I realize it's been some time since I've shown off anything I'm working on. Some of you, my theoretical fans and avid readers, are probably thinking that I've been sitting around on my butt, picking my nose and watching Trailer Park Boys. That's only half true, I was watching Mad Men and Breaking Bad, actually.

God, I can't believe I typed that.

But no, here's a quick glance at what I've been doing:
 I've been churning out pages like mad. The top row of pages is for a short supernatural comic I'm working on for Burst Reach 2, tentatively called GRICE. It's inspired by Hellboy, witch house music, and the Wu-Tang Clan, and I think it's the coolest comic I've ever drawn so far. The bottom half is pages for the graphic novel in progress. I'm on the cusp of making some sort of announcement regarding that, as soon as I figure out where I'm going to be hosting it and stuff.

Here's the first page of Grice, colored. Click to embiggen:
 And here's a finished image I did for the graphic novel, as the uh, cover I suppose, to the first chapter:
Finally, here's a photo I took in January and messed with the other night on a whim which was brought about by feeling kind of down in the dumps over silly emotional things:

Her pose kind of captured how I felt, heh. Plus, I haven't done anything actually photography-related in a while, so it was nice opportunity to use a different part of my brain.

Also a quick pencil sketch from the same shoot. I drew this after I finished reading a weird, awesome sci fi romance novel called As She Climbed Across the Table:
Other things: Been reading lots of comics, particularly older volumes of the BPRD, which I'm kicking myself for not getting into sooner, watching some good TV shows on Netflix, and some good movies too. The Social Network, the Man Who Fell to Earth, the Game, just to name a few. Also I've been replaying the crap out of Bioshock. 

So, all in all, things are moving right along, as they should be, right? OH ONE MORE THING:
 
I wish more movies looked this good. I'm trying to keep my expectations in check, but it's just too hard, man.

Okay, that's it. You can go now.

[Brett] 

Hello there kids! It's been a while, yes. Things have been happening. We had to put my 13-year-old dog to sleep, the Radiohead trip to Florida was canceled, I started quoting the narrator from the Beast of Yucca Flats, met a bunch of Koreans, and got a new computer!

Also, I finished drawing Cyberpunk Blues 2: Your Fan Club Sucks. Here's the first page in grayscale. CLICK TO EMBIGGEN.

There are gonna be two versions of the comic. The grayscale version is for when it gets printed in Burst Reach 2 some time in the foreseeable future. I'm also doing a colored version to put here on the site. GET EXCITED.

And here's a new piece of art I did, kind of following along the lines of Embrace Infection:
 There's some other stuff I've done that you can see on my deviantART page, like a sketch of Robocop that's rather badly colored.

Also, I have acquired two movies that have quickly become new favorites of mine. The first is Shogun Assassin, the Americanization of two Lone Wolf and Cub films from the 70s:

I feel like I need to see more samurai films after watching and falling in love with this. Anyone got any suggestions?

The other movie is Redline, a racing anime that took SEVEN YEARS to make, all hand-drawn, and it is easily the coolest anime ever made:
 

Everything about this thing is awesome: character design, animation, the soundtrack, the cars, pacing, EVERYTHING. I had the biggest, stupidest grin on my face the whole time I watched it, and now I want to show it to EVERYONE. I feel like it was made especially for me.

That's all I have for you this evening, I'm afraid. Working on sixty ideas at once. Maintaining productivity. I'll try not to drop off the radar for another insane length of time, but I make no promises.

[Brett]

Only someone who is an Argento or witch house fan may get that. I don't know if my "audience" comprises of either of those. Oh well.

So uh, I graduated yesterday morning. That was exciting. I think. More exciting was finding pads of comic board at Michaels this week that were buy one get one free. Even more exciting was the stack of comics I bought in between three different stores.

But no, graduation. The ceremony was thankfully short and relatively painless, due in part to some nice conversation about movies and nerdy things with the girl I was next to and because I paid very little attention during all the speeches and stuff because I was too busy doodling all over my program:
I nearly flubbed when it came to the whole "walking across the stage" thing because I was dizzy and my head was hurting, but no one commented on that, so I think we're good.

