Trilobite Boy: The Escape -sketch

                                 

Need to get back into my groove. Here's a new Trilobite Boy piece I'm working on. Long way to go. 

ArtRage for iPad with Intuos Stylus. 

Trilobite Boy face

Trilobite Boy work-in-progress. Messing with my Intuos Creative Stylus and ArtRage for iPad. 

                    

                                 

Should have a review up on Symbiartic about the stylus next week! 

Trilobite Boy through the eyes of Eric Orchard

I think this is the first time in my life I have ever commissioned a painting. And I'm stunned by its strange and wonderful otherness. Go check out my character Trilobite Boy as painted by award winning illustrator and my good friend Eric Orchard. 

On Symbiartic, the art and science blog on Scientific American. 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2013/10/26/trilobite-boy-by-eric-orchard/

Trilobite Boy face sketch

Took some time on this before work today. Trilobite Boy face in pencil, to be digitally painted later. 

Should he be wearing a necktie? Denim jacket? Why am I getting a "Robert Smith for The Cure" vibe off of this? 

Trilobite Boy has cracks in his fossil face

Instead of acne, suffers from fissures in his fossil face. Start of a new sketch on my work break. 

Trilobite Boy Leaping

Quick lunchtime sketch 

Trilobite Boys - Big Plans, Little Brains

A real birthday treat! 

Morgan Jackson, sent me this wonderful mash-up via Twitter this morning:

He even dug deep into my bloggy archives and included Ana and her pet Opabinia! 

Thanks Morgan!  Funny stuff. And yeah, his Trilobite Boy's (or should I call him T-Boy?  Seems more appropriate) habit of wearing white tanks fits in perfectly. I'll have to illustrate him in plaid next. 

Love this. 

Trilobite Boy - band poster

More goofing around with the Halftone app. Just need to put a date, time and venue on this one. 

From this original oil painting. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

TRILOBITE FTW!

Trilobite Boy iPhone sketch

Trilobite Boy reading a tablet. He has better tech than I do. Sketch done on my iPhone using ArtRage.

Firing up the Trilobite Boy Tumblr once again

In preparation for new Trilobite Boy stories and art coming this summer, I've started posting on the Trilobite Boy Tumblr again. And watch for fresh merchy-merch!



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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop


Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

Trilobite Boy revisited

Another Instagram tweak for fun.  This one might make a nice print for the shop.  Can't wait until my schedule opens up a bit to work on new Trilobite Boy stuff.

Big plans!

One of the things I've been considering is changing his name from Trilobite Boy to something with a name: "Trilobite Elroy" or "Dave" or something.

So here's a handy poll!

If you have suggestions for an actual name or reasons to leave it as Trilobite Boy, please let me know in the comments! 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Portfolio

Blog

Print Shop 

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Messing with Trilobite Boy Rocks Out on Instagram

I like making messed about versions of some of my paintings. The variations are interesting.

Here's Trilobite Boy Rocks Out in Instagram.

Teetering and Tottering Toward Epic Awesomeness

Busy, busy, crash.

2012 started off with a computer suffering from so many problems I'm exhausted enough to skip completely over what exactly happened, except to say a hearty thank you to my good friend Rudi for getting things humming again.

Means I'm in catch-up mode, teetering and tottering between equally important projects with looming deadlines and images I can't show you until I'm done, thus the repeat of our man Trilobite Boy up there.

So what am I working on?

-Mainly, being a stay-at home dad, for realz. Our son just turned 1 shortly after Krismas.  He's practicing walking, talking is ever more specific and complicated, and he's really really adept at saying, "No, Dada" in a world-weary way that lets others know how much he puts up with.  He's amazing every single day, and my wife is the main reason.

-I do so freelance social media promotion for a big Canadian retailer when he naps.  Was doing some from my iPhone during the crashed computer days.

-For Symbiartic, the art+science blog on Scientific American, there are a ton of half-complete interviews and posts and feelers sent out. Lots to come there, some artists and discussions I've wanted to have since before launch. There's no shortage of material to cover, and I'm hoping to get some more, shorter, "gee whiz looks at this image" posts up to go along with the usual discussions that get started. I'm lucky to be writing alongside my co-blogger Kalliopi Monoyios, mainly because her posts continue to surprise me. The whole network at Scientific American is pretty amazing, and I have a ton of new-favourite bloggers now, not least of which is Alex Wild's Compound Eye.

-ScienceOnline2012 is coming up fast, and I'll be involved in 2 discussions and I'm co-curating the science-art show. More on that over the next few days in some new posts. (Yes we've decided what we be in the show! Everyone should receive emails by Monday morning.)

