The Watcher Tree

A Titan Cover (Part 3): Closing Time

2023-04-24T19:26:00.003-07:00

Peter Capaldi's last day filming Doctor Who,
photo by Sandra Franklin.

Back in 2017, which feels like a whole other dimension in time and space, compared to what was to come in the next few years. Back then, I'd been waiting probably my whole life to see one of my illustrations published on the cover of a comic book.

Unfortunately, this was also an event that suffered from terrible timing.

First off: The Chaos

My comic cover in a shop in Liverpool.
(Thank you, George!)

The same week, my apartment's kitchen sink exploded— a waterfall resulted from maintenance trying to repair a stopped-up drain. Whatever was going on in the plumbing under the apartment complex affected four different apartments, where mine apparently was the epicenter of the disaster. (Ground Zero for tree roots growing into the pipes, or something like that.) This led to professional plumbers being called in who proclaimed that the floor must be jack-hammered open and investigated, which turned into an extensive archaeological excavation.

So, I ended up with a crater in my kitchen. (Think the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi.)

... and eventually I wound up with a new apartment.

I had wanted to move... but just not then. And not during the hottest Phoenix summer on record. The process of packing up my entire apartment began, and I somehow developed strep throat on top of it all. In fact, it got so bad that I drove myself to the emergency room at three in the morning because I was having trouble swallowing. (I think a lot of that actually had to do with stress and anxiety, to be honest.)

To make a long story short: if you ever find yourself living in a desert in the middle of summer and you have to pack everything up and relocate... try not to. I do not recommend it.

This marred the celebratory event of my going to pick up Issue 3.4, Variant Cover D, that had my artwork of the Twelfth Doctor on it. But pick it up I did. I looked exhausted in the selfie that I took in All About Books and Comics, which was then my local comic shop in Phoenix.

All of the variant covers (including mine) would later be reprinted in a book of collected issues. My illustration was the last in the gallery but ended up getting a page to itself. (below) Very cool.

It was absolutely amazing to finally hold it in my hands. My online friends took photos of it displayed in their local shops, in places as far away from me as Liverpool.

Could it get better? Yes.

Sandra Franklin meets Peter Capaldi...again.

Freakin' Sandra

My friend, photographer Sandra Franklin, lives in Cardiff, Wales. The running joke with her is that she always manages to be "taking pictures of squirrels in a nice park setting" when, "Oh, would you look at that! Doctor Who appears to be filming here! Oh, and here comes Peter Capaldi. Again."

Freakin' Sandra...

I lost count of how many times this had happened.

I have to clarify that I jokingly call her "Freakin' Sandra" because she freakishly manages to do things like this all the time which results in many superb, evocative photographs. She had asked me to sign and mail a copy of my comic cover to her.

I signed my comic for her and mailed it back, adding "wiwer" over top the clockwork squirrel on the Doctor's guitar amp. ("Wiwer" is Welsh for "squirrel".)

It turns out that Sandra had some more squirrelly business with which to surprise me.

The cover signed by Peter Capaldi to me, (left) and the one
signed by me and then Peter, for Sandra.

Closing Time

Peter Capaldi signing my comic on his last day of filming Doctor Who.

Freakin' Sandra manifested on the last day of Peter Capaldi filming his scenes as the Twelfth Doctor. He wandered outside to say hello and to greet fans. He signed autographs. He ended up signing a particular comic book cover as well—twice. "Two for one closing sale," he joked.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sandra.

This was so surreal.

When she posted about her adventure online, Sandra shared mobile photos and said that she would be sending the autographed comic to me by post. I was in blissful disbelief. I kept checking my phone to look at it all again with a big stupid grin on my face.

I soon forgot about the record heat of the Arizona summer and my having to move out of my old apartment.

This had made my entire summer.

More of Sandra's photos from that day...

... Freakin' Sandra.

All ready to hang on the wall of the new apartment.

It would take another year to finally meet Peter Capaldi
myself, but that's a story for another post...

Elasti-Girl

2023-01-03T20:42:00.006-08:00

Over thirty years ago, I did my one and only job for DC Comics, which was a pinup page in their Who's Who series. This particular series was comprised of oversized loose-leaf pages meant to go into a binder (sold separately). Each character was drawn by a different artist, with bio pages on opposite sides.

Back in 1990, I was a newbie. I had submitted some comic book penciling samples to Vertigo editors, mostly of Sandman characters, Animal Man and John Constantine, which were my personal favorites.

Tom Peyer, who was then the editor on both Animal Man and Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol, liked my early pencil attempts and gave this unknown artist a chance by assigning me a nearly forgotten character: early Doom Patrol member, Rita Farr, aka Elasti-Girl, who was still "deceased" at that point in time. She got better, however. In the long tradition of superheroes, she was magically resurrected years later, *finally* changing her name to Elasti-Woman. Currently, the character is brilliantly portrayed by April Bowbey in the fantastically bizarre Doom Patrol television series (which I love!)

This was one of my very early comic book jobs and I was still learning. It would take a brilliant inker to make my uncertain pencil lines have more life and style, and for thirty years, the identity of this inker had remained a mystery...

… until 2020.

Tom Peyer had wanted the same white cover panel that was then featured on issues of Doom Patrol to feature in the illustration, so that was what I built the composition around. Because this was pre-internet, I had been mailed photocopied reference about the character, whom I had been unfamiliar with, despite having been an avid reader of Morrison's run on the series. From these, I was able to research her, and I learn what her powers were. My initial idea was making a sort of movie poster, depicting her more gigantic aspect; sort of, "Attack of the 50-Foot Elasti-Woman." I also remember trying to base her appearance loosely on Emma Thompson.

In the crowd scene below her are various little characters. And yes, the guy who looks like he's missing his arms actually had them bent back at a weird angle, but it looks hilarious today. I even included a tiny John Constantine. I'm thankful to the colorist, Anthony Tollin, for getting this and giving him blonde hair and a beige trench coat. (Including Costantine was an in-joke that made Tom laugh on the phone— which is how you talked to editors long distance in those days before email.)

I also drew little pictures for the bio-side of the page, of different stages of Rita's life. Mark Waid was the writer of the text.

However, the inker was listed as "Alan Smithee," which was a pseudonym that was notoriously used by film directors who didn't want their name associated with their projects. "Alan Smithee" was obviously a professional, and he had managed to make my novice pencils look both stylish and polished. (This was long before I had learned to ink myself with any confidence.) Friends in the comic industry had recognized Ty Templeton's style instantly—but it was only in 2020, when I was told about a wonderful planned podcast about the DC Who's Who binder series, that someone actually asked Ty on Twitter if this was indeed his work, and he finally confirmed it.

A thirty-year mystery finally solved!

I remember being amazed at having been sent a check from DC even before I'd finished the work. It seemed unbelievable because it sometimes took independent publishers months to pay me for work, and then sometimes only in installments. (You could understand why I've always maintained a steady day job ever since.) You'll see that my name is credited as "Lorraine Szramski" here, rather than my nickname Raine. My full name ended up on the paycheck and it's also what ended up here.

For the record, my last name is pronounced Shram-skee. The z (zed) throws everyone off. However, I'm more than used to my name being mangled by now, lol.

I want to thank the Fire and Water team for such a fantastic podcast and for all their kind words about my artwork, both past and present. (The segment about Elasti-Girl starts at about the 35:30 mark.) I thank them again for contacting me with questions about this old illustration.

I also want to extend a huge thank you to Ty Templeton for having anonymously helped me out when I was a beginner. He enhanced my original pencils with his gorgeous inking style, and I've waited three decades to tell him how much I appreciated that!

Gentleman Krampus

2022-12-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

He knows when you've been bad.

I'd been threatening for years to make a Krampus Christmas card and I ended up making two of them. I wrote about the first sketches for them in a blog post from waaaaay back in 2012 and ended up finally completing them in 2015 and 2016.

For all who don't know, in the Alpine regions of Europe, St. Nick has a sidekick, who sort of works as "bad cop" to his "good cop": this is Herr Krampus. My version of him looks a bit more gentlemanly and Victorian. I was inspired by seeing a video of a Krampusnacht parade and one dapper costumed Krampus in a top hat kissing a lady's hand.

Krampus Nacht happens on the 5th of December, but I find that the horned rascal is festive enough for the whole holiday season.

I began the illustrations by photocopying these early sketchbook cartoons from 2012, enlarging them to trace on my lightbox onto bristol paper.

I had wanted to paint and ink them in full color this time, adding a decorative circle motif to each. I ended up using not only my gouache and ink pens, but my colored pencils as well.

I began by inking the outlines with colored waterproof brush pens, animation style. Then I gradually started layering acrylic gouache on top of them, going with red, green, amber and gray as my color schemes.

In some old art of Krampus, he is shown as having both a cloven foot and a more bestial, claw-like foot. I decided to do that with one of my versions of him.

As well as being somewhat Dickensian, the clothes he is wearing are inspired by early 19th century German men's fashion, with some liberties taken. I really liked the wider-brimmed top hats of the period.

Here's the first of my Krampuses— Krampi?— to be finished. I scanned it into Photoshop to do some clean-up on the image. While many people do all of their work digitally these days, I still prefer traditional paint and ink on paper. For me, working with physical pencils, pens and brushes is therapeutic. However, I will eventually use Photoshop to help clean up and refine the finished version before I share it.

I had actually painted two versions of the first Krampus (the one with the long tongue) and had decided almost toward the end that I didn't like the colors I was using; and so, I fussily started a new one from scratch. (This is also what happens when you use traditional methods.) I used the first version as a "study" to hopefully improve the second version.

In the past, some of my old paintings had gone through three different versions before I had gotten to one that I liked. Sometimes it's fun to take an old piece of artwork you've done and remake it with the skills you've hopefully learned since your first attempt.

This wasn't one of those times, however.

What happened was that the second version came out almost identical to the first version. My first version hadn't been as bad as I had originally thought and now, I had two similar paintings. I ended up giving one of them away as a Christmas present.

Sometimes, you just need to put something down and walk away from it before you let yourself get too frustrated with it. Sometimes you might already be on the right track.

Finally, I turned both versions of Gentleman Krampus, the dashing rapscallion, into Christmas cards.

Have a happy Yule, everyone, and remember that he knows when you've been bad or good.

...Especially when you've been bad.

Thirteen Faces the Storm and Grins

2022-10-22T11:03:00.002-07:00

The night before the 13th Doctor's identity was announced, there was a strong monsoon storm in my part of the world, with thunder, lightning and violent winds that knocked trees over. “Ah, this must mean there's going to be a woman Doctor,” I had joked online. I was delighted to have been correct. But the storm seemed to be a harbinger of things to come. Not only was the reaction to her ceiling-smashing incarnation ridiculously tumultuous—but the world itself was going to be facing major challenges in the next few years of her tenure as Doctor.

I absolutely loved the Thirteenth Doctor. I was in her camp from day one and I knew she would be amazing.

Jodie Whittaker was revealed as the new Doctor, in a clip of her walking through a forest toward the TARDIS. When she lifted the hood of her coat, it was almost magical, like a moment from a fairy tale. I may not be a little girl anymore (at least not in the temporal sense), but I felt that overwhelming joy that girls around the world must have felt then. It felt sensible and earth-shaking at the same time to have the Doctor finally be a woman.

(above left) This was my first interpretation of her, in the forest, having found the TARDIS. I'd put a pocket watch in all of my Doctor pictures and getting 13 on it in Roman numerals was going to tricky. I decided to start with 12 at the top and put 13 in the number one position. That way, I also had room for the next eleven Doctors as well.

Of course, there are still those out there who would never accept the Doctor's newest transition—and I didn't care. I thought she was great.

Jodie Whittaker has had one of the toughest Doctor tenures in the nearly 60-year history of Doctor Who. Not only is she the first woman to be cast as the famous shapeshifting alien Time Lord, but world events would shadow her time in the TARDIS with existential fear and uncertainty.

With her warm, breathless enthusiasm, she was the perfect incarnation to see us all through this.

The global pandemic contributed to a rocky production schedule, new safety guidelines and therefore decreased episodes. Yet, the Thirteenth Doctor remained unflappable, reassuring, optimistic. It was Jodie Whittaker’s short video “5 Things the Doctor Does in Any Worrying Situation” that epitomized why she was so perfect in the role.

With her rainbow striped shirt, her oversized coat, her wide-eyed enthusiasm for adventure and her love and support for her TARDIS team—her “fam”— the 13th Doctor never failed to be a joy. Some of her fam moved on (Graham and Ryan), but one moved even closer to her. (Yaz.)

Thirteen soon became my comfort Doctor. When there were no new episodes with her, I sought out other media. Books and comics. I even bought and read books specifically targeted for very young readers. She and her fam were fun, funny, energetic and enthusiastic and their adventures were just what I needed when I was stuck indoors.

(above) An illustration I finished for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society for the cover of Cosmic Masque.

(right) Yaz and the Doctor, one of many sketchbook drawings I did, inspired by the 13th Doctor's episodes that I would like to go back and finish.

On her travels, we got to meet such famous historical figures as Ada Lovelace and Rosa Parks and Nikola Tesla. We met a diabolical new Master played by the brilliant Sacha Dhawan. We learned a deep, well-hidden Time Lord secret in "The Timeless Children". We also met Jo Martin's amazing “Fugitive” Doctor—whom we need so much more of because she nailed the essence of the Doctor so quickly and completely in her brief appearances.

