Monthly Archives: September 2023

Skook Words (and Pictures) #38

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Greeting and salutations!

Welcome back to another edition of the Skookworks newsletter.

I hope you are doing well and that your week has passed pleasantly.

My week has had rain and family medical issues. Neither of these were a surprise. The rain is part of the reason we moved to the Pacific Northwest. It keeps things green. The medical stuff is manageable but it takes time and attention.

Which Team Do You Root For?

Vampires or Werewolves? Vampires vs. Werewolves? Out of the great variety of supernatural creatures in Western mythology the Vampire and the Werewolf seem the most popular. Vampires come out on top, most of the time. There are far more stories/novels/movies/series about vampires than werewolves.

It makes sense. The original vampires were bloodsucking corpses. Currently they are (mostly) sexy immortals.

The original werewolves were humans who transformed into wolves and killed people. They were generally pretty mortal. Sometimes they turned into vampires after they died. Currently werewolves are humans who turn into wolfpeople and then they kill people. Not in sexy ways.

In general, I prefer werewolves over vampires. Most vampires are murderous assholes. They don’t have to be. They know what they are doing  but they do it anyway. Werewolves, on the other hand, are most bloodthirsty beast, lacking the intelligence or human memory to stop them from snacking on whoever happens to be handy. And they look cool.

That said, here’s a sexy vampire lady.


This lovely creature is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Out of the Aeons

That is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange aeons even death may die.

In other words, you never know when a project that you thought was dead will come kicking back to life. My first illustrations in the gaming industry were for The Black Seal #1, a magazine focusing on Call of Cthulhu related material that came out Sixtystone Press back in 2003. I did more illustrations for the second and third issues. For the fourth issue I did the cover illustration.

Numbers 2 and 3 came out soon after the first, but number 4 … got lost. For almost 20 years.

This summer it finally found its way out of the crypt.

Have a look –

It’s currently available at DriveThruRPG.com.

Working Digitally

I find that having specific projects helps me to practice my art skills. The Vamp up above is the last of “Big Face” designs I did for my Redbubble store. Those were done to see how much I could improvise in ink. My recent process has been to do rough sketch with a non-photo blue pencil, do a tighter sketch over that in regular pencil, scan that into Photoshop, remove the blue lines, convert the remaining pencils into new non-photo blue lines, print that out, ink it, scan the inked version into Photoshop, drop out the blue lines, clean up the black lines and then color the image digitally either in Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint (sometimes both, depending on the techniques needed).

I’m used to that process and it hadn’t seemed that involved until –

We got this cat, Crunch by name, with the thought that he would give our older cat, Kemo, company and keep him from wanting my attention when I want to draw. Silly us. Whereas Kemo meows (and sometimes claws my leg) when he wants to be noticed, Crunch just flops down wherever I happen to be. This makes inking with a brush and an open container of ink kinda challenging. And not relaxing.

So I figure it’s time to improve my digital skills. My next project starts with these sketches –

These are the first four of about a dozen physical sketches that I’ll be turning into finished illustrations, mostly with Clip Studio. I’ll be inking them digitally. I’m concentrating on Clip Studio because
A) the program is specifically designed for doing comics
B) the program is much less expensive than Photoshop

All of the illustrations are going to be images from The Surrilana Depths. They’re not intended for the finished version. They’re to help me develop the world, the characters and the style I plan to use in the finished version. I’ll start showing the results next week.

I hope you the next seven days are good to you. If the universe insists on giving you nonsense, I hope that you are able to be good to yourself.

Thank you for reading. See you sooner!

 

Skook Words (and Pictures) #37

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No, you’re not hallucinating. It’s Friday again.

Seven days have staggered by. It only feels like yesterday.

Mother Shub-Niggarath

Cthulhu gets all the spotlights. August Derleth named H.P. Lovecraft’s story cycle “The Cthulhu Mythos” so that helped to put a stamp on things. Cthulhu itself also makes an appearance in one of the stories. That’s more than most of the rest of the Great Old Ones. Nyarlathotep has more in-story visitations but he’s just a guy who could be an indescribable eldritch horror if he wanted but, in the stories, he isn’t. No one is making plushies out of his bad self.

Of the Great Old Ones that aren’t Cthulhu my favorite is Shub-Niggarath. Who wouldn’t love The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young? No one the other GOO have such a distinct soubriquet.

I don’t remember if Lovecraft ever wrote a description of her. Most versions I’ve seen depict her as a sort of swirling cloud with teeth. Not very goatlike.

Being a GOO, I wouldn’t expect her to actually be a goat but, when I set out to do her portrait I thought I should give her some resemblance to the randy critters.
This design is available on schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Ease On Down

My friend Rae Dinsmore passed away on July 3rd of this year. I was able to visit her in Fairbanks, Alaska for a few days at the end of March. I’d initially planned to help her and her family reorganize her mother’s home so that the mother and Rae could better manage it. Between the time I made reservations to fly up there and the time I actually arrived, Rae and her mother had moved into a retirement community and their former home had been sold. So I spent a few days helping Rae sort as many of her boxes of (very well packed) stuff as we could. Many of the boxes hadn’t been opened since her move up to Alaska from Texas a couple of years previous.

