Platypus of Truth

I was dissatisfied with my first attempt at creating a creature from Alien . Here is my second attempt using only black pen. I've tried to pull toward the Egyptian elements of some of the original artwork that keep the world of Alien  close to its lovecraftian roots.

Alien Covenant  has just come out and I thought I would make a small contribution here with a quick bit of fan art. The art of Alien  puts teeth into H.P. Lovecraft's tales of forgotten extraterrestrial civilizations or Clark Ashton Smith's journeys of interstellar doom. They are the consummate horror stories for a secular age.

Summer has returned, though you wouldn't know it in Texas right now. Whatever the weather may be doing (and it's appreciated), school is out and that means that it's time for a new "Seven Heavens of Summer Reading". Stuff has been piling up on the shelves, so there's lots to work through. In the comics department, Valiant Comics is leading the field with Divinity , XO Manowar: Soldier , and Britannia: We Who Are About to Die . All of these are absolutely excellent middle-brow fair. Historical reading finds me following up last summer's A Storm of Spears  with Christopher Matthew's new ANZAC salvo on all things hoplite Beyond the Gates of Fire . We'll see if Matthew's team can send old V.D. Hanson's Western Way of War running for cover by showing that their models of hoplite battle can shed new light on the well trodden sands of Thermopylae. In the Fantasy genre, my wife and I are taking a second trip through The Last Unicorn  after s...

For Those Who See Those who See Echo Divinity Wisdom Love Might Crucified on the World And for the World In the burning dream of William Blake Painted with Autumn leaves Summer sunsets There is meaning in the Fall of a sparrow or the expiration of a flea Did you have courage to stand there when Life Passed out of them in gasps and a spasm? Then you are like your Creator Who hung stars and suns as Eyes that do not shut Burning Seraphim

This year marks the completion of Houston Grand Opera's staging of the complete Ring Cycle  by Richard Wagner. My wife and I have been able to attend all four operas and have witnessed Wagner's retelling of the creation and destruction of the Nordic World. I haven't seen anything like it. The La Fura Dels Baus  staging HGO used seemed to swirl the Volsungsaga  with The Orestiea , Final Fantasy , Mad Max: Fury Road ,  The Wasteland , The Dry Salvages and The Abolition of Man . It was a heady cocktail that appeared to leave those over forty cold while it made the twenty-somethings I know weep with rapture. So you know where I fit in, I bought the boxed set on DVD. Wagner's work is a paean to the power of Nature and a warning to those who would use power over Nature to gain power over others. It's a timely message for the city of Houston, a place that worships unbridled wealth, revels in the wholesale destruction of the natural world, builds its low-cost of living...

Still playing with my Clip Studio Paint... Here we have test of certain effects and wire modeling. There are dual inspirations here: Ghost in a Shell  and The Hunger Games . So whether this is The Major plummeting to the tune of Inner Universe  or Katniss imagining what it would be like to leap from the top of Training Center is something you get to decide. Of course, it could also be a reference to an Evanescence song. It all depends on what you were up to during the Oughts.

I'm still learning the ropes of Clip Studio Paint, so here's a little of what I've been working on. These are two characters from an unpublished novel ( The King of the Summer Court: The Strange Life of Ronald Fairfax Volume IV) . Each one took more time than I care to admit, but at least it gives you an idea of my learning curve.