(left) I loved the episode, "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror", as I've always having been fascinated with the scientist.

The 13th Doctor was also an inventor (she fashioned her sonic screwdriver out of Sheffield spoons), and I wanted an excuse to draw her with her goggles. Very steampunk. Another sketch to do a finished version of.

Most importantly, we discovered that the Doctor seemed endless. Her history was diverse and inclusive, and anyone could be an aspect of her future and her past. There was room for all of us.

(right) One of the many pictures I drew with the newly discovered "Fugitive" Doctor from a pre-Hartnell incarnation. Just how far back did the Doctor go? I was thrilled to have the once-mysterious "Morbius" Doctors from the Fourth Doctor's era, to now be canon.

I'm writing this post the day before Jodie Whittaker's last Doctor Who adventure. I will miss her and her resilience in the face of opposition, as well as her big grin in the face of the oncoming storm. I'll miss her sense of wonder when making discoveries. I will remember the comfort her Doctor gave me in some personally difficult times. She follows in the booted footsteps of my beloved 12th Doctor, living up to her predecessor’s regeneration advice:

“Run fast, laugh hard, be kind.”

And now her time has come to shift into her next form.
Despite the heartbreak of saying goodbye, I welcome the excitement and wonder of yet another regeneration and getting to meet our next Doctor, who will be played by Ncuti Gatwa.

I can’t wait to start another adventure.

A Titan Cover (Part 2): A Clockwork Squirrel

2022-10-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

First Scribbles

I mentioned in my last post that I had been contacted by Titan Comics to do a variant cover for one of the Doctor Who lines, and that I had picked Twelve as the Doctor I had wanted to start with. (Because, of course.)

So, after much doodling and scribbling in my sketchbook, trying to brainstorm, I finally settled on an idea.

This was the small thumbnail sketch; very, very rough and only about five inches tall. It might be hard to see in such a scribbly form, but the idea was that the Twelfth Doctor is tuning his guitar with his sonic screwdriver.

Behind him is the double-ringed planet I had put in my very first Capaldi picture (yes, I know, self-referential) and on his amplifier is the clockwork squirrel that Twelve was mentioned as having built and which was seen only once in the show.

"Squirrel" is also an in-joke with a friend of mine (*ahem* Sandra) — and I couldn't resist. (Whenever she came across DW filming locally in Wales, she claimed to just be out "taking pictures of squirrels in the park.")

The idea to tune the guitar came about because I had written some Blake's 7 fan-fiction (yes, you heard right) on the Horizon fan club site, based on some group prompts. "Creation" was about the character Dayna building a harp and fellow crew member Vila stealing a tuning fork for her. While writing it, I found myself looking up tuning forks and discovered that they're electronic now (I'm slow), which made me think it would be sort of like having an actual sonic screwdriver.

Hmmm...

That was the germ of the illustration's idea.

I was grateful to a fellow employee at the bookstore where I worked at the time, for kindly lending me his electric guitar as a prop. I had also ordered the 12th Doctor's blue sonic screwdriver which I also ended up using as a prop for more than one picture. (Plus, it's seriously cool and fun to play with.)

After taking quite a few laptop photos of myself posing with the guitar, I picked one of the more usable ones for reference.

And yes. I pose for my own illustrations all the time, and yes, they're always embarrassing to look at. And no, I don't want to show them to you. (Well, at least, not now. They're very silly.)

Now that I had my reference, I was off and drawing. And there was much erasing, too.

The next step was the actual full-page working sketch in which I needed to get the anatomy and likeness right, as well: one of the hardest things that needs to be done for any illustration, but it ends up being the bones of the finished picture.

Larger Rough Sketch

Now I had my working sketch done. It still looks pretty rough here, but I save all of the tightening up — the fun part! — for the finished version. The next step, however, was photocopying it to the size I needed it and tracing it on my lightbox, transferring it on to comic illustration board.

I gave much more space to the top of the picture for the eventual logo, etc., and you'd be able to see more of the ringed planet in the background.

Ink and Paint

More progress.

After I'd transferred the drawing, I'd cleaned it up a bit, making further adjustments. I still have a lot of these comic boards left over from working on my comic, Heaven and the DeadCity, and they have a nice vellum surface, better for painting. They also have all the page dimensions I needed already printed on them.

I inked the drawing so I would still be able to see the black lines beneath the eventual paint that I added.

The next step was the first layer of paint, which was done in the usual grey-scale acrylic gouache. Here, I've worked out the shading, all the lights and darks. It's still very loose and rough at this stage, but it will tighten up as I continue to add detail and sharper lines.

The very last stage would be the color highlights, which would be blue for the sonic screwdriver and the Doctor's eyes, and maroon red for his velvet coat.

Adding Some Color...

One of the last steps was adding my accent colors. It's become a thing people recognize about my mostly monochrome artwork.

Here's a detail of a little bit of the red and blue I used over top the grey. After this, I moved on to defining the black lines a little more, as well as white highlights and other outlines. This helped sharpen up some of the looser edges.

Finally, the end stage was to photograph it and then clean it and up some more in Photoshop, making a few more adjustments. (In other words, get rid of speckles and the inevitable cat hair and human hair that always lands somewhere in the paint where I don't notice it.)

And...done! And submitted.

My 12th Doctor Variant Cover for Titan Comics! (Complete with clockwork squirrel.)

And then the wait began to see it actually in print and inside a comic book shop.

A Titan Comics Cover (Part 1): Keeping It Cosmic

2022-10-09T11:14:00.001-07:00

Have you ever just fooled around with some of your artwork, just for fun, and accidentally gotten a professional job out of it?

This happened to me a few years ago.

Because I hadn't been updating The Watcher Tree as much as I would have liked to in the past few years, I never did get around to writing about some of my recent milestones here. (I did, however, keep everyone updated on my Patreon as it was occurring.) This was one of them and was extremely exciting to me at the time.

All of the fooling around that I mentioned pretty much started back on October 1, 2013 and I blame Peter Capaldi for it. He had just been announced as the next incarnation of Doctor Who and I was part of a group of people who had sent him a welcoming present of fan art that Christmas.

At the time, we had no idea what his costume might look like, so this was my imagined take on it. I wasn't too far off— I was going for an "older Bowie" look. And I'd always liked his hair, well... bigger. I thought that made him look less like his other famous role of Malcolm Tucker. His hair would eventually achieve proper floof status, which made me very happy.

I found myself in previously uncharted realms. I was new to showing people my fan art. Drawing Doctor Who would lead to my being able to practice new techniques and show my art more publicly online. It led to my making a lot of new friends as well.

A few months later, Peter himself sent thank you messages to all who participated in the fan art presents. He loves fan art, being an artist himself, and he even drew us little planets and Daleks on signed postcards. (I have mine framed and hanging on the wall.) He wrote to me: "Keep it cosmic!" (I wrote a squee-ing Watcher Tree blog post about it almost a decade ago.) Coincidentally, when I finally got to meet him five years later, he also told me to "keep it cosmic". (I'll definitely write about that meeting in a future blog post.)

Well, this first foray into Doctor Who fan art led to a long project. I began to draw portraits of each of the Doctors in my sketchbook, accompanied this time by little fob-watches in the corners counting down their numbering, where I could also conveniently put my signature. (I also chronicled the progress of these illustrations in earlier posts on this blog.)

I hadn't planned at the time to do finished versions of the sketches at all. Sadly, my dad died, quite suddenly. I was still in shock over it, and I found myself at home from work for a few weeks and needing something else to occupy my mind, to make me feel less helpless. I turned to my drawing table, just to give me something to do. I ended up barely leaving it.

As it turned out, it was the distraction that I desperately needed.

I pulled out my gouache paints and started with a finished version of my Tenth Doctor drawing. He was my friend Sandra Franklin's favorite, and she would be flying in to visit from England the following week and I wanted to try and get it done for her to see.

I finished Ten in two days, a record time for me. (The other 14 pictures to follow weren't done in such a similarly sad fervor.)

After this, I thought, well, there's all the other Doctors to do, too. Keep going. Make it your new assignment.

So, I did.

(left) This is the sign I made to greet my friend Sandra at the airport. It was done the previous night in children's markers on poster board. It got a few laughs from the other passengers arriving from Las Vegas, too.

(Photo by Sandra Franklin.)

Doctor Who Blank Sketch Covers

Titan Comics put out special blank sketch covers of their DW titles, so I decided to have a go playing with them. I took some of my own Doctor illustrations and made little mock-up covers, using the sketch cover as a template.

This also helped me practice using Photoshop, which I still admit to being a novice with. I had to make modifications to the original art to make it fit around the logo; this took more time than I had intended. However, once I started fooling around with them, I lost track of the hours I was hunched over my laptop, but I remember having a blast pretending these were real.

The resolution of the type in this first experiment (right) is too small, but I just wanted to see what my Ten might look like as a cover. As with the others I played with, I had to add more sky over his head and remove the clock in the corner.

(Here's an old post which explains the clock in each of my Doctor pictures. In the case of David Tennant, he's ten o'clock, of course.) I also added the little photo of the actor to the upper corner.

I then moved on to the Third and Fourth Doctors, repeating the process in order to make the logo fit. These ones turned out much better, I think. I didn't have a template for the Third Doctor, so I just had him "guest-star" in the Twelfth Doctor's comic. (I added my own small Twelve up in the corner.) Four had his own line, so it wasn't a problem there.

Proud of my fun, I shared my fake covers on Twitter, and people seemed to like them.

There was a misunderstanding in which someone thought I actually had done a variant cover for Titan, and I had to explain that no, these were not real, that I was just playing around with my own artwork. Coincidentally, at the time, there was a limited comics series featuring the Third Doctor written by Paul Cornell, with art by Chris Jones, and both of these creators saw my fake covers on Twitter as well. (Superb story, by the way. I bought all of the issues, and the collected volume can be found here.)

Then, to my utter surprise, Andrew James, who was then editor of the Titan Doctor Who line, contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a variant cover for real this time.

!!!!

I think you know how I responded.

He asked, "Which Doctor would you like to start with...?"

It was pretty obvious which one I would choose: it was the one who had started all of this "fooling around" for me in the first place, and had been the subject of my first ever fan art. (And yes, it had taken me this long into adulthood to actively make fan art.)

I was both ecstatic and terrified at the same time. The result would become my first ever professional comic book cover.

And so, I began trying to come up with an idea for a possible Twelfth Doctor cover.

To be continued ...

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

2022-09-24T12:01:00.021-07:00

This painting was started ten years ago. Really. Sometimes it takes me a while to get back to working on certain projects, but this is ridiculous. In this year's blistering Phoenix summer, I had just moved apartments. I had finally gotten a bigger one, one in which I could turn the bedroom into a studio/library/geek room. After the exhausting move (I have a lot of boxes of books), I was looking forward to the cooled-off season which is supposedly autumn in the desert. It usually starts mid-October...if we're lucky.

I unpacked my art supplies and looked at my Stack of Unfinished Pictures™, and this one of John Keats, based on his ode, "To Autumn," was at the top of it.

Back in 2013, I had even written a very early blog post on The Watcher Tree about it. I called that particular post "Starting Keats...(Part 1)" ...

...but I never did get around to "Part 2."

If you want to see all of the early steps of preparation and my slow process on this painting, I've got you covered in that post, which includes a lot of progress photos. This is how long it takes for me to work in color: it's a precarious balancing act for me.

And so, here we finally are—a decade later.

I thought I needed to get 'To Autumn" done for Autumn 2022 and it would be the first thing I put on my drawing table in my new apartment.

A little about my idea here: I have a recurring leaf-haired Autumn Fairy character in many of my old paintings from the '90s, when I had practiced with watercolors and gouache for the first time.

Autumn has always been my favorite season, maybe because that's when my birthday is. I love the change of colors in trees, I love pumpkins and Halloween—and yes, as you may have suspected, I drink pumpkin spice coffee by the gallon.

Autumn is my special muse, too.

Fun fact: John Keats was born on Halloween, and he had a fondness for cats, which is why I included the black kitten who is fascinated by his feather quill pen. And I just have a special love for black cats, anyway.

The painting is really a cornucopia of mixed media. I used gouache, ink pens and ink brushes, colored pencils, chalk and even acrylics. I had adopted a large set of acrylic paints left behind at my workplace, and I'm still navigating how to use them. I do prefer the matte quality of gouache to the shinier look of acrylics, but a cool thing is that gouache and acrylics can be blended together. Gouache plays well with other media.

Experimenting is FUN, kids!

It's been quite a while since I finished a full color painting, and this one is a little bigger than my usual working size. Its large size also contributed to my putting it aside (continuously) to work on smaller illustrations.

Once I thought I had done all I could with it, I taped it around all the edges to a board, carried it outside and then photographed it in the sunlight. I picked the best of the photographs and then tinkered with it in Photoshop, brightening, sharpening, and getting rid of the usual cat hair that ends up everywhere. (Or sometimes it's my own hair I find, too.)

After ten years in the making, it's FINALLY done!

Have you ever spent this long on a piece of artwork, or put something aside that you picked up years later? And who is your favorite poet and why is it John Keats?

Happy Equinox and season of mists!

Following From a Distance

2022-09-18T14:26:00.006-07:00

An abridged version of this piece was originally published for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society charity book, Pets in Time. I had been asked by editor Ian Wheeler if some of my animal-themed Doctor Who sketches could be used, and also if I might want to write about recently losing my dog, Ashi.

