Skin Crawling Comics January 2014 Update

The Skin Crawling Comics website began recently and will be posting pages to the individual stories of the anthology every Tuesday and Thursday.  I'll be doing an update at least once a month with links to the newest pages.  Check it out!

Basement Title Page

Basement Page 1

Basement Page 2

Basement Page 3

Basement Page 4

Basement Page 5

If you haven't already, please check out Skin Crawling Comics on Twitter and Facebook!

From the Archives: Unused Ghost

Here's a rough graphite sketch that was being developed for the Night of the Cauldron stories from the 2013 Halloween Outbreak.  Everything about this one was a little too whimsical and not quite creepy enough for me so I went back to the drawing board and multiplied the ghosts.

{Graphite}

New Featured Creature Section: Before The Feature

I've just added a new section to the Featured Creature gallery called Before the Feature.  This new section collects the related work I've posted on Zombie Bites before I began the Feature Creature.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  I hope you enjoy!

Featured Creature: Reunion at the Merrimon Library Part II, Timothy Wallace

Reunion at the 

Merrimon Library:
Part II, Timothy Wallace

~ Continued from Part I ~

"Alan?!  Oh wow, I didn't recognize you with the beard."  Timothy moved over to Alan's table.  Alan rose and gave him a generous hug.  "It's been -"

"Years.  Yeah.  Not since Austrum.  Good to see you!  What are you doing now?"

"Working for my Dad, property management and sales."  He pulled his name tag out of his jacket pocket and flashed it, Wallace properties.  "I was just over at the Register of Deeds doing a title search for a client.  Glad they connected all this."  Seven years ago, the Colby county offices and Register of Deeds had been relocated beside the Historical Merrimon Library and Museum.  Both buildings were conjoined by several interconnected walkways and pedestrian bridges.  At the time, Alan had disliked the increase in traffic, but had since enjoyed the convenience on occasion.

"Yeah.  It's become a bit of a crossroads."

Psyche Delectus: Abrasax Rising

From the opened cocoon,
there is only the one pathway.

Featured Creature: Reunion at the Merrimon Library Part I, Alan's Research

In light of my delay getting this one posted, I'm going to do a little something different this week.  In addition to the actual Featured Creature piece, I've created four other mood and setting pieces to go along with this story.  This way I can hold onto the creature reveal until the last possible post and in the meantime you get story and images at regular intervals.  I hope you enjoy the additional pieces.  On with the show!

Reunion at the 

Merrimon Library:
Part I, Alan's Research

Alan stood and stretched his arms high over his head then left and right in turn.  He had been sitting in the library for most of the day and his back had begun to hurt.  He moved away from the table and his stacks of books, papers, and notebooks.  Looking out the large windows facing Merrimon Avenue, he continued to stretch.  The sky had grown overcast in the last hour.  In the grey light, a couple of cars moved languidly down the street like giant dull colored beetles.

Saturday Sketch: Classic Joker

A quickie of DC Comics clown prince of crime, The Joker.  I've always been fond of the creepy combination of clownish vulgarity and psychopathic unpredictability present in the Joker.  When he shows up, it is always trouble.  I'm glad I don't live in Gotham City.

Exhumed: The Old Blue Man

Here we have an old blue man.  The color here is a little closer to my original vision for this piece.  Although I enjoy the roughness of his face in the original drawing, I feel that the softer edges of the color piece make him more "celestial".  Also the color gives the piece a greater visual depth.  Maybe it is merely comparison, but with them side by side the black and white looks very flat.

{8x5.437,  Sharpie with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

Skin Crawling Comics UPDATE

The next stage of Skin Crawling Comics has begun!

I just found out that the new Skin Crawling Comics website is up and running! Pages from the anthology stories will be posted every Tuesday and Thursday.  The Basement is the first story to go up and is up to page two.  Please drop by and check it out!  Also, if you haven't already, please check out Skin Crawling Comics on Twitter and Facebook! 

