Hefnatron.com

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T14:25:00.001-06:00

Happy Halloween everybody!
This year my wife and I went as The Rocketeer and Ripley from "Aliens." My helmet, rocket pack and jacket were made from scratch. Nicole's Pulse Rifle was made from a Spatcave kit that I put together and then she painted it.
Hope you like 'em. We had a blast putting them together!
Find more photos of the costumes here!

"His Girl Friday" Mini Munnys

2011-09-29T23:25:00.000-06:00

If you’re a newspaper designer, there’s a chance you might be at the Society for News Design conference in St. Louis right now (I’m not though). If you are, be sure and check out the SND Foundation silent auction for my custom painted Mini Munnys based on “His Girl Friday.” They’re paired up with a copy of the movie and a poster/print supplied by my co-worker Colin Smith. Happy bidding!

Ron Swanson and Mrs. Slocombe

2011-09-21T00:37:00.003-06:00

These two big-haired characters with stern looks were my submissions to this month's Planet-Pulp Ha-Ha Sitcom Show.
First up is Ron Swanson from one of my favorite shows "Parks and Recreation." I just had to draw that fine head of hair he has as well as his bacon-covered turkey leg the Ron fondly calls "The Swanson."

Next up is Mrs. Slocombe from the classic BBC series "Are You Being Served?". I grew up watching the series on PBS and always thought she was a fantastic character, especially with her constant supply of brightly colored hair dye. Pretty sure at the time though I didn't get all the double entendres with the discussions about "Her Pussy." If you've never seen the show and have no idea what I'm talking about — be sure and watch the video at the bottom.

Be sure and check out tons of more fantastic art from amazing artists over at Planet-Pulp!

Star Wars Blu-ray illustration

2011-09-12T11:05:00.001-06:00

Today's Salt Lake Tribune Technology page that I designed and illustrated was a fun one. It was for an article about the changes George Lucas has made to the upcoming Star Wars Blu-ray. I decided to go with a combined Circus Poster/classic Star Wars feel with it, hence the shiny chrome frame around the article and pictures. I decided to do drawings of characters and Lucas to tie the package together and throw a little humor into it.

You can read Vince Horiuchi's article where he interviewed a couple of 501st Legion members and a special effects artist about the changes here.

The Fourth Doctor

2011-09-09T00:25:00.008-06:00

I have to admit, I'm totally not up to snuff when it comes to Doctor Who. I've really been meaning to catch up on the new series, but have only seen a couple of episodes here and there. If anyone would like to give me the DVD's for Christmas, I certainly wouldn't turn it down. ;-)

But as a kid I vividly remember watching Tom Baker as Doctor Who on PBS. I remember being attracted to it's weirdness — it was unlike any other show I watched at the time. I was mostly fascinated with the robot dog K-9 and the odd facial expressions Baker could make. I especially remember watching a Doctor Who episode (and playing with my Darth Vader figure) when I lost my first tooth in a motel while on vacation.

So with that, here is my tribute piece to the fourth Doctor and K-9.

Wichita Falls Zombie Crawl & 5K poster

2011-09-07T11:01:00.006-06:00

Drawing zombies for a Halloween 5K? How could I say "No"?! That's why I recently illustrated and designed a poster for the Zombie Crawl and 5K that will take place October 29th in my old stopping grounds of Wichita Falls, TX.

The subject matter was right up my alley and I had a blast doing it. Many of the zombies in the poster were modeled after a few family members and friends, and a couple of pop culture characters thrown in for good measure (HINT: one is a famous archaeologist, one is his "God damn partner," and the other boldly goes where no zombie has gone before). Click on it a couple of times to zoom in and see them better.

The event is for all ages and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross. For more info on signing up for the event, visit their website at www.getinfected.org or visit their Facebook page!

Playing catch up

2011-08-31T22:55:00.002-06:00

Wow, I didn't mean to neglect the blog for this long, really I didn't. So here's a few quick updates of notable things I've done over the last couple of months. Well, not quite everything. I'll save a couple for their own posts soon.
Most recently, I did a couple of travel posters for Planet-Pulp's August Travel Poster Show. One was inspired by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the other for Darkwing Duck's hometown of St. Canard. I was really surprised by how popular the Temple of Doom piece was. Got lots of play on Tumblr sites and even made it onto Slashfilm's Page 2 column!

Also recently I did a massive illustration and design for The Salt Lake Tribune's Friday Mix section. Critic Sean P. Means did a story on top 10 essential made in Utah movies and the illustration that accompanied it featured icons representing 28 movies made (or partially made) in Utah. Readers wrote in their guesses as to what movies they are to win a prize. How many can you guess? (Click on it for a closer look!)

Oh, back in July for Planet-Pulp's G.I. JOE show, I did a Lady Jaye pin-up as my entry. Or as I used to call her when I was little "Lady Jane." Sometimes I still do call her that accidentally. Old habits die hard…

Well that's all for now. I've got a few more things I've done — including something I did way back in May but forgot about — but I'll show them off later!

Raiders progress shots

2011-07-07T07:32:00.002-06:00

I originally thought I would do a very long post with a lot of progress shots that I took while making my Raiders painting. Then I figured it would just be easier to put it all in a short video. The video will only appear here. Enjoy!

