The continuing Magic of the Kells

Pam and I saw the most brilliant animated feature the other night.. The Secret of Kells.. I think I'm late to the party on the film, but it spoke to me in some rather interpersonal ways.. So much so, that there's no explaining them all.. Something like Samurai Jack it was wonderfully 2d and linear in technique, looking much like the animation of the 50's and 60's, but in terms of content it was simply an Illustrators movie.. Illumination, Traditional alchemy of mordant Ink and parchment, the fight between administrative causes and creative spirit, the bond between Mythology Religion and Art, Knot work the likes of Kells and Durrow.. and the very definition of the root of Illustration.. Illustrare :: Bringing that which is darkness into Light! These are pieces of illustration history that have sparked off a lifelong fire in more than just this illustrator, and for good reason.. My last year of school, and the following five, were spent studying Celtic book illumination and Craft, knot work and the similarities to fractal chaos.. It was also the inspiration for many of the books and typography of Morris' Kelmscott Press, much of Jim Fitzpatrick's work and countless other creatives throughout history.. I wept when I saw the Kelmscott Chauser for the first time, and I don't doubt this is the very reason why Trinity College keeps the Book of Kells under glass, lest some idiot like myself unwittingly moisten it's pages.. =)

The accents and mannerisms also brought back memories and smiles for my surrogate Family the Koras, and Nan Tulips, with her beautiful Scottish brogue!! My blood family is partially British/Scotts but here were the mysterious accents of my youth popping off, right alongside my artistic sensibilities in a mixing that at times brought an Ancient shiver up my spine.. One scene was particularly so.. Where the keeper of the Forest, frees the hero from his uncles lock & key with the help of a tiny spell upon a white cat.. Pangur Ban..

On further study of the lyrics, I found that this sequence was a take on a piece of history.. Pangur Ban or White Cat was a tiny poem written by an ancient Irish monk, bored of transcription, and watching the abbey cat hunt mice.. The poem was written in Gaelic, not Latin, in the margins of a massive illuminated page.!! Ancient, linguistic disobedience and multi-culturalism at play without anyone knowing for years.. =) Don't really think I can love that enough.. =)

Well Folks, keep a look out for my Update Mailer sometime this week, and stay tuned !!

Ain'othin' a good piece ah roast beef cannae fix oop..

There's been a slew of work along with the week before my first class begins that's makin' me as nervous as a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory.. I'm dealing as best I can, while staying on top of getting some sleep, or I'll get sick.. I always go back to two things when things get this bad, Louis Armstrong's quote, "They'ain'othin' a good piece of roast beef can't fix up".. and my Pop's quote. "Keep Pluggin'".. Think I may've come up with another, not near as simple and profound, but it makes me laugh.. Guy came riding by on a bike (bikers in Portland are an odd mix of uber nerds and actual street bound folks, of which this lad was one, I'm sure.. I over heard him passing by on 60th, just long enough to hear, "It's because my cock tastes like cotton candy"... Hahahaha.. Ohhh whooo... aahhh... Ohhh... Where's Geoffery Peterson when you need him.?? Cheers all, and here's to the work gettin' doon.. =) Stay tuned..

Millsie & Matt Daaaaayymon

More insanity from Scott Mills streamed through my speakers via podcast yesterday, and I had to share.. In all honesty, I don't truly know why I'm laughing, almost in tears at this Matt Damon bit every time I hear it? It obviously started years ago, with Team America (f-yeay), and my fascination with when British folks like to give the American accent a go (the word "coffee" seems to send me particularly over the edge =) Odds are it would've lost it's thrill really, as I've been through a bit in the last couple months, but it STILL brings an uncontrollable smile to me mug.. =D

I suppose it is better to have Maaaatt Daaaamon'd and lost,
than to have never MAAAYYTT DAAAAAYYMON'd at all..??

Click the banner below, listen to this madness, and try not to laugh !?!