If you've ever lost a beloved animal companion, then you understand how hard it was to do. This is the original, longer version of the story I wrote, which I then edited down to submit to Pets in Time, which benefits the RSPCA and can be purchased here.

____________________________________________

The hardest thing to come home to is the missing presence. How do you sum up a dog who has been your friend for thirteen years and is now longer there? While I still have my two wonderful cats, who are happy to see my daily return from the World Outside, it was Ashi who accompanied me beyond the door for small adventures together.

Walking together in early evenings, we had our own separate interests: he had a world of scents to explore, while I observed a neon-colored Arizona sunset, or an elusive elf owl on a tree branch, or a retreating coyote. Then there was the nighttime walks and astronomy, looking for lunar eclipses and comets, or the International Space Station making a pass over the desert sky. Later, with him beside me and in failing health, I was able to see Saturn and Jupiter align in the southwestern sky and Mars glow bright in the east. I miss having his company for these expeditions, even though he was more interested in the messages left by other canines, which he would leave replies to.

I named him Ashi, which is short for Ashitaka, a character from the Hayao Miyazaki film, Princess Mononoke. He was a shiba inu, a fox-like dog of Japanese descent. Despite looking like a plush toy when he was a puppy, he had started out as quite a handful. Testing his boundaries, he had been spunky and stubborn, often a bratty little gremlin who would challenge me at every turn. Shiba are one of the more primitive of dog breeds, known for their independence, intelligence...and limited attention span. I soon realized that I had my work cut out for me to keep my fuzzy little goblin in line. Consistency and perseverance were necessary.

And so was puppy obedience school, where Ashi became the class clown. He would usually end up surging forward at the command of “Stay!” He would grab all the treats that awaited the more obedient dogs in the class, who looked on as the little thief ate all their rewards. It took him a little longer than the rest of the class, but Ashi finally learned how to be patient.

Eventually, he performed his commands only with the assumption that something was in it for him. With calculated cuteness, he would present his paw to any human in anticipation of a treat. For thirteen years, I would hear: “He looks like a little fox!” Or sometimes it was “mini-wolf,” or a “baby coyote.” Always a wild creature—which is also how I thought of him during my first two years with him.

On our very first walks together, he complained loudly when I first put a collar or leash on him; then he would carry the leash himself, in his mouth. In later years, I was guilty of allowing him sometimes to run ahead, so he that he could scout his territory. He could run unhampered this way, but was still attached to a long lead, which I held on to very tightly.

Shiba are dogs that can rarely be off leash. Ashi was a notorious escape artist, slipping out of collars with ease and squeezing out of open doors. Running after him in these cases was usually a comedy of errors. Sometimes I had to use reverse psychology in these situations and walk away from him in the other direction. In most cases, he would stop running when he realized that I was not going to play his game of chase, or “keep away.” He would then follow behind me at a distance. Whenever he pulled one of these stunts, I was fortunately always able to retrieve him one way or another. I usually was terrified that he would keep running and never come back.

After two years of puppy craziness and a lot of gnawed books in my apartment, Ashi seemed to mellow almost overnight, and grew into the handsome gentleman he would remain. He always waited for me to go through a door first. He rarely barked except at his nemeses, hummingbirds and bumblebees, which he viewed as small demons who hovered and mocked him, just out of his reach. For his own small size, his bark made him sound bigger and much more ferocious. On one of our walks, he once scared off a creepy man on a bicycle by swerving back and forth in front of me, in “goblin-dog” mode and the man fled.

I had taken him several times to our local Japanese festival, where he got to have sushi and rice balls and meet fellow shiba inu. However, he would become terrified at the sound of the taiko drumming and would pull me towards the exits. “We’re done. Time to go home now.” Like many dogs, he hated loud noises, and the traditional Japanese drumming must have sounded to him like thunder and fireworks, which always left him shaking in fear. I usually had to sit with him in my lap every New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July.

His favorite treats were peanut butter and cheese. I gave him entire spoonfuls of peanut butter to lick , or I'd spread it on a favorite biscuit for him. Anytime he heard me opening a package of cheese, he was by my side, expectant.

From the moment I had first brought him home, I made certain to show him that the cats had a higher rank in his new pack by feeding them first, while he was made to wait. In this way, he would learn to respect them. For all the years I had him, he deferred to the tougher of my two cats, Mifune (named after Toshiro). With his selective hearing and un-canine love of catnip, Ashi was rather cat-like himself. His respect for the cats, however, did not prevent him from stealing their toys for himself. No fuzzy green felt mouse was safe from his jaws.

Later, all three of them would commandeer my bed for naps when I was not using it, and sometimes when I was.

When he still was able to, Ashi liked to sleep in the bed with me, usually at the foot of it, his head on my legs. When it was colder, he stretched out alongside of me, usually with both the cats as well. I remember being very sick one year, shivering, and waking up in a sweat when my fever broke to discover that Ashi was huddled up against me.

Being a shiba inu, he was still equal parts stubborn and elegant, needy and aloof. Sometimes he was stoic as a samurai, other times an absolute drama queen. To everyone else, he was a handsome charmer. At home, Ashi could be found under my desk or under my drawing table, usually at my feet as I worked. When he needed to go outside for a walk, he would sit at the door and make a low, deep noise that sounded like “Hmm.” To get my attention, he would also activate the Shiba Stare, which is a sophisticated and effective mind control technique.

When I was full of doubt or insecurity, I had only to stroke his fur or look at his grin to know it would be all right.

Except, when it wasn't.

It was when he stumbled for the first time going up the stairs after a walk outside, that I realized something was wrong. What had started in such a subtle way with a lame back leg, progressed into a loss of muscle control in his hind quarters, an inability to even wag his tail. His tail had started to sag, no longer curling up over his back in typical shiba-fashion anymore, instead hanging loose and limp. In a short time, he succumbed to so much pain and immobility, that I had to carry him up and down the stairs of my apartment building so that he would be able to relieve himself. And even that became an excruciating effort for him because he could barely walk.

He had been losing weight, despite always having a good appetite. His back leg had begun to drag, sometimes causing his paw to scrape on the ground and bleed. I cleaned the injuries, bought him special paw protectors.

Despite many veterinary trips and an ever-increasing amount of medicine, he was not getting any better as the end of the year progressed. After an examination, the veterinarian wondered if he there was the possibility of an undiscovered tumor somewhere; but we never did find out.

Eventually, he could no longer stand, and he had lost control over his bladder. Shiba are very fastidious and clean, and I think he was deeply humiliated by this.

After what was supposed to have been a routine veterinary exam one weekend, I had come back to retrieve him after a few hours, and realized things were not well. Right away I recognized the voice of the dog who was howling and shrieking nonstop in the back room. Everyone looked at me with concern and I was told he needed to be given even stronger pain medicine, as well as sedatives. When I brought him home, I tried to make him as comfortable as best that I could, but he began to yelp in pain again. I texted the veterinarian, who instructed me to increase his medicine. This did not help at all. I put my pillow and blanket on the floor beside his dog bed so I could sleep beside him and to be close. At one point, Mifune came over to him and rubbed her head against him and purred; this calmed him down for a short time and it was the only time he fell asleep that whole weekend. I thanked Mifune for that brief comfort for both of us. I too was able to get some brief sleep.

When he awoke in terrible pain again, crying, I knew that he was suffering and that I had to make an awful decision. It might have been the hardest thing I would ever do.

I texted my veterinarian. Perhaps it was that time.

I drove back to the vet before dawn broke. He was wrapped in one of my bathroom towels as I carried him inside.

I stayed with him until the end, and afterwards.

His collar and harness are still hanging from the doorknob of my apartment as I write. Before realization sets in, I still catch myself saying, “Be a good boy,” before I close the door to go off to work.

There is the empty place at my side now when I take solitary walks; I still imagine him running ahead of me. There is no more ball presented to me as a homecoming gift. There is the empty place under my desk, too, and under the drawing table. There is the end of the bed where he used to curl up or wrestle with a pillow.

I finally accepted that it was all right if I slipped up, if I still told him to “be good” as I left for the day. When he had run away from me in the past and I had walked in the opposite direction, he had always ended up following me home. I hope that he will continue to follow along from wherever he is now, however far away it may be.

I won’t need to turn around to know that he still will be there, following from a distance.

__________________________________________________________

I finally made a little bonsai memorial for Ashi. It's not a real bonsai, and it's a toy shiba, but he looks quite happy, nevertheless. He was recently joined by his feline sister, GoGo, whom I dearly miss.

You can purchase Pets in Time at the Doctor Who Appreciation Society store and read many other tales of beloved animal companions, both moving and funny, and also help support a good cause.

Seasons of John Hurt

2021-11-06T15:38:00.013-07:00

My earliest memory of John Hurt was actually of his voice, as the heroic rabbit Hazel in the animated version of one of my favorite books, Watership Down. Next came The Elephant Man, Jim Henson's The Storyteller and of course, Alien. However, my mother (who was born on the exact same day as Sir John— 22 January 1940) is very partial to his infamous scene in Spaceballs, which is her favorite Hurt performance.

Isn't little Captain Grumpy and
his Gallifrey-destroying
superweapon cute?

(This is a somewhat long post, so please bear with me.)

In 2014, I was still working on my sketchbook drawings of each incarnation of the Doctor in order. Each sketch (which would eventually become a finished illustration) had a little fob-watch in the corner to indicate each Doctor's "number." So what "time" on the clock should the War Doctor have?

This was a little bit of a quandary because he was the hidden incarnation between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors. I decided his designation would be 8:30— half past eight.

When I finished my sketch of War as he appeared in "Day of the Doctor," I celebrated by getting a little War Doctor action figure.

Around the same time, my friend Sandra Franklin had attended a talk that John Hurt gave in her hometown of Norwich, Norfolk, and she surprised me by showing him a copy of my sketch of the War Doctor. She had asked if he could sign it for me!

He then asked her if she had another copy of it for him to keep—and luckily, she did! She told him that I was drawing all the Doctors in order, and so he wrote,

"For Raine. All best wishes. Keep going!"

You can imagine how absolutely over the moon I was by this. Thanks must be given again to my dear friend Sandra. And to John Hurt (the legend!) himself for the encouragement.

Needless to say, I kept going.

Here's the very messy beginnings of the sketchbook drawing. You can see that I'm all over
the place in my book. On the opposite page, you can see my scribbled notes and
my trying to work out the position of his hands.

Beginning rough stages: I made a large photocopy of the working sketch and traced it
onto some vellum bristol paper. I also tidied up the fob-watch in the corner.

And starting my first layers of acrylic gouache. There would just be a touch of subtle
color with the red of his sonic screwdriver and his brown eyes.

And the finished version!

Next up, I had wanted to do a Young War Doctor as he had appeared very briefly at the end of "Night of the Doctor".

The image of young John Hurt that has been used in that short episode, which had finally shown the Eighth Doctor's regenerating, had been from a production of Crime and Punishment, which I had watched on YouTube.

I had then made some reference drawings in my sketchbook as I watched the program.

I had decided that Young War needed to dramatically hold some sort of prop. At first. I toyed with the idea of his holding a gun (very un-Doctor-like, but probably more in line with the un-Doctorly War Doctor).

Eventually, I had settled on his taking a trophy: an eyestalk from one of his archenemies, the Daleks.

Little did I know synchronicity was at work because at the same time the iconic image of the young War Doctor holding a Dalek eyestalk was being used in the superb charity short film Seasons of War.

(You can watch it here!)

The eyestalk in this case had been used as a telescope, which I thought was an absolutely genius idea. It was the concept of director/writer Andy Robinson and writer Declan May.

The transferred sketch, with some tidying up of the fob-watch. War looks very grumpy,
like he wants to hit someone over the head with that Dalek eyestalk.

Most of the painting done here; I decided I wanted to put some splatter on the
fob-watch in the corner to show that Young War gets down and
dirty with his business.

The finished version, which the same small hints of color and
added splatter on the fob-watch.

I was contacted by some of the filmmakers about the happy coincidence of the Dalek eyestalk—and I ended making some new friends!

Seasons of War became an excellent, limited run charity book full of brilliant stories and art, published by Chinbeard Books and edited by Declan May for Cauldwell Children, all telling unknown tales of this previously secret incarnation of the Doctor.

I had ordered a copy right away. When I had received it and saw what a beautiful book it was, I had wished I had been able to contribute to it in some way. It had received many amazing reviews and there was even one in Doctor Who Magazine.

There would eventually be another printing of it...

While the second edition (with added, all-new content: brand new stories, art and commentary) was being readied, something very sad occurred: we lost John Hurt, only a week after his 77th birthday.

This came as a great shock to me. I had been at my job at the bookstore when my co-worker gave me the news and I had to leave the sales floor to process it.
That evening, I was contacted by the publisher of Chinbeard Books, Barnaby Eaton-Jones, who had seen my two finished War Doctor illustrations. He told me that there would be a special new tribute to John Hurt included with this latest and perhaps last edition of Seasons of War—and he asked if my two illustrations could be included in it.

I immediately said YES (of course!!) — and I was honored to finally be able to contribute in some way to this wonderful book.

When I received my copy of Seasons of War, I was nervous about seeing my illustrations in print. Would they fit in there with all the beautiful content I had seen in the previous edition?

