Obscurum

Art show, new art and a preview!

2012-02-07T00:34:00.004-05:00

Art Show:

I got into my first real gallery show at The S.P.A.C.E Gallery in Burlington! Sure, it might be because Sweet Enemy has been showing there for a couple of years. Sure, it might be because we've gotten to be pretty good friends with the owner and the resident artists. Sure, it could be because it was a kinda-small, last-minute, hey-let's-do-this sort of show and all I had to do was ask.

Or, it might be because it's The Cute Show and The Glitter Dragons fit right in! I submitted this new poster piece and four individual portraits (to be posted soon).

At the opening Friday, I wondered if I should feel ashamed for creating such nearly unbearable cuteness but, I consoled myself that they're cute with attitude and they seemed to go over big with Lucy Lou the standout favorite. There's also been a request for Glitter Dragons Valentines cards. Sheesh.

(speaking of Glitter Dragons: any artist out there who'd like to draw their own rendition of the GDs please do! Just check the blog for details. Any musicians who'd like to write their theme song, let me know as that'd be awesome)

New Art

It's Big Beautiful Wonder Woman-a-Month time again. This time is a tribute to the Golden Age of comics where anything could and did happen!

The yeti is based loosely on Philbert Appleshrug, a live-size plush yeti by highly talented artist Kelice Penny. Philbert was a wedding gift to Sweet Enemy and I from an amazingly awesome friend (I like to say that he's not just cool because he gave us a yeti, he's cool because he's the kind of guy who'd give us a yeti!)

Preview

Coming soon to Obscure Tales

New year, new stuff

2012-01-02T22:25:00.005-05:00

Firstly, Glitter Dragons!

For better or for worse, I've started another blog dedicated to this strange exercise in cute. I'm hoping to get a bunch of artists, but we'll see!

Give in to the Glitter!

Secondly, I've been occasionally posting on the Big Beautiful Wonder Woman blog. However Jamal has so much on his plate that it is often not on his radar. I'd promised a BBWW a month so, as it's now the new year, I'll start here.

Here's the BBWW for January in all her Amazonian glory!

Hand inked; digitally colored. I'm inordinately proud of this one. Click to make her bigger; I can guarantee an increase in beauty.

Cheers!

Listening to while posting: Kiss Kiss by Perov Stelar (It's not playing but, I can't get it out of my head)

Season's Greetings

2011-12-11T20:17:00.005-05:00

The cusp as the new year ends and another begins is usually a time for reflection. This is one of those refletions.

I consider myself to be one of the luckiest people on the planet. Mostly it's people. In my life now are many wonderful people that make my life wonderful. They are nearby and seen every single day. They are far away and not visited nearly often enough. They have never been met in person but, I very much like to.

The things they do are big and they are small but all help make my life great. What makes the things they do all the more marvelous is that they seem to be done unconsciously just because of who the people are.

I want to thank you all. To avoid embarrassment, or any semblance of favoritism, I won't make a list. It would also take a long time.

That's how lucky I am.

I feel as though George Bailey, on Christmas morning, would say "Dang. You've got a lot of nice people in your life, son!"

Thanks, everyone.

I hope I've done enough to earn your friendships.

Call to Artists (of sorts)

2011-11-27T10:23:00.004-05:00

Okay. As you may know, I work at an independent bookstore. Yesterday, I was working with a female colleague when a mom and nine-year-old (ish) daughter walked nearby. I overheard a short exchange and recounted it to her.

Me: that little girl was hilarious. She told her mom she wanted a puppy calendar but then said that she really wanted a rock star calendar. So, now I have to invent the perfect little-girl calendar with puppy rock stars!
Colleague: And glitter! Have to have glitter!
Me: And dragons!
Colleague: Glitter dragons!
Me: That's it! A calendar of a puppy rock stars in a band called "Glitter Dragons"!

So, this is you mission, should you choose to accept it: A picture (or more) of puppy rock stars in a band called Glitter Dragons. I'll be doing this to and posting my result(s). If you would like to participate, there's no money nor likely even fame involved. Just fun. Standard PG-13 no scat/vore/gore rules apply. Send your pics to revansATobscurius.org. Deadline for submissions is Jan 31, 2011 (unless a bunch of folks want to do it and demand a slightly longer deadline)

I'm personally doing it because it's outside of my comfort zone. I don't do cute very well and I've never actually drawn a puppy.

Listening to while posting: "Cruel Sea Captain" by Bryan Ferry from the compilation "Rogue's Gallery"

24HCD 2011

2011-10-02T21:56:00.005-04:00

Whew.

Another year, another 24-Hour Comics Day. A shout out to our sponsors firstly Sweet Clover Market for the BIG box of assorted snacks; Phoenix Books for the two urns of coffee and a dozen cookies; Rocky's Pizza in Williston for, what else? Pizza. And of course Artists' Mediums for the venue and hard work.

This one was harder than normal because I was not only participating in the 24HCD, not only helping organize it, but also participating in the Open Studio Weekend on Saturday from 6m - 8pm; right during 24HCD. So, I spent the week before getting stuff from sponsors for 24HCD and getting some artwork ready to hang at Phoenix Books.

The setup of both events went smoothly, the Open Studio the night before. I arrived at the event, set up the coffee and I fell into my normal 24HCD routine: I started writing the story first. I love coming in cold, it's part of the fun. All I had in my head since the drive in were the words "bi-plane" and "sphinx". So, with those words I carved out a rough story. Then, I started thumbnailing and writing at the same time. This is sort of a scaled down version of how some folks do 24HCD; they start at the beginning and just write until all pages are filled. It's the same way except there is some revising and I try to have at least an idea of the ending before I get too deep.

Writing and thumbnailing took two hours. It would have taken less except that I mis-numbered my thumbnails early on (I had two #3s) and had to add some pages.

Then, I started drawing. I used a Pentel brush pen (hacked with Higgins Black Magic replacing the awful stock ink) because I didn't want to get bogged down in the details as I would with a Pigma Micron. I did use Microns for the panel lines, lettering and for the eyes .

There were more interruptions this year with friends coming in to talk, great artist banter and heated discussions, so I didn't even get to page five before I had to go to the Open Studio bit. I wasn't sure what to do there as I'm usually on the other side of the art scene. However, two friends were there and they bought me some good beer and we had an impromptu tasting. What was nice is a local middle school librarian asked for my help in an upcoming project where kids will be either writing a play or a graphic novel.

Then back to Artists' Mediums to try to finish my comic. The beer-bringing friends showed up at 24HCD (sans beer) and chatted for a long time. I kept working until 5am then took a nap for an hour. I got to finishing the pencils and then inking the panel lines and letters of page 17 when I just had to stop. I helped clean up and we were out the door by 9am. I was good to go, tired-wise, until I was within a few hundred meters from our house, when I nodded off for an instant and drifted into the oncoming lane. I snapped awake before I went off the other side and, since it was a 30mph zone on a backroad in Vermont on a Sunday morning, there was nobody coming.

Sweet Enemy and I crashed for a bit; she on the couch with Fat Grey Cat and me on our bed. We didn't plan to sleep more than an hour but while I set the alarm I forgot to turn it on. I drifted awake three hours later and felt good to go.

Here's this year's story. There are some issues I have with it. Some are story elements I would have done differently if I'd had the time to revise the script; stupid ideas I'd purge; some are words I put in by mistake ("ridden" for "riddled"); and POVs that I wish I'd done differently.

It's got a lot of aviation in it but it's "television" aviation. That means there are some really stupid things involving planes and history here. I'm a former aviator, scale modeler, war history buff and usually a stickler, but I'm asking you as all of these things to please forgive the tv-style silliness...

But, here it is with all its flaws and incomplete-ness.

I'll probably finish it in the next week. I'll refrain from editing m thumbnails and try do each page as quickly as if it were at the event to try to maintain a continuity of style.

So, what did you think? Should I continue? Should I refine it into a tighter story with tighter art or let it lie?

Listening to while posting: "24" by Jem. I bought Jem's "Finally Woken" for Sweet Enemy for her birthday and I like it more than she does now.

It's coming!

2011-08-23T21:51:00.005-04:00

It's that time of year again! Time to unveil the poster for this year's 24-Hour Comics Day at Artists' Mediums (yes, they know it should be 'media'). Actually this poster is a little late as I've been going through an artistic funk that was recently broken by the Huntress. What you can't see in the JPEG is that the comics panels are halftoned for that comic book feel and to contrast with the flat colored type.

What do you think? Milestones: first superhero in four years, first manga catgirl ever.

If you're in town, stop by! I'll pour you a cup of joe and you can join the fun!

listening to while posting. Some sort of techno song by Parov Stelar.

Good gravy!

2011-08-03T00:15:00.004-04:00

It's been a weird couple of months. I got a job at my local bike shop and, while it's fun and the people are great, it's a lot of... action. I won't say stress, but my days are full with little time to eat and a big feeling of responsibility to my co-workers and the customers; we're so hands-on that people often wonder if we're on commission (we're not).

I've been riding to work when it's good weather (a 30 mi round trip unless Sweet Enemy picks me up after work). This feels pretty nice. I don't leave until after the morning rush so most of the roads are pretty empty. Almost feels like a ride for fun.

With all that going on plus some financial scares, not much art has been made.

This is not a good thing

I've planned on opening commissions for Page One-Hundred works but I wanted to get a small body together first. My slacking has not helped. I also need to get a poster for this year's 24-Hour Comics Day done. So, I made myself some coffee this morning, sat down and started drawing.

The Page One-Hundred is now fully in-progress and, after doing some studies of some Comfrey flowers, I thought I'd do a quicky. I took my goth pin-up thing and do something new with it. It's not sexy, but it's not bad. I think the wolf-girls are better in this new one.

Best of all, it's actually a drawing

Also, I went sailing on Lake Champlain for the first time ever today. Thanks to my Step-Mother-in-Law for being a great skipper!

So, until next time!

Listening to while posting: Secret Agent Radio on Soma FM

New Page One-Hundred

2011-05-13T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today was good. I'll tell you about it. If you get bored, there's art at the end of it.

I exhibited many parts of my persona and their modes of dress today. It was my "Saturday" today, so I got up early, brewed some strong coffee and started drawing and working on a model.

Then my contractor father-in-law called and asked if I could help him the last door of thirteen I'd helped him install last week (I don't know much, but I can carry heavy things and follow direction. I now know quite a bit about installing replacement interior doors in an old, badly-built house). So, it was on with my Carhartts and old t-shirt. The door went in remarkably well and I got slightly dusty.

He didn't need my help trimming the doors (which I know nothing about and is a one-man job anyway), so I left and since I had my riding togs and bike in the car, I went for a ride on the way home. While mostly dry, there were some muddy bits and I got dirty. I only meant to go for one 45-minute run but, as I was starting to pack a guy I ride with occasionally rode up and I decided to tag along for another 45-minute ride. He's slightly better than me, so I had to push hard. It was good for me; I'm usually the leader.

Then home to shower, eat, hit the hammock with the cat and a book for a while and then get dressed* for my Graphic Novel night at my local bookstore. It's never the same night twice and it's been rather.. lightly attended. I did have some parents bring in a kid last week and, on my recommendation, he bought Scott McCloud's "Making Comics". They came in again this week and this kid is actually pretty good. He's only eight, so his draftsmanship isn't that great, but he's really getting story and image and he's really got some inventive panel layouts; simple, but not just same-size boxes. I didn't want to tell him too much, he'll be better served by finding his own path. He did ask where I got my ideas and I just told him "the same place you do". Then, I just picked three random objects (penguin, robot, steamroller) and told him that all he has to do is pick three things and write a story about them. He laughed pretty hard and I think he might just do the penguin/robot/steamroller story. I'm working on one right now, so keep an eye out.

So, I'm busting to get better so I can start offering commissions for Page One-Hundreds. These need to be extra, special good as they're meant to be framed and hung, so post-production digital manipulation is right out. I'd appreciate any feedback.

This one is based on one of my favorite books: "Northern Borders" by Howard Frank Moser. It's a rip-roaring tale of a boy sent to live with his grandfather in rural Vermont. Now, this isn't a kid's book and neither is it a "heartwarming tale"; not chick-lit this. It's a naturalistic and slightly magical account of a boy coming of age in the fifties. Try it, it's good for you.

I won't put the actual text on Obscurum, but you can read it on my DA page. Here's the page, just finished inking it today:

Also, there's an update to The List. The second one I actually misheard at a job interview.

Cheers!

Listening to while posting: "No Sunlight" by Death Cab For Cutie

*Nice shoes, khakis, good brown windowpane short-sleeve button-down shirt and my new straw fedora; hey, I like to look good when I'm going out! That's the fourth part of my persona.

small update

2011-04-30T23:43:00.005-04:00

I just finished the pencils for the "Norther Borders" Page One-Hundred Project piece; I'll be inking tomorrow. However, I needed something to do, so I colored up a Big Beautiful Wonder Woman in Photoshop. I was reading Darwyn Cooke's DC: New Frontiers and thought I'd grab my brush pen and try to emulate Mr. Cooke.

Real Life 1

It was about sixty this afternoon, so I threw a leg over my Kona Jake and hit the road. I only did about eight miles in a half-hour, but it was the first ride of the year. I climbed two big hills (including the unavoidable one that our house is on) and didn't dab or even ralph. Sort of expected to ralph. I've always referred to the first rides of the season as "Ralph Rides". I guess all of the working out this winter slowed the decline much more than usual. Cool.

Real Life 2

Tomorrow evening Sweet Enemy and I are sharing dinner and porto with a good friend (and fantastic printmaker) and his wife. Not sure why I'm telling you this except to promote him.

Listening to while posting: "Head Honcho" by Devotchka

Spring colds and books.

2011-04-29T22:28:00.011-04:00

Well, I missed a week of looking for work, drawing, making model airplanes and anything else fun as I was down with a cold from the 17th to the 22nd. Sheesh! I only get sick twice a year, but when I get sick, I get SICK!

Book

I have been doing some work on something that might lead to something else. Like money. I really enjoy making Page One-Hundred Comics. I got the wild hair to think about offering commissions of a people's favorite books. So, in that spirit, I've been working on a fully inked and hand-lettered suitable-for-framing page as a test. I chose my absolute favorite book: Northern Borders by Howard Frank Moser. I will recommend it to anyone who likes a good novel. It will be like little, if not nothing, you've ever read.

How's it going. Well...so-so. Here's first test (click for extra-big version):

The layout itself took about two weeks of sketching. I had to take many liberties with the text because a lot happens, but there's a big moment that had to be shown. But, I'm pretty happy with it as an adaptation goes. The explosion turned out, if I may say so, awesome. A lot of failed attempts went into it and it worked, considering I've never drawn an explosion that occurred in water before. The lettering is good, but I sort of cheated with the sound effects: I typeset them in Illustrator, printed them out and traced them.

What didn't work was the figures. Even discounting the misshapen head of the grandfather, they figures are... unsure. My linework is wishy-washy and tentative. I think it might be my lack of confidence with my dip pen. I'm going to re-work the whole thing this weekend.

Another Book

In March, Sweet Enemy snagged a big audiobook cassette set of "Tojours Provence" by Peter Mayle. It was the second book of (probably) true memoirs of an Englishman who decided to escape the city life and move to rural France. His exploits of language, customs, odd neighbors and finally coming to completely adopt his new hometown's rhythms and lifestyle is funny, sweet and satisfying. For comparison, think David Sedaris if he actually loved life mixed with Bill Bryson if he was 90% less insufferable.

We then snagged the other Provence books and are now in love with the place. With the exception of the food (which Mr. Mayle writes about with infuriatingly loving, mouth-watering detail), Provence is a bit like Vermont which is, I suppose, why I fell in love with it. SE and I would like to visit, but our money, time and French language skills are lacking. If we go, I'm going to hit up my Québécois/American friend Ghislain for some helpful phrases like:

1) I have no idea what you're saying. Do you speak English?
2) I know very little French and that I do know is abysmal.
3) Lunch, please? Tasty and not expensive? What would you recommend?

So, that's it. I have been working on some Big Beautiful Wonder Woman drawings, but I put them on hold to work on the Northern Borders comic.

Listening to while posting: "Gender Bombs" by the Stills

Sorry I'm late

2011-04-02T22:38:00.005-04:00

It was a very full four-day weekend last weekend, so this will be a long post.

Sweet Enemy headed to Massachusetts to visit my family and do some stuff.

On Saturday we stopped off in Northampton. A strange little town that appears to be equal parts annoying rich people and annoying poor hipsters. For example, there's a nice, small indoor mall which sported both a tiny, hip and expensive men's store as well as a surplus store where you can get everything from hotel soaps to cheap tools to candles to novelty magnets.

Northampton is also home to lots of galleries including SE's main target the R. Michelson Gallery. We also hit a smaller gallery down the street which offered two fun things. First, it was full of a neo-Flemish painter who, in addition to the standard still lives, also painted realistic pictures of stacked donuts. Secondly, the gallery's mascot was a friendly French bulldog. SE and I were admiring the paintings when we were startled by a clicking and a snuffling. We looked down to find this so-ugly-he's-cute little brown snorting thing. He smelled us and let us pet him then ran away, his little claws scrabbling for purchase on the wood floors. We talked with the attendant for a while and then the dog came scuttling back bearing his favorite to toy offered for inspection and an invitation to play. He was a hoot.

Then home to visit with the family. My niece is cute and four, but I was warned that she was attempting to be a drama queen; prone to moping and sulking if she didn't get exactly her way. It's just her nature, she is not spoiled. My sister finds the best way is to ignore her. The lack of attention is a painful punishment. She's still cute and I'm still the Best Uncle.

On Saturday, SE and I hit the Worcester Museum of Art. Say what you want about Worcester, but the museum is spectacular. We spent five hours there and still missed a couple of rooms. In the Mesoamerican room, I formulated an hypothesis about three related artifacts. I'm going to contact the curator of the department about it. I'll let you know how it goes. We also were turned onto a Lebanese deli by a friend and WOW, it was awesome. We grabbed some spinach pies, some halwa, some pita, some really powerful cookies and a potato-shaped mass of savory goodness called a "kibbee ball".