Painting & Brewing

Ahhh, two of my favorite passions.. They ain'nothin' like taking a deep draft of hops, just after dumping them into a big churnin' boil, and they ain'nothin' like drafting a sketch to board, and laying on that last stroke of varnish before shooting what you know will be your next best piece.. Both take a vastly different skill set and Craft, but (like most things for me) both take a traditional approach, and a solid understanding of micro timings during any particular session.. A traditional oil painting has complex anticipation and coordination of dry times and deadlines that must be met to achieve a balanced work, and a brew can take a different flavor by changing any number of timings and temperatures during the process as well.. I recently joined the Portland Brew Crew, and got to sit in on my buddies brew session at the Green Dragon Pub here in Portland.. Green Dragon is a beautiful pub that prides itself on 30+ styles on tap at all times, it's a great place to raise the wrist, and StrongBad comes in on bass, and the Cheat comes in on keyboards, like Moop, moop, moop, moop, moop... and then I'm like, "and thhe Dragon comes inn the NNNIIiiiIIiiiiigght..!!" The brew session involved a 20gl kettle of wort, to make around a keg full of a lighter Scotch Ale (It's a pissah, too.. Brilliant!! =) Can't wait to taste the first pints, when I'll be done with the next couple MTG cards.. It'll be a nice present after these last weeks of constant hours..


I also snapped a couple process shots of my table, when I seal my boards with medium.. Before painting with oils on any porous fiber or absorbent surface, you need seal the surface, or the oil will simply stain into the paper instead of lay on the surface.. For a long time I used the exact same materials that were used by the Pre-Raphaelites, but that's when time allowed for such things.. For the last 5 years I've been using Golden transparent medium, that I water down, and put 2-3 thin layers over each board, after spraying hair spray on the printout to lock in the sketch, and hinder bleeding.. I've recently started to play with combinations of PVA (simple white glue) to seal the boards with, but I've not yet been able to paint an underpainting with water based acrylic on those boards yet..?? Dunno when these will print, so I've blurred the images to protect the lives of the innocent.. =) Cheers all, Happy Painting, and Stay Tuned.. .

New Year :: New Website

Welcome, Lords and Ladies, one and All. . Step right this way my Friends, to the newly rebuilt ChuckLukacs.com !! Ticket, Popcorn, take your seat there in front row, que the Projectioness and enjoy the next amazing show!! This one features such a brilliant variety of Wondrous Worlds, Heroes, Heroines, Fantastical Oddities, Creatures, and Concepts, that it might just keep your Imagination thrilled, your brass goggles polished, and your wig properly flipped, well into the New Year !!

:: Free Quarterly Prizes :: I've started a Quarterly Raffle along with giving donations to the four charities listed on the Home page of my new site. That means if you belong to my mailing list, you are eligible to win either an 8x10 Limited Edition Print, or a Magic the Gathering Collectible Whiteback Card with a sketch and alter. I'll give you an email hollah, get your address, then send your prize to your door step, along with my check to the charity..

:: Fantasy Genesis :: I'm extraordinarily pleased to announce my word association RPG drawing game, Fantasy Genesis will be on the shelves in the Spring from IMPACT Books !! I'll be teaching a workshop at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, May 2010 here in Portland, but any art teachers interested in a lesson plan should give me an email to see if your students would have fun with it. Pre-Orders are available online, Today !!!

:: Magic: the Gathering - Card Signing :: I'll be sure to send updates on signings before the Grand Prix - Portland in Sept., but in the mean time, I've changed addresses again. Send any cards to be signed or altered to :: Chuck Lukacs - 715 SE 60th Ave. No.7 - Portland, OR 97215 :: Big shout outs to all the incredible Art Directors, and folks at Wizards of the Coast, Tim Shields & Mike Goodman from Cascade Games, Brian Artiaco, and Seth Morrigan from www.topdeckhobbies.com.

Also solid propers to the amazing Editors, and cast of creatives at IMPACT Books, Paizo Publishing, and all the wonderful Friends, Family, Fellow Lightpushers and Freaks, local or otherwise that have helped me acclimate to Portland, and that make it a life goal to support the Arts where and when they can. You are what makes everything happen, and I wish you all the very best in 2010 !!!


