Taiwan

This was my first little foray into watercolor and ink mapping. Taiwan.

Tool Sober Diorama

I did this a while ago for a commission. i was a two piece diorama set based on the music video for Sober by Tool. Two two pieces could be separated and they were intended to be somewhat like bookends. The 'meat' in the pipe is movable using a hidden lever and where the hole is, there is a replaceable piece to the metal pipe. The second piece, with the guy pinned to the wall, has a sliding plexiglass door.

Overall, I did a lot of experimentation with this and it was a great learning project. I was quite happy with it in the end and was somewhat sad to see it go.

EDIT: I should probably add a link to the video as well...

A challange for those who go, a dream for those who stay behind.

Though I know virtually nothing about racing, this particular race has captured me with its glamor and prestige. It was founded by Thierry Sabine, who became inspired in the Libyan desert when he got lost in a 1977 race. Somewhere in his dream through the sands, he decided the race would be a great setting for a regular rally car race. Henceforth, the Paris-Dakar.

Originally this was going to be a submission for the monthly contest at the Cartographer's Guild, but I missed the deadline by about a month. Never-the-less, I finished it and here it is. Debuting, of all places, my sketchblog. I'd do a ton of things differently. Having never worked with watercolor until, well, this year, I'm still getting the hang of it. Ink though, I've got the hang of that. Maybe I should try a strictly ink map... hmm... stay tuned.

Blackbeard

I've just finished the book Republic of Pirates and what a fascinating history it was! Sigh... I wish I was a piratical lowlife, roaming the Bahamas with a pint of rum in my hand.

Blackbeard was the most fascinating of all the pirates for me. He'd act the maniac, lighting fuses beneath his hat and intimidating his prey with a fiery glow. He never killed any one though. Despite is savage appearance and wild eyes, he was rather a gentleman when compared to other pirates of the day, though he plundered like the best of them.

And so I gave him a little tribute. Just a head shot of what he might have looked like, at least in my mind.

Little batch

So I bought a little sketch pad to carry around in my bag where ever I am and whenever I get the urge. I also bought a white ink pen... hence many of the drawings you see above. The Monkey drawing, however, is all black ink.

A Tide in the Affairs of Men

So this was for a contest at the Cartographer's Guild in which contestants were tasked to come up with any map whatsoever that featured NYC. The top three winners get a prize and the top 45 will go to Soho to be displayed in a digital art show over at the Soho Gallery of Digital Art. Prints will be available, so if anyone feels so inclined... ;)

So yeah, its cool in a sense as I like how the inks worked out with the energy of the splatters and the sketchy contours of the coast. But the areas of burnt like black ink irritate me a bit and I wish I did more to integrate them into the style better. Most of all, I wish I went for warm colors over cool as that would convey the energy of the city much better, but I had this image of the cold New York harbor stuck in my mind. So I went for cool.

Anyway, I can't wait to start my next mapping project for another contest over at the Cartographers Guild, this time the theme is castles. So stay tuned!

Sithy Business

I can not even believe I haven't posted this yet. This is from, maybe, 2009? I think I did it in Exeter where I wasted endless hours drawing on that funny little desk in Clydesdale Rise. So in short, if your confused, the story is about three lords of the Sith (evil doers of the Star Wars universe) who meet in a back alley to discuss the state of the Empire and their next moves. The mysterious stranger is, well, mysterious. I never wrote a sequel to address who he was.

The whole story is lifted from a star wars roleplaying site I used to write on, sw-fans.net, an I had been there for years. I first started writing there when I was 12 when the re-release of Star Wars: A New Hope had dazzled my mind. Previously, I had been heavily involved in the world of Professional Wrestling fiction... I dunno if that would warrant a comic book though ;)

So the work was done on Strathmore Medium drawing paper where it was composed first in pencil, and then finished in ink. I much prefer the final product to be in ink as its permanence transcends that of pencil and I don't have to worry about that messing smudging. I never understood why comic artists never insisted on inking their pencils (though some do). I mean, the final product is printed in ink, not pencil. While the artist may compose the image, the inker makes it real... and that is more than tracing.