From The Archives: Struggle

Some older sketches for a panel sequence.  I was never sure if this were a comic book or some bit of animation.  I may still use it somewhere, but in a different form.

 
{Ball Point Pen}

From The Archives: Floating

This sketch is an earlier exploration of the same idea I used in a later piece.   This piece is also in the same arena as The Old Blue Man from the Interior Life set over at Trail of Breadcrumbs.

{Graphite}


UPDATE 060614:

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

Psyche Delecus: Lilitu and Pazuzu

In the desert night,
armies are gathered
and a bargain is struck.

Psyche Delectus: Time Management and Other Sundries.

Recent developments have eaten much of my time and I feel as though I've lost a good bit of quality on what I've been posting here at Zombie Bites.  Also with the time and focus required to complete the coloring I've been working on for Skin Crawling Comics,  I just don't have as much time across the board. I've been losing too much sleep and my creative wheels have pretty much locked in place.  Something had to give. 

With this post and for the foreseeable future, I will only be posting my abstract work for the Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum once a week.  It is possible that I may return to more frequent posting in the future, but for now I need to cut back to avoid burning out.  I'm hoping that as one door closes another opens and that the work I'm doing for Skin Crawling will blossom into more assignments and a new chapter in my art life.  Time will tell.  Regardless, many thanks for reading and viewing.

From the Archives: Dream DiBit

These iridescent scarabs showed up in a couple of dreams I had long ago. They were about 3.5 inches long and about as thick as the width of a teaspoon.  The reproduction I've done here is close but I feel like it needs to be redrawn on black paper or some such.  I created the second image in Photoshop to get a little closer to their actual appearance and color from the dreams.  They seemed to have a black base color with a opalescent metallic sheen to them.

Featured Creature Summer Vacation

Sorry for the delay This week.  I've been dealing with some health issues this past month that have challenged my ability to focus.  I am also working hard on coloring a second story for Skin Crawling Comics.  Add to that a Mercury retrograde and one of the most astrologically active summers ever and you have a cocktail of complication. 

I've been feeling increasingly exhausted the past few weeks and it has finally caught up with me.  I've decided to take a few weeks off Zombie Bites.  Call it my summer vacation if you like.  I aiming to gear back up around the 23rd, but it may be the 30th before I'm back  on track.  I'll keep you posted, as it were.  Sorry.  Accidental puns.  See how tired I am.  :-P  See you in a couple of weeks.  Stay Scary!

Psyche Delectus: Red Walls

Voices like bear bone wind chant,
breathing in the mist thick aroma of herb and incense.
In the dimly lit tent of prophecies,
future echoes dance as wall cloth ghost shadows.

Psyche Delectus: The Lord of Under

He hails from deeper waters,
his every step the revolution of great wheels.
All your enemies fall before him.

Skin Crawling Comics Update: Controversy and Questions

Wow.  The Mercury retrograde in Cancer  kicking in this month is NOT fooling around.  A controversy has emerged involving a contentious  Kickstarter project and is directly affecting the future of Skin Crawling Comics.  I won't rehash what has already been said more thoroughly and eloquently by other sources, but instead I'll point you towards some relevant links:

The Project:
Above the Game

The Petition:
Do Something

Kickstarter's Apology:
We Were Wrong

The Organization Donated to:
RAINN

Comic Bastards:
Carl Boehm: Skin Crawling Comics Takes A Stand

Fanboy Comics:
Barbara Dillon: The Kickstarter Dilemma: One Creator's Perspective in Light of the Controversy

From the Archives: Earth Man

This is one of my first color explorations into working with Sharpies.  I think there may be some other type of marker involved here also.  This was at the very beginning before I converted to Sharpies only.

{Sharpie}

Featured Creature: The Disc of Abrasax

The Disc of Abrasax originally appeared in a fiction created for a previous Featured Creature post, The Night Thing.  Although unnamed at that time, I knew the disc was important and would appear again.  In the image here we have the disc as it appeared at the end of The Night Thing.  The following story is what happened to the disc and Ricky since we saw them last.

UPDATE: Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum

Just a quick heads up from the Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum.  I've just added more links for posts from December 2012 - January 2013 at the bottom of the thumbnail gallery and more images to the slideshow.  I hope you enjoy!