We also went to visit my paramedic friend Decapod Diver at work. We hung around outside talking until it got cold, then he fired up the "truck", got the heat cranking and we all sat in the back and jawed for another hour or so. It's always good to hang with him, and now it was also an interesting venue.

On Sunday, my dad and I went to a scale model contest in Chicopee. Some friends from VT were going to be entering models and running a vendor table so I thought I'd go. On a whim, I entered my Savoia S.21. At first, as it is a fictional aircraft, there was slight contention over where it would be placed. But, it ended up in 1/48 scale single-engine aircraft.

There were some amazing models there including a meter-long aircraft carrier that was easily the most detailed thing I'd ever seen (it had a lighted interior hanger bay and teeny deck crew abut 2mm tall). We got to shadow the some judges (armor) and I learned a lot. After the contest ended, I packed up my plane and we headed up to say goodbye to my friends; my dad was getting tired of standing.

One of they guys told me I should wait for the awards ceremony. I told him that there was not much chance of winning anything, but he convinced me to stay. It was neat to see awards for models that I'd been able to see judged. Then came the 1/48 aircraft. I was expecting a certificate, or at most a third. Then I got called up for the first place! I was stunned. Still am. I must have cheated.

Sunday night we watched a remarkable and utterly unique film called Mary and Max. It's a strange, poignant tale of an Australian girl and her inadvertent pen-pal, a obese Jewish shut-in. Did I mention it's all in stop-motion?

Monday saw the morning start with a lot of playing and walking in the woods with my niece and then a lot of swing-set swinging with her and the neighbor boy who's a little older than my niece (I'm told he looks forward to my visits too and calls me "Uncle", too).

The drive back was uneventful except we reached the end of the awesome book on tape (yes, tape) that SE found.

That night, after food and a short nap, we hit the local music club to watch Devotchka awesome show. Well worth the money, even though that's about it for the budget.

The past week was rougher. I'm now on the extended federal unemployment benefits, having exhausted the state ones. I'm going to have to look for not-awesome work now, I think. Maybe landscaping. So, as much as I tried, there was not much drawing as my mood was grim. I did do some work on the identity for a great local gallery that SE shows at occasionally. I friends with the gallery owner so it's unpaid, but I could get exposure. Plus, I get to help out a great local gallery, SE and a friend. It's all good.

So, because I have to post art., here's a little sketch that I did for an idea for the identity, but ended up not using:

That's all!

Listening to while posting: "The Goalie Bop" by me.

ENJP 2011!

2011-03-20T01:04:00.006-04:00

Woo hoo! Up pretty late (0115 EST). Feeling good, but shouldn't have had coffee after dinner. I make GOOD coffee, so I'm still feeling it.

Anyhoo. I was jazzed up, so I drew, inked and colored a new version of the Evil Nazi Jetpack Penguin! I've been thinking that the first two words are sort of redundant. But, it just rolls of the tongue better (looks like Mr. Eastman was on to something!)

It's almost an improvement meme if you look at the original version from Feb 2007. If I didn't already tell the story, it was done for a "Monster Of The Week" series I did for a co-worker at my last design job. :

Then came this guy from 2008. Now, I think "Ewwwww!":

I think I needed the improvement meme thing. I've been down in the dumps from the lack of design job callbacks. Oh, well, at least I've got some evil penguins

Listening to while posting: "Do What You Want" by OKGO. In my head actually. I watched the video twice today for some reason. OKGO is my guilty pleasure. I'll have to go see Devotchka next week to gain back my indie cred ;)

heavy, then light

2011-03-13T11:45:00.007-04:00

First, my heart goes out to those affected by the horrific devastation in Japan. To watch the videos and see the before and after photos is to see power beyond our imagining. I don't know how they'd begin rebuilding their cities, their towns, their homes and their lives. A blogging buddy of mine lives with his family in Japan. He wasn't near the devastation and is safe, but Japan is not that big a place and he felt the quake and is still dealing with its repercussions. Stay safe, Pandabonium.

Now, to lighter stuff. I started work on the first of my pinup/covers for the bear cop comic. It's tentatively titled "Partners Vs. Crime".

Sweet Enemy picked the one of the five to start with. I know other people liked different ones, but I have to listen to SE.

This was an ambitious project and as such, has small successes and small failures. I think the overall composition turned out well and the perspective is not too bad. I think I did a good job of drawing the cop from a photo (of me, actually. I am my own stock photographer). He looks a bit stiff, but that's to be expected from photographic drawing. I needed to use the photo reference as part of my learning clothing wrinkles; the figures will get more lively as I improve.

I won' mention all of the failures except to say that I might revisit the bear's expression. I don't think it works. I kept the background free of lots of shading to reduce its impact on the foreground. I'm not sure if that was successful. I'm also not too sure of the depth of the piece. Are the cops and cars in the background too far away?

Listening to while posting: "My Intention" by Ape School

Three Things

2011-03-10T14:15:00.008-05:00

1) Second attempt at sexy. With some feedback from pinup artist Becca and some others (including my dad. Weird), I got back to work. This one is closer. Not there, but closer. I seem to have forgotten to use one piece of feedback that Becca gave me: exaggerated features often make a character look more natural. Looking now, the piece would definitely benefit from a little exaggeration. The poses and composition, however, I feel are a bit better. Sweet Enemy says when I finally get a drawing I'm finally happy with, she'll go all James Jean on it. That should be sweet. Here it is:

2) I spent the morning at my local independent bookstore (LIBS) with an double Americano and sketched out some potential covers/pinups of the stars of Interrogation 101. Anyone got a favorite? If not, I'll probably do them all for the inking practice.

3) Serendipity. This has nothing to do with art, but I thought it was neat enough to mention. Last Wed. I was heading back from my LIBS coffee morning. At a certain point on the way home, I had to stop for a bit because a wide load truck was negotiating a sharp corner. The truck was carrying some massive wind turbine blades! They were huge and all sci-fi-looking.

Yesterday, I was heading home from my LIBS coffee morning and at the same point in the road at around the same time, guess what? Yup. Another wide load truck transporting wind turbine blades! Freaky, no? Good thing I don't believe in coincidence. I guess that Wednesday around 11 AM is Wind Turbine Blade Truck Time in Jericho, Vermont!

Listening to while posting: "Shadows" by Au Revoir Simone

Postah

2011-03-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

To keep my design chops up, I occasionally do posters for fun. For this challenge, I took one of my favorite books and tried to do a two-color poster in two hours. That's sketching, finalizing, comping, and readying for print in two hours. I did it but, whether or not it's an effective poster is up to you, the viewer. The bell was made by me in Adobe Illustrator and the font is Mrs. Eaves.

And, yes, I feel that Guillermo Del Toro is the only contemporary director who could do Garth Nix's fantastic novel justice.

Listening to while posting: Secret Agent Radio station on Soma FM

semi-fail!

2011-03-06T20:59:00.006-05:00

I spent the the day drinking good coffee and drawing. I really mean I spent the day drawing. I started at 9:00 am EST with a tiny, incoherent thumbnail, sketched and sketched and finished inking it about 7:30 EST. I learned a lot. I learned how to work with a new nib. I learned my Pentel brush pen hack works pretty well. I learned that things in my head still look better than what they end up as on paper. The most important thing I learned is this:

I cannot do sexy. Not even slightly sexy. That bothers me. I like sexy, I appreciate sexy, I can definitely tell sexy from not-sexy. Unless, of course, I have to draw it. I think I can draw attractive women pretty well, but when it comes to making them sexy, I fail miserably. It's almost embarrassing, actually. I mean really embarrassing. Like a karaoke singer who really thinks they can sing.

So, in the hopes that someone will tell me what I can do to make this even slightly sexier, I'm posting it. The idea was to do a cheesy, silly, sexy pinup thing that might have appeared on a Heavy Metal magazine cover in the 80s. I think I got two out of three. So, here it is.

Technically, it's got some good points and I really learned a lot. But, please, if you know sexy, let me know how I can improve. Is it the composition? The style? The poses? The entire idea? Help!

Here it is as a cover, just for fun:

Listening to while posting: "Jinji" by Tomoyasu Hotei

small stuff

2011-03-03T20:42:00.004-05:00

AndreZero is still writing the Obscure Tales story that the Deneb Princess appears in.

In the meantime, I've started fleshing out some more concepts to throw at AZ. One is an overly ambitious sort-of-superhero-y team book. The other is something I've been thinking of for a while. It's a story of an Alternative WW2 where Gen. Billy Mitchell wasn't discharged to die at age 59, but was actively listened to by everyone about the uses of military aviation and (and this is probably the farthest fetched part), became and advocate of women combat pilots.

The idea came about when friend named her graphic design company after a certain plant, the Cobra Lily. I thought that Cobra Lily would be a great nickname for a pilot and so built an improbable alternative universe out of it.

In doing some sketches for the cover of the fake first issue of Cobra Lily, I decided to work on a patch she'd wear on her jacket. I came up with the backstory that Gen. Mitchell created his own training unit and trained women to fly combat. After they'd proved themselves against men, they were shunted out to active units. All of the "plankholders" of Mitchell's training unit wore their patches with their nickname "Mitchell's Molls". The character is loosely based on Fifinella the mascot of the WASPs.

These were sketched on paper, scanned, vectored (in Illustrator) and digitally colored (in Photoshop)

Clean version:

Slightly dirty version:

That's all. I may have a cover by the end of this week. Tomorrow night we're heading to an art opening that Sweet Enemy's taking part of. It's at the super-cool S.P.A.C.E Gallery in Burlington. So, I'll be hob-nobbing with a bunch of wicked cool folks who are much more talented than me. If you're in town, stop by.

Listening to while posting: Porcelain by Moby

Mediocre art weekend

2011-02-20T21:16:00.004-05:00

Working on a cover idea for Special Deliver my 24 Hour Comics Day comic from 2010.

I did a bunch of sketches and refinements and this inking seemed to work as a proof-of-concept. I did it with my Pentel brush pen (which works much better after my hack that allows me to replace the crappy stock ink with Higgins Black Magic). I'm finding I really enjoy using the pen, but I really need to practice with it a lot more. This POC is pretty good with a few elements I like. There's a fair amount that I now believe sucks. Regardless, with the original piece having a size of 6.5" x 10", it's the biggest face I've drawn in a while.

I'll hit the drawing again tomorrow and see if I can get something better.

Listening to while posting: "Typical American" by The Goats

fan art!

2011-02-12T14:03:00.005-05:00

Last night I hosted a meet-up for comics and graphic novel fans at my local bookstore. It went pretty well. One guy who showed up was Mark Gonyea. He's a cool guy and a mad scratchboarder. One of the books I brought to introduce to people was Ross Campbell's fantastic TBP Shadoweyes.

This morning I got up at 7:30, made a lot of strong (French press) coffee and hit the studio. I sat at the table and decided to do some Shadoweyes fanart! Yay! The only other fanart I've done was a Missile Mouse for Jake Parker, but I didn't let that stop me. It went pretty well. The pencil drawing came together in about an hour, the tracing and inking another hour, then, as I was getting ready to scan, I found I'd FORGOTTEN THE DARN TAIL! Gah! This seems to happen every time I want to draw Shadoweyes. So, I had to scramble re-trace and re-draw.

However, it turned out pretty well. I must say, that I'm overall, pretty happy with it. There are some small things I see, but they're mostly technique stuff and not big mistakes. One thing I did change was the color of Shadoweyes' calves and forearms. In the comic, they're straight black with the hands and feet just black shapes. When I drew the original pencil, I tried to extrapolate the extremities and I liked them so much, I had to keep them. I hope Ross doesn't mind

So, go get Shadoweyes. It's pretty darn awesome.

In the FUTURE!

Listening to while posting: Ghostrider by RJD2

update: post +15 minutes. Wanna hear something kind of crazy? I also posted on my Deviant Art page (yes, I have a deviant art page, but so do lots of people who don't suck. Like Ross Cambell for instance). Anyway, I posted the pic but, decided I wanted to edit my description. I got into edit mode, wrote an new sentence and saved the changes. In that time six people had viewed it. I really never had the immensity and 24/7 nature of the internet until that moment. I mean if six people viewed it, that must mean that thousands are online and watching the Deviant Art new submissions page. Sheesh.

wrinkles part 2

2011-02-05T23:31:00.004-05:00

Continuing my attempt to understand clothing wrinkles, I grabbed a stock photo from set of Steampunk costume photos from Zeldyn-Stock. The photo I used is 'in storage' and I really should have used this one because the hands are less problematic.

This is a bit better than the first wrinkles test, but there are still many issues that need addressing. I may try again with the photo I linked. Here they are in order. The original is 7.5" x 3" or so.

Listening to while posting: Some sort of violin concerto coming from the radio in the woodstove room where Sweet Enemy is chilling with the cat and reading some Hugo Award-winning stories from the seventies.

wrinkles

2011-01-30T20:03:00.006-05:00

I spent a couple of hours today working on copying a photo to try to get a grip on wrinkles on clothing. I can feel how it should go naturally, I can nearly understand how things would work on a pose I made up. Not quite, though. Something is missing and I still need more work on it.

Here's the picture, though. It's a portrait of Anke-Eve Goldmann in her winter riding gear. I'm not posting the original image as my mistakes (the eyes are a bit high on the face, for example) would be more glaring, but I am linking to it in case you think I've traced. Of course, that would assume that you thought it was too good ;)

First in pencil:

I then traced the pencil, transferred it to Bristol and inked it with a Pigma Micron 01:

I then scanned the inked image and colored it digitally:

There are a good deal of things that need work on this, but there are enough good moments to keep me going. More drapery to follow.

Listening to while posting: "B&S" by The Bobby Hughes Experience

sigh-fie

2011-01-29T16:00:00.004-05:00

Working on a larger, more complex drawing. This was a test of the black shading that evolved into a full-color test.

On the 'real' piece, I've bitten of more than I can chew at my current ability. In my head (and pencilled on Bristol) are four flycycles pursuing this one and they are flying over a nighttime cityscape. The figures are lit by the full moon from above and the city lights from below. (based on watching a United flight fly overhead of Manchester, NH. The approach was so low that the lights of the city were reflecting on the bare-metal belly of the airliner)

Gods! what am I thinking? I'm not good enough for the stuff in my head to find its way onto the page. I need to buckle down and practice. I'm going to spend tomorrow drawing drapery (clothing from photos and myself in a mirror). I've almost got the feeling of how folds are supposed to work. I think if I buckle down, I can get closer to getting it.

The rider herself is based on 1950s BMW motorcycle pro rider Anke-Eve Goldmann.
Pencilled on smooth Bristol. Inked with Pigma Microns. Digitally colored. I'll be using the portrait of her in her winter riding gear as one of my drapery practice photos.

Last week Sweet Enemy and I finished watching the last of the Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes available on DVD. Sad to see it end, but happy that we liked the new Doctor (sort of Tennant-y with a dash of Baker-ness). Last night we watched "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" and found it to be pretty awesome! I thought it'd be good, but it was even better than that. Tonight, we're going to a bonfire, sledding, beer-drinking party at a small, local, family-owned ski area. Woo-hoo! Thanks, SBiL

listening to while posting: "Mr. Mastadon Farm" by Cake

aht

2011-01-22T19:23:00.005-05:00

So, yesterday's Animal failed. I was having an awful day and couldn't bring myself to draw. It sucked (for the record, I'm going a bit potty being alone at home looking for work, teaching myself PHP and talking to people via Facebook. I was going through meatspace contact addiction).

ANNNNYway. I did up a set of fake frames for the story that AndreZero and I are working on for Obscure Tales issue 8. The first frame is the cockpit of the Stellar Princess Starliner seen earlier. I just wanted to do a cockpit and some aliens. The second frame is the main character of the story, a stewardess on board the Deneb Princess. The frames are a test of the style I may use for the comic and a test of the stewardess look.

That's all. It helped me out of my doldrums and I MAY do two animals tonight to make up for the lack yesterday.

Cheers

listening to while posting: The annual Joke Show on Prairie Home Companion (The only PHC I can take anymore)

Animal Week 2011 # 4: Chimpanzee

2011-01-20T21:00:00.005-05:00

I used a random number generator to figure out which page and image to use and here he is, one of humanity's closest relatives! All I can think of is a radio piece I once heard about Alpha Males in primates. The conventional wisdom is the alpha, being the toughest, passes his genes onto the females. However, many times, he's too busy defending his territory and the lesser males... er... get the jump on him, so to speak.

There you go. The hardest part of this was trying to work cross-hatch shadows on the bare skin into the hair without the shadows looking like hair. Not sure if it was a total success.

Now, I'm off to finish another drawing I'm working on. The pencils look good, let's see if I can't screw up the inks.

See you... in the Future!!!

Listening to while posting: "Love Song" by Ofra Haza (on Soma FM's Secret Agent station)

Animal Week 2011 # 3: Seals

2011-01-19T20:18:00.003-05:00

Arjan chose #5 in his comments. The fifth animal in the book is the seal and DANG that was hard. I won't claim complete failure, but it was nowhere near a success. Today's animal has two because I didn't like the first one and tried another.

It was a lot of time invested int these two little drawings. The initial drawing of the basic shapes went well and I was happy. I'll tell you, though, rendering a mottled, gradiated, subtly shaded and wet furred animal in murky water is difficult (for me at least). The white whiskers were also a pain. That's what I get for letting a Netherlander choose an animal for me ;)

Listening to while posting: "Never Gonna Happen" by Lily Allen

Animal Week 2011 # 2: The Zebra

2011-01-18T21:45:00.004-05:00

So, today's drawing is brought to you by Sweet Enemy. She picked it and I'm not sure why. Perhaps because it was really hard. After completing this, I now know why there aren't a great deal of zebra, or zebra-based creatures in comic books. MAN, I'd hate to have to replicate a stripe pattern in panel after panel. So, if you are missing the zebra or zebra-based characters in my work, now you know why. The cool thing about the book I'm using is that when they put eighteen zebras next to each other, you can really see how individual and exquisite the stripe patterns are.

