This Year's Cards

Here's this year's traditional holiday greeting from me and Julie, for those of you who aren't on our e-mail list. Yes, there is an explanation for the trans-polar crossover; the polar bear is delivering his own message to Santa, and made the mistake of following us.

I also did some custom cards for relatives. Here's one for my in-laws John and Chris...

...and a birthday card for my nephew, featuring the ever-popular bunny rabbits.

The Whisperer in Markness

Lost my voice about four days ago, and I've been spending Thanksgiving weekend basically lying in bed watching monster movies. But as long as I have my sketchbook and a handful of lurid highlighters, at least I have some means of communication.

Dragons, eels, rubbishy three-legged Martian space crickets...

Then on to sea monsters, as a reaction to Leviathan, which features perhaps the worst Stan Winston creature I've ever seen.

I also watched a rather excellent H.P. Lovecraft documentary.

New Monsters

It's time to admit we have a monster problem. How can you spin a harrowing yarn about a bloodsucking vampire or slavering werewolf, when any grade-schooler could identify the telltale symptoms of an attack and advise you of the proper countermeasures? Our monster-savvy age demands new beasties; here are some possible candidates.

The Inspector lives in the basement. He has a key to your house. He has a key to every house.

The Canker is transmitted via airborne spores. Try not to inhale.

Wild animal attacks aren't really a contemporary hazard, but our streets are full of marauding vehicles. I played around a bit with beast-shaped machines, but then decided that a machine masquerading as a person was more interesting. The Junk-Man roams the streets, wrapped in a shabby raincoat, looking for unwary pedestrians to trample.

Space Krampus

It's way too early for Christmas greetings, but this idea came up in a discussion of Prometheus and I couldn't resist drawing it. Enjoy your space terror, naughty children of Earth!

Costume Carnival 10/2012

Some life drawings from the Academy of Art's traditional pre-Halloween Costume Carnival. This year's theme was "Barbarella and the Wild Things," with a soundtrack to match!

Let's start with my best drawing of Katie Longua.

Sarafina, the mistress of the revels and planner of the event, made a fabulous cave princess.

I didn't get around to finishing Ashton's arms - too busy drawing the crazy helmet.

 

Bob and his space hookah.

Liz and her awesome crazy wig.

Lunch break!

Tendai in jungle girl outfit.

 

If I'd known the angel would come out so well, I would have drawn him on a clean page.

A couple of reverso-combo pages...

And we'll finish up with one more of Sarafina. Thanks for another great Costume Carnival!

Touch A Truck Day 2012

Time for the most excellent annual event hosted by the Star of the Sea School, quite literally on my doorstep!

And now, the return of the sewer inspection robot. I had to include this for Julie.

All too soon, it was time to pack up the exotic vehicles and head home. See you next year!

More Inky Demos

And here are today's "stupid inking tricks" demos for my college-level comics class. These took about 40 minutes each, and being a good sport, I let my students pick the subjects as long as they included monsters.

Yes, those are fingerprints in her hair. I think after students see you literally inking with your fingers, it reduces the pressure of expectations a little bit.

Quick Studies 10/08/2012

Always a good start to the week when I can make it to the AAU's fabled Quick Studies workshop. Here's this week's highlights (no pun intended), featuring the wonderful Liz Ramsey and whatever I found lying around in my pen case.

Dimple Ducks

Dimple Ducks?

Dimple Ducks!

Beware the Abyss of the Star-Nosed Mole.

Quick Posting

A few pages from this week's Quick Studies workshop. Yay!

Captain Chiroptera!

Here's a goofy little something I whipped up for the AAU Comic Book Club's latest weekly challenge. We were supposed to design a superhero character based on randomly selected powers, and I ended up with "extraordinary hearing"and "sonic blasts". Enter Captain Chiroptera, the Bat Who Walks Like a Man!

Here's a closeup of the Captain, with his sidekick Sanguina to scale.

Since our hero is a bat who was bitten by a radioactive vampire, giving him the size and strength of a full-grown human - plus nifty attributes like day vision and opposable thumbs - it stands to reason that the vampire who bit him would be shrunk down to bat size, becoming an adorable pixie princess. I mean, that's what happened in The Fly, right?

Sketching in Meetings

Lots of meetings and orientation events over the last couple of weeks, and many doodles resulted. First, a few from the pre-semester life drawing workshop; that's Katie Longua in the witch outfit, and Sarafina in the cowgirl togs.

And here are a few of the notes I was taking during those lofty and intellectually demanding faculty meetings and training sessions.

Shiver Me Timbers

This week's Face Off challenge: "A pirate who's become one with the sea." The contestants on the actual show were given random individual prompts, but for the play-along-at-home version I picked the themes "kelp" and "barnacles."

And here she is in color...

More Demos

Oh, and I forgot to post these. More quickie inking technique demos from my summer comics class.

Obviously Man-Rat needed a tragic origin story. Here he mourns the comrades he's lost to the perfidious rat-catcher.

And a Joan of Arc-inspired sketch I was quite happy with.