Here are some photos (below) of my contributions. My two War Doctor illustrations sort of "bookend" a touching new tribute to John Hurt written by editor Declan May.

The book is absolutely gorgeously put together, and like the first version: hefty! Which is great because there's so much more brilliant content in this next edition, a whole missing Doctor Who era starring John Hurt at different ages. So many fantastic stories, commentary and beautiful illustrations.

Everyone involved did a wonderful job and all the love shows. And I want to thank the publishers once more for letting me be a part of it.

All proceeds went to support Caudwell Children.

Next, I was commissioned by Declan May to do a alternate cover for yet another (and last) reprint of the book.

In 2017, North America had a solar eclipse. During this, I was working at a bookstore and trying to come up with an idea for the new illustration.

I had been drawing little doodles of War standing in front of an eclipse on post-it notes at work (don't laugh, that's how these things always start) and I finally settled on this idea and began scribbling in my sketchbook.

I had wanted some cosmic event in the sky as a good, dramatic backdrop for the War Doctor, and this is where the very timely eclipse came in. My thinking was that there might be symbolism in darkness temporarily covering a sun, showing his despair at having to make a terrible choice.

My sister Victoria told me that I didn't have any pictures of me actually at my easel or at my drawing table, and that people might want to see how I work. So here I am!

Also, on the easel, you'll notice the 12th Doctor's sonic screwdriver. No, it doesn't help me draw, but I used it to see the position of the War Doctor's hand while holding his own sonic.

(Oh, who am I kidding? It's a seriously awesome sonic screwdriver and it's just fun to play with it because it lights up three different ways and makes cool noises.)

There's been a few photos of my hand holding my pencil or paintbrush, but it's hard to get a photo of yourself working when you live alone and your laptop's self-timer produces some dreadful photos. (Also, my dog and cats had no thumbs to operate a digital camera.)

Luckily, Victoria happened to be visiting my (then) new apartment to help me put some drapes up over my many bookcases (it helps keep the dust off them and makes the room look less chaotic)—and she snapped a few pictures of me drawing.

In the above picture, I'm making adjustments. It's easier to see your composition when it's vertical (on the easel) because you're able to step back and look at it from a distance. Before I had the easel, I used to just tape the work-in-progress to a wall in order to look at it.

The finished Seasons of War limited edition cover.

What were your favorite John Hurt performances? Did you enjoy his fantastic Big Finish audios? (There's also a brand new series of Young War Doctor adventures as well, starring Jonathon Carley, which I'm eager to listen to.)

And once again, I would like to thank John Hurt for his inspiration.

I kept going.

Charity Illustrations

2021-10-02T15:52:00.005-07:00

Would you look at the size of that one, Doctor?

A few years ago, I had been asked by Christopher Samuel Stone if I would like to contribute some illustrations to a Doctor Who charity project that he was working on. He needed a few illustrations based on classic Who episodes, which also included the 1996 TV Movie. Here are the ones that I did. (Though sadly under-represented in my resulting batch here, are the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras.)

All of these illustrations are vignettes in box frames. They're all done in my usual medium of acrylic gouache and ink, after which I scan them into Photoshop for clean-up and enhancement. They were a lot of fun to do, and they make me want to do more illustrations based on old episodes. (Hmmm. The wheels are turning...)

Planet of the Spiders

"Planet of the Spiders" was the last episode of Jon Pertwee's run on Doctor Who. The Third Doctor would eventually die of an overdose of radiation while on Metebelis 3 (the eponymous planet) and regenerate into Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor.

The challenge in this one was trying to make Jon Pertwee recognizable as seen from the back. I also wanted to make the Great One look more like a real spider, so I looked at a lot of spider reference. Fortunately, I'm not too arachnophobic.

...But then again, I don't live on Metebelis 3. Or Australia, for that matter.

The Great One, a giant spider craving absolute power, wants the Metebelis crystal which the Doctor is holding. Needless to say, she does not succeed in getting it.

I usually tape the photocopied rough sketch next to the painting on the easel so I can consult it while I'm working.

I later added "sparkles" to the background of the picture, to represent more crystals in the spider's lair.

Also, I couldn't resist adding just a little bit of color for the blue Metebelis crystal.

The Second Doctor Running

The concept for this illustration was just to show "the Doctor running." It could be any incarnation, so I picked one of my favorites: Patrick Troughton.

"When I say run...RUN!"

This was inspired by Troughton's famous running scene in the serial “The Invasion,” in which he comically flees rampaging Cybermen.

I transfer my sketches onto vellum-surface bristol paper using a lightbox. I sometimes start by inking the drawing using waterproof brush-pens; or even dark Prismacolor to trace over the pencil work. I then paint over that with acrylic gouache, working with inexpensive watercolor brushes.

Trying to capture the scribbly energy of my preliminary sketches can be difficult when I'm doing the finished illustration. It usually never works. I have to choose one outline as opposed to many.

Because I couldn't find a good reference shot of the Second Doctor's shoes, I remember having to research Hush Puppies, the brand of shoes Troughton favored—specifically a pair from the mid-1960s!

There's no color in this one at all. These days, I do like to keep color to a minimum, and usually just for highlights. Sometimes for atmospheric effects, I'll add some colored pencil or chalk to the mix. The paintings start very loose until I gradually sharpen up the line work.
Leela

Here's Louise Jameson's fierce and cool Leela, the second of the Fourth Doctor's companions. As with the previous pictures in this batch, I chose to put the character slightly outside the frame. My idea was that the box-like frames look a bit like comic book panels.

The jungle background here is meant to be reminiscent of the serial that introduced Leela, "The Face of Evil".

These episodes are especially notable for some brilliant dialogue by writer Chris Boucher which remains uncannily relevant even today:

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common - they don't change their views to fit the facts. They change the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs changing."

Once again, here's the working sketch next to the painting's progress. I go back and forth from drawing table to easel, depending on how the picture is looking. Sometimes you need to look at your work in a vertical position, standing back from it to see what needs adjusting.

The Zarbi

Here's the First Doctor and a very early adventure. I've actually done a couple of pictures of the Web Planet, (also known as Vortis) and its various insectoid creatures. The challenge here was to try to make the Zarbi look less like people in costumes, and more like actual insects—so it was back to looking at bug reference again.

I remember that I was working on this on New Year's Day, 2017, and I'd felt a pain in my right side while sitting at the easel. Thinking it was appendicitis, I ended up going to the emergency room that night. It would prove to be nothing serious but that had been my anxious first day of the new year as I was painting the First Doctor.

"You Zarbi are a real pain in the side, you know? Hmm?"

Victoria and the Ice Warrior

The brief for this illustration was just "Ice Warrior" but I wanted to feature the Second Doctor's companion Victoria Waterfield as well. At that time, I hadn't done any pictures of her yet.

"EeeeeeeaaaaAAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

Victoria is a displaced Victorian woman and here is being threatened by Varga, the Martian warrior. Either that or he thinks she looks cold and just wants to offer her a nice mug of hot cocoa.

I've joked that I should use this illustration as a Christmas card.

I think Victoria's superpower was her ear-splitting scream. If I was that Ice Warrior, I would have covered my ears and hightailed it back to the ship.
"No cocoa for you then!"

Ace and Karra

Most of the things that blew up in the Seventh Doctor's era were probably because of companion Ace McShane and her Nitro-9. Ace, played by Sophie Aldred, became an iconic companion for many people.

In the last episodes of the classic series, she encountered the deadly Cheetah People and most notably, the fierce Kara, played by Lisa Bowerman. Kara had tried to convince Ace to follow her wildest instincts and become a Cheetah as well.

The background in this picture is the volcanic, dying Cheetah Planet.

Once again, I wanted to make Kara look a bit more like a real cheetah and tried to give her more menacing claws.

Later on, I couldn't resist coloring Ace's eyes in yellow to show the beginning of her own transformation into a Cheetah Person.

Eighth Doctor TV Movie
(The Enemy Within)

The last two illustrations in this batch were both from the Paul McGann TV Movie, sometimes known as The Enemy Within. (Of course I saved the Eighth Doctor 'til last.)

In this first picture, the newly regenerated and very confused Doctor is trying to figure out "WHO... AM...I?" and he's looking for something to wear besides a morgue sheet.

.

I admit to being very fond of the 8th Doctor, as he was everyone's continuing lifeline to Doctor Who in the so-called "Wilderness Years" when Doctor Who was not on television. Instead, there were comics, novels and many, many Big Finish audios before Russell T. Davies officially rebooted the show

This is the scene right after his somewhat terrifying regeneration from Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor (still to me the scariest regeneration, with Patrick Troughton's spinning around in a void, shouting "No, no, no, no, no, no!" coming in at second.)

He's kicked the door of the morgue down with regeneration energy (I presume.)

My "Fob-Watch" Eighth
Doctor illustration.

For almost a decade afterward, the Eighth Doctor kept the banner flying for Doctor Who in other media. And he's also one of my favorite Doctors because of that, I think.

In my opinion, he had the coolest TARDIS—all Jules Verne-steampunk and Lord Byron-gothic, full of books, statues and candelabra—and an observation ceiling above giant iron arches which opened to the vastness of space. So when I did my first version of Eight for my Fob-Watch Doctor series, I needed to get this TARDIS interior in the picture as well.

And last but not least, here's a somewhat more goofy illustration of Eight and brief companion Grace Holloway on a stolen police motorcycle racing through San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999.

I'm of a certain age when I remember everyone thinking the year 1999 would be so futuristic because it was the turn of the millennium. Instead, it was rather... meh.

I remember watching the TV Movie the first time that it aired on network television in the States. Plot-wise, it was a bit bonkers, but I still have fond feelings for it.

However, we all had to wait until 2013 to finally see the Eighth Doctor regenerate into his next incarnation...

...Who would become the War Doctor, played by John Hurt...

...Who will be the subject of my next post.

See you then!

Venusian Aikido

2021-08-21T22:56:00.044-07:00

It's taken me years to turn this goofy sketchbook drawing into a finished illustration.

This was a sketch that I had done way back in 2014. (Has it really been seven years?) It spanned across two pages of my sketchbook. I had always meant to ink and paint it at some future time, and it took the chaos of 2020 and 2021 for me to finally get back to it. I desperately needed something ridiculous to work out my frustration on, and what better way than to have the Third Doctor kicking some Sea Devil butt? (Although I feel sorry for the poor turtle-faces.)

Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor was my first Doctor. I had encountered Doctor Who at the age of nine at my grandmother's house in southern New Jersey when our local PBS station had begun showing episodes in the afternoons. It had been the early 1970s.

Pertwee's Doctor was more physical than his predecessors, and he had practiced a martial arts form that he called Venusian Aikido. "The Sea Devils" was the episode that introduced these titular reptilian antagonists.

This particular martial arts move that I gave the Doctor isn't really aikido, but rather a taekwondo roundhouse kick. Let's just say that the Doctor is quite spry for his age.

The year's news had been relentless and my anxiety had been ramped up to eleven. I wanted something lighter, even a little goofy, to work on—because I'd been feeling too much like this poor Sea Devil in the right hand corner of this sketch, whom I've affectionately named Fred.

I photocopied the drawing from my sketchbook in order to transfer it onto vellum bristol paper, which is my favorite paper because it takes a variety of media, everything from gouache, colored pencils, pastels and ink.

The photocopy ended up several sizes bigger than I usually work and I've since forgotten why I decided to make it so big. At any rate, I traced it using my lightbox, adjusted it a bit in pencil and...

...promptly put it aside for another couple of months to work on other projects. Again, my choice to work larger made finishing it take a bit longer.

At this stage, it still had a long way to go. I had decided that the Third Doctor's coat needed a color, which I decided would be maroon. Once I decided that the illustration was physically finished, I photographed it so I could do my usual "clean-up" in Photoshop.

At the time I was working on this picture, I had also taken the big step of finally ordering a Wacom tablet to better help my Photoshop enhancements. I've been using a mouse (agonizingly) all this time and I thought it was time to get better tools. Of course, I will have to play with it a lot more to get a feel for it. But I prefer working traditionally. It's therapeutic for me and I enjoy using inks, pencils and paint on paper. I use the Wacom mainly for strengthening linework from the photo scans, and for some special effects.

Poor Fred the Sea Devil is so done with
everything right now.

Coming up next:
An assortment of Doctor Who charity illustrations.

All the Young D'Oods

2021-08-15T14:58:00.013-07:00

Let me explain.

My friend Sandra Franklin is obsessed with Oods. She loves them. So the following sketches were made for her a few years ago. I still need to properly finish them, but I also kind of like them just as sketches.

For those unfamiliar with these tentacled Doctor Who aliens, here's a handy primer.

I had shared this sketchbook drawing of a dapper Ood painter a few years back on my Pre-Raphernalia blog. (Yes, I apologize, I haven't gotten back to Pre-Raphernalia for awhile, either.)

And yes, that is a Judoon wearing a cravat in in the painting on the floor.

Proserpine
(the red-haired version)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Because we're both fans of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, here we have a Pre-Raphaelite Brother Ood. (Get it?)

He is working on a version of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's famous painting of Proserpine holding a pomegranate. Here, the 10th Doctor holds an Adipose. (Well, it's roundish and about the same size as a pomegranate.)

Since my friend Sandra and I are also Edgar Allan Poe fans as well (I've been known to draw few Poe cartoons here and there…) it was inevitable that I would be drawing an Edgar Allan Ood.

