"Xilmior"

8.5" x 11". gouache.

Image made for commission.

Steeds: "The Ebony Horse" and "The Saw-Horse"

2.25" x 3.75". gouache.

The Ebony Horse was Kamar al-Akmar's mount.

I'm familiar with some of the other 1001 tales, but not this one, so I had to look it up. Here's the gist:

From the classic ur-anthology The Arabian Nights (1850), it is basically a clockwork horse made from ebony and decorated with gems and gold, etc. It can fly, and Kamar al-Akmar, Prince of Persia, rides it around on his adventures. It even carries him into space, near the sun. The horse is not presented as a magical creature, but a clever invented mechanism driven by wound keys and everything. It is ultimately destroyed at the end of the tale. As such, "The Ebony Horse" is an early example of science-fiction :)

The work is all in the public domain and easily found online.

The Saw-Horse was Jack Pumpkinhead's mount, and my favorite in this bunch :)

Here's a charming illustration from one of the original OZ books. The illustrator was John R. Neill.

"Ruby" and "Tourmaline"

5.5" x 11". goauche.

Practising some new techniques.

Steeds: "Aethenoth" and "Bucephalus"

2.25" x 3.75". gouache.

Little painted designs for custom mint tins.
I have a bunch of old Altoid tins to decorate.

- Aethenoth was Lady Godiva's mount.
- Bucephalus was Alexander the Great's mount.

Steeds: "Silver" and "Gunpowder"

2.25" x 3.75". gouache.

Little painted designs for custom mint tins.
I have a bunch of old Altoid tins to decorate.

- Silver was The Lone Ranger's mount.
- Gunpowder was Ichabod Crane's mount.

Steeds: "Pegasus" and "Rocinante"

2.25" x 3.75". gouache.

Little painted designs for custom mint tins.
I have a bunch of old Altoid tins to decorate.

- Pegasus was Bellerophon's mount (Perseus doesn't really count, imo).
- Rocinante was Don Quixote's mount.

"We Dig Here!"

~14" x 8.5". gouache.

Made for commission.

"Homunculus 001"

11" x 14". ink.

Made in reference to the maquette I made earlier.

Homunculus 001

4.5" x 3.5" x 2". found objects, hot glue, paint, flower pod.

I was cleaning out my home studio and was about to throw out a bunch of things, including some action figures. Then I noticed my hot glue gun and got busy.

I didn't pay a cent for any of these things; all found objects. The action figures were each pulled off the street and were quite mangled. I think the legs belong to a chunky little Batman figure. I didn't recognize the figure that yielded the arms; it was some sort of goblin thing. An opened hairclip for the shoulders, and part of a ski boot buckle for the back. The collar piece was from a shattered foam dart gun.

"Zoom!"

~8.5" x 6". gouache, painted on old video game packaging from 1988.

My roommate was throwing out the old box (though keeping the game itself!)

Here is the original box art.
Game information.

"Commodore Marie Wines & Spirits"

8.5" x 11". gouache, digital text.

Commissioned image.

"After the Flood"

~4.5" x 10". gouache.

The second image is the color study. I had a small bit of board that I drew onto with pencil, then scanned digitally to sort out the colors and lighting situation in Photoshop; color studies are a good habit to get into before starting on finishes. You can see that it's flipped horizontally. I'll flip images while still in process to check for errors. Using a mirror does the same trick, if you hold your picture up to a mirror as you are working on it from time to time, errors in composition or proportion will jump out at you. Your eyes get used to seeing something a certain way and you can become blind to mistakes that are obvious when reversed.