Raiders painting finally finished!

2011-07-04T17:00:00.000-06:00

I finally finished my Raiders of the Lost Ark painting last Thursday! After I finished the painting I took photos then added text via Illustrator and Photoshop to give it that vintage serial movie poster feel. It made it's debut Friday over at Planet-Pulp.
Very soon, I'll do another post with progress shots. It feels really good to finish it and I'm extremely happy with the way it turned out.

Planet-Pulp Ripley piece

2011-06-27T09:57:00.001-06:00

This month's theme over at Planet-Pulp is "The Super Action Hero Show," showcasing works based on favorite heroes and heroines of '80s action movies. First thing that came to mind was one of my favorite movie characters Ellen Ripley from "Aliens."

Head on over to Planet-Pulp to check out what other artists have done, including re-imagined posters of '80s action classics!

Raiders of the Lost Ark painting update

2011-05-26T23:00:00.002-06:00

Well it's certainly been a while since I first told you about this project, hasn't it? Unfortunately life and other projects had to be dealt with first and I really didn't get going on finishing the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" painting until late April.

If you look at the pics from the first post, you can see that I've pretty much decided to redo just about everything. Right now the only parts of the original that remain are Indy with the boulder and Belloq's fedora.
First I'm just painting the black and gray tones, then I'll add color layering a series of thinned acrylics.

My goal is to have the painting finished by June 12, 2011 — which is "Raiders'" 30th anniversary. Gonna have to take some time off from it though, so I may have to blow that date, but darn it I'm still gonna try to make it! May just have to shoot for it being done in the "month" of "Raiders'" anniversary. We will see!

Bossk Planet-Pulp submission

2011-05-10T23:36:00.000-06:00

I was recently invited to join Planet-Pulp, an awesome site comprised of some insanely talented artists, many whom I look at in awe for inspiration on a daily basis. Every month, they pick a theme and the artists contribute their interpretation of the theme to that month's "gallery." The site is run by uber talented artists Jayson Weidel and Adam Limbert.
This month's theme is "Star Wars" so I decided to finally do that Bossk drawing that's been dancing around in my head for a while. I like to think of it as a quiet moment of reflection for Bossk, but more than likely he's just scouting for Wookies to hunt.
I'm really looking forward to contributing to the rest of Planet-Pulp's shows. In the mean time, please keep checking the blog every so often for new and amazing artwork and follow them on twitter! Also, check out their archives for past shows like the Pixar one — blow you away!

Summer Movie Preview trading cards

2011-04-29T08:37:00.000-06:00

God how I love the old movie trading cards of the late '70s and '80s. I love how simple they were, the little logos they would put on the cards and the very cheesy captions they would use to describe what was going on the picture.
With that little bit of nostalgia in mind, I used it to create trading cards of this year's crop of summer movies to illustrate The Salt Lake Tribune's annual Summer Movie Preview Guide.

Below is the cover. Click on it for a better look:

Just had to throw in a nod to one of my favorite artists Darwyn Cooke with the New Frontier Green Lantern action figure! There was a 6 x 3 ad on the bottom of it, but for this I cropped it off because it was pretty damn ugly.

And here's the gargantuan list of all the summer movies. I was fortunate enough to get a full color double truck this year. That made me extremely happy:

Again, click on it to see it larger.
If you would like to read Sean P. Mean's stories for the summer movie guide, click here.

It was a lot of work making the cards, but since it was such a geeky thing to do, I had a blast doing it.
Here are a few of my favs that I did. They are sized down to trading card size so feel free to click, save and print them out on a nice card stock for yourself. Collect them all!

Oh, and by the way, the card numbers on the Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, Super 8, Rise of the Apes, Cars 2, and X-Men cards are Easter Eggs. I tip my hat to anyone who can figure out all of them!

In This Week cover — Spring Arts Preview

2011-04-28T16:03:00.000-06:00

Had a lot of fun designing and illustrating the cover for In This Week's Spring Arts Preview. There will be a lot of Shakespeare going on this spring so we decided to stick with that theme.

Pin of Art 2011

2011-03-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again — The Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Utah are holding another Pin of Art auction benefiting their wonderful organization. For those that don't know, they auction off retired bowling pins that have been painted and decorated by several artists from across the country. All the proceeds for this auction go directly to BBBS of Utah.
I outdid myself this year with my entry "The Art of Adoration." It took me the better part of my spare time in February to make it and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out.
If you are interested in bidding on it or any of the other pins up for auction, go here to find out more about each one. The auction starts on them today (March 11) and concludes March 18. Good luck and happy bidding!
Here are several shots of my bowling pin, featuring a love struck robot wooing a space cadet with his artwork. My apologies, I didn't do a lot of behind the scenes photos for it, but if you'd like to learn about my process check out my blog entry about last years piece.

I did the Space Cadet's arms out of Sculpey and the Robot's arms out of dowel rods and PVC pipe connectors.

