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no new art this time, instead an update post. gather 'round the hearth, one and all.

life in general is rather better now. [ b u r n ] and other recent projects have gone a long way toward reminding me what enthusiasm and satisfaction taste like. it had been a while. coupled with a vastly more entertaining and engaging teaching assignment this fall, as well as establishing a now very plausible alternative career route (which i am not planning on seizing anytime soon), i'm sleeping better at night. well. i have been "experiencing" a long string of bizarre, intriguing and maybe disturbing dreams that i wish to god i could remember enough to write down. i blame Fallout 3, which has additionally reaffirmed in full my faith in the general goodness of the world. um, yeah.

Halloween was sublime, and around that time i finally accepted that my personal happiness is intrinsically linked to ongoing creative endeavor - which sadly i am "not so much" getting from school. painting, writing, that's what i need. and so, i am pleased to tease the following projects:

i) a brewing, by no means guaranteed collaboration with one of my favorite authors; a tier-one podcaster in horror and sci-fi. he's interested in spinning a tale - the format of which is not yet settled, to my knowledge - to bridge his first novel and its pending sequel. i would provide artwork for the same: could be a traditional comic style, could be plate illustrations, i'm not entirely sure. considering the audience this gent marshaled for his first outing, it could be big. and the plot concept is potentially weird and amazing.

ii) probable novella kicking around in my head and on paper; a near-future drama with a unique and unforeseen medical crisis leading to massive societal upheaval and the potential (theological) apocalypse. the macguffin is pretty damned sweet, i think.

okay. off to sleep and teach the younglings about brains upon the morrow. out.

[ b u r n ]

i know i've gone silent for... hmm, exactly two months now. you needn't ask why - the answer will always be the annual Halloween project.

this year's offering, "burn" marks the fourth consecutive fulfillment of a tradition that began with the move to Tallahassee and the elevation of Halloween to something like [secular] veneration. but that's a tale for another day. of the tetrad, three are intentionally obtuse and self-critical assessments of important events of my life, refracted through the murky and cobwebbed lens of Hallows. "Sigil" stands apart in that it is a microfiction retelling of one of the most appalling nightmares i've ever suffered. fun stuff, that.

those who know me reasonably well should not have much trouble exhuming the meaning from "burn." suffice it to say that it describes a very current dilemma. as usual, hidden symbols and suggestions - some minor, one very much not - abound. while i hope you enjoy it, and may peek though the tattered and nighted veils into my head - i reemphasize that these are cathartic exercises.

and on that. enjoy the season and the MLB playoffs.

[ d c _ p o r t r a i t ]

under the weather this week and going mad from stitching together DNA sequence files all day. took a break for this abstraction, rather unusual for your humble narrator. it's an illustration of my run up to DC over the last [artificially] long weekend. please click to enlarge and observe.



lots in there, but don't expect to crack this nut easily. starting to experiment more with different strokes, symbolism and the overall flow of a piece. i've not had training since middle school, and am trying to be less rubbish one day at a time.

the trip was vastly enjoyable despite a number of my crew defecting to parts unknown, or in thrall of plague. caught [part of, funny story] a Nat's game, went to a zoo full of sleepy animals, and partied to wonderful excess. the energy of that town always grips me the moment i leave the plane, an instantaneous and possibly dangerous pump-up.

i will move there. mark my words.

thanks for a wonderful time.

Halloween has been spotted and deeply absorbed at several merchant locales now. planning has begun in earnest...
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[ f p f n p ]

...do not ask. under any circumstances, do not ask. sometimes commissioned work is odd. :)

[ d r e a m e r ]

just a quickie today. went to a house party Friday night that featured a graffiti wall. i could not resist.



lots of weird stuff there, including a mad, immense purple face drawn by an /exceedingly ripe/ hippie probably held in thrall of mushrooms. my "Portal" joke [not pictured] was grokked by... no one, although the hostess delighted and fooled me by enjoying it anyway.

::sigh::

photo courtesy of sweet Palette.

[ t h e y _ w a l k ]

long hiatus; apologies. madhouse trying to get out of town/country for a week and change, first to Houston to see the family (and the Astros lose, ::sigh::), and on to ichs/herps in Montreal. i've been reading on the deeply convincing and disturbing "World War Z," and have been considering the zombie at great length. hence, tonight's production - fueled by House of 1000 Corpses and a bottle of Knob Creek, one last birthday present to myself.



talk went well in Montreal, or so i'm told. the one-liners were savored as always (at one point i likened myself to Billy Mays... nice). specters from the past/A&M popped up, not unpleasantly. i honestly thought that one of them was a post-party-hallucination.

so, success despite the best efforts of my crew to sabotage me with ethanol the night before my talk (read: my birthday and passage into antiquity). despite every "hey old man" message on facebook, i managed to bounce back in fine form. hah!

