Whoops!

Totally forgot to post the Big Beautiful Wonder Woman-a-month for March! I did post it on my Deviant Art page but not here. Sheesh.



This is something I've wanted to do for a while. The whole concept of WW's invisible jet as a bunch of white lines or, in the case of Darwyn Cooke, absolutely nothing really bugged me.

If it were totally invisible how could she actually find the dang thing on the tarmac let alone control the engines with the invisible levers or even see her altitude on the invisible flight instruments.

I figured that the SKIN of the invisible jet could be invisible and ended up with this image of BBWW getting ready for a flight.

Her costume was fun to design as it's a Wonder Woman-ed version of 1950's pilot gear The jet that you only see parts of is a bit of an inside aviation joke. It's an invisible T-33 Shooting Star, a 1950's jet that had a notoriously small cockpit that even average sized men had trouble getting into and out of, let alone BBWW. Of course, it had to be a two-seater so she could cart Maj. Trevor around.

The main image is hand inked and digitally colored while the background is totally vectored. The only thing I couldn't work out is how the shadows of the invisible jet parts would work so I copped out and didn't do them.

In other news, I've started full-time at Earl's Bikes. It was my favorite store before applied there and now that I work there and know the people better, it's easily the best bike store I know. I'm in the service department mostly with a little bit of time on the floor. I worked the floor last summer there part time and was asked by the owner to come back full time. Very little hesitation with 'yes'.

Cheers!

listening to while posting: nothing. I've shut everything down and then realized I needed to post.

ENJP 2011!

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 ;)

more USCG-ish stuff

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.

Four day weekend!

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

comic review!

So, unlike Swinebread or Dave, I don't review comics. This is mostly because I am NOT a writer. However, I picked up a comic because Swinebread mentioned it and I'd like to share a little of what I thought. That comic is War is Hell.

First off, let me say that I like it, I will buy the rest of the series and I would recommend it so far. I do, however have some slight problems with the art.

I guess I'm spoiled. My heyday of comics was Bill Sienciewicz doing the New Mutants and Art Adams doing all sorts of stuff (including the great New Mutants annual that took place in Asgard); as I began to fall out of mainstream comics, Alan Davis was a parachute and nobody can stop being a Groo fan. For the past few years, it's been mostly small press monthlies and TPBs and European small-press and creator-owned comics. These latter have longer deadlines than the monthlies, so the art is usually more involved.

The art in War is Hell, is overall, quite good. The layout is exceptional and as a result the story moves along at a nice pace. It starts out cinematically with a close-up of a pilot in a biplane cockpit that, on the next page, opens up to this:



That's a sweet splash page, huh? The dynamism in this, especially after the quiet moment a page before is great. I was really impressed with the Sienciewicz-esque smoke/flame effects.

The figures are well done and the faces have a nice semi-caricature European style to them:



But, the rushed nature of the monthly dealines really shows sometimes. For some reason, this really bugs, me. Probably because the details and care put into the aircraft. Just tell me, what is up with the ground crew's coveralls?



Are they local French mechanics who just got back from a Cirque de Soleil rehersal? Having to work fast is one thing, but this is just stupid. It's not just in this panel, but I don't feel like scanning all of the others to make a point.

All in all, as I said, a good mag. The story moves well and I really want to see what happens. It just makes me wish that It could have been a six-months of work graphic novel.

So, because I harshed on someone else's artowrk, harsh on mine. I've been hitting Jake Parker's website for a while and his really cool 'industrial designs' have inspired me to sit down and really make a big machine picture. Here's the Westland Skua, a ground attack/reconnaissance autogryo flown by the RNZAF in 1940*.





Listening to while posting: Venus, Bringer of Peace by Gustav Holst from 'The Planets' symphony.

*Don't bother looking it up, I made it up. Duh.

Penguin Killer

So, in the 'Weird War Tales' cover for the ENJPs, they were fighting Brewster Buffalo, an obsolete fighter from the beginning of WW2. I didn't want to have the ENJPs overmatched, though it would be fun to have them kicking ass on a bunch of Corsairs or maybe even a Black Widow.

But, this is a fantasy universe, so what they would fight would be...

AUTOGYROS!



Woo! The Westland Skua operated by the RNZAF out of Ohakea.

Yup. Autogyros.

Listening to while posting: nothing. Sweet Enemy is quite ill and my studio is near the bedroom, so I don't want to disturb her. And, I'm not a big headphone fan

non-IF work

So, this is what I was working on instead of 'your paradise'. This is from an idea I've been kicking around for a comic. Sort of a Blackhawks/ Sky Captain alternate past deal, only with a female protagonist. Cheesy? Sort of. I picture her character as a trailblazer (a woman flying actual combat rather than just a ferry pilot or trainer). A lot could be done with her relationships with the male pilots. However, I'm not a great writer and can barely write from my own perspective, let alone a woman's. If anyone else feels like writing...

This worked pretty well. I've been very hesitant to use black lately. So, I went heavy on the black here. This almost works, but something isn't right. Not with the color work, but with the linework. I think I'm going to try again. and again.

Crash

Since I've been working on my Coast Guard-related comic, I thought I'd do a Coast Guard-related illustration. It depicts something I only thought a bit about when I was in. You can't think of it too much or you'd find a safer career.

I only thought heavily on it once: We landed our HH-3f on the water and the pilots did a rotor shut down. Not a normal procedure, but we all thought it'd be cool. That is, until the helo started bobbing around and the pilots had to look in the flight manual to find the proper procedure for re-starting the rotor on the water. I looked down to find that I had my hand on the toggle that activated the Underwater Escape Rebreather in my vest. I looked up to see that the navigator had HIS hand on his own toggle. The pilots eventually figured out how to start the rotor and when they released the rotor brake, the helo spun over 90 degrees with the torque. The thing is that helicopters tend to go inverted when they crash on the water. It's the fact that most of the weight (rotor, gearbox, engines) is on top. The H-3 floated even without the emergency float bags, but I didn't want to see how much I remembered from egress training.

I decided to depict the aftermath of a relatively controlled crash in the manner of The Raft of The Medusa by Théodore Géricault. I thought about doing it at the same scale as the original, but I couldn't find enough bristol board. As it was, I feel I cut some corners. This is because I give myself a deadline of Tuesday night for IF. Come what may, I have to post by then. Those in the know will notice a few things missing or changed or just dumb. Some things were changed to suit the composition of the painting, some were accidentally left out and one major screw-up that I only noticed as I finished coloring. Whoever can tell me what that mistake is will win some sort of dumb, cheap prize.

So, here's The Wreck of the F/V Medusa;

schnelle Vogel

For the most recent IF challenge 'BUZZ' I tried lots of ideas and none seemed to work. The one that came closest was one of the characters from an upcoming comic (by Kick Enemy Men and myself) being drunk. But, it didn't thrill me. I was lost until I was hyperlinking my way through lunch and found a site on air racing. What a crazy sport! I thought air racing went out with the Gee Bee (the plane that was all engine, not the band that was all cheese). Add finding the site to a model I've been working on and here you go:



The aircraft is an ME-262. Sure it was built at the order of a genocidal megalomaniac, but it is still a beautiful aircraft. So, I decided to turn the weapon of war into a racing steed. The official name of the aircraft was Sturmvogel, or 'stormbird' while its pre-production name was the Schwalbe, or 'swallow'. Being oh-so-cheesy, I changed the name to Schnelle Vogel which, according to BabelFish, means 'speedy bird'. If there are any German speakers who'd like to correct me, please do!