From the Archives: Primordial

Here's a sketch of some monstrous primordial tentacled thing.  You'll probably see something along these lines again as I'm not completely satisfied with how this image turned out.  It is supposed to be gigantic, but this has no scale to it.  As it is here, it seems kind of cute.

{8.5x11,  Ball Point Pen}

Featured Creature Delay

This week's Featured Creature is going to be delayed a day, maybe two.  Research for the story has taken longer than I anticipated.  Here is a bit of teaser art to tide you over until I get the story finished.  Soon.

Psyche Delectus: An Understanding of Darkness

The flesh is only mask to the spirit.

Saturday Sketch: Classic Morpheus

Here we have DC Comics' Dream King, Morpheus.  I started out drawing this in a very standard comic book style, but half way through, Morpheus took over and everything became much more muted and lyrical.

{2.5x3.5,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

I claim no copyright for the properties represented in the Saturday Sketches.  All copyrights and trademarks are retained by their respective owners.  I make no money from what I am presenting here.  It is presented for portfolio purposes only.  

Exhumed: The Visitors

Here we have another image that was originally posted at Trail of Breadcrumbs, but I feel like this one is just creepy enough to fit in here at Zombie Bites.  I don't know if it's because I've watched The Thing too many times, but there is something about a snowy landscape that fills me with an innate sense of dread and fear.  I guess it's that life is minimized in that climate.  Most everything is either asleep or dead.  So who are these figures come across the snowy wastes?  Are they the sleeping or the dead?  Who goes there?

UPDATE: Writing Gallery

I've added a new section and a host of links to the Writing Gallery.  The Serials section has links to the continuing sagas of the Disc of Abrasax and The Chronicles of Vz as well as links to the all of posts from this past Halloween's Night of the Cauldron.  Check them out and let me know what you think!

From the Archives: Lapine Suspicions

Here's a recent quick emotional graphite sketch.  I wanted to do something more with this piece, but it never expanded beyond this simple image.

{8.5x11,  Graphite}

Bristol 

Featured Creature: The North Ridge Fence

The day had started overcast and temperate, but a heavy wind had blown in from the west around lunchtime.  The trees shook and swayed all afternoon as the cold air had settled in.  By evening, the sky was mostly clear except for a thicket of clouds to the north.  Now the last vestiges of clouds struggled to maintain their forms against the harsh cold gusts.  Glen watched several smaller puffs just above the horizon dissipate as they slid across the sky.  The sun had begun to set, but he had one more task before heading back to the house.  He turned his Jeep onto the dirt road that led to the north ridge pasture.

UPDATE: Writing Gallery

A quick note to let you know that I've just uploaded a fresh set of links to the Writing gallery.  I have also added several new sections: Short Stories, World Building, and Poetry.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Psyche Delectus: Intention Quagmire

Thrones of control
present themselves as gifts
but crowns, though gilded,
are their own kind of prison.

Saturday Sketch: Classic Cloak

Here's one of my all time favorite Marvel Comics characters, Cloak.  Though generally inseparable from his partner, Dagger, I always like it when they present the occasional one off Cloak on his own story.  Although the surface gist of his powers is cool, I've always enjoyed the underlying supernatural quality to his abilities.  Also for superhero drama, what's more dramatic than a giant shadow filled cloak that blows around in the wind all the time and sucks you into a shadow dimension?

{2.5x3.5,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

I claim no copyright for the properties represented in the Saturday Sketches.  All copyrights and trademarks are retained by their respective owners.  I make no money from what I am presenting here.  It is presented for portfolio purposes only.

Exhumed: Identity

I was excited to dig into this piece with color.  Originally I had imagined the energy surrounding the mask as a warm set of colors.  However, as soon as I began working with color I knew that it had to be cool blues.  I added the muted background because I wanted to develop the space within the piece more without detracting from the focus on the foreground entity.  Looking at this now, I think this may be in the same reality, the same underworld as an earlier piece.

