Roller Girls Versus

I noticed today that it's managed to be two weeks since I posted last...wow. To be fair though, there are a couple of posts by me over on the handmade family blog, so you could go check that out, follow it, and suggest it to all your friends, acquaintances and family if you want. Or you could just go check it out. There's some pretty cool stuff, and my wife is putting up content about her work too, so that's pretty rad... and I'm better about putting pictures of the girls on there too, ha-ha-ha!

Okay, on to the real reasons (excuses) for not posting in two weeks. First, we've been accepted as vendors in a local hand-made cooperative, Fusion. More on that in the next couple of days, as we're working like crazy to get ready for set-up (I'm supposed to be designing our signing right now, actually). The second reason, is this new cover for the fine folks at Hex Games... Roller Girls Versus! I decided to take a different approach to it, and it kind of blew up in my face and took way longer than it should have. On the plus side though, I think I learned a couple of lessons and maybe earned a couple of experience points towards leveling up. I'm not going to jabber any more tonite, because I'm pretty beat, and still have work to do before bed.

Here's the pencils.
and here's the colored version. I pretty much just painted over the pencils this time, but there's a lot more going on than usual. Like I said..."trying something new". Ha-ha-ha! I hope you all like it.
Until next time, take care and be good.
Your friend,
Jeffrey

American Artifacts: The Car Hank Died In

I think the quote is "If you draw it, then you know it". I'm not 100% sure that I got the words right, but the spirit of the quote is there. Iain McCaig, a fantastic concept artist and illustrator said this in relation to forming new ideas, and drawings. Basically, it means that nothing grows in a vacuum (except dust-bunnies) and that even the most bizarre creation is based on SOMETHING that already exists. So. Part of our job as artists it to not only draw some fantastical stuff, but also to draw a lot (sorry, I meant A LOT) of regular stuff. This helps limber our arms and hands. It develops our eye. It stretches our minds, and builds a visual vocabulary of parts to pull from.

A few months ago, I did some art for the fine folks over at Hex Games for a supplement called "American Artifacts" (Have you bought your copy yet? It's really good, you should really look into it). I only did one interior illustration for it, but all of the artifacts were so cool that I wanted to do more. In the spirit of adding to my visual Vocabulary, as well as my portfolio, and hopefully to get some rad promo stuff together as well, I started drawing the other 19 artifacts. The first is the car that Hank died in... Referring to the great country singer Hank Williams sr.

From Wikipedia:

On January 1, 1953, Williams was due to play at a New Year's Day concert in Canton, Ohio, but he was unable to fly due to weather problems with snow and ice in Ohio. He hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts he was to perform during the few final days of 1952 and early 1953. Upon leaving the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, Williams apparently had injected himself with some pain-killers which included a morphine/Vitamin B-12 combination. Also found in the Cadillac convertible were some empty beer cans and the handwritten lyrics to a song yet to be recorded. According to some, Williams was carried semi-conscious to his automobile by Carr and a hotel employee, who wondered about Williams' condition, and later believed he might have been dead at that point.

In a slightly different version, Carr suspected Williams was moribund at some earlier point, but realized the great singer was dead several miles before entering the town of Oak Hill, West Virginia where he, almost in a panic, pulled up to the gas station to seek help.

My wife tells me it looks like the car's hit him. Admittedly, the whole "Spirit leaving the body" aspect of this illustration is a little shaky. I know what's going on, but that's because I drew it, Ha-ha-ha! At any rate the drawing was more about the car anyway, and I actually am really happy with how that turned out. I think the next one is the the car that won't die. I have an idea for it, and it should be good, but I need to see if they have "The Blues Brothers" at the library.

Until next time, Take care and be good!
Your friend,
Jeffrey