Original Art Sundays No. 178: The funny animal/comic strip/comic book Enterprise

Missed last week's post. I was preoccupied with preparing for a new job. Many logistic difficulties- government forms, meetings, etc. Well, the job orientation is tomorrow, so we're back in the saddle again!
Working on a 4 page Surrealist Cowgirls story (and a couple fun Cowgirls side projects), but they're not ready to post yet.
As a placeholder, here's an airbrush piece from 1990!

The craft is rather crude, but it's a fun piece anyway. It grew out of my then-partner's love of both Star Trek and the Pink Panther.
Starting top left and going counter-clockwise:
The Little Mermaid as Dr. Beverly Crusher
The Tasmanian Devil as Lt. Worf
Omaha the Cat Dancer as Counselor Troi
Opus as Lt. Commander Data
Calvin and Hobbes as Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher
Pepe lePew and Commander Riker
center: the Pink Panther as Captain Picard (Captain Pinkard!)
So there it is. More pure silliness.
Next week: back to the Cowgirls!

Original Art Sundays No.172: traditional airbrush: The Addams Family poster

Next Cowgirls page is written and penciled, will get to the inks and the scans directly now that the holidays are over. It's a very fun but very strange page.
Here's a very old piece. Done as a teaser poster for the first Universal Addams Family film, circa 1991 or so, this was pre-Photoshop. The illustration is traditional airbrush, and the text and logo are white stats (for those who remember stat cameras!) dry transferred to a mylar overlay.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm glad I know Photoshop, but I'm just as glad I know something about traditional methods.

Very simple technique: large matte with soft edges, a few lines using a handheld mask a la burn and dodge, and some soft lines for the backlight, then the overlay and a soft gray matte.
Of course, in the film it was Christopher Lloyd, not Jackie Cooper, but I worked with the images I had, pulling a photo from a book on science fiction TV as a reference.
Next week: Surrealist Cowgirls!

Original Art Sundays no. 152: oddment: atsa my girl!

Next Surrealist Cowgirls page is on the boards, roughed out and half penciled.
Meanwhile, here's a VERY old airbrush piece. Yeah, that's right, traditional airbrush.
This piece was inspired by my fascination with that most surreal of bands, The Residents.

I always liked this one, even though it was not without its flaws. I could have popped more highlights to round the eyeballs, and some veins, and another layer to the cityscape would have increased the piece's depth.
The grays ran to the red in the scan, but I was able to fix a lot of it.
Still, a fun, fairly successful piece.
Next week, back to the Cowgirls.
Here's a Residents video to round things out:

Original Art Sundays No. 142: oddments: bison and pirates

Still writing like a fiend and a mile behind on grading. I have a total of 26 entries left to complete for the long-overdue Comics Through Time project, and am trying to give it priority without harming my teaching career in the process.
Always a juggling act, this academia.
Also inching along on the next page. One of these days I'll get frustrated enough to take a couple hours and put the finishing touches on it.
Meanwhile, here are a few older pieces for your enjoyment.
First up, a traditional airbrush piece from 1991. I always liked this one, but most folks who have seen it are lukewarm to it, for unspecified reasons.

I like the fact that it's hand work! I really miss my old Badger airbrush- no idea what happened to it. I suspect I lost it in the Great Relationship Disaster of '93.
So it goes.
The grasses could be a little subtler, and the fade to the sunset a bit more gradual, but otherwise this piece really grabs me.
I always thought this would be a nice T-shirt. Please don't steal it!
A few years later, circa 1997, I completed a handful of illustrations for a proposed children's book. I had written it as well. Sadly, most of the text is gone now (though I could rewrite it fairly easily, I suppose) and these illustrations are pretty much all that's left.
The book was an alphabet book on pirates.
There were a couple other pages that I liked, but they were too derivative of other works- in one case, Charles Vess' work on the Marvel graphic novel The Raven Banner, in another, Joe Orlando's pirate pages in Watchmen- so if I ever move farther on this project (big if!), I'll rework those.
Here are the pages and their alphabetical topics:

Women Were Pirates too!

Privateers

Hispaniola, the Pirate Haven

Mostly painted with colored inks on heavy watercolor paper.
Again, there are things that work here and things that don't. I'm most pleased with the image of women pirates, because my research was so spot-on, and because I like the mood of it.
The girls looking on in the bottom corner are the ostensible stars of the book. The blond is exploring the world of pirates and immersing herself in it. She shows up on scattered pages. I thought every page would be a bit much.
Next week- more something. I hope for a new page, but- more something!