From the Archives: Skeleton Study

This was a study for a larger piece involving several other skeletons.  That piece is still in the works, but this study is very pleasant all its own.  That and who can resist a dramatically lit skeleton!

Its when I work on something like this that I realize my deficiencies in human anatomy.  It makes me want to draw more skeletons so that I may learn.  I'll get on that.  :-)

{Pen & Ink, Sharpie}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Back Cover

This is my favorite of the three 2001 portfolio pieces.  The aura of mystery alone sustains it.

The front cover initiates the portfolio.   It is very presentation oriented and uncomfortably intimate.  The table of contents, still presentational, is focused on organized content.  This is the end of the portfolio, or even further after the end.  The portfolio is finished and these are the last visual echoes of its passing.

The fire of inspiration has been extinguished and the plumes of smoke evaporate into the night sky.  Here the hand of the artist is retreating, fading into the night of clouds.  The portfolio has been presented and the hand now moves away, leaving you to think on what you have observed.  The image block of the moon has lost its glow and become transparent, its contrast and intensity diminished.  It is being absorbed now by the sky. 

This piece is best observed while listening to Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance.  I recommend Victorialand or Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, respectively.  I know this is all pretentious and silly, but once in awhile there are those images that move beyond mere representation and step into the mythic, the symbolic.  I am very grateful to have had this image move through me.  Pretentious or not, the mystery within this piece moves me.

Like the preceding pieces from my 2001 portfolio, this was scanned from a physical copy.  This one had many touches up as well and also was sadly lost to The Hunger of the Zip Disks.

{digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 TOC

Here is the Table of Contents to my 2001 portfolio.  This piece was also another victim of The Hunger of the Zip Disks.  This was scanned from a physical copy and touched up a lot due to dust and scratches.

This one had a lot more touch up to do than the front cover or the back.  The xerox copy does not stand the test of time well...especially if it is a full density copy like this - lots of scratches.  Also the scanner I had access to for these scans was a little weird and crappy.  I'm not sure how or why, but there was a huge finger print on the INSIDE of the scanner glass.  Impossible to reach and clean.  Sigh.  I was was pushed for time and had no opportunity to search out another scanner, so I made do and hoped that my Photoshop skills would be mad enough to fix the problem.  I'll let you be the judge of that one.

A majority of the interior of this portfolio was done in black and white to conserve cash.  If the pieces being displayed needed color, those pages would be in color, but otherwise the interiors were black and white xerox copies.  It helps that at the time I was working at Kinko's (Fedex Office to you young'uns)...and yes I paid for all my copies!

Creepy-too-many-fingered-hand just waiting there in the darkness.  Something very arachnid about it despite there being 10 phalanges. It does give me the spider vibe.  No wonder this portfolio never got me a job...LOL...I was showing it to the wrong people.  I bet all the comic book guys were like - what the hell?!?!  AAAAAAAA  Go away creepy artist boy!  I should have been cruising Fangoria or something with this.  Go fig.  My hands again.  Text added in Photoshop.

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Portfolio 2001 Front Cover

In 2001, I took all of my current artwork and created my portfolio for the year.  Sadly, this and most of the digital pieces from that portfolio were lost to the Hunger of the Zip Disks.  I finally figured out that the zip disk scramble must have happened around the last quarter of 2001 or at some time in 2002 because I made this portfolio to show at Dragoncon in August of 2001. 

I was very lucky recently to discover I still had a physical copy of this portfolio.  I was able to scan several images from it.  After scanning, I had to touch it up a bit due to dust and scratches, but the most of the image integrity is still intact.  It is a bit dark, but so was the original Photoshop file.  Those are my hands in the background.  If I remember correctly, everything else was created in Photoshop.  The Moon image/card in the center is from my business card at the time, but here it is inverted from its original values.  I wanted to create an artificial space that would give a feeling of Mystery and Magick in its artificiality.  I hoped to add to that by confronting the viewer with something that is at first glance seems mostly normal, but upon closer inspection is challenging to understand. 

