Superman

Hellboy

Kind of looks like ol' Hellboy is on the pipe, don't it? I like everything about Hellboy - the comic, Mignola's artwork, the movies, everything. Bit of a lame effort here, but it was my first try and completely out of the air without any reference. I don't know how comic book artists do it - how they can put pages and pages together coherently; it's beyond me.

Hellboy Sketch

Frankenstein with Hyenas

If there is a more sinister animal in nature than the hyena I haven't found it. Frankenstein is just cool. The only monster I like better is the zombie which at this point is getting to be way over exposed. Vampires don't brood, they aren't tragic figures. They are evil, bloodthirsty engines of destruction. That Meyers woman completely ruined the vampire. 30 Days of Night are how vampires should be done. Stephen King for all his multitude of craptastic literary sins does a good vampire story.

I think Frankenstein is sort of a dead end story-wise. It has always been more about the man/god dynamic than it has been about the creature. That's too bad because the creature is intriguing. The creature doesn't have to be mindless. A reanimated thing may or may not have a "soul." And why does it have to be a golem built out of spare parts? I'm just saying.

Hulk v. Rhino

I've always vibed with the violent characters rather than the cerebral. As a youth I was attracted to death. I don't think that it was in an unhealthy or overly morbid preoccupation - I was just drawn to mostly photographs of death, particularly dead people. Outside of spiders, the occasional magnifying glass fried ant, and one unfortunate episode with a culvert full of frogs, I never went out of my way to harm anything. Yet violence was always a fixture of my environment. I got into a lot of fights growing up. I wasn't a bully, but I was keenly attuned to any weakness. I think that comic books were my first passion. I did not give a shit about sports as a kid, or music, or whatever. I did like Marvel comics, and in particular the Hulk. The Hulk only had one tool in his toolbox: the hammer. For him the hammer fixed everything. It was great, and I could relate on some primal level. He didn't want to talk, to find common ground, all he did was smash. Awesome. He was a force of nature that would lay waste to anything in his path. I loved it when he beat the snot out of some poor slob. There weren't many that could go toe to toe with the Hulk, but a few tried.

Octopus and Skull

I once saw a painting of Cthulhu and was completely creeped out by the tentacles on its face. The octopus is an utterly fascinating creature: intelligent, boneless, camouflaging chromatophores, there is a lot to admire about the octopus.

I wanted to put more detail in the head sac of the octopus; I had a few reference photos I was going to use to add some texture but I never got around to it. The skull came out kinda Neanderthalish. I considered a redraw, but once again, my innate slothfulness got the better of me. Here, I think that painters and digital artists have an advantage over the pen and pencil types. I think that the advantage of paints is that if you don't like something then it's just a matter of reapplying pigment. I realize that that is a really uninformed statement. The real point is I'm very lazy when it comes to drawing and because I can't seem to grasp the finer points of color my pictures come out flawed.

Hulk Smash Wall!

Just a sketch that I got carried away with. I did this while on the clock at my last job. Decided to use my pen. I'm not good at pen. I guess that you can add that to the list of stuff I can't do. I don't know why my Hulks all look like they are just coming from chemotherapy treatments. I think he looks more primal than if he had some Jonas Brothers hair.

Wingless in Waupun

Yet another creature in a squatting position. I don't know why that has been on my brain lately. I originally had the idea of some prisoners in a dark cell with dramatic lighting just screaming mindlessly. There is something about the futility of anger while in a dungeon that strikes a chord with me. I guess in prison anger and rage is easy and accessible. So while I did this layout sketch it sort of morphed into an angel that somehow got its wings ripped off. Yet another glimpse into the pathology of my psyche.