Night of the Cauldron: Part II, The Turnip Lanterns

Continued from Night of the Cauldron: Part I, The Cauldron

Night of the Cauldron

Part II

The Turnip Lanterns

Margaret pulled her skirt free as she slammed the car door closed. Chuck moved around to join her.

"I didn't get anything on my skirt, did I?"

"Nothing there." He said without really looking.  Margaret adjusted her bustier and secured her princess crown.  Chuck, her Prince Charming, lit a cigarette and took a long draw.

"Gimme some," she said.  He passed the cigarette to her and lit himself another, almost blowing his exhale in her face.  "Really?"  He turned away and examined the night sky.  They smoked in silence but for the occasional labored exhale.

"Why are we even here?"  He didn't look at her.

"We don't have to stay long.  Let's just get through this okay."  She pleaded.

Night of the Cauldron: Part I, The Cauldron

Night of the Cauldron
Part I

The Cauldron

Traci brought the freshly carved Jack o' lantern out of the house.  She set it upon the railing at the edge of the deck.  She moved the bowl of candy to the small table beside the steps.  Turning the Jack o' Lantern so that it fully faced the driveway, she paused to admire her handwork. She adjusted her witches hat and her black skirt, being careful not to knock off her fake fingernails.  She was ready for the trick-or-treaters.

Her father was preparing a fire bowl further back on the deck.  Suddenly there was cackling laughter behind her.  She started and sighed, glaring at the source.  Hanging from the fence at the deck's edge was a creepy mechanical grim reaper that cackled, lit up, and shook whenever there was movement nearby.  She hated it, but her father enjoyed how it scared the other kids when they came up the side stairs to get their treats.  She swiped at its tattered robe and stuck her tongue out at it.  The reaper shook its scythe in mock menace.

Exhumed: Autumn Winds

With the style of the original image for Autumn Winds I was alluding to antique Halloween images.  Keeping that impetus in mind for the color version, I used a muted color palette to make the final image look aged.

{8x6.05  Sharpie with tones and colors added in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Mummy Head and Spirit Crowd

Here are a couple of more recent sketches from some time spent waiting in a hospital.  I also got several excellent ideas for a zombie story during that same time.

{Ball Point Pen}

Featured Creature: Gentleman Death

Gentleman Death steals babies breath

and old men in their sorrows.

He takes our moments then and now

and all of our tomorrows.
He comes for those asleeping,

he comes for those awake,

he comes for all in their good time,

disruption is his wake.

His touch is sometimes sudden,

or gentle as falling snow
but never is the time of it
a thing that we can know.

When we hear his raspy voice
acalling on the wind

we know that he has come to take

an enemy or friend.

Sometimes his touch is a great gift

but many times a sorrow

when we see not the reason for

that taking of tomorrow.

{Digital Images created in Adobe Photoshop}

UPDATE 091014:  A permutation of this piece now available on a tshirt design and other cool paraphernalia at my Neatoshop!  Drop by and check it out! 

Psyche Delectus: The Manticore

If the forests of confusion he waits,
hungry for the flesh of men.

Exhumed: Reexamining the Dead

This week I'm beginning one of the new features I mentioned previously in the Featured Creature Last Bites for 2012-2013.  With Exhumed posts, I'll be digging up older pieces and exploring them with fresh color and tones.  I'll be pulling from the backlog of images I've posted on Zombie Bites, ranging from older From the Archives posts to older Featured Creature posts.  Exhumed posts will focus mainly on the process of taking a drawn image and bringing it to the next level with tones and color.  The posts will be generally infrequent, but I'll try to keep them as regular as possible.  Exhumed will be appearing on Fridays.

