"Coral Carnivore" Step One

The Letter C stands for "Coral Carnivore." This one popped into my head at random, and immediately brought Sea Monsters to mind. Specifically, those devilish creatures known as "sirens!"

For the concept drawing above, I just jumped right in with a dark black pencil. I quickly drew a light gesture, in about 3 minutes max. Then I began to finesse the darker, fine lines out of the piece.


Here, we have an aquatic siren who, like mermaids, is notorious for leading many a sailor to a watery grave. Siren lore I'm familiar with sometimes describes these fathom phantoms as lures... attractive bait attached to a toothy behemoth ambush predator that's lurking just below the sea. Hence the bruiser tucked underneath our scaly lady.

I do like the concept of the sexy siren who -- though beautiful and alluring above the ocean's surface -- is a gruesome killer below the water. You may notice that the hand she's dipping into the tide is sharper and more monstrous than her other hands. In the final piece, I want to convey the idea that she looks completely different when viewed underwater... as if her strange beauty up above is just a trick of the light.


And of course, her having four arms is a creepy cherry atop the spooky sundae.

Tune in tomorrow, as I dig into the full-blown illustration!

"This is the sound of what you don't know killing you. This is the sound of what you don't believe -- still true."
- Dave

"Bigot Brutality"

At last, here's the finished painting for "Bigot Brutality." I had to scramble to get this done in between other work (and I do mean scramble!). But it was a fun exercise in acrylic glazes, for me.



Much like "Almost Anonymous," the approach on this was relatively traditional. I laid down light washes, slowly building up my under-painting. And as things got more developed, the more opaquely I started to paint. There's actually a ton of transparency in this piece.


The odd thing about fine art illustration is that it's much more subjective to mood and artsy musings than say, a random freelance job. I can't tell you how many times I found myself gazing thoughtfully out the studio window, glass of bourbon in hand, pondering the volatile nature of race relations and acrylic paint....

Tune in tomorrow for the start of my illustration for The Letter C - "Coral Carnivore!"

"No rapper can rap quite like I can! I'll take a musclebound man and put his face in the sand!"
- Dave

"Almost Anonymous" Monday

The title for this one came to me over a month ago, back when I first started tinkering with ideas for this, the third series of Alphabet Attack! That phrase -- "Almost Anonymous" -- just sorta popped into my head. And being the perv that I am, it immediately lead to thoughts of anonymous lovers... bodies jumbled like a word puzzle in some Caligula tribute, with everyone wearing creepy masks a la Eyes Wide Shut.

Then, it dawned on me to spice things up with a bit of murder. So I landed on the idea of a masked woman, about to make a clean getaway after slicing up her man of the evening like some wild lady-mantis. Only, in his passionate death throes, the unfortunate stud has managed to uncover the gorgeous visage of his sated femme fatale.

The above sketch is watercolor & graphite on mixed media paper, 9 x 12". While it's a rough approximation of what I have in mind for the final piece, I think this is only hitting half of the marks I'm aiming for. Before I take this to canvas or board or whatever, I'll pour over the subject matter a bit more, play with shapes and angles and, finally, attack a composition that I think really pushes what I'm going for here. Glad to have you all along to watch the process unfold!

Stay tuned for Wednesday's post, which will feature the next exciting steps of this week's illustration!

"I'm not a player. I just crush a lot."
- Dave