I am my own bane

So, I spent today doing a rather large version of the 'doctor and bear' from last post. I don't think AndreZero even has a place for 'elevated' bears in the current Mr. Twilight story, and he hasn't expressed any thoughts either way as to if he'd want them. But, darn it, it was a challenge to draw, so I had to do it.

Since I am a detail-oriented (obsessed) person, I've done many sketches of the possible anatomy of an elevated bear. The legs would stay a bit short for stability, the hips would have to change to facilitate a stable upright stance, the muzzle would have to be shorter, teeth smaller and jaw and tongue muscles changed to allow speech, and elimination of the Ursus Arctus 'hump' because nothing gets a 7' humanoid bear riled up like Igor jokes. Oh, and thumbs. Can't forget thumbs. I also thought about clothing or lack of it. This is why the bear wears that harness (which AndreZero likened to the classic St. Bernard's barrel). They wouldn't need clothing (in fact it would be uncomfortable and annoying), but the would need something sort of pocket-y. I had originally drawn a cool commando-looking vest with pockets and D-rings and such, but since this takes place in the 30's when things were a little bit clunkier, I clunked it up a bit.

The drawing went pretty well. My new year's resolution is to use more black and a little less line. I find that I am deathly afraid of black for some reason. I think it is because of its ease of addition, but pain of subtraction. What was fun and hard was the fur. Doing fakey fur is easy: it's just a bunch of lines fading from black to white. Real fur is all thick and bunchy like this. I'll need to try again. As soon as I posted this, I realized that it was not good at all. While the doctor was pretty good, the overall pose was too stiff. The fact that I chose such boring lighting for a face-on shot of the bear only adds to its boringness.



So, today at lunch, I did another sketch that I'm going to expand. This is a much more interesting vignette. Easier and more fun to light as well. I'm posting this in-progress because when I work, I really, really like my roughs. Then I go and muck them up. Here you go.



In RL news, Sweet Enemy, AndreZero and his mad scientist gf and I went sliding on Sunday (that's how we say 'sledding' in Vermont. For some reason) on Casey's Hill. This is a cool local feature that was going to be turned into mushroom houses, but was saved. It was a fun sliding day, but theres a very slippery and steep five foot downhill to get to the hill. Filled with energy at the prospect of sliding, I caromed down it and promptly fell on my butt on the rock-hard grass and dirt. My coccyx still aches I comfort myself in that it was something that would have hurt as much at 18 as it does now. The highlight of the day was a 7 year old girl who, with a slight push from her dad, went down one of the less steep sections. She went pretty fast for a little kid and when she finally came to a stop, she looked up at her dad and yelled "that was HORRIBLE!". The funny part was, we couldn't tell if she was complaining that it was too fast and steep, or not fast and steep enough.

Listening to while posting "Big Time Sensuality (The Fluke Minimix)" by Bjork

new year, new Twilight sketches

I bring my sketchbook to work every day now. At lunch or when I need to take a break from some tedious html coding, I draw. These are from the past week and are mostly studies from the comic that AndreZero is writing.

These are pretty rough, but that's why it's called a sketchbook.

Here's the man himself: Lysander Twilight. English, dapper and deadly (note the deft at which I avoided an alliteration)




Here are some studies for the non-flight uniforms for The Valkyrie. AndreZero didn't specify that they'd need regular uniforms, but I did them anyway




Here are some initial character sketches for a character that is currently nameless and, to save suspense for the comic, identitiy-less as well. Who is this mystery woman? One of the many things I'm working on is drawing the same character over and over. I think the trick is to take at least one single defining feature, such as hair or a certain jaw and make sure that you keep that consistent. Then you just hope that persistence of memory kicks in.



Here's something else that AndreZero didn't even hint at. After drawing another headshot of the redhead, I decided to add something else I'd been working on: an 'elevated bear'. I'd submitting work to the Flickr group for Bears In Ill-Fitting Hats, and recently I'd been playing around with drawing, not an anthropomorphized bear, but what a bear might look like if it had been crossed with enough human attributes to make Urus Erectus. I tried to somehow rationalize the anatomy and make it sensible. THIS is why I have trouble drawing cool fantasy/sci-fi: it has to make sense somehow. And for me it rarely works. So, here's the redhead with an Ursus Erectus (Arctus). I thought they'd be a bodyguard, maybe. I made it female because all of the Valkyrie are female...


