For a fun side project, I got to test my imagination in sketching up a contest between two titans of ancient time. In an most wonderful mental exercise known as Mammal March Madness, a bracket-style series of match-ups are made between foes (almost all hail from the mammal lineage). In one category this year, Fossil Mammals, the great Paraceratherium was pitted against the Woolly Rhino. A formidable duel, to be certain. Read all about it (and get an explanation for this dramatic drawing) in my fellow mad mammal mate's post on her website: K.O. & her Charismatic Megafauna! 

Attack, extinct beasts of incredible size and power! 

After spending my summer months playing with a fun drawing tablet and software, I am pleased to share the completed series of comics all about ants, known as "Myrmex: A Comic Anthology". I was fortunate enough to contribute to this project, adding my digital stylings and verbosity to two whole comics! I focused on symbiotic relationships between ants and other species:

1. Ants & Aphids - like a farmer and his flock (of green sheep), page 24
2. Ants & Acacias - an abode earned through a strict defensive regimen, page 26-27

This project was developed with the goal of creating a series of comics to educate middle school students about ecology,  through focusing on ants. There are lots and lots and lots of ants worldwide, and they all do different and awesome things. They make a great lens through which to study science! Take a look at the comic book for yourself; it brought together a handful of scientists and illustrators for some collaboration almost as sweet as extrafloral nectar*! http://bit.ly/199F7We

*Read my ant-acacia comic to understand this reference. You may need to follow the link for higher resolution images & text.

After grand travels around Southeast Asia, I have returned back to the States, where I intend to focus on cranking out some new art, and some new features on this site! I have gotten a lot of feedback about including photos as a main feature, so once I sort through them all, they will start appearing here for purchase! A few projects are in the wings, so I hope to be in regular contact more that I now have a stable internet connection, and electricity not provided by a generator! As a thank you for reading this, here's one image that I plan to make available as a print just as soon as I can.

Now that I've been in the peatswamp forest for over two months, I feel I am finally getting the hang of the best ways to bushwhack through the understory, plus a good idea of how camp life goes. To celebrate the end of my orientation (and the forthcoming delving in to the real work), I've written a post for OuTrop's Blog, all about life as an Orangutan Intern. You can head over there & check it out for yourself: The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project Blog: New Orangutan Intern!

Hello there! Long time no talk. News has been slim as of late, mostly just due to delays in the process of actually getting into the cool country of Indonesia. But I can now say that I've made it, seen cool things, and have started spinning new project ideas in my mind! Many of which may come to grace the pages of this esteemed site ... though they will take some time to ripen before getting here. However, some ideas in place include a series of field sketches, some species studies while in the field, and quite likely a handful of solid photos to add in to the future print mix.

Feel free to check out Jess' Adventures Abroad for the time being if you're interested in the day to day doings of a natural science enthusiast stuck down in a peat swamp forest.