Back at the Drawing Board!

Ah yes, here we are once again, putting pen and pencil to paper. This time we're setting out for the adventure that is the Tucson Zine Fest coming up in May.

The original card illustrations

My wife Christy and I are working on putting together pieces for our pop music history book project. I had started this a while back as illustrated cards but figured out that cards weren't going to get us to a final printed booklet.  The cards were put away and we have since moved on to larger portraits.

Below, work in progress of Al Jolson, our representative from 1919!

The start of the Al Jolson illustration

Though the Tucson Zine Fest is not a sure thing yet (we'll get notified at the beginning of March if we've been accepted), we'll still be producing our booklet regardless.

Also joining us at the (hopefully) Tucson Zine Fest will be our buddy Brett Hanse.  Not sure what he's contributing yet but I'm sure it'll be fun.

The 'mostly' completed Morton Harvey illo.

Body Cavity Illustration with Disorders

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1919: Nora Bayes

Nora Bayes – 1919

1880-1928

By the age of 18, Nora Bayes was touring Vaudeville from New York to San Francisco and became a star on Broadway. In 1908 she helped pen the popular composition “Shine On, Harvest Moon” with her first husband Jack Norworth. She would eventually marry four other times. Her popularity peaked during the war when she was the first performer to record the international hit “Over There” and performed shows for the soldiers. Nora Bayes recorded many songs up until her death from cancer in 1928. 

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify 

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1916: John McCormack

John McCormack – 1916

1884-1945

Born in Ireland and studying voice in Milan, Italy, the world famous operatic tenor John McCormack performed around the world before beginning his American career in 1909. There he began to perform concerts if front of thousands earning millions from his performances and recordings. Thousands would pack venues to see McCormack perform. He made hundreds of recordings between 1904 and the 1920's. He was known for his breath control and could sing 64 notes on one breath!

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years of Popular Music - 1915: Morton Harvey

Morton Harvey – 1915

1886-1961

A vaudeville performer and singer from Omaha Nebraska, Morton Harvey was one of the earliest contracted recording artists. His recording were not best sellers but he is noted for being the first singer to record a 'blues' song. In 1915 he recorded the protest song “I didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” which was popular with those wishing for America to stay out of World War I, but once America entered the war, the anti-war sentiments were no longer popular and Harvey's recording career ended.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1914: Arthur Collins

Arthur Collins -1914

1864-1933

Arthur Collins was an American baritone singer that recorded music from the late 1890's to the early 1920's. Growing up in Barnegat, New Jersey, Collins' parents sent him to Philadelphia for formal musical training. After his studies, Collins spent 15 years touring and performing without much long term success. After marrying actress and singer Anna Leah Connelly in 1895, Collins gave up performing to take up bookkeeping only joining an occasional production for some extra cash. Talent scouts for Edison Records auditioned Collins in May of 1898. Arthur Collins became one of the most productive and successful singers of the time and specialized in African-American dialect numbers called coon songs. He also performed caricature voices and vocal effects that left the impressions there there were multiple persons on the recording. He formed one of the first 'super-groups' called the Big Four Quartet. He is heard in this collection performing the 1914 hit “Aba Daba Honeymoon”.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

Da Aeroplane

Trying to get loose with little fantasy warplane from the near future.  Ideas that I'm toying around with for an animated short.

Cleric of Chaos

Illustration for an upcoming issue of Knockspell Magazine.

One Giant Of An Illustration

Here's an illustration for the upcoming issue of Knockspell. I'd say things don't look so good for our party of brave adventures.

Jungle Mystery

Here's an illustration done for a cover of an upcoming fantasy adventure module which should be out later this year from Mythmere Games.



This is also a good warm-up for our up-coming Pulp anthology release this fall.

Frank Frazetta 1928-2010

Apparently it is confirmed that the Godfather of Fantasy Art, Frank Frazetta has passed away at the age of 82.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/05/10/frank-frazetta-rip/



There is no doubt that his work in comics, painting and illustration has been a huge influence on millions of artists, film-makers, gamer-designers and pop culture as a whole.

His vision of Howard's brutal and vicious Hyporean age, Burroughs' Mars stories and raw fantasy power as well has been burned into all our subconsciousness for all time.

Truly a master artist who's mark will forever be stamped on the world of pop (pulp) culture. His passion and life will be honored and missed. Condolences to his friends and family.






















Frank Frazetta 1928-2010

The Shadow Lord

This was the long fabled image that was submitted to Fight On’s Erol Otis Art Contest. It was all about capturing the old school feel of classic D&D adventures. The drawing was for a cover of an adventure module created by Robert Pinnel and captured one of the main encounters.
If you are into playing classic style fantasy RPGs you should check out Fight On! magazine along with a plethora of independently released rules based on the infamous game in it’s glory days!

Erol Otus Art Challenge

Erol Otus, famed illustrator and artist during TSR’s heyday, judged an illustration contest sponsored by Fight On! magazine and Otherworld Miniatures. After weeks of waiting, the winners have been announced. Yours truly received an honorable mention! That was exciting to hear to say the least. A lot of great artwork was submitted, most of which you will see in the future pages of Fight On! a fantastic magazine dedicated to old school fantasy RPGs. Due to the contest, I can’t post the illustration here quite yet but you can get a preview of the winners here. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to Calithena and Fight On! for organizing this event!

Dungeon Crawlers

Here is an illustration I did for a group of characters in an old school D&D game on Dragonsfoot. You may be wondering ‘what’s up with all this fantasy stuff? Where’s all the comics?’ Well, I’ll tell ya. I’ve been sidetracked with this old school retro clone movement and have been working up some things for that - drawings, adventure modules. I’ll have some more information on that real soon. I’ll also be getting back into Bliss (you remember Bliss don’t ‘cha?) soon too. But for now, enjoy some classic dungeon crawlers

Mummy Rot

I’ve decided to try to post more and since major releases are spread out over quite a bit of time, I’ll be posting some of my illustrations and other work. You can see I’ve kind of started doing that but I’ll try to keep up on a more regular basis. I’m going for a week to every other week.

So to keep up with the Dungeon Crawlers series, here’s one more to chill your bones.

This is another image used in the “In Search of the Forgotten City” (written by Robert Pinnell) old school adventure module based on the D&d rules written by Eric Holmes.

In Search of the Forgotten City

This is a cover illustration for a D&D adventure supplement “In Search Of The Forgotten City“. It is based on the ol’ Eric Holmes blue rule book (from way back in ‘79) and is a sequel to the Zenopus’ Tower adventure that was provided at the end of the rules. The ultimate old school classic! The adventure was written by Robert Pinnell with a couple of illustrations by yours truly. If you’re into old school classic D&D dungeon crawls this would be a must have! Get your copy at LULU