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.

Jeddins Field: The Story behind it.

Ok, so my family keeps asking me why Jeddins Field for the title of your blog? Why not Kevin164, or just rantings of a starving artist? I love them sooo much...where else can you get such sarcasm so close to home. So here it is guys in a nutshell Jeddins Field is story about a woman who dies at seventy after a long bout with cancer. She is trapped along with two hundred dead souls in the after life within the small town of Mission Crest, California. Between them and the welcoming light is a terrible demon that will not let them pass. This woman's soul is now within the prime of her death-life, which she consider it to be twenty-five; she then decides to do something  after a close friend is consumed by the evil entity. She set out too enlists the aid of four fighter ace pilots from various wars that have chosen to "slumber" in an abandoned air field called Jeddins Field rather than face the judgement awaiting them in the light. This is no easy feat since the demon seeks to destroy her and any who help her while she tries to cross the town.

With the awaking of the four she then must convince them too help in the fight against the demon and gain the freedom of the trapped souls of her township. This turns out to be even harder since three of them are related and have grudges against the other. The tree in this picture symbolizes the fourth pilot's resting place. He is the eldest and can be considered like the Red Baron. He appears as a silent skeletal reaper like visage that flies an old world war one bi-plane that can kick some serious spectral butt. 

I liked this story when I first wrote it as a twelve year old. It has been sitting somewhere in a file under years of bills and receipts. Since it was one of my first stories it tends to hold a special place in my heart and I thought I would revive it as my Web-Site/Blog/Portfolio. 

I've always been fascinated with what we all have to face in life at the end and my Heroine is a plucky world war two grandmother of three who gets to be gorgeous again as she was in youthful life. A prize fighter and a good mom she represented an age of women's independence and bravery. I like her and would like to follow up on her story and the four pilots she has to coral into being the heroes they are. She is also the great grandmother of character who would star in her own novel that sits in the same box of notes and art under my desk. Perhaps we can get to them once we establish ourselves. We'll see...

Children's Book.

It's hard for me to explain this absolute dividing line that has separated myself with being a father from an irresponsible self serving mook that I used to be. It happened instantly and was nothing short of becoming a man of responsibility no holds barred on my son's first day of life.I can tell you parenthood is an interesting stage in growing up if you so choose it, or should it fall on you like a ton of bricks then you have my sympathy and welcome to the adventure of your life brother. So here's my advice... "Want it, rather than fall into it." You'll be better off that way. 

It clarified what was important over my arrogance, my ignorance, as well as some pretty asinine concepts that I had as a teenager and young adult. All the while I was chafing under my Father's love and Marine like supervision during those years, I actually let some of it sink in. I now find myself repeating some time honored fatherly commands while my eleven month old gurgles defiance. Ahh, the circle repeats. I guess I could equate parenthood as receiving a "rest of your life" pass to the going ons behind the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in Disneyland after riding the boat for so many years. 

I love my son. He's a real joy and a blessing. He's a gentle heart and a fearless soul. My Wife and I have made sure to emphasize sharing and love with him at every turn. I've been out of work for near a year now and in that time I have received something most fathers never get and that is time spent with their sons all day long. 

I am getting to watch him grow into his personality at ground zero rather than a few hours between here and there whilst coming home from work and going back the next day. It took a long time for my wife to recover from her C-section and some pretty far reaching complications have kept me at her side since the birth of our boy. We're lucky for the love of her family and my father as they came through for us at every turn, I am grateful for that support while I cared for her and our newborn son and I will cherish it till the day I die. 

I've been working on various art projects over the months of this blog's inception from Stephen R. Donaldson's works to pin-up art, but these are self serving ventures. For long time I have wanted to give my wife a gift of a children's book, but have failed to do so. She loves Winnie the Pooh and I'm a big Godzilla freak, which is one of the perks of why we married. She and I are both at heart simply seven year olds trapped in adult bodies and are happy to have found each other. Not to say we are not responsible adults... we just enjoy kid things as well.

So I've begun on Pudgy Blue or Roo;  I haven't decided on a title as of yet. Basically it is a nod towards both of our beloved pets. Mine was an Old English Sheep Dog and her dog was a Malamute.( Word of advice Old English Sheep Dogs nip. They are good with kids but they do tend to bite as a herding reflex I presume. Malamutes are extremely vocal and loving. They like to work so get a sled or something they can pull.)

 I figure I will need about thirty pages between art and story for a finished book to present to an agent or publisher. Getting it published should be an interesting challenge to overcome. Luckily my wife has a friend who is an editor at People Magazine so I will have to harass her when it's finished with pleading emails and bribes of royalties.  :)

Pin-Up Art.

When I moved into Mt. Shasta I discovered the Black Bear Gallery. It is a nicely displayed gallery that promotes local artists and there is quite a bit of talented people submitting art here in Siskiyou County. On meeting the owner I presented myself as a Cartoonist and Penciler looking to sell my work. He liked my portfolio, but it was one of my sketches of a warrior babe from Chimera that caught is eye. He pretty much laid it out that he was interested in some pin up art for his gallery and that was fine with me. 

Of course I don't have any pin up art handy to show him, so for the last few weeks I've been sketching out some babes who are in serious need in eating some sandwiches.  I got a futuristic car pin-up that has been floating in my head and I'm really interested in bringing that to light, so hopefully I'll be able to add that finished idea to my On-line Portfolio.

So here's the first sketch of Saberous with some Photoshoop thrown in for the heck of it. She is a  prominent character in one of my outlined stories called "Side Show Coma." She is basically the female side to our protagonist who is trapped in a fight for survival against himself while lost in a coma.

Comic Con 2008

I'm sitting here typing up this post where I should be prepping for the long journey ahead of me for Sunday the 20th. I'm practically driving down from the Oregon border to San Diego for the 2008  Comic Con Portfolio Review.

 

I did this once in 2001 and It's not bad so long as you go in with the healthy perspective that you're going to get compressed through an emotional cheese grater. Sucks being an artist, until you hit pay dirt, but that's the gig.

Over the last two years I've been working on Chimera in order to wing an electronic gaming job. It also has helped in getting the rust off the pen and my adolescent dreams. I don't care where I work in the gaming field, just so long as it has a paycheck attached to it. I can then feed my wife and son, perhaps get a new computer, so I can play Spore. (I'm so looking forward to that.) 

 The problem is I think my stuff stinks. I really got to slow down and focus on the anatomy and fine tuning of how I draw my hands and vehicles in order to sweep my way into employment amongst the other desk gaming jockeys. 

I just spent two days cramming a five page panel spread for a comic book illustration, and I feel like I just did an all nighter for some screwed up test in Latin. My work has some things about it that I like and some things I really hate. Despise it or love it they are going proudly into the maw of the reviewers.

Honorable Mentions OC Fair 2008

With>You : Darkest Day has taken honorable mentions for 2008 at the OC Fair in Costa Mesa under the mixed media amateur class. 

This year the fair had a bit more entries than usual and the judges seemed to be picking more abstract designs for the top tiers. I probably should have gone with the illustrations division for my submissions but with all the photoshop color and effects it seemed clear that it belonged in mixed media. There is always next year.