@wnwagner's Skinwalkers, Jendara, Crow Witch + World Horror Con

My good friend Wendy N. Wagner wrote a novel about vikings and cannibals and humans-turned-skinwalkers, full of bloody battles and gore and adventure and suspense. It stars a whole line up of smart tough women but most especially it stars Jendara; badass-reformed-pirate-mother wielding battle axes in her tattooed hands. (And if you happen to have the book, turn to the acknowledgment page because OMG JENDARA IS NAMED FOR ME, which makes me want to gleefully raid the tool shed for weapons on a daily basis.)

Anyhow, yes. Jendara is amazing. (And cover artist Michal Ivan did a brilliant job bringing her to battle-lust-filled life)  But lo, the story's antagonist; The Crow Witch. Creepy, damaged, filled with bad history and dark magic, wearing a headdress of decaying crow corpses. And I knew I needed to draw her.

So, with Wendy's permission, here she is:

She's part of the shipment I just mailed off to the World Horror Con Art show in Portland next month. 8x10 reproductions of her will be in the print shop if you happen to be in attendance and would like to take a bit of dark and creepy home with you.

Here is what I'll have printed up large to hang in the Art Show itself:

Tentacles and bones and blood and dark water. Stuff like that. I wish I could be at World Horror Con, but this year it happened to fall on the same weekend as Spectrum Fantastic Art Live and after much debate that is ultimately where I decided to land.

Hugs and kisses to my lovelies in the PNW.
(Especially you, Wendy! Thanks for all the inspiration!)

Art Nerd Post, J. H. Williams: Batwoman + Wonder Woman

My latest Art Nerd post is a bit of a fan girl squee because BATWOMAN IS TEAMING UP WITH WONDERWOMAN!!! And artist J. H. Williams is fabulous.

Batwoman makes a house call to Wonder Woman. Batwoman #12. Art by J. H. Williams.

Artist J.H. Williams, who came to Batwoman in 2009 with Greg Rucka, has a whole flickr set dedicated to his work with Kate Kane donning the cowl and gives this glimpse into how he created the cover for #13 (with grievances about the final design decisions.). In addition, he has this to say about artistic considerations for working with these two major icons in one storyline:

“We’re super excited to be tackling Wonder Woman for a bit in the upcoming arc of ‘Batwoman, but also feel a sense of trepidation and responsibility, with her probably being the most iconic female hero of all time in comics. We needed to approach her with reverence and respect. And also wanted to give her a sense of purity in how she is drawn, something clear in her appearance, overt and forward. Now doing this, and then setting her next to Batwoman produces fascinating juxtapositions of their styles and nature of their characters. Batwoman being shadowy and a bit withdrawn, Wonder Woman being bold and vibrant. They do have things in common with their sense of purpose, but yet also things that make them quite different from each other, and them coming together brings out complimentary aspects much in the same way Batman and Superman do for each other as characters. The result is a compelling union of two iconic women that bring balance to how they can be perceived.” ~J.H. Williams, via Comic Book Resources.

~read more

So this issue is SITTING RIGHT HERE BESIDE ME but I haven't had time yet to do more than thumb through it and drool just a bit. Mostly, I love that on the first page Kate heartbreaks just a tiny bit over Diana.  More later.  Here's a preview.

Illustration Masters Class. After the Fact.

IMC faculty: Rebecca Guay, Donato Giacola, Dan Dos Santos, Ian McCaig, Gerald Brom, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Greg Manchess, Scott Fischer, Doug Alexander, and Irene Gallo.

It's been over a week since I got home from the Illustration Masters Class: took me this long to just catch up on sleep and try to get back into the 'real life' routine.

What a ride that was.
I went to the IMC with some ambivalence over what I wanted to get out of the week. I'd selected Adam-Troy Castro's "Our Human" because the story was profoundly intriguing to me, but found myself struggling to draw the alien characters. I hoped to get experience with creating a graphic novel but the emphasis of the IMC was more for painting than comic art. My initial attempts to take a scene from Our Human and panel it out were very disappointing. What was I thinking anyways? In last minute desperation I came up with a quickly roughed out single image that could be my back up for an illustration piece if the comic idea totally fell through.

