Exhumed: Partial Skull

Following along with Halloween and All Saints Day, here's a skull I dug up for this weeks Exhumed.  This Partial Skull was one of the first pieces I began playing with when I began exhuming my older works.  As I played with the color and transparency in this piece, I began to realize that a lot more was possible and just let the Photoshop paintbrush guide me.  Once I added the yellow highlights on the right side, the lightbulb went off in my head and I knew I had to explore this style further!  In working on this piece, I also realized that I am a total geek for color effects.  :-)

{8.33x8.38  Sharpie and Ballpoint Pen with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

Exhumed: Autumn Winds

With the style of the original image for Autumn Winds I was alluding to antique Halloween images.  Keeping that impetus in mind for the color version, I used a muted color palette to make the final image look aged.

{8x6.05  Sharpie with tones and colors added in Adobe Photoshop}

The Featured Creature 2012-13: Last Bites Part II, The Hard Walk

After the HZO and the hectic, mentally draining pace of October, November 2012 was quiet and fairly stress free in terms of production and process.  I posted pieces that I had mostly completed before hand.  However, the universe had plans for my stress levels that would test my very ability to survive.

Later that month, within the space of two weeks, my phone died and I lost my entire address book, my unemployment benefits permanently expired leaving me penniless, my vehicle died the true death, and I came down with the most severe case of bronchitis I've ever had in my life.  I feel like a bit of back story is needed here.

The Featured Creature 2012-13: Last Bites Part I, Candy Apple Heart

I began the Featured Creature posts only a year ago at the beginning of September 2012, but it now seems like an eternity has passed.  This has been a tumultuous and eventful year globally and personally.  My work on the Featured Creatures has followed a similar roller coaster path of development.

I had the idea of doing a weekly creature sketch percolating for several years and had never been able to actualize it before September of last year.  As soon as I began posting, the ideas and energy took off like a rocket.  I began the Featured Creature to help me keep my hand drawing skills moving forward.  It quickly evolved into something more.

Tattoo: Krampus as Mescalito

Originally drawn for a Featured Creature post, here were have an image of Krampus transformed into the consciousness expanding Mescalito.  When I started adding color to this piece, I began with red skin.  I didn't care for that direction and wasn't sure where to head next, but when I accidentally inverted the red layer to green in Photoshop it set me on the right path.  I'm very satisfied with the intensity of the finished image here and will probably be creating more Mescalito images soon.  :-)

Tattoo: Batman Throwing Star

Here's a tattoo I created for a friend last year.  He wanted to reproduce one of Batman's throwing stars from the Christian Bale Batman movies.  He wasn't sure about the size he wanted the finished image to be, so I created it in Adobe illustrator for lossless scaling.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Vision of the Lion

Deep within the matrices of the temporal continuum, a burning eternal consciousness is revealed.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set V, First Meeting

Fire and Water are thrust together at the borderline with chaos and violence as the fruit of their first interaction.  As they struggle to separate they blend together and transmute each other.  Their struggle cools the Fire with rising steam and impregnates the Water with the seeds of life.  The Athame plunges into the Chalice.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set III, Dionysus at Sunrise

Today is the eighth anniversary of my first posts on Zombie Bites.  Although for many of those years this blog has lain fallow in terms of posts, since 2011 there has been a maelstrom of activity.  I suppose that the past two years have been more about playing catch up and getting things up to speed, but there has also been a dramatic change in the attitude and direction of my art.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set II, A Bright and Distant Plain

"In the dream, I emerged from a deep pool.

The liquid was hot and black and nearly reflectionless.  There was an olive coloured steam coming off of it in areas.  The vapor danced across the surface like flame and dissipated quickly as it rose.  The liquid flowed with a rhythm not unlike breath.  At the edges of the pool it expanded and retreated in miniature tides.  Unsettled by its motion, I moved to the edge and climbed out.  The pool was surrounded by a ring of rough white rock and as I climbed I saw the bright desert plains that extended on all sides beyond it.  

Featured Creature: The Melted Man

"I did not realize it was present until I heard the hollow groaning of its breathing.  As I turned, it made a shrill moaning noise and retreated, its skin visibly boiling at the touch of my flashlight's beam.  I felt pity for the thing's suffering and moved my light away.  I only caught a glimpse as it struggled to escape, leaving a glistening trail of itself behind as it disappeared somewhere in the depths of the cavern.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set I, The Rape of Persephone

I had plans for the History Set pieces leading up to  Zombie Bites eighth year anniversary, but the universe, as usual, has other ideas.  I'm apologizing in advance for the terseness of the History Set posts.  I've run out of time and my energy over the past couple of weeks has completely bottomed out.  I think the events of this past year have taken a much greater toll than I originally thought.  I've been feeling run down lately and each new post gets harder and harder to write.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Teachings of the Veiled Fire

Cernunnos in the red room
answers each question
with only a gesture or a look.
The dance of firelight is his mirror,
but there is no flame to be seen.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Looking Within

The core ego system of the psychonaut accesses the matrices of the Information Super Infra Structure for consciousness upgrades and essence flow optimization.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Transformation Requires a Sacrifice

In the case of this piece, perhaps what is being sacrificed here is a point of view. An allowed releasing of perspective to expand to a greater understanding.  This also points to the necessary changes that all transformations require.  If one needs to live in water, one must grow gills and fins and if one is to live in a realm of fire, one must accommodate a certain level of continuous destruction.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Throne of the Moon

"The throne shimmered with an eerie glow as the aperture in the ceiling opened.  The full light of the moon fell in a fan across the chamber.  In that delicate pallor a figure was revealed.  It was nearly invisible in its transparency.  In the radiance of the throne I could see inside it as though I were viewing a living xray. 

Featured Creature: Deconstructed

My experiences in November and December of 2012 inspired this robotic piece.   I haven't approached any science fiction or robotic oriented pieces in the Featured Creature until now.  I guess I was a little gun shy as most of my work tends to be primarily emotive, mythical, or magick based.  I suppose this is still within the realm of emotive: a revelation about ego presented as fictional construct.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: From the Lake of Fire

"The lava separated with each of its steps, sizzling and retreating at the disruption like water dropped suddenly into hot grease. I didn't realize that I was seeing an ambulatory entity until it was almost fully emerged from the lake. It's energy matrix must be magnetic, I believe, to allow it to exist in this most inhospitable of environments. I was able to film about three minutes of footage of the thing until it stepped out of the lava. Its proximity quickly melted my remote camera.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Lake of the Dead

Its waters hold the secrets of beyond,
but the dead are greedy with their truths.
Knowledge comes from only a sip
but at a dreadful price.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: Limboland

The strange nowhere place of being severely physically ill.  Reaching out into the emptiness for resolution and finding more grey, more hopelessness as your life is drained away.  Struggling for breath and life as it winds down, down.