Here's a picture of the iteration of the bear drawn on the page just previous to the one with the redhead





Here's something AndreZero did ask for. A secret base on a remote island. I've been trying to think of a name for it, but could only come up with The Enclave or The Bastion . I've already worked out a p lot plan placing it at the foot of a sleeping volcano giving it access to geothermal energy (since this takes place in the 30's and there was no solar and an oil tanker arriving at regular intervals would eventually negate the 'secret' part of the secret base.



Now, here's something for Swinebread and the crew at Atomic Romance.

Fairness Battalion Banner (60k. 100dpt. sized for letter)
Fairness Battalion Logo alone ( 24k 100dpi)

listening to while posting: "They Got Lost" by They Might Be Giants from 'Long Tall Weekend'

Chirstmas presents!

Hey! Anyone who visits this site gets a crappy Christmas present this year! Yay!

In 1998, Kick Enemy Men and I were in the graphic design program of the Maine College of Art . Then we considered ourselves half-geniuses; apart we were of normal intelligence, together, we were a single genius.

I think it was over the course of a few days, in between cracking ourselves up, we generated a super hero team application. The powers/weakness section was a product of us and anybody we could find to ask. I consider this one of our finest works. We had done it quickly in Quark 4.0 (an not-that-great digital typesetting app) and named it a Superfriends application. In 2005 I took it upon myself to re-design it and create a new super-team for this to be an application for. Since the name and logo are were created by myself alone, it is not a full-genius work. However, the humor of the original remains 100% intact.

So, friends, for Christmas I give you:

The Fairness Battalion Superhero Application form!

Page one (01)
Page two (02)
Page three (03)

If you enjoy this gift, please feel free to share it around. Just make sure that you do give credit to the Half Geniuses of the Maine College of Art.

If you don't like it... well, I forgot to get a gift receipt so you'll have to re-gift it. Or give it to the Salvation Army Store or maybe Freecycle it.

or you could have this consolation prize. The hand-colored test edition of a lino cut relief print I did on this Christmas Eve eve. It's based on what Sweet Enemy and I saw on our midnight snowshoe that night. It's our house and I left the tree lit just so we could see that as we made our snow-things (Sweet Enemy: snow creature. Arkonbey: snow-woman and snow-Totoro. Both rained on Christmas eve). It measures 4" x 4" and may have been a bit ambitious for not having done a relief print in three or so years.




Listening to while posting: the washing machine.

do I look different to you?

This is going to be a long one. I know this blog is supposed to be for art, but this Wednesday I did something I'd never done before. Since nobody seems to read my other non-art blog, here you go.

On Wednesday, I intentionally killed a warm blooded animal.

My best and oldest friend took me goose hunting in CT at the farm he and his father have hunted for years. DD (not his initials, btw), has been hunting for years and is one of those hunters that give hunting a good name. He doesn't trophy hunt, is very environmentally conscious and is not, in any way, a "gun nut". He's hunted (and fished) ever since I've known him, and in those 30 (!) years, I've never gone with him.

Now hunting may not seem like a big deal to some but it is to me. Recently, I've thought about my eating habits and found that while I do eat meat (avoiding veal and trying to avoid factory-farmed livestock), I've never actually killed something and eaten it. This bothered me because I truly hate hypocrisy and since I've justified it by talking about the omnivorous nature of humans and the existence of prey animals( etc. blah blah blah), I should eventually put my money where my mouth is. Now, I must say in my defense, that I've never put down an ethical vegetarian ( though I've had some heated discussions with those that put down hunters), so I'm not one of those 'grocery store carnivores' that don't seem to realize that their steaks once went 'moo'.

But, this year, I decided to put my money where my mouth was. I met DD at a MA Home Depot parking lot so we could take a single vehicle to the farm. We met at 0645 and got to the farm about an hour later. The farmer was a classic NE dairy farmer: laconic, with no time to chat. Until you want to leave, then he'll talk your ear off. His mother had died that morning after having a stroke two days before, yet he was not unfriendly and allowed us to hunt his upper field.

DD led the setting of the decoys ( photorealistic silhouettes and these huge freestanding ones ). I learned that setting decoys is not a 'set and forget' operation. You must change the arrangement of the decoys as the wind changes so that the geese come in and land from a certain direction. After setting, we donned our white raincoats and sat in the snow. Waiting.

The first flight came over about 10 minutes later and it was spectacular. As the geese flew over for their first look, we could hear their feathers humming from the air as they glided in. I mean really humming.

The first group landed and I took my shot.

