Random collection of characters – the woman with the glasses and the shaved head is the Jade Buddha from Bugfuck Palace; the thing with the four arms is a reworking of one of the demon servants of King Zombie from Deadworld and between the two of them is a animated rotting corpse. The thing up top is some sort of demon creature that I originally imagined sometime during my teenage years. It was attached to a story inspired by Stephen King’s The Mist. I don’t remember any details of the story – it was one of many, never written down, not remembered long.

Another random series of images from 1995. Often times I just feel like drawing and no particular project or character that I want to draw. So I end up with lots of pages like this – monsters, people, goofy cartoon characters.

Every time I run across this drawing I’m tempted to finish inking it. I considered finishing before scanning it. However, with all the projects I’m behind on, and all the things I manage to get distracted by on a regular basis, I promised myself when I began scanning my sketchbooks that I would just scan the art and post it. No fixing. No editing. No finishing. So this drawing will probaby remain unfinished forever.

Greeting card design from 1995. I don’t think I ever sent it to anyone. Her proportions look a bit off to me now though I am pleased with the picture’s composition.

Naked figure studies from 1995 –

Most of artists by whom I have been influenced have the ability to portray wide varieties of people. I aspire to make each character I draw individual enough that they’d be recognizable stark naked with a shaved head. I’ve still got a way to go before I can do that. Practice, practice, practice.

More random sketches. Mostly. The three fingered hand belongs to a lizard. Probably to Aunt Hortense, the creature smoking the cigarette. What did you say? That she doesn’t look like a lizard? Does Mickey look like a mouse? Does Oswald look like a rabbit?

Aunt Hortense is the matron(? boss? guardian? keeper?) of the five lizards introduced back in 1988. By this sketchbook all the lizards had developed distinct personalities (at least to me) and distinct appearances (at least to me). Aunt Hortense was sort of inspired by the weird uncle/nephew relationships in Disney cartoons. We never know how exactly Donald and Mickey have nephews. Parents aren’t in evidence. The lizards seemed to need an authority figure so the authority figure became an aunt. I don’t know how she’s actually related to the other lizards. Some things just aren’t important.

A design for one of Aunt Hortense’s many detractors. This one appeared in the first issue of Glyph, the magazine version, in the Bonecage Graffiti serial. I just checked the magazine to make sure I got the name right. My memory said that he was a member of the Brotherhood of the Grey Wound. In the magazine he says he’s from the Brotherhood of the Wound. I suspect that, in the process of lettering the script, I decided that “Wound” fit in the space available better than “Grey Wound”.

I usually wrote my scripts 3 times. Once as just dialogue, a second time to fit the thumbnails and the third time as I did the lettering. Sometimes while drawing I’d fail to compensate for all the dialogue I’d written. Usually that meant I’d edit the dialogue down a bit. Sometime I’d just decide that the dialogue was necessary and too bad if the art got covered up. Stupid artist shoulda thoughta that.

1995 sketch – there’s a possibility that this is the portrait of a psychotic Easter bunny. More likely though I was playing with how to make a giant rabbit scary. I have this delusion that at least one decent story can be grown from any idea, no matter how absurd. Whether that story succeeds or not often depends on how the story is presented. In the case of Night of the Lepus, the execution of the story turns it into an unintentional comedy. Giant fleshing eating rabbits could be scary monsters. Fluffy bunnies unwittingly pretending to be giant flesh eating horrors are just silly.

You can find a more detailed exploration of this idea here.

Other than Merriam up in the corner these are all practice sketches – no specific characters. Probably done in early 1995.

A version of August Thyme, circa 1995.