There is always such a strange relationship between my business cards and my portfolios.  They trade off themes very readily and sometimes dominate each other.  My two favorite portfolios so far have taken their themes from my preexisting business cards.   This portfolio and my current one both followed themes that I had used on the business cards prior to making the portfolio.  I don't currently have a copy of my business card from this time frame but I will find it and post.  :-)  My current card is here.

{Digital Images manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Graveyard Study

This is a study I did for another piece I was working on.  Sadly the full piece was never finished.  There may still be hope for that one yet, so I won't give anymore details as I want it to be a bit of a surprise if I do pull it off.  Regardless though, I am a bit enamored of this quiet aged graveyard scene.

A brief and tiny hurrah - this is a new record for me:  This post makes 30 posts this year.  This is the greatest number of posts I've done in any given year since I started my blog.  I know it's not much, but I'm looking at it as the beginning of something good.  :-)  My goal is to post a minimum of two posts every week, more if I can manage it.  Time will tell.  I know this is a mediocre achievement, but this is the first year I've taken my blog and truly pushed it.  Thanks for reading so far.  I hope this has all been entertaining.

{Pen & Ink, Sharpie}

From the Archives: The Ocean

Sequential art is so often based in practical reality, the moment to moment action.  I guess it's my fine art background that makes me want to bring something more into that equation...or maybe just a yearning to explore the possibilities of the medium.  

How do you get that medium to explore the emotional ambiguities of poetry?  The sequence becomes almost anti-story in that view, favoring the emotional to the moment focused on action alone.  Much of current comic book storytelling is point to point plot driven... Mike Mignola being an exception to that...P. Craig Russell another.  

Emotions rarely give regard to barriers or limits or even time.  The emotional moment is a collection of triggers and often time is not even a consideration.  The emotional space allows for the entrance of the lyrical, the dreadful, the exquisite.  It takes several steps outside the day to day to give room to the emerging feeling. 

This piece is in the same vein with some of my other strips where I've combined poetry and imagery.  Another more finishied attempt at turning poetry into sequential art is here.  I drew this mostly with a ball point pen and added darker areas with a sharpie. 

{Ballpoint pen and Sharpie!}

UPDATE: Green Ghoul - Black & White

I guess all is not lost after all...I took the original scan of the Green Ghoul from my post earlier this week and ran it through Photoshop a few times to get the color out and then cleaned up the black and white.  Also, as a bonus, while I was in Photoshop I added some grayscale to the Black and White image.  I'm reposting the original color for reference.

I'm still feel the black and white image is stronger on its own.  I feel the dramatic contrast makes the Ghoul jumping much more frightening.  The Grayscale is just okay.  The black and white is my favorite.  As before...it is all about the teeth.  That is the part that is trying to get me.  Teeth by their very nature want to bite.  :-O

{Pen & Ink original scanned and manipulated in Photoshop}

From the Archives: Green Ghoul

A brief homage sketch to Tales from the Crypt style horror.  There is also a quality here that reminds me a bit of the cartoon bunny from The Twilight Zone movie...after its transformation.   I feel like there should be strobing lights or something.  

That scary rabbit gave me that gut wrenching feeling you get from seeing something unnatural and filled with hate.  You just look at it and you know...nothing good can come from this.  Similar to my gut reaction to the spider head from John Carpenter's The Thing.  It pops off and sprouts legs and you are left agape, "That did not just happen! AUUUGH!"  Yeesh.  Always check under and behind furniture!  You never know where toothy evil lurks.

I regret making this piece in color now.  It was initially just a quick black and white sketch and I added the color much later.  I think this may be a lesson for me...if it starts out black and white it needs to stay that way...or if I'm going to colorize, a quick trip to fedex office or scan and photoshop instead of (in this case I feel) messing up the original.  Live and learn!