I'm re-learning how to place something in the page when drawing form life or a photo. Our old drawing teacher at MECA, Al Gardener, would joke about students starting on the left and then having to cram the rest of the figure into the right hand side of the page.

With very little more ado, here is a zebra:

Listening to while posting: "La Cosa Mas Chunga" by Modaji on Secret Agent Radio on Soma FM

Animal Week 2011 # 1: The Hippopotamus

2011-01-17T22:54:00.005-05:00

I'm the kind of person that needs goals, tangible goals to learn. So, in an effort to improve my drawing skills, particularly in inking and shading, every day this week, I'm doing an animal from Akira Satoh and Kyoko Toda's fantastic book Animal Faces. It's out of print but, a great resource for drawing.

Each drawing will be approximately 3.5" x 3.5", drawn in red pencil and inked with a Pigma Micron. I'll post the image immediately after I finish it take any criticisms you'll dish out and any suggestions you might have; my only stipulation is that you point out one thing that does work.

There are twenty-four animals in the book (with eighteen different portraits) so, if anyone wants to throw out a number between 1 and 24 that isn't 13, that will be the animal for tomorrow.

Here's today's, the Hippopotamus:

listening to while posting: "Tokyo, I'm on My Way" by Puffy AmiYumi (I can't get enough of this song for some reason. It drives Sweet Enemy nuts and I think I'll go upstairs and sing the refrain to her right now!)

Never how it looks in my head

2011-01-16T21:18:00.005-05:00

Why is that, anyway?

I did a thumbnail of a spaceport for the upcoming Obscure Tales story that's still in writing stage. The thumbnail led to a 9" x 4" drawing that looked... pretty good. Then, I scanned it and colored it and... I'm not happy with it. I think I need to buckle down, stop making excuses and do some life drawing. Look at how light and shade and reflection play off of different objects. Once the weather turns warmer, I'm hitting B-Ton at night and do some urban landscapes, too.

Listening to while posting: "Ghostwriter" by RJD2

The Big Picutre

2011-01-07T14:27:00.003-05:00

So, in my last post I posted a pic of a spaceliner I created, inspired by Jake Parker's Missile Mouse. I mentioned Jake's fantastic cutaways and wasn't sure I could make one. However, last night I had a cup of coffee after dinner (rare occasion) and, since coffee is a creativity fuel, I made one (click to enlarge):

The image is pretty big, but so was the original drawing (almost 11 x 14). The hardest part was reconciling the interior with the pre-designed exterior (the Millennium Falcon Problem). It went pretty well, with only a slight reduction in passenger capacity. I did have to add transferrable water ballast tanks under the passenger compartment to allow for weight and balance. This wouldn't matter if it was a space-only craft, but I wanted it to be atmospheric as well.

So, my first cutaway is, I believe, a success. I'm pretty darn happy with it, actually. What do you think?

Listening to "Zina-Maria" by Gogol Bordello

production design

2011-01-01T23:11:00.009-05:00

So, as I said last post, I've been inspired by Jake Parker and his fun Missile Mouse comic. For an upcoming project (guess what), I needed to make a spaceliner. Unlike the inestimable Mr. Parker, I haven't kept up with my spacecraft creation that filled my time in high school, so I had to start small. I started sketching based on a swan-styled spaceliner by the great sci-fi artist Angus McKie (dubbed the Interstellar Queen when it was featured in the great 70s sci-fi book Spacecraft 2000 to 2100AD).

The Interstellar Queen was a huge, long-range liner, but I needed a small medium-range passenger ship. So, rather than being swan-like, I went for a bit more duck-like. I also opted for a smoother, more aerodynamic profile as this would be an atmospheric as well as a spacecraft.

Mr. Parker also creates great cutaways of his great spacecraft. I thought about doing a full schematic, but after painting twenty little seats for a 1/72 plastic model of a Faiery Rotodyne VTOL passenger plane, I couldn't bring myself to draw dozens of identical seats just now. I'll absolutely have to figure out a floor plan later, but for now you will have to make due with a profile:

About the book I mentioned. If you like old-school sci-fi art, pick this book up. ABE Books has some and they start at US$10. WARNING: there is a newer version of the book published a few years ago. DO NOT BUY IT. Instead of the original artwork, the new book features CG rendering of the originals; a pointless and rather insulting thing to do. Compare their version of the Interstellar Queen with McKie's original

The other great one in the series is Spacewrech a great crammed full of really great art. These are also on ABE Books, but only a little more expensive

listening to while posting: "I'm Leaving" by Condo

Happy belated holidays!

2010-12-31T21:44:00.005-05:00

To all who read this, whether a regular or not, I hope that your holiday season contained some joy, some mirth, a bit of good food and drink and a heaping helping of happiness.

Sweet Enemy and I got too frazzled to get a tree this year (I haven't found a design job and worked the holiday season at my local, independent toy store. Lots of fun!). So, our resident Yeti, Mr. Philbert Appleshrug generously allowed us to decorate him for the Yuletide. Here he is on Xmas morning:

The two gifts below at his feet were both for S.E. I'd had them kicking around my studio for a while (one since August!). The first she opened was Rocco Vargas: The Dark Forest" by Daneil Torres. I am blessed to have a wife who not only likes sequential art and sci-fi, but likes quirky, retro sequential art and sci-fi! If you also like those things, check Torres out. He's pretty awesome (and Spanish).

Her next gift was Terry Pratchett's latest (and possibly last) Tiffany Aching novel "I Shall Wear Midnight". Now, the thing about these gifts, is that they weren't something that only SE would like (I love Pratchett and I was the one who introduced her to Torres) and that made me feel a bit cheap. However, the true gift was that I did not even open them for a moment before she did; they were wrapped at the store immediately upon purchase. She graciously said that was good enough.

Our families were very generous to us and I, for one, always feel like I didn't deserve such generosity. Thanks guys.

One of the things I got was a gift certificate to my local, independent bookstore. Which I used yesterday to buy Jake Parker's newest Missile Mouse adventure. At times it feels aimed at an audience a bit younger than the first, at other times it doesn't. Throughout, however, Parker's art is solid and sweet. He also includes a "Universe of Missile Mouse" section that showcases his cool schematics and process work from the MM universe.

If you haven't read MM, do so. If you want to win copies of both books AND some ORIGINAL ART(!) hit jake's website for details on how to win.

In Obscure Tales news, AndreZero is working on fleshing out a new story I concepted while drinking an Americano at the bookstore while reading MM (inspiring is another adjective to give to Mr. Parker's work). No date set, but I've already started doing production design. I can't say what it's about, but it will push my abilities, that I'm sure of.

Well, I've got a date to go watch Dr. Who (10th doctor and Martha) with Sweet Enemy. Have I mentioned her awesomeness?

It's time!

2010-12-06T09:17:00.003-05:00

Firstly, the new AndreZero-penned Obscure Tales episode is up. I give you:

Interrogation 101.

Enjoy!

Secondly, the meager response to the free drawing giveaway means that all posters get one! I'll work on them in order of posting and new-ness. So, in order, it's: 1) Decapod 2) Arjan 3) Rambler 4) Snab. Get your thinking caps on and decide what you want. Hit my portfolio and dig up my email (you're now part of a special crew) and let me know what you want. We'll work out shipping once I'm done drawing.

In other news, we survived the huge wind storm (90 MPH gusts) out here last week just fine. Only two trees down, and that means firewood next year. We did lose power for three days due to a four-meter pine branch hanging on the lines. Sweet Enemy, Bernie the Fat Cat and I made the best of it, though; sitting in our stove-room, heating tortillas on the wood stove by the light of our glass-chimney'd oil lamp. We read comics and ghost stories and basically enjoyed a small technology-free vacation. I took some video of the trees in our woods blowing like wheat; if I can get it off of the camera, I'll post it.

Power was back on Friday thanks to the hard work of the CVPS crews. There were 25,000 out total in our county and some friends were still without power; they had a large maple across the road and hanging on the lines at EACH end of their road.

We do have to call a tree surgeon as a big pine right next to the house has developed a vertical crack in one of its large (8") branches. Creepy.

Pax!

Listening to while posting, Symphony #7 by Antonin Dvorak on VPR Classical

Stuff and things and others things!

2010-11-20T22:45:00.008-05:00

Firstly, I'm halfway done inking and coloring Obscure Tales issue 7. Here's the cover:

This is smaller issue than before, so it will be posted all at once. Keep watching for the announcement of the posting.

Secondly, 'tis the season!

I'm again offering free 6" x 6" ink drawings*. I'm offering five again, but due to my job situation, we'll have to talk about postage. Also, if you don't make the cut, I'll do one, or any other art for very small amounts of cash or in trade for a similar-sized piece of original art.

You might be saying to yourself, how do I get a free drawing? Just comment "I want a free drawing!". If you are one of the five, I'll post your name on the blog and you can contact me via email and we'll talk about what you want and shipping. C'mon! You can't beat the price.

If you've already gotten a free one last time, you can still ask for one. However, newbies get priority. Anyone can give me money, however. The commissions can be of nearly any size or type of work from the standard 6" x 6" ink drawing to a comic.

Thirdly, if my art doesn't float your boat, perhaps the art of Arkonbey's Favorite Person on the Planet™ Sweet Enemy will. She has an etsy store that sells original art and prints.

So, let me know if you want something!

UPDATE 23 Nov 2010: You have until December 4th to request a free drawing

listening to while posting: "I Miss You" by Bjork

*The free ink drawing can be of any subject or character, but there are limits. I'll do mild or suggested violence, but no gore; I'll do tasteful nudes or pinups or even innuendo, but no graphic sex; scat and vore are right out. I like to have my artistic boundaries pushed, but am to wimpy to do it myself. So I'll accept any challenge you throw out.

Pigs in Space, 1953 (and other stuff)

2010-11-02T00:08:00.000-04:00

Halloween is over. We had our party (you should have been there!). It may have been a success since folks didn't leave until about midnight (yeah, I know that's early. Some had to work and one had to get sleep for a four-hour drive).

Kick Enemy Men, Sweet Enemy and I stayed up talking for another hour or more talking. KEM lives four hours away and we don't see him nearly as much as we'd like. A new friend brought a sampler of microbrews from around the country (he's a maven). Many awesome beers were tasted. Decapod Diver, my oldest friend came up from MA (he really needed a break) and brought a goose/duck/buffalo chili (he personally shot and dressed two of the animals); it was delicious. Add to that my nearly-famous lentil stew, pumpkin pie, snacks and Irish Coffee, it was a feast.

After Irish coffees, we all piled into our long, narrow living room to watch An American Werwolf in London. It's been my favorite of DD and I since we first saw it back in the eighties. This time, we got to watch it with a girl who'd a) never seen it and b) was a bit of a ingenue with horror cinema. She was affected by the effects. Even the transformation freaked her out! This was awesome. It is one of the best transformations in cinema history and it's nice to see that it can still stand up after all these years.

Whew.

The newest Obscure Tale is on hold. Well, not on hold, really. I've got six pages inked, but I'm tossing them into the woodstove and starting again. I don't like the inking style. It's boring and lacks good line variation. I think the Pentel brush pen is in order. To get practice with it, I refined and inked a sketch I had done last Thursday. It was going to be a "standard" Golden Age space-girl, but her chubbiness and the stylized pose made me think of Ms. Piggy. So, since I'd already done a BSG-style re-imagining drawing of the Swinetrek crew, I thought I'd do a Golden Age version of Ms. Piggy.

The lineart works pretty well (thanks to Sweet Enemy for making me re-work Piggy's breasts, they look much better now), but the color is only okay. I always fall back on local color shadows.

listening to while posting: "Tokyo, I'm on my way" by Puffy Ami Yumi

no art, but an Halloween Anecdote

2010-10-29T21:33:00.003-04:00

While looking for a new design job, I work part time at a small, independent toy store and this happened just this afternoon. A woman came up to the counter to pay for a fake beard. She then asked if we had any top hats. I told her we didn't and asked her what the costume was going to be.

"Oh," she said, rather proudly, "my six year old daughter wants to go as Abraham Lincoln!"

"No way!" I eloquently replied

"Really, she wants to say 'four score and seven years ago... Trick Or Treat!' She though of this costume all by herself."

As she was walking out, I mentioned that she could make her daughter a little Emancipation Proclamation.

"Yeah!" she replied, "She could say 'Hey, I freed the slaves, give me some candy!'"

listening to while posting: a replay of last year's Halloween hit: Under the sun:

An excuse to post and meaningless content to fill it up

2010-10-15T22:06:00.005-04:00

Well, I just finished pencilling the last page of the upcoming Obscure Tales comic (written by Andre). It's only nine pages, but it's pretty good. I was managing to get a page done in a night, so this bodes well for the future. I should have the pages inked, colored and posted in a couple of weeks.

I also went to the Vermont Tech Jam today to try to find some contacts to get a design job. However, they should put an asterisk after the name of the event. The footnote should read: "If you're not a developer or a salesperson, don't bother coming because there's nothing for you here". So, the evening's been pretty down. I'm going back tomorrow just to drop my name at the booth of a local web design shop. I know they're only hiring PHP and CSS coders, but I'm going to try to leave a card.

To lighten the mood, here's a Hallowe'en meme I'm stealing from Becca. I'm not really a big Hallowe'en fan, but what the heck:

1.What is the worst treat to get when trick-or-treating?

Can't think of anything. I dig it all. I'll even eat those cheapo chocolate characters wrapped in printed foil. (that is not to say that I don't enjoy and savor the good stuff)

2.What character from any horror film would you most like to play?

Any werewolf, pretty much. Probably something Freudian in that, eh?

3.Would you rather be a zombie, alien, or psycho? (why)

Weird question. Probably an alien. Psychos are everywhere in real life and zombies are way over done.

4.How many Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street movies combined do you have on dvd?

Zero. But we do have John Carpenter's "The Thing" and "An American Werewolf In London'

5.What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?
Horror movies don't really scare me much. But, Sweet Enemy and I once watched Dog Soldiers together at a friend's house deep in the woods on windy night. We watched the film in a "mother-in-law" apartment with tiny windowsin the house's basement. We were pretty sure that, even if there were werewolves, the odds of them choosing that particular night to attack were slim, but we spent the night pretty creeped out.

6. Lamest costume you have worn on Halloween?

In 1984 we flew across the country to visit my grandparents in Irvine, CA over Hallowe'en. I could think of nothing so I put a paper bag over my head and went as the Unknown Comic and canvassed my grandparent's subdivision. When people asked if they knew me, I'd say "No! I'm the Unknown Comic!" and beat feet.

7.Favorite Halloween treat?

For some reason, Smarties. I seemed to only get them on Hallowe'en, so they are the quintessential Hallowe'en candy for me. One taste and it's the Eighties all over again.

8. Friendly-faced jack o’lantern or scary one?

As long as it isn't one of the "stencils carved on the front of a pumpkin" ones, I'm happy.

9.Have you ever had nightmares about a scary movie character chasing you?

Never actually. However, when I was four, I did have a vivid nightmare that the counting hands from Sesame Street held me down while other counting hands pulled my mother into a mattress that was leaning up against the wall of my bedroom. Watching that video still creeps me out.

10.Best thing about Halloween?

Umm. Cheap candy in November?

11.Strangest Halloween custom you’ve heard of?

Well, there's this one house we drive by that puts up Hallowe'en lights that look just like X-mas lights only in orange. That's weird. They're in the middle of nowhere, too.

12.Person in your family who most likes Halloween (not counting yourself)?

Sweet Enemy by a long shot! She loves it and her only regret about our house is that it's too remote for trick-or-treaters. She'd do the whole house up if we got 'em.

13.Are you superstitious? If so, name at least one superstition of yours.

Occasionally, but not obsessively. I'm generally superstitious until I forget to be. For instance, I once had a great mountain bike racing season where I only used blue Gatorade. However, once I was out of blue and used lemon-lime and I raced anyway (I still placed third, as usual).

Listening to while posting: "Earthquakes and Sharks" by Brandston

24 Hour Comic Day 2010: The Aftermath Part 2

2010-10-06T22:52:00.006-04:00

It's done and I must say, I'm rather proud of it. Sure, I would have liked to have finished it fully during the event, but oh, well. I'm proud that I wrote it and thumbnailed it so quickly. I'm happy that my initial paneling decisions seemed to work pretty well. They're not super-dynamic, but coherent. There are some nice moments in the art, considering, too. What I'm most happy with, though, is the fact that this story isn't super-depressing. My first year, I tried to be funny and only got six pages done. The next year my story was kind of dark. Year three's story was downright sad and I'm glad that I broke the cycle without, I think, being saccharin.

As you read the finished story, keep in mind that I worked in the same spirit as the event (just not so tired). That means that I didn't stray from the dialog and paneling that I worked out in the first hour (unless I couldn't read the dialog or understand what the stick figures were supposed to do. I also worked quickly, and decisively, not changing much once I started dark pencilling. That means that the last six pages will be as rough as the first eighteen. You'll also notice that had to fight the urge to grab a reference for the running dog since I didn't bring any such thing to the event.

Without further ado, here's "Special Delivery" in its entirety (to keep myself honest, I marked the pages that were finished after the event with a little triangle at the bottom):

What did you think? Good? Bad? Okay? I'll take critiques (but keep in mind the circumstances). Question: Should I re-do it with better art and better paneling, or let it stand as its own thing?

Listening to while posting: "Pushy" by Lemon Jelly

24 Hour Comic Day 2010: The Aftermath

2010-10-03T23:50:00.002-04:00

In keeping with it's Appalachian Trail-like aura, I am beat and do not want to think of 24HCD again and cannot understand why I'd do such a thing. Of course, I said that last year, too.

The Event

This year was interesting. I took the lead on the poster, the marketing, the sponsor-gathering, the setting up, nearly everything and it worked out pretty well. The setup went smooth and worked well. Our sponsors came through magnificently. (more than we could have hoped, actually. Sweet Clover Market donated a HUGE box of chocolate-covered pretzels. Phoenix Books delivered two airports of coffee, some creamer, some cups and cookies. Rocky's Pizza came through with four cheese pizzas at 6:30pm.)

