Exhumed: The Door

This piece was originally part of the Interior Life set.  With the Interior Life set I tried to find a middle ground between my more emotive works and my sequential art.  That set held some of the ideas and thought processes that would grow into much of my intent here at Zombie Bites.  I had imagined this hungry door as fiery from the moment I drew it.  With the color reinvestigation I wanted to bring that feeling of furnace / fireplace to the fore.

{8x6.503,  Sharpie with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

Exhumed: Searching The Stars

This piece was always about vastness and immensity, so with the color, I tried to push the depth of the space within the piece further.  Also I feel that with the color I was able to give the figure in the foreground a bit more substance and form as opposed to the heavily designed shapes in the black and white version.  I apologize for the lack of darkness or horror here.  Exhumed is about previous posts and as much as I try to keep Zombie Bites completely dark, sometimes the light just slips in.

{11x14,  Ink and white acrylic with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio Cover 2002

The cover to my printed portfolio for 2002.  During 1999-2004 I printed giveaway portfolios to leave with possible employers.  I was doing a lot of showing at the sci-fi convention extravaganza in Atalanta, DragonCon.

Recommended Listening:
Cocteau Twins
When Mama Was Moth
from Head over Heels

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

From The Sketchbook Archives: The Gate

This was a sketch done the same time as He Who Bears the Fury.  This became a finished painting as well.  After a botched attempt at changing the main colors of the painting, in frustration I painted over the entire piece.  This sketch is all that remains.

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}

Interior Life from the Archives: The Wall

A bit of homage to Arthur Adams from New Mutants Special #1.  I was always fond of the Enchantress' hateful wall.  This also falls into that same category with the inanimate coming to life.  So...if you're exploring a haunted castle or catacombs, don't stand too close to the walls eh?

This condenses one of those horrible days where it seems like the entire world is set against you into a single moment.  "You're not going anywhere boy - we have a very comfy place for you here inside the wall!  Hold still."  EEP.

Just my brief comment on how vexed I get sometimes by the practical inanimate world.  It seems our little bits of stuff control us in many ways.  Cell phones, cars, clothes, dishes, shoes, TV's, gaming platforms, computers, furniture...a laundry list of inanimate things that control our actions and decisions.  We are forced into a slavery by their very presence.  Their comfort leads us into a languid torpor and should we try to escape them, we find their gravity to be insatiable and insidious.    We all become, indeed, bricks in the wall.  Mind you, I'm not saying that homelessness or poverty are great, but at what point does having our every want met become just another drug?  Who is served by the Omnipresence of THINGS?  Who Benefits?

{Pen & Ink}

Interior Life from the Archives: The Door

More dark feelings from the inside.  I can't remember the inspiration for this piece. hmmm...Perhaps too much D&D or Marvel Comics.  I really cannot remember.  Ah Age.

It reminds me somewhat of the theme of the mouth of hell in many medieval pieces, but without the demons pouring out...not yet.   Ah, the malice of the inanimate suddenly come to unfriendly life.  EEP!  Or perhaps how the gateway of initiation looks to the initiate.  So strange, because there is only light on the other side.  The darkness and bitey teeth are on this side of the door.  

Of course you never want something larger than you coming at you with its mouth open.  I think perhaps this is why babies cry when surrounded by large groups of adults smiling and opening and closing their mouths.  They think we're going to eat them.  That must be it.  It is the ghost of Jaws come back to haunt yet again.  Steven Spielberg and Peter Benchley - you have a lot to answer for!  Not really - Thanks for the Nightmares!  :-)

It all boils down to a fear of being eaten.  Of nature turning and losing one's place in the food chain to something greater or more powerful, of being eaten by the bigger beast.  It is what makes us fear the the Zombie, the predatory Vampire, the hive-minded Alien, and the savage Werewolf.  This is the face the prey animal fears.  Because if it is this large and this close, the face of the greater beast is the last thing you'll see.

{Pen & Ink}

UPDATE 070914:

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

Searching the Stars

An Older piece. Always searching the Stars for some kind of sign or answer. 

{Ink and White Acrylic}

UPDATE 010513:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in December 2013.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

The Storm

The weather has always affected me strongly. I have had Tornado dreams for years.

{Graphite}

UPDATE 042814:

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

The Monoliths

I had a dream of a place like this. In the dream it was underground. 

 {Prismacolor and ink}