Exhumed: Ghoul

Here we have an exhumed Ghoul.  With this piece I wanted to get into the creepy night time atmosphere of the image while keeping the savage anger of the original sketch.  I feel like this piece and another ghoul I drew some time ago are cut from the same cloth.  Although I'm enjoying the dramatic side lighting, I'm not super excited about the overall color here.  I feel like it turned out just okay.  I may have to exhume this piece again at some point.

{7.31x5.13,  Graphite with colors added in Adobe Photoshop}

From The Archives: Memory

Sketches of a panel sequence from my notebook inspired by a young man I met at the time.  His immense feelings preceded him.  This was to become a layout like some of my other sequential poetry work.

{Ball Point Pen}

From The Archives: Struggle

Some older sketches for a panel sequence.  I was never sure if this were a comic book or some bit of animation.  I may still use it somewhere, but in a different form.

 
{Ball Point Pen}

From The Archives: Floating

This sketch is an earlier exploration of the same idea I used in a later piece.   This piece is also in the same arena as The Old Blue Man from the Interior Life set over at Trail of Breadcrumbs.

{Graphite}


UPDATE 060614:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in June 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

From the Archives: Dream Sequence Pages

From the Archives: Ghoul

Here is a portrait of a ghoul at night.  Suddenly revealed in torchlight, perhaps disturbed during his grisly meal.

{Graphite}

UPDATE 011415:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in October 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

From The Sketchbook Archives: Shadow Struggle

I think at the time I drew this, I was sensing the coming struggles I would undergo with my sarcoidosis.  I felt a great inevitable darkness surrounding me.  Not sure on the exact timeframe, but I know it was before 2003.

{Sharpie}

Murder in the Maze Part III: The Second Murderer

During third and fourth years of the Maze parties, so many people were playing the Murder in the Maze game that we developed an alternate set of rules for a second murderer within the game.  This was to help the game last a little longer with a large crowd so that everyone would have the opportunity to be "killed".  Also, sometimes the games would run long and people would have to head home to bed and had not had a chance yet to be the murderer.  So we inserted a second murderer to up the ante across the board!  There were several variations on how the second murderer was activated and came into play.  I don't remember them all, but following is the rule we used most often.

During the game, if the first murderer tapped the second murderer on the shoulder, then the second murderer was activated and tapped the first on the shoulder letting him know that he had become a murder victim and was dead.

Once this unknown murder had occurred, it would throw off any theory anyone had developed so far on the identity of the murderer and turn the game intrigue up to 11!  There was always lots of chatting after we were finished playing about who was where when and who secretly or not so secretly was watching or overheard when the murders were committed.  Lots of fun moments in the dark scaring the crap out of each other!  Good Times!  :-P

The first piece of art here is the flyer for the 2000 Maze party.  The flyer was printed on neon green and neon orange paper.  I apologize for my crappy scythe.  The image of Jack here has a MUCH better scythe!  :-)  Over time, Jack kind of became the official mascot for the maze parties.

{Pen & Ink, Text created in Photoshop}

The second piece of art here is the box I created for the deck of cards I created in Photoshop for the game.  During that time I had backed up many of my art files to zip disks and did not realize my error until too late.  I don't remember the exact year it occurred, but rapidly over several months time, all of my zip disks began to scramble and become unreadable.  I found out far too late that this is something that happens with zip disks over time.  I lost two years of artwork due to the scrambling.  The Murder in the Maze deck artwork was on those disks.  I've looked through all my old files to see if I had a hidden copy, but have not found any trace of the cards.

The person on the front of the box is my friend Don.  He let me xerox his face and use it as the cover.  The image from the back of the box is a skull painted by my dearly departed friend Ratboy aka Mike.  It was attached and used as the keystone in a fearsome archway we built for the entrance to the maze.  I'll see if I can find a picture of the archway and post it at some point.  The background is from several photos Don took of the black plastic that we used to construct the maze.  Those photos were used in the website we created to celebrate and advertise the Maze.  The website only ran for a couple of years but is no longer present on the web.  In my next post I will post some of the work I did for the site and give some more background info on it.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

More Maze History and Art: