Just the other day, Thunderstorm Books posted their newest book, Bryan Smith‘s Grimm Awakening. I was lucky enough to do the cover art for it, which was a great thing for me because I also did the cover for the original version way back in 2004. It’s not often that an artist gets a second […]
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 […]
My good friend Patrick Douglas has a new book coming soon, and I created a new art piece for him to use as a signature sheet. The book itself is great, and tells the story of an outcast girl who has stumbled into a lost tribe in a cave system. Signature sheets, at their base […]
New Ink Art and working with reference: Cthulhucraft
I’ve been itching to do more ink work lately, and I decided over the weekend that H.P. Lovecraft’s birthday was a great chance to work something in. The trick, of course, in doing art of a recognizable character (or person) is that you just have to get it right. Sure, there is some leeway here […]
I’m sure most people are aware of this, but here it goes anyway. There are people on the web that, when they find an image on a website, just grab the web URL directly to the image and paste it into their forum/website/blog/whatever. This is called hotlinking, as you are not hosting it on your […]
On Thursday, I posted my newest ink/digital artwork, of Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin character from Star Wars. I decided today, while taking a break between art pieces (and while my internet is working) to upload this article about how it was created. I like to post these kinds of articles for a couple of […]
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 […]
I’ve been busy as of late, with commissions, local art sales and creation, job searching, various levels of depression. Coupled with those things, I’ve also had a terrible internet connection, which has caused a number of things to fall behind. In the process of trying to get caught back up, I did manage to squeeze […]
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 […]
Today has been an experiment in not only a larger format for an ink work, but also in the idea of not letting a problem in the art end the day. When I started doing art today, I just grabbed my 12″ x 18″ watercolor stock and went to work. I had a decent idea […]
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, […]
The new issue of Cemetery Dance Magazine (#61) has a new piece of art by yours truly, for a story by Peter Straub. I've been anxious to post it for quite awhile.
It's been awhile since I've written an art blog, which I've done off and on for a few years. I usually discuss a piece of art, almost always one that I like myself, and give the world my thoughts on it.
After a busy (and depressing) holiday season, I’m attempting to restart the art blog idea. This time though, I’m going to work things a little differently. Instead of just a piece of art each week, I’m going to alternate on artistic ideas. Some weeks will still be about a certain piece, other weeks about artists […]
I’m back from a long, long trip to Washington, D.C., with this week’s new art piece. As always, let me know what you think of the art. This is James Ensor’s Skeletons Warming Themselves (1889, oil, 30″ x 24″), one of the pieces that I’ve been lucky enough to see in person at a museum. […]
