The Two Kings, W.B. Yeats

I read Treasure Island when I was a kid.  I think it was the first book I completed.  My folks had bought me a great hard bound edition with NC Wyeth's painted illustrations.  It had that rough hewn pages so it looked like it could of been in some pirates foot chest.   I would force myself to read through a chapter so I could get to the illustration page.

check them out if you haven't seen them.  NC Wyeth Treasure Island Illustrations.



Below is my attempt at a story book illustration.  W.B. Yeats has some great epic adventure poems. Many of his poems are re-tellings of Irish myths.  They are full of shape shifting humans, unloved beasts, spirit worlds and fairy lovers that visit in the night.


 below is an excerpt from the poem "The Two Kings"

Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air.
Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,
And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves
A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;
But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks	35
Against a beech bole, he threw down the beast
And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant
It vanished like a shadow, and a cry
So mournful that it seemed the cry of one
Who had lost some unimaginable treasure	40
Wandered between the blue and green leaf
And climbed into the air, crumbling away,
Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision
But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,
The disembowelled horse.

Weiner

Recent Black and White Spots

Very Quick sketches on the Wacom

 I got an editorial gig last week. It has been a little while, I am afraid to say.  But it was a treat to turn out three in a short period of time.   These are for the Miami New Times.  The article, "Inside the Secret Lives and Scary Risk-Taking of South Florida's Sugar Babies" is about how rich men solicit women online.  Very creepy. I had some difficulty keeping these things relatively PG.  The article by Michael E. Miller is great and tackles the larger desire for wealth and how all the players in it calculate there morality.

Thanks for looking!

Rand Paul, Drones On

John Boehner, Epic Disfunction

Crying Ryan

I couldn't resist doing this image.  Just a fun promotional image.  The election is long over but it was shocking just how much the GOP miscalculated their own view of  America.  And so I present to you "Crying Ryan".

Digital Inking

I recently began inking digitally.  I was just showing some improvement with inking with a brush but I was lured into digitally inking with the hope that I could turn out high quality work faster.  And although there are clear positives I am not completely convinced that I should continue inking digitally. 

Last year I completed a 30 page comic. It took over a year to complete I wanted to get started on the next installment to keep the many fans (3 people, including my family) I took up the cintiq thinking It would  look slightly different but In the end I would be able to mimic any traditional style and I would do it in half the time.  

I did work much faster and yet the endless tweaking may have made the process equally as slow as inking traditionally.  

But now that I am close to completing the 2nd book I am unsure of the final result.  In some ways I turned out pages I think I would of had a hell of a time doing traditionally but I don't have the same satisfaction as creating a one of kind line on vellum or Bristol.

1.First I complete the regular old pencil drawing then it is scanned.  I am not a tight penciler.  I wish I was but I like to tighten and draw a little at each stage not be too rigid.  But maybe it is a detriment to the final product.  as you can see I can easily swap out drawings when months later i decide that a drawing was crumby.  

2. Then on a layer i just put down a line like a wire frame of all the shapes.  it usually simplifies the pencil drawing.

Then on another layer I start doing what would resemble regular inking i start placing all the blacks.  adding thin and think lines but I can separate everything on layers.  so the figures, the wood paneling and  background characters are all on their own layers. But due to the forgiving nature of the computer It seems like I put endless hours into tweaking and experimenting.  It is hard to know when you are done.

Page is still in progress.  Slowly coming together.
Thanks for looking.  I would love to be turned on to other folks process digital or traditional.  This kind of process stuff intrigues me to no end.