My first Critique session was with Julie Bell, Donato Giacola, and Gerald Brom.  They all completely ignored my pathetic story panel samples and went right for my last minute illustration sketch. To my surprise, they liked it! They were intrigued by the graphic nature of the piece and it's spooky tone, we had a great conversation about ways to deal with the content etc...  WIN.   

Julie Bell, Donato Giacola, and Gerald Brom

But I had spent all that time trying to work Our Human into  graphic novel. And even though the emphasis of the week was more on painting, so many of the instructors here had lots of experience in sequential art as well...  (Did I mention I had ambivalence over my goals for the week?)  I was pretty sure I could pull off the single illustration with time to spare, so I decided to get some feedback on my poor little comic panels as well.  There was a few open slots left in a crit session with Irene Gallo, Scott Fischer, and Doug Alexander, I threw my stuffs up on the wall there to see what they'd say. This crew went immediately to my comic pages and Doug walked me through a better panel layout, focusing on content, point of view, visual clues, etc.  ::AWESOME::  I was set.

The Our Human single illustration sat untouched on my desktop while I worked over my panels, revisiting the dialogue in the story, working at ways to tailor the written scene into sequential art, getting additional feedback from Dan Dos Santos, Greg Manchess, and Boris Vallejo.

 Everyone kept saying "Make sure you talk to Rebecca Guay and Ian McCaig, they really know comics".


So, on the second day I finally caught up with Ian.

The first thing he asked when I showed him my work in progress was: 

"Why aren't you turning one of your own stories into a comic?"

That was not what I expected, at all.
"You have story ideas, right?" He asked.  Well sure, don't we all?  But they're just ideas, characters, not fully formed, not ready for THIS. "Of course they're ready, I'll help you" Ian said.  Well wow, how can I say no to that? He sat down with me and I pitched a few of my story ideas to him (which was intimidating, to say the least). Together we picked one and he walked me through the ground work of laying the plot line (more about that later).  After that I scurried back to my laptop, this time to open a word document where I spent until 4:30 am outlining my story. No more aliens. Now I have a young tormented young girl with some difficult genetic traits, who's about to have all her bridges burned.

 

Then I hit a wall. The next morning I was exhausted, struggling to write the story and come up with scenes to panel out, overwhelmed with imagery I wasn't sure I could pull off in the short time remaining. I didn't know what to do. I talked to Brom. I talked to Rebecca. I looked at all the work the other students were doing (so many awesome people there). I took a nap. Then, a bit sheepishly, I put the word document and the new character studies on the back burner and went back to the illustration for Our Human.

Tall eerie aliens against a desolate landscape, standing watch over their waste of an atrocious human...  Oh yes, I love the images in this story.

(It wasn't until after the fact that I saw John Jude Palencar had gone with a similar theme for his illustration of the story. That was a humbling comparison.) 

  
But what was I going to tell Ian when I saw him again? (He had been so excited...)  Also, I really LIKED brushing off that story idea from so long ago and working on it. What do I do with that?

Well, I multi-tasked the rest of the week. Devoting all my official working hours to Our Human, but  keeping that 'other thing' warming on the back burner as the days progressed.  (Doing quick character sketches and thumb-nailing scenes during lectures and down time.)

(Did I mention I didn't sleep much during this week?)


By Wednesday evening, I finished the final for Our Human. So Thursday, the last full work day of IMC, I dived back into the comic. I managed to pull out two sample pages. The story is still very much in the rough stages.  I suck at knowing what to put in those word bubbles. I'm still working through characters studies and setting... But it's a start. And not a bad launch point for exiting IMC; a whole new project to keep working on. Now to finish the story.

Anyhow, there you go. My IMC experience.  I'm looking forward to next year. (More pics here)

IMC: starting the prep work.

