"Passing of the Soul" frame 4 Seven Creatures

This manifestation of the Seven Creatures of Light took somewhat longer than I expected. I am working on a hybrid process uniting hand-done ink drawing with digital coloring. This is what comic book (sequential art) producers use now and I need to gain skill with it before I do more professional quality sequential art. The original text is divided up in the frame with different typefaces and sizes. Barnard, the author, has a way of making up non-existent words made from conventional syllables, or sometimes rare or regional items such as "piquettish" which I think means something in Irish. I'm using the bright yellow as a theme here, as it is mentioned in the palette sun circle. The purplish grey is clouds which swirl to reveal the Seven Creatures, energy beings with stylized animal heads. That's not in Barnard's text but I threw them in to make the story work. We will learn more about why the Creatures are here and what the golden mountain lion is carrying.

Black and brown marker ink and brown dip pen ink, colored and lettered in Photoshop, 6" x 8", March 7, 2017. Click for a larger view.

Wonder Woman winding down

It's from my comic book fandom years: I illustrated a moderately humorous article about Wonder Woman. What does the Amazon Princess do when work is over for the day? A little TV watching, 1980 style, a soda, and a book on the floor. What would Wonder Woman read for pleasure? Romance novels starring supeheroes? Would she watch the evening news, or game shows, or soap operas? Back then TV wasn't horrifying the way it is now, and you could get a giggle out of a show even if you were a glamorous super hero gal.

Original drawing was ink on illustration board, 7" x 4", fall 1980. Click for a larger view.

Seven Creatures of Light in progress

I'm working on a sequential project based on the mystical writings of a composer friend. It's called "Passage of the Soul." You have seen the beginning and early panels where a young person is confronted with an invasion from the world of spirits and magical colors. Seven creatures, each based on something from the natural world, visit the visionary and eventually are the agents of an initiation. This is an excerpt from panel 4, showing the Seven Creatures: from left to right, mountain lion, iris flower, fox, marine reptile, mantis, crystal, and horse. You'll see the whole manifestation of Panel 4 when I'm done.

Ink drawing on illustration board, colored in Photoshop, 7 1/2" x 2", March5, 2017.

DarkoverCon 1986 program cover

I used to do the cover for the DarkoverCon program book every year. In 1986 a major fantasy author, the Dragon Lady herself Anne McCaffrey was guest of honor so I did a cover in which flying dragons and riders were converging on a Darkovan castle lit by the great red sun. I have added the red color with Photoshop. We didn't have the resources to do a two-color cover, just black and white. Over the years I have done many renderings of the red sun of Darkover. Author M.Z. Bradley never specified just what kind of star this was although it was most probably a red giant. Red giants are unstable, so Darkovans are lucky that the planet wasn't fried before sentient life evolved.

The notes in my catalog for this picture say that it was created during the disastrous Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when the Boston Red Sox lost to the New York Mets. That says a lot and brings up many painful memories. It would take eighteen years until the Sox would finally win in 2004. 

Ink on illustration board, 6" x 10", October 1986.

Geometrikon flipped and re-colored

The last time you saw this, it was a crustacean of some kind. I flipped the image horizontally and colored it in spring landscape colors and here it is again. This time I colored it with water-based markers, colored pencils, and some acrylic pen color so it is now fixed in the sketchbook. I have kept digital files of the original ink drawing without color, if I get the unlikely notion to return to this piece.

Black marker ink on sketchbook page, colored with markers and colored pencil, 8" x 2 ", February-March 2017.

Darkover Free Amazons

Back in Bradleystan, the re-colonization of Darkover continues. Terrans now circulate among the "natives" (who are themselves earlier colonists). In this story, a sophisticated Terran woman envoy must mediate a dispute among members of the "Free Amazons," a society of women who defy the usual customs and live unmarried as a sisterhood. The Terran is a chic Frenchwoman who wears her Terran uniform like a fashion plate, while the country-dwelling Amazons wear rustic garb suitable for their work in wilderness and countryside.

Black ink on illustration board, about 8" x 10, November 1986.

The Dreadful Doctor Fu Manchu

This is from a series of illustrations I did for an article on the villain character "Fu Manchu," who had been an evil mastermind in film, radio, and drama since the early 20th century. The silhouette of Fu can be seen behind an elaborate incense burner, smoking something nefarious in his little pipe. You can see the famous stringy mustache on the profile. Fu Manchu has from the beginning been a controversial figure. His authors, including his inventor Sax Rohmer were accused of a racist portrayal of an Asian. The author replied that Fu was based on actual Chinese gangsters (see the interesting Wikipedia article about him). He never intended to generalize the "Yellow Peril" to all Chinese. It's an attitude that's still prevalent today.

If I may say so myself, and I will, this is a nice little drawing. And it was done in 1980! It's as good as anything I could do now. 

Black ink on illustration board, 4 1/2" x 4 1/2", November 1980.