fan art!

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.

Happy Coast Guard Day!

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.

no art today

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

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


2. 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


3. 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