For my part, I didn't expect to finish and I didn't; only eighteen pages. The reasons for this were: 1) I was the MC, so I was answering random questions for a while, 2) and also as MC I had to check in latecomers 3) I bit off more than I could chew story-wise (more later) and 4) I decided early on that this wasn't going to be about getting work done. If I wanted that, I'd have stayed in the studio. So, I chatted with visitors, customers and other participants.

We started at 9AM on Sat and I petered out about 6AM on Sun. I couldn't draw anymore. So I walked outside to watch a rabbit eating in the grass near the store, went inside to start cleaning up a bit. We ended up leaving at 9AM and home by 9:30.

We learned a lot for next year (example: there's going to be an age restriction. Nobody under sixteen will be allowed to participate past 9PM without a parent present; 12 year old girls can get WAY too giggly after too much caffeine and candy at 2AM). But, I don't want to think of that now.

The Comic

This year, for myself and the other participants, I created 'inspiration cards'. I grabbed a bunch of images off of Google's Life photo archive , stuff of mine and photos and art I've collected over the years. I printed those out into a 'deck' of cards for the participants to go through for an idea. The one I chose was this:

I wish I knew who the artist was so I could give him/her credit. The image (and four others of the same artist) have been on my drives since 2002 and I've re-named them. I really like the stuff and wish I could see more.

I stared at this picture for five minutes then started writing words and connecting those words with arrows until I had a very bare storyline. I then hit the thumbnail trail and sketched out the entire story. As with most of my 24HCD works, this was like a Star Trek:TNG episode: 3/4 full of padding then a rushed resolution. What stymied me was the complexity that became inherent within the piece. I tried to mitigate this by doing lots of cinematic cuts of one talking head to another. Boring, but easier to draw. Another sticking point was that I scripted two fight scenes. I've never done a real fight scene before and never thought of doing one under this kind of pressure. The final bit was that my comic involved doing a kawai character and a dog. Neither of which I'd really drawn before and never as a recurring character in action poses!

I did decide early on that dark pencilling would be "done". Mostly because I liked how my pencils were looking and also because that would be the only way I'd come close to finishing. The art, of course, degraded over time, but there are some nice moments including some later on. So, here's the comic, one panel shy of eighteen pages, the last being nearly finished at 6AM Oct 3rd. It's called "Special Delivery" and I'd be curious to know if anyone would want to see it finished...

Whew! Thanks for reading! If you've got an 24HCD event in your town next year and you make comics, DO IT! If you don't make comics, go see some tired artists!

listening to while posting: "Tokyo I'm on my way" by Puffy AmiYumi

Posters and Posters

2010-09-30T11:10:00.005-04:00

First, and most importantly, the original painting for the 24-Hour Comics Poster is up for raffle! Tickets are $3.00 and all proceeds are going to benefit the Williston Community Food Shelf. If you want a chance to win a big acrylic gouache painting of the poster, email Artists' Mediums. The poster is matted and professional framing is available for an additional cost. Shipping is extra.

I will also have a limited number of the color photocopied posters for sale for $2.00 each (the proceeds also going to benefit the Williston Community Food Shelf). These are un-matted and shipping is extra.

Just to remind you, here is the awesome thing (if I do say so myself. And I do)

Secondly, we're having our fourth annual Horror Movie Mini-fest. This year it's a werewolf theme. No CGI huskies fighting glowing emo-goths, here, folks! If you want to come, shoot me an email.

listening to while posting: the cool autumn rain outside. Man, I love autumn...

Summer 2010 Wrap-up

2010-09-24T09:01:00.009-04:00

Some art, some photos, all good.

Even though I got "restructured" in July, this summer hasn't been bad. We've got a good amount of savings and the freelance jobs are trickling in (including one big potential job that will bring in at least a mortgage payment). Lots of resumes out, and a couple of bites, so we'll see...

Anyhow. The highlight of the summer, as always, was hanging out with the Step-Mother-in-Law's family at their camp on Brant Lake, NY. I've mentioned before that they are the coolest, friendliest and most accommodating folks I've ever met, so if you add that to a trip to a lake in the Adirondaks, you can see why it's the highlight.

There was lots of waterskiing (not by me, I'm awful at it) and the Step-Brother-in-Law (SBiL) bought a keg of Rock Art Brewery's Ridge Runner and much beer was had by all. I'd like to show you some of the skiing photos I took, but they're of folks who aren't me, so I want to keep them private, sorry.

The Step-Mom-in-Law (SMiL) took me out for a sailing lesson and man, was it ever-so-slightly scary. The winds were... variable. They'd come over the mountains around the lake and muck about for a bit blowing hard in one direction, then another and then they'd stop for a few minutes before going again. Veteran sailor that sh is, SMiL was laughing and calm the entire time. I was trying hard to figure things out. More than once I dumped the sail when it felt like we were going to go over. We weren't, of course, and because SMiL is a good (and former professional) teacher, she only laughed a little bit. Here's the little Dolphin in the morning waiting for the wind:

Another highlight was SBiL's dogs, Kermit (brother) and Thumper (sister). Being Lab/Border Collie mix dogs, they're full of energy, but Thumper never slowed down the entire time. She was like a six-year-old kid, either full speed or stop. Whether it was a frisbee or a tennis ball thrown in the lake or simply flipping panfulls of water into the air, she would always tire out the humans first.

OMG WATER!

TENNIS BALL!

Kermit was more sedate, trying to reconcile his Labrador Retriever instincts with the reality of ducks.

On the art front, I'm finishing up a new Obscure Tale. This tale is slightly different and features characters that may lead to their own title. I'll be posting a cover soon, but other than that it's a surprise!

I was sick most of this week. I get this cold/flu/allergy type thing whenever the seasons change from winter to spring and summer to fall. It's weird and annoying, but it goes away. I was not in the frame of mind to work on the new OT, so I did some sketches of my favorite (and most ill-used) Marvel character Rahne Sinclair/ Wolfsbane. I plan on taking one of these two sketches and fleshing it out into a fake cover. I've found m work has been a bit static lately (why didn't you tell me?) and thought I'd get more dynamic. So, I grabbed a Stikfas figure and my Burne Hogarth book and went to work. Thoughts? Sweet Enemy prefers #1 as a better use of the page, but I find that the pose in #2 looks more realistic and less balletic.

#1

#2

I also gave a "comic book basics" workshop/demo at my local art supply store which seemed to go well. I learned a lot while trying to figure out what to teach.

I think that's all for now. There were some other things, a trip to Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome with my dad, a fun visit with my niece, and a 'guys weekend' at Brant Lake, but I don't want to bore you.

pax.

Listening to while posting. Nothing, actually. I'll leave you with Brant Lake at 7 AM:

Whew!

2010-08-25T09:58:00.003-04:00

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, I've been busy. Firstly, I've got four resumes out for design jobs. I had five, but I got my first rejection on Monday. It was quite polite and much better than my first rejection after my first layoff back in 2003. Then, I'd been contacted by a design firm for some contract Flash work and went in for to discuss the project. When I got home from the interview, there was a phone message waiting for me that they wanted me to come in and interview for a full-time position. I was psyched! I went in and all went well. Then I waited a for a call or email. A week went by and I called only to be told the boss was in a meeting. I waited three days for a return phone call and then called again. Again, he was in a meeting. I never heard from them after that. They're out of business now, btw.

I'm also trying to get some freelance work. A local print shop sub-contracted me for some re-design work and it went well. However, I found that years of working in the web world have degraded my meager print separation skills. The piece I did had to be sent back to me twice because I had trouble setting for full bleed. The press person had to talk me through some stuff and I docked my own time accordingly. That was something they didn't teach at school. We learned composition, type, image, concept and what have you, but separating for print, spot colors and designing for low-color? Nope.

I'm finishing up a big discount website for a local artist and have an interview with a potential web client next week. Man. I wish I could get some print work...

In the art side, I'm working on two projects that I can't show yet. The big one is a new Obscure Tales story from Andre Zero (based on a suggestion by Vermont artist Justin Athreton). I can't show any of it as it's to be a surprise. I think the idea might have legs and branch out into its own title.

The other is a piece for someone who doesn't know it's coming, but, may visit this site; so I can't post that either.

I'm nearly finished up a graphic guide to 24 Hour Comics Day Events for our upcoming event. It's a six-page comic about how to enjoy a 24HCD event. That I can and will post when I'm done.

Well, that's all. Art soon! (btw, I found that photo in a BIG box of prints when I was cleaning my studio. I have no idea when it was taken or even where it was taken. I only hope Sherm made it on time)

listening to while posting: "Music:Response" by Orbital

more USCG-ish stuff

2010-08-06T11:25:00.006-04:00

When I came up with the rescue craft in Death of a Friend, some might have thought I'd modeled it after the Samson from Avatar.

However, while I was modeling it after a previous design, it wasn't James Cameron's, it was mine. In 1994 or so, I started what was then an ambitious project: a 16" x 20" gouache illustration. It was meant to depict Air Station Kodiak in the near future and in the starring role was a SAR rotorcraft I designed, the HH-90d. I never got farther than transferring the image to illustration board and painting the cockpit, though. I only mention it today because, while cleaning up our 'library' I found the 16-year-old sketch (sadly, the unfinished painting is lost). Embiggen it, it's bigger.

Overall, it looks pretty good, but there are a few things wrong with it. Most obvious is the lack of true perspective. Each item is on its own plane almost as if I was using the ancient Egyptian canon. Also, was my lack of futurist vision. As of 2003, the building you see in the background is no longer the helicopter hanger; I'm not sure what it is. It's been around since WW2 and there's no real reason to think it'd be around in another twenty years. My retcon is that it's not the future, it's an alternative 1994! Trivia: I had a friend take a photo of me in my flight gear standing by a fire bottle for reference.

I'm considering seeing if I can make it work, but the perspective may bug me to much.

listening to while posting: Sweet Enemy using the vacuum cleaner on some sort of dirt.

Happy Coast Guard Day!

2010-08-04T21:28:00.005-04:00

I had to be reminded of this by a former Marine. Sheesh.

That's a photo to commemorate the day. It's of the "Helo Side" night shift at Air Station Kodiak, Alaska (c. 1992). The helicopter (or "helo" (HEE-low) as we called it. Never 'choppers or 'heli') is a Sikorsky HH-3f. It was introduced to the USCG in 1968 and retired in 1993, much to my dismay. The replacement, the HH-60j was smaller and made me airsick. Man, I miss that bird.

I'm not in the photo, but I was stationed there and this was taken in the last week before I rotated to USCGAS Traverse City, MI. I was an Aviation Machinist Mate (fixed engines and rotor systems) and a Flight Mechanic (the guy that works the hoist and directs the pilots over victims). Man, I miss that job. The stories were always more interesting to other people than my graphic designer stories.

The guy on the left on the ICS (the headset attached to the helo), was my best friend "Murray Lopez". He was an Aviation Electronics Technician then and he's the one who invented the name 'Arkonbey' and allowed me to co-opt it. He's still in and is a Chief Petty Officer now and is nearing (or has past and is ignoring) retirement age. We're the same age, btw. All you have to do is your twenty.

The photo was taken by a good friend who, in a poem he wrote for me when I left Kodiak, described himself as 'my elusive friend'. He was a very interesting guy, almost a beat and he seemed out of place as an Aviation Machinist Mate. His name was Ron Klassen and if anybody knows him, please have him shoot me an email. I'd like to buy him a beer and tell him I still have the copy of "The Prophet" that he gave me as a going away gift. I hope you're doing well, Ron.

Now, since I must post some art, here's a piece of fanart I did last year. It's a sappy little thing dedicated to my favorite New Mutant, the much under-used and ill-treated Wolfsbane. She's chilling with her BFF Mirage

listening to while posting: The end credit music to All Creatures Great and Small running through my head.

hey, bud.

2010-07-27T21:34:00.005-04:00

One of the things I'm going to try to do now is practice drawing at least a half-hour to an hour ever day. By practice, I mean drawing something that gives me trouble, not something for fun. Yesterday, it was Faces That Don't Look At Least A Little Bit Like Me. Most of mine do. So, I grabbed the flyer for the UVM Lane Series I had hanging around and drew the most interesting face I could find. Then, I tried to extrapolate on that face and draw it in another aspect. I think this worked pretty well. But, it was a nice clean headshot to work with. I think I might make him the villain in the new thing AndreZero and I are working on. If AndreZero agrees...

Right now, with all of my 'free time', I'm working on getting advertisers and stuff for our 24HCD. I've also written a Welcome Comic featuring the Strongman from the poster. It's working pretty well. Six 5.5" x 8.5" pages. Hope they like it!

Listening to while posting: "Meatball" by Atom and His Package

The time nears...

2010-07-21T13:29:00.004-04:00

Sure, it's months away, but we have to get this year's 24-hour Comics Day at Artists' Mediums going strong early.

Here's the poster. Designed and drawn by yours truly and over-painted by Sweet Enemy (who is also the assistant manager/head framer at Aritists' Mediums). We're going to be raffling off the original with proceeds to benefit the Williston Community Food Bank.

In other news, I've been "restructured", so things are odd. I suppose that means more time for art after I've updated my design portfolio...

In the immortal words of Les Claypool: "Funny thing about the weekends when you're unemployed; they don't seem to mean quite so much. 'cept you get to hang out with your workin' friends"

And, while I don't want to overshadow my work, you have to check out Michael Cho's Superboy cover. It's so nearly perfect that it left me stunned...

Um... Well. So, there it is.

2010-07-08T19:40:00.007-04:00

I'm back. I actually got back Wednesday...

Let me preface.

Kick Enemy Men (KEM) and I have been doing outdoor stuff together for years. In 2004, we attempted, for the second time, to climb Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. It's not a large mountain, but it seemed to have it in for us. The first time, we were turned back by ice and snow falls on the main ascent and spent the night near a pond at the base. This time it was raining as we left our vehicles and headed in. As we reached the pond, the summit was socked in and the rain was steady. We decided to set up camp; in 40°F and rain in April. Our shells wetted out, our gloves wetted out, our rain pants wetted out. So, we crawled into the tent to spend the next fourteen hours playing chess, reading and sleeping.

It was not fun.

On the way out, we both discovered that, at the trailhead, each of us had wanted to pack it in and head back to KEM's place. However, neither of us wanted to be the "wuss". From that day on we decided that, when we were camping, either of us could call an end and the other could not complain or question or mock. So far, we haven't had to use the Kearsarge Protocol.

Until now, that is. This trip as a Kearsarge Moment. There is a short version, but it doesn't illustrate the comedy of errors and good luck/bad luck that was this trip.

KEM picked me up on Sunday and we drove back to his place in ME. The next morning we packed up, checked our gear and set out about 9 AM. Look how damned hopeful we were! I'm on the right and that's my bike and trailer behind us (man, it looks hot already, doesn't it?)

The first ten miles were warm, but not too bad as that leg was on a winding road among the trees. Then we hit Rt. 26 proper and there were no trees within meters of the road. It began to get uncomfortable. At about thirteen miles, we stopped for ice cream and not just because the place was called Smedberg's (fantastic ice cream by the way. Worth stopping for at any time).

Then, we began chugging along as the heat rose to 93°F. At about twenty-six miles, KEM blew a front right tube on his trike and we pulled over to repair it. Luckily, the blowout had happened at a section of tree-shaded grass on the side of the road (the only one for a bout a mile in either direction). Then, the fun began.

I pulled his tube and found that the problem was an old patch that had given way. He'd run this patch for hundreds of miles and now it gives out. Not on his training runs this year, now. KEM's got a spare tube so we decide to swap tubes and patch the bad one at our leisure that night. Good plan, except for the fact that the new tube is a Schrader valve and the rim is, for some reason, drilled for the narrower Presta valve. (For a commuter bike, it's better to be drilled for Schraeder. You can put a Presta valve through a Schraeder-sized hole, but not the other way 'round). So, we decide to patch the bad tube. I grab my patch kit, which I checked before I left. Here's the thing though. I checked the glue by squeezing the tube. It gave. The thing is, vulcanizing cement doesn't harden, it contracts. So, when I went to squeeze out the glue a puff of air was all I got. Embarrassing for a guy who's been riding for over twenty years and has worked at two bike shops.

No problem. KEM has a kit. I prep the tube, slather the cement on, grab my largest patch and slather the glue on. I press the patch to the tube, but it doesn't seem to be vulcanizing. The patch won't stick to the tube and the patch won't even come away from the cellophane backing.

We're both getting a little testy. It's stranger to see KEM testy, usually nothing phases him, but the heat has never been his friend. So, I try a small patch. It goes on perfectly, then fails as I test fill the tube. I put another patch over the failed area and IT fails on the test pump. I put a third patch over the failed area and install the tube. The reasoning is, the pressure of the air pushing the patch against the rim might help keep it from failing. Also, this is the last try, if it fails, we're done. I pump the tire up to about 3/4 normal pressure and it holds! Only to fail the moment I start putting the valve cap back on.

KEM was less than happy. He pulled out his phone and, of course, no signal. So, as it was his tube, he was elected to ask the nearest house for help. The resident was a crusty old Mainer with a pickup who said he was heading to Wal-Mart and would give KEM a ride. I gave KEM $10 to slide to the guy and lay down for a good nap in the (strangely bug-free) grass in the shade. KEM scoured Wal-Mart for 20" Presta valved tubes, but there were none. Such is the fact that most Wal-Mart shoppers don't know there are more than one type of bike valve that KEM had to pull apart the un-labeled packages to check. After four, he gave up and called his wife, H.

H arrived in the not-reliable Volvo wagon and we loaded up KEM's trike. We still hadn't reached a Kearsarge moment, so I suggested that they head to the next town, Bethel, where we knew there was a bike store, while I would ride on. KEM would buy a proper tube and then either wait for me, or have H drive back to meet me. Then we would make the decision to go or stop.

I watched them drive away, hopped on the bike and headed out. It was hot and difficult. I had to stop once at a gas station for two quarts of PowerAde; one of which I chugged immediately. I logged another sixteen miles for a daily total of 42.5. KEM and H showed up and KEM called a Kearsarge, ending the trip. It turns out that 20" Presta tubes are very rare. So, the bike store guy drilled KEM's rims for him and now he's ready for any style tube.

