Slideshow of my Art

Here's a slideshow of some of the art I've done over the years -

Art for Today - Ultraverse 2010

This is a piece I did last year. We have an Ultraverse group on Facebook, and it was very popular for a while, with a lot of activity. Everyone pretty much agreed that there were some great characters and stories, but Marvel will probably never allow them to be revisited.  I was playing with an armor set that I thought would make a great Prototype suit, so I came up with an idea for Ultraverse 2010.  We can always dream!

Art For Today - Palace Dancer

This is one of my early 3D pieces, rendered in Bryce. It's still one of my highest rated images in my galleries.

Art for Today - DAZ Studio

Until I scan some more inking samples in, I'm going to have to make do with some 3D art. This piece was done in DAZ Studio. This program has really evolved a lot, and I really like where it's heading. The pricing structure is great as well.

New Animation is Finished!

It's finally ready! Not spectacular, but I have the first piece of my demo reel in the can. :)

Gallery of my art

I haven't posted any new art in a while, but here's a slideshow reminder of some of my past stuff- the pen & ink stuff is my digital inks in Manga Studios over some pencil work by other artists, and a bit of coloring done in Photoshop. Enjoy!

New Art - Shanghai Cover

Here's a new cover for the Shanghai series I'm working on.  This was rendered in DAZ Studio, postwork in Photoshop.  Issue one is almost done and should be available through print-on-demand soon.

New Art - Meet & Greet

A sort of detail from yesterday's large shot, collecting a few robots together. Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, R2D2 from Star Wars, a Terminator, Robot from Lost in Space, and Gir from Invader Zim. Rendered in DAZ Studio. Thanks for looking!

New Art - Garage

Which one will I drive today?

This was a fun shot to put together. It's pretty far away from where it started. Rendered in DAZ Studio.

There's the Eagle & Hawk ships, and a moon buggy from Space: 1999. A shuttle and Runabout from Star Trek. The Jupiter 2 and robot from Lost in Space. Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet. Flash Gordon's rocket ship. R2D2 from Star Wars. A Terminator.  Gir from Invader Zim.  And a little pet alien running loose.

New Art - Conflict

A good old fashioned fight scene. Rendered in DAZ Studio.

New Art - On the Bridge

Playing around with some of the great sci-fi outfit and prop sets from my library.  I think I have enough to get a comic done in that genre. If only real life were this cool! This one is my current desktop.

New Art - Wolfman

Taking a break from gaming for a bit to focus on my art and get the comics back on track.  Here's a practice piece I did this morning in DAZ Studio to get my hand back -

Heart of the Wizard

Looking ahead to jumping back into my comics work this week.  I ordered a few books from indyplanet.com to check out how their printing is, and browsed a bunch of online comics to see what's out there now.  I'm about half way finished with the next issue of Shanghai, and I'm not quite sure I want to do that as my first new shot in publishing.

I did about 10 pages a few years ago of a story called The Heart of the Wizard that I'm actually more excited by.  It's the same 3D art, but I had heavily filtered it to give it more of a traditional comics feel, so that it looks like it could be hand drawn, and I have to say, I like that better.

I started expanding the story yesterday, but am still keeping it very simple.  It's a fantasy sword & sorcery setting, but no highbrow plot as of yet.  Just basic fun and action.  I re-worked the main character last night, and gave her a more acceptable outfit, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.  I tossed together a test cover, which is above.  The actual cover will have more thought and time in it.

The style has bold outlines, over-saturated colors, and dot tones & flash lines like the comic art I grew up with.  Some people really like the clean look of the straight 3D art better, but I think the more stylized stuff is a better fit for me.  I'm going to try and get some new pages of this done and see how it strikes me.  I think the characters lend themselves very well to a one-shot book, with the chance to come back and tell a lot more stories, as opposed to one grand story arc that I lock myself into.

We'll see.  Either way, I'll have something new in print soon!

Getting back into Print

I've been wanting to get back into mainstream comics for quite some time now. I have lots of new material in various stages of production, but have been unsure about how to get it into the hands of readers in a way that would make a modest amount of money and not be easily duplicated and passed around illegally on the web.

I bought a set of markers last night, and did some drawing, which I've not done in a long time. I was intending the resulting art piece for eBay, but I was disappointed with what I ended up with. It's frustrating, because I'm trying to duplicate on paper what I can do with my art software on the computer in a fraction of the time. The digital art looks much better, but I can't sell it as an original in an auction.  It just seems like a lot of time and effort to sell to one customer.  It feels like I should be working to a larger audience.

Back in the 90s, I self published a few full-color comics of my own.  Paper printing is pretty expensive, but I think I finally found an option that will get me back into print at almost no cost, and no risk. There are several print on demand services that will custom print in small numbers - like 10 books if you want, or hundreds. It's not the quality of Marvel & DC, but it gets you a handful of books, and they also have an online store that only prints what they sell. It's basically a method to get some material in print so a bigger publisher will notice you. And if I get a small stack of books done, a trade-paperback is easy to do the same way.  I don't have to pay for 5000 copies and hope the major distributor will pick it up.

I'm still researching, but I think this is what I've been looking for. I get to do my own thing, have it in print, and I can go to comic shows with a small stack of books to peddle. I can be an independent publisher for very little investment or risk, which is perfect. It also has the possibility to open doors down the road.

I'm going to sift through all of my years of artwork tonight and see if I can come up with enough material to do an "Art of Skulfrak" book.  I've always wanted one of those!  The Shanghai series will be back in print now as well, and I have lots of other concepts waiting in the wings.

More to come!

New Art - Battlefield

I was just playing with a mixture of new models and some very old models with fun results.  A giant power-armor battle, just for the heck of it.  :)

More progress on the new site

I've gotten the layout and structure in place on the new www.skulfrak.com, and it's coming along nicely.  I think once I stopped trying to force a theme on it, and just let it develop naturally, it started to come into focus.  It's nothing intricate, but it's clean, functional, and starting to look kinda cool.  I have high hopes for the new direction I've been going in and can't wait to see where it leads me.

Getting to work on the Website

I've been trying to pull together a cohesive theme for my new website - www.skulfrak.com - and it just wasn't getting there, so I decided to just work on the framework and get some material plugged in for now.  It's nothing fancy so far, with just a few thumbnails, but there will be a lot more soon.  I've told myself this is a project I'm not going to stress over, so I work on it for now when the mood strikes me.  I've also been focusing more on the comics I'm going to be publishing there, so the site has been a secondary concern for the past month.

I have six pages done of the new Shanghai comic so far, and I'm very happy with it.  I'm not ready to show it yet, but I'm excited to see where I can take it.

Ultraverse - Prototype

Back in the 1990s, I was an inker for Malibu Comics on the Ultraverse line.  One of the books I did a long run on was called Prototype - sort of an Iron Man with a twist.  I had great fun during those years, and it's a shame that this stable of great titles is sitting on Marvel's shelf now in obscurity. I did this as a piece of fan art to illustrate how that character might look almost 2 decades later.  I may even do a few other faves from that era. Thanks for looking!

New Art - Corinne

Another character study for the new Shanghai comic - this is the main character, Corinne.  I rendered this shot in Poser with the HDRI lighting.  I've been using DAZ Studio more and more lately, but Poser 8 has some really nice lighting features that for some renders make all the difference.

New Art - Guns

Rendered a new character study of the main character from the Shanghai comic I'm working on. This was done in DAZ Studio.