Quentin

Quentin is the robot mechanic at the robot museum. He was created by the Blackhatter Transgenic Company (BTC). He is a breed of transgenic called a Calapod, which is a cross between a human and the telekinetic squid creatures known as PS-N2's from the rust planet Talathide. The PS-N2's give the creature a strong telekinetic field of five feet, which makes Calapods ideal for working with the complex machinery of robots and the strange properties of the Faraday Spheres. There is only one Calapod working at the museum because they could only afford Quentin. Quentin works all day, mostly ignored by the visitors who have a strong aversion to transgenics. His best Friend is Nora, the niece of the museums curator. He lives and sleeps in a small hut on the island. Nora has taught him to read and he has a voracious appetite for comic books about outer space.

Happy Quasimodo Day!

Every year, Julie's choir director John Hudson, sends out cards celebrating Quasimodo day. It has to do with an Easter Biblical reference. I think he made it up.

Museum painting

Here's the latest version of the Robot Museum. I'm quite happy with this one. I want it to reflect a number of ideas or concepts, some of which don't obviously go together. I wanted a vision of the future that is optimistic, a 1950's future. A sort of land of tomorrow look. But I also want it to look like a gothic castle. A bit brooding and creepy. I like that it is somewhat isolated on an island and I based some of the look after medieval and victorian castles. I also wanted something a little strange and organic so I've been looking at Hunterwasser'd architecture, who is a 20th century architect who was in opposition to the angular modern style. Finally, I wanted the materials that it's constructed out of to look earthy, so I gave them a yellowish sienna tone. The museum is in a harbour where there is a city, so it's not that isolated but can certainly feel that way. The ball at the very top is supposed to function like a lighthouse light or a light-tower for airplanes.

Museum Sketch

Here's a new sketch of the museum. I'm working on a colour version right now, and I'll post it when I'm done.

Faraday Spheres

Discovered during the golden age of deep space exploration by famed space explorer Ferdinand Medley, these small glowing spheres have revolutionized robotics. They are found in the rings of the planet Alubin-6b and have the peculiar property of being able to absorb electronic data.Once robotic scientists on Earth found a way to out put that information it was discovered they made excellent robot brains. Personality and commands can be fed to the Faraday Spheres, like small super-computers. These computer like structures appear to be able to learn and evolve in a limited way. The exact nature of Faraday Spheres is still a mystery.

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true."

Michael Faraday.

Thumbelina Again

I haven't posted a painting in a while, so here's another scan of Thumbelina. It's still scanning a little dark. I can't post any paintings from The Robot Museum yet, which is frustrating. However, I'll keep posting sketches and some concept pictures.

Julie

Here's a quick charcoal sketch I did of Julie when we were out for dinner. I kind of like the ghost image there too.

Nora

Hee's another Robot Museum sketch. Nora is the eleven year old daughter of the museum's curator. I'm having fun with the look, although it's about robots the pallette is very warm and earthy. The architecture is influenced by Hundertwasser, with big curving shapes and colourful accents.

Quentin

This is Quentin with a mimbelbot behind him. Quentin is a transgenic creature, part human and part telekinetic alien squid. This type of creature was created for the task of robot mechanic. It's telekinetic abilities allows it to take apart and manipulate the robots without touching them. These creatures are fairly expensive and the museum could only afford one.

Dave Stevens

I heard sad news today, Dave Stevens, creator of the Rocketeer died earlier this week. I'm a big, big fan of the Rocketeer comic book. It's an amazing adventure story that centers around Steven's love of aviation and pulp stories. Mostly, Stevens art work is amazing. Very much in the classic, golden age of comics style. Here's a great article about him and his work : http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/dave_stevens_1955_2008/

Quentin And Nora

Here's a Robot Museum sketch of the two main characters. I can't show any finished work or go to much into the story line right now because I'm at the propsal stage. I've been working like mad on this all weekend. When I'm not drawing or painting I'm writing or doing research. Lots of research into genetic engineering and robotics and museums. I hope everyone had a good Easter.

Mimbelbot

Museum At Night

This is a new design for the Robot Museum. Previously, the Museum was in a sort of park in the middle of the city and had a bright, cheery look. Here I wanted something darker and more isolated looking. Now it's an island, complete with it's own light house. It's built right into the stone of the island. It's usually reached by Aeroscraft. I'm a big fan of lighter than air travel, check this sight out : http://www.aerosml.com/Aeroscraft%20Info.asp

Guy Robot

Viviane Schwartz told me about these wonderful robots, and I fell for them immediately. I think they are the most magical things. How can someone put so much humour and sensitivity into something made from cast off bits of machines? I think these guys are amazing. The creator, Rich Muller is a great guy too, when I asked him if I could show his robots in a post he agreed and sent me this great quote from Tom Wolfe " I feel very comfortable predicting that art historians 50 years from now,assuming we're in a world kind enough to indulge art historians, will lookback upon illustrators as the great American artists of the second half ofthe 20th century." I hope so!

