THE DAILY MONSTER

NEW TALLEST MONSTER SEGMENTS

One more thing: The World's Tallest Monster just keeps growing. Take a look at two excellent new segments from Mike Pisino at tallestmonster.com. One of these may well be his magnum opus. Ambitious stuff! I love it! If you hae a few minutes to spare, please get in on the action. The creature's getting pretty tall alright, but I don't think it's the world's tallest monster quite yet and it needs your help! You can be the creature's Human Growth Hormone! You know.. the good kind! Tall or short, you know that 344 LOVES YOU

BOOK NEWS (and 48 new monsters)

Good morning. Please forgive me for posting very little this week. Some very exciting things are happening that have dominated my time. As some of you already know, the Daily Monster Book is on! The book will be called 100 DAYS OF MONSTERS and here is the updated cover. I redrew the main title type Monday night:

HOW Books is going to publish the thing, Ze allowed himself to be drafted to write the foreword, and it'll be in bookstores this coming February---complete with a DVD of all 100 Daily Monsters. So instead of flowers, why not plan on giving your sweetheart some inky creatures? (Just a thought... :^) I've been working on page layouts all week, and on putting together the first of a few planned user charts---who sent in the most posts during the original 100 Monster period.

I have downloaded the whole blog and have started the process of editing all the materials for the book. I'll feature two or three stories with each monster, but the plan is to put all the posts onto the DVD, so that all of your cool stories and comments will be on the record! Of course, you can still submit stories for the original creatures now, but they won't find their way into the book. (Not into the first one, at any rate. ;^)

The book will be chock full of new goodies, too! Bonus Monster Films! And lots of new creatures! Just tonight I made 48 new monsters in one long drawing session! My head is throbbing, and my back isn't all that happy, but who wants to stop when the ink is flowing? I need another 13 creatures for this particular element, and then many, many more for something else... but that will have to wait until Monday. :^D

Man, I wish I could show you some of these creatures. I think they're some of the best yet. But I want to make sure there will be some real surprises in the book. So I'll fight the urge to post these particular monsters here. Please forgive the tease.

I will, however, post some great new Open Source Monsters:

Aren't these excellent! Thank you so much for sending them in. Now, here's OPEN SOURCE BLOT 08, ready for your monster creations! Let me recap for those of you who may be new to the Open Source Monsters: Please print out the PDF of this week's ink blot, do with it what you will, then send me a scan or photo of your piece and I'll post it on the site! I hope you'll have fun!

It's 4am and definitely time for me to call it a night. I hope that, wherever you are, spring has sprung and that you have a lovely and leisurely weekend ahead of you! And hey.. birds know it, bees know it, even educated flees know it: 344 LOVES YOU

TERRY T REVEALED

Good morning. One of the wonderful things about the Daily Monster Experience has been meeting all of you great writers through your excellent stories on the blog. Many of you have become not just friends of the monsters, but also friends of mine. With one or two exceptions of pre-monster friends contributing tales, I have never met any of you in person. Until this weekend, that is. One of the attendants of Design Ranch was our very own monster author Terry T.

I'm happy to report that Terry isn't just a great writer, but also a thoroughly nice guy. He sat in on two of my workshops and worked overtime to finish his 100 drawings. His chosen theme was 100 Ways To Die. It's a very funny compilation of mortal coil shuffling. At my special request he even included kitten-induced Toxoplasmosis.
(Needles to say, the kitten was fine!)

Rumor has it that Open Source Monster maven Emily Wong may make an appearance at the AIGA/NY Fresh Dialogues event in May! I hope so! I think meeting all of you in odd locales will be fun for years to come! Until then 344 LOVES YOU from afar!

DESIGN RANCH, TEXAS

Good afternoon. As you know, I taught three drawing workshops at AIGA Design Ranch in Texas this past weekend. The assignment was as follows:

Join designer/illustrator Stefan Bucher for two hours of zen drawing. We’ll give you a poster sized pad of paper and some really nice pens and ask you to show something that’s important to you by putting it on paper 100 times. Maybe it’s 100 different things that center around a single idea or feeling. Maybe it’s 100 iterations of the same thing. 100 coffee cups. 100 naked ladies. 100 delete keys. 100 things on your desk. 100 things on your mind. 100 words starting with un-. Please join us and bare a little piece of your soul on paper at this fun, relaxing workshop.

