Aliens Vs. Transformers: November Notes

We'll here we are into November and I've begun work again on AVT: Rescue. I've been away from it since April of 2008 because my responsibility to my family. Finding time for this project is similar to trying to piece together a replica of a spanish galley. You don't know why you're doing it beyond the act of the love of seeing the finished project sitting on your mantle.

I've gone back and tasked myself to finding every board and separating them. Now instead of being placed on a single sheet of six panels, they are now free to fill up my web site's bandwidth. The neat thing is that some of the panels make interesting animation sequences when you run them at high speed. My wife would snuff out my life if tried to animate this into a Youtube video so I have no prospects in doing so.

I like to think of AVT as my learning curve on the art of story boarding while refining my vision. Fan made I meant it as a filler piece for places like Dreamworks, Blizzard, Bioware, or Pixar's portfolio reviews. I suspect in 2009 I will finish it and simply place it on my wasted time tray, while starting on a family friendly story board behind its wake. 

So far I have finished the entire Race/Shaft Drop sequence which is about thirty panels and I am ready to move onto the Brig Sequence, where we introduce the Tankbots ( My ode to the Dinobots) , some nasty Decepticons and a new age Maximal. If those references are over your head... congratulations you're not a dork.

Happy Halloween

"Mother's Son" is a fun little monster drawing that has been sitting on the desk since early October this year. I wanted to do a theme for Halloween that would incorporate a Lovecraftian horror with a warrior babe. What I got was something that felt like Grendel and his mother. The piece turned out pretty well, since It took all night to finish and the details fell into place for shading and lighting. This one has a stand alone quality that I liked right off the get go with the environmental colors. Playing with CS3 managed to bring out a wonderful effect on the clouds and atmosphere that I fell in love with over the monster's purplish ridges and crests.

I am a fan of H.P Lovecraft and I tend to have many sketches of creatures that would fit right in with Great Old One's ilk. Lovecraft had this reporter/professorial quality to his body of work that made you feel you were reading the terror first hand from the dark shadowy pulp corners of a tabloid or a science publishing.The only author to date that I feel could expand on his work is Stephen King. When King decides to walk down these dark lanes of ancient cobblestone it is magic. He does mostly short stories when visiting upon us the creeping horrors of H.P Lovecraft. They are some of his best in my view that sneer up at you from Nightshift and Skeleton Crew. 

Hopefully the man will give us one big drop down a well of terror and visit upon us something out of a Sutter Kane novel in the near future, you John Carpenter fans out there know what I mean by this. It is my boys second Halloween and we got him a Godzilla suit and a flashlight and we are off to have some tricks or treats this friday. Perhaps the Mother's Son will get tons of treats this hollows eve as well.