Been a While

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So.

School.

I’m in the thick of it. I’m taking four classes – 16 credits – a Math class, a Math Study Skills class, an Intro to Networking class and a Web Authoring class.

We’re ending the seventh week of classes and so far I seem to doing well in Math, Math Study Skills (a class that was mandatory with Math) and Web Authoring. Some of what I’ve been doing in that last class can be found on my student website here. Look while you can. That link will probably go away once the class ends.

I just took my (late) midterm in Networking. This is the first test we’ve had and I can’t really say how I did. It was 50 true/false questions. Open notes. My notes were not as thorough as I would have liked and I don’t know how tricky the teacher was being when he wrote the questions. Some of them are almost true except for one little piece of info. Or maybe that piece of info was in the book and I missed it. Networking is only on Tuesday and Thursdays so I’ll have to wait until next week to find out how I did.

Distinguished Company

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Coming soon from Aklo Press, the AKLONOMICON!

I’m not sure when the publication date is yet but “soon” is a safe prediction. A table of contents for this massive book (edited by Ivan McCann and Joseph S. Pulver) was just announced. Take a gander –

AKLONOMICON TABLE OF CONTENTS

DAVE CARSON COVERS

ANDREA BONAZZI FRONTISPIECE

“CAPTURED IN OILS” BY SIMON STRANTZAS WITH ART BY IVAN MCCANN

“HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN” BY EDWARD MORRIS WITH ART BY STEVE LINES

“TRUCKEE STOMP”, “CRACK”, “FEDERAL MANHUNT..”, “FINISHED WITH SANDBURG” POEMS BY LAIRD BARRON WITH ART BY JD BUSCH

“THE GIRLS OF THE WORLD” BY LIVIA LLEWELLYN WITH ART BY KIRILL ROZHKOV

MIKE DUBISCH ART WITH TEXT BY JOE PULVER

“SWAMP DREAMS” BY ROBIN SPRIGGS WITH ART BY ROB SMITTS

“FLUTES” BY T.E. GRAU WITH ART BY PAUL CARRICK

“LETTERS TO G.G.” POEMS BY B.R. JORDING WITH ART BY JASON ROBERTS

“NIGHTMARES IN A PAMPINIFORM MIND” BY JORDAN KRALL WITH ART BY ERIC REINERT

“TIME AND FOREVER” POEM BY JOE PULVER AND TARA VANFLOWER WITH ART BY DANIELE SERRA

“NEVER CALL ANUBIS LOKI’S ROBOTS CHEAP SHIT” BY JOE PULVER, GARRETT COOK AND JORDAN KRALL WITH ART BY NICK GUCKER

“THE BOOK” COMIC BY MICHAEL ZIGERLIG

“HEAD SOUP” BY JOHNNY MAINS WITH ART BY IVAN MCCANN

“WHEN SHE SHINES, POEMS… LIKE CHALICES” POEM BY NOVA RUPERTUS AND JOE PULVER

“COUNTERCLOCKWISE” BY JEFF THOMAS WITH ART BY ERIC YORK

“BRIAN’S GIRL” BY GARRETT COOK WITH ART BY JACOB PARMENTIER

“SILVER NIGHT TRAIN” AND “THE GOD OF SUBURBIA” POEMS BY LIVIA LLEWELLYN WITH ART BY KIRILL ROZHKOV

“NYARLATHOTEP PAINTING” BY ANN KOI WITH TEXT BY JOE PULVER

“IN THE CAVE SHE SANG” BY T.E. GRAU WITH ART BY PAUL CARRICK

“KRISTAMAS AS AN EXHIBITION” PHOTOS BY KRISTAMAS KLOUSCH AND TEXT BY JOE PULVER

“ANA KAI TANGATA” BY SCOTT NICOLAY WITH ART BY JD BUSCH

“THE HANDS OF SOPIALE” TEXT AND ART BY J KARL BOGARTTE

“LORD OF THE HUNT” BY LIVIA LLEWELLYN WITH ART BY DANIELE SERRA

“DARK OUTCOME” BY STAN SARGENT WITH ART BY TOM MORAN

“IF COMPANY SHOULD COME” BY ED MORRIS WITH ART BY DAVID LEE INGERSOLL

“WHISPERERS” BY DANIEL MILLS WITH ART BY DAVID LEE INGERSOLL

“FAINT BAYING FROM AFAR” BY RICHARD GAVIN WITH ART BY DAVE CARSON

“ZYGOTE’S FABLES” BY ERIC YORK scattered throughout the anthology.

Stay tuned!

Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

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The Yellow Sign Challenge Coin went on sale today. The what? Yellow Sign Challenge Coin from Dagon Industries. The front features the Kevin Ross designed Yellow Sign. The back is view of Carcosa based on an illustration by me.

Above is the original sketch I submitted to Jarred, my handler, at Dagon Industries. It’s based on the version of Carcosa that was in the background of the King in Yellow poker chip I did for DI a few years ago. Jarred liked it but wanted a couple of changes.

This is the second sketch. Gone is the creature in the lake and the towers have been moved to the center of the image. Jarred approved this version.

Once the sketch was approved I inked it. For you art geeks out there I do most of my inking with a No. 4 round brush (I forget which brand). For some of the smaller fine details I’ll use an .02 point Micron pen. I’m pretty sure I used a pen for the reflection.


And then the coin magically appeared.

Okay. Probably there was more work involved than that but since I wasn’t there it seems pretty magical to me.

Spectreman Gets Schooled

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I’m starting school tomorrow so I’m not sure what posting is going to look like for the next few weeks. I look at how much time I’m scheduled to be in class and it seems like I should have plenty of time for art, blog posting and doing all the exciting chores that life seems to require. But the last time I was in school was high school, many many years ago, and I’m told that college has a much different ratio of class time to homework time. Plus I’ve got a commute looks like it could run anyway from an hour to two hours depending on how smoothly I make my bus transfers.

So. Rather than post this sequence over a few days I’m putting it all up today. This was done for the current Remake/Remodel challenge at the Whitechapel Forums. Instead of giving us a brief character description Ellis posted this –

When I was a kid I watched some (perhaps all) of the Spectreman series on the Captain Cosmic show. I don’t really remember much about it. I think I found it somewhat disappointing but it did provide me with a giant monster fix so I caught as many episodes as I could.

Because this a giant monster fighting hero I felt compelled to add a contribution to the Whitechapel challenge. And because I’m currently in the middle of half a dozen other art projects (and school is looming) I felt equally compelled to get the illustration done as quickly as possible.

First I sketched out a logo. That will show up later. Then I sketched out a quick redesign of Spectreman. Quick. I added a random array of monsters behind him. Quickly. I inked the outlines of Spectreman. Quickly. Normally I like to fill in all the blacks of an illustration on paper but this time I decided to photoshop them.

Adding the spot blacks in Photoshop was faster than doing it via brush and ink but it’s not as relaxing. I know that these days a lot of artists do most of their work digitally but I still prefer to do most of mine on paper first. It’s more relaxing. (Unless I’m making a lot mistakes. In that case I find myself wishing I was working with Photoshop and its undo capabilities.)

I colorized the background to give me a base color to work with.

Next I selected and colorized the different shapes of the Spectreman figure.


I added the logo and matched its colors to Spectreman’s. In order to make the figure stand out from the background I changed the color from red to blue. And then I posted it to the forums before I could spend any more time noodling on it. And, man, do I want to noodle on this.

Ah well. Lots to do. I’ll post when I can.