{Pen and Ink and Sharpie!}

From the Archives: The Collapse

I wonder if this what a snake's skin looks like to the snake after it has been shed?  That is kind of how this feels to me now.  I recall an overwhelming feeling of dismay and despair upon drawing this originally, but now it seems more like a discarded skin, an empty mask that I once wore.  I am also getting a strong Grey Alien vibe here...or maybe a one of their corpses. 

A bit of a nod here to the Munch's The Scream.  Also an intentional attempt at duplication of woodgrain or linoleum cut print within Photoshop. In the end, just a sketch, but an interesting exploration nonetheless.

{Created in Photoshop}

UPDATE 022614:

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

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.

Interior Life From the Archives: Panther Rattler

And now for something completely different...well not really.  The next few drawings were from the same period as my other Interior Life posts from Trail of Bread Crumbs: Sunrise, The Old Blue Man, and The Well.  However, the ones I'm posting here have a definite darker edge.  Welcome to my dark corners.  (Thank you Garth Marenghi!)

When I created this piece and the ones that will follow, I was trying to find some kind of balance between my commercial goals for my art and my emotional needs for my art.   There has always been a therapeutic aspect to my work as well as it being a descriptive litmus for the current state of my life.  Selling that out completely to commercial control seemed ill advised...that and I'm sure I'll never be able to affordable a proper therapist.  So why throw away a perfectly good tool for self analysis and growth?!?  Instead I tried to blend the two by making my emotional works a little more commercially presentable.  I'm not sure it worked all that well in the end as I am currently unemployed, but what do you do?  LOL.  Ah Life!

My idea here was of turning some of my darker feelings into functional illustrations.  This is me on a bad day...a very bad day.  I think this may have been the lurking demon of the steroid, Prednisone.  I took that hateful drug for 4 months and it took me years to recover from its effects.  I would not recommend it to anyone.  It made me psychotic and when I tried to explain it to my doctor he just looked at me and nodded and smiled.  So I did some research and learned what I needed to do to ween myself off it, then went to a nutritional therapist at the suggestion of my friend Su.

Prednisone is the reason I have very little faith in the medical community.  The answer is always - "yeah but you're alive".  QUALITY of life is also extremely important. I wish for anyone who says something like that to be required to take Prednisone until they've eaten their way to 35 pounds heavier in four months, are punching walls at least once a week, are crying themselves to sleep every night, and are laughing and crying at the same time whenever they have ANY kind of emotion...but YEAH...I was alive.
I was just out my F@%&#&^ mind.

(prying his white knuckled hands from the podium, he steps down from the soap box)  Oops...Sorry about that.  Prednisone was a bad experience for me and my doctor was apathetic about its effects on me.  Anyway - how bout that crazy cave creature I drew!

I was worried at first about posting this text because of the intensity of my feelings concerning Prednisone, but I realized that this text matches the drawing quite nicely.  So it stays. 

{Pen & Ink.}

The Legend of The Maze Part IV: The Maze

PART FOUR: THE MAZE

Jessica heard screams from the bonfire.

She turned quickly, spilling her cider.

Beyond the houses she could see the glow of the blaze.

A thick swath of bats hovered over it.

Jessica gasped at the sight.

Hiking her skirt, she broke into a run.

There was a flash and she heard an explosion.

The glow beyond the houses flared brightly, then grew dim.

A thunderous roar rippled through the air

and suddenly the shadows around her came alive.

They swirled and stretched and sprang up from the ground,

surrounding her on all sides.

Dumbfounded and blind, she stopped,

entombed in darkness.

 

A wave of fear washed over her.

Her arms went numb and her head light.

She dropped the cider cup she still carried.

It made a soft clinking noise as it struck the ground.

The wind moved gently through the dark passages,

buckling the walls around her.

They made a noise like dry leaves being crushed.

Jessica realized then that it was not the walls making the sound,

but something further up the corridor, towards the bonfire.

