Frankenstein's Animated Monster

 

Graphite on paper

King Of The Surf

 

"King Of The Surf" ink pen on paper.

Hi there. I figured since I done gone and told the internet that I was opting to not actively engage in social media much any longer, and stated that the place to see whatever I was working on would be this here blog, well...I figured I should probably actually post something. 

First thing's first. The note I posted on my Instagram account (see below) stating that I was choosing to step away from the platform, was in reference to the inundation of "Suggested Post(s)" and thoroughly obnoxious Tik-Tok-esque videos that jam up your content scroll. It was getting to the point where the accounts I was actually following were making up a thin minority of the content I was seeing. 

It's annoying, it's distracting, and with a finite lifespan of unknown duration, it's a detriment to my quality of life. Perhaps that reads much more dramatically than I actually mean it. All of the friends, acquaintances, artists, musicians and other random accounts that I personally chose to follow on the platform, I will still check in periodically to see what they are up to, but I won't be actively posting anything there. At least not for a while.

Besides, I much prefer long-form posting like this, where some substance can be paired with an image, rather than just zine-scrap picture bombing. And keyboard typing is much more my style than fingertip-tapping out hashtags. 

The sketchbook doodle above was an exercise in drawing a complete image from scratch with an idea for inspiration but no reference material in front of me. Just a blank sketchbook and an ink pen. The pen contained dark blue ink, whether or not that translates across the scan or not. The idea was to do something in the vein of the illustrations paired with fiction in the old Men's adventure magazines of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, like MALE, For Men Only, Man's Adventure, All-Man, Stag and other laughably titled publications. Of course I had to put my own spin on it, finding zero interest in just drawing a scowling he-man who is present to improve the world or save the day with the inherent level of his manliness. 

Something Sketchy

I've been trying out a sketchbook prompting technique that artist / cartoonist Charles Burns has discussed employing in interviews and books of his work. Essentially you tape a reference image to the backside of the previous page (or inside of the front cover, initially, I guess) and then rework the picture out in your sketchbook, in your own style, incorporating your own aesthetic choices.

The following are just a few of the examples of my own exercises in this.

I have no idea what "The Snake Pit" is, or why this Famous Monsters of Filmland trading card is labelled as such. The trading card set came out in 1963, and indeed features stills of creatures and ghastly shots from established horror films, largely AIP teen monster flicks and peplum films. After you get to card 20 or so, of the 64 card set, the images are either misidentified, oddly cropped illustration from movie posters or pulp magazines, and images of contest winners done up in their contest-winning make up creations. One such is the above image. The blurb from FMOF identifying the winner is below. 

Above is country music legend Ernest Tubb. 

I'm not a sports fan in the least. I have zero interest in watching other people play games and get paid millions upon millions of dollars to do it. You might as well have regional Yahtzee players making seven figures with crowds of beer-swilling idiots crowding around them, threatening the referees after each official dice roll count. 

Vitriol aside, this is some baseball trading card featuring Kansas City A's pitcher George Brunet, who was apparently traded often throughout his career, and eventually made his way to Mexico, where he pitched for the Mexican league into his fifties. All of that info came from a cursory internet search. I chose the card because of the unibrow, dyspeptic expression and oddly elongated neck. And while I find professional sport boring, I genuinely can't stomach "professional" sports analysis, particularly when it's a bunch of self-styled oracle blowhards sitting around, pitching speculation about what a certain team needs to do to win an upcoming game. The gist of it is always "I think what (insert team name) needs to do to beat (insert team name) in tomorrow's game, is to win it!"

 

Haunted House

Late last night I was flipping through the August 1983 issue of Computer & Video Games magazine, a British video game enthusiast publication, and came across this great illustration for the game Haunted House. Apparently the magazine was initially aimed more at coders than your casual arcade enthusiast, as most game spotlight articles feature pictures of long blocks of code rather than any in depth look at the games themselves.

The illustration is signed Gulbis. I have no idea if this is some early work by the self-proclaimed "Football Artist" Stephen Gulbis, or not. When you Google his name a lot of early home console video game packaging comes up, none of it explicitly linked to that same Steve Gulbis. Gulbis is British, and though he touts having built a career on solely drawing soccer players and American football players for various markets, I have to imagine he'd had to diversify somewhat at some point. You wouldn't know it to look at his website, though. 

The subject matter, obviously, made the piece stick out for me, but ghosts and skeletons aside, I really like the limited cool color palette with the high contrast of the black shadows. I also really like the Dutch angle perspective, it really adds a sense of high drama to the image that a straight-on version of the image would lack. 

