SPECTRUM SELECTRUM

I received my official letter from SPECTRUM the other day notifying me which of my entered illustrations were selected for publication and I thought I'd post them here. The book itself won't drop until sometime in the fall. I'm quite excited to get my copy, not only because this is the first year I'll be published, but it's always a thrill to look through an entire year's worth of fantastic illustration.

The pieces selected were:
GORILLA VS. OCTOPUS: STREET FIGHT!




and
PAC-SAMURAI

SPECTRUM LOWERS THEIR STANDARDS!

I believe I forgot to post about this amidst all the Zombama-mania lately, but I was stunned and thrilled to discover that I was selected as one of the artists to be featured in this year's SPECTRUM annual art book! I can only surmise that SPECTRUM had a dearth of entries this year and they just needed filler material to round out the page count.

SPECTRUM is (in a quote from their website) an annual publication "established in 1993 by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner with the intent of providing creators with a regular showcase for the best fantasy, science fiction, horror, and otherwise uncategorizable artwork created each year." I've been a fan of SPECTRUM for many many years, and their annual book release is eagerly anticipated by myself and many other artists. I remember back in art school, the day after SPECTRUM hit the shelves, the students would be swarming around whomever brought their copy to class, eager to see if any of their peers made it in, or just looking for some exciting inspiration.

I was always a bit envious of my fellows who were accepted for publication each year. Some of them had such wonderful painted pieces, and painting just isn't my forte yet. The reason I hadn't submitted before was not only that the deadline seemed to sneak up on me too quickly (or go completely unnoticed), but that I really never felt that my work was up to par for consideration. I still don't feel that way, but at least this year, I had plenty of notice (it helps to actually get on their mailing list), and a (very) few pieces that I wouldn't be absolutely embarrassed to send in. I ended up submitting 3 pieces, and I'm not sure which one made it or if more than one made it (NOTE: the attached illustration was NOT done by me, that's the Call For Entries poster painted by industry darling Peter de Seve). I guess I'll find out soon! The book is due to be published later this year.

"AND ON BASS GUITAR... SCHRUBB!!"

Rough sketch for my character SCHRUBB. Schrubb is the bass player for the super-group that is the focus of the animated series/ comic book/ action figure line concept I'm smack dab in the middle of creating. I've come up with plenty of rough concepts for things like this before, but this is the first one I'm actually carrying through to the stage where it will actually be ready for proposal to an actual company (check you local listings in about a year or so). I'll give a more in-depth description of the concept once I hammer out a few more details. I don't want to really finalize any of the designs or the overall concept until I've visualized all of the major characters and worked out their connections, backgrounds, plot elements, etc. It involves music, science, the supernatural, and a hefty dose of far-out mayhem and bizarre characters.

The core of Schrubb is simply he's an early 70's refugee bass player who doesn't talk, and whose face (indeed his entire head) is concealed by his shrub-like head of hair (hence the name -- clever, eh?). His glasses (which are already in the process of being redesigned to better emphasize their arcane nature) allow him to see well beyond the range of normal human sight. Sometimes this will mean a very broadened spectrum of sight, sometimes this will extend to the temporal, sometimes it may even enable him to see into your mind!! I'm still working on the details, but I'll post more when I've got it.

"HELL BELOW, STARS ABOVE" Part 1

This image is the result of an idea I'd been fiddling with for some time. The concept was borne when I realized that one of my favorite bands from the 90's THE TOADIES had actually released a second album several years ago that I knew nothing about. I immediately begin my search for the album to purchase it and the title of said album turned out to be... you guessed it: HELL BELOW, STARS ABOVE. Before I even got a hold of the album (purchased off ebay), I fell in love with that amazing title. Having not heard the actual song on the album of the same name, my head started conjuring up noble and pulpy images of a heroic astronaut/ space explorer stranded on an hostile alien world, on his last legs and overrun by swarming alien hordes crawling up from the depths of the rocky planet as he makes his last desperate stand on a rocky peak, laser guns blazing, suit in tatters, determined to take as many of the monsters down with him as he can. Wow. I immediately set to laying out an illustration based on these drawings. The result was compositionally nice, but poorly rendered. Something just wasn't being ignited in me that would enable me to really give it the juice. The song itself, once I heard it, has nothing to do with brave astronauts or teeming alien hordes, but is rather about the victim of a failed relationship confronting his ex with her "other man". It's a brilliant and moving sonic gem, and has become one of my favorite songs of all time, but it nothing to do with this image it has indirectly inspired.

Over the past year, I have reworked and redrawn this image several times. The astronaut's suit started out as very simple, but I've added a bit more detail with each run I've taken at it. I've also intensified the facial expression a bit more and just generally beefed up the linework and detail. I had originally drawn a piece that had very little lighting and shadown cues in the inking, thinking I'd handle that in the coloring stage, but I decided to go with a more E.C. Comics pulp vibe and really capture the lighting scheme with some more intense inking, allowing it to stand alone as a black and white piece.

During the course of the school year, one of our Advanced Illustration projects called for us to do an advertisement poster for a charity. Having fallen a bit behind in that class, I decided to truncate the conceptualization stage and use this image to represent the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund charity. It seemed to fit, thematically, with the underdog fighting tooth and nail against those that seek to "opress" him, so I decided to use it. So, I set about completely starting over with the image and redrawing it from the ground up. In the past, I'd just set the image on my light box and go over it with more detail and whatnot, but this time I decided to start completely over from a new rough layout, not only so I couldn't be accused of using an old, already finished piece for my project, but because I really wanted to knock this one out of the park, and this was a great excuse to start over.

I finished the clean-up pencils and began inking, but about halfway through my teacher mentioned I should submit this to the annual SPECTRUM competition when I was done. This sort of spooked me, I guess, and I realized that, while the pencils I had done were pretty solid and satisfying, the inking was not my best work. And so, I started over, yet again, having to re-pencil the entire thing. This time, I allowed the pencils to remain a little bit more loose than they were before, allowing me to be a bit more spontaneous and expressive with the inks. I'm quite pleased with the results. I had started coloring the piece to turn in (late), but having spent so much time on the piece already, the coloring job turned out to be rushed and lackluster. So, I'm starting over with the coloring stage. I may stay fairly monochromatic with it, but I'm not quite sure yet. Final color post will follow, as soon as it's done.