fishy business

zombies, and...

2010-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

An image I made for my buddy Alex Eckman-Lawn's comic book Awakening, which will be published with the second trade... well, I don't know when! This piece is focusing on a flashback scene I really liked near the end of the first volume. I was going to shoot for painting this one entirely by hand, but time caught up with me. Was a great experience, though I feel a bit rusty.

what time is it?!

2010-03-08T05:27:00.001-08:00

brand spankin' new

2010-02-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

I've got a new website that's been up and running for a few days now. You can see my portfolio of old and new stuff there, so check it out!

dantrauten.com

a li'l pile of drawings

2009-09-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

secret words

the amazing (electro-powered) uni-bubblemeister

the dream tree

buddha buddies

a floating retreat (for those cold winter months)

geomancer

birthday portrait

2009-08-05T15:10:00.000-07:00

Doin' stuff by hand!! This is a portrait of my rad friend Lydia that I painted for her birthday, which I just finished this morning. It's a couple of weeks late, but... anyways, lots of stuff going on in this one to reflect her personality. Was a lot of fun and done up in watercolor, acrylic inks and a bit of pen here and there.

I've been meaning to do a series of portraits like this one... hmmm...

nerds nerding out

2009-08-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Autumn Society of Philadelphia is having another awesome show opening this Friday the 7th at Brave New Worlds comic shop in Old City, Philadelphia, and it's all video-game themed!! I'll have a piece hanging, which you can see below, but wouldn't it be grand to see it framed and hanging with all the other shiny new work? There's 50 or so artists involved AND live 8-bit music... and a bunch of nerds. So, get on it!! Click the flier above to get all the info.

So this is the piece I did for the show, honoring my über-geeky fascination with the game Panzer Dragoon Saga and all of it's digital kin. This series has some of the most bizarre and beautiful designs I've seen, from the creatures and landscapes to the dragon itself. Totally another world! I shamelessly ripped the palette straight from the game, which has a very lonely and post-apocalyptic feeling goin' on. I'm just noticing that Edge, the guy up front, has a skewed face and head, which I didn't notice until now, but I'm very happy with the painting overall and it's motivating me to explore new color palettes. I never thought I'd escape those bright purples and blues!

If you can make it to the opening or see the show later, rock on! Wish I could see it myself.

from the woodwork

2009-07-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of sketches I found scanned in on my computer. I don't really remember when I drew these, and they seem to come from the same sorta world that I'd like to explore sometime.

... there's always a bunch of characters floating around in my head, waiting for more than a quick, frantic scribble, but a lot of times I find myself liking them in the doodle stage just fine!

wizard shades

2009-06-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the third and final scratch-and-win card that rounds out the two in the post below. This has been done for a while now, but laziness is a cruel temptress and I'm easily tempted, hence no posts for a while! This one ditches the playing cards for a classic game of tic-tac-toe.

avast, me hearties... ninjas!!

2009-04-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Pirates? Ninjas? Shyeah, naturally! Here's some finished art for a couple of scratch and win cards for the iPhone. There's a third that's still in the works! They're going to be downloaded/distributed with some larger apps, like Tap Defense (below), etc. These were pretty fun to work on (we're talking pirates AND ninjas here) and I was given a ton of freedom.

I learned a lot with this one, in terms of getting stuff to look readable at tiny iPhone size and messing around with scanned in brush and ink work. Can you tell I've played a lot of Street Fighter in my day? I was told the ninja looks like a self-portrait... kinda creepy, or kinda awesome?

Arr.

don't mind the lasers

2009-01-29T15:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a painting I've been working on for the past few weeks, shrunken down to the size you'd see it at on an iPhone:

I was asked to come up with a splash screen design for the upcoming new version of the game Tap Defense, a (free!) downloadable strategy game from TapJoy. This piece went through a couple of revisions before we ended up with this one. Badda-boom!

les petites créatures

2009-01-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

Here's another sketchbook flashback... first page!!

note: sketchbooks in France are just the same

bubbles 'n' wings

2009-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

... getting back into watercolors and gouache at long last, and re-kindling my love affair with pen and ink!! Oh, how I've missed you...

That little feller up there is a bubble mage... you know, a wizard that shoots bubbles at'cha? Right. Okay, and anyways, down belows is Miz Fiesty Sprite who'd rather chop off yer pinky toe than fly off with ya till morning. Tough luck, kids!

gnarly French trees!!

2009-01-10T09:06:00.000-08:00

Whoa, first post in months! Here's the start to some sketchbook flashbacks...

Some super-rad, beautiful trees in/near Boussens, Southern France (I dunno, the countryside is one big sunflowery blur!!) where my friend Ryan and I WWOOFed for about two weeks last summer. WWOOF is an organic farming volunteering and exchange program that's pretty much worldwide, and pretty much totally awesome. Hmm... I never had the guts to try that swing...!

check it: http://www.wwoof.org/

cheating is fun

2008-03-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm cheating and posting this early. It's in progress still, but I'm excited about it!! The light source is a little wonky right now so bear with me.

... also, a nice track to mellow you out or put you to bed (which sounds like a lovely idea right about now)...

Okay, that's all for now. Oh, and all you Philly cats should go check out the annual ELY exhibition over at UArts. It's the illustration thesis show and damn, the work this year is wicked-killer! Go show those kids some love!

bored at work (or places I'd rather be)

2008-03-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

So I have all these wasteful little paper slips sitting around in my apron pocket at work alllll the time. I get very bored and doodle on 'em. Here's a little handful of the buggers!

Up top we have some faces, down below we have a couple of places I would rather have been insted of sitting around baking in flourescent lights all day.

That's that... and finally, Ball 'n' Chain gears up with a fashionable new belt and is po'ed as ever!! Here she is in all her fierce glory.

I keep forgetting how much fun I have creating characters, especially ones with giant magical coconut helmets. It's starting to be fun times in sketchbook land again! She'll be painted within the next week, if all goes according to plan. Hooray! In the meantime, do yourself a favor and find yourself some tunes by Mice Parade and play them over and over and over. They'll put you in a happy place... you know, if you like that sort of thing.

Okay! Ciao!

this is only a test...

2008-03-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

So here it is! At long last I took the two long, treacherous minutes to set up my own damn blog!! I'll be using this here space to upload sketches, projects and random musings as they happen along.

... okay, so to test the waters, here's a painting from my art school days (which was what, like, a year ago) for the original Aladdin story from the Arabian Nights. Done in watercolor, gouache, inks and colored pencil on board.

What else? Oh, check out the awesome work/blog of artist scott c whose Adorable Battles are seriously the cutest damned things ever. You can also swing by my Flickr page where my current porfolio is sittin' around collecting dust.

Uhh, I guess that's it for now!! I'm going to be nursing this little monster as often as I can. More soon!