leveling up. (and taking a plunge)

A few things I should to do level up my craft:

~Take a Life Drawing class from the local community college to sharpen up my anatomical drafting skills.

~Subscribe to Lynda.com and learn a few new tricks in Photoshop (not to mention Illustrator).

~Find and implement additional online tutorials and tips and tricks to freshen up my process.

~Take the plunge and upgrade to the current Photoshop version.

~Obtain Corel Painter. (and learn how to use it. Thanks Lynda!)

~Utilize my community of writer and artist friends for feedback & criticism on my current art projects

~Target those specific areas/subjects that I am weakest at drawing and study the hell out of them. (For me, that would be architecture, furnishings, backgrounds, location-specific scenes, scenes containing multiple figures, {the list goes on}...)

~Etc, etc, etc...

And also...

~Sign up for the Illustration Masters Class. (Which I just did. **GULP/GASP!!!**)

doodling in math class: infinity elephants (i love Vi Hart)

serious brainy doodling. (i love Vi Hart)



more and more and more here.

icy cold stuffs for Apex Magazine.

Issue 31 of Apex Magzine just went live! It's an amazing line-up of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, edited by the amazing Lynne Marie Thomas. Oh... and I got to do the cover art :)

I met Lynne at World Con this year, where she brought up doing some art for the December issue, "Something cool and atmospheric".

It was a delight to work with Lynne to create the cover, and the content inside is just delicious. So go buy a copy! You won't be sorry :)

down time, Bones, Sean Bean Death Reel, new tricks, etc.

As a way of taking some downtime between projects, I recently immersed myself into episode after episode of Bones (yah, I'm a later starter: currently in the middle of season 3.. SHHHH!! don't tell me *ANYTHING*).

Bones and body organs and body liquification... (Haven't gotten to that episode yet, but wow.) (Plus humor, drama, sexual tension, Oh yes.)

In addition, I've been reading a lot of good stories. Almost all of them written by friends and acquaintances. ( I am blessed.)

Also, indulging in just some straight up doodling in my sketchbook. For no reason what-so-ever except I want to:


Then learning a new Photoshop trick where-in I am able to 'lift' the drawing off the page, for easier coloring. (VERY helpful, as I still prefer my analog natural-hand-drawn lines to what I can sketch out on the wacom tablet) This isn't the best example of the trick, but here's what I did with that previous sketch:


Oh... and random, but have you seen this montage of the many cinematic deaths of Sean Bean?? (warning: Spoilers. And death. Violent death. Over and Over and Over.)



Anyhow, enough with the downtime. I need to get right to work on internal illustrations for the FISH anthology, finish up the cover art for Bibliotheca Fantastica, do an illustration or so for the December issue of the Lovecraft Ezine, Illustrate an essay for Sunstone magazine, gear up to do some illustrations for the Bronies anthology, and get prepped to start work on the cover art for Wendy N. Wagner's debut novel, Dark Depths. (omg... SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!)

Ready Set Go.

The Troupe (by Robert Bennett)

Bragging rights~ I read the early draft of The Troupe. It is AWESOME.

Now, you have got to go RIGHT NOW to the book's website and get a tiny taste for yourself (readings, music, easter eggs, etc).

It's hard to choose... but I think that the scene for Stanley is my favorite:


Alrighty, now, you have got to pre-order your copy of The Troupe on Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Booksamillion, or google Ebook, or indiebound, or iBooks, or Mysterious Galaxy, ( etc...) You Must Have This Book!

((It was a pleasure to work with Robert Bennett, creating the illustrations for The Troupe's website. His vision and talent are astounding.))

mad photoshop painting skillz.

Seriously. Wow. (Thank you, Jacob Ruby, for showing me this )

I've been trying to Photoshop in a more painterly way. Pushing pixels around like how I used to push pigments. I have to admit, the ability to have every object on a separate layer for easily re-sizing, moving, flipping etc, is... well, is a lot easier than doing that with pigment on canvas. It's easy to feel "lazy" or that I'm "cheating" with photoshop. This especially on my mind as I look into attending the Illustration Masters Class, where there will be a lot of emphasis on traditional mediums.

Anyhooo... I try not to pay those feelings too much mind. Right now, I'm merely trying to take my photoshop skills to the next level.

Here's my latest:

Sleep Cycles. by Jaym Gates.

Remember the 24 hr comic we did a while back?

Well here is Jaym Gates' contribution, Sleep Cycles:

((Viewing online falls short of how these pages are experienced in real life: they are incredibly textural, mixed media pieces and my scanner simply has not done them justice. You'll just have to wait your turn to
actually hold them in your hands.))

Sleep Cycles. by Jaym Gates.

once upon a time, night and day were two realms.
instead of cycling around humans, humans revolved through the endless cycles....
slumber...
dream...
nightmare....
gentile, quite, refreshing.
humans liked it here.
many refused to move
staying in slumber for as long as possible.

most, however, moved on to dream.
bright things, beautiful things.
anything possible.
the dark dreams too.
sometimes we have the same dreams.
these are the wild places.
nothing comes here intentionally.
only the lost, the mad dreams.
and those things... those things hunt us all.
caught...
fighting....
fighting to go through.
sometimes they escape into the twilight.
that's where they meet the champions, from the day.
sometimes they hunt the lovely things
only found in darkness.
the darkness cares for it's own.
and for everyone passing through.
and so day comes again,
and night dreams
thank you jaym!