A Picture's Worth A Thousand Screams

Title: "Threats Will Get You Everywhere"

I just completed this last night. Overall, the whole drawing took about 10 hours. It was nice and relaxing.

I drew this from a reference (taking a bit of artistic licence of course). The original can be found in the new Contagion anthology, War Stories put out by Aegis Studios.

Anyway, this was all about getting back into the habit a bit. I started with the left and worked my way right. As time progressed, I started getting back into the groove. As a result, the right looked much better than the left. So I went over it with some digital touchups here and there (and there and there). It's amazing how easy it is to tell the difference from the right side (which is dominated by pencil rendering) and the left side (which has substantial digital alterations). I definitely like the pencil work better.

And don't forget to notice the tatoo. I didn't want to mess up the drawing when trying trying to figure out where to put my sig. And there we have it: An immortal young lass wearing my name on her arm for all eternity! The ultimate in artistic vanity? You tell me. Some would say yes. Some would say no. The rest of us could really care less.

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Handwriting Analysis

The results of your analysis say:

You fill every waking moment with activity.
You are a shy, idealistic person who does not find it easy to have relationships, especially intimate ones.
You are affectionate, passionate, expressive, and future-oriented.
You are a talkative person, maybe even a busybody!
You are self-confident and like to bring attention to yourself.

What does your handwriting say about YOU?

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It's 5' x 9'

Title: Advent Truth

This is the pictoral version of my sermon a couple of weeks ago. It's about how during the season of Advent (just before Christmas), we are called to take upon ourselves the pain of what it is to be human, become the voice of those who suffer, cry out to God on their behalf, and live into and bear the hope of that which is to come.

On the left is the present and on the right is the future Kingdom of God. On the left, a watcher is on a stylized version of the Second Con tower wearing black (the color of pain to match the pain-colored city of Rockford in the pic) who has a firey head (the color of the Christ-head on the right) looking over Rockford and into the future.

The waters of baptism flow from the future and sweep through all with thier claiming power. Meanwhile, the Communion elements (bread and cup) bridge the now and future.

The big white thing in the middle is the moon, which relates to the scripture passage read for the sermon.

Hopefully, the snapshot is clear enough to see.

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New Home Page

After a long silence, I should introduce everyone to my new home page: Eclectic Mass Home Page. It's much better than my geocities one.

Let's see, what's happened in the last month since I posted?

My car was broken into. Someone smashed out my rear, passenger side window in order to pillage my back seat. The boneheaded move on my part was to leave lots of stuff there. The thief must have felt silly though rummaging through a box that had copies of the Presbyterian Outlook and a liturgical calendar in it. All the person made off with was a smoothie machine. (Oddly enough, I didn't want a smoothie until my machine was gone.)

I went to the Octane to celebrate Tim's 33rd birthday. Happy birthday Timmy-boy! Met some really neat people there too. (And a quick "hello" to them if they happen to stumble across this entry.)

I've discovered a new art form (well, new to me anyway): paper lace. Basically, take a long sheet of paper (my mock-up is 8 1/2" x 17"; the final will be about 5' x 10'). Draw a design on it. Strategically cut out negative spaces, making sure you have enough paper attachments to hold it together. Then hang it from the ceiling. It becomes a really cool banner that is far less complicated than it really is. Eventually, I'll get a pic of my creation story mockup.

The Contagion War Stories anthology is officially out. I have an article in there entitled "All Things are Relative." I also did the pic to go with it.

I'm really missing the time to draw. I'm being creative in other ways, which is way cool, but I keep getting the hunkering to break out a HUGE sheet of paper and just go crazy with my pencils for about a day or two. Unfortunately, I'm having a tough time convincing the world to stop turning so I can create the next series to dominate the louvre (or maybe somewhere slightly smaller).

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