Well, I've picked my Illustration Masters Class assignment: 

I'm going to be attempting cover art and a two page graphic novel segment for Our Human, by Adam-Troy Castro.  (Ambitious, I know. I may have to go with one or the other and if that's the case, I think I'll go for the two page spread. But don't hold me to that.)

The brief description/instructions provided by Irene Gallo:

A science fiction short story with an anthroprological feel.
Include at least one human and one alien figure.
"On a savage backwater world, the last ragged survivors of an expedition to hunt down the infamous war criminal known as The Beast Magrison set off into an inhospitable wilderness in search of the alien village that may be sheltering this beast. The hunters are aliens from two different species, the village is inhabited by strange aliens of yet another species, and Magrison himself is no sterling advertisement for humanity. Who’s human in this situation? The answer may surprise and upset you. This novella from acclaimed SF writer Adam-Troy Castro explores the fate of the dread Magrison. Readers can find out more about the world that spawned Magrison by tracking down his Andrea Cort novels, Emissaries from the Dead and The Third Claw of God."

Why did I pick this one?

I wish I could give you a really good answer for that: I have not read either of Castro's Andrea Cort novels (tho they are now in my queue) nor any of his other work, plus science fiction illustrating is a weaker area for me.

But, the story is amazing. And as I read it, various scenes jumped out at me with full visuals blooming in my head. And it's not hard sf: for example I won't need to kill myself trying to draw the interiors of a space ship.

So there you go.

Now I just need to start some initial characters studies for the brutish, militant Barath, the secretive translator, Mukh'than,  the village of timid three gendered Trivids, and.... The Human, Magrison. A ravaged waste of flesh wheezing out his last breaths in a mud hut.

(May 30th update, you can now read Our Human at TOR. Illustrated by John Jude Palencar.) 

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.))

24 hr comic day wrap-up.

This year's 24 hr comic day was a success with much awesomeness created by all.

Specifically, I direct you to John Nakamura Remy’s amazing multimedia interactive creation “All Paths Cross in Time” (live-blogged here)
Jacob Ruby’s live-blogging of his own venture:
Jaym Gates dreamy mixed media assemblage comic:

My own creation: a 10 pg comic based on Jaym's story "Song In My Bones" (on flickr , +Google, and live blogged)


In addition, here is the Comic Alliance write up w/ links to many many other artists and groups that participated in 24 hr comic day: Quite pleased that Jacob, Jaym and I were included in the write up!

mish-mashed sort-of 24 hr comic day thingy

My 24 hr comic starts a day early and will probably end up being more like 12 hours spread out over two days. We'll see. (Update: It ended up being 25 hrs spread out over 3 days!) Also, I am breaking the official rules by using a piece of flash fiction, "Song In My Bones", written by Jaym Gates as my script. Pretty dang excited to do that too, so there.

(For a bit more about the project I direct you to my Functional Nerds post and John Remy's Mind on Fire post.)

Alright, let's do this.

*******

Day 1:
6am. I had set the alarm for 4:30am... but...... Anyhow. Doing some initial panel layouts before spawn gets up and I get him off to school. So, assembling my tools. I will be this digitally, getting inspiration from a few comic technique books and the comic adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower. (Big thank you's to Carrie Cuinn & mfranti for the books!)
6:46 am. got the basic template laid out in Ps. and started character studies. (realizing how much time I spend doing characters studies... I'll have to be careful about that). Okay, stopping here, will start again after spawn is off to school
8:45 am. Spawn at school, next 8 hrs: DRAWING!

10:00 am. have Jaym's characters sketched out. now on to paneling out the storyline.
12:30 pm. Over two hours later, and I've only roughed (REALLY rough) out three pages.
1:30 pm. A dialogue-heavy page made my head spin a bit (writers, always using WORDS)... but I think i got it nailed (er, as in, really roughly sketched out...) Lunch now, then moving on.

4:00pm. Six pages, *almost* roughed out: word bubbles placed, rough sketch of panel content.... I think there will only be 8 pages total in this comic~ I didn't script it all out page by page before hand, just doing it as I go. My bad. But I think it will work regardless.