Macumba Noir

 

Acrylic on black paper

Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me

 

 

"Hammerlocks Will Never Hold Me!" gouache on paper 8.5" x 5" $30.

Ghost Robot Versus The Mad Magician

Gouache on watercolor paper. A work in progress.

Strike Anywhere

I've always enjoyed the visual language of the small, disposable matchbook cover. I don't collect them, it seems pointless, but I am never not astounded by the striking imagery and visual appeal of a really good matchbook cover design. It's a pay-for-production job, undoubtedly, at least when matchbook cover design was an important part of a business's image. Before the internet, it was a marketing tool to spread the word around about your establishment. Even if it didn't reflect the decor of your bar or business, a striking logo or enticing image would draw folks to check out your place. And for the designer, it was a task with substantial limitations; you had to keep the colors few, the lettering readable and the image obvious. Too fancy and it would be cost prohibitive, too noisy and it wouldn't be legible, too dull and it wouldn't be worth the cost of the overhead.

I highly recommend checking out this flickr album of vintage matchbook covers from around the world, put together by Jane McDevitt. It features over 2900 quality scans of vintage matchbooks from around the globe, containing some of the most beautiful spot illustrations you might find anywhere. Definitely worth a perusal!

Cráneo de vaquero

"Cráneo de vaquero" colored pencil on paper

I've never been very skilled with colored pencils as a medium. I guess the same could be said about other mediums as well, but I've been watching some tutorials and trying to get more into it, since I got a spiffy new box of colored pencils from my employer recently. This was a simple layering exercise, blended with some nail polish remover. Still some trouble areas to work the kinks out of, like pulling darker shadows out of the greens without making them too muddy or adding black, which sort of grays everything up. 

New Paintings

Here are some paintings I've either just recently finished, or started and are works in progress. Apologies for the fact that some are sideways; my scanner is busted so all I can use is my crummy cell phone, and I don't have Adobe Photoshop on this computer. 

Hillbilly Hunstman From Outer Space gouache on paper

Brainburn For Bubbleglum (work in progress) acrylic on cardboard

Concerto For Violin and Hand Puppet acrylic on canvas

Casket Case acrylic on wood

Another Night In Prick City acrylic on canvas

Sci-Fi Still Life acrylic on canvas

The Experiment acrylic on cardboard

Nuclear Knight acrylic on canvas

Solitary Refinement gouache on watercolor paper

Science-Fiction Still Life

I actually made time to sit down and do some painting this afternoon and evening. I'm not sure if this one is done yet or not. I think I've reached the point of "Do I keep adding and fixing until it's ruined, or do I stop?" Of course there are bits that I think need tightening up, and this hyper-saturated-while-somehow-gloomy-because-it-was-photographed-with-an-ipone-in-weird-lighting-circumstances picture doesn't really help sell it, either. 

Consider Worms

Halloween 2019 Creepy Consumption Day 4: Svengoolie

Day Four of Creepy Consumption continues with a quick sketch of the Patron Saint of my Saturday evenings: Svengoolie. While not a horror movie or a television show per se, Sven is the cool ghoul who hosts the Universal Monsters classics, along with The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, and a plethora of other Hammer Horrors, Universal and Warner Bros. monster mayhem from the golden age of monster movies, all wrapped in a heady helping of Vaudeville-esque humor (aka jokes your grandfather would tell).

If you don't know what Svengoolie is all about, go here, or check out MeTV on Saturday night, 7pm Central Standard Time!

The Experiment

The lighting is abysmal, I know, but here's another acrylic piece. This one is on cardboard.

The Experiment in Progress

My painting is still in progress. Not super familiar with acrylics, so the layering is taking some getting used to. For such thick paints, they sure do brush on translucent!

Doodle Doodle Doo

Yeah, I'm back with more Doodle-A-Day cards. Two more drawings of two of my favorite things: robots and dinosaurs.

Character Study

I’ve been doodling this guy in various forms over the last couple of days. Just some nerdy little guy who can fit all kinds of requirements in visual expression. Like having his face torn off or making a meek point of order.

Painting In Progress

Painting in progress! Acrylic on cardboard. More soon (hopefully). 

Yetis Don't Surf (But We Think They Should)

Here is today's doodle-a-day effort, which came about as a result of the two rounds of Flapjacks And Sasquatches I played last night, and the Hawaiian shirt I wore when I got off work today. Yes, it's a surfing yeti wearing a party hat (he likes to party), accompanied by a raccoon wearing swimming goggles and tooting a party blowout.

It's just begging to be used for a party invite...or something.

Burgerhosen

Here’s some sketchbook nonsense from this evening.