The "bust of Pallas" from the poem "The Raven" is a Time Lady, of course. And there aren't one but two "Tell-Tale Hearts."

The puns would continue...

Sandra also got a chance to show former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies the Edgar Allan Ood drawing.

He sees the Ood.

He has seen the Ood.

The idea for this particular goofiness came about when Sandra and I were talking about how the 12th Doctor needed a band. The idea here was for it to resemble a Robert Palmer video, except with Oods. (And yes, I did try to work in a drummer, but found I sadly didn't have room.)

Below, is the inked and painted version of this illustration.

I can't promise this will be the end of the puns, or the Oods, but we shall see!

Coming up next:
Some Venusian Aikido. Hai!

Climbing the Watcher Tree

2021-07-31T22:05:00.015-07:00

Let's try this again, shall we?

Well, that was a very long intermission. I've been missing in action on my own blog now for three years, and that surprises me as well. Have you ever gotten so involved with stuff that you just lose track of time?

Well, it's like that.

I apologize for my very long absence from updating this blog. In my last post (from 2018) I had promised you "the new stuff." Finally, we've gotten to the new stuff. And there's a lot of it to share with you.

For instance:

In the interim, it feels like the world is a very different place than it was three years ago. One constant was that creators kept creating. My own creative projects have been mostly chronicled on my Patreon from as far back as 2016. I've sadly neglected this longer-form, more public blog... which I now hope to rectify.

There is a lot to get caught up on, both creatively and personally. My plan for The Watcher Tree blog is to show you a lot of "making of " posts and "behind-the-scenes" moments from the past few years. And there's a ton of content.

As usual, I'll sometimes deviate from posting about my artwork and get into geeky ramblings, or possibly more personal things. For instance, I have a couple of pieces of a more personal nature that I had originally posted elsewhere. One future post I have planned is a longer version of an essay that I had written for a special publication, and it had been (and is still) a tough subject for me. But we'll get to that one all in good time.

I can't promise you that I'll cover things chronologically. I do hope it will continue to be interesting for those who enjoy my work and who are curious about the process. Or what the hell was I thinking while making stuff. (Probably that I needed more coffee or that I needed to make a new playlist to work to.)

You may have noticed that I'm a traditional artist, who likes to use pencils, ink and paints. Working this way is therapeutic for me. My Patreon is where you'll see me post about my newest projects. If you enjoy my work, please consider following me or supporting me there. This helps tremendously with things like always needed art supplies. If you choose to, Ko-Fi is another place where you can also help me acquire those elusive tubes of acrylic gouache and new watercolor brushes, which I go through very quickly. And I thank you very much for all your help.

Other places where you can find me are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (which I'm admittedly still new to) and Tumblr, where I also share current work and mostly get chatty about all sorts of other dumb stuff.

In my last posts from 2018, I took you through a lot of older artwork I had done, mostly color fantasy paintings that I had tried to digitally restore. Now we get into new territory: art inspired by various fandoms, some for fun, some for publication. You'll see more sketchbook drawings and works-in-progress, finished illustration and my personal adventures (and misadventures.)

Here are some photos of the balcony of my apartment. I've finally found a type of plant that can endure the blistering Phoenix, Arizona, summer: it's an African succulent called portulacaria afra, also known as "elephant bushes," because they're apparently a favorite snack for pachyderms. This has been my refuge out here for the past few months with my sketchbook, journal or Kindle (when it isn't as hot as the face of the sun, that is.)

If you're already familiar with my work, what subjects would you like to see me cover here in The Watcher Tree? Are there any pictures of mine in particular that you would like to see me talk about?

I thank you all again in advance for your patience.

So, let's begin. Again.

Study Time, Episode 2: Return of the Paintbrush

2018-07-06T01:23:00.190-07:00

1996 sketches for my illustration Kirins.

In my previous post, I showed preliminary sketches for some of my older paintings, side-by-side with the finished illustrations. In this post, I will show you the next step: the color sketches done on top of photocopies.

Finished Kirins, 1997.

I still use this method after all these years.

Before I start the finished illustration, I make several letter-sized photocopies of the sketches in order to look back at while I work. (I sometimes even work out the shading on them.)

Some of the copies I use for “coloring”— and these also help me to loosen up!

The “coloring” prep-study is the fun one: just like with a coloring book, I take my paints and messily play around with them on a photocopy of the sketch. Neatness is not a factor here—I'm just trying to see what colors might work for the finished picture. Sometimes I'll try several different pages of this before I get to a color scheme I like.

The important part about this is not to start getting too detailed with the color sketch—you don't want to take that fun away when you get to the actual painting.

Ghost is a painting that I would love to “restore” when I have more time. I only have it now as a picture file from a scan, and it needs quite a lot of enhancement before it can be enlarged enough to make prints. Above is the original color sketch for the painting and below is the finished painting.

Here's some more photocopied sketches that I've kept all these years, Elmer's-glued in blank books. Beside them are the finished results.

I mentioned my love for fauns in previous posts, and this is probably Mister Tumnus’ fault. I had plans to do as many seasonal fauns as I had done faeries, but so far have only done Spring (see this post) and this one, that I just call Pumpkins.

Because autumn is my favorite season and full of spectacular color, I love seeing big orange pumpkins every Halloween. (Yes, and I am also one of those pumpkin spice fiends. I do have my vices.) I don't have the color sketch for this one, unfortunately. Which is also the case with this next one...

Rainforest

This was done when I had a pet iguana named Hugh (right), so it's no coincidence that a lot of my dragons during this time looked like iguanas. Because iguanas are vegetarians, I figured a hypothetical vegetarian dragon might be as vividly colored as a rainforest parrot, or as the flowers this particular creature eats.

This is another picture in which my signature somehow got chopped off in the original photo I had taken of it and I needed to fit my name in there again, somewhere. (The original was sold a long time ago.)

Oh, and here’s some more photos of Hugh the Iguana. You’re welcome.

Seraph

This began as a drawing I had done in college after wondering how anything with six wings could possibly fly. I gave my Battle Seraph some Asian-influenced armor and arranged the wings like the petals of a flower. Even in the original pen and ink picture done back in 1986 (which I don’t have anymore) I saw the wings as being red, and so in 2009 I finally did a color version.

The sketch of the Naiad (on the left) was another potential illustration

that never got to the painted stage.

I wrote before that it’s fun to revisit old pictures and try to improve on them. An artist’s skills always get better with age—because you've accumulated years of practice, of course! (At least, this is what I keep telling myself...)

Story

I’ve been told a few times that the boy in this picture looks like Harry Potter, but I did this picture in 1995, long before the first of J.K. Rowling’s books emerged here in the States. The idea was to have a human boy (with my cat Fish sitting in his lap) reading stories to his friend, a centaur girl, and showing her the wonder of books.

This painting was eventually donated it to a library back in New Jersey. I later tried to rescue and restore it from the only photo I had of it.

And here's my cat Fish. She came with that name from the animal shelter where I got her.

I've always had black cats. She was my second rescue and I had her as a companion for fourteen years. She and two ferrets traveled with me on the cross-country move to Arizona.

Speaking of centaurs, here’s the original color sketch for this smirking, tattooed fellow. In this case, I was in too much of a hurry to even use paints before wanting to get to the actual painting, so I grabbed some colored pencils and made this fast, messy color sketch. Voila!

The actual painting was also one of the fastest I’ve ever finished as well, done on a dull Christmas day in 1997—the centaur ended up having my undivided attention and I’m still pleased with the speedy colors I’d picked for him. And I think he likes his tattoos.

I was also pleased with the colors I quickly picked in this picture of Caesar, which was for a bookstore co-worker. He posed for it himself. I took a reference photo of him sitting on a library cart and holding an umbrella as his sword.

Here’s the stages of my picture Sister Moon, which features three little girls with a magical winged lioness. I had an actual storybook idea for them at one point, but this was as far as it got.

As I mentioned in the last post, this is one of the old paintings that I no longer own—so I “rescued” it from an old photograph and digitally restored bits of it. I enhanced the colors, making the moon much rounder and the stars brighter, as well as re-drawing missing pieces of it with my computer mouse!

(Did I mention I really need to get a digital tablet with an actual stylus so one day I can do things like this much better? Drawing with a mouse is like using an Etch-a-Sketch.)

The same story goes for the Merman, which I mentioned in a very early post, had vanished to parts unknown. But I managed to hold onto the preliminary sketches all these years, and once more, restored the painting from an old photograph.

Here’s some pages of these books that I pasted the studies into. There’s even some sketches and colored versions of pictures that were in the works but, as of this blog’s date, still haven’t become paintings. However, I did start The Purple Fairy, which is in the "half-finished" painting pile along with the Keats illustration. Both are still works-in-progress that someday I'll have time to get back to!

More fairies, more warrior women, more monsters… Again, ideas and sketches that never made it to the actual painting stage.

And did I mention foxes?

Here’s the progress (below) for the two Kitchen Dragon illustrations I did for my sister’s husband, Rob Lanning.

The Toaster Dragon (top) and The Sink Serpent (below).

The Owl Watch was mostly an excuse to paint a picture of a barn owl, which is my favorite type of owl with its dark eyes, heart-shaped face and toasted marshmallow coloring.

Lastly, here’s several stages of Yaira, a character from my story Heaven and the Dead City. I talked a little about the progress of this painting originally in this post.)

While I want to write Heaven and the Dead City as an illustrated novel now, I still have 100-plus pages of the graphic novel that I might put up on Patreon on a weekly basis so that any interested people can find it.

Although I began that version of the story eight years ago, it was a big learning process for me. It helped to teach me a different, somewhat more linear painting style, and a lot of work went into it. Later in this blog, I will let you know when I start serializing it on the pages on Patreon!

And—finally!

Now that I've shown you all this old stuff, let's bring on the new stuff.

Coming up next!

Study Time, Part 1

2018-06-24T00:17:00.003-07:00

Green Man color sketch from 1996.

I moved to a new apartment last June in the middle of the hottest week of the year in Arizona. If you’re a booklover, you know what a herculean task it is to pack up your library of books into boxes. And after a while, it feels like you’re lifting piles of bricks instead.

Along with all my artbooks, reference and fantasy novels, I’ve amassed a huge amount of sketchbooks and journals, some of which I haven’t looked at in years. In the middle of this move, however, I couldn’t help but open a few of these for old time’s sake—and I found a lot of old prep sketches and color studies for fantasy paintings that I’d done in the ‘90s and early 2000s, which I’d dutifully Elmer's-glued into blank books to preserve them.

Before I get to the more recent projects that I’ve done over the past year in this blog, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at these early illustrations and the scribbles and messy painted photocopies that led to the finished artwork.

When I prepare for a color painting, I do several preparatory "studies"—which sounds like an awfully sophisticated way to describe just making photocopies to shade and color. I doodle a rough sketch, then make a cleaner sketch which I then take to a place like FedEx Kinko's to enlarge and make more copies on which to paint.

I then take the enlarged copy and put it on my lightbox to trace onto the nicer illustration paper. (Usually bristol paper, vellum surface, or hot press watercolor paper, which has a smoother surface—but has some tooth to it, so I can add colored pencils, chalks or pastels to the artwork.) When it's been traced onto the good paper, I usually first make more adjustments to the pencil drawing.

Now, this next part varies. Sometimes I take one of the other photocopies I've made and use a pencil to shade it in and figure out all the light and dark areas and shadows.

In later years, I've skipped this step and just shade right onto the actual drawing, but my early sketches do have a tendency to look like coloring book pages.

The Rose Fairy, 2005.

(Hmmm... filing that idea away for later.)

Ever since art school, I've been doing variations of seasonal fairies, whether as illustrations or just sketchbook drawings. I also like to experiment with enclosing images in box-like frames and decorative borders.

The Green Fairy, 1998.

The Leaf Fairy, 1998.
This next one is called Siren of Warsaw, and I remember the most fun part of it was painting the wave the mermaid was riding on.

I think I need to do more circular pictures! In this case, I used a compass with an extension to draw the actual circle, but for smaller circles I use circle templates, even coffee can lids of different sizes. I once used a dinner plate because it was the right size.

While we're on this theme, here's another mermaid painting and her original sketch.

Winged Mermaid, 1998.

This (below) is the photocopied sketch for Artemis, which is originally a portrait of co-worker from a bookstore I had worked at in New Jersey. The concept of her as the Artemis was her idea and I took some funny reference pictures of her posing with a yardstick and a dowel-rod that were handy stand-ins for the Greek goddess’ iconic bow and arrows.

Above is Book Wyrm (from 1998.) This one I did for a bookstore and it now belongs to the mother of the little boy who posed for it. (The mother stood in for the dragon, heh.) The little boy is now about 6′4″, incidentally, and can now look the dragon in the eyes without the use of a stack of books.

One last picture for now until Part 2 of Study Time!

The Snow Fairy, 2003.

Next up:

You'll see more early sketches and some of those color studies that I told you about earlier in this post. You'll see my messy painted photocopies and how I came up with the colors for these old illustrations.

Rescuing My Old Paintings

2018-06-11T11:39:00.001-07:00

Baron Munchausen, 1995, was done in watercolor and colored pencils,
with some blackboard chalk to add softer, more "airbrush-y" areas.
It's gone through some renovation for this version of it.

The cover of my Redbubble calendar.

