Good evening my glorious followers. I have started painting the crab robot for the Corpse Eater story, which I was happier with the design earlier than that of the monkey. I look forward to the completion of this image but I am still struggling to come up with a design for the titular character of the Corpse Eater robot. Nothing has satisfied me yet. Sigh.
Well my merry little monkeys, another project done. I will not only use this as a one shot image in the Corpse Eater children’s book but probably in a scene or two as well. Next up, the little crab robot.
Evening wonderous worldweavers, I just wanted to share an updated image of the Monkey Robot painting for the Corpse Eater book. Only tweaking left then I will embark on the Crab Robot. Meanwhile I am still searching for the design of the actual Corpse Eater robot but I think it is past time I sit down and work out a size comparison chart for the book. Later.
Hello, little ones. Let me spin a tale of imagination like dreams and possibilities as nebulous as hopes. The dreams are in the form of more drawings from the imagination of my youth. Let us begin.
What a wild mind I had back then. I honestly have no idea where the genesis for this one came from except for maybe Conan for the Barbarian dude. Why a giant caterpillar and a pterodactyl, I have no idea. I usually started with a central character and built outward.
This one I do know, however. Both my father and I were big fans of the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever chronicles by Stephen R. Donaldson and I wanted to visualize a scene from the second trilogy. In this scene, Thomas Covenant has just been killed by Lord Foul who coveted his white gold ring in order to destroy the world and escape. The woman who loved Thomas, Linden Avery, is crying over his lifeless body. Lord Foul learns to his dismay that killing Covenant has freed him to become the arch of time and; thus, thwarting his attempt to break it. Covenant is seen as a figure in the walls blocking Lord Foul’s power.
This is another drawing I do not remember the origins of. I do like the look the gorilla has, as if the King has posed a challenging question.
This, of course, comes from my love of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I thought this was some random Hobbit I drew but I can see from the left lower corner that it isn’t. I had chosen this one to be Farmer Cotton, which was cut off in the scan because the paper was larger than the scan area.
And last of all is the Skull Cowboy. If I am correct, I drew him while trying to visualize the character from the AC/DC song TnT. I had a vision of a Clint Eastwood, High Plains Drifter kind of character with a low tilted hat and a cigarette. I would like to draw him coming out of a sunset.
Now for the gossamer strands of hope. I recently was able to sell my additional set of the year of Sanderson books, I had accidentally ordered, on Ebay. With that success and the hope of some day selling my books and artwork for a business, I decided to see if I could sell my short story collection on Ebay too. So I took one of the extra copies I ordered and signed it then placed it on Ebay here https://www.ebay.com/itm/375425343777. I am basically dipping my toes in the water, are you interested in getting wet? Thank for the hope you give me.
Well good morning fabulous followers, it is a grey cloudy day in Pennsylvania but I managed to finally cut my grass so it is okay. It had gotten ridiculously long because my mower was getting a long over due tuneup. Anyway, I have a whole slew of old drawing to share with you since I recently added them to my deviantart site. They are quite the mix, going from fantasy, humor, and portrait practice. I won’t be giving my background takes on each one this time because there are so many and I am hoping to add some more to my art page. Also, many are very early pieces, so enjoy.
Well my lovely followers, we are very close to finally finishing the Truth and Illusion project. This is a test fit of the crow’s feet I am currently painting for my lovely Succubus. The actual feet painting is a larger scale that I shrink and position on the combined painting. I think I will eventually copy each foot separately so that I can position then better. After that, it is a series of minor decisions and tweaks till I sign off on the painting. One of the decisions is how much I should try to pull her down to the background. Right know she seems very brazenly disconnected, which works well with the narrative of the painting. However, I may want it to be a little more subtle. Time will tell.
Well my fabulous followers, here is a late artistic update for you. I have been pushing myself to finish the final parts of the Truth and Illusion project by painting the succubus that blinds you to what the picture actually says. I am getting close to completion of the lovely lady with lots of small tweaks to round out the image. The major parts are there but the fine details to sell the image are still needed. So here is a test fit of the succubus onto the background.
Forbidden Planet
Spoiler Alert: I will be discussing the plot of the movie within this post. If you want to enjoy the movie before reading on, please do so before continuing.
Why hello my cursedly amazing followers. Tonight I want to share one of my favorite classic movies with you, Forbidden Planet. This is an old color science fiction movie from 1956 starring, believe it or not, Leslie Nielsen in a non-comedic roll.
This movie has a very deep science fiction plot given the era it was created in as well as above par special effects for the time. There is; however, a little bit of hokey acting and dialogue to get through or ignore for that very same reason. The stereo typical white washed characters abound in the movie but are not unbearable. The plot twist at the end is more than satisfying enough to make the cardboard dialogue worth it.
The plot of the story revolves around a recluse and his daughter who live on the planet Altair IV when they are contacted by an interplanetary ship from earth. The recluse, Dr. Morbius, tries to warn them away because of what had happened to the crew of the colony ship he had arrived on. During the interactions between Morbius and the crew of the earth ship, we learn that the colonists were murdered by some unknown force on the planet. Morbius begs the new crew to leave before it happens again.
Unfortunately, the crew persists on staying. In time, crew members begin to die horrible mutilated deaths from unseen forces. After several heated exchanges between the Captain of the earth ship and Morbius, we learn that Altair IV was the home planet of a highly intelligent alien race known as the Krell. At the peak of their civilization on the eve of their greatest achievement, they were utterly destroyed.
The final plot point we learn is that they had created a machine capable of supplying unlimited power to the physical manifestation of anything their minds could think up. Unfortunately, they forgot about their darker basic instincts that still resided in their subconscious ID. In one night, their creation manifested all their dark desires, killing them before they knew what was happening. The very same ID, now in the form of Morbius’s subconscious, that was killing the crew of the Earth ship.
The reason I bring this up is that throughout the entire movie, we never see the alien Krell. No photos or paintings remain. However, we are given one cryptic piece of information, if we view the doors, like the picture above, as representative of the aliens’ shape like a human door is for us, then we can make some guesses. I have decided to take a crack at visualizing these Krell. The following pictures are my first attempts at this.
The last one is the best out of the three but has gotten the least likes on my Deviantart page.
Yes my star gazing followers, you must read that title in Gorge Takei’s voice. Here is another look at some more of my teenage geek artwork.
Here is a random alien raccoon.
And an Alien/Stroh’s beer comic. Alien is understandable with my sci-fi bent but I hate beer and did not even understand it then. Must have been the commercials.
Here is a really bad attempt at a planet.
And an unfinished pumpkin scarecrow.
Some of my finely aged Return of the Jedi comics.
Here is something I did for my highschool wrestling team, for some odd reason.
Finally, one of my better fantasy drawings of that time (barring the figure drawings of course). Thus ends another walk down the lanes of my past. Hopefully you are not too badly scarred.
Wonderful followers, I have a chance for those that missed out on the record breaking kickstarter by Brandon Sanderson. Back in 2022, Brandon Sanderson announced his kickstarter project to produce four previously unpublished fully illustrated novels in hardback. The project would become the Year of Sanderson with a book delivered every three months.
I quickly signed on for the hardback/ebook level and was very pleased with the product. Unfortunately, I accidentally ordered a complete second set of the books. So I have finally gotten around to selling them on Ebay. You can see the package here, The Year of Sanderson to make a bid. My original cost for all four books was $120 dollars and you may be able to get them near $80 plus shipping in their original shipping boxes. These are very good stories and fantastically made books with lots of imagery. I am just looking to get some of my money back. I look forward to shipping them to a happy fan.
Rob Garbin's Blog: Author and Artist 