I was not unhappy about the Kearsarge. I could have continued, I still had the stamina, but it would have been a Trial rather than Fun. This trip was not the masochism of a race, it was to be a leisurely bop around Northern New England. I was disappointed, but not unhappy, if that makes any sense.

We loaded up my bike and trailer in the back on the passenger side and H had to lie down on the deck next to KEM's trike on the driver's side. It was awesome of her, btw. Sure, she's under five feet, but that's still awesome. I lent her my camping pillow to mitigate her discomfort. With my 50lb dry bag on my lap, we headed back to KEM's house.

That night was for stretching, shower, water, dinner, Tour de France coverage and sleeping. The next morning, H took KEM's car to work and we thought it'd be okay to ride ten miles to play some disc golf (a sport at which KEM excells). This was a mistake. It was a hot ride, and a hot round of disc golf. Neither of us was too happy to get back on our rides, but there could be no Kearsarge Moment when they were the only way back. We bought extra GatorAde at the clubhouse and hit the road. The ride home was brutal. We had to stop numerous times and KEM had to walk his bike up a major hill.

Back home by 2 PM for more stretching, shower, water, dinner, Tour de France coverage and sleeping. If the day did one thing, it showed us that stopping the trip was the right choice.

The next day, we headed back to my house along the same route we tried to ride. We stopped at some interesting places. Including one thing that KEM missed driving by twice on Sunday and I missed once. I'd noticed (and stopped at) when riding to the bike store, but that was because I was going 11 MPH. Strange we missed it, as it is rather singular:

I wanted to send KEM back home with a maple/pecan pie from the local piemaker down the street (the plan was to have such a pie waiting for us at the end of our trip, courtesy of Sweet Enemy). However, when we got there, they were OUT OF PIE! Gahh!

So, I sent KEM off with my thank for the delivery and the promise of a check to pay for the rental car (long , uninteresting story).

What makes this interesting, is that the tube failed at the perfect place. At the only shade for miles. In front of the house of a helpful guy. Within easy range for our "sag wagon". If it'd happened near the bike store, we'd have likely continued and been miserable. We might not have thought to call a Kearsarge if not for the impetus of the blowout.

We think we may have been a bit ambitious and rushed it. We're planning a three-day two-night 40 mi/day trek just in VT in Sept. For practice. Then, in the spring, we're trying again.

Listening to while posting. Nothing.

Bicycle! Bicycle!

2010-07-03T20:39:00.008-04:00

Just to let everyone know, I'm going to be incommunicado (apparently, that's near cognito) for about a week. My friend Kick Enemy Men and I are doing a bike trek. We're riding from his house in Maine to my house in Vermont. Taking it slowly (40 mi or so /day) and see the World's Biggest Ball of String, etc. We'll eat in good restaurants and camp at night. No roughing it as we do when we backpack (couscous, bean flakes and green tea, pretty much). We're looking at four or five days of riding, so it should be something. I hope we don't get on each other's nerves.

Pictures will be posted, but here's a pic of KEM with the bike he'll be using for the trek. It's an ActionBent Tadpole. This was taken on it's first major test-ride the day after we'd assembled it. I'd driven out special to help with the assemble, having worked in three bike stores over the years. That thing's got like eight feet of chain!

The other pic is me, but that's not the bike I'll be riding. It's my very first mountain bike (1988 Trek Singletrack 950) that I refurbished into a sort of trials bike. It was taken in 2004 or so when I was delivering one of my old bikes to Mike to long-term borrow. It was too small for him, but he used it until he could buy the trike. This was our first ride together. It's sunny at that moment, but then it rained . So we rode to a Japense restaurant and sat on the deck in the rain eating sushi, drinking sake and having the chef come out to laugh at us. Good times.

Since this is an art blog, I'll leave you with a piece from 1995. I drew it while on temporary deployment at USCG Air Station Chicago (from USCGAS Traverse City, MI). It was during the big heatwave and I sequestered myself in the only air-conditioned room in the hanger with a gallon of o.j. and drew. This is from the Brian Jaques book "Mossflower". It is the only BJ book I consider worth reading, as after this one, every book was the same: Redwall Abbey is under threat. Abbey animals must go on quest to save abbey. They end up meeting the current mountain badger. They get whatever they need to defeat the threat. They eat a lot. The end.

Anyway, here you go:

listening to while posting: Sweet Enemy yelling at me to get upstairs. We're watching "Labyrinth" to celebrate my being gone for a while. She'll miss me, but she'll aim better next time.

sort of relevant post

2010-06-30T23:42:00.009-04:00

While driving back from the in-laws tonight, something came up that reminded me of an anecdote that I recalled to Sweet Enemy. It doesn't take much for me to decide to tell an anecdote.

While in Kodiak, a friend and I were watching the awful Grace Jones vampire flick "Vamp" on VHS. This was the movie about a coven/clutch/herd of female vampires. We're about halfway through when my friend's roommate came in. Laconic as usual, he stood and watched for a bit, then deadpanned,

"Huh. Clampires"

Then he walked away. My friend and I just fell over laughing.

This led to a discussion of different vampires by SE and I.

Glampire = bloodsucker who like 1970s British rock music
Spampire = bloodsucker who work in email marketing
Alakazampire = vampire magician
Drampire = bloodsucker who only takes a drink now and then
Prampire = bloodsucker who preys on infants
Slampire = bloodsucker that haunts punk and hardcore shows
Trans-ampire = the only vampires to wear a mullet
Crampire = bloodsucker who studies too much
Whampire = bloodsucker who wake you up before he'll go (go)
Lampire = a bloodsucking light fixture
Scrampire = bloodsucker who leaves very quickly
Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'ampires = the much hipper version of the scrampire
Hampire = Bela Legosi
Sampire = a blood-seeking anti-aircraft missile
Rampire = bloodsucking sheep
Shampire = not a real vampire at all. Rather like the ones from Twilight. Which is the sort of relevance of the is post as the third sparklies vs. plushie huskies movie just came out.

That's all we've got. It's late and we're tired. Anybody got one?

Listening to while posting: our new cat's extra-jingly rodent-and-bird-warning collar tags and bells.

We have a Winnah!

2010-06-28T22:15:00.007-04:00

The winner was chosen by a thoroughly random process: writing the names on pieces of paper that folded to about 1cm x 1cm, placing those pieces in my special studio-only coffee mug, shaking the mug, handing the mug to Sweet Enemy and having her shake the mug, then having SE dump the pieces onto my desk, closing her eyes, picking one piece out and holding it up for me to take.

The winner is:

Mike (who has no blog).

As soon as Mike gets in contact with me, we'll get the ball rolling.

In other art news, I spent nearly all of Saturday pencilling this year's Twenty-Four Hour Comics Day poster. It's awesome so far, if I do say so myself (and I do). It's all hand-lettered, too. Though, I just noticed that I lettered COMIC DAY rather than COMICS DAY. Well, it's not inked, yet!

There will be two versions, an inked version and a color version where I'll ink the type and SE will do the rest fully-painted. The full-color one will be raffled off with the proceeds benefiting the local food shelf. I'll post images as they are available.

The only art I've done is the poster, but here's some OLLLLLLLLLD art for you. I don't know my age, but I'm guessing about seven or eight. The original is 14" x 17" and I'll leave it to you to guess what it depicts.

Listening to while posting: "Avenger" by Atom and His Package

more pigs

2010-06-23T21:49:00.004-04:00

They've got me doing some light developing at work in addition to design. The developing app is notoriously slow opening, slow synchronizing with the main repository and slow starting the local server. More than enough time to draw something.

After finishing the Pigs In Space comic cover, I had pigs on the brain. Working out the snout in different expressions and angles, while still keeping it slightly muppety was the task here. I neglected the hair and ears to concentrate on the faces. Some work, some don't, but that's just the way of things

Captain Lincoln "Link" Hogward (renamed from 'Hogthrob', hey, if they can do it for Apollo)

Lt. Piggy Lee (she was 'first mate' in the show, but that's just silly)

All I know is, if they ever do a re-imagining of Pigs In Space, I'm ready...

As far as the Page One Hundred contest goes. If I get no other entires, I'll be flipping a coin at 8pm EST to decide between Rambler and Rambler's Kin.

listening to while posting: "Playground Love" by Air

art: Hmmmmm

2010-06-22T21:52:00.004-04:00

Here's the thing I've been working after the last Page One Hundred. What it is obvious. I don't really think it'd make a good Battlestar Galactica-type re-imagining, of course, but it's fun to imagine.

Color and I have never been friends, even in school. My teachers said I used color 'emotionally' rather than compositionally. I also use too much local color, which is why I often lean towards cel shading rather than do some painting. I'm not entirely happy with it. It's not bad, but not what was in my head. That's the most frustrating part. I can see what I want, but it gets lost in translation. I do like my re-design of the Swinetrek (renamed the Sus Initeris) and I think Lt. Piggy's face comes close to what I wanted coloring-wise.

Things I learned:

- The brush pen is coming along, I think. I'm pretty happy with it.

- taking photos of subjects really helps with figure drawing.

- My drapery is coming along. I found that my guesses were pretty close to what was photographed. Though, I went with what was photographed.

- I'm slowly getting the difference between shape-defining shadows and cast shadows.

I may shoot the original to Sweet Enemy and see if she wants to paint it for fun. Also, this is the first real application of a typeface I made back in '03, dubbed "Spacegirl".

As far as the contest goes, only Rambler and Rambler's Kin have actually said they wanted in. C'mon. I'm not the best, but you can't beat the price! If you want in, just type 'contest' in your comment.

Listening to while posting: "Kissed Me" by the Dresden Dolls

Late night art post

2010-06-20T00:39:00.006-04:00

Here's the latest Page One Hundred Project is "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac (no link needed). This was my favorite book for years after being introduced to it by my good friend, Murray Lopez (not his real name, long story. He's also the guy who I stole the name 'Arkonbey' from, btw). Sure, it's Kerouac and it rambles and is occasionally incoherent, but mostly it's awesome. I think it is much superior and readable than "On the Road"

The hardest part was what to show and what to leave out; I only had one page to work with. I decided on capturing the feeling Ray Smith had of coming home (read text below). Was I successful?

This was done, as I mentioned earlier, in a pale imitation of the style of Michael Cho. I'm certainly not trying to cop on his style. I just love it so much that I had to see if I could, in a small way, think like him. His way of looking at something and seeing it in terms of black, color and negative space is astounding (also, that man can see. Look at this drawing of a small house in Toronto). I'm thinking of shooting him an email to tell him what I've done. To sort of praise him and apologize if copying him offends him.

I learned a lot doing it and came within a few hundred kilometers of getting it right. I enjoy how some moments (the bus, the fourth panel) work and others I find are lacking. I'd originally meant this to have type, but then (after conferring with Sweet Enemy), I decided that since Jack as so wordy, but created subtle narratives, I'd use no words to convey those narratives. It isn't a cop out (as I'm a terrible letterer), but a real decision.

Things I learned:

-This style really needs more forethought in composition. I drew this first to be inked in a clean-line Herge' sort of style. Certain compositions work better depending on the style.

- I'm not afraid of black as much as I was

- I'm liking my brush pen a bit more. I used a surgical glove when pencilling, gouache-ing and inking to prevent any oils from my hands getting on the page. The ink reacts badly to oils, but when the page is clean it fills in areas like velvet.

- I've got to do more people studies as most of my characters have too much of me in them.

- gouache is hard to work with. If I ever work in a style like this again, I'll just do a two-block lino print of the piece instead.

Here we go. First the art (click to enlarge. It works a bit better larger):

And the text:

"...just for fun, and froze my feet and hands standing in dismal country roads in freezing dusk. One good ride took me to a little town and there I just waited around the tiny telegraph office which served as a station, till my bus arrived. Then it was a crowded bus going slowly over the mountains all night long and in the dawn the laborious climb over the Blue Ridge with beautiful timbered country in the snow, then after a while day of stopping and starting, stopping and starting , down out of the mountains into Mount Airy and finally after ages Raleigh where I transferred to my local bus instructed the driver to let me off at the country road that wound three miles through the piney woods to my mother's house in Big Easonburg Woods which is a country crossroad outside Rocky Mount.

He let me off about eight p.m, and I walked the three miles in silent freezing Carolina road of moon, watching a jet plane overhead, her stream drifting across the face of the moon and bisecting the snow circle. It was beautiful to be back East in the snow at Christmastime, the little lights in occasional farm windows, the quiet woods, the piney barrens so naked and d rear, the railroad track that ran off into the gray blue woods towards my dream.

At nine o'clock I was stomping with full pack across my mother's yard and there she was at the white tiled sink in the kitchen, washing her dishes, with a rueful expression waiting for me (I was late), worried I'd never even make it and probably thinking, "Poor Raymond, why does he always have to hitchhike and worry me to death, why isn't he like other men?" And I thought of Japhy as I stood there in the cold yard looking at her: "Why is he so mad abut white tiled sinks and 'kitchen machinery' he calls it? People have good hearts whether or not the live like Dharma Bums. Compassion is the heart of Buddhism." Behind the house was a great pine forest where I would spend all that winter and spring meditating under the trees finding out by myself the truth of all things. I was very happy. I walked around the house and looked at the Christmas tree in the window. A hundred yards down the road the two country stores made a bright warm scene in the otherwise bleak wooded void. I went to the dog house and found old Bob trembling and"

(transcribing that was a royal pain)

Listening to while posting: Sweet Enemy watching a DVD of "All Creatures Great and Small" (still an awesome show0

older art

2010-06-14T20:55:00.005-04:00

Back this winter, I offered free ink commissions for the first five people to comment and ask. Four of five were taken. One went to Snab, one went to a Famous Artist Whom I Admire, one went to an old art school buddy King Ben (which I still have to deliver, btw), and one went to Rambler.

Snab's commission was the hardest and took the longest, Famous' was the most daunting, King Ben's was the most specific and Rambler's request was the most vague:

"...how about something involving tea, yoga, and either a carnival mask, an avocado tree, or a camp/bonfire? Extra points if you can fit in a veiled reference to LotR

How about that?

Well, Rambler's kindly lent the piece back to me to scan for all of you:

I only got the tea, yoga and the campfire, and the LotR refrences aren't in the least veiled, there are two of them.

Also, the Page One Hundred Contest is still going on. Did I mention that shipping is free? What do I have to do to get some comments, post art nearly every single day this past week?

of course, I could post a Green Lantern-A-Day like Rawls (go back and look at his Hulk Month, too)

listening to while posting: "Waking up is hard to do" by +/- (good band, bad name for search engines)

art and music: Sweet Enemy indie music superstar

2010-06-12T12:51:00.010-04:00

I've been working on the "The Dharma Bums" Page One Hundred... page and this song came up on iTunes.

It's a ska version of Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" that I was working on a few years ago. I got stuck on the bridge and it has languished. I wrangled Sweet Enemy into singing on it; she's got a pretty good voice when she wants to use it, which is almost never. (Since I have a horrible singing voice, I think it's like having a Porsche 911 and leaving it in the garage). The classic slightly-bored, slightly-annoyed indie-girl sound isn't an affectation, she really didn't want to do this. She's probably pretty happy that I haven't gotten the bridge worked out yet (the problem is that the bridge is, itself, in a ska/reggae sound and I'm trying to figure out how to make it into a different sound. It's proving elusive.

Here's the unfinished version. It was created in Garage Band. Bass and guitars are by me. The drums were hand-sequenced in Garage Band by me. The voice is Sweet Enemy, of course. Since this is unfinished, the mixing is spotty at best, so don't judge it too harshly.

Also, The Dharma Bums is moving slowly. I've decided to try to emulate one of my favorite artists, Michael Cho. His style is so singular, I had to see if I can think like he does. Look at his work. He is able to think and visualize both positively and negatively at the same time. It's not just about line, or color, or shape, but all at once. He's awesome and I totally acknowledge that I'm copying his style just to see if I can.

One sticking point is that I haven't touched gouache in about a decade, but I'm working hard to remember how to use it. Another is that I discovered (the hard way) that the ink I'm using is not waterproof and bleeds when thinned gouache touches it. Lovely.. What do you guys think?

Panel Two:

Panel Four:

And remember, the Great Page One Hundred Giveaway. Leave a comment on that page or mention 'Page One Hundred Giveaway" on these comments for a chance to win.

Listening to while posting: "Tank!" by Yokko Kano ('Tank' is better known as the 'Cowboy Bebop' theme)

I'm terrible at surprises

2010-06-09T22:28:00.006-04:00

I just can't wait and give them away too soon. I'm selfish that way.

This is a small side project I was sketching out while taking a break from the next Page One Hundred: "The Dharma Bums". Which is finished, pencilled and waiting to be lettered before inking.

In these days when cheesy 80's sci-fi becomes re-imagined, often with harder, more naturalistic edges, I got the wild hair to suggest another re-imagining. It's going to be a full-color fake comic cover when I'm done. I was going to wait to post until it was all colored, but I liked the sketch so much that I wanted to post it before I wrecked it inking.

I thought about using this as the contest for the original Page One Hundred art give-away. But that would have been too easy for people of a certain age so, I'll just use it as part.

The contest is simply to leave a comment. After one week, I'll print out the names, throw them in a hat and pick one at random. The winner will receive their choice of one of the previously completed Page One Hundred pieces or a new one from the book of their choice. If that person can guess the name of the show I'm re-imagining, along with the names of the characters, they get a free smaller crappy drawing of my choice to go with the main prize.

Yay.

(click to enlarge. It looks better bigger)

Lee Sargent asked about my lettering of the previous Page One Hundred. I used the ever old-school Ames Lettering Guide. It's pretty easy to use basically, but hard to use for real. The included directions are cryptic and while there are some videos on YouTube, but they amateur at best. However, even basically, it's easier than measuring and lining with a ruler.

Listening to while posting: "Width of the Circle" by David Bowie

Page 100 Number Two!