Sundance Film Festival Illustrations

2011-01-20T08:27:00.002-07:00

For this year's Sundance Film Festival tab put out by The Salt Lake Tribune, my boss Colin Smith came up with a fun theme that would play right to my style. The idea was to make the Sundance survival guide look and feel like it came from the "Duck and Cover" era of the '50s and '60s.
Through my boss' art direction and design, the theme is brilliantly carried all the way through with articles supported by a lot of illustrations I did for it. I don't have PDF's of the pages just yet, but I'll post them as soon as I do.
In the mean time, here's a few of the illustrations I did for the section. It was a blast to help put together.

Here is the cover illustration I did with Festival Man atop a pile of the poor folks that didn't read the Survival Guide:

And here is the final cover with Colin Smith's type treatment:

Below is Mr. Reel and Miss Direction. They gave tips on how to survive the festival throughout the guide.

And of course the main reason locals go to Sundance is to see celebrities. Because, you know, it's not like there's films to watch or anything like that there. *sarcasm*
On our celebrity watch page, I created a few portraits based on celebs that are expected to be a the festival. I decided to make them slightly more realistic than the rest of the illustrations so they would be recognizable at a small printed size.

Paul Rudd

Zoey Deschanel

Rob Lowe

Jeremy Piven

Emily Mortimer

Elizabeth Banks

Toby Maguire

There's a lot more stuff I did for the guide too. One I get PDF's, I'll do another post about it.

Raiders of the Lost 'Raiders' painting

2010-12-16T23:39:00.004-07:00

I thought I had lost it for good. Accidentally thrown out and gone the way of the landfill. But I was wrong. Right before I went back home for Thanksgiving, my mom and daughter found it. It was hiding underneath the dark, treacherous and claustrophobic cavern simply known as "under the bed." The long lost object that I had desired and thought to be gone was my "Raiders of the Lost Ark" painting that I had started my freshmen year in college but abandoned because of the lack of time to finish it. I found out very quickly how little spare time I would have while earning a BFA and ended up using it to concentrate on my portfolios for school. After school, life continued to be busy and I kinda forgot about it. When I remembered it several years later, it couldn't be found. Mainly because we were looking for it in the wrong places. The whole time it was sitting underneath my old bed in my old bedroom, which is now occupied by my daughter when she visits and has dubbed it the "Princess Room."

Anyway, the painting:
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" is by far my favorite film and not having a Raiders poster, I decided I would just paint one. I wanted to do it in a bit of an homage to Drew Struzan, but add my own touch to it. I started it with gesso on illustration board (24" x 36") and then used acrylic for the rest. Here's how the painting is today, unfinished.

Indy looks kinda freaky with just the one eye painted there, doesn't he?
Here is the painting with the "Raiders" title card that I redrew and planned on using it as a template:

Here is a detail pic of what is the "most finished" portion of the paining:

I do plan on finally finishing it, now that I've found it. With time permitting, I plan on finishing it next year for "Raiders" 30th anniversary. Looking at it now, there's a lot of changes I want to make to it, like stuff to add to the background and also I found a pic of Indy I like better for it. So yeah, I'll be completely repainting him. While photorealistic portraits aren't a constant part of my style I can still do it, and I had forgotten just how much fun I have doing it. Finding this lost piece has given me some new inspiration, and new ideas for more Indy or "Raiders" paintings I'm jonesin' (*snicker) to do in the new year.

Audrey Hepburn piece for my niece

2010-12-08T00:05:00.002-07:00

My niece Katie graduated high school as valedictorian back in May and went on to attend Texas Tech this fall. I was unable to make it to her graduation, so I wanted to do something special for her. Especially since I dared her to end her commencement speech with "May the Force Be With You" and she delivered big time. "I would like a piece of your artwork to hang in my dorm" she said, when I asked her if there's anything she wanted.
I was more than happy to oblige. I decided to paint a portrait of her idol, Audrey Hepburn, in my comic art style with minimum color. Since the one color I did use was pink, this is probably the girliest thing I've ever painted.

Needless to say, she was very surprised when I finally gave it to her over Thanksgiving:

Congrats again on making Valedictorian Katie and all of your success!
We're very proud of you!

When We Last Left Harry Potter…

2010-11-19T13:03:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I had done anything photorealistic. So when I originally pitched the idea to paint the cover to The Salt Lake Tribune's Harry Potter section instead of photoshopping it, I thought I had bit off more than I could chew. Fortunately, it was just like riding a bike — you never forget.
I had a blast painting it — even though I was working with a nasty cold at the time. It came out far better than I had hoped.

Below is the finished piece, by itself. It's 15" x 20" acrylic on illustration board. The pictures after it are minimized step-by-step of my process.

The basic idea of the painting was to give fans and readers a short rundown of what happened at the end of the last movie, but in the style of an old pup fiction novel or serialized movie poster. Props to my wife for the idea!

First, after I figured out the size, I did a very (VERY) rough comp of how I wanted to compose the images. I went through several sketches before I decided on this one. Then I scanned it in, colored it and added text in Photoshop.

Then I did several pencil sketches of Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, Hermione, etc., scanned those in and composed a tighter comp to use as a guide. I also used photos for certain elements like Draco, who was a last minute addition.

Then I printed out the comp and projected it onto a gessoed piece of illustration board. I lightly drew the basic features so I wouldn't get graphite smudged all over the gesso.

Then I proceeded to paint it using thinned acrylics.

