Brand New Coffin

Mechanix

2012-02-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

Look ma, it's nitty gritty and hands on! Wanna see how art school teaches you how the creative process is just as mechanical and repetitive as every other job? No?

Oh...well.

Either way. I have a the most irrational, inconvenient way of coming up with concepts - it tends to involve a lot of pacing, chain-smoking, and a deep loving relationship with my iPod and its contents therein.

That's how I come up with everything - even this assignment, which was to come up with two opposing teams and include a badass full page battle between the two. Sadly, I ended up rushing through illustrating the two team pages, and by the next class the battle page had been dropped in favour of giving us more time to turn in stellar work.

The long and short of my story being:

The Balance: A lapsed half-angelic priest meets a classy succubs who was cast out of hell for being in favor of not tearing the earth apart with the war against heaven. You know, your run of the mill 'WE'RE OPPOSITE YET THE SAME SO LET'S BONE' stereotype. They're partnered up with an innocent-yet-idiotic priest who believes so firmly in god that the 'heavenly host' cannot harm him or those who are in contact with him (used exclusively against The Zealot'), and a dog. Because dogs are too cool for school. We also had to do vehicles, this care is based on a 1964 Miller-Meteor ambulance, for the curious.

The Heavenly Host: Michael and Raguel (human and angelic forms represented) - respectively known as the Archangels of War and Justice are sent after them by heaven itself to end them. And then there's the Cherub because, fuck - they're not those cutsey little round-faced bastards that we're lead to believe that they are. Google 'em, because they're fucking freaks of nature. And the Zealot, space left blank since they're a dime a dozen and expendable - think suicide bombers, or plain old folks who kill in the name of 'God.' The bikes are based off retro Indian motorcycles.

I'm not really an art student. I'm actually majoring in bullshit with a minor in self-loathing.

As you can see - pencil things digitally because I draw with all the finesse of a bag of hammers being dropped down a flight of stairs. It's just faster and easier for me to see what I'm actually doing. Then I just take them to fed-ex and have them printed at-size in non-photo blue (so I can knock those lines out after I scan the image) - you can see this in the second car-process image. This is generally what my things look like freshly scanned after they've been inked, the motorcycle image to the right of that however, is where I've messed with the levels and threshold. Much cleaner, and ready for digital editing!

This is the first time I've ever applied a digital screentone before, I've used the original zip-a-tone sheets before to drop textures by hand, but this was just so much less time consuming. I ended up using a grey-tone wash sheet scan to make my tones look just a bit more organic than the all inclusive flat digital fade. The wash also seems to print better at a larger format than the digital texture. Asymmetry for the masses!

Then, finally - I had to do my titles by hand, which is a pain. I look at how the old masters incorporated titles and text into their splash pages and I cringe at how bad I am at it. But either way, I puked these out in a hurry, rushed to a lab and scanned these babies in, dropped them where I wanted them respectively and hit multiply on those layers so fast you'd swear that I was never even there.

And the final product of all of this?

It doesn't look like much, huh.

I'm toying with the idea of editing them some more, hand lettering their names below their boxes like in the pencils - maybe moving the title for the Heavenly host to that giant white floating space.

Or, I could pour myself a nice gin & tonic and sit back.

For now.

Supply Wars

2012-01-16T01:11:00.000-08:00

Supply-wise all artists have their own personal favourites. Musicians have their go-to suppliers for instruments, amps, mics, etc. Every knitter has their own yarn that they fully endorse, and there are painters that will only use one or two brands of paint because of the chemical breakdown that allows such pigments to be so stubbornly bright, or so inevitably sheer and full of light. Dancers tend to use one brand of equipment because it 'preforms best' or 'lasts forever'. Even farmers have their own certain seed-brands or tractor equipment that they're attracted to.

And as a artist, I feel even less of an artist because I have so very few brands that I jump on and go "THIS, THIS IS FOR ME."

I suppose it's because I'm so indecisive, but sometimes, in the face of the array of supplies I'm privy to, that I feel so blatantly uneducated and unsure of myself that I don't even know my arse from a hole in the ground.

Surely you say "RUBE, DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE?"

And lo, I say "NO, NO I FUCKING DON'T. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO GET WHEN I'M GOING THROUGH A DRIVE-THROUGH OF MY OWN CHOICE UNTIL I SEE THE GODDAMN MENU USUALLY."

And I feel lesser because of it.

Y'see, even as young, mainly uneducated artists, we all still have our own preferences. But instead of leaning brand-wise I just sort of stick with a medium and have qualms about every brand of it that has ever dared to exist within my lifetime that I've been able to get my hands on. And yet, it's still troublesome because who the fuck gives a shit?

Markers and felt tips tend to make me ill and make all artwork made with them almost soulless if I'm the creature at the wheel.

My own self-made felt tipped hell, in stereo.