** ChuckLukacs.com takes no responsibility for post flippage wig tapping services **

OryCon :: 2oo9

Horrendously late as usual, but went to OryCon for a day, and had the great pleasure of finally meeting Editor/AD from Pyr Books Lou Anders.! This was gonna be a treat to see Portland's version of World Fantasy Con, but to meet and hang out with fellow creatives at the bar was something I'll not soon forget.. Lou has one of the greatest capacities to retrieve portions of storyline and text from just about any genre' that I secretly think he's somehow cerebrally linked to his iPhone, Ghost in the Shell style.. =) Amazing memory.. I had a wonderful time; met a puppeteer couple, a fair amount of Comic writers one from Australia Liz Argall, a local chef, a group of brilliant writers at the table, including of course Lou Anders, Andrew Mayer, Tom Crosshill, and Mahesh Raj Mohan


and.. well.. it joost would'nae be a proper Con if there was'nae a loovly little snippet of this going on outside the bar.. Never really sure whoot kinda gorgeous nerd will be in WWI regalia and stockings, boot bless em for it.. =) Happy Holidays All, and God Bless oos, every One.. =)

At the Lockwood's..

Just back from a short trip to a shin-dig thrown by Todd Lockwood and his wife Rita. It was the kinda thing that I've rarely experienced outside of GenCon, and all I can contribute with any clarity at the moment was that is was Wicked Awesome !! Met more artist and art directors in my field, than I have all year!?!? There was a brilliant fire Todd cooked up, laughed me arse oof to another brilliant Jeremy Jarvis performance, did this little doodle of Matt Adelsperger and Franz Vohwinkel, (Hey! it was dark, sue me=) and it was the first bathroom I've been in with an original Lockwood oil hung there!?! I mean how does that even work?? About the sweetest in the bloody World, is how it works.. Still can't wrap my brain around that.. I imagine they loose people in there, holding oop the privy as they can't stop looking at the artwork.? =) Todd also had an amazing oil he was working on out, that just stopped my breath!! Framing, pose, and ... Gah... just wait, we're all in for such a treat when it's complete.!! 1000 Thank youz to the Lockwood Family for letting me crash for the night, and for those I missed, I hope to see you next time around.. Sweet Jesus I love livin' out West !!

Stay tuned !!

Inside/Out and More..

Went to a beautiful show downtown with three artists from around the Ashland area a couple weeks back. It was called Inside/Out and was Brilliant! It involved Clifford Wilton, Kevin Christman, and just an amazing figurative painter that I met through Dr. Sketchy PDX Gabriel Mark Lipper. He was nice enough to let me sit in on a painting session with him, where I sketched and watched some of his particular style. Seeing another's painting, in process is an invaluable experience, and Gabriel has a directness and deliberateness that most artists would give a finger for..

I was immediately reminded of fellow Detroiter, Glenn Barr, and Gregory Manchess when I looked through his work, but the scale and color is so impressive, I just can't pin the man down.. =) If you've a chance to see Gabriel's work up close, do yourself a favor and take the chance..

Stay tuned !!

The likes of which I've'nae seen..

It's been hot here in Portland over the last two weeks. The kinda hot that can cause brain damage, bakajanakoroka in the banana paddy, or so I've heard? It was 107 one day.. I've only been able to work at the air conditioned pub, and were it not for cold showers and the brilliant but very occasional breeze of cool mountain air, I'd be a vegetable, Danny.. a cooked one, perhaps a grayish piece of broccoli.. in a white wine sauce..

It all started with a concert in the Zoo (yes, I thought it was odd to have a concert venue right next to the elephant inclosure as well, but the show must go on I suppose) I got there too late to sketch a whole lot, but wished that I did, as the animals weren't moving a bloody inch.. far too worn to move all too much.. perfect models, their tiny little furry bodies frying there in the sun.. I'd drank a pint in the parking lot, so I was sweating too, but it wasn't enough to stop drinking wine once inside the concert area for Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and dancing in the pit, when Los Lobos came on.. It was relatively cool at night a week ago, but it was to change.. ElNino had it's sights set to burn the pasty arse off me, and laugh as I seared in wriggled under it's magnifying glass.


