The Last Bites of 2012 Part II: The King Beneath the Soil

Continued From 

The Last Bites of 2012 Part I: Janus Tunnel

As difficult as 2012 has been, there have been several positive developments within Zombie Bites and beyond.  July and August brought a collaboration with the Horror Blogger Alliance curator Jeremy Hawkins, aka Retro-Zombie, to create the 2012 designs for the HBA Tshirts.  Also this year I finally realized a vision that I have been working towards since I began revitalizing Zombie Bites: The Weekly Featured Creature.  I've had the idea since I began this blog, but circumstances and opportunity haven't coincided until this year.  I'm just pleased that the creatures have been so well received.  My number of page views has nearly doubled since the Featured Creature began!  Thanks to everyone for your interest and support!

The Last Bites of 2012 Part I: Janus Tunnel

I find myself in a strange emotional space as 2012 winds down to a close.  This past year has been incredibly turbulent and in many ways disheartening, but as I look across the work I created during this year, I feel uplifted.  If anything else fell to the wayside or was destroyed by the chaotic forces unleashed in 2012, at least this body of work came through me.  This year has tested me in ways I never imagined possible, but at least amidst the waves of tumult, I managed to keep the art flowing.

Dance of the Cat and the Moth

A moment of revelation feeds their understanding of each other.
...and the chase continues.

Featured Creature UPDATE: Bathroom Floor Zombie

Here is the toned version of the Bathroom Floor Zombie.  Check out the original post to compare it to the original sketch.

{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen with tones added in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Emptiness

A creepy sharpie sketch from some time ago.  This was a developmental sketch for a painting.  After scanning the image, I did a little tweaking around the edges in Photoshop to cover up the white.  The white made the cloaked figure a little hard to see.  I was trying to achieve a subtle ambiguity with the darkly cloaked figure in night darkness. Where does the shadow begin and the figure end?  It still needs more work, but a solid idea.

Featured Creature: Snake Demon

Here we have a raging horned snake demon.  This creepy crawly was created using the Purple / Yellow technique.  At first I was a little trepidatious of adding tones to this piece.  The stark black and white wanted to remain so, but as I began working on it, I tried a bit of hand toning with the airbrush tool in Photoshop and it all made sense.  The more detailed shading added a quality to it that reminded me of graphite drawing. As always, a nod here to the genius of H. R. Giger.

He Fills the Space

"I have not come to tell you what it is.
I have come to ask you the question."

Boat of the Prince of Cups

He hangs midair like a ghost,
hovering amongst labyrinthine structures.
His secret, the unseen movement of a great wind.
He disturbs not the waters.
His deep understanding of that element allows it.

From the Archives: H. P. Lovecraft

Here's a touched up portrait of H. P. Lovecraft I created to hang in my space.  I wanted a portrait of the horror master to inspire me when I was working, but I didn't want something plain.  I ran the standard image of him through several photoshop filters and voila, H.P. visits Silent Hill!

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature: Bathroom Floor Zombie

Here we have another zombie from the ongoing outbreak.  This one seems pretty harmless, but beware the unguarded ankle!  That's why you have to check everywhere and under everything when cleaning out spaces for Z.  You never know where a half eaten corpse might be animating.  All it takes is one bite.

The Gestation Pits

Beneath my skin I drown,
The world has become incompatible,
toxic to my very essence.
I struggle against this precipice of change,
this pit of transformation. 
I gulp for air
as my lungs fill with water.
Inside me, the sleeping thing gurgles
I don't want it,
I don't want to,
I do not want this.

Featured Creature UPDATE: Autumn Winds Original Scan

After this week's mention on my process with the purple and yellow sharpies, I wanted to share the original color scan for Autumn Winds.  I actually enjoy this piece a lot in its original form.  I spend so much time looking at black ink on top of grey pencil that the variation is very refreshing.  It's like artwork from some weird other world where the light is odd and the laws of physics are different, or the color green doesn't exist.  Check out the original post to compare it to the finished piece.

 
{Sharpie}

Apparation

What form is this?
What lesson?
What karmic vision?
In the gloaming a figure emerges.

Fuzzy Skeletonians in my Closet: A Summer Commission

I've been meaning to post this for literally months and plans have just not turned out in any corner of my life, but finally here we are... 

This summer, just before things went completely mad in my corner of the world, I commissioned a drawing from Vincent over at Fuzzy Skeletonian.  I'm a big fan of Vincent's work and style and wanted to show my support by commissioning a piece.  When the package arrived I was treated to an added bonus of two extra fuzzy skeletonians on the cardboard packaging.  That's them in hanging in my closet with my other skeletons, they all keep me humble when I'm getting dressed by screaming and laughing at me.  :-P 

My request was a bit specific and explicit, but Vincent was nice enough to work with me. Just to give you a bit of a heads up for those that might be offended by such things, the content that follows the break is more sexually explicit than my regular fare.  Be warned.

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.

