Dragon Flight

Here is an other illustration for my The Last Dragon project. Things are still pretty busy 'round Hanged Man Studio so I'm not getting to work on this is much as I would like, but I am determined to finish this project this time..... over the years I have played around with this idea and always got side tracked by one thing or another and shelved it--again and again. Well. we'll see how far I get this time-- fingers crossed as I am notorious for getting distracted by any shinny little object.

Sometimes I have a hard time determining when and images is finished-- especially highly complex images like this one. I tend to keep tinkering with them, making micro changes here and there...little things that no one would notice but me.... Often it is the deadline that determines when a piece is done. I will just keep playing with an image until the clients comes banging at my door. But when it is a piece I'm doing as part of a personal project it never really is ever finished and is instead is always in a state of being " almost there"---that is, at least, until exhaustion sets in.

Well boys and girls

this is it, and it's been a long time coming, But DK2G has finally released the second image I did for them. DK2G is a high end clothing company based in Brooklyn better known as Deth Killers of New Brunswick (You can get the whole back-story here, here, and here). This is probably the most complex image I have ever done. With well over 300+layers, composing the image was kind of like stage blocking a play.... I was constantly moving elements around the canvas, pulling them forward, pushing them into the background, shifting them from stage left to stage right. taking some out and creating new ones to add in. This did create some problems with the lighting and perspective, but overall I am very happy with the results. There are all kinds of little ester eggs hidden in the image including tributes to Don Lawrence, Normal Rockwell, Star wars, the avengers and even Akira Kurosawa.

While working on this image I was constantly listening to the music of Ozomatli. In particular their song "Saturday Night". If you want to get the full impact of the image I would suggest playing the tune while viewing.....

Neptune City Narratives

Here is a little taste of the stuff for D3 games. Based on Elliott Davis' superhero world of Neptune City Narratives. while most comic book worlds seem to assume all heroes are stationed in New York, Neptune City Narratives explores a super hero universe where each state of the USA has a dedicated super-hero. This image is of Arizona.

I haven't done much in the way of super hero illustration. Just a few fan commission here and there.... I grew up reading comics and I really enjoyed creating the images for Neptune City Narratives.

Self Portraits

I've never really considered myself a photo realistic painter. But over the last few years, I have found that my rendering styles have moved in that direction. So much so that I wondered if I would have the skills to paint directly on a digital photo. As an experiment I took two self portraits and and Painted over them to create these sci-fi images. Kind of silly, I know.... But it was fun.

Holy Crap!!

Geocities is closed!! man where have I been. I just went to check on my site only to find that as of 10/26/09 Yahoo is no longer offering free hosting services and closed it down...... wow, it is the end of an era. Not sure if I am going to set up a home page somewhere else, stick with yahoo (doubt it) or just not bother with a home page. The one advantage of a home page is that you can set your art up in galleries for easy viewing, while here a visitor has to scroll though endless entries

--- got some thinking to do.

The Black Parade

This the cover for the the Imperial principalities of the Elders published by Kobold quarterly, hitting your local hobbies shops next week. Man-o-Man this was a fun cover to do. It was not supposed to be a wrap around, but I was bad--very bad. I got an idea and just sort of ran with it--Inspired by artist like Brueghel, Durer and Rathel's images of death and the four horsemen of the apocalypse-- Death rides in the foreground upon a desiccated horse, in his wake skeletons and the recently dead rise and dance. At the far left edge a devil/goat headed creature dances too, wanting to claim it's share of souls. In the back ground, mounds of bone go off into the distance with a parade of soldiers, lead by a court jester and a group of hooded figures carrying a dead knight. Still further back we see a castle and hovering/ super imposed over the scene a plaintive angle and below her the other horsemen of the apocalypse. Down below we see a huge gathering of soldiers on the vast plain of Armageddon waiting for the final battle as the sky fills with dark ominous clouds....

So Malcolm, what's Up?

Yeah, I know, I haven't posted in a while-- Been very busy these days. I am working concept images for two separate film projects. I'm incredibly excited about these project, but, I can't talk much about them at this point, except to say that at the moment I'm up to my neck in werewolves and mutants. I will post images and details when possible. I'm also doing a tiny little something for D3 games--which I'll post soon. But for now, I can at least show the latest image for "The Last Dragon" project. I continue to plod along on this project at a frustratingly slow pace---- sigh, Just not enough time.

Last Dragon update

Well that was fun while it lasted, several new projects have come in and I will have to put The Last Dragon on hold-- again. I was having fun working on my own stuff, something I rarely have enough time to do. But, a guys gotta pay the bills.

Here is some of the stuff I've done for The Last Dragon. I know, in previous post I had said that I be working to be working on the 13 large full page illustration for the story, but I started to think about how the sequential parts of the book project and how they might look. I haven't tried to do sequential illustration in years and years. I can't believe how hard it is. Consistency and continuity are a bitch. Hats off to all the comic book illustrators out there.






More coming soon, but right now, it's back to work

I Hunger

Third illustration for "The Last Dragon"

All that Remains

Another illustration I'm working on for"the last dragon" project..... My idea is to have 12 to 13 large illustrations of key scenes of the story. These will be tied together by smaller illustration and sequential panels. I have a couple of paying gigs pending, but still no work. I have mixed feeling as I would really like to be able to get these large image finished before having to shelve the project again. However the idea of eating is also very appealing......

The Last Dragon

I know, I know, in my last post I said I was going to paint the front hall way..... and I am, but the paint has to dry between coats and rather then spend my time watching it dry, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I am jobless right now (gulp!) and work on on a personal project-- The Last Dragon. It has been over a year since I last had enough free time to dive into the project.... at this rate I should be finished some time around 2050 (sigh). I see this as something between a novel and a graphic novel. With some parts told in prose, other in sequential panels, with spot illustration and full color, full page illustrations throughout the book. I think it would be a very cool format and one I have not seen much of before.

A diffrent kind of painting

wow... for the first time in a long time I find myself with out a project.... kind of scary! But, even more scary is the list of chores that I have been putting off because of my overloaded work schedule..... Looks like I'm going from painting dragons and such to painting the front hallway.....

......But I cant very well post an image of our front hall (it's just not that interesting) so here is a piece I did for the Warlords ccg from Phoenix interactive. This image is soooo close to being great, but ultimately it fails. Mostly the problem is that the assignment was to do 3 illustration in one panoramic battle scene . Each of the three had to be able to stand on it's own and apart from the rest of the image for a card illustrations ( the guy riding the wave on the left, the fight on the deck of the ship and the female on the right calling the charge). This created multiple points of focus to the image so that there is no real flow to the image... instead the eye just bounces around from point to point not knowing where to look-- and the "headlight" lighting of the image also contributes to making it a confused jumble of activity. Some day I will come back to this image and work on the lighting and focus and make it the great piece it should be.

I give you Honey West

Think equal parts Marilyn Monroe, Emma Peal and Mike Hammer. She first appeared in the 1957 book This girl for hire and went on to appear in 10 more books from 1958 to 1971, and then popped up in a short-lived TV series (produced by Aaron spelling) in the mid-sixties staring Anne Francis-- One of the first TV shows to feature a lead female in the pre-feminist area. Now she will be making her appearance in a series of Comic Book mini series published by Moonstone Books.

This is the first of four covers I done for the series (I will be sharing the other as they get closer to publication) The trick for me was in giving her a slightly more contemporary feel while paying tribute to her past incarnations.