Then came the Brew Fest, and no more clouds, hotter still, but breezy enough even in the middle of a tent filled with drunk folks.. Now the advantage here is drinking and heat usually means little to no clothes, or at least it did in Detroit, but there was a surprisingly clothed crowd..?? It still got interesting around the misty sprayers they had out, but again maybe upper 80's and breeze coming off the Willamette.

Then it hit.. 102 one day, 80 at night.. 107 the next day, 85 at night.. No rest for the wicked, and the reasonably dark but bitter didn't get much either.. My computer fritzed out for a day (fortunately just overheated), but there was little to do but try and not sweat on my sketches, and make sure there wasn't any flammables in direct sunlight..

Then my Brother from anothah muthah came through once again.. This man, Michael Kora, who is one of, if not the best homebrewer I know, also blogs his ramblings up at Cascadian Observations. Michael and his wife Melissa were going on a trip back to Detroit for a friends wedding, leaving their AC room available to sleep in !!! Which I have been since they split town.. Oh sweet sleep again !! I get woke once in awhile, but it's by the AC kickin' in again.. =) I'll have to give the bedroom back of course, but by then the heat will have subsided into chilled mountain nights..

I've learned a couple things from these weeks of feeling like cured meat in the window.. I've learned that if it's like this again next year, and the trade winds are blocked into ElNina, and we get a similar effect in the West, Im moving North to Canada.. I've also a new empathy for those bat-shit crazy fundies in the Middle East.. and in the South here in the States for that matter :: Imagine if instead of a couple days of this weather, over 100 degrees, sometimes never getting under 90, until the monsoons come, and life becomes life again.. that it was a couple MONTHS !! Imagine then, that after a couple weeks in, someone offers the vegetable platter and mashed potatoes that once was your brain the chance of listening to some fundimentalist propaganda in a nice air conditioned room?? A couple cubes of ice in a glass of who-cares for a couple hours so you can actually think again, sleep for a bit again..?? After experiencing this last couple weeks of heat, I might just pay em a couple bucks for the opportunity..!!

Stay Cool, and stay tuned.. =)

British Radio Bits No.1

I can't really explain why, but I just don't tire of 8th grade humour?? It's the comic equivalent of making my nipples go pointy, the kind of thing that would make you spew beverage from your nose, and have you choking a giggle while casket-side.

I listen to a couple different British podcasts, but Scott Mills and Chris Moyles' morning drive shows will sometimes achieve a level of funny that will have an anglophile like myself smiling for days. Much of the humour (yeah I spelled it that way again!) is inside and inclusive to the show, for example "a horse for one bin" is only going to make sense for regular listeners, and is extraordinarily funny, whereas the gags I've recorded here can be enjoyed by all. One of the gags Scott and team do is find odd sound clips from the Classified Ads and these 3 segments are the most ingenious in the last couple months. So, here they are for your listening pleasure, and I'll have more someday if I don't get sued.
:: Click the links to play ::

:: Mr. Bucket ::
I soooo want Will Farrell being that VO on this Ad..
Anyone know ??

:: The Sally ::
My genitals await you, Sally!

:: The WonderBoner ::
10 ways a wrong, this.. =)

We love you Scott, Choppers, and Becky!!
Stay tuned... =)

Miscellaneous Moving & Motorbreath

Well I moved for the 2nd time in a year.. 1/2 block away from me old place, and cheaper, so that makes me happy.. My Pop visited me here in Portland, and that was a joy that I'd not expected anywhere near as intense.. =) There's still times when this Dream turns to Drama, when the questions pile up along with the bills, and I cannae find a grain ah powder to keep the pilot light lit.. but like the kindly Desiderata says.. even with all it's sham, drudgery, and broken Dreams.. it is still a beautiful World.. Here's some shots of the new digs, may my balcony dip me on out in the swinging ball o heavenly sunshine, and my work be fruitful and multiply.. with an emphasis on the latter !!

