Insomnia Zombie

Finished another page for the graphic short, “The T Rex and the Hare.” Posted on the Hairy Eyeballs site for your amusement.

http://www.hairyeyeballs.com/extrasIllos.html

If you’re carving it in stone…

We have a hiking boot birdhouse (see top inset) that has attracted house wrens every summer since we first hung it a few years ago. It’s just in the shape of a boot (child-size), so I’m not entirely sure what’s attracting them. This spring, we successfully hatched (and launched) a full nest, and within days of their departure, the nest was being rebuilt and, apparently, reloaded.

Turns out house wrens aren’t as cute as they look.

I had just come back from a run when I saw a commotion in the nest not typical of what we had seen with previous occupations. I walked over and asked what they were doing (literally, I said, “What are you doing?”), and one of two birds flew out. The second one clung to the side of the birdhouse, and just stared at me (me standing less than a foot away). I could see the end of its beak was wet, and at least one egg partially hanging out of the entryway (exitway?). That second bird flew off, so I was able to get a good look inside.

Mass murder.

Within a few hours, somebody or other had returned and tossed what was left of the eggs out onto the concrete of the porch floor (see bottom inset). Interestingly, this isn’t the first time this has happened. We’re thinking it’s all a territorial dispute, and it may be gang-related.

The sad part is the bird (or birds) that keep returning to look in the nest and cry on top of the house, refusing to go in. The good news is, our second birdhouse–which hasn’t been occupied since the fall I cleaned out a baby bird skeleton–is showing signs of activity.

When I want to feel like an incompetent, underworked artist, I visit Keri Smith’s Web site.

Here’s another illustration that I redrew in graphite for the book. Originally, he was created specifically for greeting cards back in 2006, and these two images are the before and after shots. He looks very different (I’ve learned a lot) and, I think, very improved.

Some of the illustrations I’ll be adding to the book I decided to redraw so everything will look consistent. The first do-over I posted back in March was called “Bombs Away.”

The illustration I drew for the “Humpty” story in the book actually started a few years ago with the illustration you see at right, on top. I just drew it in pencil one day to be funny. It was way before The Rots ever existed, so maybe this Humpty could be considered the very, very first Rot.

Something about the general idea of the picture I liked, so I updated it last year (the Humpty in the middle) in a style closer to the way The Rots look. In that one I used a pen and ink line art kind of style.

I redrew the whole thing again to go in the book, and that’s the one on the bottom. As with all the illustrations in the book, in this one I used powdered graphite washes with details in pencil.

I finished the first of several signs I’ll be working on for a Mexican Restaurant located inside Westmoreland Mall. Their name is Madres Mexican, and they specialize in build-your-own orders.

This one will be 96″x30″ when it’s biggie-sized. Yeah. Pretty big file.

I’ve been keeping track of Gris Grimly’s career since I happened to find his book Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness in our local Barnes & Noble a few years back. He’s a prolific illustrator. I’m not sure how else to describe his work. He’s incredibly gifted and has determined ideas of how his books should look.

I’m terribly envious of his abilities. Can you tell?

Last July he started a blog to share progression of his new book, Frankenstein. He’s been uploading images both in-progress and complete, and keeping his readers up-to-date with meetings with his editor and art director. In his latest entry, he posted a page that he wasn’t satisfied with and also the pages he illustrated to replace it. I saved both images so I could compare the differences side-by-side, and the subtle detail changes are stunning. To me, anyway.

He’s changed the color dramatically, which he mentions in the post, but he also made other, more subtle changes to hand positions, compositions and faces that have me taking a step back.

When I look at the original page, I see nothing wrong with it. As an illustrator, I would have been happy with the result, considered it finished, and moved on to the next page.

Maybe that’s why he has the book deal. I’m not sure I have that extra “something” to boost my illustrations from self-promotion to an actual contract. I’d like to think working harder might do the trick, but I’m not sure how much harder I can work. Working harder doesn’t give you that “something,” and if I don’t have it by now, I doubt I’ll ever have it.

I am looking forward to Frankenstein; I’ve loved all his books. They’re very enjoyable, as long as I look at them without comparing my own work to the talent in front of me.

I finished the fifth page of “The T-Rex and the Hare” graphic novel for the book, and I’ve uploaded it to the Hairy Eyeballs site. This one has a bit of a fantasy sequence on the part of Rex. Roll over the button that looks like the image here to see the full page.

Seventy-six pages complete!