-In addition, I'm plugging away having a merry time working on my first actual scientific illustration (not surreal, no arthropod-human hybrids or winged sealife).  Can't wait to share.

So what's on the launchpad for The Flying Trilobite?

-March 2012 will be The Flying Trilobite's 5th blogiversary online, and I plan to mark it with a Bold! New! Direction! for Trilobite Boy and some regularity to the artwork that fizzled out with my short-lived webcomic last year.  I made some progress over the non-computer days on that front, and I'm excited about where's it's going to go. Should I reveal it?

Spoiler-->  The plan is one comic book cover a month, painted, showing Trilobite Boy's  adventures.  Or at least teasing at them. And there will be some *ahem* hidden things. Can't say any more than that.

-Hopefully I'll be able to do another contest for the 5th Blogiversary celebrations as well.

-I'm also planning on more tutorials using oil paint and ArtRage in the coming months, to share how I do what I do.

-Sales in my online store were up a bit in 2011 from 2010, and I'm hoping to get them up higher with some of the projects I have planned this year. Calendars collections still available, and you can choose the start month!

Thanks to everyone who visited and commented on The Flying Trilobite last year - I'm hoping 2012 will be full of epic awesomeness and world trilobite domination.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop 

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Science-Art Geek iPhone 4 cases!

Available now, in my print shop at RedBubble.

Here's some specs from RedBubble themselves:

Uncommon spent months in the desert inventing a revolutionary and top secret printing process called TATT™, which embeds the design into the case—so no fading or peeling, ever. It all sounds a bit space age really, which we quite like.

Our cases were made specifically for the iPhone 4S & 4, ensuring that all of your bits, pieces and functions line up where they should. Plus, Uncommon cases are chosen by Apple for sale in Apple Stores. Seal of approval right there.

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In addition to selling these designs on an ongoing basis, I'm also looking for someone to finance a few as prizes for ScienceOnline12 ! Please email me at theflyingtrilobite at gmail dot com if interested. 
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop 
I hope everyone enjoys my cheesy mirror effect above.

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Trilobite Boy Mail!

Back in June a number of Flying Trilobite readers really helped me out with donations to keep my portfolio site at glendonmellow.com going. For a minimum $10 donation, I made each of them an original drawing. All of those drawings should be arriving in everyone's snail-mailboxes over the next several days.  

Here's science-artist Katy Ann Chalmers with her Trilobite Boy Chibi! 

My grateful thanks to each person who donated or tweeted to get the word out.  It's been a tough time freelancing for me, and it really helped keep my presence alive online. I had fun with each image, and did things a little differently than the norm. I made a nice scan of each one, and will put them all up in a future post together.

As an artist, it can be really tough to earn a living wage from your work without years of royalties and a large committed fanbase.  It takes time. I'm lucky to be doing well for a guy who paints trilobites with wings. But we're also living in a time when the divide between how images are prized and what people will pay for them faces a huge divide.

Artists forge ahead and use the talents to delight and inspire, and the growing movement of science-artists have a doubly important mission, turning people on to the natural world through their skills and dedication.

There's another science-artist who needs financial help right now, and is willing to put their skills to the task:  Katy Ann Chalmers, pictured above, is offering an amazing deal on original artwork if people can chip in and help her afford to go back to school this year: check it out!  Cephalopods and space art for a great cause!
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

New!  Follow me on Symbiartic, the new art+science blog on Scientific American! 

Trilobite Boy chibi!

Follow the intermittent adventures of Trilobite Boy!

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.

Portfolio

Blog

Print Shop

Butter Tarts - Trilobite Boy #6

New Trilobite Boy webcomic!

This was done in about 45 minutes using ArtRage Studio Pro.
You can follow the adventures of Trilobite Boy on his Tumblr.
And you can see in-process Trilobite Boy art by clickety-clicking here.
Trilobite Boy prints, shirts and stickers available in my shop. 
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.

Portfolio

Blog

Print Shop

Style Question

As I wander aimlessly in the woods of a webcomic sketchy experiment thing in an attempt to both develop new skills and get the Trilobite Boy story down, I come to the question of style. Here are all the panels so far, in order, of the Trilobite Boy webcomic. Click to enlarge.

What's your favourite image so far?

Spoilers after the jump: 

Trilobite Boy #5: Arrival

The new page is up! 

This is a lower quality version than the one at the webcomic. Click to see it!

I did this one in ArtRage 3, mostly with the watercolours. The Royal Ontario Museum is one of my favourite places to go and draw, and I've loved it since I was a kid. The new design is something I wanted to highlight too. It's stunning.

You can also view the new page large, here, or below the fold.