And missed. I was nervous and didn't lead it and pulled (rather than squeezed) the trigger. Also I hadn't fired a shotgun in a decade and never at a living creature. The flight, amazing came back to DD's call and I took another shot. And missed. The flock pulled up and disappeared.

It was another hour or so of re-setting the decoys and chatting. We talked about whether or not I'd subconsciously meant to miss. Yes and no. I was not unhappy that I'd missed, but when I pulled the trigger, I'd shot to kill. You see, the thing that bothered me more than the possibility of killing, was the possibility of wounding. I did not want to cause pain. This may seem like a strange conflict, but it's not. A good hunter (as DD is) does not want to cause pain; a clean kill with no suffering is the best.

But, it was hard. Still, I had to do it. I knew that I would feel bad after having done it, but that would be the price I'd pay for eating meat. The next flight came over and I picked my bird. It came down, flared to land and I fired. It dropped and attempted to rise, but couldn't. I felt like shit. As we'd planned, I passed the shotgun to DD without chambering a shell. He put a shell in the chamber and two more in the magazine as he walked towards the stricken goose. He shot it in the head. As he brought it back he explained that I'd actually killed it, it just didn't know it right away. I was still skeptical. You see, that whole 'chicken running around thing' that's true. The goose's tail feathers were wiggling as though it was trying to shed water. However, it was dead. To ease my mind, DD broke its neck (let me say how understanding DD was in all of this).

We were getting ready to leave ,as I didn't need to get my limit, and another flight came over. We quickly donned our white and DD called them in. The flight came over, DD picked his bird and fired. The goose dropped like a stone. Stood up, then collapsed dead. That's the kind of shot I wanted to take, but he's got 30 years of hunting experience under his belt. Now we were satisfied. We packed up the decoys and headed back to the farm to clean the birds on the tailgate of DD's truck. It was a remarkable thing. I didn't shy away, but watched the whole thing and even reached in and felt the places where DD would make the cuts to remove the breasts. I took one breast and gave the rest of the bird to DD as a thank you for taking me out. On Thursday night, I sliced half of the breast and sauteed it in sesame oil. I wanted to eat the first taste without adulterating it; that seemed important. Sweet Enemy and I sat down and ate and it was very tasty. The next night, I made a chili with the last of the breast. It was also delicious.

So. How do I feel? I feel bad, but not super-bad and I don't feel bad about not feeling super-bad. Yes, I took a life to eat, but I treated that food with a reverence that I've never done. Not in a total new-age-y way, but sort of. I didn't want to waste even a little of the breast and I wanted to cook it as well as I could.

Will I do it again? Yes. Will I feel bad? Probably. This is a touchy area for some. Why do it, some might ask. Why not just go out and watch geese? I don't know. I liked how it tasted and I felt a connection with that meat that I've never felt with any sort of food.

On the 5 hour drive home, I thought about the ethical vegetarians against hunting and the grocery store carnivores that deride ethical vegetarians.

To the first group: of all the carnivores, hunters should be the least of your targets. If they hunt and kill wild animals, they are allowing a creature to like a life before they kill it as quickly as they can. This is in contrast to the factory farms that keep animals in relative squalor and then put them through terror before killing them. Hunting is infinitely more ethical than a factory farm. Also, license fees go to help preserve the habitats for the animals. A good hunter is also a good environmentalist. And, as I've said, I've never felt a deeper connection to my food.

To the second group: Shut up. You've separated yourself so far from the origin of your food that you never see the blood; you steak-eaters call it 'juices'. If you've never had to look a creature in the eye before taking its life. If you've never seen the steam rising from the cooling meat as you cut the meat from a once warm and vibrant creature, you have NO place in mocking someone who wishes to never kill.

So, where do I fit? I think I'm a category all of my own. I have two cans of chicken in my cupboard. I will make two more pots of my fantastic chicken-lentil soup and that's it. I will try my best to not eat any meat that I did not have a hand in killing. Not because I enjoy the killing, but because I don't personally feel I have the right to eat something where I don't know how it lived or how it died. That's just me. It's not hard. Sweet Enemy and I are 'financial vegetarians' anyway, so we're not giving up a lot.

Well, that's my week. It was a very big deal for me; almost as big as when Sweet Enemy and I first got together. I'm happy that I was able to share it with DD and there is nobody else I'd have rather shared it with.

Oh, I kept only the shell that I fired and a single wing feather from the goose. I don't like trophies, either.