When I decided to make a calendar of older fantasy paintings to sell on Redbubble, I wanted to spruce them up a bit with my limited Photoshop abilities. I will always use traditional methods, I think, but Photoshop is an excellent tool for enhancing work for publication.

A lot of this older artwork is mostly from the ‘90s which I don’t physically own anymore, mostly because they were done for commissions, favors—or sold to buy food. (It happens) The only records I have of some of them are photographs I took with my old 35mm camera, long before I owned a digital camera, long before they even made them! A lot of these old photos… well, they really needed help, so I thought I'd show you some of the newer, cleaner versions.

You can see some of the untouched photos of these illustrations in my earliest posts here, such as Watercolor—You'reDoing it Wrong and Gouache and Pez Dispensers.

For instance, in the case of Baron Munchausen (above), I brightened up the colors considerably from the original. And for Autumn Harvest (below), I added a new sky and digitally redrew my signature that was partly cropped out of my old photo of it.

Harvest Fairy was done in 1994, in watercolor and colored pencil, when I was still trying to teach myself to paint, and the original was sold years ago. I always loved seasonal themes for my fairy pictures and the leaf-haired Autumn Fairy would return many times after this, most recently in my still unfinished painting of poet John Keats!

Similarly, these following old watercolor pictures from the mid '90s also went through some enhancements.

Another of favorite theme of mine is... fauns! I love fauns and when I was a teenager I wrote a story about a faun named Ramsay, who leaves the safety of his enchanted valley in search of adventure and people who might respect him better, based loosely on the old Genesis song "A Trick of the Tail."

The old notebook that contains this story still exists and one of my dream projects is re-writing and illustrating it. So this is why you'll see so many pictures of fauns from me: practice for Ramsay when he makes his re-appearance.

This particular painting was also done in watercolor and colored pencils (1995) and is based on the Arthurian story of the Fisher King. The simplest knight finds the most precious object on a quest without trying to look for it because he only wanted to give an old man a drink of water. Like the Spring Fauns picture above, I brightened the colors up and "despeckled" the original photo. (I love the Photoshop "despeckler.")

This original of this painting currently hangs in my mother's house.

The graphic shapes tool in Photoshop is very useful to help make an object rounder, even when you've used a circle template for drawing. I used the circle graphic many times to fix my planets, moons and suns. (See my fan art.) Case at point: the sun in the background of my Samurai picture here looks so much better now.

By 2002, when this was done, I'd already been working primarily in gouache for several years, still mixing it with chalk and colored pencils for effects. For this new enhanced version of Samurai, I smoothed out the sky and saturated the colors. This is another picture that I only have a very small photo of and I was grateful I could restore it.

Kitsune is another Japane se-themed picture which I did on a rough-surfaced illustration board. I wasn't really satisfied with the grainy way the colored pencil looked on it and this is another picture where I smoothed out a lot of the rough bits in Photoshop with the brush tool.

I always feel guilty about doing something like this because I don't want to lose the integrity of the original art. (In other words, I feel like I'm cheating!) But I can't argue with the ability to hopefully make the picture look better.

Foxes are another of my favorite subjects, as well as my favorite animals. A kitsune is a shapeshifting Japanese fox fairy and I collect books on kitsune mythology, as well as their Chinese equivalent, huli jing.

While we're currently in Japan, here's some fan art I did of Mothra vs. King Ghidorah, from the Godzilla movies. (I've always been huge Godzilla fan and yes, I even have toys.)
A friend has the original painting and I have (as usual) a tiny photo that was actually cropped in a weird way making it necessary to try and fix it. This is another painting that had some parts redrawn with a mouse! (I really, really need to get a tablet and stylus one day...)
I also re-worked the sky while I was at it and used the graphics tool to make the boxes of kanji-text a little neater-looking. I also saturated the colors of the original photo big time.

Here's some other older seasonal fairy paintings from the mid-'90s that were also done before I made gouache my favorite medium, so the colors in these paintings are a bit more pastel.

I tried to saturate and smooth out the tones again here. Bear with me—I'm still a Photoshop novice and I'm still learning how to use it more effectively—but hopefully not too much!

I'll leave that for the superb digital artists who are much better with this medium.

I'll leave you with the Tooth Fairy as my last "rescued" picture featured here in this post. (The usual, gouache, 2000.) I have many more old paintings that I'm still working on rescuing, and some that I'm convinced would be much better if I started new versions of them.

In my next post, you'll see some more of the ones that I've restored a bit, along with some old "making-of" sketches from the '90s and early 2000s that I forgot that I had. I thought they might be fun for you to see.

And I will get that Keats painting done eventually!

It Lives!

2018-06-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

Well, hello again! I’m back.

It’s been more than two years since I’ve posted here in The Watcher Tree. I’ve been busy, to say the least, and I’ve missed updating this blog. I want to fix that.

Sorry for the long, long, long absence. If you’re still following The Watcher Tree after all this time, I thank you so much for hanging in there with me. This blog has mostly been an informal place for me to share my projects, working methods and my continuing progress as I muddle through being an illustrator/writer/cartoonist. Occasionally, I’ll lapse into geeky posts without warning, going on about such subjects as Doctor Who or Doctor Strange or Blake’s 7 or the Pre-Raphaelite artists or Romantic poets or...

Despite my professional illustration work and commission work, I still hold down a full-time day-job at a bookstore, as well as Saturday part-time job to help ends meet. I still do this for a steady paycheck and health insurance, which I most certainly need. This often makes me wish I was more prolific as my artist, but there are late nights and early mornings (with lots of coffee for fuel) and lunchbreaks in the bookstore for creative time.

Around my job(s), I’ve managed to keep making stuff (always, always making stuff) as well as practicing my story-writing techniques. (I’ll confess right now, without shame, to writing pseudonymous fanfiction. It’s good practice—and fun!) As far as my progress as an illustrator goes during the past few years, I’ve been able to post quick snippets about my projects on Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt and Tumblr, sharing sketches and finished pictures to whomever wants to see them. My longer, more in-depth posts about projects have mostly been on Patreon these days, where I have some wonderful supporters who help keep me in gouache and brushes. In return, they get artwork and commissions from me as my thanks. (You know who you are: you guys rock and I can’t thank you enough.)

But, sadly, I haven’t had a lot of time to come back and update the The Watcher Tree. I hope to remedy that now.

Looking back at my own posts here, I see how much I’ve grown and changed since I first began it back in 2012. And I’m still learning.

People have asked “What’s happened to Pre-Raphernalia?”

A lot of the work I highlighted early on in this blog was from my cartoon series Pre-Raphernalia, which is currently on hiatus, waiting grumpily for me to get back to it. I’ve been so busy with (paid) assignments that it became difficult to do any new work for it, despite many cartoon ideas for it left unfinished in my sketchbooks. Despite it being comprised mostly of these sketchbook drawings, the Pre-Raphernalia blog took quite a long time to put together, especially with all the added historical liner notes.

However, I love the work I put into Pre-Raphernalia and I hope I will eventually be able to return to it again in the future. My love and geekiness for the Pre-Raphaelite artists is undiminished.

My novel Heaven and the Dead City, which I posted about quite a lot in the earlier days of The Watcher Tree, had become a monster of work that I realized was beyond me as a graphic novel, so I made the decision to turn it into an illustrated prose novel instead. Something a lot of people don’t know about me is that I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve been drawing. I have as many filled notebooks of writing as I do sketchbooks, and that’s a bookcase and a half. It’s always been my dream to combine my two loves into a single format. However, painting an entire graphic novel by hand had become impossible with my current schedule. Perhaps writing it as an illustrated book instead—while is still a tremendous amount of work—is a more attainable goal. I’ll certainly let you know.

So, what have I been doing in the past two years since I last goofily posted about Avon from Blake’s 7 and all my Doctor Who fan art? Things that have surprised me.

Once more, if you’ve been with me this long, thank you! And if you’re new to my blog, please bear with me. As a middle-aged woman finally finding my artistic stride after all these years, I hope I can also help inspire creativity in others by writing about my attempts. It really doesn’t matter if you’re eight or eighty, if you’re using crayons or acrylic gouache, just do your thing: creativity has no expiration date, art is NOT a competition and we NEED more artists in this world.

Sorry for being so long-winded. Future posts may be a lot shorter.

Here we go!

Zen and the Art of Avon

2016-04-10T00:09:00.001-07:00

I was first introduced to Blake's 7 in the late '80s when I was visiting my friend Beck at college. "There's a Blake's 7 marathon on PBS tonight!"
"Oh, what's Blake's 7?"
"It's a British science fiction show about a bunch of space renegades. You'll love Avon."
"Who's Avon?"

Subsequently, I found out who Avon was.

Of the five crew members of the rebel ship the Liberator (with its two super-computers, Zen and Orac), Avon was the brooding, scowling technical genius who you wouldn't want standing behind you on a cliff. He had questionable morals and he skulked about the ship in black leather and made derisive comments, especially at their idealistic leader Blake (played by Gareth Thomas).

"He's sarcastic," I said. "I like him."

Some of the highlights of my first couple episodes of Blake's 7 were Kerr "I am not expendable, I am not stupid, and I'm not going" Avon being the fastest draw in the west with a space gun/curling iron. And part of the fun was hearing actor Paul Darrow snarl, purr and growl the best dialogue in the show at friends and foes alike in his velvet voice. Sitting on the floor of my friend's dorm in front of a tiny television, we were several episodes into the marathon, watching him snarking and pissing off his fellow crew-members.
...And then came "Sarcophagus."

     "This one was written by Tanith Lee!" I said excitedly. (I was a huge Tanith Lee fan, having read her books throughout high school and college.) "This should be good. Wait... Avon's in charge now? How did that happen?" (There were a couple continuity jumps during the marathon...)
       "Blake went away."
       "Sure, he did... Why?"
       "Long story. Ssh."

And then Avon snogs an alien who has possessed telepathic crew-member Cally. So... it was almost like he was snogging Cally.
"YES!!" we screamed in unison, high-fiving each other. "Good ol' Tanith doesn't disappoint." I loved the weird, fantasy aspect of this episode with its Jungian archetypes. One guess which crew member was "the Shadow".

Avon to Dayna: "You've just cured my headache."

Years passed, and because of lack of Blake's 7 videos and dvds in this country, I wasn't able to see the infamous finale until many years later. (Although I knew about it, of course.) Only recently this year, I've finally watched all four seasons consecutively and re-acquainted myself with the show, picking out other favorite characters, aspects and episodes.

I especially loved the tough female crew members: pirate and Liberator pilot Jenna, mysteriously chosen by Zen; tough and innovative Dayna (who always had a hidden explosive on her somewhere as well as being the first woman on the show to kiss Avon, right after she rescues him. Go Dayna.) Soolin the gunslinger who had some fantastic lines a little too late in the show's last year (Gauda Prime was looming); and Cally, poor Cally. For an alien, she was also the everywoman trying to fit in.

And then there was Servalan, their arch-nemesis, who was beautiful and oozed fabulousness. (It was the '80s, after all.) All of these ladies need portraits someday as well.

Sometime last year, a FB and Twitter friend (Neil Rule. Thanks again, Neil!) told me that Paul Darrow had seen and liked some of my Doctor Who artwork, so that's how this project got started. After I fangirled like an idiot over that news, I decided I needed to do an Avon portrait. (Or two...)

The "he" in question being Peter Davison. And then Neil sent me this picture:

Neil (wearing my Fifth Doctor t-shirt), sitting between Servalan and Avon,
aka, Jacqueline Pearce and Paul Darrow.
!!!!!

And so...
Some very rough sketchbook drawings:

My idea in the tiny thumbnail sketch (to the left) is Avon transitioning after the destruction of Blake’s ship, the Liberator, and the new ship, the Scorpio. (I thought an apt ship name for a leader known for his sting.)

The outfit he's wearing is from the episode "Terminal" which saw the Liberator exploding (along with the heartbreaking death of Zen). This is where it's argued that Avon started the downward spiral that would lead to his final fatal mistake in the last episode.
( Zen, the ghostly ship's computer, is the hexagon framing device behind Avon.) He never actually has both those guns at the same time (before anyone gives me grief!) And the little super-computer Orac is in the corner, a bit of a nightmare to draw in perspective. Sure, "he" only looks like a harmless box of junk.

Finally, I've got Avon transferred onto a good piece of paper and Orac in perspective (with all "his" wires and tubes and thingamabobs). The ship's computer, Zen, is in the background. The picture would be mostly monochrome except for Zen's blue and yellow flashing "disco" lights.

The pencil drawing was lightly inked to get ready for all the detail and shading of the acrylic gouache (the fun part!) It looks pretty basic and plain at this stage. This is how I start all my pictures, with just the simple outlines indicated. I keep a photocopied sketch (from the original sketchbook drawing) taped nearby for reference. I also loaded my iPod with photo references I can quickly consult for Avon's two guns, transporter bracelet, holster, the two computers, etc.

Next: Avon and Zen get attacked by a giant sea sponge!
(Bear with me on this one: it's for the texture on Zen's screen.)

This was fun. Sponges are fun. And messy. This makes a texture I can enhance with a brush a little later.

Below: you can see more texture on Zen, more detail and outline (helped by a Pigma Micron brush pen).

More progress, and I turned on Zen's disco lights. I also re-painted the hand holding the Scorpio gun. And the final version again, below, with a sample background color.

This is first of two Blake's 7 pictures I'm working on.

