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.

To celebrate the new season of Syfy's special effects makeup show, Face Off, I figured I'd try playing along at home. So here's an idea for a Star Wars-style Cantina Alien.

Once I'd given him a space hookah, it seemed only natural to turn this disreputable character into a space caterpillar.

The Devil's Carnival

One of our household favorites is the gorgeous, gruesome goth musical Repo! The Genetic Opera, by Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich. So when they reunited to do a touring indie roadshow, under the catchy title of The Devil's Carnival, we really couldn't miss it. Here a few sketches of the other folks in attendance at the Balboa Theatre on that fateful Saturday night...

Naturally, there was cosplay aplenty. Like it says in the song, "We've got ordinary sinners, and extraordinary ones..."

We were lined up next to a quartet of cosplayers, who posed for a group shot. I don't think I've ever had to sketch this fast before! Left to right: Misty, Bridget, Stephanie, and Prince Lysander.

The pre-show entertainment included a juggling, accordion-playing clown.

Carlee Baker, the hilariously sassy emcee, picked an audience volunteer and then asked her to confess her worst sin. Witness the epic brain freeze!

So how was the feature attraction? I really liked it! Catchy music, great visuals, and the incongruous combination of an infernal circus structured around Aesop's fables worked surprisingly well. I'll be eagerly awaiting the next episode, and I just hope poor Darren will be up for another road show, even after getting his nose broken by a slamming theater door!