the burroughs folio - mikey

 Michael Portman is completed.  Onto Kammerer & Ian & Barlow.

"Wuxtry, Boy Commandos!" - September 2o26

 [freshly-plagued by biting flies edition.  welcome to the heat dome...]

StormWatch #44 (1996) - written by Warren Ellis & illustrated by Tom Raney

Fell #1-9 (2oo5-o8) - written by Warren Ellis & illustrated by Ben Templesmith

A Body Beneath: collecting issues 2-5 of the Comic Book Series, 'Lose' (2oo9-'13) - written & illustrated by Michael DeForge

Correspondence from the End of the Universe vol. 3 (2o2o) - written & illustrated by Menota 

The Ticking (2oo5) - written & penciled by Renee French

Anti-Gone (2o17) - written & illustrated by Connor Willumsen

Patience (2o16) - written, illustrated & coloured by Daniel Clowes

Days of Hate (2018) - written by Ales Kot, illustrated by Danijel Zezelj, & coloured by Jordie Bellaire

the burroughs folio: kammerer (1) dots & lines

Back to the OCD.

Line placement is key.  So too balance.  The first rendering of David Kammerer did not go well.  I got impatient with my own process.  This time has turned out significantly closer to the mark.

Brushwork next, INKluding fills, then lay on the tones.  This is the fifth of the eight portraits.  First in the actual series, as it will be printed.  I'm pretty close to satisfied.  I'm hoping the bubbles look right...

owlson welles

Azure Pantry / the Burroughs Folio - Kiki (3)

chalk is the quick'n'dirty route & i love it.  such a dirty, dirty shortcut.  but it's meditative, working the chalkdust into the weave of the paper.  paper is such a sexy medium.  why do people fuck around with digital when they can learn something tactile?  because it's no-muss, i guess.  less time spent on prep & cleanup.  less inclination to plan with caution?  whatever.  who am i to shit on a shortcut?  i'm using chalk because it doesn't take thirty minutes of fucking around with layers & levels & erase & smudge & burn tools when i can just rub a piece of paper with a piece of chalk, wipe it down with a paper towel, and boom: sky.  i love this shade.  it's going to look fab in Azure Pantry.  i'm not going to lay too much blue on Denizen, though.  this is just for the facing chapter pages

(text for the chapter)

The Lazarus ink--  that's what we're calling it, now; this bottle has been resurrected regularly for a decade  --is too watery for a nice drydown, so dry brush is off the table until this stuff bakes for a bit.  this wasn't how i wanted to ink this piece, but so fucking what.  it's a test piece.  every piece is a test piece until the comix actually happen,  i'll fuck around with the sea in the b/g today, prob'ly...

calling it.  that's as much fuckaround as i feel like today

Azure Pantry / the Burroughs Folio - Kiki (2)

firehose of thoughts commences:

inking now, foundational fine linework.  taking it slow.  i like this face.  as before, i don't know that this is a good likeness of the historical kiki.  but i think he's my version of the character.  he's got the chin.  he's got the hair, the posture.  i think i can see how he carries himself.  been re-reading the kiki chapter and it's going to be a pleasure to draw.  quite pleased w/ how the whole Folio reads, as a unified piece.  i've built three discrete Books that talk to each other but may be read in any order; there is no determining chronology to the way the Burroughs Folio / Azure Pantry / Denizen may be read.  and that's a hell of a thing i hadn't thought of before:  between this & my Tarot, i'm building two comic books that may be read out of order, in any order.  (i've mentioned my crackpot theory about the tarot & comix, right?  that the tarot is just a bunch of comix panels with no chronological order other than that which the Reader imposes?)  anyway, that's what life is like when you're an artfag.  sometimes you don't know that you're doing something new.  i guess it's on to eyes next, then hands, then background

pee ess:  i hate having a fucked up foot.  i am going stir crazy

 

(some lines later)

 

this is a grayscale, so you can't see that the cloudlines are in blue, but anyhoo.  the eyes furned out okay.  the right hand is fine.  i still have to figure out how to make the left work; that's been the problem for days now.  if all goes well, maybe i'll get some inking in today (thursday, now) and that'll firm this whole thing up so i can stop neurotic-ing over things people do not, cannot, perceive

statuesque - w.i.p.

More rare paper.  This piece was based on a statue I encountered at the Lake Claire land trust, near Atlanta.  The owl in the buddha's hand was a small stuffed toy, and the statue was perhaps less, er, ripped, but I tried to stay true to the feeling the li'l guy gave me when I first saw it.  The land trust was a good place to work.  I wrote quite a bit of AZURE PANTRY and DENIZEN there.

I've considered doing some graytones or painting on this, but I'm too attached to the finished inks on this guy to risk botching it.  When I say attached, I mean, inking the owl brought me tears of joy.  Not an ordinary reaction for me, as anybody who knows me knows I generally loathe my work.  So this will be printed as it stands.  It's valuable, for reasons I can't quite articulate.

I'm pretty proud of the leafy debris surrounding the buddha.  I'm glad I kept the essence of the original pencils.  It was a very delicate job, and I probably agonized over line weight more than was necessary.  But it all felt necessary?  I dunno.  Maybe the traumatic brain injury I received after penciling this shook something loose in my soul.  It's one of the first finished inking jobs I pulled off after recovering full use of my right hand.

Post title notwithstanding, this isn't really a work in progress anymore.  But it isn't Done until I print the damned thing, is it?

chirality - w.i.p.

Still need to finish the stars & do a little cleanup, but it's basically there.

Took a long time to achieve any satisfaction with this.  The roots and branches irritated me in every previous iteration.  Began life as a tattoo design for an old lover, but after he relapsed to alcoholism & spazzed on me for hitting the brakes, he egged the windows of my studio.  After which I was like, fuck that, I'm keeping this one for myself.

Glad I took the time.  It feels like it means something to me now.  (It should.  I've only destroyed like, three different versions.)  It only recently acquired the title, 'Chirality'.  Sometimes you have to meditate on a picture before it comes together.  In this case it was about five years.

I love this paper.  I've never found anything like it for inking on.  It's so thin & lightweight it could be used for tracing, but it doesn't wrinkle or warp when coloured or inked on.  Marvelous stuff.  I found a roll of it in Richmond, VA, and I use it as sparingly as possible.

Anyroad.  Another for the stack to print & sell. Suppose I should set up a Patreon and all that horseshit eventually...

inking sinister - 2

 

finished face & filigree on sinister

 

*soundtrack* 

(the whole positioning of hands & groins thing, james t.,

that's what's known in the industry as the Corben Stance.

everything from being Oversexualized to All Hell to our team of olympic

class athletes landing backflips looking like they just shit theyselves)