Sep 30, 2011

Experiments

Working on a lot of different ideas for this project. It's really morphing from what I originally intended. I'll explain better later. I want to really push the mediums I'm working with.

Here's one example...It's just a test strip, and there's plenty of mess on there, but the basic idea is it's a sketch digitally blown up and printed on a cotton paper. I then did some basic tones in thin washes of oil paint and after they dried I went over it again with watercolor washes, mostly black. The different medium bases have a similar look, but they don't interfere with each other. I don't think this is a preferred method, but I am liking what I see.


Sep 20, 2011

31 Leeloos

When I was in college, we went to see this movie called The 5th Element. It had Bruce Willis in it. He was the guy from Moonlighting. He was good and all, but the chick in that movie had everyone chattering.

Taking the time to concentrate on this is massively fun. Seems like I take every October and November off to make art. To make art, for me.

This project, while intended to be a book release, is also going to be a gallery show. So, maybe we'll have 31 little watercolored Leeloos that everybody can take home. Good idea?

As always, click to enlarge.


Sep 15, 2011

Pris

Still sketching... I've put some time in today getting screengrabs from Blade Runner to make sure I get this costume and room right. I'll apply the room props into the next round...this is a tough one, because as cool as that character ever was, that hair always looked pretty goofy.

Leia and Ripley

I'm just going through the planning stages of this project. It's a minimum of 12 images, plus cover if I have time. I'd like all of them to be awesome. Here are my color studies for Princess Leia and Ellen Ripley.

Sep 14, 2011

I want her.

Ok, ok. I know I've been saying I want this to be a sci-fi babes calendar. Yeah. Well. I want Beatrix Kiddo in this so bad I'm changing the rules. The more I think on it, it really is important to me for the women to be strong, interesting heroes. I hate the word 'heroine'. Too easily confused with that other 'heroin'. Sheroes? Blecch. Considering how many men Beatrix has taken down, how about just the non-gendered 'hero'.

This conflict idea is making me reconsider the thrust of the project. I mean, I want to include Ripley from Alien, but what good is she when she isn't blasting that ugly fucker to shit? It's about showdowns. The idea's been done before, and in really fun ways, but I really want to concentrate on contrasts and tensions.

Consider this color study, the giant Kiddo in the foreground, dressed in hot yellows and reds, wild hair, spattered with blood. Her posture seems disoriented, the light on her back suggests that she's just been transported from another world. Smaller in the distance, is O'Ren Iishi, in blues and whites, is calm and harmonious with the environment. Each snowflake is a part of her. Her silver sword is drawn from its black sheath, she'll use both sword and sheath in the battle, a metaphor for yin and yang. 


Sep 13, 2011

Enthusiasm

I saw this this morning.
My own story closely resembles that of the uninsured person in Wolf Blitzer's hypothetical question. I take personal and extreme offense to the behavior in the video. The people in this video would have let me die, or live the rest of my life in extreme pain. And they would do it enthusiastically. If you support these people or their ideas, I have no use for you.

As it was, I spent over a year in extreme pain, until Massachusetts' health care law provided me a path to wellness. I had a herniated disc that was eventually treated with surgery. The surgeon said it was one of the worst he'd seen, he said it looked like a big piece of broccoli sticking out of my spine. I got up and walked around the hospital the next morning after surgery. I walked up and down stairs. For that, I am thankful to this day.

In the video, Ron Paul says I should go to my church for help. For a $14,000 surgery. Or rely on my community? Well, my community did come to my rescue, my community is called Massachusetts. And this is a community that the people on that stage and in that audience sneer at, because it is a community that helped me.









A few more thoughts...
Someone said to me today, well that was just a few jerks in the audience. True, a few people yelled, but there was also quite a big audience applause.

During the 2008 presidential race, a crazy lady in a red shirt stood up at a McCain rally and rambled to Senator McCain that Obama was an arab muslim, etc. McCain did the right thing. Right then and there, he took the microphone from the woman and stopped the craziness. He stood against his own crowd. It was a courageous and honorable act. None of the candidates did any such thing last night.

Sep 1, 2011

New Psychedelic Shirt

I want to have a series of zombie face shirts. This would be the 3rd in the series...and I'd like for it to make you nauseous. Click to enlarge.