Ostensible Cat

As an artist, it's important that I have tools that optimize the creative process for me. All artists have their perferred tools, meia, processes and methods for creation. It's not unusual for an artist to have a favorite brush, pencil, type of paper/canvas, and on and on. Since most of my work is black and white, I usually use a mechanical pencil (.5mm lead) to do all of the preliminary work. For me, penciling is mostly about plotting more than design. I know some artists like to "finish" their penciled work to such a degree that they just copy over everything when they ink. My magic usually comes in more in the inking stage than the penciling stage. I use Speedball Super Black India Ink along with my Kolinsky Sable Hair brushes (Usually I use a number 3 brush - it gives a wide variety of lines and can be made into a nice point). There is some debate among artists (mostly in the comic book field but other artists that use penk and ink) as to whether using a b

As you may have noticed, my family highly thrives on creative energy. We don't watch TV or play video games so we spend much of our time reading books (to eachother), playing games and working on creative projects (and getting out and about when the weather is nice - many colds and flu as well as inclement weather have slowed us down a bit this year). At any rate, this has been a very productive winter as far as the creative scene goes. My wife Daisey has really begun to hit her strde on her blog, showing off some of her creatvie endeavors as well as family collaborations. This blog post by her really does a good job at showing off her creative side and comparing and contrasting both of our creative endeavors. We have more collaborative work coming up in the near future. I've mentioned the Kid Monster project in which I do the pencil and ink work and she does the color. I'll get my son Bear (6) and daughter Rosa (3) involved in actually coming up with the monster i

CKutalik over at Hill Cantons and Steven Poag have raised some interesting discussion about art in the OSR. As an artist, of course such discussions are of great interest to me. When I was growing up I LOVED comics and my most fervent dream was to be a comic book artist (a desire that I think that has never really left me except for the fact that doing sequential art is very time consuming and laborious). In High School and College, I was an art student and I broadened my scope quite a bit as far as art interests. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I really admire RPG and Comic artists that break the traditional or expected norms of the genre and strike out on their own. Ultimately, I hope to leave an impression with my work that is beyond the typical fantasy fare (which I feel that I have not yet attained but I’m working on it). I have a ton of artists that inspire me and keep me striving to better my work. My personal favorites in comics are guys like Mike Mignola ,

I’ve been lurking a bit at ENworld and RPG.net and it seems that folks are getting interested in the Old School Games and the retroclones. The hard core hobbyist and old schoolers has remained fairly consistent, but the wider exposure seems to be growing on these non-old school sites. I don’t know if that can be attributed to a novelty or nostalgia factor, or if really is catching on. Regardless of the cause, I think it is a bit early to say for sure. I think it is vital for the old school movement and hobbyist gamers to go beyond nostalgia and pastiche. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great works out there, but I think nostalgia can only go so far and is ultimately not sustainable. As for me, I’ like to stick to the spirit of the Old School while continuing to evolve it. In particular, I try to portray this through my artwork. I’m a big fan of verisimilitude in my work or at least a believable fantasy feel (if that makes any sense) while playing with and evolving my sty