Psyche Delectus: Within The Jungle

I come to it
in the waking hours,
like a second heartbeat
within the roots of the trees.
Another worldwalker, far and away,
beats the drums of his experience.
In my own shadow hut,
I feel the echoes of his song. 

Psyche Delectus: Dagon

He exists,
in the depths 
we cannot imagine.

Skin Crawling Comics Update 06.20.13: The Serpentine Cure

Things have truly begun to turn around this year.  By no means has my life returned to the comparatively quiet days before 2010, but I'm seeing some light at least.  Having wrapped up my coloring gig for the Buried story within Skin Crawling Comics, Rachel Pandich has offered me another coloring gig.  WAHOO!  I'll be coloring a story called The Serpentine Cure.

I just got the inked pages and have begun my preparation for coloring.  I wish I could say more really, but I don't want to drop any spoilers.  However, as soon as I know more about the books availability I'll post that.  I'll also have to check with my fellow creators and editors to see if I can post some teaser art.  I'll get on that.  In the meantime, here's the creative team:

The Serpentine Cure

Tatiana Christian - Writer
Jenay Gordon - Artist
Rachel Pandich - Editor
Gerald Rathkolb - Editor

Skin Crawling Comics on the web

Press Release ~ Interview ~ Facebook ~ Podcast ~ #SkinCrawingComics

Cover

More Skin Crawling Comics Creators
Carl Boehm
Paul Chapman
Bryant Dillon
Danielle Gransaull
Rachel Pandich
Gerald Rathkolb
Chris Thorne
NJ Valente
Adam Wollet  

From the Archives: Lost Comic Page

This was the first page of a comic book project that got scrapped called He who Dies With The Most Toys.  I was doing the penciling, inking, and  lettering for the entire book.  I think it was just a bit over ambitious for my abilities at the time.

Featured Creature: The Staff of Phyligor

Excerpted from Liam Hofstadter's report for the Department of Extranormal Phenomena (DEP), Superhuman and Supernatural Threats in the New Millennium:

"The Staff of Phyligor is an old world artifact of immense occult power.  Physically, the staff is a simple stang approximately 5.5 to 6 feet tall.  Although the blade and base bulb seem to be made of a silver like metal, the dark material of shaft is unknown.  Those few that have observed the staff in person indicate that the full length of the shaft is inlaid in strange runes of some lustrous black metal.

Psyche Delectus: At The Mountains

In high places
Gravity compels
form out of the very air.
Clouds coagulate against
cold jagged peaks.
Liquid begins its odyssey
back to its source.

UPDATE: Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum

Just a quick heads up from the Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum.  I've added a few more links for past posts at the bottom of the thumbnail gallery and more images to the slideshow.  I'm crunching some ideas for how to display a slideshow of the horizontal pieces and hopefully I'll have those in action soon.  Enjoy!

Psyche Delectus: Interstices of the Temple

 

Above, Around, Abreast,

Beneath, Beside, Beyond,

Preview: World War Z

From the Archives: Little and Big

Here is a pair of demons I created to have Morbid Angel fight in a short comic book page sequence for my portfolio.

{Graphite & Sharpie}

Featured Creature: Key of Vz

I must tender my apologies this week.  I've been struggling the past two weeks with summer migraines and I've gotten rather behind on things.  There is a piece of fiction coming for this piece that I will post soon.  Until then, please enjoy the gruesome mystery of the Key of Vz.

New Abstract: The Altar of His Command

His presence precedes him.

New Abstract: Red Wizard Meditation

In the womb of deep earth,
the hearthfire is gently stoked.
In the flickering,
ghosts of the future are seen.

Preview: Storage 24

I actually watched the full movie of this one recently.  It was alright.  I have always kind of been afraid of storage facilities.  All those repeating corridors.  eep.

From the Archives: Morbid Angel

Featured Creature: Chaska of the Chaldean Abyss

Excerpt from Liam Hofstadter's report for the Department of Extranormal Phenomena (DEP), Superhuman and Supernatural Threats in the New Millennium:

"The Vykhrova Prirvu is a magickal container said to contain a portal to the whirling abyss.  Highly prized within the occult community, it grants its bearer a variety of powerful effects.  Adept mages use these containers to absorb spells cast at them by opposing wizards.  Any mage in possession of such an item is said to be nearly unstoppable.  The spells for creating such an artifact are complex and costly, but the gain to the bearer is by far worth the effort as the magus becomes impervious to magickal attack.