Beyond felt-tips, I only care just enough when it starts to give me trouble it seems, and boy, do I ever have problems. Y'see, in my giant, awkward, stippling, hatching, everything but suave hand - ink is the best thing ever. It's ultimately unforgiving and you get to play with it in so many ways. I love using nib pens, and I love brushes - it's almost like a living thing. So willing to fuck up on its own, or just full of want to fuck with me.

This was a quick exorcize done with nibs and a pot of ink that I enjoyed, but the bukkake-

nosebleed element of the white ink killed any sort of reason for me to finish it. Ever.

Pentel bristle-brush pen and Pentouch white marker . The laziest way to ink anything ever,
also, probably my most favourite tools to everexist. Possibly just because I know their
names off the top of my head.

As to why I'm on to this at the moment? I've just actually had my first taste of using a scratchboard/clayboard and it's intimidating as all get-out. (I've been told that this medium is usually used in camp/churchcamp. I only went to one of those, and the lord doesn't seem to like how squeaky this shit is in the south because I've never fucking encountered it before, even if I have strongly admired it as an artform.) My preferred cheap ink was immediately scratched out as useable because it apparently tended to use two or three coats to be a true black on the clay-surface of the boards and was therefore cost-innefective, so I purchased a few sweet little bottles of the reccomended inks on the cheap thanks to coupons and school refunds.

And while being more highly recommended - I can't stand them on paper. I like my stuff to be the blackest and crispest it can endevour to be without ever being edited digitally, and all of these brands are coming out to look like my super cheap Higgens ink watered down in various degrees. I could actually do a value-centered ink painting without ever needing water to change the value. The range is literally so disgustingly varied.

I'd always hoped the black pigments got richer, darker, more green, yellow, or blue, not lighter and without much colour variance at all. I suppose people don't like my standard ink because it's so 'cakey' and black.

Ha. Ha. Haaaa?

Yes, the whole point of this post was to talk about how lost I am when it comes to supplies and what exactly is 'the best.' And funnily enough, I do have preferences, but I'm afraid that they're wrong because I'm so uneducated?

Or maybe this post just happened because I tried to paint in my favourite sketchbook with this new ink after a few drinks and it's soaked through three pages while ONE COAT of my old ink would have worked here and wouldn't have soaked through at all.

And.

Man. I hate playing connect the dots with bleed through on other pages.

It's too much like work, and I'm just not a puzzle person.

2011-12-28T02:25:00.000-08:00

The rapture is coming.

Fuck You, I'm Boba Fett

2011-10-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

That one's a real 'fixer-upper.'

I've got a collection of ~~bounties~~ posts in various states of ~~lucidity~~ finish, and I really should, you know. Finish at least one. They range from 'vaguely interesting' (my mad-rad everlasting jacket painting skills and the little things that help paint bond to leather/ I do dumb things to found furniture / art dumps / nifty action figures / weird-o comix / ~~a full length essay on why I think the whole upper floor of my apartment shakes when my flatmates do 'it 'and exactly how we're all going to die~~) to HALLOWEEN JUNK.

I really need to get motivated. But that takes time, planning, blood, sweat, tears, grammar, spelling, and this weird thing called 'vague original thought.'

Ugh.

I feel your sex-rays.

2011-08-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

Look , sex.

I'm going to assume nobody in my immediate posting radius is offended by this harmless image. I'm pretty sure some of you even thought it was kind of neat, blinding colours, retro-action, and some goddamn Rebel Alliance affiliation rapped up into one awesome psychobilly band package.

So why do people react to it so adversely when I wear it?

Excuse my mess, I'm in the middle of packing for a move and my method of madness is to move things from one room to the other and back and forth until everything is in a proper box. Please enjoy 'Lensflare: The Castle Rubenstein Caper.'

Honestly, what's the problem? I'm used to middle-aged folks and on in my area being offended by the fact that I still dress like I'm in my late teens. This isn't perplexing in the least - but the fact that just about every male I run into who expresses interest in the 'top' of the shirt either looks at me with distaste after realizing what it says, or they turn into an ultra-creep.

EVEN MEN I KNOW??? CLOSE FRIENDS. PARENTS OF CLOSE FRIENDS. People who are used to my nonsensical bullshit seem to be nonplussed by the existence of this shirt.

I get more flack for this shirt than I do for either of my Alien Sex Fiend shirts. Maybe because there's immediate shock value there? And no sexualized laydees?

Either way, I'm at a loss for what to do with this information.

Today, I had a guy who seemed semi-interested in me, who started chatting me up until he asked me what my shirt said, wherein he expressed immediate disinterest after learning what my shirt actually communicated. Thereafter, I continued perusing awesome Halloween masks from 1992 and onward.

And then I realized I'm pretty boss, and if you don't like me for my taste in eye-candy then you can gtfo.