2010-06-07T20:51:00.005-04:00

Here's the second of my Page One Hundred Project pieces. Page 100 of "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett.

Learned from this one:

1) I hand-lettered it and while you can read it, it's a bit small. I think a heavier line for the type might help as well. Learning the Alvin lettering guide might also help. The tortoise lettering was done by Sweet Enemy (The tortoise in the fourth panel is stylized on her suggestion as well).

2) Hair. I need to practice light colored hair. I did use a brush to do the hair which is unusual in itself. I usually only use one sort of tool per drawing. This is not a good thing and I'm trying to break the habit.

3) Drapery. I have to get off of my but and draw more drapery.

4) drawing a background separately seemed to work pretty well.

The original text:

Brutha lay on his back among the sails and ropes somewhere under the decking. It was hot, and the air smelled of all air anywhere that has ever come into contact with bilges.

Brutha hadn't eaten all day. Initially he'd been too ill to. Then he just hadn't.

"But being cruel to animals doesn't mean he's a... bad person, " he ventured, the harmonics of his tone suggesting that eve he didn't believe this. It had been quite a small porpoise.

"He turned me on my back," said Om.

Yes, but humans are more important than animals, " said Brutha.

"this is a point of view often expressed by humans," said Om.

"Chapter IX, verse 16 of the book of --" Brutha began.

"Who cares what any book says!" screamed the tortoise.

Brutha was shaken.

"But you never told any of the prophets that people should be kind to animals," he said. "I don't remember anything about that. Not when you were... bigger. You don't want people to be kind to animals because they're animals, you just want people to be kind to animals because one of them might be you."

"That's not a bad idea!"

"Besides, he's been kind to me. He didn't have to be."

"You think that? Is that what you think? Have you looked at the man's mind?"

"Of course I haven't! I don't know how to!"

"You don't?"

"No! Human's can't do--"

Brutha paused. Vorbis seemed to do it. He only had to look at someone to know what wicked thoughts they harbored. And grandmother had been the same.

Whew. This turned out pretty good. Next up is The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

I'm thinking of another give-away to help me grow in my art. Not another free ink drawing to the first five takers like last time but something more contest-y. I haven't got a contest-y thing yet, but I think the prize will be a choice of either one of the Page One Hundred projects already complete, or doing a Page One Hundred of the winner's favorite book (unless, of course, the book is awful).

How's this strike you guys? If even one person expresses interest, I'll come up with a contest. Sound off, people!

Listening to while posting: "Broadripple is Burning" by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's (jeezum. I had to go back twice to get that right)

sorry

2010-05-28T21:52:00.005-04:00

No inking of the next Page 100 Project piece.

What happened was I decided on Tuesday to re-draw some of the panels. Turns out that I didn't notice that I'd measured the height some of the panels and threw off everything. Since I did these panels separately, I didn't notice until I was nearly done pencilling. The recovery process cost me some time.

I have however lettered the dialog for one of the two characters; Sweet Enemy will be doing the other character. Lettering is much harder than drawing, really. The trick is to not try to just write, if you do, you'll get sloppy.

So, to apologize, here's a scan of the oldest drawing I still have. My mother dates it to when I was in first or second grade (back when there was still a "Y" at the end of my first name).

Check it out. You can sort of read that I had written US.A.F on the side of the truck in pencil along with two pencilled riders in the truck. I really dig the driver.

Listening to while posting: "Over the Waterfall" by Michelle Shocked (in my head)

I'm such a tease

2010-05-25T21:54:00.005-04:00

I just finished the initial pencil of my second Page 100 Project piece: Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. I'll be hitting a final pencil Thursday (tomorrow I'm racing my first mountain bike race of the season) and inking Friday. The biggest challenge is that I'm going to be hand-lettering the whole thing and it's chock full of dialog.

Here's a teaser. It's the third panel and I'm really happy with this as I'd never drawn a tortoise before**

See you in the future!

Listening to while posting: A red fox in our woods screaming out his/her territory bark. Sweet Enemy and I were just on our (thankfully second story) deck trying to track the critter through the woods with a MagLite. We caught glimpses of two forward-facing eyes in the trees about ten meters away, but we didn't know exactly what it was until we found this audio clip.

Last Thursday was a black bear trying to climb the deck at 3 a.m. I'd just chased some raccoons off the deck and heard the shuffling. I ran up with the light already to chase raccoons off and looked over the deck to see a big 'ol bear turn his big 'ol bear booty and take off into the woods. I was just slightly taken aback ;)

I love living here.

**It was remarkably hard to find a book on just tortoises. There were books on turtles, sure, but All I found were two pictures of tortoises in a turtle book. Sheesh. Even living for a century in some of the harshest places on Earth doesn't get you your own book?

current project, current news

2010-05-22T21:10:00.005-04:00

Firstly, Sweet Enemy and I are test-driving a new cat. He's a fat gray tom with notched ears and funny light gray stripes. He's very vocal and prone to growling (which means nothing, apparently. He will growl while purring and while bumping you and acting all lovey). He's the cat of SE's cousin and needs a new home as her two boys are having trouble understanding that cats aren't plushies and her husband doesn't like cats**.

He's nervous and hid under the bed most of the day, but seems to be adjusting. A bit. Updates to follow.

Currently, I'm working on Page 100 Project. I first saw this on Drawn and it is the genius idea of artist Jason Turner.

What you do is take a book, open to page 100 and make a comic page of that page. It's a challenge, especially in a dialog-heavy page, or a scene-setting page. I've got three planned. The first is from Sabriel*** an fantastic novel by the inimitable Garth Nix.

Here's the text:

"...of wide, low steps, carved with intricate patterns. Whether they meant something, Sabriel didn't know. They weren't charter marks, or symbols of any language that she knew, and she was too tired to speculate. She concentrated on one step at a time, using her hands to push down on her aching thighs, coughing and gasping, head down to avoid the flying snow.

The path grew steeper still and Sabriel could see the cliff-face ahead, a huge, black, vertical mass, a much darker backdrop to the swirling snow than the clouded sky, palely backlit by the moon. But, she didn't seem to get any closer as the path switchbacked to and fro, rising further and further up from the valley below.

Then, suddenly, Sabriel was there. The path turned again and her little will-0'-the-wisp light reflected back from the wall, a wall that stretched for miles on either side and for hundreds of yards upward. Clearly, these were the Long Cliffs, and the path had ended.

Almost sobbing with relief, Sabriel pushed herself forward to the very base of the cliff, and the little light rose above her head to disclose grey, lichen-veined rock. But even with that light, there was no sign of a door-- nothing but...

Here's the pencil:

Here's the ink. The black background hasn't been put in in real life, yet, but I plan to. I want to have these as actual pieces of art to hang. It should keep me from cutting digital corners as I've done with the previous comics.

The other two I have in the works are Small Gods by Terry Pratchett (this is pencilled, but not inked) and my favorite Keroac novel, The Dharma Bums

More to come!

Listening to while posting: Bernie flopped on the floor behind my chair purring; he's out from under the bed!

**I've never understood disliking cats. I don't own a dog, but I love 'em. I love cats, too. What's wrong with a cat. It's like a vibrating pillow you have to feed occasionally. What's there to dislike? Litter box cleaning maybe, but that could be considered less gross than big piles of poo in the yard (or a dog that pees on his own front feet like my sister's late German Shepherd)

***I'm posting no link. This is because any synopsis would ruin the book. It is so original and non-derivative that any synopsis would make it seem stupid. I will only say that it is a fantasy novel, but I'd be very, very surprised if you've read one like it. I used to sell books and every customer I recommended this book to came back to thank me. Go buy a copy today.

I'm back!

2010-05-13T22:34:00.008-04:00

Well.

I'll admit straight off, that I was reluctant to post over my remembrance of Nabut post. At least not without art to show. So, here we are.

Death of a Friend is done. First, I'd like to thank Andre Zero for the great story. I learned a lot with this piece. The first thing is to buckle down and get the thing done. I mean, a year is wayyyy too long to complete something like this. Aside from the reader's perspective, I think my art changed too much during the process. Also, I rushed bits and I'm not happy with that. I'm sorry, everyone.

The next one will be better and faster, I promise this.

And I don't break promises.

Speaking of the next one: the next one will be a bit late. Andre Zero and Science Girl have moved to Washington D.C. Science Girl got her PhD in Biology (woot!) and now has a job at the N.I.H.. They're still in the process of moving, with Andre Zero flying back and for until August to finish work for his old job. So, he won't have time to write for a while, unless I really cajole him. We're gonna miss those guys and not just because I need a good writer.

I actually helped Science Girl get her PhD by providing some illustrations for her presentation. Check 'em out. Mice and mouse noses!

Speaking of mice, back in Janurary or so, I did a piece of Missile Mouse fanart for Jake Parker. I'm pretty proud of it. What do you think? The poster to his left, I'm really happy with. It's optimized for four-color, full-bleed tabloid screen print just in case...

If you're jonesing for Arkonbey comics, never fear. I've got a small comic for Sweet Enemy in the works and I've got some other comic-related art projects in progress. Right now I'm working on The Page 100 Project based on a cool idea by Jason Turner. You take a book, turn to page 100 and do that page up as a comic page. I've got three different book pages going. One is fully pencilled and two are finalized sketches. Stay tuned.

In other comic news, I'd like to publicly thank Snab and Ladybug for the fantastic and quite surprising gift that arrived at our doorstep last Friday. A largeish box filled with stuff from the Stumptown Comics Fest! Sweet Enemy and I were in comic heaven. And the thought of the sweetness of the gift makes me smile even now.

Thanks Snab.

That's all for now. But, more will follow.

Listening to while posting: "Fire" by the Rebirth Brass Band

Nabut-1995(?) - 11:00 March, 11, 2010

2010-03-11T19:01:00.002-05:00

Not sure how something so small could carve a place in our hearts so large.

We'll miss you, Bug.

DoaF update!

2010-03-07T18:53:00.004-05:00

I'm still working on Snab's commission. I know, I know. But, it's damned hard! Why couldn't you have suggested something easy like Rambler did? What did she ask for?

"how about something involving tea, yoga, and either a carnival mask, an avocado tree, or a camp/bonfire? Extra points if you can fit in a veiled reference to LotR.

Could that be more vague? Too bad I didn't scan it before I delivered it.

I'm still working on it, Snab, don't worry. To placate you, or possibly, to bug you I've updated Death of a Friend. Getting close!

Listening to while posting: Secret Agent Radio on Soma FM

Art!

2010-03-01T20:31:00.005-05:00

This weekend was an art weekend. Man. Turned off the computer, cranked the tunes and drew. I finished my last two commissions; one for Rambler and one for Snab. However, looking at Snab's today, I realize it's just not good enough, so I'm doing it over.

That's just how I roll, baby.

The one for King Ben is done. I'm just waiting on something else I want to send to make an appearance (so I can send both at the same time). The fourth was for a Famous Artist Whose Work I Really Like. There was, of course no pressure involved in that one.

I also finished a piece for a contest called Bearfight!. I heard of it from BT Livermore's blog. There's no money, but if I get accepted, I get into a book and get a free book. I hold very little hope of being accepted, but it would be really awesome. The deadline is March 10th, so I bumped it up to bust it out. Yo.

I'll be working on Snab's commission tonight. I promise! Then, onto Death of a Friend pages 18 and 19.

Listening to while posting: "Ronnie's Racing School" By Glitter Mini Nine

random art and real life problems

2010-02-15T21:50:00.005-05:00

Sorry, but Death of a Friend will be later than I want. I pencilled up the next two pages, but then dealing with our very ill cat took precedence.

She's sort of okay. Her hyperthyroidism is acting up and she may be going blind. It's heartbreaking to watch her pace around as though she's looking for something. She hugs the walls and almost bumps into everything. Word to the wise: If your animal is on meds for a condition and the vet has you giving him/her a pill or med-infused treat, unless your vet tells you DO NOT crumble the treat into the animal's food. Unless that animal is going to scarf up the entire portion, it won't get the recommended dosage and my have a relapse. Like ours did. I feel pretty darn guilty.

Anyway.

Here's a sketch I found while cleaning the house today. It's from a few weeks ago and shows my rendition of a Martian from the Rocco Vargas universe created by my favorite artist Danial Torres. Now, the way that Torres portrays Martians may, at first glance, to seem a bit of a 'minstrel show' look at race. But, I don't think he intended it as racist. He only has a few non-whites in his works, but his universe was intentionally the lily-white 1930's Buck Rogers-style 'future' (the stories take place in 1983 and he wrote them in 1987, get it?). The hero is absurdly masculine with a gigantic chest and lantern jaw, women swoon except for the kick-butt Asian warlord-girl. The most prominent Martian is Samson, Rocco Vargas' servant/valet/sidekick/best friend and their relationship is tighter than worker/boss.

However, it's always easy for us whites to say, "oh, it's all in fun", but I think this is all in fun, or at least tongue in cheek and is neither racist nor misogynist. Have any of you read any Rocco Vargas graphic novels? What do you think.

Anyway, here's the sketches of a Martian girl. I changed the nose to look a bit more alien:

I also remembered that I did an Illustration Friday piece with a Torres Martian girl back in '07. It's here.

listening to while posting: my poor cat stumbling around the room.

Update compromise

2010-02-06T23:16:00.004-05:00

Ok, guys.

I have an idea. I'll post the updates to Death of a Friend incrementally.

However, I will recommend that you wait until I post the final update. If you want to check, by all means, check, and I really hope you like it. But don't blame me if you find the emotional impact is lessened.

I must also ask you, if you comment, don't be a-spoilin'. 'Kay?

Here's the update

Listening to while posting: "Page One" by Lemon Jelly

Process!

2010-02-02T18:23:00.003-05:00

Here's the most recent iteration of the potential collaboration with Sweet Enemy. Some things are working, but some aren't. I'm not entirely happy with with the woman's forward foot and may change it. Her expression has been proving elusive. Most of the time, when trying to get her to be looking down with an affectionate smile, she ends up looking as though she is smiling in that way that people do when they'd rather be somewhere else. I've been re-working the page so much I think it's time to pull out the tracing paper.

I'm also not sure of what to call it now. I thought of a student and teacher, but SE wanted their relationship to be more ambiguous. What do you guys think?

The next two pages of DoaF are ready to go, BUT, I'm debating whether to wait and post the last ten pages all in one go as it's going to be a page-turner. What do you, my loyal readers, want?

Listening to while posting: "Darling, be here" by Bodies of Water

procrastination... of a sort

2010-01-31T23:24:00.003-05:00

I've finished two of the four free ink commissions. One is sent out, the other is waiting on another unrelated object to become available to send to the commissioner. The other two commissions are really hard, so I'm procrastinating. I've pencilled one (and had an inking failure) and sketched a bunch of thumbnails for the other, but still they are not done. I haven't forgotten them, I'm just... a wuss.

I've been procrastinating by doing other art, though.

I've pencilled, inked and half-colored the next two pages of Death of a Friend. It's getting heavy, now with only ten pages left to go!

I've also been trying to collaborate with Sweet Enemy. She and I have tried collaborating a couple of times, but we have differing styles as well as differing talents (she kicks my butt, in other words). She's doing an acrylic underpainting demo for the store she assistant-manages and we thought that I could flesh out a sketch I had lying around for her to use (and eventually make into a painting). I did the original sketch back in December while having a coffee and a muffin at a great local deli.

Tonight, I began working out a larger, tighter version. Here it is in progress; it's on 11" x 15" "green bar" paper*.

I've been doing research and am still deciding on the hair and dress for the teacher. It's going to be a 50s thing, btw.

In other news, the inestimable Becca gave me (and six other creative bloggers) an award!. I have to pass it on to seven others and will do that before the end of the week. Probably when I post the update for DoaF.

Cheers!

Listening to while posting: "Young, Thomas (1773-1829)" by Artichoke from '26 Scientists Volume 2: Newton to Zeno'

* Green bar paper was the most awesome thing of having a dad who was a computer developer back in the '70s and '80s. They would print REAMS of this stuff during compiling and dad would bring it home to draw on. It was cheap as free and most of my art until high school was done on green bar paper. I scored (somewhere) a big box of blank green bar paper and have been using it for the initial work on drawings and Obscure Tales pages (before tracing onto Bristol) for the past two years. I hope I find another box before it runs out...

no art today

2010-01-10T10:51:00.004-05:00

First, Last night, Sweet Enemy, AndreZero and ScienceGirl went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Here's my Three Sentence Review:

It was gritty and naturalistic and only a little steampunk with a single, small nod to future/anachronistic technology

Most of the film was a Guy Ritchie Film, with the cool camerawork and asides that you'd come to expect, but some parts of it looked as though they were done by Standard Film Director #17

I thought that Robert Downey Jr's portrayal of Holmes was more like A.C.D's character than was that of Jeremy Brett

I have been making art, but it's for the free commissions and I won't post an image of a commission until the commissioner receives it and gives me permission to post it. I've also been working on Death of a Friend and doing up some fanart for a little-visited Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane fan blog. Both the commissions and the fanart have forced me to push my abilities rather past my current talent. One of the commissions I had to do four versions in four styles before it turned out how I wanted it to be (read: not sucky). I'll post a link to the Rahne fanart when it's posted, post commissions if I get permission to do so and post the update to DoaF when it's done (we're getting near the end and, if you ask me, AndreZero has done a great story)

Listening to while posting: "Handlebars" by Flobots

update for the heck of it

2009-12-12T16:52:00.003-05:00

I've got a bunch of art-things going on. Three people responded to my free commission offer, I'm working on a collaboration with Sweet Enemy and I'm doing a piece of fan-art for a Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane fan blog that has a call for fan art (it's not a big deal and probably no exposure, but it's an excuse to do a piece of my favoritest New Mutant). I'll post a link and some scans when I've got some stuff done.

I've also finished up a 1/48 Sopwith Camel model for my dad (for xmas) and man, it was hard! I'll do a post on my model blog as soon as I have some photos.

In non-art news, Sweet Enemy and I watched "Hancock" last night. It was at our local library's DVD section and I thought that free was a pretty good price for a movie I had misgivings about. We went into it full of trepidation.