I wasn't listening to anything while posting

art in other places

so, on a cool illustration website aggregator I came across a link to a Flikr group Bears in Ill-Fitting Hats. After seeing the cool stuff posted, I just had to do my own.

I grabbed my sketchbook at lunch and started drawing. I cranked out seven sketches and I think I'm all HatBeared out.

Let me know what you think!

Sam the Dog R.I.P

So. I know this is blog is usually reserved for art, but canine friend of mine died this weekend after a long illness. Sam was a large-ish Akita owned by my aikido sensei and his wife.

If you go by the usual definition of 'good dog', Sam wasn't a 'good dog'. He rarely did what you told him to do. He was willful. Praise and criticism bounced off him with an equal lack of effect. But, he was never, ever a 'bad dog'. He was a good guard with a resounding bark that, in the lonely days when I sat him at his home, would cause me to jump. He was wary, but when he recognized a friend, his ears would go horizontal ("airplane ears") and he would run towards them with a goofy bouncing lope that made just made you want to pet him. And, by the way, he loved the ladies; if he had a choice between being pet by a guy and being pet by a girl, he'd choose the girl every time.

We spent a pretty good amount of time together and got along well after he placed me in the hierarchy of his world. We'd go on walks in the woods that unfortunately got shorter and shorter as the years went on. Once, we went for a quick jaunt that turned into a four hour hike when I got us lost in the Proctor Maple Forest. Sam got fed up following me and decided to head out on his own. Since he wouldn't come, I had to chase him; right back to the road we were looking for.

When I house-sat, he'd fall asleep on his dog bed in the living room, but around 5 am, he'd jump onto the futon bed I used and, after 3.5 revolutions, lay down and napped. By the way, he snored. When he did his business, he'd walk a few feet away from the spot and scrape huge gouts of dirt with his massive front paws to cover it up. The only thing was, he was never ever pointed in the correct direction and sent the dirt at least off on a forty-five degree tangent.

He loved carrots and would take them ever-so-gently from your hand. He loved chewing plastic soda bottles (to be taken away from him immediately when he started to take them to bits). He loved tearing the bark off of sticks. He also loved Ronin the Cat, of that I am sure. They would sleep together often and Sam was so jealous of him, if you wanted Sam to come, all you had to do was call Ronin and start petting him. Sam would come running. He was the dojo dog at Aikido of Champlain Vally and had a basket full of toys to keep him occupied. He would 'clean' the faces of certain members after a good long class. He seemed to prefer John J. above all others.

Even though he only obeyed me grudgingly, I will miss Sam greatly. Now that he is gone, I will share something I'm not entirely proud of: I gave him a pet name that I only used when I house-sat with him. That name (ugh) was "Sam Bam-arino". I would also make up dumb songs to sing to him. Songs about getting his food ready, songs about peeing, songs about anything. He really couldn't have cared less, but I did it anyway.

Sam is survived by his 'Mom', Heidi, his 'Dad', Ben his 'brother' Caleb and his brother 'Ronin'.

An early picture of Sam:


A bit later. On his deck.



Sam and Ronin in their usual positions :



This is the last picture I took of Sam last December. Interestingly, it looks a great deal like a relief print I did for his 'parents' a year or two before:



and an artsy picture of the two friends hanging out on the deck:



Sam was laid to rest in the ground of his "grandfather's" flower farm in central Vermont.

He will be missed.

Cort is in session

Here's a turnaround of Jackson Cort (as seen in the previous post). The story is coming along great. Andre Zero is coming up with some great ideas.

This went pretty well, though I discarded a complete profile. It was too stiff. The colors are probationary, but the gun is not. He's packing a Webley and that's how he likes it.



I had a crappy drawing week, actually. After this, I couldn't seem to draw at all. I mean, the turnaround is no great shakes, but suddenly my drawing skills were back at like sixth grade! I even tried copying a photo and couldn't even do that. I was a bit creeped out and felt like putting flowers on Algernon's grave.

I'm better, but still feel artistically dumb. So, here's something I did a couple of years ago when I was trying to hone my Adobe Illustrator skills. I thought about doing a series of the Diablo 2 characters as anthropomorphic animals. I did sketches of all but the barbarian and the ninja and only vectored the amazon:



So, anybody think I should do the rest?

Oh, check this out. Remember the movie Dark City? Did you like it? Give this a listen.

listening to while posting: 'Girl on the Flying Trapeze" by Spike Jones and his City Slickers