Flammarion Engraving

As a youngster I was fascinated with this picture. I don’t remember where or when I first saw it, but remember that I used to draw my own versions of it… I guess I just liked the idea of a hidden and incomprehensible world beyond the veil of what we see. Plus, I have to admit, the adult me enjoys the idea of ‘reality’ as a kind of painted backdrop, behind which we find a load of gods know what.

I don’t think any of my early versions of this drawing have survived.

I’ve since discovered this illustration is called “The Flammarion Engraving.” It has a slightly weird history but you can read the wikipedia entry for yourself.

FYI on July 31st I’ll be driving down to Indianapolis to help set up Goodman’s booth for Gencon and hopefully sell some art. If you are at Gencon, stop by the booth to say hello and pick up a copy of “Mother of Toads,” The Dungeon Poster or The Hobonomicon.

Dagon timelapse drawing video

Dagon is a comic book version of an HP Lovecraft story first published in 1917. I adapted the story to comic book form in 2017… this year I added a few more pages to it.
The software used to draw this 2 page spread is Manga Studio 5 (aka Clip Studio Pro) by Smith Micro. Drawn with a stylus on a Wacom tablet. This video represents 5 or more hours of work… I used Screenbar Capture to capture a screen grab every few minutes… it adds up to less that one and a half minutes of video.

Coming soon…

Reprint of Dagon comic with some added stuff…

2018 Gencon and HOBONOMICON!

Currently getting ready for Gencon 2018 (first weekend in August) where I will be a guest at the Goodman Games booth, selling art, books, meeting you fine people. etc. Above is some of the original art that will be coming with me for sale — there will also be black and white stuff in various sizes. In addition I will (hopefully) have copies of my “Mother of Toads” comic… (I think the delivery man tried to bring them yesterday, but Annie says our dog’s fierce barking chased him off)…

And I will be selling 11×17 posters of the ‘dungeon map’ illustration… suitable for framing or coloring… Each dungeon map print is signed and backed with a card to keep it from getting wrinkled and wrapped in plastic (although you can easily unwrap it for display or framing). Posters will be $10.00 each. What I don’t sell at Gencon will probably be sold via the web and if I make a small profit I’ll try it again with different images.

If all that were not enough, we will also have issue #0 of THE HOBONOMICON on sale!

Hope to see you all there!

Another Test (MCC)

This is another test (it’s a test post to see if my various social media are sharing the way I want them to — I’m technologically impaired)… but its also a new drawing for MCC so enjoy!

Devil

From one of my ‘drawing a day’ things.

Dagon frame for Magician’s Skull

Last year around this time I self published my comic, Dagon, in a zine format for Gencon. Subsequently, it was picked up for an upcoming issue of Tales from the Magician’s Skull (I think it will appear in issue #3). The Magician’s Skull version will feature a few small changes including an additional page and a written introduction which will appear in this aquatic themed border (above).

In other news, I have updated my illustration portfolio with some new work… check it out here.

Color out of Space

The above illustration will be printed in gold foil on the back of a leatherette book cover in a future publication (the large black space in the upper LH area is for text). When working on an illustration for gold foil, the tricky part is remembering to simplify the design just enough so it will print clearly in gold foil (but not too much since I think much of the visual interest in a drawing comes from the twists and turns of line as they describe the subject).

This image was inspired by a drawing by Virgil Finlay illustrating H.P. Lovecraft’s story, “The Color out of Space.” I think Finlay used scratchboard on his original illustration. It’s a great drawing — both in terms of technique and composition. The silhouetted figures in the foreground are particularly nice.

The Mother of Toads (art time lapse)

As previously mentioned, I’m working on a comic book version of the classic Clark Ashton Smith story, “The Mother of Toads.” Above is a time lapse video of screen captures at short intervals of me working on the spread for pages 14-15 of the short comic… I’m currently using Manga Studio for the drawing. FYI: There is no sound in the video (so don’t worry — your computer is working fine… I just haven’t added sound yet).

I released a comic book version of Lovecraft’s “Dagon” at Gencon last year and people seemed to like it so I decided to release another this year. This year’s release was supposed to be “The People of the Pit” by A. E. Merritt, but that comic got picked up for publication in “Tales from the Magician’s Skull” so I had to come out with a replacement comic for release this year — that is why I am cranking furiously on this one, trying to get it finished and printed before Gencon. My plan is to continue to do various horror comics based on lesser known tales from classic horror/weird fiction authors until I have enough to publish an anthology.

I’m hoping to make more tutorials and ‘work in process’ videos in the coming year, perhaps using a platform like Patreon to help defray costs. If you have had experiences (both positive and negative) with Patreon as a creator or as a patron, please let me know in comments.