Yesterday me and my good childhood friend and drummer Michael Kora went to go see Motorbreath, as I saw an advert they put out on MySpace.. They're a Metallica tribute band, and they're good..!! I'm honestly right in the middle of Metal, I illustrate for a Death Metal band mind you, but the last time I saw a show was in either '88 or '89 !?!? So when these cats started poppin' off Jump in the Fire, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, it felt like I was a kid.. This place was just the kinda spot for these cats, and they ended up blowing a fuse at the beggining of the show.. =) F-in METAL, Dude..!!!! Horns oop !!

and... it wouldn't be a droonk out till 3am without a blatant Chappelle grab.. the cat from the Roots wasn't on drums, and John Mayer wasn't on Guitar.. Hahaha.. and just like every rose has it's thorn..

and it sold like Goth-cakes..

Clipped this from Break Room Live. Marc Maron remains one of my favorite comics, and Air America Radio has been smart enough to keep him on the air in one manifestation or another for it's existence so far. This is the kind of thing you hear on a daily basis. A wicked bit of fresh madness picked off the web by Brendan McDonald, and read by Maron at the end of a show. I've no idea if the story line about Peter Nguyen being a highschool student is true or not, but if it is made up, whomever did it, did a brilliant job of it. The comedic timing of this poem is simply one of the most wonderfully sarcastic and funny bits I've ever heard, it's just not getting old for me. Enjoy by clicking the BRL logo.

An Act of Compassion

I've never been a fan of Pro Sports. I went to Art college. When I look at them, I look at the whole picture; their effect on our local economy, and the cultural change they bring about by their very nature. I tend not to see the minutia, so the small battles are left unnoticed for the most part? Well, here's some minutia for us that normally abhor. Perhaps this time we might be able to instead cheer with the crowd.

Rachel Maddow ran this story a while back about my now favorite basketball player Darius McNeal. Don't really care how good of a player he is, don't care what he'll become, but for a few moments he experienced a level of compassion and bliss that very few of us can say we have.

Slang can save us

Even though President Obama hasn't been making the strongest decisions that he could be making at the moment, I still look back at the damage done to our Environment, our Democracy, our Rights and Freedoms by the Bush administration, and I think we've at least a chance to begin recovery.

Today, a buddy of mine sent this link to April Winchell that posted some audio of Obama narrating quotes from his book "Dreams of My Father". Hilarious. It wasn't two seconds into listening that I thought of Dave Chappelle and the Chappelle Shows skit "Black Bush", and I couldn't help but feel that some Soul Slang on the floor of the Senate might just do America a world of good. What I wouldn't give to hear Obama quotes like this coming out of the AP ::

"At was some cold-ass shit poppin' mah boy fah Turbo-Tax, nah !! Jus protectin' his nut, an ya'll thew im out the got damn windah.?"

"Does this look like a non-bindin' resolution, Boehner...?? Sit on down witchah Neo-con Minority punk ass!! I said it..!! I'm Commander in Chief now muthah fuckah, maybe you heard ah me..??!!"

"Israel better fall back wit all'at proliferation, and wall buildin'.. this ainno World a Warcraft muthah fuckah"

Well perhaps this won't come to pass, but I think Reid and the Democratic majority could stand to take a page from the book of Samuel Jackson, Dolemite, and Obama's friend Ray.

Stay Tuned.. =)

Feelin' Sketchy

When I left school in Detroit I used to go back downtown to the Scarab Club for figure drawing. You'd pay a couple bucks, and sketch a nude model for around an hour per pose. I remember there being a clutch of illustrators that had probably hit their height in the 70's, students, faculty, and alumni from CCS. It was a brilliant arts and crafts brownstone, and always fun when I went. Well, I find myself again left with an odd similar jones I feel to get out and sketch, and I think I've at least found a substitute, if not an improvement..

I take my journal to the pubs, and have even taken to posting them on Flickr and FaceBook, but recently I went to Dr. Sketchy PDX! This is essentially a Burlesque which artists are encouraged to draw, win door prizes from the models for best sketch, drink, sketch some more, take pictures, drink again, chat, sketch, and you get the picture.. When I first saw this on MySpace I remembered the one in Detroit that I'd not been to in ages, so I was genuinely looking forward to it. Like the pubs the light is insanely weak, and the best one can attempt is a gesture of some sort, but I managed to get a decent enough likeness in a couple, snapped some reference, I was boa'ed by Meghan Mayhem (awesome), and came home with this loovely assortment of girly things for my efforts. =) Anyone in the Portland area should try and make it out to one of these, it's a brilliant time. Violeta d'Posey, Baby La'Strange and Dr.Sketchy PDX, check em on out.. =)

Havoc on the fridge

Once in awhile that big yella Sun will spark up a sweet swingin' dandelion beam a light, and wail it through all that work-a-day bring down, straight on into your sad and bent up ticker. Well, today fellow illustrator, good friend and co-author of Wreaking Havoc (on the shelves of a book store near you ! :) Chris Seaman was given that beam. He shared it with me, and I'll share it wit'cha'll !! These are copies of a couple sketches from Jordan (age 12). One of them is following the step by step demo that Chris wrote on his Gnome character for the book, and the other is a female Gnome of Jordan's own design. :)

I was just instantly taken to the reason why we do the work that we do. I don't know many illustrators that aren't working 8-12 hour days and weekends to be paid comparatively little for it, but it is in moments like these; when I get drawings of lama-dogs from my Niece, or someone at a Convention tells me how much my work influenced them for game-play or their own art work, or when you see that spark a' Light jumping off a munchkins wig to tell you that you've fulfilled the circle somehow. That's why we're in this game.

Follow this link to check out Wreaking Havoc on Amazon, and please give us a review if you're already familiar with our book. :)

King Day

It occurs to me this year, after so many life changes, so much learned and forgotten, and rising to a life on my own, that all heroes in any manifestation will only honestly fulfill their function when we rise to the same challenges ourselves. Only when we signal our own course through the tempest, write our own protest song, or simply speak up for those who cannot, will our heroes really have had the effect they should. I'd heard Jim Wallis of Sojourners tell this story of one of his colleagues, Lisa Sullivan on the radio years ago, and I can't help but think of it again on every MLK day. But this year.. before our nations' new President takes office and issues in what we're all hoping is a new season of Healing, Peace, and at very least the possibility of Change in the way we look at our Habitat, and our Future.. This day, Lisa Sullivan's words ring extraordinarily clear.. "We are the ones we have been waiting for!"

This inauguration is what the majority of Americans have been waiting on for 8 years, and we've worked hard to get here. But we cannot rely on any leader to regulate the change that will be needed, we need to force that kind of change ourselves. It's extraordinarily difficult, the task that's been put on our generation. A "New Deal" sort of reform on our National infrastructure and manufacturing job market, will be needed just to stop the bleeding, just to regain footing and start anew, but we can't wait for our heroes to enact regulations by themselves, they need to hear about the urgency, they need a clear signal from the People.

Let's do King proud from here on in. Let's bring the Unity that we're all craving, and let's be "the ones we have been waiting for!"

Trees I've Met :: Part Two

This is my prayer tree, he's one of the huge Firs 3/4 up Mt. Tabor park. I've never been an athlete in my life, but my afternoon jog has been the glue keeping me together of late, the order and reason that gets me out of bed.. The first time I met this tree was my first jog up the mountain, I fell against him, saddened from the pain of my divorce, but also just spent physically.. When I looked up the trunk after a time, I realized someone had placed a black feather in the bark, and later in the week I came across two orange feathers that I placed below it.. I believe they're oriel feathers, but I could be wrong?

