Chalk Art, Illustrations, Digital Painting, and Cartoons by Artist Eric Maruscak

Way back in 2007, I was invited to appear at the International Toy Fair in New York City to create a chalk mural inside the booth space of Peru Meridian Studios. Five years later, and I finally get to return to this awesome convention, brought in by The Creative Factor a group showcasing the artistic talent that goes into the concept and design of the new toys coming out each year. This is also one of the few times I was able to create an original illustration as the basis for my chalk art, rather than reproducing an existing artwork.

Click to enlarge (but only if you want to).

Click to enlarge (but only if you want to).

A few months ago, I had the honor of appearing at the Star Wars Celebration VI Convention at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Little did I know at the time that Star Wars was just a short while away from becoming MAJOR news again. Now that Disney has purchased Lucasfilm and Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII, and IX are planned, I am kind of glad it took a while to get the approval to release the time lapse video from my chalk art at the show. It ends up being pretty good timing.

Back at the end of August I appeared at Star Wars Celebration VI where I created a chalk mural for the newest season of The Clone Wars. The mural took 36 hours to make from start to finish and left me with some very raw and bloody fingertips.

Another year, and another Otakon has come and gone. I seriously love this show with all of it’s Manga, Anime, J-Rock and Cosplay inspired crazy goodness. Once again I was asked to take up residence in Artist Alley in the lower level of the Baltimore Convention Center, and spend 30 hours creating a massive mural, this time based on the work of artist Del Borovic.

Above: The first panel from my Dig Dug webcomic on shiftylook.com.

As of right now my web comic version of Dig Dug has gone live on shiftylook.com and I am excited to share this piece of work with everyone.

Out of the blue I was contacted by Artizen Magazine to let me know that they had published an article about chalk art, and I was one of the artists they were featuring. Below is an image showing the spread where my art makes an appearance. I was proud to be listed amongst the likes of Julian Beever and Kurt Wenner, both masters of the art form.

I was asked to make an appearance at the World Science Festival Street Fair on June 3rd, 2012 in New York City. Due to issues with weather, and the nature of most conventions where I now make appearances, I don’t create as many outdoor chalk murals as I used to. It is fun to come back to this type of event, and have the rush of dealing with the elements, the nature of outdoor event crowds, and the difficulty of the surface. All add to the challenge, and all make the final piece that much more rewarding.

Once again I delve into the not-so-distant past to catch up on some posts that I never got around to making about some show appearances and chalk art. So lets hop on the Way-Back machine and have Mr. Peabody teach us a condescending lesson, shall we?

We return to the distant, mythical land of Chicago, where I was asked in April to make my first ever appearance at the Anime Central Convention. I was to create a mural of the Anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica for Aniplex of America.

With so much going on, I’ve been behind on posts, so it is time to play a little catch up. Thanks for bearing with me as I take this walk down RECENT memory lane.

This one goes all the way back to April, when I once again appeared at the C2E2 Convention (Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo) at McCormick Place where I spent 30 hours on the floor creating a chalk mural for shiftylook.com, a website with ties to the Namco Bandai Group.

Last weekend was the World Science Festival, and I was asked to create a 3D chalk mural for the Street Fair portion of the event along the south side of Washington Square Park in New York City. The themes of this years festival were "The Elegent Universe" and Robotics. So it was my job to create an illustration that would combine those two ideas, could be drawn as street art in about 8 hours time on a busy sidewalk in Manhattan, and have a 3D effect when it was done.

Last weekend was the Anime Central 15th Anniversary Convention at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. I was asked to appear at the show and make a chalk art of the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which is distributed by Aniplex USA. When I first saw the art, I knew this was going to be a tough one, especially coming on the heels just two weeks after my last trip to Chicago for C2E2 and the ShiftyLook chalk art mural.

It was my great honor to appear at the 3rd annual C2E2 convention and create a chalk mural for shiftylook.com. If you are not familiar with Shiftylook, they are an off-shoot of Namco Bandai games, where old video game characters are updated and given new life through webcomics. Their tagline is "Video Game Characters Reborn!", and it is very fitting. They are free to read at the site, so go enjoy yourself!

Coming up April 27th – 29th, I’ll be at the Anime Central Convention making a chalk mural for Aniplex of Madoka Magica. Recently I set out my paper and created the full size 9 feet wide by 12 feet tall sketch which took about 7 hours. Above is the time lapse video of the process.