Jimmy G did use the Zoloft Shark illustration, although that trickster Morpheus and a VIMS party colluded to make me miss his 830am talk. that said, Jim missed it too - i just didn't hear about the rescheduling. the field report: "he owes you something extra fantastic after that. did you hear the laughs the zoloft shark got in his talk? brilliant!"

it was a good week. and i am tired.

shout-out to T. *

[ l e e r ]

i'm afraid that this might be the first piece of concept art for this year's Halloween project. the real version is much larger and has here been resized and set on a black field. the original appears kinda cartoony and stylized.



this is what the sky looked like over Tampa Bay when we drove back across the bridge after the first Astros-Rays game. started to wake up the brooding, pensive little kid in me - we know where this goes.

i may get to visit some Aplysia "sea hares" tomorrow. i am excited.

[ s e c o n d _ g l a n c e ]

long while between posts, i'm aware. kindly consider me appropriately contrite.

hard to get motivated lately... work is frustrating this summer, so i've taken to escaping as often as is possible. bailed with J down to Tampa for the Astros-Rays series a week and change ago, of which we took two (nearly three) for the win. followed that with consecutive stompings of the Rangers and Bandwagon Sox, and my boys are climbing out of the gutter. nice.

here's something unusual and more light-hearted for you. perhaps WALL-E softened my wrought-iron heart. i can't remember seeing a more charming movie in untold ages. it did very cogently convince me that maybe i should have gone to art school seven years ago. i'd probably be intellectually stunted and otherwise warped, but maybe i could have worked at Pixar. now i'm a slacker egghead who scratches around in Photoshop.

::sigh::



greater significance to this one than i'll let on, but it was fun to paint.

it's taken a while... longer than it did last year (the time is 1200am on 1 VII as i type), but Halloween is creeping into my bones. a cold front blew through with the storms today. i can feel it coming.

mmm.

[ t h e _ o l d _ m a n ]

long, rough week. not overwhelmed by faith in humanity at present, and further nettled by other delightful trials as spiteful little life-satellites. consequently, another bit of dark art tonight.



yeah. this guy is fully off to spirit away some village's children. i thought about writing a grim limerick about this misshapen fiend earning a town's trust before absconding with their youth, pied piper style. maybe next time.

will have something more pleasant for your next visit. perhaps fluffy kittens or hamsters.

seriously, maybe a hamster.

[ f a m i l y ] - BIOSHOCK

charming family portrait of a Little Sister and Big Daddy from the unbelievable "Bioshock." it's been admirably vying for my 360-related affections against the colossus that is GTA, and has inspired a disturbing dream or two along the way.



i picked up a perhaps disgustingly awesome tv as a self-congratulatory gift for surviving prelims, and "Bioshock" very much pushes the envelope of terrifying, corrupted art deco near-photorealism. i replayed the intro while E observed. she took several moments before saying, "...wait. You're controlling this?" and was profoundly creeped out by the first, haunted five minutes in Rapture.

one of the best.

[ z o l o f t _ s h a r k ] - for Jim Gelsleichter

my old advisor down at Mote in Sarasota (soon to be elsewhere) hit me with another unusual art request in the name of science!, as he is wont to do. among many other things, Jim studies the effects of drugs and other organic compounds on sharks and rays. for this year's annual ichs/herps meeting in Montreal, he wanted... a Zoloft shark.



funny guy, Jim.
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[ t h e _ r e d ] - for Phil Rossi's "Crescent"

i am a seriously enthusiastic supporter of podcast fiction. last summer in Tokyo, i often spent 14 hours a day at a lab bench. my iPod was my best friend, and i discovered some amazing, free podcast novels by the likes of Scott Sigler, J.C. Hutchins, Phil Rossi, and many others. i'd be all too happy to talk your ear off about anthology sites as well, if you're interested.

Rossi's "Crescent" is probably my favorite, combining seriously screwed-up and addictive scifi/horror with the best, creepiest audio engineering in the field. Phil is an all-around nice guy (as are many of this first gen of podcast authors), so i sketched up a "bourbon-fueled quick shot" of one of his story's protagonists, Ina, and something nasty she brings on board the station. i highly recommend checking out "Crescent" - it's excellent, free, and Phil's gearing up to start publishing some new fiction next month after a long hiatus.

can't wait, Phil.

here's some of Phil's feedback on the sketch.

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[ r a v e n ]

Raven. maybe that's her name. maybe not.
maybe she doesn't exist.

click all thumbnails to enlarge them in a new window.
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Deep breath now...

so. friends, patrons, ne'erdowells. it has been a while.

the proud, questionable blog-chain of some years was interrupted most suddenly and unequivocally by the advent of grad school and - more importantly - responsibility and public exposure. it would not do for my students to stumble upon explicit evidence of my misdeeds or those of the Crewe (membership since brutally revoked from all but two souls). the Japan blog, Gaijin Apocalypse, and its accompanying photo page were an experiment in responsible blog stewardship. unlike previous forays, that one did not land me in hot water (...thus far). this gave me hope.

here i inaugurate a new run and invite you into the murk. this run is novel in that it may primarily host my random sketches - an outlet again available now that the dread beast Prelims is laid to rest in several messy, charnel pits. indeed, it was reviewing the old archives from my senior year in Texas that helped give me the confidence and strength to conquer that loathsome trial.

we shall see where this goes.

welcome.
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