Please check out all the cool work people came up with in this photo gallery. The final piece in the gallery is mine... 38 new little monsters. I didn't finish my own assignment! But I will. Stay tuned for the full 100 in the fulness of time.

A big THANK YOU to everybody who came to the workshops. I had a great time! For now, even though I'm still incomplete, you can rest assured that 344 LOVES YOU

OPEN SOURCE MONSTER 07 (Part 2)

Good morning. I made it out of Texas in one piece,
neither tarred nor feathered. Phew! Upon my return to headquarters I found a bounty
of new Open Source Monsters. Get ready for some seriously cool drawings:

Aren't these excellent? Very, very nice work! And as an extra treat, Emily documented her new monster Ralph'sbirth step-y-step on her own blog. It's an excellent tutorial. Take a look!

I'll have a whole lot more to post for you today,
so I'll sign off quickly: 344 LOVES YOU

Greenpeace: GREEN MY APPLE

Good afternoon. A little while ago Greenpeace launched a site campaigning for Apple to make their products more environmentally sustainable. I think it's a very worthy effort. I'd love a Greener Apple, too! Take a look at the site: greenpeace.org/apple/ and write a letter to Steve. I've already sent mine.
Because 344 LOVES YOU (and the planet. :^)

OPEN SOURCE MONSTER 07 (Part 1)

Good morning once more. How are you? I hope the week is off to a good start for you. I'm off to conduct a few workshops at AIGA Design Ranch somewhere in the middle od Texas tomorrow, so I won't get to post again until Monday. Unless they run me out of town on a rail before Sunday. It's always a possibilty.

Either way, I wanted to post a few of your great
Open Source Monsters before I hit the road. Take a look:

Pretty nice, don't you think?

If you haven't had a chance to play with this week's ink blot, it's not too late. I'm not going to put a new blot online until next week, so you still have plenty of time to play with OPEN SOURCE BLOT 07. If you're new to all this: Just download the PDF file of the new blot, print it out, have fun playing with it, then scan or photograph the result, send it to me at opensource@344design.com, and I'll post it right here.

As always, I'm excited to see what you come up with. Because you always surprise me! Which is just one of the many reasons that 344 LOVES YOU

DYNAMIC GRAPHICS MONSTER

Good morning again. I noticed that I have yet to show you the new monster I did for the current edition of DYNAMIC GRAPHICS Magazine. Long-time friend of the monsters Sam Berkes happens to be the art director at DG, and I know the rest of the crew from the STEP 100 judging. (DG and STEP are sister publications.) So when Sam asked me if I'd like to make a monster for their "Color On Call" column, I didn't hesitate. The resulting monster happened somewhere around Daily Monster 80 and well predates the New York Magazine piece. As such, this is the very first monster that's appeared in print. Which is kind of cool. (To me, anyway. :^) In honor of our man Sam I've named this one B-MAS. Have a look:

In other news, I just finished eight brand new monsters for the online gallery Art For Empty Walls. The show will go online on May 1st and it'll be the first time I've put any of the monster drawings on sale. I'll post the link again as we get closer to the show. If you'd like to own an original Monster, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor. Save the date.

For now, it's time for me to close up shop for the night.
I hope you'll have a great day. Do keep in mind, please, that 344 LOVES YOU

TALLEST MOSTER KEEPS GROWING

Good morning. The World's Tallest Monster keeps growing. Check out the new segments at tallestmonster.com It's been a little while since anybody put a fresh pair of arms on the creature. Maybe you can step into the breach?

Arms or not, you know that 344 LOVES YOU

OPEN SOURCE MONSTER 06 (Part 2)

Good morning! I hope you had a great weekend! I hope Friday the 13th didn't mess with you and --- if you live in the U.S. --- you got your taxes done in time!

I just posted a nice new Tallest Monster segment courtesy of Victoria Koldewyn, who also sent in her version of Open Source Monster 06. So did Danielle Ngo. Both follow below, along with my own version. Thank you for all the cool drawings you sent throughout the week!

Now, it's time to get busy on Number 07. You can download the new ink blot right here! It's very simple, but I already see a couple different ways of handling it. And still you surprise me every time. I can't wait to see what this one sparks with you.

For now, I hope you'll have a brilliant week
and taht good things come your way.
Why? Because 344 LOVES YOU