New Ink Art and Walkthrough: The Colossi of Memnon
For a very long time, since way back when I was a college engineering student, I’ve been fascinated with ancient architecture and stonework. Near the top of that list has always been the Egyptian statues known as the Colossi of Memnon, two massive representations of pharaoh Amenhotep III. When I say massive, they are among the […]
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted a new ink, and it’s about time I did. Life gets in the way of art sometimes, but art is still something I need to be building consistently. In this case, I wanted to try another fossil as the base idea for an ink. I have lots […]
In getting ready for my Spectrum booth this coming May (check out the event here), I’ve been working out which pieces of art to bring with me. One of the ideas that came up, which I’ve had before, is to combine three of my smaller inks into one framed set. I had two previous H.P […]
For this week’s Alphabeast creation, I came across the description of a type of mean faerie, called an “unseelie”. Now, in the many descriptions I’ve come across, sometimes it’s described as the “unseelie court”, and sometimes as the creature itself. In either case, the unseelie is seen as a very mean faerie, one that tends […]
Here’s a new Alphabeast creature, and an interpretation of a scene from one of my very favorite films, John Carpenter’s The Thing. If you haven’t seen the film, go ahead. I’ll wait. Back? Wasn’t that just awesome? To create an ink of the creature isn’t the easiest, considering that it doesn’t really have one single […]
I’ve been a big fan of the film Dark City since I saw in the theater back in the 90’s. For awhile now, I’ve been considering doing some ink art of one of the creatures from the film. They are known as “the strangers’, and our hero (played by Rufus Sewell) has to go up […]
This week for Alphabeasts, which I’m now caught up on, I decided to try something different. With my computer being backed up and doing some maintenance, I thought I would try a larger piece than the others have been. This week’s letter was “R”, and the first thing that popped into my head was “revenant”. […]
Here’s today’s second catch-up Alphabeast art, for the letter Q. This is a qilin, from Chinese mythology, and something I found very interesting. As a creature, a qilin is (from Wikipedia and others) a creature that’s described in a few different ways. Among them is a description of a beast with horns/antlers, more of a dragon’s head, […]
In trying to catch up on life, especially while my computer is a bit busy, I’m finding that I can still work on ink art away from the normal spot. Case in point, today’s first catch-up Alphabeast art. I had a few “P” choices to pick from, but this one stood out quite a bit. […]
For quite awhile now, I’ve wanted to do an ink of a large tortoise. I’ve seen them in various places throughout the years, and they have a great texture in their skin that I’ve wanted to try and work with on an ink. Any time you have an ink idea with texture though, it complicates things. You only […]
The second Alphabeast ink of the day is a Japanese mythological creature known as the onryō. If you’ve seen The Ring (or Ringu), even maybe The Grudge, you probably have a pretty good idea what a onryō is. An onryō is a vengeful ghost, seeking retribution for some wrong that happened to it during life. The most […]
A few different ideas went through my head when it came to the “nightgaunt”, for my latest Alphabeast. For those that don’t know, a nightgaunt is a creature that is present during night terrors. Now, night terrors are the worst thing in all the world. Frightening, to the point that getting a night terror affects […]
Quite awhile back, when I was first getting back into inking, I created an ink based on the Im-Ho-Tep/Mummy character from the 1932 film version of The Mummy (see it here). The idea with that one was to work from a photo, something I hadn’t done much (if ever), to recreate the iconic face of […]
Continuing on the mission to make 2012 mine, I completed a second ink today (don’t miss the first one, here). It was a challenge, in more ways than one, but I think it turned out well. The ink is of a Lampade, from Greek mythology. Lampades were companions of the goddess Hecate, and were nymphs […]
The end of the year didn’t go anywhere nearly as well as I thought, art-wise. Of course, the whole year was… yeah. But this is a new year, and I have a lot of catching up to do. Though I’ve been working on art behind the scenes, here’s the first posted one of the new […]
I’m gradually starting to get caught back up, after a disastrous few months. I decided that I didn’t want to end 2011 with nothing completed, so I manged to kick out two pieces of art in the last couple of days. The first was the skatedeck art, The All-Mighty Dollar (see it here), and below […]
Every so often, I get some idea rolling through my head that I just have to investigate. On this site of mine you’ll find experiments as dark as The Lost Nightmare, as wacky as zombie muppets, and many others that I just thought would be fun. After a discussion online earlier today with artist Chris […]
Here’s my new entry for Alphabeasts, G is for Gremlin. It’s one of those films I grew up with, and now my own children have seen it and are growing up with it. In fact, it’s on my daughter’s suggestion that I’ve created this ink art, of the vicious Stripe. She, of course, didn’t want […]
A great new collaborative project is online, called “Alphabeasts”. The idea is that artists each week have a letter, and they must create a piece of art of a fictional creature starting with that letter. I’ve been looking for a nice, regular sketch sort of thing to do each week, and I think this will […]
The Tools and Materials I Use, Part 1: Stock, ink, pencils
Whenever I’m on Twitter (and, to a lesser extent, Facebook and Google +), there always seems to be these great discussions about the type of materials and tools that artists use in their art. Often there are similarities, and quite often too there are new and cool things that I hadn’t heard of before. I […]
I’ve been wanting to try and do art for one of the special days that come up. Certain birthdays of actors, or film release dates, anniversaries, that sort of thing. So I took a little time away from finishing up some publishing work and gave it a go. Today would have been actor Peter Cushing’s […]
Since yesterday’s art was more on the horror side of things, and I’m working on a horror book cover, I think my brain wanted to play nice with this new ink card. This one is back to what I have been doing, 5″ x 7″ ink on 140 lb. Cold Press. I also added just […]
I decided that I should take a break from inking monsters, and try something that has less texture to it. Texture is fun with characters, but I want to challenge myself by working with images that don’t necessarily have a lot of texture in the important areas. Case in point, this new ink that I’ve […]
I had fun digitally coloring The Pale Man ink that I did (see it here!), and I thought I’d try it again. I’ve been away from inking for a couple of weeks, due both to the job search and some paying gigs, but I created a new one today for sale. I have numerous ink […]
Now, I’m not sure how many will know who Aknot is, but let’s just say I enjoyed making the ink card (5″ x 7″, ink on 140 lb. Cold Press as usual) and leave it at that. Ok, I guess I can let you know. Aknot is a warrior/creature that appears in the wildly underrated […]
While I was at the con, I was able to complete one ink card and two ink sketches. It was very interesting, working on art in front of people. I don’t get to do that very often, and it was interesting to see how people reacted while I was creating the works. The first one […]
I’ve been thinking of doing more monsters in ink, for sale while I’m a guest at VisionCon 2011. Here’s the newest one, one of the ghosts from The Devil’s Backbone. It’s like the previous ones, 5″ x 7″, ink, on 140 lb,. Cold Press. It has just a hint of red too near the top, […]
Over the busy weekend, I’ve still managed to create two new ink cards, both based on ancient stone sculptures. They are also both ink on 5″ x 7″ 140 lb. Cold Press paper. The first is a gargoyle, based on one that I have here in my office. I’m having fun toying with the close-up […]