I did the black and white illustration above for the back cover of a reprint of the first issue of Steve Ahlquist’s Oz Squad back in 1992. These were my versions of the artist Andrew Murphy’s version’s of Ahlquist’s versions of the original Fabulous Foursome. Among Rae’s possessions we found a thirty year old photocopy of the original art. It was neatly rolled and the only obvious indication of its age was my signature. Rae and I had been a couple when I did the art. She’d kept the photocopy and decorated the walls of some of her apartments with it in the years since. She gave me the copy and I brought it home with me.

I had the idea of coloring it and sending her the new version as a poster. Things got in the way. Work. Other health crises. She went into hospice and passed away.

I’d done a little work on coloring it right after I got home. I started a written tribute to her right after she passed. It exists in bits and pieces on my hard drive. I haven’t been able to make any more progress. My grief gets in the way. But I’m better with images than words. A little at a time I worked on coloring this image. I finally finished it on Monday.

Rae brought color and life into the world. Those colors remain.

May the next seven days pass, for you, in glorious bliss.

Autumn is arriving. Ghost and goblins will soon be abroad.

Cheers!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Skook Words (and Pictures) #36

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Good morning! Or afternoon. Or evening.

Welcome to another edition of this newsletter.

I hope that your week has gone well and that you are in good spirits.

I’ve spent the last few days dealing with family medical issues. It’s nothing immediately life threatening but it is something that needs to be regularly addressed so it doesn’t become life threatening. In any case, I’m running late getting this edition out so I’m keeping it short.

Tails of Terror

Golden Goblin Press publishes both RPG manuals and fiction anthologies. A number of their Kickstarters have been built on putting out a manual and a companion anthology in the same campaign . Play the game. Read some stories. Tails of Valor, the RPG manual for playing cats in a Cthulhu Mythos world, was paired with Tails of Terror, an anthology of short horror stories told from the point of view of cats.

The stories were:
“Brown Jenkin’s Reckoning” by Edward M. Erdelac
“Derpyfoot” by Christine Morgan
“The Cat in the Pall” by Pete Rawlik
“Ghost Story” by Brian M. Sammons
“Palest of Humans” by Don Webb
“Bats in the Belfry” by William Meikle
“Satisfaction Brought Him Back” by Glynn Owen Barrass
“The Bastet Society” by Sam Stone
“The Veil of Dreams” by Stephen Mark Rainey
“The Quest of Pumpkin the Brave” by Oscar Rios
“The Cats of the Rue d’Auseil” by Neil Baker
“The Knowledge of the Lost Master” by Andi Newton
“The Ruins of an Endless City” by Lee Clark Zumpe
“A Glint in the Eyes” by D.A. Madigan
“A Field Guide to Wanderlust” Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
“In the End there is a Drain” by Tim Waggoner

I had the fun of providing a small illustration for each story. The following gallery features all my illustrations. If you want to know which picture goes with which story – you’ll need to get the book. Heh heh.

A Green Man

This week’s process GIF is of a Green Man portrait. I’ve written before of my love for swamp monsters. Green Men weren’t originally swamp monsters but, in modern times, especially in modern comics, they’ve become associated with them. I’ve drawn plenty of swamp monsters. This was my first Green Man.

You can find this fellow on all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Thank you for reading. My apologies for the brevity of this week’s newsletter.

I hope that, in your coming week, you have a host of good things happen and plenty of people with whom to share those events.

See you in seven!

Skook Words (and Pictures) #35

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Hello, hello! Good to see you! You’re looking well. As always. You really must tell me your secret sometime. I’ve asked before. You keep avoiding the question.

Am I being rude?

Are you keeping busy? Is the world your oyster? Do you even like oysters? If so, do you prefer them raw or smoked?

These Days …

It’s been a lively week. As of last Saturday, all the Seattle carriers are starting work a half an hour later due to Seattle Postmaster mandate. I don’t like it but I’m been trying to use the extra time in the morning to my advantage and get some art done. So far, so good. The cats, that is, our real, physical cats, tend to leave me alone more in the morning than in the evening so, really, doing artwork first thing makes sense. Resisting the temptation of social media and youtube videos is a little difficult but I’m getting better at it.

On Sunday we had visitors drop by from out of town. They’re a couple I’ve known for more than thirty years. They were here for an Alaska cruise that departed on Monday. I offered to cook dinner. They offered to take us out. We settled on picking up dinner from a local Indian place and eating at our apartment. This was the best choice. In general I prefer hanging out with friends at home rather than at a restaurant. There are fewer time and noise constraints and you don’t have to worry about the subjects your conversation wanders into. We got loud. We reminisced about our misspent youths, complained about work and the current political situation. We used foul language and touched on subjects that tend to make other folks lose their appetites. It was lovely.

