Tag Archives: bigfoot

Skook WiP #98

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It’s 11/11/22. It’s the 11th day of the 11th month. The war to end all wars ended today back in 1918.

Yeah. No comment.

I’m off social media and putting my best efforts into updating Daughter of Spiders as my project for NaNoWriMo. Any internet use has to be for historical research for the story. No current news. No gossip. No reviews of old b-movies.

Mugshots

This month’s process GIF features a girl and her dragon. Or perhaps a dragon and her girl. Or maybe the tragic death of a lollypop. It’s all a matter of perspective.

It’s available as:
A mug in my Zazzle store
A lot of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Mighty Nizz

The latest page of the first Mighty Nizz story is up. The scan of the original art is below. The final colored version can be seen at MightyNizz.com.

Versus

Back in October I was commissioned to do a portrait of someone, a friend of a friend. The initial suggestion was to portray the fellow taking out a giant bug.
The commissioner also thought it might be fun to portray his friend as Katsuki Bakugo (a character from the anime My Hero Academia) fighting Meruem (a character from the anime Hunter x Hunter).
My client gave me the choice of depicting either scenario. I sent him sketches for both and asked him to choose his favorite. He went with the anime version.
I worked up pencils for the portrait. I’m not familiar with either of the animes from which these characters originate so I had to do some research to get their details right. I think I did fairly well.

Once I got approval on the pencils I moved on to inks and then spot blacks and shading.
Below is the final version. I had to be a little more careful with this project than with illustrations that are intended for print. I can fix errors on those pieces digitally. The physical art for this one went to the client so it had to be as clean and mistake free as possible.
That’s it for this week.

Take care. Take charge. Take flight.

See you next Friday!

Skook WiP #96

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Greetings and salutations!

This issue and, most likely, November’s newsletters, will be shorter on personal news than previous issues. In order to give myself time for NaNoWriMo in November I’m writing at least the basics of the letters in October. Given that I have no powers of prognostication I’ll be leaving off the “These Days” sections. Let’s just pretend that I’m having fun delivering mail and getting lots of writing done in my off hours.

Mugshots

This month’s process GIF is … hmmm. One of those images that came to me without any explanation. I’m sure there’s a story to be told here but I’ll leave it you to start it.
This design can be found on:
A mug in my Zazzle store
A variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Mighty Nizz

Below is the scan of the latest page of the first Mighty Nizz story. The finished color page can be found here.

Sketches

Practice, practice.

Daughter of Spiders

I’ll be setting up a gallery (or galleries) for the illustrations featured in this project. The text will be going away on November 1st. If you’d like to read it before then I recommend starting here.

I hope your week goes smoothly and is dotted with plenty of joyful moments.

See you in seven!

Tuesday Night Party Club #48

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Gallery – Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion

In 2020 I was asked to do some illustrations of Jackson Elias for The Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion. Specifically I was asked to do a single illustration that featured photos of Elias’s past adventures. Doing the photos as individual illustrations made them available as individual handouts. I also did a portrait of the Crawling Chaos itself and some of its “Masks”.

Story Seed #97

Invent a conspiracy. Make it as ridiculous and farfetched as you want.

“Fairies run the tech industry because they’re trying to invent tech that doesn’t use iron so they can come out of hiding.”

“Neanderthals didn’t go extinct. They are the secret rulers of the world. Their big brains gave them psychic powers so we can’t see them when they walk among us.”

“There are no real squirrels in the city. They’ve all been replaced by squirrel robots that are spying on your every movement.”

Recommendation

What I’d like to do is sit and read a book. Just spend the day reading a good dead tree edition of something. Since that won’t fit in my schedule right now may I suggest that, if you have the time, you fit it in yours?

Local News

There’s not a lot to read in this week’s issue. My apologies. I sit at the computer and type out a few sentences and then delete them and start again. Most of what I’ve written is either a complaint or an explanation as to why I’m not writing much. Like this.

I’m continuing to add color to older Mighty Nizz illustrations. This –

Became this –

This illustration below was already colored. I did it in 2012 so it’s one of my ealiest images featuring the Nizz.
I like the original but I thought it could use some adjustments. Fortunately I’ve learned to save all my photoshop files with their original layers so making changes was pretty easy.

Thanksgiving was a small affair. Just our immediate household. We’re eating our way through the leftovers now. Thank you for dropping by. I hope you are well and feel seen by someone in the world. We all need that.

In 2021 this newsletter will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

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See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #47

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Gallery – 2019 Daily Sketches 303-332

This is the penultimate collection of my daily sketches from 2019. 30 images all in one covenient place.

Story Seed #96

Once again, there are thirty images above. They all have stories. The story you find in the illustration will be different than the one someone else tells.

Recommendation

This week I’m recommending David Lasky’s Etsy shop. David is a cartoonist, art teacher and friend. His work is lovely and eclectic. Check it out!

Local News

Rain and cold and darkness have settled over the Pacific Northwest. The holidays loom but we’re staying away from other humans and their icky diseases. The mail and parcel volumes have increased as expected so I’m getting overtime whether I want it or not. Wearing a mask in addition to rain gear leaves me with just a narrow strip with which to observe the world. I feel disconnected and unbalanced. The mask does keep my face warm. That’s an unexpected bonus.