5pm. Rushed to finish pg 7 (which included the mouth-full-of-bloody-splatter panel that I have been looking forward to drawing this whole time). Now time to get my spawn, do the dinner/evening routine. Be back to drawing later this evening.

7:30. Dinner made, ate, cleaned up. Spawn entertaining himself with legos. Time to draw again.

10pm. Spawn is in bed and Jaym's story has now been completely quick-sketched into 10 pgs. Now I'll find out how much steam I have left to bring it all together.


12midnight. Just ran out of steam. But polished up pg1 and part of pg 2. Family coming into town tomorrow, may not get to the rest of the page until Sunday. We'll see.
DAY 2:
7:30 am. Not sure how much I'll get done to day. Little bits here and there between family stuffs. But right now, getting a few minutes in, while we all sit around the table involved in our own projects.
Also, a glimpse at pg 2. One of the reasons I chose this story: Jaym wrote some pretty amazing body-and-bone imagery.
11:30 am, Day2. Have spent the morning doing laundry, cleaning the toilet, helping spawn w/ homework... and also drawing. Three pages are now "finished" (tho I want to go back and add grey-scale values, not just b&w.) Now heading out to a family gathering that will probably last the rest of the day. Hope to get back and finish this before tomorrow ends.

12Midnight, Day2. Home from family gathering, my body has informed me that I, in fact, do NOT have the energy to work on this anymore today.

Day3
6am, Day3. Getting a few more hours of drawing in before going back for more family gathering action.

9am, Day3. Final drawing done on 5 out of the 10 pages now. Will come back to it after spending a few final hours w/ out-of-town family.

2pm. Day3. Family has been kissed, hugged, and sent home to their various distant destinations. Settled in now to finish this thing.

11pm. Day3. DONE. Well... except I want to go and add grey scale and do some clean up. But that will come later. I just tallied up my hours: 25 hrs (approx) spread out over 3 days. /Whew!

here's the Flickr Set and slideshow, as well as my +google album.

24 hr Comic Day

(cross posted from Functional Nerds)

An invitation to the 8th annual 24 Hour Comic Day: This Saturday, October 1.

The dare: To complete a 24 page comic book in 24 continuous hours.

Back in 1990 comic artist Scott McCloud thought of a creative exercise to improve his drawing speed. He decided to challenge himself (and fellow comic artist Steve Bissette) to draw a complete 24 page comic book in 24 hours.

McCloud recalls that first venture:

"Feeling increasingly alone and silly, I called Steve to see how he was coming along on his comic to discover he couldn't do it that day after all because of family obligations. This made me feel even more alone and silly of course, but I kept going anyway."

Since that first solitary experiment (which you can view here) the challenge has taken off to become a bit of a phenomena with many notable artists and writers participating. Also, it is not longer a solitary event:

"On April 24, 2004, the first annual "24 Hour Comics Day" (more comics, fewer hyphens!) took place at comics stores all over the country, producing thousands of pages of comics in a single weekend. By 2007, the celebration had grown to events in 18 countries, involving over 1,200 artists and an estimated 20,000+ pages of comics."

For more information about participating in the "official event" check out this interview with ComicsPRO executive director Amanda Emmert, and see here for the rules and requirements (and various noble failure options). This Saturday it's gonna be happening all over the place, maybe near you? (And if not, you could get one going.:))

A few years ago, John Nakamura Remy invited me to do this with him and a few friends. Our version was a scaled down 18hr deal which we shared with each other via twitter, blogs, and flickr. See the invitations here and here; Final products here and here.

Now we're gonna do it again. My personal variation this time around: I'm going to start Friday and will be breaking a rule by using a short story written by Jaym Gates. I plan to have it turned into a 12 (ish) page comic by sometime early Saturday (before family arrives from out of town). Feel free to join in using whatever parameters best fit your life and your creative goals.

John and I will be sharing the process via twitter (@johnremy, @galendara and hashtag #24HCD) and google+ ( @John Dewey Nakamura Remy, and @Galen Dara).

