there was a great shadow in the wood.  ballpoint pen, pencil, photoshop.

Drew this while traveling!  Also: hello everyone, I have returned from traveling!  I hope you had a good time while I was away.

I had a small procedure done on my dominant hand last week so I can’t do a whole lot in the way of drawing or typing.  Please excuse me if I’m absent from the internet for a little bit!

north, dhio, kaia.  photoshop.

The young god, the old god, and the mortal monster man who the two gods liked enough to make immortal so they could be together forever.  Ha ha ha, so many people have asked me lately when I’m gonna do a comic about these guys.  The answer is: ????? the future ?????  I’m really thankful they resonate with people, though!

Hey so I’m going to be out of the country from the 12th to the 24th of April, so this blog is going to be fairly quiet until then.  Ananth will continue updating over at Johnny Wander in my absence and I’ll hopefully be able to update dumb photos over at my twitter whenever there’s free wifi access.  Take care, guys!

Three of Swords process gif. (final illustration.)

Here’s a process gif of the Dhio tarot card from yesterday!  I’ve been really trying to/meaning to delve into better design in my illustrations.  If you are also interested in those things, Kali Ciesemier (kalidraws) has some great articles on her blog about composition and subdivision!

Three of Swords. photoshop.

Sometimes I like to think about what what tarot cards best represent my characters.  Dhio is the three of swords because he has emotional issues.

monstrous, hungry gods.  pencil, photoshop.

Drew this on the plane headed to ECCC.  I guess it’s a spiritual successor to the Dhio Journal Comic from a while back?  Been thinkin’ a lot about my pantheon of prehistoric beast gods lately!  Some day I won’t be working on four big projects simultaneously and will have the time to do a proper comic about these guysss

her hair like blood.  pencil, photoshop.

Another old sketch that I dug out and colored.  Gosh I hope there’s no kids watching this blog.  Go away, kids.  Come back in a week.

Death and the Hearth.  Pencil, photoshop.

There’s a open ballot to vote for the names of Pluto’s two unnamed moons and let-me-say-right-now, I am a huge supporter of one of them being named Persephone.  (Well it should technically be Prosperpina/Prosperpine if you’re going for the Roman names but I digress.)  The whole thing’s made me think a bunch about my own Hades and Persephone analogues; Dhio being an irritable creepy god of what people (mistakenly) assume is death and Kaia being an even-temepered goddess of the hearth and domesticated animals.

Anyway what I’m getting at is that, despite its being in first place, Vulcan really isn’t an appropriate name for a frigid moon of a dwarf planet.

2012 Monthly Art Meme. (2011 • 2010)

I did a lot of art this year!  Unfortunately, most of it is unpublished and/or for unannounced projects.  And while I prefer to put this yearly meme together with exclusively private non-fanart work, a good deal of fanart/published/professional work made its way into the spread.

I would like for 2013 to be a “keep your head down, work work work and don’t stop” year, though that was the intention for last year and I didn’t get half the things done last year I wanted.  Or maybe I keep unrealistic expectations of myself.

Funny how the year both opened and ended with Dhio and Kaia!  Maybe I should do another portrait of them before the month is over.

Dhio and Kaia.  Photoshop.

Sketched this a while ago as a redraw of something from 2003 and then it accidentally wound up getting finished.  That seems to be happening a lot lately.

I never seem to draw Dhio as a man, but that’s how he spends like 99% of his time.  There’s just something really fun about drawing a tiny girl hanging out with a gigantic monster.

beast husbaaandsss

Kaia and Dhio painting, animated process gif.

I made a little process gif of how I made the previous painting.  Ha ha, I have this bad habit of digitally noodling with real media stuff until it looks digital.  Gotta looooosen uuuup

I should probably mention, the actual painting is super tiny, maybe 4”x4”.

Kaia and Dhio.  ink wash, watercolor, pencil, white paint. (process gif here)

After doing the Exquisite Beast for a year, I’ve been meaning to push myself more with real media, maybe emulate something similar to the whimsical lineless stuff maruti-bitamin and tir-ri do, or the mixed media paintings Sam Bosma seems to be able to churn out in his sleep.

Anyway, I seem to be on a Beast Husband kick.  I think it started about a decade or two ago and expect it to putter out around the time I die.

Kaia.  Photoshop.

This was a spot illustration I did just for the Benign Kingdom book, which you can pick up in our TopatoCo shop.  By the way!  Did you know that Johnny Wander moved to TopatoCo?  Let-me-tell-you, it is so nice having competent people taking care of our distribution.  (Because Ananth and I were taking care of it ourselves before)

Crest of the Sun God.  Photoshop.

For the Benign Kingdom kickstarter, I decided to take the chance to finally finish Eouen’s god crest.  Hers was the first I designed, but I haven’t touched it since that little doodle.  It was really fun looking up references of secretary birds and Byzantine eagles for this one!

This is gonna be in my Benign Kingdom Art Book!  Sorry to press this again, but the kickstarter ends in 6 hours omigosh.  If you want to pledge, now is the time!

Oh and hey, Ananth and I are going to be at a Q&A at Midtown Comics tonight!  More info here if you want to come by.  Hopefully we’ll see you there!

Benign Kingdom Poster Quadrant.  Photoshop.

For the Benign Kingdom kickstarter poster, me and KC and Becky and Evan each did a quadrant of a heraldic shield based on our book covers.  I’ve had so much fun doing this project and drawing my characters has been this awesome icing on the cake.  What is cooler than drawing a lady riding side-saddle on top of a giant dog?  Nothin’.

The Kickstarter is still going if you’re interested in picking up the art books!  The price will go up after they’ve been printed, so it might be a good idea to get them before the end of the month.  Thanks everyone, for your interest and support!