Please visit these wonderful robots at : http://www.guyrobot.com/home.html

Egbot

Iron Giant

I just read The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes yesterday, it's a very small book. But very good. I had never read it but the Brad Bird movie that came out a few years ago is one of my favorite movies. The book gives the Sci Fi themes a strange and almost mystical feel. The book is even a little creepy in parts. And I love the illustrations by Dirk Zimmer.

Robot Museum Archives

Strange thing yesterday, I finished reading Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke yesterday and found out an hour later he had died. That was the first Clarke book I''ve read. It was good but gloomy. Why are so many science fiction books for adults gloomy? Right now I'm reading The Guardians by John Christopher, which is good.I've become a bit obsessed with the Robot Museum and a bit bored with everything else, which is annoying since I'm mid-way through a painting. The amazing artist Anais Goldemberg(http://www.anaisgoldemberg.com/) alerted me to a contest going on in France ( I think) where artists get to design robots! The designs are really cool, check them out at http://www.cfsl.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46347.

As for music these days, I've gone totally pop. The two albums I'm looping over and over are Beta Band 3 E.P.s and the Juno soundtrack. Music to be happy with.

Spaghetti Robots

I drew these at dinner last night. My wife and I went out to an Italian resturaunt. I panicked when I realized the napkins were made of cloth and my fingers were almost black with chalk. I ended up using an ice cube and the floor.

I find myself returning to an old project, The Robot Museum, as it seems to have a lot of potential again. I find it's a really easy world to explore. It's a lot of fun to draw robots and aliens.

I like bobbly headed robots that look like self animated puppets. I went through google looking for contemporary robots and they're all pretty boring. Some are pretty disturbing. But I wouldn't say any looked really cool. I've also redesigned the museum itself, it's carved into an island now and looks like Disney meets Alcatraz.

Giant Robots And Rayguns

Here's a peek into my highchool psychology. There seem to be a lot of beautiful women battling giant robots in my work back then. I also used to obsess over the hatching and didn't feel like a picture was any good unless my hand hurt and I had spent an insane amount of time on them. This picture comes from around the time I discovered Virgil Finlay, the pulp science fiction illustrator.

Troll Witche's Cave

Here is yet another piece from my favorite art school project, my Scandanavian Myth project. This is a pretty dark piece and not very refind but I find it interesting as an experiment. I really wanted in this picture to evoke an expression of mass and shadows and perhaps evil. I'm not very good at evil, I shy away from extremely dark imagery. I think I can infer something dark but a direct visual translation seems false to me. Some artists pull it off really well, like Goya. In this piece I do like the exploration of mood and place, which was the point. After I had done this piece I felt freer to have more finished pieces have a more pronounced sense of emotion and expression.
I watched Revenge Of The Sith yesterday and I can't stop watching the opening spaceship battle sequence. I want to watch it over and over, it's the craziest, coolest thing. Well, I like it.

Vampire Hunter

Another old ink wash picture.

Good Books

Here's an old pen and ink. It makes me think about my favorite type of books. The types that build a world and that you have to collect. I just read Charmed Life by Diana Wynne-Jones, those books are great. I couldn't put it down. She's developed such a rich magical world. I'm also reading Dinotopia:The World Beneath. Another amazing book that I can spend hours exploring. I love it when authors and artist present us with a world to explore.

Some Random Things

Here are some random sketches. My wife is sick now so it feels like I'm still sick, which I'm not really. Over the past few days I got no work done that I can really use, so I have to consider the last few days to be sick days and reflective. I was able to pare down my plans and decide in which direction to take things.

I read some new comics; The Professor's Daughter by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert which is a fun, concise love story featurng a mummy and I read book one of Amulet, by Kazu Kibuishi which I really enjoyed. Great story and visual look. It reminded me of the European comics I started reading when when I was younger, a rich visual fantasy.

Rooftops

Here's a pretty old picture. I was exploring a more remote fantasy world here with less familiar forms.

Cold And Flu Report

After three days in bed I finally crawled out of the sheets this morning feeling halfway decent. After I walked the dog I felt even better. It was a pretty bad cold, the kind where you have really achey muscles and I was sleepy all the time. I think I'll ease into things today, I've started the new Harry And Silvio comic which I'd like to get get done soon and it's pretty fun to draw. I might leave Jack And The Beanstalk till tomorrow. I have the inked drawing for Jack on the mantle piece waiting for me. Did I mention I've rewritten Bera The Troll as a comic book? More on that later.