Well, with the exception of the epilogue (which was trite and bothersome on a number of levels), I thought it was a pretty darn good movie. It was a tight, cohesive film that had some pretty good plot twists. Sure, there were some plot holes (where does he get his money? What is his L.A. Backstory? Did he start off as a true hero and fade into a drunk?), but I found these to be forgivable and besides, what superhero films don't have plot holes?

So, in the end, I have to say I recommend it if you haven't seen it.

Listening to while posting: "2112" By Rush

Update and a challenge

2009-12-06T00:54:00.005-05:00

Whew!

Last week, even though between Thanksgiving, nursing the ill Sweet Enemy and then nursing myself from what I caught nursing Sweet Enemy, I found time to pencil the next two pages of Death of a Friend. Tonight, between 8pm and 1am EST I inked, colored and posted the update.

Hope you like it. This update to Death of a Friend is dedicated to Snabulus' Ladybug who was in the hospital a little while back with a potentially life-threatening condition. As far as I know, she's home now and I hope she's doing fine.

Now, the challenge. It's to me actually. I need to stretch myself a bit, artistically and I wonder if a way to do that is to take commissions. Now, I don't think I'm good enough to ask for money, so the first five people to email me will get a FREE black and white ink drawing. The subject can be nearly anything you want that can fit into a 6" x 6" space (anything but: scat, gore, vore, nasty stuff in general. I reserve the right to refuse an idea and ask for another. What do you want? It's free.). I don't know if I'll get five people. Heck, I'll take one person. Five just seemed like a good number

In order to keep a bit of anonymity, and give you a challenge, you have to go to my portfolio to get my email address.

listening to while posting: "Upside-down from Here" by Atom and his Package

Music! Science! Music about science!

2009-11-03T22:25:00.000-05:00

Since one of their songs popped up on Pandora.com, I've been a fan of the band Artichoke.

Their masterpiece is a two-volume CD set called "Twenty-Six Scientists (Anning - Zeno"). It's a collection of musical biographies of scientists both famous and obscure. Each song is different and each song is great. I just got volume two in the mail last week and I'm still listening to it. If you, or someone you know is a scientist or just likes science, you really need this.

To introduce you to the band, and in honor of the upcoming Carl Sagan Day, here's a biography of one of the most famous astronomers of all time

Galileo Galilei

It is the only bad thing about the albums: no Carl Sagan song. Ah well. They've also got a fabulous "kids" album called "26 Animals". Scientifically accurate and damned catchy, it's an album that you wouldn't mind your kids playing over and over.

Listening to while posting: "vulture" by Artichoke

Post Halloween

2009-11-02T22:07:00.005-05:00

The Horror Movie Mini-Fest was a moderate success. Booze and conversation flowed freely and much food and candy were consumed.

KickEnemyMen came up from Maine and stopped in Burlington to visit his childhood friend YogaGirl. He knew we'd want her to come (but would forget to ask her), so he brought her along. Step-Brother-in-Law came with his two puppies (well, young dogs) Kermit and Thumper. We love them, but the cat was... unimpressed. Cranky J, his wife R and little daughter Starbuck (hee!) made a surprise visit and Cranky was happy that he got to see me tipsy.

AndreZero and ScienceGirl came, too. It was going to be a bit of fun because ScienceGirl hates the portrayal of scientists in film and one of the films I got was the fabulous "I'll show them all!"-type scientist film "X- the Man with the X-Ray Eyes".

Also to be had were "THEM!" (still a pretty good film despite the effects. The girl whose family was the fist to die by THEM! was still extraordinarily creepy) and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (not bad either. The effects are not astounding, but you can still feel that they were astounding in the day. The only bad thing was the soliloquy tacked onto the end; but the continuity of the light of the moon shining on the shrinking man was nicely done).

Cranky J, R and Starbuck left just after THEM! as did AndreZero and ScienceGirl (who had to be in the lab the next day). X went in next, but the disc started randomly pausing, so in went TISM. Overall, lots of basic enjoyment of the movie with some ROTFL MST3k moments.

SBiL introduced us all to a drink that is, in a way, like disc golf: it sounds stupid in description, but in reality is a kind of awesome. The drink is a bottle of Guinness in a glass with a shot of butterscotch schnapps. No, really! It is a kind of awesome and a truly great winter drink.

We all stayed up late sobering up. YogaGirl headed home around midnight and then we all hit the rack (SE, the cat and I in our bed, KickEnemyMen on the library futon and SBiL and the puppies on our living room futon). In the morning, all four of us walked down to the local breakfast place, The Flour Shop for the kind of breakfast that keeps you going until about two in the afternoon.

After that, SE had to do some art errands, so KEM and I met YogaGirl in Burlington and we walked around for to or three hours. KEM is a geocacher and we tried to do some finding, but we were 0 for six; who puts urban caches without hints? Sheesh! YG and KEM said goodbye, then back to our house to pack KEM up.

KEM's visits were always short, but I got to give him a cool birthday present: A big bottle of VERY good stout and a VERY tasty bleu cheese (a combo I tried at a beer and cheese pairing at our local natural food store ).

Whew! So a great weekend.

To finish off the party post, here's a shot of SBiL not quite enjoying X with Thumper. She is the cutest Lab mix ever:

Also, last night I posted an update to Death of a Friend!

Listening to while posting: "Zeno of Elea (490bc - 430bc)" by Artichoke

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T09:08:00.005-04:00

Here's a song for Halloween brought to you by Arkonbey (with a little help from Dame Agatha Christie, David Suchet and Apple's Garage Band ™)

Under The Sun (31 Oct 2009 0031 EST)

listening to while posting: "Under The Sun" by Arkonbey

a drawing!

2009-10-25T22:49:00.006-04:00

I've mentioned before about Jake Parker's "Inktober" and how much it has been both inspiring and daunting me. So, I grabbed a brush pen and tried to do a finished work (which is something I haven't actually done in a long time, what with Obscure Tales and all). I also wanted to try to use lots of black. I'm afraid of black, it seems and Jake's lack of fear of black has forced me to address this deficit.

The subject you may recognize as the model I scratchbuilt from a giant Easter egg.

I drew it how I wanted to build it: in a diorama with an open front hatch, a fairing over the leg hinges and a figure with binoculars. But, the terrible plastic of the egg and the lack of winter-clad 1/48 scale figures shot this down.

The drawing itself was drawn with red lead (straight, with no graphite pencilling; I'm inordinately proud of this) and inked with a Pigma brush pen and done rather large. I didn't do anything in Photoshop other than blowing out the pencils and resizing.

I know, I should be working on Death of a Friend. I am, I just had to do this.

I do wonder if Jake would be creeped out or flattered that effect his Inktober drawings are having on me. I'd also wonder how he'd do a pair of daytime moons with just a brush pen. I could not figure that out...

Listening to while posting: "They Got Lost" by They Might Be Giants

DoaF update!

2009-10-18T20:08:00.003-04:00

I said Sunday posting, and I deliver! That's just the kind of guy I am.

Death of a Friend

Bought a Pigma brush pen. Jake Parker's "Inktober" has inspired me to get one. That and Jake mentioned that my rabbit girl and guy drawings had more life than any other stuff I've posted yet. That was with another brush pen that I found harder to control; the Pigma may be easier. Though, I wonder if I should use the hard to control one and relinquish some control...

Listening to while posting: Selected Shorts on Vermont Public Radio

Egg-cellent

2009-10-15T21:51:00.003-04:00

The next installment of Death of a Friend is pencilled and one of two pages are inked. I'm shooting for a Sunday posting.

In other news, I won an award.

Listening to while posting: harpsichord music blasting on Vermont Public Radio blasting from upstairs

Quickie Post

2009-10-09T18:35:00.005-04:00

Inspired by Jake Parker's "Inktober" (a whole month of ink drawings, with pen, brush and brush-pen), I grabbed the Pentel brush-pen that Sweet Enemy got for me last year. I remember not liking it, which is why it sat in my caddy since then.

I find that still really don't like it; I don't hate it, but it won't be my weapon of choice. It is temperamental, dispensing heavy ink or ink so light the lines look like the printing on the faux-distressed shirts from A & F. The point also doesn't behave. It is VERY pointy, but holds little ink. While the belly is very thick and only gives up ink to the point grudgingly.

Ah, well. I'm still looking for the magical tool, I suppose.

Here's the offering. Sort of based on a light-hearted, rather romantic comic I drew for SE years ago and may revisit (especially after the grim Ghost of Delilah Gray:

Listening to while posting: The sound of the lentil/vegetable stew I made last night bubbling in the kitchen.

24 Hour Comic Day: Part Three

2009-10-07T18:30:00.003-04:00

Well.

My comic for 09 is posted and I'd like to talk about it for a bit.

The artwork: with 24 Hour Comic Day I didn't expect to create an artistic masterpiece, but this time... You know when a kid draws something, a fire truck or an X-wing? They really think they're drawing what they want to draw, but little do they know how far off they were. That's what this year's comic was like, only less endearing. I look at it now and recognize what I meant to do, but missed the mark on. Ah well. (Sweet Enemy just told me that last year I did half-letter and this year I did full-letter size. Hmm.)

The story: This year's story is pretty good. But, it's bleak and dark. Probably the darkest thing I've written and I don't know why. I don't feel dark and bleak. I blame The Decemberists. Sweet Enemy and I saw them live the week before last (awesome show) and they write the bleakest, yet catchiest songs. I mean between Leslie Ann Levine, Yankee Bayonette and Eli the Barrow Boy is it any wonder I made a bleak science fiction tale called The Ghost of Delilah Gray?

I did un-bleak the ending just a bit by changing three words. SE thought it diminished it, but I felt that I'd let my character down a bit. Like Londo Mollari¹, my character deserved better. I'm a softie.

The process: I came in cold, even if not thinking of a story the week before is like not thinking of a pink elephant. Some folks came in with an idea or even with character turn-arounds, but I feel that is against the spirit of the thing. So, I rummaged around a House of Ideas (or bowl filled with pieces of paper with story seeds on them) I'd made for everyone at the event and came up with The Ghost of Delilah Gray. Then I went through my stock photo catalogs² and found this image and HAD to do something with it:

Then about a half-hour of brain storming. I went through three ideas before I hit on the one I used. Then an hour of thumbnailing and a half hour of "production design". Then, for the next ten hours, I pencilled. I worked in red and blue as an experiment; erasing twenty-four pages is a pain. I finished pencilling all twenty-four pages by midnight and started inking. A forty-five minute nap around three a.m. then back to the paper. By the end my hand was cramping. Badly.

The Aftermath:The good part was that, with the exception of my Saturday morning coffee (a usual) I took no stimulants the entire time, just food, water and o.j. That meant an easier come-down.

What I'll do different next year. First, I'll do a happier story dammit! Last year's wasn't super-bleak, but it wasn't a laugh riot either. Secondly, I'll work with bigger lines, maybe use that brush pen that Sweet Enemy got for me last year. Thirdly, I'll ease up on the words this time. Lettering is painful. Painful to do and painful for others to have to read my printing.

Due to obscurius.org space issues, I had to post on my flickr account. I also put up last year's 24HCD entry and a MiddleMan contest entry from 2007

The Ghost of Delilah Gray (24 Hour Comic Day 2009)

Redemption (24 Hour Comic Day 2008)

MiddleMan and Wendy (Viper Comics contest 2007)

listening to while posting: "Poor Little Rich Boy" by Regina Spektor

¹ I think that Londo regretted his actions and tried hard to redeem himself. He didn't deserve reward, but he certainly didn't deserve to be tortured for the rest of his life with a mind-controlling parasite stuck on his neck
² Anybody out there looking for inspiration for a face or a body or a story could do worse than to order a catalog from Veer. They have some gorgeous stock photography that really makes me wish I was not an in-house designer and some call to use it.

24 Hour Comic Day: Part two

2009-10-06T23:09:00.002-04:00

Just an informational post. After working on an Obscure Tales Annex website, I found that I don't have enough space on Obscurius.org (mostly due to Obscure Tales). With no more room, I had to put it on my Flickr photostream along with my 24 Hr. Comic Day 2008 entry.

Too tired to do a post about it (it's me, I have to talk about it first), so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

pax!

24 Hour Comics Day

2009-10-04T19:29:00.005-04:00

Is over

I took many self-portraits during the night. This is the one just after I finished my 24th page at 8:45 am on Sunday Oct 4th (22.75 hrs in).

Will post the comic soon.

Listening to while posting: "Istanbul not Constantinople" by TMBG; playing in my head.

Posters!

2009-09-23T23:04:00.004-04:00

It's Twenty-Four Hour Comics Day time again and time for a new poster. Sweet Enemy and I let this creep up on us, so this one was a bit rushed. It was decided that this was B/W only. Ah well, It's not too bad. Typography by me, illustrations by Sweet Enemy:

It's also time for our third annual Horror Movie Mini-Fest. When we were house hunting in July '07, I decided, for some reason, that we should have our house before that Halloween and then we'd have a Halloween horror movie party. You know what? We did!

The first year was nearly a disaster with a broken DVD player (luckily, my buddy Kick Enemy Men had just that morning bought a new powerbook, so we fired it up and all sat on the floor watching the computer. The second year was a bit better with a pretty good crowd, including a 1.5 year old girl who sat on the coffee table facing us with The Evil Dead 2 playing behind her.

Here's this year's poster. Let me know if you're coming over.

Listening to while posting: "The Big Fight" by Stars

Other People's Art

2009-09-19T10:23:00.003-04:00

Lee, on the others side of the world at Quit Your Day Job has been cranking out some really nice super hero and comic-based artwork for a while now. I think he only got back into it fairly recently, but his work is really nice and seems to be getting better with each post.

A while back he did a three-part series called Coffee and Capes featuring home-made super heroes and their coffee drinks of choice. One of them caught my imagination and I asked Lee if I could draw my own vision of it (this is what I'm good at. If I see a good idea, I like to try to go off on it. Not so much stealing as... hunting and gathering).

He gave me permission and I went for it. I emailed it to him to see what he thought and ask permission to post it (it was his idea, after all). He liked it, so here it is:

So, go check out Lee's words and pictures.

Listening to while posting: Car Talk (every Saturday at 10am on Vermont Public Radio

short post

2009-09-18T16:06:00.001-04:00

If anyone cares, I've updated my scale modeling blog with a large-ish post about a scratchbuilt sci-fi thing I'm working on.

That is all.

Listening to while posting: "Mile High" by Morphine

Obscure Tales Update

2009-09-13T23:58:00.005-04:00

Obscure Tales 06: Death of a Friend has updated !

Yay!

These pages were a sort of pain. A decent amount of work went into them but while they felt like the pencilled well and inked well, when I finally scanned and colored them, they disappointed me. Mostly because Missile Mouse was going through my head while I drew them and when I was done I was rather shocked to see it looked nothing like Missle Mouse.To be sure, I planned on this comic using flat colors, but something is missing. I wanted to scrap the whole thing and do it again.

However, I made a promise to myself to look back and learn, but to never re-work a page to death. So... Until I get to a place where I'm happy, the show goes on and I can only hope to improve as I go. The main thing is I think I'm rushing. I'll try to remedy that.

DoaF is really fun to do, though. I'm learning a great deal, especially about the interactions of different characters in space and wordless storytelling (curse you and your story experiments, AndreZero!).

To lighten the mood, I'll share a little known fact about Arkonbey. When he is slightly frustrated (for instance, if he gets everything out to the car in the morning, but then realizes he's forgotten his car key in the house and has to go back in), he will say the phrase: "Ah, Bugf--ker!". Try it yourself! It's a rather satisfying expletive for light to moderate use.

Listening to while posting: "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses

Sweet Enemy Rules!

2009-09-02T22:25:00.006-04:00

Here's another example of why my wife is awesome. It's also an example of why I 'hate' her. You see her creativity knows very few bounds while mine... does know bounds. My birthday was recent and she made me this card.

Cover:

Inside:

Sure, you might say, it's a nice card, but what's so darn special about it? You can't see in in the previous image, but check it out: it's a dang pop-up card! Woot!

On the evening of my birthday, SE had gone to bed just before me. A little while later, I walked into our bedroom to find these two:

Awww. Both completely asleep. I got three shots and neither of them moved.

She's also got an Etsy store. I hasn't got anything in it yet, but keep looking!

Listening to while posting: "Man on the Flying Trapeeze" by Spike Jones and his City Slickers ("Noodles, did you leave home? Sure, I left home. Did you put the cat out? I didn't know he was on fire!")

Death of a Friend Update!

2009-08-24T20:31:00.003-04:00

I've added two more pages to DoaT. I'd like to promise regularity, but... let's just say there's a reason I don't have one of those PayPal whoosits on the site.

I recommend starting one page earlier on page five. I added a single sound balloon to the last panel. It doesn't seem like much, but the first panel of page six won't make much sense without it.

Enjoy, please!

Listening to while posting: Some song by Goldfrapp. It sounds like it should be about sex like every other Goldfrapp song

Why am I doing this again?

2009-08-14T15:21:00.003-04:00

Not sure why I'm doing this blogging thing. I'll probably still post updates for Obscure Tales, but other than that, who cares?

Meep Meep

2009-08-08T08:51:00.003-04:00

Let's set the scene. We live in a house, on a hill, in the woods, on a dirt road in a semi-rural area. There are houses around within sight, but separated by trees; its a quiet, relaxed place to live. Last night about one a.m. Sweet Enemy and I were awakened by the blaring of a horn. At first we thought it might be a car alarm, but it didn't have that insistent feel. This was different. The blasts were rhythmic, but not perfectly even with long blasts and equally long pauses between them.

Now, where we live is almost silent, especially in the summer when the trees are leafed, so this was odd as well as annoying. After about five minutes I decided to investigate. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my maglite and went outside. I determined that it was coming from the next house down the hill, a house about 50m away that's owned by a deaf guy. Well, that would explain it, I thought.

