The Rising

Here's the final version of the Cthulhu Painting I've been working on. You don't often see Cthulhu rising on a bright sunny day. But, you know, Cthulhu doesn't care about the weather. When the Deep One awakens, he's not going wait for a thunderstorm or a hurricane. The stars only need to be right, they don't have to be visible.

Dressing Like a Gentleman

Here's a fun set of characters I did in class for a study in iconography.

Cthulhu Emerges WIP

Here's a work in progress of a Cthulhu Painting I'm working on.

I started with some rough painting of the kind of water I wanted, then I moved on to manipulating a photo element I got from CGTextures.com

Next I laid in the rough shapes and built on them until I had this rough painting.

Then I added some wave effects

Then I threw in some seagulls to add depth.

And now I've decided to make it a wider image, so this is where it's at now.

Here's a rough sketch that I did while I was considering how to tackle this painting. It needed to have some kind of environment, so originally I was thinking of showing him on the sea floor in R'lyeh. Here I was just experimenting with some lighting choices and trying to think of how to convey a murky underwater environment.

Copyright

This was an editorial illustration about copyright, inspired by the Shepard Fairey/Mannie Garcia controversy.

The Killing Joke

As a project for a sequential art class, I re-designed three pages and the cover from a classic comic book. I chose Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke." Part of the challenge was to re-design Batman and the Joker.

How do you re-design Batman? He's seen countless incarnations already. Do I re-imagine him as though he'd never been seen before, or do I just try to do a new take on the established iconic design?
I leaned toward keeping him immediately recognizable. The first thing I knew was that I wanted his whole face to be covered. The current incarnation of Batgirl has a similarly covered face, and I've always thought that to be truly unrecognizable and terrifying Batman shouldn't have any of his face showing.
I thought about focusing on either enhancing the fear aspect of the Batman persona or trying to portray him more realistically than has ever been done.
Superhero costumes in film is a tricky thing. The costume needs to be believable, but also look really good. Most superhero costumes in movies are designed to look like the hero just put it on quickly when in fact, it takes a team of professionals to get the actor into the outfit and then it has to be photographed so that the seems don't show. Spiderman's mask, for example, is part of a single piece top that the actor wears so that we don't see the seem. But we should see the seam. We all know that it's there. Why try to hide it? Batman is always shown with black makeup on around his eyes so that we only see the whites under the mask. But if he takes the mask off, the makeup is gone. It should still be there. Why hide the reality of the effect, especially when realism is what the filmmakers want? Why do lightsabers clip to Obi-Wan's belt, but don't have belt clips? Why does Batman wear a rubber suit that no real person would ever be able to move in?
So I drew a version of Batman in modified riot gear, because that's something that could really work for him.

But ultimately I went with a more shrouded, more spectral look for the Dark Knight. Part of Batman's mission is to terrify criminals, but he doesn't really look that scary. So I wanted him to look like some kind of ghost, a living shadow. He could come out of anywhere.

 Of course, that didn't take very much effort to just make him a darkened form, so I had to know what was under his cape. I wanted his outfit to completely reflect this shrouded look, so in place of tights, I gave him an outfit inspired by a holy crusader, to fit with the Knight theme, and also give him a lot of layers of flowing fabric.

For the cover I wanted to try something kind of surreal. I tried to make the Bat logo appear as though it were just a suggestion of the falling rain.

Neon Fairy

Created as a T-shirt design for young girls, this fairy is a free spirit with a sense of wonder, a desire to learn and grow as she explores the world around her. She teaches girls that they should be free and independent as well as open to new ideas, that they can spread their own wings and soar to whatever stars they set their hearts and minds to find.

In the Lair of the Sea Witch

I was thinking about how to make the sea witch from The Little Mermaid look frightening. If you look closely at her face, you can see how she's covered in cuts and gashes.

Fire Serpent

Here's one of my early digital paintings. I was trying out textures and effects.

The Watcher in the Dark

Here's another piece that came out of subtractive shading. I started with the eye, going white on black. Then I decided I wanted the iris of the eye to be providing light to the skin, which eventually led to the idea of having all the hair tipped with lights, as though all her hair were fiber-optic.

The Brides

The Brides of Dracula. This was an experiment in subtractive shading.
Vampires should be terrifying.

A Portrait of the Great Old One

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Alien Lights

This started as a potential character design for one of Conceptart.org's character of the week projects.

The Endless

From Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman"

Dream of the Endless

. . . and his sister

Death of the Endless

. . . and their younger sister

Endless Delirium

Annabel Lee

"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me."

 -Edgar Allen Poe

One of my only paintings in oil.

Children of the Night

Here's a concept painting of Dracula for a graphic novel project I'm working on.

And here's some of the concept art.