Category: Illustration

#Inktober 2023 Wrap-up

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Inktober wrap up meme

I am so late posting about this!! Why it’s already the 3rd, shame on me! In this week’s ROCKETEER I show off the complete collection of my #Inktober 2023 drawings. They take the shape of illustrations from a pulp detective story. In my post, I even suggest a story to go with them. I am enjoying the contemplation of 1930’s detective stories very much. The art style tends to be almost generic, but it still has a certain something. I’m adding my own spin to it, of course. I tend…

Inktober and Guy Gifford

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I always enjoy #inktober. Pen & ink is one of my favorite illustration techniques and probably the one I use most often. I always find it fun to do a few extra drawings in October for #inktober. Here are the two drawings I’ve done so far in 2023. As you can see, my 1930’s theme remains. Each of these drawing uses a different approach. The girl has quite a bit of stippling but the hoodlum has none, using instead parallel ink marks with some cross-hatching. I’m getting used to my…

Two new articles, a story in progress, and a drawing for practice

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Rocketeer alien series meme

There seems to be a lot going on at the moment. For the next few weeks the ROCKETEER is going to highlight aliens in honor of the Chehalis Flying Saucer Party—a local event celebrating everything UFO. (It’s like McMenamins UFO Festival only smaller.) I’ll be discussing pulp-era and slightly later stories with the themes of invasion, alien manipulation, control, and humanity fighting back in stories ranging from the absurd to the deadly. The first in that series came out this week: “Tactical Error: This Star Shall Be Free.”  The story…

Dan Smith copy

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Dan Smith comparison

For this week’s art practice I chose to make a copy of a newspaper illustration by Dan Smith from the early years of the 20th Century. Smith’s pen and ink work is superb and I wanted to test my skills. I chose a cropped image of his “Antony and Cleopatra” illustration as my subject. There’s no question that this was a difficult copy. His marks are so delicate and complex that I had to make the copy section by section in order to not create too much confusion for myself.…

Reconstructing Otho

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In this week’s ROCKETEER I’m talking about a character from the “Captain Future” pulp stories, the android—Otho. More people today know him from the Captain Future anime from the 1970’s than the original stories. The anime takes some liberties with the character’s original design. In my post I talk about those changes and how Otho was originally conceptualized. You can read “Reconstructing Otho” on Substack. I’ve been noodling around with some Otho drawings using the original design from the 1940’s. Because he’s supposed to be a master of disguise and…

Inking Round-up May 2023

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Inking Roundup for May 2023

Art is all about practice, and I practice all the time! My father used to marvel at the fact that I didn’t need any impetus to do art, I just do it. This month I’ve focused on improving my line and brushwork with ink. In this week’s ROCKETEER I show you what I’ve been up to, including a short video, detailing my practice pieces for the month of May. You can read this week’s newsletter here.

Linework and New Pens

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Brush and ink after Cartier

Recently, I have become frustrated with the quality of my brush and ink linework. I was aware that  the type of lines I wanted to create should be created with a real brush and ink but I stuck to my brush pens. They are more convenient, certainly more tidy than dipping a brush into ink. Plus, I have good control over them. Decades ago in graduate school I used a dip pen and brushes with ink. Honestly, when good quality brush pens became available I was glad to make the…

Is Anyone Incorruptible?

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The Face of Parody/Is Anyone Incorruptible?

Fritz Lang’s visuals for Metropolis (1927) fascinate me. The story is pure socialist creed, but the imagery remains powerful even after nearly 100 years. I remember seeing the re-mastered version with Queen’s soundtrack during college. And I’ve seen the anime remake as well as enjoying Queen’s 1984 video– “Radio Ga-Ga” –immensely. (An interesting year for that video to appear on the scene, in my opinion.) Michael Wm Kaluta created outstanding images for a remake book of Metropolis some time ago. It was his drawings that inspired the title of my…

Earle K. Bergey Cover Reproduction

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Exciting Sports Comparison

You all know that I like to make pulp copies as part of my on-going learning process. My goal as a pulp painter is to become familiar with the original pulp covers and understand them well-enough in terms of color, composition, themes, etc.. to be able to create my own book covers and fine art paintings which accurately reproduce the look and feel of that era. I believe in creating the whole “package” for my books. I want to create an experience for readers which is immersive. And so far…