Photography (coming soon)

Cody Armstrong Original Artwork

email - Phone 716-989-5921 - Skype "Megabrats"

Every once in a while people comment on or ask about the artwork and photos seen throughout megabrat.com so I thought I'd put this page here to show a little bit more of the artwork and explain my background in art and photography.

A year or so back a writer and publisher asked if I might be interested in being their children's book illustrator, and requested some samples of my recent work. The company's concept was to produce a series of books intended to get boys interested in reading and to provide lessons in social skills - so I assembled a collection of suitable artwork that I thought was relevant for the children's book for boys project, created a few web pages and put it all on CD. The pages you're seeing here are those pages copied from that CD thus most of the artwork is geared towards children. I also do some landscapes and nature but it's always these children's portraits and whimsical illustrations that I most enjoy doing.

I was very fortunate to grow up in an artist home where lessons and exposure to art and photography could happen every day. Instead of video games and TV it was sketch pads and paints that passed the time. My mother is very good in oils and pastels and her best subjects are landscapes, nature, pets and classic portraits. Her web site is www.gayarmstrong.com

I had my first 35mm camera at about age 12 and learned black and white darkroom techniques at 16 from Pamela Williams, a renowned artist photographer and inspiring teacher. This quickly lead to having my own darkroom and freelance photography business by the time I was 17. Decades later I'm still painting and still shooting, now at about a rate of 15,000 frames per year!

I keep at it and greatly enjoy it so I've never wanted to spoil the fun by depending too much on it as my sole source of income. My first real career was in childcare work and counseling. I have a much better natural ability with children than I do in art so it has seemed easy to rapidly progress in this field. But the further I went the more I could see that the kids who needed help most were usually in situations where they were least likely to have access to the best quality workers and helpers. The fortunate ones might get good care but the rest might only end up on medications or in group homes.

This growing trend towards risky drugs and experimental unqualified care, more like an epidemic, greatly concerned me - The more I saw it the more I wanted to distance myself from it. After 15 years in the field I decided that since I have a gift for working with kids that few others can reach I'd rather help some of those kids, even if the pay was low or nothing at all. I abandoned a high paying position and found myself starting various fun and interesting ventures to help pay the bills. Now I run megabrat.com, do web design, commercial photography and graphic arts projects and some commissioned portraits. I started kidscubby.org as a way to get back into the meaningful work of helping kids and families get through difficult situations.

During these years I've found myself miraculously blessed and in a new role, the best one ever, as 'dad' to four kids. My two older boys, now 7 and 10, are half Native Indian so my life is greatly enriched by them and involvement in the Native community. My younger ones are twins, four years old.

The links in the left column take you to some artwork categories. As I track down more of my collection I may add to the pages but for now it is just a very small sample of some of the artwork that I just happened to already have prepared in web page format on disk.