So this pine is where I jog to pray.. He's kinda like my alter or conduit of sorts, I guess.?? I've never been a praying man before my Pop's ailment, if I did pray it was in the realm of transcendental meditation.. but now I pray for him everyday in a couple of forms; I "ask" in the language that my Dad has said he'd like me to use, and I also "realize".. Kind of like visualizing him re-gaining motor control, or Israeli and Palestinian folks re-building towns and schools together, and all the folks I care about getting hugs, and smiling.. happy.. Despite my bouts with Fundamentalist dogma, and the damage it can cause, and has caused over the centuries, I still believe the act of praying does everyone some good.. and yeah, it might be Pascal's Gambit..?? What do I know?? A Universal Energy could exist even for the most militant atheist, as there's string theory that may tie every swingin' sub-atomic cosmic bit of Jazz together, living or not..?? My Dreams and my Prayer could very well just be me talking to myself, but the positive energy I feel is a very real thing that effects the folks close to me in some way ?? Even if that's just the difference of me frowning or smiling when I see someone.. So, do I believe ?? Yeah.. I do.. and when I pat the curls of bark along my prayer trees trunk saying, "end of transmission, G" I'm not just talking to myself.. Stay tuned.. :)

Trees I've Met :: Part One

The Pac. NW is covered with a lush foggy green, even in cramped areas of population, and even in the middle of Winter. In weather like this back in Detroit, I remember the only green to be found were my house plants, and even they weren't having the best go of it. This is the base of a giant sequoia that is in the parking lot behind the Apt.s where I now.. Ummm.. can't really say Live yet.. how'bout reside.. =) I sit under her some days after the jog.. watch her as I come down the mountain, and then sit beneath her branches as my heart slows and back stiffens up again.. She plopped a cone on my chest the very first sitting, which has opened, and I plan on growing. It might be odd, but I do look for Kodoma (her little guardian sprites) and I'll certainly miss her if and when I leave this Apt.

This was taken a month before the snow, but this giant Pine sits 3/4 way up Mt.Tabor park, just before you see a kid's playground. He's got the most beautiful root structure, something like tentacles actually. I'd like to put him into a painting one day, but now that I think on it, he may've already unconsciously influenced a Treant character that will appear in my new book from Impact?

Here's to the Trees,
they'll be around a
lot longer than us.. =)

Wish upon the Weird World..

My illustrator comrade Todd Lockwood sent this vid today. Could be remnants of my wig splitting hangover still pumping the seritonin levels into the red, or it could be some kind of actual Christmas spirit of Joy wadding' it's way through my Grinchy mire, but watching this chap dance all over this sweet swingin' Sphere made me smile wider than Spock on spores.. It's brilliant..


Well bollocks, this Holiday Season has been the weirdest one I can remember, so why not bend like the bamboo and just make it weirder? Here's starting out the New Year with the band I've been illustrating for, A Band of Orcs They're a Death Metal band that are outfitted with facial prosthetics and costumes when they perform, and regardless of how camp you take Metal, they are extraordinarily tight performers in or out of costume. These green blokes are some of the most creative folks I know, and Mike Roberts (Basist and mind behind the Orcs) has created a breathing mythos for the band that is something not to be missed. I'll nae forget the time I was at a convention, and after looking at the freshly plucked spinal column that Gorgog has in his fist, a little munchkin asked his Pop, "Is that a tambourine, Daddy?" I quickly smiled and nodded, "yup, he plays tambourine" ;) Check out the brand new vid on their site.

Listening to Rachel Maddow yesterday, and caught a 5 second mention of this. There's to be a Manga published based completely on Karl Marx's - Das Kapital. Even though the last time I picked up the phone on Marx and Engels was over a decade ago, I think I've gotta have it. I've read critical Marxists; Ruskin, Marcuse, and some George' Lukacs (Hungarian, but unrelated as far as I know) but I've never been all the way through Das Kapital. Might be better to get it on .MP3 for as much time as I have, but I've just gotta see the blood of the proletariat greasing the cogs of industry, Astro Boy style. Have a very Happy Holidays comrades one and all !!