Wednesday, January 30, 2013

From the Archives: Environments


Backgrounds have never been my strong suite.  Every now and again I try to spend some extra time exploring environmental spaces to increase my proficiency.  Here we have a couple of sketches of some dark spaces.  I had it in my mind to do a series of pieces focused on moody and/or creepy environments.  The idea never really became more than these two sketches, but I feel like it informed some of the feeling of later pieces.
 
{Sharpie}

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Featured Creature: The Night Thing

Here we have a strange winged denizen of the night. Once I'd inked this piece, I didn't care for the flame hair, but it was already integrated in the drawing.  However, in Photoshop I was able to remove it.  When I began adding the tones, a seed of a story came to me.  It didn't take long for it to explode into a full short story, but I haven't gotten it to a finished state just yet.  Expect an update with the full story soon.

Here is the beginning of the story:

Monday, January 28, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Transformation Requires a Sacrifice


In the case of this piece, perhaps what is being sacrificed here is a point of view. An allowed releasing of perspective to expand to a greater understanding.  This also points to the necessary changes that all transformations require.  If one needs to live in water, one must grow gills and fins and if one is to live in a realm of fire, one must accommodate a certain level of continuous destruction.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Throne of the Moon

"The throne shimmered with an eerie glow as the aperture in the ceiling opened.  The full light of the moon fell in a fan across the chamber.  In that delicate pallor a figure was revealed.  It was nearly invisible in its transparency.  In the radiance of the throne I could see inside it as though I were viewing a living xray. 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Two Red Eyes Trailer



I haven't seen this movie, but I do find this trailer very compelling.  There is a quality to it that dredges up my childhood fears from watching The Legend of Boggy Creek when I was two years old.  Check out Two Red Eyes on Facebook.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

From the Archives: Heads




These sketches were all drawn so close in time frame, I decided to post them  as a group.   Seeing them all together like this, they kind of look like a gang of creepy demon goblins here to cause trouble for some intrepid hero / heroine.  But who is their dark master?  hmmm...maybe I will make these guys into a super villain team.

{Graphite}

UPDATE 031213:  To find out what dark flower grew from these sketches, check out my posts for The Devil's Square.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Featured Creature: Deconstructed

My experiences in November and December of 2012 inspired this robotic piece.   I haven't approached any science fiction or robotic oriented pieces in the Featured Creature until now.  I guess I was a little gun shy as most of my work tends to be primarily emotive, mythical, or magick based.  I suppose this is still within the realm of emotive: a revelation about ego presented as fictional construct.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: From the Lake of Fire


"The lava separated with each of its steps, sizzling and retreating at the disruption like water dropped suddenly into hot grease. I didn't realize that I was seeing an ambulatory entity until it was almost fully emerged from the lake. It's energy matrix must be magnetic, I believe, to allow it to exist in this most inhospitable of environments. I was able to film about three minutes of footage of the thing until it stepped out of the lava. Its proximity quickly melted my remote camera.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech is copyrighted. Share it anyway.



I've never heard this entire speech or seen all of this  footage before in my life.  I'm very grateful for this video.  Help keep the internet free, share this video!  Can't stop the signal!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Lake of the Dead

Its waters hold the secrets of beyond,
but the dead are greedy with their truths.
Knowledge comes from only a sip
but at a dreadful price.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Nightscape Trailer



Sometimes you don't know that you've been waiting for something until you see it.  Check out their website here.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

From the Archives: Rotting Apple Teeth

A sketch from long ago.  A Goblin named Rotting Apple Teeth.  He's a yucky mix of Blix from Legend and that damned clown doll from the first Poltergeist movie.  I suspect he is involved with the frightening of children.

{Graphite}

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

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Featured Creature: Spirit Path

"Between the mundane world and the land of shades there are many paths.  On these trails, the two realms collapse onto each other like stacks of magazines dropped and scattered.  Many a strange apparition exists on the twilight passages that lead beyond, but few have returned to share what they have seen."

Monday, January 14, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Limboland

The strange nowhere place of being severely physically ill.  Reaching out into the emptiness for resolution and finding more grey, more hopelessness as your life is drained away.  Struggling for breath and life as it winds down, down.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Winter


This is the essence of my life for the past two years.  On the surface, things have become frozen, coagulated into an icy hinterland.  Winter has set in.  Beneath the surface, my waters boil for freedom and release, a fiery urgency focused on moving forward.  Every choice, every motion requires twice as much effort and energy to accomplish.  Amber like circumstance has become impossible to dissolve.  I struggle for possibility in an ever tightening circle of dead ends.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

From the Archives: The Ghostly Princess of Mirrors

The Ghostly Princess of Mirrors was cursed long ago.  The curse forced her into a strange endless limbo.  Her transparent metallic face takes on the aspects and appearance of the person to whom she is speaking, but her eyes are always closed.

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Featured Creature: The Thing in the Cave

"I hung my lantern from a nearby support strut and set about to examine the strange opening.  It was emerging from the cave floor at an odd angle, as though it had been grown there.  It was soft and warm to the touch, but had a solid structure that seemed like plastic.  The horned protuberances were covered with small fine hairs that stung my fingers when I touched them, much like a cactus.  The entire structure dripped with the humidity of the cave.  I wiped the sweat from my brow to see more clearly.  I'd looked all about the cave but still could not locate the source of all the steam. 

Monday, January 07, 2013

Self Portrait: This Has Always Been Within Me

Due to the recent ingress of Pluto into Capricorn, it would seem the Universe wants my molten core raw and exposed.  Despite my reservations, despite any resistance on my part, my illusions continue to drip away like overheated wax.  I'm forced to allow it, because... well, it's the Universe.  You can say no, but it's wasted breath.  All you can do is manage the pain and shake your fist at the uncaring sky screaming every expletive and curse you know.  Many have questioned this action on my part, but I think that it is important to lodge a complaint even if the boss is the system / Universe your immersed in.  At least if anything else, they will know that you did not bow willingly.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Questions: Recommended Listening?

In posts involving my abstract works, I often included links below the images to music that I feel is relevant or to my current playlist.  My goal was to offer an extra bit of ambiance to the images by creating a soundtrack to dark worlds I am envisaging. However, time has gotten a bit crucnchy for me recently and I'm looking to save some time in my postings.  Those particular links require a good bit of time and research. 

My question is this:  Do you, my readers, find those links useful or interesting?  Do you check the links or investigate the musicians? 

I was considering adding a Recommended Listening page as some of the music has begun to repeat.  This way I could keep the links and save a bit of time.  Please let me know what you think.  Thanks.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

From the Archives: The Marriage


I haven't drawn in this style for some time, but much of my work used to look like this.  After my Drawing II class in college, my drawing style changed dramatically.  I became very aggressive with prismacolor and elements of collage began to integrate with many of my drawings.  It was a very experimental time with media.  I was a smoker at the time and I collaged the gold foil from my cigarette packs into several drawings.

Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Featured Creature: Three Tongue

Here we have the first Featured Creature of the 2013, a creepy little three tongued spikey demon.  I suspect he is a demon of lying or maybe gossip.  I dunno.  He's not telling me he just keeps making these horrible snorting noises.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Sunday, December 30, 2012

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!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

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.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Thursday, December 27, 2012

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}

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

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.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

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.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Friday, December 21, 2012

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.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

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}

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

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.

Monday, December 17, 2012

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.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

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}

Friday, December 14, 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

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.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

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.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

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.

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