{8x7.84,  Sharpie with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

New Gallery: Writing

As part of the face lift I've been giving Zombie Bites lately, I've begun to collate all the links to the flash fiction, short stories, serials, and poetry I've been posting into a single gallery.  Currently the Writing gallery holds only a small selection of my flash fiction links, but I'll be expanding and posting to this gallery very regularly.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  Thanks for reading and viewing!

From the Archives: Kirby Crackles and Alien

Here's a quick sketch with some Kirby crackles, a strange alien, and a hand study.

{8.5 x 11, Ball Point Pen}

Featured Creature: The Room Under the Bridge

Ken had been struggling with the key for several minutes.  The metal door and lock were very old and a patch of rust had accumulated around the keyhole.  He wiped the sweat away from his eyes and scraped at the rust again with his screwdriver.  He tried the key once more. Finally the blockage gave way and the key slid in with a loud click.

He had to press hard to get the key to turn at all.  It felt as though it were going to break off in the lock, but the inertia within the lock slowly relented and the key turned.  Once the lock released he tugged at the door and it opened with an audible gust.  The air within was stagnant and musty.

"Finally!"  He took a swig from his water bottle and placed his tools back in his belt.  Ken returned quickly to his truck to get a flashlight and double check the paperwork for the site: #PDOTA13  Tertiary Water Interchange under South Highway Fourteen and Old Mason road bridge.  The commission director wanted an inventory of all the older pump sites in the county before funding could be approved for the new waterworks construction next year.  Everyone in site management was working extra shifts until all the pump sites had been checked and cataloged.  This particular interchange was the oldest on his list: it had not been accessed in over seven years.  He clipped his flashlight onto his belt and pocketed a filter face mask just in case the air was worse inside.  Clipboard under one arm, he returned to the door.

Psyche Delectus: Within the Soul Smithy

Old roles, emptied of potency,
are revealed as the masks
for the truth of actions.

UPDATE: Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum

I just completed an update to the Psyche Delectus Tenebrarum gallery. Thumbnails for 2011 through 2005 posts are now up in their entirety as well as the full year of 2013.  After going over the thumbnails several times, I realized that the page gets rather monotonous after a bit, so I've also added some year markers to break up the thumbnails a little.  let me know if that helps in viewing.  I hope you enjoy!

Saturday Sketch: Classic Etrigan

I've always been fond of DC Comics Demon, Etrigan.  I was first introduced to him in Matt Wagner's limited series in the early 80's. It wasn't until much later that I read some of the Kirby stories.  It is always a dark treat whenever Etrigan shows up.  He's nothing but trouble.


{2.5x3.5,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

I claim no copyright for the properties represented in the Saturday Sketches.  All copyrights and trademarks are retained by their respective owners.  I make no money from what I am presenting here.  It is presented for portfolio purposes only.

Exhumed: DC Comics Manhunter

I'm angling more and more of work towards comic book themes and imagery with the Saturday Sketch and other future posts.  Although this piece does not specifically have a horror theme or imagery, I wanted to share it for the coloring aspect.  I promise next time we will return to our previously scheduled horror.  :-)

{8x6.2,  Sharpie with zippotone and color added in Adobe Photoshop}

I claim no copyright to this DC Comics character.  This is presented for portfolio purposes and appreciation only.

From the Archives: Zombie Meat King Sketch

A preparatory graphite sketch for a color zombie image from long ago. 

{8.5x11, Graphite}

Featured Creature Delay

Apologies for the delay on this weeks Featured Creature.  Holiday scheduling has kind of caught up with me like a snowball rolling downhill...at me.  :-O  I tried really hard to get it all finished, but I've just run out of juice.  I promise it will be worth the wait though.  I'm really excited about this upcoming image.  It's very creepy.  Happy New Year and I'll see you next week!