I was also playing around in my sketchbook with my two favorite (male) characters, Avon and Vila (who is holding Orac. He always seemed to save Orac despite Orac "suggesting" Avon throw Vila off the escape ship in the episode "Orbit". As I said, not a harmless box of junk.)

The planet they’re on was meant to look a bit like the Season Four opening credits, but it also looks like they’re up to no good in an alien Monument Valley. This, I thought, might fit with the “western in space” theme of the show: all the characters are outlaws, chased by the evil Federation. In the sky is their ship of the last season, the Scorpio.

Servalan’s probably hiding behind one of those rock formations, ready to pounce with her goons. Or at least to snog Avon.

(Waiting for her portrait too or there will be hell to pay.)

"Beware, Colin Baker! We will curl your hair EVEN MORE!
Look what we did to Tarrant."

Strange Days

2016-04-03T02:54:00.000-07:00

By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!

My other favorite Doctor who debuted the year I was born (1963) is Doctor Strange. I discovered him when I was a very young pre-teen growing out of my Supergirl and Wonder Woman comics and finding what I thought of as the "more mature", teenager-friendly Marvel Comics. (These superheroes had Angst and Stuff™, like me.)

     I had come across a discarded copy of The Defenders and found myself most fascinated by the guy with the mustache and gray streaks in his hair that the other Defenders team members were just calling "Stephen" in this particular issue. He had somehow been captured by demons and badly needed rescuing by Valkyrie. (The fact that a valkyrie had to rescue him appealed to me. Norse mythology and the "Yay, girls!" factor.) I later learned that this was Doctor Stephen Strange and he usually wore a grandiose cape with a high gothic collar because he was some sort of magician, and this was part of his fashion sense. Or at least the Sorcerer Supreme's, and his powers weren't working very well at this moment.
     This required further investigation on my part. (He seemed oddly sad in this particular comic and my teen-aged self wanted to make sure he was all right. He had Angst and Stuff™, apparently.) Strange in general was just a sad guy all around. He had important Sorceror Supreme stuff that needed doing and it was lonely and stressful work. I got that.

    What this led to was my discovering what's been called the "trippy" and "psychedelic" weirdness of Steve Ditko's art, to be followed by such amazing artists as Gene Colan, Frank Brunner, P. Craig Russell and many others. Ditko originally based Strange's look on actor Vincent Price, but he went through many stages of handsomeness, from Errol Flynn to even Frank Zappa.

I still need Volume Four...

Stephen Strange is a vain surgeon whose hands are scarred and crippled in a car accident. He travels the world in search of a cure and unwittingly finds himself in Tibet, where he meets a mysterious being named The Ancient One who sees that there is some hope and decency left in this arrogant, selfish man. And thus he trains him to become a dimension-hopping sorcerer who finally learns humility and becomes a hero. Angst and Stuff™ ensues. I ate it up.


Having fun with a blank variant "sketch cover"and my sketchbook drawing.

       The stories were just downright weird and the artwork was intricate, gorgeous and insane. I adored it. I found myself picking up issues of Doctor Strange intermittently through my college years, even though I was aware he wasn't exactly Marvel's top-selling superhero. (I went to college at Pratt Institute and often bought my comics in a small shop in Greenwich Village, the part of New York City where Doctor Strange's infamous Sanctum Sanctorum brownstone, with its distinctive window, was supposedly located.)

He tended to disappear and reappear in other characters' comics. I had hoped for years for a proper Doctor Strange film or television adaption, but knew his lack of sales probably would mean that it wouldn't be happening any time soon, if at all. And yes, I had seen the '70s Doctor Strange tv movie the first time it ever aired, and, well... just... no.) There was an excellent animated movie that Marvel released a few years back that changed a lot of the backstory but I enjoyed it nevertheless. This was closer to the Strange I was fond of.

Oh, and then there was the Venture Brothers' Doctor Orpheus, of course, to hold me over with their wacky Doctor Strange parody. (Strange really needs a cat now and a goth teenage daughter... Doctor Orpheus is just so damned lovable.) BUT THEN I heard Stephen Strange's name mentioned for the first time in a modern Marvel film (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) which was the personal highlight of that film for me. Did this mean what I thought it meant...? After all these years, would we finally be getting a big-budget, special effects-laden, crazy Doctor Strange movie?

Yes. And he would be played by Benedict (Sherlock) Cumberbatch. For me, it was like Christmas and Halloween (my favorite holiday) rolled into one. And did I mention it will also have Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen and Chiwetel Ejiofor in it? (Swoons)

   Initially I thought Cumberbatch was far too young for the part, but hey, he's got the cheekbones. And he can play angst and arrogance equally well. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I'm hoping for the Doctor Strange movie I've always wanted to see for our 53rd birthday in November, Strange and I.

And I need to draw more of my favorite Marvel character. But he needs to say this just once in the film.
                                                            Just once? Please?

Song for the Butterfly-Jellies

2016-02-24T20:25:00.000-08:00

I painted my sketch of the Second Doctor. Patrick Troughton plays one of my favorite Doctors, and I adore him and wish more of his lost episodes could be found!

This was originally a sketchbook drawing. The reason behind this one is because of several sources mentioning that Patrick Troughton loved butterflies. He mentions them in an old PBS interview , and even the Second Doctor (right after his regeneration from William Hartnell, when his companions don't believe he's still the Doctor) says, "I'd like to see a butterfly fit into a chrysalis case after it spreads its wings." In his biography of his father, Michael Troughton writes that his father had used to collect them as a boy and, as an adult, used to call out the names of different species of butterflies when he saw them in the garden.

My idea here was for the Doctor to play a song on his trusty recorder for some weird alien jellyfish-butterflies, who probably appreciate his music more than his TARDIS companions ever did.

The picture is done in my usual way: acrylic gouache and ink, with Photoshop touch-ups.

ALL the Doctors are Done!

2016-02-23T02:32:00.001-08:00

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog as frequently as I should have, but I've been happy to say I've been somewhat crazy-busy on lots of different projects... all at once! (And still maintaining a full-time job at a bookstore at the same time. Yes, coffee. Lots of coffee. Bring it on.)

Anyway, I last told you (in my previous post) that I was midway through my Doctor Who portraits. (And being a giddy fangirl.) And now, I'm happy to say: they're all DONE! All fifteen! (Fifteen, because I added two variants: two versions of the Eighth Doctor, and two versions of the War Doctor.) And yes, there's a distinct possibility that you might be seeing a non-canon Peter Cushing Doctor coming soon, as well as a Richard E. Grant Shalka Doctor... but that might be a little while yet.

Here are the Doctors that were still in progress when I published my last post, all finally finished. (See my previous post for the other finished Doctors.)

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)
Because he's the one who started it all, I wanted to make him look sort of like a wizard
coming out of his TARDIS. The scraps of paper blowing around him have the
date of the first episode, 23 November 1963. In the sky behind him is are
two "classic" versions of the Dalek saucers.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)
On Gallifrey, with its two suns, trusty K-9 and a bag of multicolored jelly babies.

The only one of my Doctors showing any teeth.
(I think Tom Baker has more teeth than the average human anyway.)

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)
Playing cricket on Androzani, with the falling star in the sky symbolizing Adric.
Peter Davison has the hardest face of all the actors to get right.

Whereas Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton, for instance, pretty much
draw themselves, Peter has more delicate features that are
more difficult to exaggerate.


The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) The master strategist on a chessboard, things seemed to blow up a lot around the 7th Doctor. I decided Seven got to have Daleks in his picture because he infact blew up the Daleks' homeworld, Skaro (although temporarily, it would seem). (Also, I was given my very own question mark umbrella as a Christmas present from my sister this year!)

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)
I did a Time War version of Eight (which was in my last post) and that was
the only finished one I got to actually show Paul McGann when I met him.
(This earlier version of the 8th Doctor wasn't finished in time for that con.)

This is Eight from the tv movie, with his velvet frock coat and longer hair and
magnificent gothic TARDIS. (Still my very favorite TARDIS interior.)

The Young War Doctor (John Hurt)
Seen only briefly at the very end of "Night of the Doctor", young John Hurt's image was
actually taken from a production of Crime and Punishment that he did many years ago.
I actually watched this and made sketches of him for this version of the War Doctor.

There was an odd coincidence about this picture as well:

A wonderful charity short film was made about the young War Doctor called
Seasons of War and I was contacted by the makers of it when they saw my
picture. It seems we both used a Dalek eyestalk as a symbol.
In Seasons, the War Doctor uses it as a telescope (pretty ingenious, if you ask me). In my
version above, I think he just ripped it out of a Dalek as a trophy of war. (Well, maybe
he then goes and makes a telescope out of it later but here he looks like he just
wants to hit someone with it. Young Captain Grumpy. Also notice that there's
Dalek-gunk on his watch in the corner of the picture. Ewww.)

The coincidence was pretty amazing! And I made new friends!!

The War Doctor (John Hurt)
My older version of the War Doctor, with Arcadia (the main city of Gallifrey),
behind him and under siege by Dalek saucers. The sentient bomb, The
Moment, is nearby waiting for its activation.

I was extremely happy that Sir John actually got to see the finished version
of this picture! (He had previously seen the sketch.)

The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)
My favorite 9th Doctor episodes are "The Empty Child"/ "The Doctor
Dances", which take place in London during the Blitz. I thought some
of the most dramatic images of this time period (and which
were used in the show itself) were of the searchlights
and the barrage balloons in the sky.

I'd already used the Tower of Big Ben in the Third Doctor picture, so
I couldn't resist putting in St. Paul's Cathedral, site of so many other
Doctor Who invasions.

It took me a few tries to get the shape of Christopher Eccleston's head right.
Because of his severely short haircut, there wasn't a lot of hair
for me to camouflage it with!

The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)
The very last of my Doctor illustrations to be finished. I have him set him in
Stonehenge, in the episode "The Pandorica Opens". I was trying to get a
kinetic pose out of him, with a twist at the waist like he was in mid-spin.

(It may not look it, but this was a very painful Doctor to pose for in
front of a full-length mirror. )

And here they all are together in one collage!

So, yes, this took me a year to finish, but it was great fun and practice... and I met a lot of new friends just by attempting this project!

Doctor Visits

2014-12-15T01:02:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I showed you my Doctor Who sketchbook drawings of all thirteen Doctors. I've gradually been trying to finish them all, one by one, in my favorite media of acrylic gouache and ink.
I have five done at the moment, with the others in the works as we speak. Unlike the sketchbook drawings, I'm not doing them in numerical order at all, just to mix it up a bit!

I'm giddy to report that a few of the actors who played the Doctor have actually seen and commented on a few of these sketches and finished art. More on this development below.

As the Second Doctor would say, "Oh my word!"

I started with the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) this time around for my super-Whovian friend Sandra Franklin, who lives in the UK and always seems to run into Doctors around every corner. (She has met every living Doctor, including the current one.) David Tennant is her favorite Doctor and I would never hear the end of it if I hadn't started with him!

Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)
I chose to do all the Doctor portraits in monochromatic greys, with the
exception of one or more accent colors. And the hour of the clock in
the corner of each picture indicates the number of each Doctor.

Sandra has also been kind enough to supply me with all sorts of magazines and collectibles and was even able to show my sketches to some of the actors at conventions I couldn't possibly get to!
She is also a brilliant photographer who has taken lots of beautiful photojournalistic shots at conventions and even Season 8 filming in Cardiff. (Take a look at her amazing work here.)

Time War Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)

I wanted to finish both versions of the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) for the Phoenix Comic Con (which was this weekend) but was only able to have Time War Eight done in time. Here the accent colors are the Doctor's eyes and the red of the sonic screwdriver and the Dalek saucer lights. You'll notice the clock in the corner of this one has been broken to symbolize the coming of the War Doctor.

Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

Here is a mischievous Two and the snow of Anarctica makes this look a
little festive, especially since we all know Two has an ingenious plan
behind his clownish facade to defeat those creepy
old-school Cybermen.

Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

I could not not have made Three's beloved car Bessie yellow, since she has as much of a personality as the TARDIS. Yes, those are pterosaurs menacing London. And Big Ben had to be synchronized with the clock in the corner.

Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi)

My favorite comment about this picture came from a friend's small son who carefully counted the TARDISes behind Twelve. "There are twelve little TARDISes! No-- THIRTEEN!"
And of course Twelve had to dramatically flash the red lining of his coat. (This is when all the Doctors are rushing to save Gallifrey.)

Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)

Frobisher is a character only in the Doctor Who comics and audio dramas: he's a shapeshifting private eye penguin. Yes, you heard that right. He traveled with Six, whom he called "Doc".
Here, I wanted Six's trademark cat pin to match the TARDIS. This is the most recent of the Doctor pictures I have finished so far, and it was the lovely Colin Baker who became the very first Doctor I ever met in person! (This weekend infact! Read on.)

I have seven more Doctor pictures to finish (and a bonus Eighth and War Doctor, making fifteen portraits altogether.) But some of the actors have seen various stages of the portraits already.

What started this ball rolling was the challenge of drawing fan art of a new Doctor before he had even picked his costume. A collection of Twelfth Doctor fan art was sent to Peter Capaldi last Christmas (2013) by the awesome fan site fuckyespetercapaldi, and some of mine was included with it. (You remember this post and the silly Dalek cartoons?) Well, three months later, I got this in the mail!