New Abstract: Within the Forest of Flames

 

New Abstract: Devestation Sentinel

Patrolling the razor wire perimeters of the seas of blood, it dispatches those unwary souls who cross its borders.

Skin Crawling Comics Update 05.30.13

I finished the colors for "Buried" for the Skin Crawling Comics anthology earlier this week.  I must say it has been excellent experience.  Everyone has been super supportive of my endless questions and they genuinely seem to like my work.

This has been a bit of a revelation for me concerning being a colorist for comics.  It's an aspect of comic book work that I've only dipped my toes in this year.  It seems to be ideally suited to my point of view and approach to art.  Coloring requires one of my favorite tools, Photoshop, and the essence of it, mixing color, is something I do for recreation.  I'd never considered it before as an entry point into comics.  Who knew.  I've loved every minute! 

Enough about me though, here is another recent interview on FanboyComics about Skin Crawling Comics with Gerald Rathkolb and Danielle Gransaull for their story "The Night Market".  See more Gerald's work at Anime World Order Podcast  and more of Danielle's work at Life With Death.

The Buried team:

Bryant Dillon - Writer
Chris Thorne - Artist

Adam Wollet - Letterer

Rachel Pandich - Editor
Gerald Rathkolb - Editor

More on Skin Crawling Comics on the web

Press Release ~ Interview ~ Facebook ~ Podcast ~ #SkinCrawingComics

Cover


More Skin Crawling Comics Creators

Carl Boehm
Paul Chapman
NJ Valente

Return in Red Trailer

Return in Red is one of my favorite low budgets horror films.  It has some excellent eerie scenes and a very creepy premise.

UPDATE: The Featured Creature Gallery

I've just updated the Featured Creature Gallery with a fresh coat of text.  I've also restructured the slideshow so that the posts show in reverse sequential order.  Hopefully this will make viewing easier and now you won't have to wade through all the older images to see the latest piece.  Thanks for viewing! 

New Gallery: Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum

I've neglected my abstract work for some time and feel it needs a little TLC.  I realized that the Featured Creature shouldn't get all the gallery action at Zombie Bites, so I'm constructing a gallery for my psychedelic abstract works.  It is in the baby stages of construction at this point, so it's a little rough around the edges.

From the Archives: The Man Who Fought The Clock

This was a supporting character in one of my dark superhero stories, but I had considered at one point telling his tale separately as a singular horror piece.  He is nearly driven mad by his fight to preserve the world from a dark supernatural force.  He finds the ultimate enemy hidden behind the forces of power and corruption. It manifests to him as clocks.

Featured Creature: Priest of Vz

" In the dream, I was at a business meeting or presentation of some sort.  There was a large crowd of people surrounding a meeting table.  The presenter kept losing his place and starting the presentation over. 

I was distracted by a man in a black suit standing at the window and away from the group.  He was looking out across the cityscape with his back to the group.  He had his hands joined behind his back and occasionally I thought I heard him whisper something.  The presenter bumbled his speech again as I rose to ask the man to join us.

New Abstract: The Forge of Gebruah

Deep within the sphere of Judgement and Fear, we pass through the pressurized eye of the cosmic needle and into the purifying furnace of the Sun.  The Forge of Geburah burns away all that is not necessity.

New Abstract: Sophia in the Throne Room of the AllBook

In the Throne room of the AllBook, 
Whispered prayers congeal into the grammar of existence.
Each character etched in its pages becomes a Life,
each written paragraph a World,
each chapter a Universe.

Sophia sings into the pages of the AllBook
and the stars alight at the touch of her breath.
Sophia sings into the pages of the AllBook
and at the end of all time collapses into nothingness.
Sophia sings into the pages of the AllBook
and within the throne room,
Sophia sings into the pages of the AllBook.

Infozombie Podcast: Skin Crawling Comics

Here is an excellent podcast from Infozombie where Carl Boehm, Paul Chapman, Rachel Pandich chat about Skin Crawling Comics and publishing in general.  Check Out Carl at Infozombie and Paul at  The Greatest Movie Ever! Podcast and The Silicon Chickens Project.

From the Archives: Vampire Hunter

Here's a vampire hunter from a story world I was developing some time ago.  In this world, most of the protagonists and antagonists were vampires.  He was to be a bit of an ass and difficult to get along with.