The Monster Mash

I recently had a blast illustrating some classic movie monsters for a recent job. Now that I feel a bit more comfortable with my sense of tone, I've been concentrating on consistently getting my brush strokes to follow the form. I've been looking at Leyendecker paintings and Zorn etchings for guidance. Following the form makes a huge difference, and I'm hoping that eventually it will be something I do without having to think so much about it.

The Wolfman:
The Fly:
The Blob:
Godzilla:

Rodan:
King Kong:
Frankenstein's Monster:
Dr. Zaius:
Count Orlock:
The Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Cycles of Rebirth

Happy New Year! Personally, I am looking at 2011 with rose-tinted glasses. The economy is starting to pick itself up off the littered floor, and I just got three books to help inspire and guide me:

The first is Spectrum 17, the latest in the series. A great source of lovely, beautiful, amazing, inspiring, shame-inducing, wonderful work. I am always blown away by how great the best contemporary artists are in every aspect of what they do. It simultaneously makes me want to lock myself in a room and paint until my hands wear away into little nubs or explode in a fiery ball of frustration and self-pity. This might sound strange, but I know many artists who feel this way after looking at the same book, or going to the museum, or a really great gallery opening. Inspiration is weird that way.

The next is the Graphic Artist's Guild's Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It's a must-have for freelancers who don't want to be taken for the proverbial ride. It gives industry standards for pricing and an explanation of various terms that can be found in most contracts. Just seeing how many zeros are on the established artist's paycheck has much the same effect on me as looking at the Spectrum books.

The third is an amazing book called Framed Ink, by Marcos Mateu-Mestre. It's geared towards sequential art, but is full of great advice for narrative, lighting, composition, character design, and plenty of other stuff that's on pages I haven't read yet. I highly recommend it for any illustrator or concept artist.

Changing Houses in TriviaTown

As I have mentioned before, I have been working with TriviaTown Inc. on a Facebook game called Exorcists vs. Demons. Unfortunately, the game has hit a bump in the road, and it may be a while before we can get back to working on it. However, when a door is closed, a window is opened, as they say, and I will continue to be able to work with TriviaTown on illustrations for another game. Also, as it is unclear whether they will be utilized in the future, I have been given permission to share some of the 100+ illustrations I made for Exorcists vs. Demons:

Goat Men

I've been trying to add more process and concept art to my portfolio, so I've started a few sets of character silhouettes. The idea is to play with the form of the character in as many ways as possible in a short amount of time, so the ideas can be discussed with a team or art director.

I've chosen to play with the idea of a satyr, faun, goat-man. One version is mostly human, another more monstrous, there's the standard hybrid, and the little frumpy guys.

Aliens vs. Superheroes

Here is a recent piece I made for the good people over at Palladium Books. They requested a cover for the next issue of Rifter. Although I was working under a tight deadline, I was very excited about the assignment, so working on it was pretty fun.

Dungeon Delve Challenge

Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with suggestions for this piece. Today is the deadline, so here is the final image. I went back into the anatomy of the figure, adjusted some of the architecture to fit the perspective, and made a few other minor changes.