Which just proves what everyone was soon to find out (who hadn't known already!), what a sweetheart and an absolute gentleman Peter Capaldi is. He sent these out to everyone who contributed to the scrapbook and yes, he drew little Daleks and planets on each of the cards for each person. (And yes, I have these framed on my wall.)

It's a tradition that all the Doctors picked for the part are lovely people, as I continued to find out!

Back to my friend Sandra:
Sandra attended an event in her hometown in which actor John Hurt was appearing. (Apparently he hangs around Norwich a lot.) She absolutely surprised me by showing Mr. Hurt my sketch of the War Doctor afterwards, which she said he loved and then he asked if he could have a copy!

Sandra told him I was drawing all the Doctors in order and he wrote "Keep going!"
So there was no going back now. John Hurt commands it.

Next, Sandra attended the London Film and Comic Con where she ran into two more Time Lords...

My friend Sandra with the wonderful Colin Baker and my sketch of Six.

And here's Paul McGann signing my sketch of "Butterfly Eight" (the one I hadn't finished in time for this weekend.) THUD.

Photograph by Sandra Franklin.

And later in the year, there was the one sketch, for some reason, I was the most nervous about its subject seeing...

(He loved it)

But it was finally this weekend when I got to meet my very first Doctors in person and nervously show them my artwork... (I was very very very stupidly nervous, I might add.)

I needn't have worried.

Now every time I look at this picture and this signature, I'm going to hear this voice in my head saying, "Take deep breaths, my dear!"

I met my very first Doctor on Friday and it was the lovely Colin Baker!! It was at the Phoenix Fan Fest/ Comic Con and he was a gentleman and a sweetheart and very patient with my extreme nervousness. (My hands were shaking so badly when I gave him a copy of his portrait to keep. I had made photo prints especially for the convention.)

"What FUN!" he said. "And there's Frobisher! And the hours on the clocks change for each Doctor's number. Oh, how very clever!"

Thank you once again, Mr. Baker.

And then there was this...

This needs a bit of an explanation:

When I met Paul McGann, I was terrified. I kept fumbling with my portfolio because my hands had still not stopped shaking (despite Colin Baker having told me to take big breaths). But Paul was super-friendly and signed my picture (I gave him a copy as well)...

...Then I asked if I could take a photo with my iPod and pulled out my stuffed wombat (this explains the wombat), telling him, "You're going to think this is silly, but today is Wombat Friday..."

Apparently nothing is too silly for Mr. McGann and he pulled me into the picture with him, shouting, "IT'S WOMBAT FRIDAY!" And then I got a big hug and a big KISS. Never in a million years did I see that coming. I hope it's because he liked his picture...
And by that time, I pretty much had to be scraped off the floor.

I walked around the rest of the con pretty much in a pleasant daze. "Did I just get kissed by the Eighth Doctor? At this point, really, who hasn't--?"

Neil Gaiman called the Eighth Doctor "the Pre-Raphaelite Doctor" and so it was fitting that he got to pose with the wombat. (Again, see my Pre-Raphernalia cartoon blog post, "Celebrating Wombat Friday") I had wanted to take a photo of Colin Baker with the wombat as well but decided I had already made of a fool of myself enough in front of him.

I will continue on with the Doctor portraits (along with my other projects, of course) and will post them as I finish them.

I will leave you with this:

Yes, I have Doctor Who toys and I do play with them...

The Doctor Sketches--All 13! (well, 15, really)

2014-07-21T13:33:00.003-07:00

My early take on Twelve's costume from back in October.
Aside from the longer hair and the scarf, I think
I wasn't completely far off. I even suggested,
"He should have cool shoes...like Doc Martens."
*I is proud*

Back in December in this post, I talked about my lifelong geekiness for Doctor Who, and I expresed the idea of doing a portrait of each of the Doctors, in order. My sketchbook goal was Hartnell to Capaldi--
and I have done the thing!

I am in the process of turning them into finished illustrations done in ink and gouache (the same style as this early imagining of Twelve back in October, before we knew what his new costume would be. There's a new version below...)

Here they are, in their proper order and with notes. All of them have a clock in the corner to denote the chronological number of their incarnations. (You'll see in the case of John Hurt and the War Doctor, I used 8:30.) When I was posting them online as I finished each rough sketchbook drawing, it was pointed out to be me (I'm looking at you, Rob Lanning!) that I really should be signing them. I hadn't bothered because they were just sketchbook drawings, right? And I was all excited about scanning them into my computer and going, "Ooh, look! I made a THING!" that it never occurred to me to add my signature. So in the later sketches, the signature gets put around the rim of the clockface to keep it consistent. And in the finished versions, the clock will also be better drawn and more detailed.
Here we go!

First Doctor

Very VERY rough sketchbook drawing of William Hartnell (First of the Doctor sketches.)

His was the very first sketch I attempted (as he should be) and in contrast,
this sketch isn’t is as “finished”as the later Doctor drawings.
This will get corrected when I do the inked and painted version. :)

Second Doctor

Patrick Troughton.
Again, a little rougher than the later sketches.
With snow and Cybermen…
He's one of the easiest Doctors to draw
and he actually pretty much drew himself,
due to Pat Troughton's wonderfully animated face.

I adore Patrick Troughton. He’s the Doctor I would probably pick to travel with
(if any of them happened to show up, that is…) His companions have a very low fatality rate.
And then there’s he and Jamie, of course, a whole other matter. (ahem)

Third Doctor

Jon Pertwee was my first Doctor and still one of my top three favorites.
As I confessed in my last Doctor Who post, I had a wee bit
of a crush on him when I was a little girl.
Not only was he elegantly dressed and had great hair,
but he also knew kung fu! (Well, Venusian aikido.)


Some sketchbook silliness that came out of talking about Jon Pertwee and Venusian aikido. Here the 3rd Doctor is kicking some Sea Devil butt. (The Sea Devil on the bottom right is all, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!”)

Fourth Doctor

Tom Baker looking just a little bit psychotic…
With K-9 and jelly babies and the twin suns of Gallifrey.
I don't think I need to add anything more about Tom Baker and his tenure--
he was the longest reigning Doctor (on television) and is still
one of the most beloved.

Fifth Doctor

Peter Davison's Doctor might have been a little more mischievous than he let on.
Peter Davison certainly is. Here he is with his trademark cricket bat and ball,
with a falling star in the background that might be Adric. (sniff)

Sixth Doctor

Colin Baker, whose Doctor finally shone brightly in the
Big Finish audios and the Doctor Who comics.
I couldn’t resist putting in Frobisher, the shapeshifting alien penguin,
who is only a character in the Doctor Who comics and a companion of Six’s.
(Not to be confused with the Frobisher Peter Capaldi plays in Torchwood,
who is definitely not a shapeshifting penguin. At least, I think…)

Seventh Doctor

Sylvester McCoy, arguably the scariest Doctor.
Things seemed to blow up a lot during his tenure.
Plus I’m going to have him standing on a chessboard.
(And the chess squares will be drawn in better perspective…)

Eighth Doctor

Paul McGann, still one of my three favorite Doctors, in part to the Big Finish audios and his having the
coolest TARDIS (in my opinion). I admit to being very fond of Eight’s gothic TARDIS with its candlelabra
and books. In the book “Vampire Science”, Eight has a room completely devoted to butterflies.
I thought the butterfly could also symbolize regeneration, as well as time travel in the Ray Bradbury sense.
(“A Sound of Thunder”.) The 2nd Doctor also referenced butterflies after his regeneration.

Time War Eight. I wanted to do the later version of Eight before I get to the War Doctor.
Scruffier, sadder and more disillusioned… and being menaced by Dalek saucers.
What you probably can't see in this sketch is that the watch he's holding is broken...

War Doctor

John Hurt. You’ll notice that his “number” on the clock is 8:30.
Because John Hurt is fun to draw, I also did did a young version
of Captain Grumpy (below) (how he appeared very briefly
at the end of Night of the Doctor). :)
Young War Doctor is holding a Dalek eyestalk.
Crashed Dalek saucer in the background, plus Dalek guts. Yuck. :)

Ninth Doctor

Christopher Eccleston. "Are you my Mummy?"
My favorite Nine episodes, “The Empty Child”/ “
The Doctor Dances”… :) Also probably the happiest you’ll ever see Nine.

Tenth Doctor

David Tennant. He’s standing infront of New New New New (etc.)
New York. But from the distance he’s at, it’s
probably New New New New (etc.) New Jersey. ;)

Eleventh Doctor

Matt Smith."Helloooooo, Stonehenge!”

Twelfth Doctor

Peter Capaldi and the new version of Twelve.
Finally…we’re at the Midnight Hour. I chose his
first appearance with Gallifrey and all the other incarnations’
TARDISes flying off to freeze it in time.

I cannot wait. I have a feeling he will become one
of my favorite Doctors, if not my favorite of them all.
He’s just that good.

How my Doctor sketches start:
Very messily with inexpensive pencils and a lot of erasing and re-drawing. Here are some of them in progress…

You can see that I draw all over the place, on both sides of the sketchbook pages. (I have this obsessive thing about not wasting paper… :P )

Here's the evolution of the 12th Doctor sketch:

Here's the very first stage of the 12th Doctor:
a doodle on the back of a post-it note at work that got promptly
shoved into the back pocket of my jeans for later...

Next scribbly stage of the 12th Doctor: a little more elaborate thumbnail sketch (i.e., very tiny, in pencil this time) trying to work out composition. This was the idea I'd decided to go with-- Gallifrey and the other TARDISes flying to the rescue in the background...

Drawing in Peter Capaldi's features, but I got the angle of the elbow
completely wrong and needed to re-draw it. (I was modeling my own
hands and pose in the mirror, and it's almost always difficult to draw
your dominant hand, especially when you're using it!)

And yes, that is me posing for all the above Doctors.
I just gave them all a sex change.
Now you know.

I raised his shoulder and lowered the hand,
spread the fingers apart.
Much better.

In my next post, more Doctor Who stuff, plus...
some of the Doctors' reactions!

Heaven and the Dead City, Volume 2: Incoming!

2014-07-02T23:18:00.002-07:00

Here is the second volume of my graphic novel series Heaven and the Dead City, with type placement! Hurrah! You can read about the making of this cover painting here.

Volume One,
available here and here.

This volume will be released in a few months (I will give information about its availability when I find out more myself). This new volume (one long chapter, really) focuses mainly on the mysterious gentleman witch Swamp and his secret existence in the Dead City.

We get to meet some of its other eerie and deadly denizens as well.

I am beginning to pencil Chapter Three which will posted on CO2's website as they are finished. (You can read the story so far here as well.) Chapter Three will focus on the other city of the title (hint: the one that isn't dead) and despite its beauty and life, things are, shall we say, not going as well either...

Here are some behind-the-scenes sketches and sneak peaks at finished art from Volume Two:

Are You (Victoria) Mock-ing Me?

2014-07-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

I have a younger sister named Victoria and let's just say she makes stuff. She's always making stuff.

It would be an understatement to say she makes "dolls". Or that she "sculpts". She is the MacGiver of finding household or thrift store things to create her many homunculi.

Here are just a few:

Victoria has always been the 3-D member of the family. Not only does she frequently astound everyone with her fantasy and science-fiction themed sculptures, but she excels at set design, miniatures, costumes and making props for her partner Rob Lanning's films at Merninja Productions (where she serves as executive producer.)

Whether it's designing and putting together suitably sensational Halloween costumes, or decorating and painting a dull apartment like a Tuscan home, she seems to have a bottomless genius for transforming the ordinary into the beautiful or fantastical. (She actually found a cheesy fiberglass fireplace from a thrift store and turned it into a work of art. When she was done with it looked like it had been imported from an Italian villa.)

Me, I just draw and paint stuff.

Victoria began to make her sculptures for the fun of it, and of course the joy of it turned into a full-time job and she began Victoria Mock Studios, in which she makes a continuing parade of ethereal fairy tale ladies, mythical creatures and outer space monsters. She frequently takes commissions, transforming people's favorite characters (or their own creations) into sculpts. She surprised me this Christmas by turning my own character Swamp (from my graphic novel, Heaven and the Dead City), into the very first "action figure" based on any of my comics. (She said she wished she'd given him "kung fu grip", and wouldn't that have been cool...?)

The page of the graphic novel the pose
(left) was based on.

Swamp from my Heaven and the Dead City.
Sadly, without kung fu grip.

I'll just let you feast your eyes on a gallery of her creations. You can inquire about commissions here or here, and make sure to visit her Etsy store!

Before we get to the eye candy, here's some behind-the-scenes of the making of a dragon...

And some familiar faces and characters:

It's Harry Houdini, ladies and gentlemen! (who sold very quickly)
(Hmm, wonder if he managed to get out of his shipping box before it arrived to its destination?)

Pilot from Farscape.

Illyria from Angel.

Kosh from Babylon 5.

And... um... Robot Monster? (This is Rob's fault.)

And finally, yes, that is a unicorn horn that Victoria constructed for Rob's truck. You see, it's also the fab Uni-Truck, which features in the hilarious web series, Unicorn Hunters, about an inept team of paranormal investigators, directed by Rob and with lots of goofy visual input from my sister.
Watch it here.

And drop my sister a line and express praise for her homunculi before she makes a voodoo doll of me. (She does have some of my hair, and like everything else lying around the apartment, this has a chance of becoming part of some faery or creature.)