I trudged down the hill in the moonlight wondering what I was actually going to do when I got to the house (I was also wondering why his neighbor hadn't come over yet. The horn must have been maddening at that distance). I could only hope that the guy had one of those doorbells with a flashing light, otherwise we were going to be treated to a car horn contata until the battery ran down. As I got up to the cars in the driveway, I found the source of the horn, a minivan with Georgia plates and it's lights on. I had a feeling I should look in the car to see if there was anybody in there.

And there was!

Ok. Here we go, I thought. I walked up to the blaring minivan and, against all reason, pounded on the window. I paused for a moment to reflect on my stupidity, then looked in. Slumped against the steering wheel, with his face on the horn was an adult male. I took a breath, opened the door and touched the guy on his shoulder. He awakened instantly and sat up; the horn blessedly stopped. He was confused, but not overly so and there was no smell of alcohol at all. I mouthed "are you okay" to him. He smiled and nodded. I asked again, he replied in the affirmative, then we traded thumbs-ups and I walked back to our house.

It had been the movement of his head while breathing in sleep that had caused the rhythmic horn blasts. SE and I speculated for a while as to why he was sleeping in his car, but in the long run, it doesn't matter.

photographs!

2009-08-02T22:14:00.007-04:00

I took a pile of film to get processed the other day. A bunch of stuff from Old Rhinebeck, but not much different than my dad's really, but here are a few.

Old Rhinebeck's founder, James Henry “Cole” Palen's first full-scale replica plane he built a Fokker Dr.I Dreidecker . Since nearly all WW 1 aircraft on all sides were painted in the pilot's individual colors, Palen decided to do the same (open image in new window for larger version):

Sweet Enemy asked the reason for this image and I thought it was a mixture of two things. Palen was probably told he'd get the replica finished when pigs fly and so he was painting a flying pig and telling the doubters to kiss his a$$ at the same time.

I took some artsy photos of aircraft parts. Here's a rotary engine close up:

And here's a picture I really like, if I do say so myself. It's my dad in one of the Old Rhinebeck Museum hangers:

There were, of course, a bunch of non-Rhinebeck images. Here are two from the wooded park down the street from our house.

And here's a girl I saw in downtown Burlington. I just HAD to take her picture. I cropped it to a square as that is how I plan to mat it if I print it.

Well, we're pooped. We just got back from a fantastic weekend at Sweet Enemy's family-in-law's "camp" (that's what Upstate New Yorkers call a "cabin/summer house on the lake". It's a great place. Truly cozy and full of wonderful people. It was the old arts and crafts building from a Catholic summer camp that was active in the 1930's. It's been in the family-in-law's family for decades and SE and I really appreciate their hospitality. There may be some pics of this trip in the future (I would post a link to Google Maps, but the resolution is pretty awful)

listening to while posting: nothing. Don't want to disturb SE. She's in bed and I'm going to sleep, too.

Four day weekend!

2009-07-28T20:53:00.014-04:00

Lots of pictures in this one, so you can skip the words if you want. All photos by Spike (my dad).

I took Friday off and drove to Massachusetts to hang with my dad. I spent Friday with a mountain bike ride and then a fun time hanging out with my two-year-old niece. She's very vocal with a strangely large vocabulary.

Our main purpose was to visit the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome about 125 miles west in NY state and we left on Saturday Morning. The drive was okay, being mostly highway; as we were just driving and not motorcycling, we opted against a weekend with a longer, more scenic drive on back roads.

I can't really do the ORA justice. It's a perfect mixture of the cool and the cheesy. It's part museum, part airshow and part performance art. They have hangers full of planes and fly many of them. They also stage funny skits such as a 'convict', complete with striped suit, is chased by Keystone Kops to the end of the runway where he (or a dummy in the same suit) hitches a ride on a waiting plane. However, he falls off on take off plummeting to the ground. When the Kops arrive, and park near the body, it turns out he's okay and still struggling to escape. He's carted away, crying that he'll be back. The best part of the skits is that they are performed by high school and college age kids all of whom seemed to be having an absolute blast running around in period costume driving 80-year-old cars and trucks.

Anyway, we arrived early and spent a lot of time looking at the displayed aircfraft and wandering the museum hangers. This place has been around for nearly fifty years and they have more aircraft and cars than they can afford to refurbish. But, what they have is astounding. Not just the famous aircraft, but every kind of aircraft. Trainers, warplanes, civil, and mail planes. All from before WW2.

I'll just start with the highlight of the show, the Bleriot XI. This plane is only one of two original aircraft still in flyable condition. Just look at it and imagine flying this across 350 miles of ocean across the English Channel:

Did I mention that it's still flyable? A few feet of height and a few dozen meters of distance man not seem like much, but this is an original aircraft that was built in 1909!

Also on hand was a replica built in 1975 from original plans. It looks like something that Steampunk Batman would fly:

It also flew, but only to the height that the Bleriot did. But just look at how exposed the pilot is! How much would you want to fly a 90-year old design with only wing warping for control and a 30 hp engine for power?

Also on display (and flying Sundays) was an Albatros D.III. A warplane that looks as good as a piece of fine furniture.

The museum hangers held many wonderful things including a home-made ice boat thing made from a horse-drawn sleigh and an aircraft engine:

and, hanging from the curved ceiling/walls, over a dozen huge (at least five feet tall) paintings that were dated from 1969. There were very well done, but some were getting a bit eaten (see the left bottom):

and, in one glass case with some models, was the most awesome pulp magazine cover EVER.

A man-faced tiger leaping from one aircraft to another? How could that not be awesome. I wish I could read it.

We left six hours later, happy but hungry. Had to avoid trying to find a restaurant in the nearby town due to an immanent parade and drive for another hour before we found a place that was not sketch (the one we found was remarkably good, with a big menu of good food that was very well presented for a middle-of-nowwhere family restaurant).

Then at home, my dad and I drank Guinnes and watched Flesh for Frankenstein a singularly bad/good film that truly must be seen be believed. If Sam Rami didn't see this film as a youth, I'd be surprised.

A long, nice drive home on Sunday. Brought Sweet Enemy some sweet corn and some pizza.

Monday, not much of anything. Hung out. Read in the sun. Went trail running shoe shopping, scored some old Matchbox cars from a free box in downtown Burlington then hit the bookstore to grab sweet enemy her own copies of her new favorite series.

Whew!

That is all!

Arkonbey out

whew!

2009-07-21T20:14:00.005-04:00

Well. That was a long time, wasn't it. I've been relatively busy. Work was hectic, had a week of 9+ hour days including one 11 hr day; we had a big demo and lots of presentations to get ready to show a client. What's nice is my boss and everyone in marketing I did stuff for was very appreciative and weren't shy about tell me. Embarrassing, but good.

On the home front, I've been working on Death of a Friend. I've posted five pages. Had to get some momentum going before I let you all know it was moving. I've done some code cleaning to the website, but nothing you'd notice, really (except now the pages don't jump when you re-size the browser window).

I've also been trying to do some fan art for P.S. 238. Actually, I'm doing it for two reasons. First as a thank-you for Aaron Williams making such a great comic. Secondly, to ease the blow when I write him to tell him that he's used 'dampen' and 'dampener' when he meant 'damp' and 'damper'. For a guy who often makes blog typos, I'm a stickler for grammar.

I'm also working on models and as soon as I find the long-missing digital camera, I'll post some photos.

Outside, it's wet, but our garden is doing okay. Most of the beans have survived the Slug Onslaught, though the squash were decimated. The radishes are coming up, and we have some tomatoes. Our peas were planted late and are only about two feet high now. Ah, well.

And, the big news is that, after many many times of missing or failing at Becca's movie quizes, I actually won with a tie! Yee! The funniest part? It was for quotes from the Harry Potter films, and since I've only seen one and three, I went with what I remembered from the books. I won't be getting the Movie Master anytime soon, but here's my award:

Well. I've got plans for updates. A movie review for the best indie movie you've never heard of, Arkonbey's Rule of Three for sports enthusiasts, and a description of the Adventure of the 4th of July Plans Gone Awry, but Working Out Great Just the Same.

Listening to while posting: Blue Monday by New Order (Eighties Goodness!)

Strangers in a Strange Land

2009-06-14T20:12:00.002-04:00

Sweet Enemy and I went to a friend's wedding on Long Island this weekend. JT is an good friend we don't see as often as we'd like to, so when we got the invite, we had to drive down and attend. The drive was about six and a half hours long and wasn't too bad until we hit the junction of I91 ad I95 in NY. Then it was alternating between "NASCAR" and "Crawl". Very strange.

JT mentioned on Facebook that Long Island was surreal, and he was right. Here we were, in sight of NYC and the place looks like Ann Arbor, MI; trees and small houses. Trees. Weird. The most surreal thing to me was the little things that reminded us that we weren't in Ann Arbor. The Aston Martin dealer was one and the fact that there didn't seem to be any stores that weren't high-end retail, even in strip malls was another. The one that cracked us up was that the smallest amount of money you could withdraw from an ATM was $40. Up here in VT, it's $20.

We stayed at a small motel that was lower end, but very clean with a remarkably comfortable bed. We couldn't afford the $185 'discount' rate at the upper end hotel where the wedding was held. We arrived about three hours before zero hour and lay on the bed, chilling and watching NCIS (our tv won't get CBS since the digital switch, so for me it was a treat).

The wedding was interesting. We arrived at what we thought was the dinner. We assumed this because of the rather vast amount of food present. It was all hors d'oeuvre -y food, but the amount was truly vast. The only thing that weirded us out was the fact that we were supposed to be at table seven but none of the tables had numbers. JT arrived later and explained that this was 'cocktails' and then came 'dinner', then the ceremony, then the partying. He also forced us (well, me) to mingle by introducing us around to his and his fiance's (now wife) friends.

They were, of course, cool and interesting as was JT's dad. He was the second funnies dancer on the floor.

<>The coolness of the people led to a revelation of sorts. I don't like meeting strangers much anymore and I wondered why. I believe now it is because they might turn out to be cool and I'll never see them again. Lately, I've been feeling that stuff is too fleeting and I want to hold onto it. Whether it's cool people at a wedding, or the nice folks at that small library book sale I randomly stopped at on a road trip last weekend, or that really nice diner SE and I ate at today, I want to have my cake and eat it too and to have things and people I enjoy sort of be available for enjoyment forever.. Feeling mortal much, Arkonbey?<>

The ceremony was sweet. The betrothed were already legally married, but they stood and the bride's best friend gave a heartfelt speech about how well JT and wife got along. Then a rabbi did a blessing and cutting of a loaf of bread. It was rather funny. He gave the blessing in Hebrew, cut the bread, put down the knife, paused and said "well, that's it for that". Then the bride's dad gave what was the funniest father-of-the-bride speech I'd ever heard. Then the eating (good food! much food!) and a jazz band (good music. LOUD music) and yelling at each other across the table. Then the couples with kids with sitters began to filter out and things died down. I brought out my Yashica TLR (much to the joy and distraction of the photo-nerd pro photographer; he gave me some great advice) to try to get one or two shots of the happy couple; we'll see how that works out. Then the band closed down and after lots of hugging and the realization that, now teaching at Emery, I won't see JT for a very long time we left.

We got back to the motel at 1233 am and watched ST:TOS until 1:30 (have I mentioned how lucky I am to have a nerdy, but cute wife?). The bed, as mentioned, was remarkably comfortable and we slept pretty well. Up at 7:30 and leaving at 8:30 to beat the traffic, we took some wrong turns and ended up near this interesting-looking museum that unfortunately didn't open until 11 (dammit!).

Eventually, we found our way out of LI and on the road. Stopped at the diner in MA for some tasty, hearty, not expensive food served by harried, but very friendly people. SE took a short nap while I read Heinlein; she wanted to be rested for her turn at driving. I took the opportunity to sleep for an entire hour on the way up. My USCG experience gave me the ability to sleep anywhere at any time.

So, back home. Made a cherry soda/vanilla ice cream float, mowed the lawn, then we sat around the living room with all the doors and windows open reading and listening to the birds yelling at each other around the forest.

So. That was our weekend, how was yours?

my plan is underway

2009-05-12T18:46:00.003-04:00

My plan to eventually turn my little niece into a mountain biker! Muahahahaha!

I half-joke. I bought her a Strider running bike back in October and now she's finally using it. She's as cute as a two-year-old usually is.

Riding my bike from Jessica Flanders on Vimeo.

In all seriousness, even if she were my daughter, I wouldn't push her. It'd be fun, though. It'd give her an excuse to visit.

Now he tells me?

2009-05-07T18:14:00.003-04:00

In his comments to the previous post, Dean Wormer said that books and magazines were okay, but that comics don't belong in the bathroom.

Oops.

I literally just checked and removed from the 'littlest room' the following items:

Flight volumes 3,4, and 5; Flight Explorer, PS238 #18 and #38, and Asterix the Legionary

Thanks, Dean! We averted a disaster there.

listening to while posting: "Cyborg Control" by Man, or Astroman?

small story

2009-05-04T20:36:00.005-04:00

Got back from a good ride and asked Sweet Enemy if there was any mail for me. She mentioned the Discover bill and the bill for hosting Obscurius. When I grumbled at the not-goodness of the mail, she went "oh! There's this!" and handed me this month's Bike Magazine (which, believe it or not, she reads even though I can't get her to ride with me).

As I headed downstairs to change, she handed me the magazine.

"Don't forget to put this in the bathroom, for perusal later."

I gave her a mock-incredulous look.

"Well, you know that's where it goes!" she replied as she turned away

listening to while posting: "Bagman's Dilemma" by the Decemberists

Obscure Tales addendum

2009-04-29T20:40:00.005-04:00

Here are the first character sheets I sent to AndreZero. The character on the cover first appears here. AZ had done a sorta story way back, but two weekends ago we were at dinner and I told him I needed a story. He thought that the robo-medic story could be resurrected. I agreed and drew up a character sheet so that it might help inspire him.

They show as much of the robo-medics mechanisms as I could think of. I'm no Jake Parker, but it's not bad for me.

And, if any of you out there who know my real name care to know, I'm now on Facebook. I'm not sure why. I've got my own URL, a blog. I tweet and now Facebook. What is wrong with me?

Listening to while posting: listening for the sound of Sweet Enemy's car. She's gone to visit a friend who's feeling very down. Have I mentioned what an awesome person she is?

Obscure Tales Rides Again

2009-04-28T20:07:00.004-04:00

AndreZero just sent me a new script for Obscure Tales issue six: "Death of a Friend".

I'm also testing out a new logo. Let me know what you think, please.

listening to while posting: "Walking for Two Hours" by The Twilight Sad

The Post with No Name

2009-04-24T20:43:00.010-04:00

First: Hey, Star Trek nerds! You know who you are! Go here and listen to this. It will prove to be cool later, trust me.

Secondly, I've been tagged with a sort of reward by the inestimable Dean Wormer. It means a lot to me, given the company he keeps. I shall treasure it always. Here it is, isn't it a thing of utter beauty?

Rules:
1.You must brag about the award (done)
2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger (done and done)
3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design
4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.

Last two are tough. This is the Blog Where Tags Go To Die. The people I get tagged by have more readers and invariably tag all the blogs I read. Hmm. Try these

a. Plaid Stallions (for those who grew up in the 1970s)

b. Polite Dissent (comic reviews with a medical perspective)

c. Jake Parker's blog (best robot drawings. ever)

d. Les McClane's blog (not well designed, but dang! can that guy draw!)

e. Dutchnid (Just a random guy from the Netherlands. Takes good photos, paints minis and posts recipes for really tasty Dutch baked goods).

f. Quit Your Day Job (An Australian comic nerd and artist. Fun stuff!)

g. last, but not least Becca (she has one already, I think, but it's such a good blog...)

5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.Then pass it on with the instructions

Here we go:

1. I have twice accidentally nearly killed my sister. Once with a bicycle and once with bees. Both times I ran away. We've talked about it many times and she's okay with it and is all about letting me be the Cool Uncle™

2. I pretty much never, ever lie. If I have to, to protect someone's feelings, say, I feel weird for a long time afterwards

3. Mountain biking is as good as sex to me. A good ride will dissipate horniness. Also, I could ride with the hottest chick ever and it wouldn't matter; only the ride would matter (Notice how I did not give a preference, sex and riding are separate and equal)

4. The wind roars like a freight train around our house in bad weather and when it does I am close to panic when the trees wave like wheat.

5. I really hate my body. I'm in better shape now than in high school, but I still hate it. Of course, I was a Fat Kid™ then...

6. I am no good with hints. Back in college, Sweet Enemy started our dating process by basically grabbing me and kissing me after ignoring many, many, many hints.

7. I'm blowing off an old friend right now because that they are too needy and won't help themselves.

8. I enjoy being better than people at things. I won't ever rub their faces in it, but I will smile inside.

9. I feel really bad that my friend Mokie didn't come out for our apres wedding party. I haven't seen him in a decade and I think things have faded and that really bugs me

10. After reading this book I'd really like to try pot. In brownies, 'cause I hate smoking.

Thirdly: AndreZero is writing a new Obscure Tales story right now. I'll have a cover teaser up soon.

listening to while posting. Hmm. Nothing.

minor update: life in Northern New England

2009-04-05T11:12:00.002-04:00

The old joke is true. We waited a minute and this is what we woke up to this morning:

This is last week:

This is how Sweet Enemy looks as of 1030 hrs EST. A couch, a woodstove, a blanket, a cat and a new Terry Pratchett Book = Heaven:

pax!

Obscure Tales Update!

2009-04-03T23:39:00.004-04:00

Hey, there!

Because it was only four pages, I've posted the whole thing at once.

It worked pretty good, if I do say so myself. I've tried an entirely new inking and coloring style. Let me know what you think of it.

It's an expansion of a one-pager I did for Illustration Friday two years ago today. I When I did it I thought it was pretty good, but now that I look at it... 'ewww' is too weak a word. I still like the story, obviously, but the art? Ewww. If you feel like looking at 'ewww', here you go.

Also, Swinebread mentioned that he wasn't sold on the Obscure Tales logo. I do have some concerns myslef, but I'd like to know what you all think. Should I change the OT logo and what, if anything, would you like to see in it?
listening to while posting: "He Lied About death" by Stars