SpartanCon Post Con Part III: Tables and Acrylic Designs

Between this week's Scorpio Full Moon on Wednesday and the next week's upcoming Mars Retrograde going Direct it has been a huge pain in the butt to get anything done!  I've been treading water all week.  I'm hoping that since the Full Moon has passed, it might be a little easier to get things completed.  In that light, here finally, are the last of the SPARTANCON photos. The first is the view from my table,  followed by my friendly neighbor Brad Parton whose Alpha-Sketch work is amazing and you need to check him out and show some appreciation for his trailblazing work, and lastly here is a picture of me at my table.

Exhumed: FEAR

Here we have explorations of an older sketch for a fear logo.  Whereas most of the other Exhumed pieces have been about simply adding color to develop the image further, here I've taken the idea from the original sketch and constructed an entirely new design. 

{8x5.33,  Created in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: FEAR

Here is a quick graphite sketch for a logo design or larger art piece.  Perhaps in time it will become both.  Check this week's Exhumed post for my current thoughts on this idea.

{8.5 x11,  Graphite}

UPDATE 022614:

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

From the Archives: Shivers

In 2005 I designed a logo for a comic book horror anthology called Shivers.  Here are two left over logos from a set of preliminary designs.  Sadly I no longer have a copy of the finished design.  I do recall the finished design being closer to the television static version.

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}

NOW AVAILABLE: HBA T-shirts!

For the past month, I've been working with Jeremy over at Horror Blogger Alliance to create a design for the newest HBA T-shirt!  We ended up with the two final designs above that are available now at Neatorama's Neatoshop.  Check out the info on the HBA Tshirts, or order one here.

Micki's Tattoo Designs

Some tattoo designs for my friend Micki.  She's a big fan of Hellraiser and Pinhead.  Once these have been 'made flesh' as it were, I'll post updates.

{Digital images created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Indesign}

Murder in the Maze Part IV: The Website

In 2001, My friend Don and I decided we needed something to celebrate the fun of The Maze.  Secretly, while no one was watching, we built a website for The Maze. Don was proficient at code and I was up to my eyeballs in Photoshop, so away we went.

We gave each year its own page and placed photos from the parties and descriptions on each.  I designed a header for each one of the pages.  We created a page to do profiles on everyone who helped construct the Maze and make the party such a success.  We also had a page for all the strange things we had created - like the skull keystone from last post and the "Carrie" trophy for best costume - a trophy with an idol of a prom queen covered in blood!  We threw a huge party on my friend Carol's birthday (Cinqo De Mayo) and premiered nexuscentral.net.

I suppose that is where things went a little crazy.  The party that year was beyond huge.   We had more people than we'd every had at any of the other parties combined.  I believe the cops showed up three times that year.  There wasn't any violence or anything...with that many people, we were just a bit too loud.  I have to claim some responsibility for the tension and recriminations that followed.  That party was TOO big and many boundaries were crossed during and after the party.  That was where things changed.

After the 2001, the luster of the maze fell away and we were left with the stark reality of the effects the parties were having.  After that year, the Maze moved to another location and the parties lost some of their sparkle.  They were still fun mind you, but the honeymoon was definitely over.  The price of the maze had become painfully clear: too much money, too much cleanup, too much arguing, and too little respect.

So the maze parties moved to another location and we all had to grow up a little.  The parties continued, but some people backed out of the preparation phase and all of our efforts were a bit halfhearted now that we knew and understood the price of the maze.  Ahhhhh, but we have the memories of rushing through the darkness, anticipating and fearing the strange touch of our friends and wondering if the trembling hand that reaches towards us is shaking out of communal fear or in preparation for the kill.  Oh the Murder!  The Murder in the Maze!

There are still a couple of pieces left to post from the website and a flyer or two I've missed.  OH, and did I forget to mention the LEGEND OF THE MAZE!  Alas, that is for another post...BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

The website doesn't exist anymore, but I couldn't post about the maze and overlook this essential part of its history. The Carrie trophy was created and photographed by my friend Don and the Skull Keystone was created by my friend Mike and also photographed by Don.

{All the headers were created within Photoshop} 

More Maze History and Art:

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:

My Portfolio Spring 2011

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

This is my Portfolio / Resume for Spring of 2011.

I have presented this in a Magazine format.

If you would like to see this larger,

please go here.

Josh's 24 HR Moviethon 2010

I don't know how this slipped past!  Well I do know since January, but better late than never...  Logo for my friend Josh's Birthday Moviethon!  For 2009's Logo look here.

{Created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.}

The Upstate Comic Book Club

My friend Josh began the Upstate Comic Book Club (UCBC)  and invited me to come along.  This is the flier he and I created to advertise the club.  

{Created completely in Photoshop Elements using the Bamboo Pen Pad}


Update 020814:

I had forgotten about the second version of the exterior of this flyer.  To push the membership drive of the club, we added all of the trades that we had read so far.  I found it recently looking for some other files.  Enjoy!

24 HOUR MOVIETHON!

It has been quite awhile since my last posts.
Here some of the stuff that has been happening in that time.

This was a logo I create for my friend Josh.  Each year he hosts a Moviethon for his birthday.  Did I mention its 24 hours long?  Yeah.  I know.  I can over after work and actually made it to the end.  I was surprised myself.  The logo was created completely in Adobe Illustrator.  later it was added to the poster Josh created with covers of all the movies we watched.

Zombie Victim

Here is the logo for my blog. Soon there will be T-shirts.

{created completely in Photoshop}

UPDATE:  Zombie Bites became Available so I changed the name of my blog to Zombiebites!  :-)