And here's the how the final piece appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune's special Harry Potter section. The final layout was done in InDesign.

Purrcasso Art & Craft Gala pieces

2010-11-02T12:25:00.000-06:00

This year I've donated 2 pieces of art to the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society's 5th Annual Purrcasso Art & Craft Sale & Gala . The pre event gala will be held Saturday, November 6 fromm 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and the Art & Craft Sale will be from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, November 7. More info on the event that benefits the shelter and how to get there can be found at their website here or at the Purrcasso site.
First is an 81/2 x 11 piece done in watercolor, gouache and ink on watercolor paper called "Astro Cat Turns His Enemies into Kitty Litter."

I also did a companion piece made from a Munny World DIY Vinyl toy. He's called "Astro Cat in the Third Dimension." He stands about 6" tall.

A silent auction and art sale will be held Saturday night with music and entertainment and more arts and crafts will be sold Sunday. If you live in the San Francisco area, please be sure and check it out. You could get a really cool piece of art and help out a great cause at the same time!

Winchester Shaun Munny

2010-06-09T22:55:00.000-06:00

I recently, made a custom Shaun of the Dead 3" Munny with the Winchester rifle upon request from a fan. As always with doing a custom Munny, I had a lot of fun making it. It was really cool to make Shaun from later in the movie since I had already made one of him earlier in the film.

Happy 30th "The Empire Strikes Back"

2010-05-20T22:59:00.001-06:00

The original Star Wars movies had quite the influence on me growing up. Of the first 3, "The Empire Strikes Back" has always been my favorite — in fact, I can consider it my second favorite film of all time ("Raiders of the Lost Ark" is my #1). I really wish I still had the crayon drawing of Luke fighting Vader in Cloud City that I drew when I was four. I'm sure it's at my parents house somewhere...
Anyway — for "Empire's" 30th anniversary, I decided to do some Empire themed sketches and give them away on Twitter (@hefnatron). I gave away the black and white ones over the last couple of days but the one below is still up for grabs (contest ends May 23). For info on how win it, click on over to geeksix.com.

I had a lot of fun doing the sketches as Star Wars is such a rich subject to explore. I hope to find the time in the future to do many more.

How I made my Spaceman Split

2010-04-23T09:53:00.009-06:00

Since I haven't anything new to show you at the moment – the freelance stuff I've been working on isn't for public consumption yet — I thought I would do a little post on how I made my "Spaceman Split" bowling pin sculpture from a couple of months ago.
First, I had to clean off my work table. It had been a while, but was crucial to doing the project. Besides having a clear workspace, I did find my Queen's Greatest Hits cd's underneath all my crap.

Next, I took the old bowling pin that was provided by The Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Utah. It was a retired pin, with lots of dings and dents and a chunk of wood missing from the inside. I filled that hole with spray foam and the other dents with wood filler.

After letting the wood filler dry, I took a rough grit sandpaper (100) and knocked off all the excess from my sloppy filling job. Then, I took lighter grit sandpaper (220 and higher) to smooth it out. Then, I spray painted a couple coats of primer. Oh — and yes, those are vintage Star Wars curtains you see in the background.

After the primer dried, I filled more dents that I missed the first time. The dark color of the primer helps show ones that weren't visible before. At this point I'm starting to wonder if it's worth filling in all the holes, but I know in the end — it'll be worth it. So I sand those again and give it one final coat of primer. Then I give it a couple coats of white.

Now it's starting to look like a brand new pin! Still, the gray primer is showing through the white, so all the white in the final piece will be painted using Liquitex Acrylic Paint.

While I was prepping the bowling pin, I was also trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with it. Normally, I would have done this first, but there was a short turn around time. So I decided that I wanted to do something retro and keep the shape of the pin without altering it. That way, I could go ahead and get it ready so when I decided what I was going to do with it, I could get to painting the image right away.

Eventually I decided on a retro-ish space man smugly holding a ray gun but unsuspectingly standing on top of a large green alien about to attack him. The sketches above are the rough sketches that I did. As you can see, I decided the switch the arm holding the ray gun in the final sculpt.

After doing some color tests, I decided to go with a limited color scheme and keep it simple. It took 2-3 coats of paint to get the look I wanted.

In between coats of paint, I sculpted the Spaceman's arms, hands and ray gun. I used Sculpey baking clay and pieces of a coat hanger for armature. The barrel of the ray gun is a small nail. Oh, and before I got too far along in the painting process, I drilled holes on where I wanted the wire from the arms to go. For the alien's tentacles, I used wire for the basic shape, wrapped them in tin foil until I got the desired thickness and then finished it off with a layer of Sculpey. I'd love to show you what that looked like, but I forgot to take pictures.

The alien's face is beginning to take shape. Later when I painted the face of the Spaceman, I noticed that when I was done …

… it looked like John Locke from Lost!!! This was completely accidental. Maybe subconsciously I did it on purpose. Anyway I kept it. It's Locke in Space.
Once I was done painting, I glued on the arms and gave him a coat of sealer. Here's the finished product below:

I had a great time working on this for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Utah auction and am really looking forward to doing it again next year!

The King of Cool turns 80

2010-03-24T14:33:00.001-06:00

Today, Steve McQueen would have turned 80. I whipped this up last night in his honor.

Pins of Art Charity Auction

2010-03-11T16:51:00.000-07:00

Right now, a piece I created from a bowling pin, along with several other great artists including my co-worker — award winning political cartoonist Pat Bagley — are up for auction online for an event benefitting the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Utah. 100% of the proceeds go to BBBS of Utah, so it's a really great cause plus you get a snazzy piece of art made from a bowling pin. Talk about a conversation piece for your home! Please check all of them out and bid on them here. Mine's on the bottom of page 3. The auction ends March 18.

The Wolf Man

2010-02-11T10:59:00.003-07:00

Last Halloween I did an illustration for In Utah This Week's Halloween issue featuring Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and a zombie. After the issue came out, I wasn't 100% happy with the final result. With the new Wolfman movie coming out, I decided to rectify the situation, at least for the Wolf Man. I redrew his face, finished his left arm that was covered up by Frank and retouched and redrew bit here and there for a stand alone piece. Also I recolored him as well.
I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Now I might just have to do it for all the other Universal monsters.

Conan's Final Tonight Show

2010-01-22T09:22:00.002-07:00

Tonight is coming way too soon. Like, 10 or 12 years too soon. Here's hoping we see Conan back on the tube very soon!

Purrcasso Art & Craft Gala

2009-11-02T13:09:00.008-07:00

Purrcasso is an art and craft auction held every year and it benefits the Berkeley-East Humane Society in Berkeley, CA. They put out the call to artists to send in a piece of artwork to be donated to the event — anyone can send something in! The piece must have either a cat and/or a dog as the subject matter. I really wanted to participate in it last year, but I was short on time.

This year, I made some time to do a small piece for donation. The piece is an 8" x 10" gouache and ink drawing entitled "The Scratch Post Really Tied The Room Together." If you're a movie buff, I'm sure you get the joke of the piece being from "The Big Lebowski." I also wanted to do a piece of the character Walter depicted as a bulldog, but wasn't able to find the time. Oh well, there's always next year! My wife and I both have dogs that we adopted from a shelter, so I feel this is a really worthy cause and a great way to help out.

The Purrcasso event will be held November 7 and 8 and more info on the event can be found here.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

2009-10-28T14:02:00.004-06:00

On the heels of the monster illustration I did earlier in the month for In This Week magazine, I just had to do a portrait of my favorite Universal Monster, The Gilman from "The Creature From The Black Lagoon." Using my Creature figure as a model, I drew him in ink and colored him digitally. You can watch video of me sketching and inking the black of the Gilman on my channel at Draw Dammit. Just click on menu, and click on "movies". The "Creature Feature" will be under 10/19/09 5:34.

Tangled Up In Blue

2009-10-16T10:29:00.006-06:00

Here's an illustration I did for my Friday Mix page in The Salt Lake Tribune. Bob Dylan will be in town for a concert, but since he wouldn't give an interview, we decided to have a quiz. And instead of the hand out art we've run a hundred times before, I decided to do an illustration.

It took forever to figure out how to do his hair, but I think it turned out really well. Here is the finished page:

Me, as E.T., on Pop Candy

2009-10-14T10:41:00.005-06:00

USA Today's Pop Candy blog is posting reader's old Halloween costume photos this month and the E.T. costume my mother made when I was four was today's pic. The quote I gave: Check it out here.

In This Week cover

2009-10-05T12:35:00.001-06:00

Almost forgot — here's the final cover of In This Week that came out last week with my illustrations in it.

The Monster Squad

2009-09-30T10:45:00.007-06:00

Unfortunately, no, it doesn't have to do with one of my favorite childhood movies, other than the fact that it has many of it's co-stars. I recently did a cover illustration and some inside illustrations for this week's issue of IN This Week, a Utah entertainment magazine. The cover article will get you in the mood for Halloween and is a great primer on classic monsters made famous by Universal with zombies thrown in for good measure. I love Halloween and I grew up on a steady diet of classic monster movies, so this assignment was right up my dark corridor. I had a blast drawing them.

Here is the image that was used for the cover featuring a zombie, the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster:

And here are a couple of illustrations of Dracula and the Mummy that were used for the inside:

The article doesn't make a mention of my favorite Universal monster, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, so I think I might just have to do a portrait of him sometime this month myself.

If you live in the Salt Lake area, the issue hits newsstands on Thursday, Oct. 1. Be sure and pick it up!

"Edith Keeler Must Die."

2009-09-24T10:27:00.002-06:00

I've had the idea to do this all summer, but was busy with other things and didn't get around to it. Frankly, I'm still busy with other things, but I decided to take a couple of hours to get this out of my system last week. It's ink and digital, but I plan on making it into a limited edition screen print when I can find the time. If you could figure out what it pertains to without looking at the title quote, kudos! — you are a major Star Trek : TOS fan! Poor Edith....

Star Wars Uncut

2009-08-19T12:55:00.002-06:00

Star War uncut.com is a project where people can grab a 15 second clip from "A New Hope" and remake it however they want. When all the clips are finished they will be cut together. I'm still not sure if all the clips will ever actually be finished, but it's a fun idea and it's interesting and inspiring to see what other people can do with such a short time frame.