So there you go! Collect your art supplies, your ideas, a stock pile of microwavable food & caffeine, and join us for a 24 Hour Comic Day!

Traitors and Tyrants FINISHED.

THIS JUST IN: All 22 pages of the graphic novel Traitors and Tyrants, written by John Nakamura Remy (set for publication later this month in the forthcoming anthology Monsters and Mormons).... ARE NOW FINISHED!

Seriously, I cannot wait for you to read this comic: John created something extraordinary with this alt-history tale of highly trained polygamist sister-wife super-spies.

Now, I have all SORTS of stuff I'd love to share about what I learned, the process, pros and cons of doing it in such a concentrated amount of time... But I'll save that for later. (Still rather tired at the moment).

Instead, I'll just give you a small work-in-progress glimpse at one particular two page spread that I completed in 12.5 hrs. (Which was sort of a record, many of them took 20 hrs or more.)

******

DAY 1:
Approximately 1 hour in: Panels are finally in place with initial sketches & word bubble placement:

4.5 hours later, I'm about half way through the first page:

6 hrs in and I am *ALMOST* done with the first page... *ALMOST*.


8.5 hours in and I am halfway through the second page. (Unable to push any further, I crash into bed.)


DAY 2:
Get up the next morning ready to go back at it... After three hours (11.5 hrs total) the two pages are *ALMOST* done:


Finally, at about 12.5 total drawing hours, these two pages are finally finished: (So I moved right on to the next two page spread :) )

At that point, of course, John had to go back and fix all my typos and choose a better font than what I was using. 'Finished' is rather relative.

BTW... a serious big thank you to Bear Weiter for helping me figure out the ps Pen tool: that helped immensely in so many of these scenes.

Also, see here, here and here, for a tiny taste of some of the other amazing stories that are going to be in this anthology. Yummy!

More to come about it all later. Meanwhile... I need to try remember what I did with myself when I was not drawing every spare minute of ever day. Hmmmmm......

Broken Time Blues lives!!!!

Remember that book I did the cover art for?
It can now be yours.

"Announcement

Hey, you! Toss on your glad rags and get a move on. Broken Time Blues is roaring into Reno for WorldCon. Be the first to get a gander at tales of moonshinin' and alien burlesque; flesh-sculpting artists and chickens on the run. If you're hip to the jive, slip on down to the release shindig at 2pm on Saturday, August 20. But don't be slow, and speakeasy: the bulls and hawks are always listenin' in."

Authors include Shirley Jackson winner Robert J. Bennett and game-author/Heroic Adventure author Ari Marmell, along with Weird tales from Frank Ard, John Dewey Nakamura Remy and Andrew Romine; beautiful, touching stories from James Sutter, Lucia Starkey and Barbara Krasnoff; and action-packed romps from Morgan Dempsey and Jack Graham; and dark tales from Amanda Davis and Ryan McFadden.

Interior art by myself and the amazing Evan Jensen.

You know you want this. You know you need this.

(Huge thanks to Jaym Gates and Erika Holt for making this collection happen. AND, incidentally, for providing all the text for this post :) You ladies are amazing.)

a begining

The other evening, inspired by a friend who's doing some cleaning, I tackled the bookshelf in my studio and did some organizing. Hence, I stumbled upon the sketchbook I got a few years ago for the express purpose of writing/drawing out my first graphic novel.

At that point, it had been a while since I had drawn much on a regular basis.
It was discouraging for a while.
But it was a place to start. That, at least, was something.

Eventually, I started piecing together the ideas. It was not quite the story I originally had in mind, but it was a start.

More piecing together became Being Born for the Sunstone comic edition. Again, it was not the story I originally had been telling myself in my head (by this time I was starting to recognize I had a few things to learn about story telling). But it was a start.

Currently, that little story is on the back shelf again as I am hard at work fleshing out the final panels for a comic that John wrote which was accepted into the Monsters and Mormons anthology.