Featured Creature: I Struggle Against Fate

This piece was done in an experimental style I developed when I worked at Kinko's.  I began using it when I discovered that bright yellow generally doesn't photocopy well or at all.  Specifically, I'm talking about neon yellow, but a bright yellow sharpie will do the trick.

Dissolution

Another step on the pathway of the initiate.

The Forest of Doubt

The air bleeds with the ichor of dismay.
No shelter as the light fades to a dwindling.

This is the forest of doubt,
the darkening plain,
the house of no.

A call to the sky is met with dreadful stolidity.
Even the winds refuse to blow.

Featured Creature: Krampus Head

I know I said I had nothing for Krampusnacht this year, but this little guy kept bugging me until I broke out the paper and pen.  Gruss Vom Krampus!

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}

Featured Creature: The Devil in the Moon

Here we a Devil Man in the Moon and the first color piece for the Featured Creature.  I have always been fond of man in the moon images.  Here I'm combining that with a little Coop devil flavoring.

Suspicion

Darkness and ignorance lend the credence of fact to speculation and fear.

Recommended Listening:

Brighter Death Now

Consumers

from The Slaughterhouse

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Depths

Lost in the structures of calamity, the mind struggles for resolution.

Recommended Listening:
Darkwood

Wintermärchen

from Notwendfeuer

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Delays and Acute Bronchitis

I went to the emergency room on Wednesday to get treatment for what has turned out to be Acute Bronchitis.  I've been struggling with an upper respiratory infection since the first week of this month and with the Sarcoidosis, respiratory issues can be tricky at best.  Since Thanksgiving it had taken a dramatic turn for the worse and I spent the first part of the week looking for a free clinic to assist me and found none.  I'm on the mend (I hope) and resting, but in the meantime, I've gotten behind here at Zombie Bites.  I'll try to get things caught up in the next few weeks but I ask that you bear with me in the meantime.  Thanks.

Featured Creature: Werewolf

This on is a little cartoony, but that was all I had in me at the time.  It does hearken to the kind of werewolf from the first Howling movie and the issues of Moon Knight that had Werewolf by Night in them.  I'll draw another one full figure at some point and loosen up the style.  I've always been fond of / afraid of werewolves.  This was the kind of thing lurking beneath the back porch steps waiting to grab my ankle.

 

Mirror of the Minotaur

Near the palace at Gnosis,
birthed of union and godly misfortune,
I keep myself at bay with a confusion of corridors.
I build a labyrinthine meander to house my savagery,
my monstrous child self.

Featured Creature UPDATE: Reaching Zombie Guy

Here is the promised toned version of the reaching zombie guy.  Please check out the original post to compare it to the original sketch.

{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen with tones added in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature UPDATE: Overalls Zombie Tones

Here is the promised toned version of Overalls Zombie.  Please check out the original post to compare it to the original sketch.

{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen with tones added in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature UPDATE: Long Haired Female Zombie Tones

Here is the promised tone version of this Long Haired Female Zombie.  Please check out the original post to compare it to the original sketch.

{Sharpie and Uni-ball Vision Elite Pen with tones added in Adobe Photoshop}

INVISIBLES DAY

This day becomes a hallmark to me of the re-ignition of failing light.  Forces beyond mundane reality cross the gulfs of spacetime and rekindle the light of life once more.  This piece is in celebration of the comic series The Invisibles and my introduction to the worlds of Magick.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Hopeless

Another sketch from the Sarcoidosis / Prednisone period.  If I receall correctly, I think this was the last of that set of sketches.  This piece encompassed my feelings at that time.

I was lost in a miasma of grief, fear, sorrow, powerlessness and hopelessness.  My life was irrevocably changed and many avenues of action and choice were forever lost to me.  I am still recovering from the events of this time period.

{Sharpie}

Featured Creature: Jumper Demon

I seem to be angling this month toward creepy otherworldly creatures, From Beyond and now this monstrosity.  Topping the list of things you never want to see on the end of your flashlight beam, here we have a hungry Jumper Demon.  This creature pays homage to two of my all time favorite horror sci-fi movies, Alien and Aliens.  Those movies gave me nightmares for years. Thanks Ridley Scott and James Cameron!

A Mystery

Point of view changes the nature of all things.

Cloak of the Traveller

Dreaming, although nightmares tempt ergot.
Forest rowdies yearn my vortex,
all underground with green hair.

Danger almost never tries everything.
Forensics reads your mind, Voyeur.
Armored umbrage withers, gambling harder.

Don't always neglect this entryway.
Fearful reason you might venerate,
although universally we go here.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Sorrow

Here is another sketch from the period immediately following my sarcoidosis diagnosis and after the four months I took prednisone.

{Graphite and Sharpie}

Featured Creature: From Beyond

Here we have some slithery dreadful thing from beyond.  Special thanks as always to good ol' H.P.L. for showing us the way.  My initial thought after finishing this was that it would make a great dark tattoo design, but I couldn't get this one done on myself.  I can't be creeped out by my own skin.  Nope, not gonna do it!

Arrival

A new force arrives amidst the chaos.