Some cool sites I've come by and other things.

For anyone interested, here are some cool art blogs and websites I've stumbled upon whule surfing the net:

http://sparthconstruct.blogspot.com/ This artist is probably the best I've seen when it comes to futuristic cityscapes and machinery. He especially has a greater sense of scope than I've seen with other artists, creating worlds so vast you couldn't possibly hope to process all their information in your feeble human brain while maintaining a strict sense of geometry. I first found out about him when io9 did an article on the cover for a new Halo novel by Greg Bear. I've never checked out Halo, and my knowledge of video games isn't as strong as your average art student (I'm more of a book and film buff), but I really enjoyed the cover image and I just had to check the artist out. Turns out he's done a lot of game artwork as well as book covers, including a nice "Dune" tribute.

http://www.creaturespot.com/ Offers a wonderful selection of monster designs from various fantasy artists, from Tolkienesque Orcs to Lovercraftian monstrosities. Some of the artists on this site are also featured in a new book coming out called "White Cloud Worlds" (below) which features the work of artists from New Zealand, a few of which worked on "King Kong" and "Lord of the Rings."

White Cloud Worlds is published by Haper Collins New Zealand, just so noone thinks I'm plagarizing.

http://illustrateurs.blogspot.com/2010/03/science-fiction-art-3.html?zx=873b0142a0d903f A French website which also features work from various people but instead focuses on sci fi in general with art both old and new that has a wonderful retro feel to it.

Also, in time for Halloween, the website Pink Tentacle recently posted some wonderful images by Japanese artist Tatsuya Morino, who is probably best known in the states for the cartoonish art in "Yokai Attack!" These are a rare departure as they feature characters from US and European gothic horror instead, including Frankenstein and Dracula but also rarely known works such as "War with the Newts" and "The Terror of Blue John Gap." Check them out if you want your day made: http://pinktentacle.com/2010/10/gothic-horror-illustrations-by-tatsuya-morino/

Before I go I'd also like to declare my love for the cheesy 1970 gem "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" which is probably one of the greatest B-movies ever. Watch the trailer on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXX5EFQAV48 Cheese factor and cave women aside, it bosts the most epic stop-motion dinosaur effects on screen not created by Ray Harryhausen, even though it's a sequel to his "One Million Years BC." I'd even go so far as to commnit heresy and say they're even better because their limbs actually blur when they move just like in real life, something Harryhausen's beasts never did. The plot isn't even that important, something about blondes being sacrificed to the sun to keep away dinosaurs and the moon gets made somehow. It's all about the dinosaurs. My favorites are the captured plesiosaur near the beginning and the giant green carnivorous dinosaur which ends up befriending the heroine. The pterodactyl ain't bad either. 

Anyway that's about all I wanted to say. I''ve got some more art projects to post in the coming days and "Crocazill" is still moving along at its own steady pace. Until next time, then.

Creepy Birthday Card

Part of the same project as the vampire card. On the inside it says "In dog years, you'd be 210."

Vampire Card

Damn this is ugly. Then again this is based on a photo of me so of course it is.

Part of a project for Humourous where we had to design greeting cards. On the inside it says "Have a Fang-tastic Halloween!"

Our teacher said "fang-tastic" for the rest of the class, which earned him many a sour look.

By the way, since this is a vampire pic I feel it would be right to say here that I do not approve of the sparkly variety in the least. Go team Dracula!

Dear Dean Cornwell and J. C. Leyndecker,

I humbly apologize for creating these bastardizations of your artwork. Please forgive me, as it was for an assignment. Hopefully one day, if need be, I can do better.

My attempt at landscape painting

I'm not very good with oils. I like this one because it's not an ugly blob like the rest of my oil paintings. Oil dires too slow, gauche dries too fast. That makes me an acrylics man, I guess.

Oid design

Presenting for your consideration: an Oid, a prominent monster in the first Crocazill story arc. How big is it? To give you an idea, Crocazill is about six foot four and even he only comes up to a head above the first eye.

Extremely tough, they were the dominant predators on their planet, and Crocazill and Skylla had their work cut out when they were stranded there. But with the world's destruction, the Oids were brought to earth, hiding in fragments of their former home.

Although originally I had the Skullweeds as the Oid's main prey, I decided to make it so that they were the larval stage, because I think they're too cool to appear only in flashback and it was easier to come up with a design for the Oids that way. Though Oids do still eat them. Oids eat anything, really.

See, Skullweeds are kind of like a living eggshell. They serve as a vessel where the adult grows inside, then when they grow to be about twice as large they crack open, hatching an Oid.

Sketch Dump mini

"Night of the Living Trekkies" review- what makes it scary

io9 is one of my favorite websites because every day it seems like they always have at least one article that captures my attention. Along with DA and my email, it’s one of the things I check on every day. Case in point was when an article cropped up about a trailer for a book called “Night of the Living Trekkies.” Besides the fact that I love Star Trek and zombie movies, the title sounded so ridiculous that I had to click on it. The plot is simple enough but so fascinating that I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it myself: a zombie outbreak at a Star Trek convention.

I know that at first it may sound funny. But it’s also pretty scary if you think about it. Take, say,  9/11. I wasn’t there when it happened, let alone witnessed a building fall firsthand, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to see one. But if you made it happen at a place I’m familiar with, that makes it feel more realistic and therefore scarier. Kind of like in that movie “Jumper,” where Hayden Christianson finds his father dead and “Family Guy” is playing in the background. I see “Family Guy” on tv every day, so in some weird way that made the murder more real for me, if you know what I mean.

What helps is that the authors have obviously been to conventions themselves and they know how they work. It helps that the hero of the story is a bellhop, so he goes to all the various rooms and we hear about all the prepping involved to get the con started. And all along the way you get snippets of the outbreak to come, be it some guy complaining that a "mime" bit him to mysterious "bums" loitering in the parking lot. Since he used to be in the army, our hero has a "sixth sense" and knows something's wrong. So when the zombies inevitably attack the hotel en masse, he has to lead an army of refugees, including his own sister, to safety while using the virtues taught by "Star Trek" to survive.

Most of the characters may be cookie cutter stereotypes of survival stories but they do get in some good dialogue. There's also a lot of in-jokes to "Star Trek" and even "Star Wars" (you'll have to read the book to see why), which serves as a good counterbalance to the action. So all-in-all it's a very fun book. It's also reasonably short, so if you're looking for a light and entertaining read where people mow down zombies dressed like Spock then this is surely it.

Trilobite Stamp

Did these for my Illustration Styles and Concepts class with C. F. Payne. We were designing a postage stamp based on the state we grew up in. Since they are the state fossil, and in the original movie they found one in Godzilla's footprint , I decided to do a trilobite. I was originally going to do mastadons since they also lived in Ohio, but then I found out they're Michigan's state fossil, so that would have caused some heads to roll.

The one on the top is the original 2-color piece we did for practice and the final is on the bottom.

Here are the pics I used for reference: https://www.juniorgeo.co.uk/images/trilobite-model.jpg and http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Galleries/TrilobitesCanada/Greenops-boothi/Greenops-boothi-1024.jpg