I was around page 51 or 52 of the comic I keep talking about, which I shall from here on out refer to as "Project Sense." Now, though, I realized the past 10 pages weren't working so well, so for the second or third time I am rewriting this scene. Still, progress is progress.

You may have noticed the new banner up top and such. That carcass is the remains of this:
This is a giant monster originally supposed to appear in Project Sense. It was also a bit of an attempt at doing some Geof Darrow style detail in a drawing. Or if not Darrow, then James Stokoe. However, after showing the original sketch to a friend, we determined that, for the purposes of the comic's story, the monster was way too, um, dinosaur or kaiju in design, not nightmarish enough, so it's back to the drawing board there.

Here's the entire carcass:
I've made some other minor changes to the site here and there, and I plan on doing some more soon.

Also in the pipeline is a five page comic for my friend Sterlin's next Pizza Flag book, a sort of anthology of comics, short stories, and poetry from local talents.

Word. Now back to last-minute Christmas crap and playing Zelda: Skyward Sword, which I want to eventually talk in more detail about.

[Brett]

Rejoice, because I have finished and printed all but one piece for Embrace Infection! Well, two. There's one I won't print at all, and one that I, um, forgot to print. But I'll get that next week. Anyways, all of them are now uploaded to the gallery here on the site.

Most of the pieces are also cut down as well, which leaves the mounting and, well, the show itself in November. I'm ahead of the game.

And now I'm at a loss at what to do next. I had written a script for the first chapter of a graphic novel, but a few days later deleted it because I thought it was crap. I've done a decent number of sketches, but not much else. And I did this:

This is from a pose I really wanted to use for Embrace Infection, but I couldn't make it work. And so I went back to playing in Illustrator again! Yay!

But no, it's bugging me. My head feels empty, and like it's not on straight. Technology has been rebelling against me all week, I've been draggy, I keep making stupid little mistakes and forgetting little things, it's like I'm not really myself. Maybe it's something to do with the death of my old guitar teacher last week, maybe dad's words hurt more than I thought, maybe I have the bird flu and I'm dying, I don't know, but I'm stuck in a rut and must find my way out.

If you'll excuse me, I'm now going to go and uh, draw something.

[Brett]

I've been stupidly busy, spending the last several days working hard on pieces for Embrace Infection. I gave it its own gallery on the site here, but only five pieces are uploaded now. Ten are done, but...I'm gonna wait and think on them. I know one of them STILL needs some more work. Still though, I showed all ten to one of my professors today and he loved them, so I'm excited. I've got three more to finish up, making thirteen in all.

I won't get to exhibit that many, though. It's up in the air, sort of, but the week that I'll be showing, November 14th-18th, I'm sharing the space with two other students, and none of us really have any idea of how many pieces we each have and how much space we'll need.

I wrote my artist's statement for it, and well, for once in my life wrote way too much. It'll have to be cut down on quite a bit. I had a hard time thinking of what to say, then I just went nuts and starting typing words. Heh.

I want to finish the other pieces this week. That's somewhat unlikely, seeing as how today more than ever I feel like I just pushed myself too hard these past several days and have finally hit that brick wall. Now I just need to lay a while and get my strength back, then attack again. There's still the printing to be done, and mounting, and other stuff too. Gah.

Honestly? While I think this is the best work I've ever done, it's exhausting and once the show is up and all, I will be able to sigh with relief, take a power nap, and start exploring the 600 or so ideas that have been burning in my mind that I just haven't had the time to put on paper yet.

Oh, and here's Monday's East Tennessean strip, the second Distinguished Gentlemen. They accidentally reprinted an older comic last Thursday, hence the delay:

Also, added some more links to the sidebar. Amalgae Comics is the newly-named home where just about every comic published for the ETSU comic book illustration course is up, including Cyberpunk Blues and works by some good friends of mine. Check it out.

That's about it for now. Exhaustion has hit me hard today and I need to just rest some. Tomorrow? I'll be back to the grind, yes...

[Brett]