Coming Soon: Night of the Cauldron

Something is brewing at Zombie Bites.  There is a strange green glow beyond the falling autumn leaves and voices echo on the wind.  Last year, Zombie Bites was haunted by the Halloween Zombie Outbreak.  This year, strange magick is afoot.  something is bringing Halloween to life.  It's the Second Annual Halloween Outbreak: Night of the Cauldron!  Night of the Cauldron posts will be part of the regularly scheduled Featured Creature.  Come check it out the week before Halloween!

From the Archives: Moody Sketches

Here are a couple of moody developmental sketches from a zombie comic I was working on some time ago.  I was planning something grandiose at the time, but this one may still emerge as a single story.

{8x5.33 Sharpie}

Featured Creature Delay

I'm tied up this week putting the finishing touches on coloring for The Serpentine Cure for Skin Crawling Comics, so this weeks Featured Creature is postponed until next week.  Sorry for the delay.  See you soon.

Psyche Delectus: The Furnace of War

It seeks only to make more of itself.

From the Archives: Eagle of Vz Sketches

Here are some of my developmental sketches for my recent Featured Creature post, Eagle of Vz.  These were done several months before the finished image was completed.

{8x6.05  Sharpie}

Featured Creature: The Dirthag

In the forest dark and deep,
awaits the enemy of sleep.
In her hag hole far beneath,
under leafroot and earthen sheath,
the Dirthag lurks with baleful eyes
the toad and writhing snake her spies.
She waits with eager wringing hands
counting as each footfall lands.
With gnarled tree limb arms so fast
She makes that urgent gasp your last.
The Dirthag drags all to her cave
The fearful, ignorant, and brave.
When she has gnawed the bones all clean,
the Dirthag, she begins again.

{8x5.33  Digital Images created in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Baël

Invisibility his gift,
his cup shreds the veil
and renders the astonishment of vision.

Featured Creature: Eagle of Vz Part II

Continuing the fiction from the Featured Creature post, Eagle of Vz:

The Eagle of Vz

Part II

As soon as the Eagle's spotlight eye landed on me, I took off.  I used the same trail I'd followed up to the house, but I still nearly broke my foot several times running helter skelter through the darkness.  As I leapt over a large root in my way, the angle of the hillside sharpened suddenly and I lost my footing.  I slid the last fifty feet.  I finally stopped, a cloud of dust swirling around me.  I jumped up immediately, knife in hand.  I had landed on the next street down and just several yards from a street lamp.  I could hear the beast screeching far above me.

From the Archives: Currents of Midnight

Here's a more recent bit of play where I was exploring brush options in Photoshop again.  This piece harkens back to earlier styles.  Not a whole lot going on here other than me playing with some color.  However I feel like I was able to get close to the effects of Prismacolor pencils within the Photoshop program and that in and of itself will be useful later on. 

{8x5.33  Digital Images created in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature: The Bogeyman

He waits just on the other side,
calculating the turns of tide.

When the walls 'tween worlds are thin,

that's when the Bogeyman slips in.

He comes as shadow,

He comes at night,
He comes to fill you up with fright.
And when you overflow with fear
that's when the Bogeyman draws near.
A single touch to make you scream
and then he's gone just like a dream.
First he's there and then he's not.
He's hiding in the Bogey spot.

The Bogeyman isn't here or there,
The Bogeyman is everywhere.

{8x5.33  Digital Images created in Adobe Photoshop}

 

Psyche Delectus: Hunter

Within the cauldron of experience,
the masks of time are shredded
to reveal the true essence.

Featured Creature 2012-13: Last Bites Part VI, Dreaming the Dark Night

In June I took a departure from how I'd been approaching the Featured Creature posts.  In many of the fiction pieces associated with the Featured Creature posts, artifacts of mystical power had appeared and I wanted to take a more time to shine a spotlight on those objects and their individual histories.  Beginning with the Chaska of the Chaldean Abyss, I presented these items of power while continuing to push forward with the new color aspect of my work.  Sadly, June would not be as uneventful as May and complications began immediately on June first that would challenge my ability to move forward with any regularity.