The picture to the right is a Hallowe'en picture I did last year. It went over the fireplace between the carved guords and fake webs. I think it describes how I've felt the last few days.

Jack And The Beanstalk

Here's a sketch for the painting I'm currently working on.

Scary Sunday

I thought today I would post some old pictures from my horror reading days. The top piece is done in ink wash and was done after reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The book was a big suprise to me, more of an adventure than I would have thought. I was playing a lot with this dark wash style a couple of years into art school. The bottom one is influenced by reading H.P. Lovecraft. I always found his stuff really creepy and I never thought I did creepy very well so I pushed things in this picture. I think it's more goofy than creepy, but that's fine. Iused a lot of white ink in this piece, I went through a pen and ink phase where I always ended up whiting out more than half the picture, trying to give it an etched look.

March Break

It's March Break! I hope anyone in school has some fun things planned. I don't teach for almost two weeks, which means more drawing and painting and reading. I watched Howls Moving Castle yesterday, and it was even better the second time. Jack And The Beanstock is coming along well, I didn't do as many preliminary sketches of the composition this time but I think it's cobbling together well. I was really excited to hear from Viviane and Bojana and to know other people are driven to tell thier own stories through comics and picture books. It's frustrating that things take so long to do, but worth it.

Five Headed Troll

Here's another art school picture. The troll is very influenced by the art of John Bauer. I was also trying out a dry brushing technique with the ink. Some 1940's and 50's cartoonists would deliberately let their brushes get stiff with ink and than do line work and dry brushing with them.

Green Dragon

Here are some sketches for Josephine Pebbles. The top one is of the flying pirate ship that she rides on and the bottom one is Josephine herself. The manuscript is at a place I'm happy with, thank you so much Alicia, Viviane, Alexis and Frank! I never realized how essential it is to have others read your work! There is so much the writer can miss!

I'm putting the project on hold for about a week while I work on the Jack painting.

While working on Josephine Pebbles I also went back and overhauled the Bera The Troll story and I think it's much better now. I've also gone back to my original idea of doing it as a comic book, especially after reading Mouse Guard.

I'm finding I'm most driven to tell my own stories. This means bigger risks and less money, which I feel I can't afford. It makes things really complicated. And it throw the "get an agent" plan into total confusion. It's hard enough to be an illustrator, doing your own projects makes the path seem that much steeper. I'll keep working on my own projects as well as working on my portfolio, though. Has anyone else any feelings on this? How do you balance things?

Awkward Situation

An old ink drawing. I was learning how to have fun here.

Wood Nymph

Here's another old piece from art school. I don't remember what posessed me to paint a naked, pregnant tree woman. I'm going through a big reading thing right now. I'm always reading, but sometimes it's all I want to do. I go through book after book, not even finishing some. Some notable books I've gone through are Neil Gaiman's M Is For Magic, China Mieville's UnLunDun, and right now I'm reading Tim Power's The Anubis Gates. I read a great book about five or ten years ago by Tim Power's called On Stranger Tides which I enjoyed a lot. It's about zombie pirates, if I remember correctly. This one's about ancient Egypt and time travelling and were- wolfs and Lord Byron. I think Tim Powers is really under-rated. As for my drawing, I've been busy on a pirate ship that flies beneath a balloon and designing a house for a giant. In the clouds. I keep changing my mind. First it was a 16th century Spanish castle, then it looked like a Norwegian stave church and then it looked like a chalet in the swiss alps. Now I'm leaning toward something like an English country church.

Around The House

Mermaid Library

Here are some more sketches which are loosely related. The top one is for the soon to be released pirate book and the bottom one is a rough for an other pirate story that became Josephine Pebbles. I'm feeling distracted lately. I have too many things I'd like to do but don't officially have a contract. So I have that frustrating floating feeling where I'm working and working but not sure what I'm doing.

Percival

Another Hook

Here's another sketch for an old project. I love swirly hair. I think I did this shortly after reading Peter Pan In Scarlett.I've spent the last few days working on the manuscript for Josephine Pebbles. I've also done the story boards and have been reworking the sketches.I'm still not certain if I should do it. There sre so many things I want to do that it's really hard to commit to one project and see it through.

Book Review : Mouse Guard By David Petersen

Here's a book you must have. Especially if you like comics or fantasy stories. I heard about this book from James Gurney and immediately picked up a copy. I wasn't dissapointed. The story zooms along at the perfect pace, the art work is that rare and special thing where it works both as a panel telling a story and it also works as an individual image. The colours are great, evoking different moods. And the dipiction of landscape is wonderful. A short explanation of the world is: The Mouse Guard are an elite and old group of specially trained mice that help protect the other mice from predators and other threats. The plot in this story is great, but I don't want to give it away. I highly recommend this book.