Also in the News, Cryssy Cheung = A Beast!

In case you hadn't heard the disgustingly talented Cryssy Cheung totally pwnt the Chopstix NY competition for a years worth of covers and I couldn't be more proud. Congratulations, you truly deserved it, big up yourself BRAAAP BRAAAP BRAAAP!!!!!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!!!

Ok so, I suck at blogs... obviously, or it wouldn't have taken me a year to get back to it... man have I their leathery grip.

Anyway, celebrating a year of prolonged silence with a brand new illustration in Art Asia Pacific's September Issue for Andy Cohen's (no nepotism I swear) great column about corruption and double dealings between the People's Liberation Army and mainstream Chinese gallerists. Check out Andy's piece and my accompanying image HERE. As always feedback is encouraged.

PS, I've got a lot of new pictures to post up as well and new shit will be forthcoming... hang on to your sensitive areas.

THAT'S IRON BALLS MCGINTY

And he has nothing to do with this post but since Marko liked the reference to The Jerk I figured I'd stick with it. Ok, so I need a crit, I flatted the lineworks from my last post and am still a little unsure of them as finals so I did some stuff to different ones and am calling on you, the great unwashed masses of people that stop by my blog to point me in the direction I should go in. If you're not any kind of artist or creative, that's fine, give me your honest opinions and I'll work them into my course of action. Ok so, The work...

Okay, I'm starting with the dog, This one needs a complete color makeover, I think. The only parts I'd like to keep are the brick red shirts and the Jen Mundy-esque sky. I also kind of like the effect of subtle gradient shading and may end up shading the series that way (if at all).

pretty happy with this one, I think I'm definitely gonna work colored linework into the rest of the series, Sorry Yuko.

This one could benefit from a color re-work too, it was converted from CMYK and it's a little more washed out then I remember.

I think this one is working pretty well but I'd like to add kind of a fire light look to the whole thing.

This one is a little problematic, I think the colors are okay, except for the dark windows and the brown, ochre that'll probably get cut but I'm pretty pleased with the rest. The mask is going be kind of glowing from within as well.

And finally, I'm a little worried that this one is kind of color overload. I'm pretty happy with it but maybe it could be toned down a little. Also, the shading method here is a little less then pleasing for me and I'm leaning more toward gradients.

Alright, you have your mission, don't hold back, if you ever wanted to curse me the fuck out now would be the time...

Rappenin's what's happenin'

best,

-J

The New Phonebooks are Here! THE NEW PHONEBOOKS ARE HERE!!!

Well it seems being underemployed has its benefits... I've read a number of fine books in relatively rapid succession, I've developed a vitamin D deficiency and I've spent a good deal of time thinking about the logistical possibility of starting a non-kosher, Jew-merican eatery. But above all I've been able to get a fuck ton of drawing done. In fact by the end of this week I should have as many pieces done as are already in my portfolio which, isn't really that many but I'm still pretty proud of myself... Bask in my pride please. Okay, so without further hurly burly, the lineworks!!!



These are the first batch of lineworks for the Bowery ghost book/ portfolio thing I'm working on and the concept is a pretty straight-forward, history lesson sort of dealy which is the opposite of the original idea I had, complete randomness but that flies in the face of three and 1/2 years of Tom Woodruff's SVA-ication of my brain. The first ghost up top there is a Teddy Roosevelt manticore, a phantasm of reform.



This one is Mock Duck, a Chinese Tong leader and all around badass. Read up on him in Herbet Asbury's fanciful masterpiece, The Gangs of New York and the more realistic Low Life by the great Luc Sante.



The third piece here is Lady Mephista, I don't know much about her outside of her name and that she was a burlesque performer in the late 1800s but I'm sure there were some kind of pyrotechnics involved in her act.



This ghost is Ignacio Lupo, AKA The Wolf one of the founders of The Black hand, a forerunner of the Mafia in America. I highly recommend looking into this guy some more, he's brutality made flesh and a master of general haberdashery.



These are the Soap Locks, otherwise known as the Bowery Boys. From left to right they are, Sykesy, Big Mose and "Butcher" Bill Poole members of one of New York's and by extension the world's first gangs. Sante and Asbury write extensively on their history from their humble beginnings as a racist trade guild and volunteer fire fighting outfit to their complete domination of the American stage.



The final "portrait" for this posting is the Saint of Vermin, a character I cooked up to anthropomorphically embody one of the most readily recognizable facets of Bowery.

Thanks for checkin' out my sheeeeeeeit. Lemmy know what ya'll think.

Hail Satan!!!
-J

Definitely NSFW

PORN!!!!!!!!!!!! glorious, technicolor T&A!!!!!!! Isn't it wonderful? America!!!!!!



So yeah, put the book on hold because I'm a fuck up but more importantly Papa needs a new pair of shoes, literally and I'm no good at poker or blackjack so I guess trying to break into the world of erotica before trying to get my name out in conventional illustration would be analogous to a soft opening (heh heh) at a restaurant.



I can't decide if I need to use a pseudonym or not. Will drawing overt sexuality fuck my chances of going mainstream one day? If so this is the last time you'll ever see my real name attached to images this hardcore, even though they're pretty tame by all accounts. But hey nobody ever reads this blog anyway so why should I fret?


I tried to mix as much shit that i was into with fetishism in these last two, note the Boba Fett-esque jet pack in the first spacegirl image and the obivious light-saber dildo, princess Leia hair and signed head-shot of Harrison Ford in the last one.



Hope ya'll enjoyed yourselves. Your thoughts are appreciated. Keep on rocking in the free world,

Your Pal,

Colonel Jake Cohen

HOLY FUCK, I GOT OFF MY LAZY ASS AND DID SOMETHING!!!!!!

Oh, wow. Haven't been here in a while, huh? I like what I've done with the place... kept it just the way I left it. Enough feigned nostalgia, on to the main event...

Ok, so this is the inaugural piece for my project/ replacement portfolio tentatively titled, 19 Ghosts of the Bowery even though there's something like 28 ghosts and upwards of 20 images in the works. I'm hoping this one is the dog of the bunch, brushing the cobwebs off as it were; you probably can't tell from my shitty photography but the color is kind of fucked and the perspective in the trident is so wrong it makes me ashamed to admit that I ever even took a class with Sal Amendola (even though i got a D). Let me know what ya'll think, honestly, I want cruelty. I've attached some documentation photos of the process of this piece just to make it seem more interesting than it probably is. Get at me dawg, love Jake.

Before the gouache detailing

The initial inking on my first ghetto light-box, a piece of plexi-glass balanced on some expendable coffee table books with a heavy duty construction lamp tucked in underneath.
My patent-pending ghetto light-box in action... manly 2.5 pound hand weights hold back the massive power of a thin sheet of plastic...
And the aftermath, those three innocuous looking circles starting in the lower left hand corner are actually heat blisters that rendered this incarnation of my genius about as useful, as the saying goes, as tits on a boar... hope you all enjoyed this half-assed romp through my latest exploits. God Bless America and play ball...

NEW PIECES

So, regularly updated for me apparently means once in a blue moon, anyhow here's a what's been taking up a good deal of my time. These 2 are from a series I've been working on for Tomer Hanuka's portfolio class. It's sort of a jumble of concepts that range from severely be-tumored Chinese citizen, Huang Chun-Cai to Windsor Mckay's sumptous masterpiece of subconsciousness, Little Nemo. Love to hear your thoughts, if any of this shite deserves to go on my site or into competition (the second piece has been submitted to AI 28, fingers crossed it'll get into the book).