Featured Creature: One Last Candle Before the Dark

As the Autmunal Equinox passes and we enter the dark half of the year, here's one last candle to celebrate the light.  This wraps up my month long celebration of the one year anniversary of the Featured Creature.  I hope you've enjoyed everything so far and will stick around for what's to come in 2013-2014.  Thanks for viewing and reading!

Delays and Apologies

The past two days have been crazy busy and I missed that I had left the most recent Featured Creature post, Eagle of Vz, in draft mode and it failed to post on time yesterday.  I didn't catch it until this afternoon.  My apologies for the delay.

Featured Creature: Eagle of Vz

The following is a continuation of the fiction begun in the Featured Creature Spawn of Vz Post:


"I had just finished spreading the salt in a circle around the house when the flames began to show through the windows.  I took a small vial from my pocket and moved to each of the four directional points on the circle.  I sprinkled a splash in towards the house at each of the points. The tincture of blessed oils and water would seal the little bastard in and make sure the fire did it's work.  I had to stick around until I was sure that the spawn was dead, but I needed to be far away when the fire department arrived.  I stepped away from the house and picked up the duffel bag I'd brought with me.

From the Archives: Dark Corner

When I drew this, there was a person I was working with that I strongly disliked.  I often imagined dark things growing in the corners of our office due to the poisonous environment.  The building was older and had a slight musty / moldy smell and our section of the building got very little sun...lots of dark corners.

{8x6.17  Ball Point Pen}

Psyche Delectus: The Red King

He waits.

Skin Crawling Update: That is not dead which can eternal lie...

Although Skin Crawling Comics didn't make its Indigogo funding goal, all is not lost. There are plans afoot that are paving a future for SCC, but I can't say at the moment what those plans are, but I'll share more as things coalesce.  In the meantime, if you haven't already, please check out Skin Crawling Comics on Twitter, Facebook!

Featured Creature 2012-13: Last Bites Part V, Winds of Change

The month of May brought a revelation of understanding and some small amount of peace of mind.  After surviving the trauma of March and April and finally getting things back up and running with my new laptop, I jumped back into the rhythm of production.  I sunk my teeth into the work of coloring the comic book story, Buried for the Skin Crawling Comics Anthology and began a path of learning that transformed me with each step I took.  

Featured Creature: Singing Candle

Following the single candle theme of the Featured Creature One Year Anniversary, here is a sorrowful creepy singing candle.

{8x5.33  Digital Image created in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Sub Basement

Here we have a creepy super science sub basement where something horrible escaped.  This was a development sketch for a comic book story I was working on at the time.  It kind of went to the back burners, but it may come back eventually.  Like zombies, stories rarely stay dead forever.  :-)

{8.26x10.57 Sharpie}

Featured Creature: The Thing from the Sky

The following is an excerpt from a Burkens County police report of an eyewitness account of the accident that occurred at Highway 14 on December 3rd, 2012:

The fog was so thick that day you couldn't see no more than five or ten feet in front a you.  I told mama to slow down as we hit that curve near the top a' fourteen.  Didn't wanna bump into nobody.  That section a road is a bit tricky.

Psyche Delectus: If It's War You Want

The temptations of raging against ignorance and greed are many.  The withheld action is a potent tool for learning.

Skin Crawling Comics Indigogo Fundraiser Ends at Midnight!

The Skin Crawling Comics Anthology Indigogo Fundraiser ends at Midnight tonight!  As I type this we are at about third of what we need. Please check out Skin Crawling on Twitter, Facebook, and the fundraising page at Indiegogo! Help make Skin Crawling Comics a reality.

Featured Creature 2012-13: Last Bites Part IV, The Devil's Crucible

Despite the globally explosive second half of April, personally, the months of March and April were the most dramatic turning point of the 2013.  I began March determined and hopeful.  I was fully recuperated from my winter illness and was now being treated at local low income clinic should any new physical illness manifest.  I felt optimistic.