Ricky's long curly hair, and ate pizza and Katie's homemade world-famous sausage puffs. Deee-licious!

Also, I was in for MORE bday surprises! Take a look what Katie drew for me!! I DIED when she handed this to me.

How spectacular is this? Skadi drinking with my character, Debbie!! My knees got weak and I almost dropped when I held this genius piece!! Katie, you are too kind!!!

CHRISTINE!!! Oops, I mean, Miss Withers! ;) She created TWO fabulous pieces for me:

This is so much better-looking in person! My scanner is OLD and SUCKS, so all the colors here (not to mention that big annoying digital smudge taking up the left side) aren't doing these justice!! But still, I was completely starstruck that Miss Withers took the time to make these for little ol' me. Thank you Mama W!

Meanwhile, David Gemmill tries to hide the wrath of my camera.

Look here! A masterpiece by the one, the only, Gabe Swarr! This was a complete surprise, and I wouldn't ever expect that a cartoon bigshot like Gabe would be so nice to make something for a nobody like me! This RULES Gabe! I hope between gasps of air from being so starstruck, I got a chance to thank you enough when you presented this to me. In a fancy manilla envelope, no less!

Also, this is something Shawn drew for me LAST year! I just found it and realized I NEVER scanned it! So here it is, in all of it's 1-year old glory!! HAHAHA, THANKS BUDDY!

Finally, here we see Katie finally being united with her Skadi painting that Ben made for her! She LOVES it. In fact, they went to bed together shortly after this photo was taken. HEY-O! Too much information? G'night everybody!

ART JAM 2: THE REVENGE

Okay this might have been the coolest week for art ever!!!

First of all, this weekend was another ART JAM NIGHT at Molly and Carl's (blog pending) house!! Painting, drawing, photography, crafty crafts! And beer!! It was basically friggen awesome?

"You can call me Flower!"

I attempted caricatures for the night.. here's one of famous tattoo artist extraordinaire David Williams.

Sean made a self-portrait cut out. Complete with blue nipples and armpit hair!

Jess made a million awesome things but my favorite- this felt T-REX!!

I also drew local music legend Adam Nixon.

Hellen is a beautiful flower and has a great face for cartoony fun drawing. By this time I was tipsy from too much beer and I really don't think I did her any justice with this!! This is way too wonky, but oh well.

What a great gathering of pals! But that's not the end of Super Awesome Art Week...

A few days ago I got... DUN DUN DUNNNN!! A package in the mail from BEN!!!!! He sent me paintings and doodles!! It was like getting golden treasure mailed to me.


LOOK at this painting he did of Maude Macher!!!! Isn't it beautiful? This is going right on me and Kali's hallway wall!!!

Molly holding treasure!!

Eeeee!!! A painted present for Katie Rice of her very own character Skadi!! She's gonna love it.

AND a painting of a character based on me in his upcoming Jo the Faux webcomic! OMG!!!!!!


I just can't thank you enough buddy. You rock!!!! What a happy happy art week, thanks to all my pals.