Monday was Labor Day. Chores were done. Plans were made. Sarah and I rested as much as possible.

Tuesday and Wednesday were long workdays. Tuesday because the day after a holiday always has a backup of mail and parcels to get out and Wednesday because we’re shorthanded. The weather is cooling down and it was only two days so I don’t have a lot of complaints. Sarah spent those days getting the house reorganized to give the new housemate more room and to catch up on chores that we’d slacked off on since she got back from Mississippi.

Thursday morning Sarah and I had a zoom meeting with the publisher who will be kickstarting the Billi 99 Special Edition. We’re moving the kickstarter from a planned October back to November so that he and his team can better prepare. They’ve run some very successful campaigns recently and that success is leading to more success and the resulting demands for time and attention. No complaints there.

Thursday afternoon we went on a date. We joke that most of our dates are going shopping or doctor visits. Yesterday we went to the movies for the first time since the Pandemic. Matinees midweek are perfect for avoiding crowds. There were maybe ten people in the theatre. We saw The Equalizer 3. If you liked the first two, you’ll probably like this one. We did.

And then we went to Costco. We had to make it a proper date, after all.

Councils of Cats

Golden Goblin Press pays for printing their books by running kickstarters. They focus on roleplaying game manuals. One of their reward levels is a chance for backers to get themselves or a loved one included as a character in the game. For Tails of Valor backers got a chance to include their beloved cats as characters and I did the cats’ portraits. Many cats, many portraits. Meow. Purrrrrrr.


Process GIF

Cats love boxes. This is an established fact. Boxes are gates to unknown realms and the cats are guarding those gates. It’s for our own good. The things on the other sides of those gates would drive us mad. So the next time your cat scrunches itself into that box you were planning to break down and toss away, say thank you. Madness has been pushed back for another day.

These intrepid guardians can be found on schtuff in my Redbubble store. Of course.

Thank you again for reading. I hope your week gives you all the fun and/or relaxation you need.

If you’ve never eaten an oyster, give it a try. Or have some pizza. Pizza is good for breakfast. Oysters … maybe not.

See you in seven!

Skook Words (and Pictures) #34

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Greetings and Salutations!

It’s good to see you! You’re looking well. Someday you must share the secrets of your success!

These Days …

Our new housemate is all moved in. He’s brought a cat with him. So far it spends most of its time in his room but it has begun venturing into the greater universe of the apartment. Its expeditions have been short. Our cats are getting used to the idea that there is another four legged being in their world. They are mostly respecting the threshold to our housemate’s room as border not to be crossed. No wars have broken out.

The weather is getting cooler. A little rain has fallen. We’ve managed to be a little bit social. On Wednesday we visited with friends who were in town from Taiwan. We’ve know them for years, having met them before their move to the Republic of China. We hadn’t seen them in about three and a half years so there was a lot of catching up to do.

The day job continues to be the day job. I’m continuing to carry a little extra. Lately I’ve been volunteering to deliver the express mail for the 98106 zip code. (We serve four zip codes in our station. Besides 98106 we carry for 98126, 98136 and 98146.) This has me travel more than if I’m delivering part of a specific route. Express mail usually arrives after I’m already out delivering my own route so I have to go back to the station to pick it up. I like the variety of the task. The number of expresses and the amount of driving required is different every day. One day I had only two parcels but they were miles apart. Another time I had five parcels to going to addresses in a four block area. Some days none of the packages require customer signatures before delivery. Some days all of them do.

Cathulhu

Last week I turned in what I thought was my last illustration for the updated edition of Cathulhu and was almost immediately commissioned for three more. Yay!

Tails of Valor from Golden Goblin Press was my first Cathulhu job. I illustrated that book back in 2019. I shared my illustrations for two scenarios last week (one set in ancient Rome) and the week before (one set in ancient Egypt). This week I’m sharing my illustrations for the final scenario.

The Undesirables (set in Dark Ages France) by Oscar Rios
The cats of Paris struggle to survive in a city driven mad with fear. The streets are filled with the dead, the dying, and the terrified as a deadly and mysterious plague runs rampant. The church places the blame on Satan, black magic, witches, and their familiars… namely cats. As a purge of such undesirables begins, will the cats put a stop to the actual witches spreading this vile pestilence, or seek to escape the city and reach the countryside?

I have two more posts worth of illustrations from the Tails of Valor project queued up, one next week and one the week after.

The Process GIF

Bzzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzzz. Means “Glad to see you!”

This design can be found on all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Thank you for reading. May the next seven days treat you kindly. May you have continued success in the endeavors that matter to you most. May you get the rest you need and may you, on occasion, be surprised by joy.

See you next Friday!