Something was moving about in the darkness.

She could hear its heavy breathing now as it came closer.

Spreading her arms outward,

 she stepped backwards and to one side,

her desperate fingers reaching for purchase.

She felt the smooth coolness of one of the walls

and stood flat against it.

The shuffling thing came closer.

Her eyes ached from trying to see in the blackness,

but she had become aware of a dim green light

emanating from somewhere further down the corridor.

She stood stock still as the creature moved closer.

She could see its movement now.

She held her breath, sweat dripped from her forehead.

It stopped right in front of her, looking around.

It was Thom.

 

His face was wrought with terror,

his eyes wide and darting.

So relieved she was to see him

that all their disagreements washed away

and she reached out to touch his shoulder.

He whirled around then, yelling,

plunging the knife he wielded deep into her chest.

Jessica screamed and coughed up blood,

falling against Thom as her chest poured.

He pulled his knife free and fled deeper into the darkness.

 

Thom moved quickly now,

fearful of what new terror might lurk before him.

He could hear children crying back towards the bonfire.

In the distance, someone began singing.

The lonely voice trailed off,

lost in some other portion of the maze.

The silence left in its wake chilled him.

He stopped and tried to cut one of the walls with his knife.

He was unsure of what had attacked him before,

but he was determined to find his way out of this trap.

He could not puncture the walls.

He tried to dig beneath it, but to no avail.

 

Behind him, there was a scream...

then silence.

He moved again, almost running,

turning corners blindly as he came to them.

He heard sobbing behind him again,

softly at first, but growing louder.

Some one cried out then,

"MURDER!"

"MURDER!!!"

He recognized the voice.

It was Richard.

The knife slipped from his hand.

His heart was pounding in his ears.

He ran again, slamming into one of the walls.

He placed his hands flat against it and followed the wall,

moving blindly almost at a run.

He saw light ahead, and rushed toward it.

 

Thom stepped into the clearing.

The few townsfolk present stared at him as if he were a ghost.

Their faces harshly accusing

in the dim orange of the dying bonfire.

Richard stood to one side, his face gaunt and stricken.

He carried Jessica's limp body.

She was pale and covered in blood.

Her chest sliced open.

He laid her gently at her father's feet,

and turned to face Thom.

 

Thom stared, dumbstruck,

at the body of his beloved

and touched his chest absently.

He looked at the wetness on his fingers

as if it were someone else's hand before him.

His head nodded slowly side to side,

the last of his vain denial slipping.

Richard gave him a severe look,

and spoke,

"We followed the stranger as he left Valleydown...

Only intending to scare him away,

but there was a struggle...

and he-"  Richard swallowed hard,

tears welling up in his eyes.

"He had grabbed a scythe.

When Harold and Thom wrested it from him,

he was stabbed with it...

through the chest...

We hid the body beneath the wood of the bonfire

to burn away any guilt,

but it found us here on this night of revelry.

Now in this darkness,

this fair flower has been cut down by fear,

and all our hands are washed in blood.

To protect myself,

I abided the secret of this jealously,

and let this night of terror unfold.

I cannot undo this abomination good people,

but I can set you free..."

Richard turned to the darkness

and raised up his bloodied hands.

 

"HEAR ME SPIRIT!

I CALL YOU BY NAME!

I HAVE MET YOUR TERMS

AND I CLAIM THIS SHAME.

I CALL YOU STRANGER JACK

AND IN SUMMONS UNTO THEE,

I NAME YOUR PLACE OF DEATH

AND POINT TO KILLERS THREE.

FEARFUL HAROLD,

JEALOUS THOMAS,

AND ME.

'TWAS BY THE ROADSIDE

AND TO THE SOUTH OF TOWN

BY A WAGON NEAR THE RIVER

WHERE WE DRAGGED YOU DOWN."

The bonfire blazed then,

spitting up smoke and sparks.