I’m also officially a Guy Who Wears Glasses. As I got used to the new prescription I started wearing them in more and more situations and now I wear them more than I don’t. I go without them in situations where I need to have a mask on because I haven’t yet taken the steps to prevent them fogging but otherwise they’re just part of my wardrobe. The eye doctor recommended cataract surgery. Supposedly that will correct my vision issues so the glasses may not be a permenant accessory. I won’t be taking any steps toward surgery until after the holidays though. Too much to do, not enough time to recover.

I’m continuing to add images to my Zazzle and Redbubble shops. Both shops recently had complete strangers make purchases. That was encouraging. One can’t become a mogul by selling just to ones friends.

I’m currently completing and/or coloriing older illustrations of Little Red aka The Mighty Nizz. The image below is from 2011 or 2012. I’m pretty sure it’s the third time I’d drawn the character. I found it when I was clearing and organizing a stack of art and art supplies this summer. It was mostly still pencils, only the lettering and the bear in the tree had been inked. I wish I’d remembered to scan that version but we’ll have to settle on the completed inks.

From that to this –

I also colored two images from 2015. This –

Became this –

And this –

Became this –

I actually prefer this version to the more detailed one I did later. I’m making both available in my shops. I long ago learned that my taste is not necessarily my audience’s. Unless I hate an image I’m likely to make it available.


In 2021 this newsletter will get a new title – Skook WIP (Works in Progress) and will be hosted at tinyletter.com. If you subscribe, each issue will come directly to your email address. I’ll continure to post links to issues here but, if you want cut down on link hopping, please use the form below to sign up –

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It’s Thanksgiving this week. We’re keeping it small. Just me, my wife, our nephew and his girlfriend. Easy enough since we share the apartment. Others were invited but the C19 resurgence is keeping them home. I’m working the day before Thanksgiving so any cooking I do will happen in the morning on Thursday. Since we’re keeping the menu small I don’t expect to do much. Since I’ll be tired from the day before I really don’t plan to do much.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope that your holiday is warm and relaxing. We’ve been in a slow, stupid apocalypse for months now. Celebrate by doing what makes you happy and keeps you safe. See you next week!

Tuesday Night Party Club #44

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Gallery – Terrors from Beyond

Terrors from Beyond, in 2009, was my third interior illustration project with Chaosium. This time I got to do a lot of ull page illustrations. That made for some breathing room in the art.

Story Seed #93
Wake Up New

You go to sleep. You wake up in someone else’s body. The body might have belonged to your next door neighbor or it might have belonged to someone on the other side of the world. You have only your memories not those of your new body’s original owner. So if you were a 30 year male taxi driver in Pittsburgh when you went to sleep, waking up in the body of a sixty year old woman goatherder in Botswana would be quite a shock.

This happens to everyone. You can put off the transfer by staying awake but you can only stay awake so long. Go to sleep, wake up someone new, somewhere else.

At first, civilization is going to grind to a halt. Civilization relies on skilled individuals doing specialized jobs. Communities and cultures rely on people sharing the same languages and customers and general knowledge. At first there would be panic.

But then?

Human beings are adaptable. We can manage change if we put our minds to it. What kind of society could grow from a people who are someone new, somewhere new, every day? Could we develop a common language? Could we manage our complex infrastructure? Are there skills that can be used regardless of the body you find yourself in? How do you prove you’re you? Does it matter?

Recommendation

Storyink Studios is the Etsy shop of Teresa and Jeff Swenson. They are delighful, creative people. They make stickers. Take a look!

Local News

Today is the final day to vote in the USA. Normally election seasons mean that I have to manage a lot of political flyers and advertisements. This season was surprisingly light, at least in my USPS station. No stacks of mailers for either presidential candidate. No stacks from either candidate for the Governor of Washington State. There were mailers for a couple initiatives but even these didn’t seem as overwhelming as mailers have been previously.

And that’s fine. I’m still doing overtime but mostly on my own route. General mail numbers have gotten higher lately. Amazon continues to send us a large volume of parcels. Many of those parcels are oversized boxes that can’t be carried in my satchel and so require me to take the extra time to car hop the parcls directly to the delivery address.

Artwise, I’ve finished both the pirate character illustrations and the cover for the novel. I’ll share the cover when the book is actually in print. The final version is likely to be different that the last version the publisher sent me. My job was to do the illustration. They were handling the type layout and design.

Next up is a portrait of someone’s RPG player character and some concept sketches for another person’s novel. Then a series of character illustrations for an RPG sourcebook set in North American Colonial times.Given that the mail and, especially, the parcels are only going to get heavier from now until January, that project will likely continue sometime into 2021. Does that throw off my plans to just concentrate on producing work for and marketing my online stores? Of course! But adjusting to change is life.

Daylight savings happened on Sunday. My body will be taking a few days to get used to it. I’ve woken up an hour before my alarm both Monday and today.

Thank you for dropping by. I hope that your week goes well and that you are able to celebrate some victories. I get through the days by celebrating the small ones. A sketch finished. A meal made. A bill paid. A swing completed on my route. Big victories are stacks of small ones. Celebrate your small victories.