But eventually, sometime, I'd like to brush off the original idea of an outrageous first-woman archetype who lives in a house made from rib bones, takes swords away from angels and hangs out with snakes.

Here's the first page from that sketchbook, a beginning that I am still working on:

it's called NaNoMangO (Plus Sunstoned!)

After my previous post,where I mentioned doing my own personal NaGraDraMo next month, someone drew my attention (/snicker) to NaNoMangO; the OFFICIAL art/comic-drawing alternative to NaNoWriMo.

Sweetness. I just joined the group.

(Disclaimer: yes, I have a bunch of unfinished art commitments I gotta tie up before I put another time-consuming project on the table.. but really, I am really getting excited about this!)

The tagline of NaNoMangO is "30 pages in 30 days", which is more pages than I was originally thinking... but here's how they broke it down.

Either: 1) 30 pages penciled. OR 2) 15 pages inked OR 3) 10 pages "finished"

Thinking I'll aim for the long distance endurance version of 30 rough penciled pages, for the "wow-do-I-have-that-many-pages-of-story-in-me?" experiment.

In other news, guess what came in the mail today??!!!

Zot! Pow! Sunstone!

Nestled in this edition (an amazing collection of LDS comic artists and comic aficionados) is the little comic I drew up; Being Born. My first ever published comic (not counting Bloody Eve ). AND, I get a mention in the intro! Noting the breadth of style, the vastly different kinds of comics Mormons are making, guest editor Theric Jepson queries:

"Look at Galen Dara's earthy mysticism (pg 60). Witness Nick Perkin's bobble-headed National Treasure (pg 84). Then ask yourself: How could they be more different?"

Thanks Theric. :)

It really is a stunning and eye-opening collection, chock full not only with a vast array of Sequential art by folks w/ ties to Mormonism, but also with multiple insightful essays about appreciating comics, Mormon artists, the new Wonder Woman, Crumb's Illustrated Bible, how it all ties into the Mormon experience, etc.

It was a pleasure to be a part of it.

Murals, Comics, NaGraDraMo, etc.

Just a few things of note:

1) Yesterday, just for kicks, I pulled out some house paint and doodled on my studio wall. I have been doing so many small, controlled illustrations and thumbnails lately, I really just needed to do something large, messy, spontaneous, and unplanned. It was VERY therapeutic, and I liked how it turned out too:

2) I'm in the process of hammering out specifics on a graphic novel I'm working on with a friend... and realizing that it's high time I brush up on my Illustrator and InDesign know-how. Especially when it comes to adding word-bubbles etc. My patchy Photoshop skillz just aren't going to cut it for the current project. Here's a quick glimpse at a quick (VERY rough) page study w/ my very insufficient dialogue and word-bubble additions:

3) Which leads me to my next personal project... In solidarity with my writer friends who are participating in NaNoWriMo next month, I'm planning on doing a second attempt at NaGraDraMo. This is dependent on if I can wrap up the current projects I am committed to, but I am hopeful and excited to give this another go around. I only have a vague idea of a cast and story line; but my idea is to aim for 18 to 24 pages, B&W, low-tech, and probably pretty wordless. (I will be using Tyler Stafford and Noah Van Sciver as inspirations for low-budget-but-way-cool comic making.) /Fingers Crossed!

okay, that's all.

Rigor Amortis Rising

Seriously... "SQUEEEEE!!!"
Remember that zombie erotica book I decided to get involved with so many months ago? Well, Yesterday was the official Launch of Rigor Amortis and thanks to the hard work of Erika Holt and Jaym Gates at creating some buzz about the book, within just a few hours it had risen to #30 on Amazon's Horror list! (Just above Pride and Predjudice and Zombies, just beneath Bram Stokers Dracula.)

(As I write this, it is sitting at #52, just underneath Stephen King's The Waist Lands & Stephanie Meyer's Eclipse, just above Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.)

BTW, Bitten By Books hosted a release party and Jaym had this to say about us artists:

"Each section has a beautiful, full-page illustration from artist Galen Dara. More illustrations fill the book, the surreal, grotesquely-beautiful things from Galen Dara’s pen, and the dark, strong art from Miranda Jean. Rigor Amortis wouldn’t half of what it is without the hard work of our artists."