From out of the haze the spirit came,

his dreadful pumpkin head glowing.

He walked up to Richard and gently

brushed the man's face with his skeletal hand.

Richard visibly shook, but said nothing.

The spirit turned to Thom then

and gestured with his scythe.

Thom screamed and howled as the shadowy walls of the maze

spread like bat wings and enfolded him.

There was a flash of fire and green,

and he was gone.

The spirit turned towards the crowd then,

and they separated themselves from Harold.

He broke into a run,

desperate to escape.

The spirit turned and pointed his scythe once more.

A bolt of flame shot across the clearing and engulfed Harold.

He writhed and screamed,

finally falling into the ashes of the bonfire.

 

The spirit turned finally to Richard,

whose face had gone white as bone.

It approached him slowly,

and spread its cloak about him.

Richard made no sound

but stared deeply into the eyes of the spirit.

The spirit stepped away.

Richard's hair was now white,

and his skin wrinkled and spotted.

The spirit nodded to him

stepping over Harold's corpse and into the bonfire.

It waved its scythe in an arc

and the shadow walls of the maze

were swallowed into darkness once more.

"PEOPLE OF VALLEYDOWN...

MY TIME WITH YOU IS DONE.

EXPECT NO REPROACH FROM ME FURTHER,

BUT INSTEAD HEED MY WARNING:

 

EACH YEAR, HENCEFORTH,

SHOULD THE NEED PRESENT,

THIS LABYRINTH WILL GROW

FROM SHADOWS HELL SENT.

ON ALL HALLOW'S EVE

IN SOME FAR COUNTRY OR TOWN

THE PLAYERS WILL REINACT

THE LEGEND OF VALLEYDOWN.

FINDING IN THEIR OWN DARKNESS,

JUDGMENT OR PENITENCE

OR SWEET RELEASE FROM COIL AND TOIL

WILL BE THEIR ONLY SENTENCE.

AS ALWAYS THERE ARE THOSE

LEFT TO TELL THE TALE.

SUCH IS YOUR BURDEN, VALLEYDOWN,

WHILST I RETURN TO HELL."

 

He raised his cloak, and the bonfire blazed one last time,

and he was gone.   
Richard fell to his knees and wept.

Thus ends

THE LEGEND OF THE MAZE.

The first image is the poster side of the flyer for the 2001 party.  The other side was lots of directions and party rules and not nearly exciting enough to share.  :-P  This is one of the images that was lost to the hunger of Zip disks.  I recently discovered I had a physical copy of the flyer and scanned this image from that.  It isn't as crisp as the original would have been, but it is at least present and viewable.  

I drew all the Jack and the trees and scanned all the parts into Photoshop.  I layered them and made it all into the foggy forest of fear you see here.  I wish I still had that crazy font I used, but I was working on a PC at the time and now that I have switched to Mac...I haven't found a Mac version of the font.  :-(

{Pen & Ink manipulated in Photoshop}

The second image is the drawing I did for the 2002 flyer.  I did the typesetting for that flyer as well, but could not find the file for it.  It looks much better without any text anyway.  :-)  I can't remember why Jack is without his scythe in this one.  Perhaps a Freudian symbol (or lack of one) of the group disillusionment with the Maze parties.  Also I just realized his pumpkin head is missing its characteristic flame.  The dying of the fire...but everything has its season.  Also the revelation of Jacks ribs showing from beneath his robes.  That is the first we've seen of his body except for his arms.  His cloak has gone all tattered...I guess that's what you get for living under a graveyard.  :-P

{Pen & Ink}

The last bit at the end there was Jack's face from the Maze website.   I tweaked it a little for this, giving it the red overcast that is has here.  Before, the background was completely black, but when I previewed it here, it dropped into nothingness, so I gave it the red to give a bit more 'punch'.

{Pen & Ink manipulated in Photoshop}

There is more Maze Art in my previous posts: