Out of Commission

Did this as a comission a while back, had to hold off posting until I actually heard that the client liked it. It was really fun to do - -a break from my other, more serious work.

I used to do tons of comissions back in the 90s, but then I had a series of them go really bad on me: some were damaged in transit despite very secure packaging, one never arrived (as far as I can tell), and another was essentially stolen. I did a three-page wide Hulk/Pitt/Thing/Abomination/couple-other-big-guys-I-forget for a what was supposed to be a considerable amount of money. I got the advance very fast, did the piece and sent it out (via a trackable shipping method). The piece went missing after it was delivered. He claimed he wasn't the one who signed for the package.

Sigh. . .

A few months later it shows up on eBay and the contact info tracks back to him. EBay pulled the auction immediately after I complained, but it never was resolved to my satisfaction. That kinda soured me on comissions.

Now I do them digitally and get paid all in advance. Nothing gets lost in the mail.

~Richard

Tentacular!

Don't know where this one came from.
Maybe the China Mieville stuff I've been reading has dredged up some Lovecraftian imagery.
. . . Or maybe I just like drawing tentacles.
~Richard

Remade

Been a while -- sorry! Was waiting for a response from a person I did a piece for to post it here, and time kinda got away from me and I still haven't heard back.

So -- here's something from the sketchbook:

It's inspired China Mieville's New Crobuzon books; Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. In these books, criminals -- both political and otherwise -- are punished by being remade in the punishment factories. These poor sods have bits from other creatures, people or even machines grafted into or onto their bodies, creating a permanent slave class.

The guy above is probably not a good example of the sort of remade you'd typically see in the books, but just shows where my mind wandered to after reading these most excellent books.

I read the above three books and his short story collection, Looking for Jake, in quite a short period of time. These fantasy books are overflowing with imagination owing far more to Lovecraft and Steinbeck than Tolkien. The short story, The Tain, is a remarkable modern fantasy-post-apocalyptic tale and probably my favourite thing the guy's written.

~Richard