Good Friday

"Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" -Matthew 27:45-53

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."–Romans 5:8

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."–2 Corinthians 5:21

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."–Acts 4:12

Invasion of the Monsters...

Went on a monster drawing spree this week and here's the gruesome aftermath...

Dry Bones

Here's an old drawing slapped on a new fake background just to make it look a little better. It's from a passage of scripture often referred to as Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones.

If you've never read it before, grab a Bible and open it to Ezekiel chapter 37 and just start reading. Next to the book of revelation, this may well be one of the most visually stimulating portions of all of scripture. 11 years ago, during the summer of 1997, I thought I'd try to squeeze the first umpteen verses in to an illustrated comic page...and proceed to hand letter it very crappily and then stick it in a box for eleven years until blogs were invented: )

Kinda worked, kinda didn't. I pulled this sucker out over the weekend. When I drew it, I made it about six inches by nine inches. So it's a wee tiny lad, and Ezekiel is kind of a bald guy with a mullet, but I was a little stoked on the rembrandtesque cross hatching and the flying bones.
Here's the original black and white:

But if you REEEALLY wanna see a successful rendering of the same chapter by Gustav Dore that blows it to smithereens check this out...

I Need a Good Night's Sleep...

Alright, here's some quick shots of some stuff underway on the Plague Doctor comic. I finished inking page one, and have begun pencilling page two...and was up way too late last night working on it....and the night before.

My drawing table is usually the messiest place in the house as it is usually cluttered (at any given time) with art in progress, art supplies, photo references, notes, half a dozen comic books, wadded up receipts that need to be recorded in the checkbook, a bill that may need to be paid, one or two action figures, and usually one of my childrens's "My Little Pony" accessories.

I've also posted a preliminary drawing I did before starting page one. Concept drawings are important, but they can stifle me and slow me down if I get bogged down in them. I seem to run the delicate balance of needing to do just enough to be confident of what I am drawing, but not too much lest it suck the life out of the final drawing. Here it is:

I realize that alot of artists like to pencil some or all of their pages first and then proceed to ink them all. I don't like that. because I feel like I'm not getting anything done. The whole pencilling and inking process is very intertwined for me. Alot of my drawing is done WHEN I am inking. Alot of the kinks are worked out for me during the inking process.

Here's another sketch:
Check out the Plague Doctor blog to find out more about this conceptual stuff and the stories behind it. Ben Avery's doing some very fun stuff there.

So I seriously need to go to bed at 10:30 tonight.

One more thing, a couple of weeks ago, I posted some artist friends whose work has greatly inspired me. Some of you really took a liking to the work of Lynnsy Terrill. Just found out she has a blog you can visit here. Really cool work.