ZIGGED WHEN IT ZAGGED

I've mentioned before in previous blogs I used to do a lot of watercolors back in the day. Since most of the color did the work, in a sense, I kept my drawings pretty simple. Then there was also a huge influence from Batman: The Animated Series and Mike Allred's Madman comics.

The line work in my images and how it defines my style seems to be a topic lately and I've been discussing how this has come to be such a prominent element for my art.

This latest image of Nosferatu got me thinking. Once I start inking what I see in my head really begins to take a life of it's own. I didn't plan on having the angular shapes in the background. Once I did the big black jacket I realized I had to balance it out with all the white in the image. I couldn't go with a solid black background or half and half. Just would have been too much one way or the other. So I broke it up.

I guess maybe I just see the images on two totally different levels now. Really a third if I go to the next stage to color. That's really all new to me because I used to envision a rough idea of a final image and now I wind up with different versions.

Still, I think somehow the line sticks out even with all the positive and negative B&W going on.

So here you go. Here are two pics and each with the original pencil line drawing and the inked version.

Nosferatu Ink

Nosferatu Pencil

Hyde Ink

Hyde Pencil

CLOWNS

Not so long ago I'm cranking out all these different monster and character portraits and I run through this series of clowns. I remembered when I was little, there was one Christmas Eve spent at my aunt's house and Santa dropped by...with a clown. I didn't know why Santa would hang out with a clown but it just kinda freaked me out. Maybe at the time I was traumatized by all those tests in elementary school with pictures of stuff and you had to determine which of those things didn't belong. Seeing this clown made no sense to me. Santa wasn't hanging with Frosty, Rudolph or any of the other reindeer. Now that I think about it, I don't think I ever met a clown before that night. At any rate, this just didn't add up. In this series of clowns, I pulled from the impression burned into to my mind by the distorted and confused thoughts I was left with that night.

Evil Clown 1

Evil Clown 2

Evil Clown 3

Evil Clown 4

Just below I've posted a picture of me with the clown from that frightful Christmas Eve. I think it's pretty obvious I just wanted the picture taken and the whole experience to be over. It's funny to see the similarities between this and the first Evil Clown I drew above.

My Nightmare Before Christmas

ZOMBIES!!!

These are the first in a series of countless Zombies I've been working on recently. Still not quite sure what compelled me to stick with this theme for the last couple of weeks, but like any mob of Zombies they just seemed to keep coming out of nowhere! Within each pic there was some single element that had me hooked. If it was the tie for the one at the door or the balance of positive and negative space for the Starving Zombie, I had to run with it. Run with them? Run away from them?

Zombie at My Door

Starving Zombie

Zombie Dude

Zombie Dudes

Zombie Farmer