Well Hello There

 So... its been rather a while since I have posted on here, long enough that someone who left a comment believes I have died. 

I haven't, Im still here :). my lack of recent posting can be explained in a longer post to come once I figure out more of the features on here, feels like everything has changed slightly. 

Short version, attempted to follow in the footsteps of an Australian film and worked for an insurance company, several fun yet soul crushing relationships, including one that fractured my friend group somewhat alienating me from my friends and making it awkward to be around them as my monstrous ex is now a part of that group. But honestly the insurance co, as well as the prior events of working for the employer in the most recent posts on here sort of destroyed my confidence as an artist but also in myself. Hadn't felt like myself for a long time, and that is one of the few good things to come out of the Pandemonium we are all living through at the moment; while occasionally depressed and often dealing with intense amounts of anxiety I feel more like myself, the art me.

So no promises to post more things, but Im starting to feel like I can make things again (there are definitely some fun things from the past few years I will post, but Im in the process of working on a new website as well).

In the meantime here is a piece I did in the early hopeful days of quarantine for an art exchange I did with some muralist friends

Track 3

So as you can probably see this whole keeping up regularly isnt working so well, but at least im doing better than I have been previously. Today Im kinda going to skip over whats going on in my life to show you a neat thing first.

 So heres a couple of the stuff Ive done for Stellas, I recreated the mural outside into a small version to be used for menus, posters, table tents. They used it for the Rehab Brunch which is still going on every sunday, you should check it out its pretty cool. The bottom left one there is a Happy Hour pinball machine they asked me to make, I dont know that it ever got used, but all the staff who saw it really liked it. Ive got the start of another poster with that little spaceman, and the Downtown Throwdown poster has another awesome tie fighter fight.

this is from the Team Trivia posters I made for McFaddens, I never heard if they used them either, but it turned out pretty cool I think, I had the Millenium Falcon higher up on the poster by the text.

So yeah I guess that satisfies my Barfly art stuff to be posted.

Things have still been struggling a bit in the trying to find art gigs avenue, but I did recently make an awesome album for the Tony LaJoye Trio, check out the poster for it, there is also a date in Traverse on the 5th for you northerners. I might post some of the album art when it gets closer to the date as a preview.

Things have been alittle rocky in my personal life as of current, Im a bit lost to be honest, but I feel hopeful about it, and I think it will work out positivly...

Today I got the whole process started to do substitute teaching, saddly Alex I wont be able to sub for you for your honeymoon, but I will later in the year. I think it could be pretty cool, and since I will be able to kinda choose my days I dont want to work I can make days for myself to work as well that way I can do art stuff and have a paying job, awesome.

  Most recently though, yesterday in fact, I posed a question as my status of what should I draw tommorow, an awesome amount of cool ideas were thrown out there, and I think I might form them all into a crazy awesome painting, Ill post the sketches next time so everyone who commented can see, and Ill keep them updated on its progress, itll kinda be something to work on when im not working on other stuff.

Track 3, my favorite album...

Hi all, probably not a long post, but I told myself I would try to be better about posting stuff. Things have been going decently recently all things considered. Still dont have any job prospects on the horizon really, but I sent out emails to a bunch of different places, Baker Books, Beehive Illustration agency, Highlights. Id like to send more stuff to agencies, but Im not really sure how to go about that. While I loved going to Grand Valley, I do feel like the things missing in my education was how to actually get jobs, I mean in that regard people mostly suggested what to have in your portfolio, not like how to actually beat the pavement so to speak and get contacts and stuff.

    Anyways, my sister had her wedding last weekend, it was a really great ceremony, everyone had a great time, and it was nice to be able to introduce Anne to my family, hopefully it wasnt to overwhelming.  Donovan Cater officiated which was really cool, I think it means more in a wedding when you have a good friend do the actual stuff, especially since its so easy to be ordained these days. He and Jessa are really cool people too, Im looking forward to making a logo for her face painting. Im not a big logo person, but when someone wants me to make a logo and is coming to me becuase they want it to be in my style I dont mind at all, then its fun to see something youve done on letterhead, business cards and stuff.

Anyways Im not sure what art to throw on here today, Im going to start showing some of the stuff that I had made for Barfly when I was working there, they havent really contacted me about anything so Im not sure if they still want me to freelance at all. Heres a couple of the more animated banners (these are the top an bottom, they went on 11x14 posters will all the events an stuff, ones for beer dinners the other is for weekly events), and a poster I did for a hop festival, they didnt end up doing there own text, I added the text in digitally so it wasnt so bad.

Ill add more stuff next time, hopefully have something brand new, but also more of the Barfly stuff.

Goings Ons of Michael Hoskins

So while watching a film the other evening, I realized that I feel alittle bad for Nick Nolte, I dont know that Ive ever seen him in something where he wasnt kind of a dick that everyone hated who was trying to not be but is a bit misunderstood.
So theres that, anyways its been quite awhile, I feel alittle dumb honestly because everytime I blog post I seem to start things off with apologes and reassurances, and promises to be a better blogger, lets be honest, Im not fairly frequent with my bloggering, but I can try to be I suppose.

So firstly a filling in of things that are going in my life at th moment, well I recently kind of, I think it would be laid off, but im not certain, basically for the last, 6 months or so, Ive been working for a Barfly Ventures, better known as HopCat, Stellas Lounge, The Viceroy, Mcfaddens, and the Grand Rapids Brewing Co., it was kind of a dream job really, they hired me to be an illustrator and basically just paint cool stuff all the time, make posters and graphics and stuff. I have no hard feelings, I was kinda stressed out all the time, I was on salary, which compelled me to be constantly working on stuff, and felt guilty to make other art, or even go out of the house. It will also be nice to not be doing logos all the time, they are so frusterating, plus Im not a designer so my logos tend to be cool little paintings. I did make some really cool stuff while working for them, which I post gradually on here. Its alittle concerning though becuase Im not sure where Im going to get money, alittle nerve racking and stressful, but itll be ok, the cartoon should make money, and they asked me to freelance occasionally which should be good. I just dont want to have to go back to working as a bouncer, I worked 40+ hours every week, and never had any money, plus I worked every weekend til 4 am, so no social life either.

I also started dating a pretty wonderful girl, which is cool, shes gotten me to be cleaner, my house is tidier, which is cool, also looks great now becuase I got a new couch (before I got laid off).
My sister is getting married in a few weeks which is pretty awesome, I got this cool suit vest to wear, but it was a bit tight, which is actually good, it gave me a reason to actually start a diet and exercise more, which I needed to do anyways, but its always hard to get started with anything like that, no motivation, it always seems like it would be expensive, but basically im just going to eat eggs, pretty much for every meal, and eat smaller meals, its only been a few days, but I already lost 4 pounds.

So hopefully it wont be over a year before my next post, but Ill try to keep you all apprised of my goings ons, Im making an album for the Tony LaJoye Trio, more to come on that, and when we launch the site Ill put a link to the Conputers Cartoon website, and web cartoon im working on with a group of friends, we will have a kickstarter and it should be pretty great.

Argyle Owls

Not to much grand or exciting really, although I did create an Etsy store this week, once I get it all up an running there will be enclosed a link.

Im going to be starting a commission shortly, well actually a couple of them, one is for a coworker, kind of a farm thing, and another is for an old friend, Ill have a sketch for that one next time. But one of the things im going to do in hers is lots of strange designs and patterns in a forestly swampish scene (I probably shouldnt make up words though, so it will be somewhat of a taiga type of scene).

I was wondering however to anyone out there, should I include a background in this? I wasnt sure if it needed one, maybe just some light suggestions in the background nothing to distracting.

Unite the United is a non profit organization through Vans Warped Tour, my dear friend Jesse Owens had me design a tshirt for them this year which will be at the various warped tour locations around the country.

definitly not a traditional sugar skull, but I think it turned out well

So I very recently started doing cover work for a podcast called The Drabblecast, and if you click on the link there it will take you to the short story that has my work as a cover. Im looking forward to doing more work for them in the future, and if you like science fiction, horror, or comedy about either, subscribe to it theres alot of strange stories by strange people.

This also made me realize that I should get more references of 60's type women.

Do you ever watch a film that you absolutely loved as a kid and realize that its not really that great by your standards today? Well I recently made a few acquisitions into my extensive film collection that I more or less just stumbled on, We're Back a film about dinosaurs coming to the present with high IQ's and The Neverending story III. Now ive never seen the Neverending story III before, ive seen the other two. Now while the dinosaur film was still pretty decent im hoping that the third installment of the series wont be a flawed as the first film. When I was little I remember vividly watching the Neverending story and remebering it having a great story and compelling characters. But watching it as an adult, you catch all those little flaws that you wish you didnt, like seeing him feeding sugar cubes to keep the horse interested, or how ridiculous the Nothing looks when it had been creepy as a kid.

Its the saddest thing about growing up, that you lose that sense of wonder about everything, yeah sure there alot of things that are still amazing, and I feel that I have a much more imaginative and creative mind than most adults. But its still those little things about being younger that you can never get back...

Lately Ive been enjoying the Racontuers

New Internet

So i recently got usable internet at my house, up until now I had been using a satellite provider which limited my usage per day and basically was horrible. The only time I could upload stuff online was at 3 am, but now I can do it whenever so I will hopefully be able to post things more regularly.

Life has been alright lately, work has been growing more and more frustrating, but I think that may be partially because of the slowness of the summer season, seems to put many of my coworkers in unpleasant moods, but I digress. I've been hoping to kind of work less, not alot but alittle bit less so basically less then 40+hrs a week, primarily because I feel that being away from the aggravation that is being caused by some of the issues at work will help me be happier in general, but also to get more work done, and because i feel some of the reason for my hand hurting so much is due to carrying plates (I think I should locate my wrist brace).

This one is from a while ago, but I haven't posted it up here, kind of a funny story which involves the moose one below, the moose one was a commission and in the emails, she sent saying she wanted a mouse in the image, so i sketched out the above, and she asked if i could add in a moose cause that was what she had asked for. kinda funny I suppose.

So normally I never enter into contests for bands or things like that, where they ask you as an artist to put tons of time into something that they might not like. I think its moderately disrespectful, I mean if I owned a venue and wanted a band to play at it I wouldnt ask interested parties to compose a song for it, I would listen what they already have done, I digress. I did this for a Murder by Death album art contest, but I guess they didnt like it. Not really sure what to do with it really.
So I was also geeked, due to the new internet, I was able to watch the first episode of the new Torchwood. I have high hopes, they already made several references to the BBC series which were great, but I appreciate that while it Im sure will be slightly different in execution(no pun intended to those who watched), it does seem like it will have some of the same flare, and wont be utterly destroyed like what they've done to Being Human.

Other than that life is fairly normal I suppose, the growing lack of people in Middleville is perplexing however, now its just me and Dwain, and i rarely see him due to his significant schedule. Ive been considering moving, but I dont know where Id really want to go...

I do also need to try to get some more art jobs, possibly with a publisher or something along those lines

Cherry at Rivertown Crossings theater

If you havent seen already from the tons of posts about it on facebook, Cherry the independent film that I was fortunate enough to be able to the art for is going to be at Celebration Rivertown this next week. Ill be heading to the 730 showing, and then downtown for the after party at Crush. Should be a good time come and check it out.

This is just a one of my favorites that appears on screen.