Here's my submission below. I decided to do something that I could turn out pretty quick. It's based off of the old "Clutch Cargo" cartoons (could you really even call them cartoons with little to no animation?) using the wonderfully cheesy "Syncro-Vox" human mouths. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 252 from Blain Hefner on Vimeo.

"Gracie is pregnant."

2009-06-21T18:24:00.004-06:00

My wife got me the Star Trek Trilogy collection (ST 2, 3 & 4) on Blu-Ray for my birthday and after re-watching "The Voyage Home", I got inspired to do this peice in gouche. I love this scene, I crack up everytime. Kirk's reaction to Spock swimming with the whale is priceless and I've often thought that the whale's was pretty much the same.

Curing a Rainy Day

2009-06-20T14:54:00.004-06:00

Leonard "Bones" McCoy has always been my favorite Star Trek character, now he's my wife's fav too. So, I did this portrait in gouche upon her request. Stay tuned, more characters to come!

Munny's that rock and swim

2009-06-11T07:54:00.004-06:00

I made these a while back, but I keep forgetting to do a blog post about them (even though they've been on my website gallery for a while). These are custom Mini Munnys I made for my niece and nephew for Christmas. I forgot to take pictures of them so Braden, my nephew, was kind enough to take pictures for me.

The first one is of Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl. Braden and I are both big fans (I took him to his first Foo Fighter's concert) and thought Dave would make an awesome Munny.

The next one I did for my niece, Katie, was of Michael Phelps with a gold medal and Rosetta Stone to help him learn Chinese. Yeah, go ahead and make your stupid pot smoking jokes -- I still think he's cool. I did this before all of that happened though.

The Final Frontier

2009-05-15T08:10:00.003-06:00

This page I designed is from last Friday, when Star Trek came out. I had a lot of fun manipulating the hand out art and creating the pictures for the character profiles.
As far as the movie goes, even if you've never watched Star Trek, you might just like this one. I highly recommend it.

Summer movie time!

2009-05-13T22:54:00.013-06:00

I've been meaning to post about this for a couple of weeks now, but keep forgetting to. This is the cover to this years Summer Movie Preview for The Salt Lake Tribune. As always, since I love the summer movie season, I love putting together this section and making it look great. This year, our film critic Sean Means got an interview with Pete Doctor, the co-director of Pixar's "Up" so I decided to play off of the main poster to tie together some of the other movies coming out.

Even though making it look monochromatic was an idea I had before executing it, I decided to go ahead and paint it in full color with gouche, just to see what it would look like in case I liked it better. I made sure that I kept the values light enough so I could make it monochromatic in Photoshop later.

After several dry runs, we all decided that the sepia version would not only print better, but would look better and be different. The single color really carries your eye through the illustration much better than had I gone with the final color version.

I AM IRON MAN! (Mini Munny)

2009-03-24T07:51:00.003-06:00

This is my most recent Mini Munny, Iron Man. A friend a work requested him for his daughter's birthday and she loved it! I have to admit, it was hard giving it up, it turned out really well. I've been wanting to do an Iron Man since the movie came out last year, and this gave me the perfect opportunity. Thanks, Darren!

Jump over to my Flickr page to see more pics of him!

New paintings: Lil' Me

2009-03-05T08:08:00.003-07:00

I recently completed work on several new paintings based on me (as a kid) dressing up as some of my favorite super heroes and cartoon characters. I'm sure most of you could guess who I am in all of these. Yes, I played dress up a lot when I was little and have pictures of me as all of these characters. Click here and see the other four new paintings in the 2-D gallery on my website.

These paintings will also be a part of a new show called "World of Imagination" at the APW Gallery in Long Island City, NY. There are about 500 artists participating in this show, all contributing up to 5 12" x 12" paintings a piece! That's going to be one heck of a show!

The opening reception will be this Friday night at 6 p.m. and the show runs through March 29. I won't be able to make it, but if you happen to be in NY, stop by and give the show a look!

Award of Excellence

2009-02-18T23:12:00.004-07:00

I did it! I won an Award of Excellence in the Features Page Design category from SND's (Society of News Design) 30th annual “The Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition” for my 2008 Summer Movie Preview cover! I can't begin to tell you how shocked I was when my boss Josh Awtry told me I had won the award.

Considering I worked on putting it together for almost a month, it is very gratifying to be recognized for my effort! I had a blast putting the page together. The page (above) will hopefully be included in the Best of Newspaper Design book from SND coming out this fall.

Nom for a clown, Batman gets the shaft

2009-01-22T09:27:00.005-07:00

The Oscar nominations came out this morning and as expected, the late Heath Ledger got a posthumous best supporting actor nomination for his brilliant performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

Unfortunately, Dark Knight was denied the Best Picture and Best Director nominations that geeks were hoping for (Seriously…The Reader was a better movie than The Dark Knight?!?!?).
Anyway, I guess we should be happy that overall Bats got 8 nominations in all. Not bad for a “comic book movie” as movie snobs like to degrade it to.

Also, Wall-E, another best pic hopefull only got a best animated pic nom. I guess the vindication here is that Andrew Stanton got a best screenplay nom for the film.

