Some old Stuff

These are some pieces of mine that are quite old actually. At least 10 years old, actually. But I still like them, and figure it would be fun to show them off.

This first one is called "Mech Hed" which came from a sheet of sketches of cyborg skeleton parts, I guess inspired by various things like "Terminator" and H.P. Lovecrafts "Necronomicon"

This Piece, call "View from Trin" is based on a sci-fi story Davin Yant and I had been working on years ago. This was a composite that included 3 different media. The foreground is all pen and ink, the nebula space effects were done in watercolor and the planets were done in 3ds max (r3).

This next piece titled "Elf-Mage"was envisioned as card art for the Magic: The Gathering card game. I didn't have any card mechanics or anything much beyond the drawing, but that was the motivation behind it.

This last piece, called  "Shadow Ninja" is not of Raiden, though I do see the similarities, and surely the character from Mortal Kombat had some influence, but I was looking more for the traditional "rice hat" kind of look that has gotten more popular lately fro ninjas, like in "The Warriors Way" I still think this is a bad ass character tho, and someday hope to use him in something. The idea is that the Ninja is actually dead, but haunts the armor he wore. So for the purposes of story, if someone were to fight this guy, their bullets or blades would pass through the black spaces. The armor has to be destroyed in order to defeat the spirit.

-oh, and the cool "elephant skin" border was made by scanning a piece of tinfoil that was crumpled up and then flattened back out.

  

So there is a sample of some of my older pieces. I have posted some of these images elsewhere, like older sites and on my Deviant Art page.
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That time of year.

Mule from the Jade Monkey has left for his vacation, as has Kenny, one of the Chop Shop Crew. And Dawn, Liberty and I will be leaving on the 3rd to head out to Montana. It's vacation time! I will post pics and updates from our trip here. No tattooing on the trip this time around. I don't want to get caught up working, and miss out on the fun!

Here's something to look at:

I painted this guy a while ago, like a few years ago. but he's still cool, and though it's tricky painting a 3d object, I would love to do more of these eventually.

Collector Spotlight #5: Jen Haskin"s Cyber Nek

How about it? Welcome to another Collector Spotlight, this one featuring Jen's Cybernetic neck tattoo (if the title didn't clear that up). And though this piece still needs some fine tuning, and I cant find the most recent photos, (I think I lost them on my old flash drive, along with many other works... sad) But anyway. It's a really cool piece. It's been a great challenge and a wild concept! So on with it then!

The Concept: Jen Came to me with the idea of tattooing her neck with the Capricorn sea goat, and a cyborg/machine piece under torn skin. The images on the left are the initial drafts and from there I worked up the larger image on the right. This is one of the very first pieces I lined completely in grey. Though I was still working it as a lined piece, by that, I mean I was working out the piece in my head by the shapes and structure of the machinery in the design, and not considering light and shading first, or really including it into the greyline, like I did with the Sin City piece. Though I do go that direction for this tattoo, as you will see, that planning wasnt there in the outline... but then the stencil was all drawn in green marker...

And at this point. I had done a good amount of freehand stencils like this, but not quite this intricate, and definitely not on the neck, shoulder area. which I have to say is a tough spot to work. I've never been a fan of tattooing the throat area, the rest isn't a walk in the park, but it's not like the throat.
The marker drawing took almost 2 hours and was the easiest part of the whole thing.

The greyline didn't take nearly as long as the marker did, but that didn't make it easier. Jen sat great for this piece, really only having trouble on the throat and collarbone, but nothing that interfered with what I was doing.

I couldn't find all the stages photos of the shading, This did not all happen at once. first we did the sea goat, then in different sessions shaded blocks of areas, like the back, the side and the throat separately. it was the only way, considering sensitivity of the area, with difficulty of tattooing those areas, and that I was still figuring out how to do this technique in more complicated designs.

So like I had said, it's not done, we have one more overall touch up. These last pics aren't even of the most recent progress, with the skin tear shaded and such. as I was saying, after the different sections were finished, we then worked over the entire piece to smooth out any inconsistency and deepen the shading. As always, I prefer to work lighter because I can always make things darker. but you cant make things lighter in a tattoo.

So that's pretty much it on this one... it took about 6 hours to put this segment together as I've been taking care of my 5 month old daughter at the same time, feeding, changing, and entertaining her while I put this blog post together. really one of the few things I can do when I'm watching her,if I'm not trying to get it done quickly. While doing any real drawing or design work is pretty much impossible while watching her.

At least so far.

A cool redo I did a while back...

This is a betta fish "redo" these kinds of projects are really fun, and getthe best response from the collector.

Nothing special...

A couple shots of my drawing desk....just showing this weeks projects. I think I'll do this from time to time, maybe once a month.

And a bit of a close up...

I will say. I don't actually draw with all this crap on my desk. in fact, I rarely draw at this desk, most of the drawing at home, now happens at the kitchen table (better to watch Liberty). and typically on the clipboard (easier to move around) I used to draw on the desk, with paper taped down and t-square out, but it was too hard to stay at the desk, break for a cig, or answer the phone, etc. with the clipboard, I can chill with friends or Dawn, and keep drawing, I can move around and not end up losing time on my drawing chores. For me, it's just easier. I can't imagine being stuck at a drawing desk for hours everyday...

The Future has arrived.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/21/japan.camera.pill/

Busy Busy!

So I have been watching my Daughter Liberty a bit more these past couple weeks, and as such I have been woefully behind on so many projects (and I was doing so well too..) So I wont be posting a collector spotlight until I get back from my vacation for the 4th. but also, when I get back, I will be adding another segment to the blog. a weekly post of pages from my indy comic "Maze" I'm working on #3 whenever I get a spare minute (yes, it's going pretty slow, I started this book more than three years ago, and still am only halfway finished) BUT I will be posting pages from chapters 1 and 2, a page a week (that should be easy. right?) as I work on chapter 3, and then will release pages of chapter 3 as I move into Chapter 4. might as well show it off here, otherwise I'm not sure anyone will get to see it. ha!

There are other projects with the Chop Shop and Jade Monkey crews that hopefully take off, but we'll see...

So come july 9th, I will have returned from vacation, and plan to put out some new material (and some old).

for now, just a few pics of some recent work - Have to at least post a couple pics right? why else do all 6 of my fans come here for? ha!

Hope's "Day of the Dead Pooh" 1/2 sleeve. Not 100% done, but super awesome still!