Gotta love those who appreciate the arts :)
(Oh! thrilled and flattered that a print of one of my illustrations is the take-home prize for the winner of the Zombie Recipe contest. More info here.)

It's been a serious fun ride and this whole week is Zombie Week, dedicated to continuing the buzz on facebook and twitter. Join the Rigor Amortis Facebook group, and/or follow the twitter hashtag #rigoramortis or #zombieweek for more updates, story-line teasers, plus me and Miranda tweeting illustrations.
Oh.. and go buy the book!! :)

just for kicks.. here's the trailer, featuring artwork by Miranda and myself:

comic panels and pages (mining for favorites)

The other evening I took my sketchbook and went to the graphic novel section of my bookstore and just started looking. Looking for ideas and inspirations for a comic project I have undertaken with a friend. I did a lot of rough sketches, snapped a few captures.

At the end of this evening when I took stock of what I had collected, I found a unifying theme: Everyone of them was mixed in their media and short in their words.

Guess I'm predictable that way.

Here's a brief run down:

~Totally completely in love with artist Catia Chien, subtle, simple, profound and so very sensitive. I found two of her stories (Tumble weed, and Fall) in the (seriously amazing) comic anthology Flight.
















~Quite taken with the gritty, dark, painterly work of Ashley Woods (SFW wiki article, NSFW artist blog). This image is from his work in Metal Gear Solid

~Another lucky find from that anthology Flight, was the mixed media collage Dummy Brother, a mind-tripping, surreal visual journey by Jacob Magraw-Mickelson.












~Then, going back to the gritty side, I stumbled upon the magna BioMega, by Tsutomu Nihei. (A great review here.) The silence, the stunning layouts, the crazy, painfully beautiful handling of his forms (not to mention really liked the combination of organic + mechanical)... It really had me.












Now hoping a bit of it all rubs of on me as I start laying out our panels and pages.

Daniel Dos Santos (and Silvia Moreno-Garcia too)

The current issue of Realms of Fantasy magazine has a great article on artist Daniel Dos Santos who specializes in painting tough girls. Well, I like tough girls too. And the whole article had some great bits about his process, his inspirations, his evolution as an artist, his book covers, etc. For purposes of brevity though, I just wanted to mention his thoughts on the push-pull between digital art vs hand skills, because it's something I've been grappling with myself:

"It's this constant inner battle, and skills versus digital. I think that the love affair with digital is a fad. In twenty years time people are going to miss analog skills. The're going to want to see painting."

Dos Santos uses photoshop for prelim sketches etc.. but for the final product, it's traditional oils that are his medium of choice. I am still in the experimental part of finding the right balance between my hand- crafted works and my digital works. It was interesting to get his opinion on the subject.

Btw, want to see him in action at his easel? Wow. And he puts out one of these every two weeks:

"It takes me two weeks to do a painting, including reading the manuscript, model shoots, and so on. I wish I had three weeks for each painting, but I don't. I have to paint two a month to make a living."

Yes, I have envy. And awe.


Now, random, but speaking of tough girls, I just listened to a wonderfully intense and raw short story, Jaguar Woman, (not for the faint of heart) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I will definitely be looking out for more of her work.

(image source)

pages 3 and 4 (Being Born)

I really do like how these two pages, in particular, turned out. (If you click on the image, you can see it larger.) (Here's more about the story.)

rigoramortis

zombie erotica anyone?
heheh, eeeEEEEwwwww!!!!!

I'm Doing some illustrations along that line, but here's my conflict: to lean more explicit R-rated gore/sex? Or lean more towards pg-13 dark humor.

Probably a nice middle ground between the two will suffice. I'll have to a bit of drawing around that question.

And now, a few of my undead love roughs:
(and yes, I suck at text. I know)



(Just for kicks, here's a sampling of various ways Zombie Jesus has been done. I'll start there for inspiration.)