YES WE DID!

2008-11-05T23:32:00.002-07:00

An evil EMPIRE has fallen so let us UNITE and CELEBRATE!

APW Gallery Halloween show

2008-10-31T22:35:00.004-06:00

This is my custom "Mask of Red Death" Mini Munny that I made for the APW Gallery's custom toy Halloween show. Opening recepition was tonight (wish I could've been there) and the show runs untill the end of next week (Nov. 7). So if you happen to be on Staten Island, swing on by and see it along with a lot of other great Halloween themed custom toys!

Happy Halloween!!!

Back from the dead ...

2008-10-30T07:47:00.006-06:00

Tonight at 5 p.m., the Wichita Falls Museum of Art in Wichita Falls, TX will be showing a film I made in 2005 titled "The Vampire Brides of Midland" in their Media Center. It was a lot of fun to make with all of my friends and I have a lot of good memories from the expierence. It's very campy with some fun dark humor thrown in, so if you go, I hope you enjoy it, wish I could be there. It's cool to have this playing so close to Halloween. Special thanks to Danny Bills for giving it, ahem, a new life.

Blue Sue

2008-09-09T08:03:00.001-06:00

A quick sketch of Sue Storm I did the other night for the heck of it.

"Stay Frosty" with Manhandle

2008-08-06T07:48:00.004-06:00

"Manhandle: The Assassin" is a new web comic series from Clay Sisk and myself! Based on the character created by Clay, we each write and illustrate a different heart-stopping Manhandle adventure in our own style.

Head on over to the Manhandle site and check out his exploits! You can sign up for e-mail updates when a new strip has been added.

Celebrate Bastille Day!

2008-07-14T06:40:00.001-06:00

Happy Bastille Day everyone! Today, go out and try something new by indulging yourself in a little bit of French culture!

The Smell of Gunpowder in the Air ...

2008-07-05T16:17:00.002-06:00

Stadium of Fire is usually a big deal here in Utah, and this year we decided to blow out the front of our Friday Mix section and make it a poster for the fans to keep (and download for printing online). Decided that it would be fun to do a painting of Miley Cyrus as a tastefull, patriotic '40s cheesecake pin up. I'm extremely happy with the way it turned out!

Munnys can't look up

2008-05-08T08:06:00.009-06:00

It took me a while, but I finally took some nice shots of my latest Mini Munny creation, "Shaun of the Dead." I'm pretty happy with the way he turned out. I really wanted to capture that smug, bad-ass look that Simon Pegg is giving on the SOTD poster. Speaking of Simon Pegg, his brilliant BBC series "Spaced" finally comes out on DVD in the US in July!

Anyway, you can see more pics of my Shaun Munny over at my Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hefnatron/sets/72157603873704662/

Summer movies have started!

2008-05-05T07:43:00.005-06:00

Ahhh...I love this time of year! The weather finally begins to warm up and the local theaters are ruled by the mighty summer movies to entertain us!

This is the cover for our annual Summer Movie Preview at the Salt Lake Tribune that came out last Friday. I had an absolute blast illustrating and putting the section together!

Major kudos to anyone who can figure out what classic comic book cover I'm paying homage to. Double major kudos to anyone who can find the Green Lantern reference!

"Fräulein Ravenwood, let me show you what I am used to..."

2008-05-01T07:38:00.003-06:00

Here's another Indy inspired drawing I just completed. I've always thought it was one of the most tense and scary moments from "Raiders." Seriously, how much would it hurt to have a hot poker to the eyes? *shiver*

Poor Marion -- thank god Indy came back.

Nothing like a good cigar...

2008-04-17T08:20:00.003-06:00

Despite the fact that the main image is a piece of stock art, I'm pretty proud of this week's cover for IN Utah this week. I think it looks pretty classy!

The Calm Before the Adventure

2008-04-12T19:23:00.002-06:00

It started out as doodles on my weekly budget at work yesterday, then I decided to put the elements together. I'm started to get excited for the new Indy movie, so I've been doodling Indy and company a lot lately. Here I depicted a nice, quiet moment with Indy and Short Round.

Raiders of the Lost Munny

2008-04-10T22:45:00.004-06:00

Another Mini Munny creation I recently completed is of one of my favorite heroes, Indiana Jones. I decided to depict him in a scene from "Raiders" (my favorite film of all time). He's holding an "Idol Munny" I made from a Munny zipper pull. I also created a base, which is based off of the floor from the temple in the opening scene of the movie. More picks of him can be found at my Flicker site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hefnatron/sets/72157603873704662/

I'm currently finishing up 2 more Mini Munny creations that I will post about in the near future!

Hints as to who they are: One "Aims to misbehave" and the other is a "Slice of fried gold!"

Lil' Leonidis

2008-04-10T22:28:00.006-06:00

I've had him done for a couple of months and I can't believe I haven't posted him on here yet! It's my second custom Mini Munny--Leonidis from the movie "300." I made him for my wife for Valentine's Day and she absolutely loved it!

Check out more images of him on my Flicker site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hefnatron/sets/72157603873704662/

Beard-Be-Gone!

