Scale in the Iron Empires
The graphic novel I’m working on is centered on space travel, strategy and tactics in the Iron Empires. As a result, scale becomes an issue. From my notebook: Interstellar Scales Parsec (pc) – 1,000 parsecs is 1 kpc (kiloparsec). – one parsec is approximately 3.262 light years. – the center of the Milky Way is [...]
Continue ReadingWhen Death Finds You, May it Find You Alive
“Almost all cultures have the notion that there is a judgment when we die. Some kind of accounting has to be made of one’s life. I believe God – and to me “God” is just shorthand for the ineffable divine presence – has only one question for us at the end: “Did you become yourself“? We [...]
Continue ReadingThe Power of the Unconscious
This is something of a follow-up to my last post. Over the years I’ve become increasingly aware of how much richer the unconscious mind is, creatively, than the conscious mind. As artists, we use our unconscious minds all the time, if only to let us know when a piece feels finished, or if an element we are introducing to a painting [...]
Continue ReadingWhere Images Come From
I’ve found, as a commercial artist, that personal pieces are surprisingly hard to do. I say surprisingly, because this is what we want, right? No client, no rules, we can paint whatever we want! What I’ve found is that personal pieces resist “designing”. The process I usually go through when preparing for [...]
Continue ReadingOpen Letter to my Neighbors
Dear Neighbor, Recently, you may have heard an odd, strangled yodeling echoing around our neighborhood, and wondered what it was. The answer is, it’s our rooster, Achilles! I’ve always wanted to raise chickens, for fun and for the eggs, and this spring I decided to give it a try. I found a young farmer near the airport who sold [...]
Continue ReadingSD-2 Golden Scythe
Back in 2006 I published a graphic novel called JLA Classified: Cold Steel which opened with a sleek golden spaceship being pursued across the surface of the moon. I had painted that comic in a new way (for me). Instead of painting each page as a single, 11″x17″ image with a lot of little panels, I painted each panel individually [...]
Continue ReadingSchön Magazine Interview
Interview for Schon Magazine just came out. The full online version of the magazine is here. An excerpt is here: Schön Magazine #13
Continue ReadingOff to Gencon
Off to Gencon for four days of fun and relaxation with my little brother. I so rarely get to just attend a convention… no “manning the table”, no worrying about originals walking off mysteriously, no carpal-tunnel syndrome from signing 4″ stacks of cards. Can’t wait!
Continue ReadingLife After Art School: Five Years to an Illustration Career
The one emotion every newly-minted art school graduate experiences is anxiety. Can I really make it? What do I do now? All my friends are getting jobs making $50,000 a year. Where does that leave me? I’ll be lucky to get a job delivering pizza. I graduated from the University of Michigan School of Art back in 1985, ready to take [...]
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