2008-04-03T23:14:00.006-06:00

I recently shaved down the beard that I've had for several months. It started out as "scruff" in the summer (came in handy when I was Dr. House for Halloween) and when November came around, I decided to let it grow out full.
When I was shaving it, thought I would have a little fun and gave myself rock-a-billy sideburns for all of 30 minutes. My wife didn't approve of them.

R.I.P.: "Blain's Rock-a-Billy Sideburns, March 20, 2008 7:40 A.M. - 8:10 A.M."

She did however fondly approve of me keeping a goatee! Here's a pic of me after I got done shaving:

Utah Press Association award!

2008-03-21T20:19:00.000-06:00

Last week I was surprised to find out that I won first place in the Feature Page Design category in the annual Utah Press Association awards!

For my win, I got this snazzy plaque!!!:

Unfortunately, I don't know which page I won for. If I were to bet, it was probably for this page:

Then again, it could also be for this page:

...and I can't remember what my third entry was. Oh well.

My dogs Blaze and Zorro think the plaque is really cool too.

Big thanks to the judges and to the UPA!

Zartan's Not-So-Sunny Disposition

2008-02-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Did this drawing for a G.I. JOE contest over on the Channel Frederator RAW site.
For those not-in-the-know on JOE, Zartan has a nasty allergy to the sun that causes him to become weak and turn blue-ish green.

Spidey...MAN!

2008-02-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

Found a sketch of Spider-Man I did about 6 months ago and decided to finish him up!

For all the comic geeks, the background is based off of the background on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man # 50 --the "Spider-Man No More" issue.

2-D becomes 3-D

2007-12-02T23:10:00.001-07:00

This is the illustration that I did that was on the front of our wedding invitation and below is a wedding picture of Nikki and I that her parents took. It turned out to be a really awesome day!!!--even without the swords!

Vista vs. Leopard

2007-12-02T22:51:00.001-07:00

Recent illustration I did for an article talking about the pros and cons of Vista and Leopard OSX for Macs. I was a little bias on which operating system had the upper hand in the illo...

Married and Hefnatron Munny comes home

2007-11-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

Geez it's been a while! The most exciting thing that has happened in the last few months was getting married to my fiance Nicole!

Also, my Hefnatron Munny Mobile ended it's run at the Munny show that was at Mechanized Records and is now at home among my robot collection.

It started out as a Munny Mobile kit from Kid Robot.

It took 3 to 4 days (including all day Saturday and Sunday sessions) to complete it. It's mixed media with everything from plexi-glass to Dr. Pepper cans. It was a blast making it!

* pun intended ;)

His helmet was stifling...

2007-04-10T21:58:00.000-06:00

About a month ago, I did a sketch of Leonidis, the Spartan General in my "Egghead" style at the request of my fiance. I decided to take a small break (a whole day!) from a couple of other projects do a quick painting of him. I thought it would be fun to emulate a little bit of the style of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley for the piece, like in their graphic novel "300."

It was fun studying their artwork closely and trying to figure out what techniques they used to achieve their looks (watercolor washes, inking). Any good artist can learn by trying to draw or paint in the same styles of other well known artists. They can take what they learn, add them to thier arsenal of techniques and apply it to their work in their own style.

My fiance, the flu and Ms. Pac-Man

2007-03-30T06:56:00.000-06:00

Wow! Where did March go?!?!

Sorry it's been a while. It's been a pretty eventfull month. My fiance Nicole finally got to move in with me (YAY!), then I got the flu (but not from her ).

The flu hit me pretty hard, so unfortunately, my studio was neglected for about 2 weeks. I did whip out a quick painting before I got sick though:

The idea for this Ms. Pac-Man Pin-up painting has been floating around in my sketchbook for about a year now and a contest at Ain't It Cool News.com gave me the excuse to bust it out into a full fledged painting. My painting was one of five other paintings that were picked as the winners!

You can read all about it here!!! : http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32034

Also, Kotaku featured an article about the contest: http://kotaku.com/gaming/8+bit/aint-it-cool-8+bit-art-247588.php

Other than that, the first Femnauts painting is ALLLLLLMOST finished and will be unveiled next week!

I've also been working on background paintings for "Maria" and will hopefully be posting another sneak peek sometime in the near future, so STAY TUNED!!!....

2007-02-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

Progress is going great on the first "Femnaut" painting! Below is another progression shot of the face of my fiance, Nicole. Still got some work to do before it's done, but it's getting there! Should be done pretty soon!

2007-02-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
I've recently over-hauled my website, so I've decided to start fresh with the blog!
I've started a new series of paintings called "Femnauts." It's a series based on the great pinup art of the 40's, 50's and 60's from artists like George Petty, Gil Elvgren, and Alberto Vargas. The paintings will explore the strength and beauty of women in the traditional pin-up fashion, but set in a mod-space theme.

This is a progression shot of the first painting from about a week ago:
This first painting is based on my fiance, Nicole. Next is the most recent progression shot, a close-up of her raygun!

I've still got some work to do on the skin, face and background, so keep checking back for the finished painting very soon!!!

Im still in the need of models to help get the series up to speed and keep it going! If you think you've got the right stuff to be a Femnaut, drop me a line!--- hefnatron (at) hotmail.com