The painting was originally to be a part of “Featured Creatures”, a movie monsters art show at the Ice Cream Gallery, but at 24×36 inches, in acrylic, and with little time to work on it – I knew I could not give this piece the love and attention I wanted to, and ended up submitting a smaller and more free-formed painting of Henrietta from “Evil Dead”.
Over the past months, this is mostly what I have been working on when I sit down to paint, and I have very much been looking forward to finally being able to show it…
In the, wow, nearly 20 years of this site, 10 years at this domain, a lot has changed, and will continue to change.
I’ve been in the middle of another major site overhaul for starters, so you might see some things shift here or there even as you browse.
The store will continue to work as usual, and will continue to carry many, many art prints, art originals, and other things – but I am working hard to get the gallery filled with the 100-some images I have available, in order to make it much easier to see what types and sizes of prints are available for each artwork all in one place… because I realize it can be rather overwhelming to sift through 400 items and feel you are miking the best choice.
I’ve removed eyesores like the facebook feed and the twitter feed, because they took up a lot of space – and it was silly to have them, since you are already here, and most posts over there are about things that are available here.
I’ve also removed them because, well, I am going to use them both a lot less often. Twitter really just seems like a lot of people talking into the wind to imaginary friends, Tumblr and Pinterest seem to be the sport of sharing as many images as possible as quickly as possible, Livejournal is filled with Russian spambots where people once were, and Facebook, since they started promoted posts – well, for 800-some people I see a little “10 people saw this post” at the bottom “insights”, and it all seems pretty pointless.
… as does the internet in general, if all it is to be is a billion people slaving away at sharing things quickly, forgetting moments later for the next sharable thing… not visiting sites, or reading articles, just “liking” them and sharing.
… it isn’t exciting anymore; It isn’t even pleasurable or relaxing anymore – just mind-numbing addictive boredom and a day filled with forgettable moments… click – share – click – share – comment – click – share…
Though I spent a lot of time building up readership on facebook – as have many others with their pages: the best solution seems to be if everyone were to go and start that again elsewhere. I’ll only be there, in the sense that my posts from here will feed into my “fan page”… at least until they make that a paid service too.
On the up-side, this has forced me to get back to what I shouldn’t have stopped doing: updating right here – like I did years ago, finding a few things that well-worth blogging about and putting some effort into sharing as articles and reviews worth typing about, rather than all sorts of things “sort-of ” worth sharing at the click of a button.
I don’t have a mailing list in place yet, one of a hundred things on the slate for these next few days… but if you have a decent browser – there is an rss button at the top.
Please check back often; Aside from posting new artworks and books and such things here, and special offers, I plan to return to posting about music, the art of others, event reviews, and whatever else fits well in this space.
If you came here looking for special offers, well, there are many new prints being added in the process of building the gallery, and many products being marked down until the end of December.
If you would like to see those specials, you can now find many of the newest deals through the gallery.
These are just a handful of upcoming and past appearances.
I do have many more appearances in mind this coming year, to be announced – and my mind is so fuzzy on the older ones, so I’ll add them as they come to me.
I’ll also update a lot of this with proper links gradually over the coming weeks.
So, we’re back from the Steampunk Symposium, cooling our jets for a few weeks (read: working frantically on other things and preparation for coming conventions).
We had a great time; Aloyisius and his team put on one extraordinary event, and did one seriously good job of keeping everything organized and running splendidly. We would *certainly* love to come back next year to see the next and bigger version of this convention. Many triumphs to expand upon, and, as far as I can see… no mistakes to learn from and that is an incredible feat for a first convention.
I had several panels there, and I hope that people enjoyed them as much as I did… even the second one wherein “hungry” influenced my conversation and concentration a bit more than I would have liked it to have. I’ll learn from this and avoid early morning panels in the future if I can at all… but I did somehow manage to fill a whole hour, and keep people there and asking questions.
I had a tall stage, a big screen, and a digital projector… which I of course did not use. I suppose I like things to feel smaller and more intimate- and have always felt a bit out of place on a stage doing anything other than karaoke-ing 80s and 90’s post-punk tunes.
Outside of the panels, we spent most of the days at our tables, selling art prints and speaking with people – and I experimented by bring many large giclee prints on heavyweight fine art rag paper. I came up with this idea so I could add an alternative above our less-expensive and convention-priced prints, and below that of the giclees on canvas and original paintings/engravings.
In that, I learned pretty much what we had established before: To stick to the $5 through $30 range items. I did however establish that it is not the thought of carrying around some huge-sized canvas print that hinders sales there – but that price, is purely the reason.
People at sci-fi/fantasy/subcultural conventions, myself included, are primarily looking for clothing, accessories, gizmos, trinkets and such… and when it comes to art, they are looking for something more in the souvenir range… perhaps as a keepsake reminder of the convention, to have something that is signed, or simply to show some support for the artists they like.
I’d have to say my first thought whenever I arrive at any convention, is that if I make X amount of dollars, I am going to buy myself a cool vest, a nice pair of boots, a well-made pair of gloves, a new shirt, etc… why should other attendees feel any differently?
It is because of this that I had a thought: Next convention, I will focus more on the smaller prints, and otherwise I will bring the originals for the devoted buyers, and I will be bringing some new things as well… hand-crafted works in wood and brass, mechanical or just practical/handy/decorative… and I’ve got a lot of things in mind, all of which I am excited about having the opportunity to show and offer. I’ll have more on that when I have made them… for right now, it is a bit of a secret.
So, I return home with a great amount of fond memories of the convention, and souvenirs in the form of prints – special made for this convention. Each are rather large, printed on 390 GSM (super heavyweight) rag paper in fine pigment inks. Each are signed, and dated “Steampunk Symposium 2012”. These are *all* rather rare, one of a kind for their size… They are 13 inches by up to 24 inches. Most average about 13×20 inches, and are all beautiful and sturdy reproductions on my work.
Our table at Steampunk Symposium 2012
I *thought* about offering them all as a set… and if you make an offer before any of them sell, I would be more than happy to offer them that way), otherwise: I’ll be putting them up for sale over the next few hours. There are some available now, and by morning I’ll have them all up and available, in their own category here:
There is only one of each, so if you see one you like, this is a good time, the only time to grab it.
So, what is coming up? Well, Jfax in June (Grand Rapids), In October we’ll be at Kokomo-Kon in Kokomo Indiana, and are hoping to be a part of Utopiacon in Cincinnati the week after. We’ll be trying to fill in many more spots as we can, hopefully some more guest spots and panels, but we’ll be looking at conventions to just vend at as well… maybe a few to simply enjoy attending. Please watch this space, and I’ll try to be much better about announcing our future appearances in the future.
So, this last week we wrapped up the Infernal Device show at the Gerald R Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Tear-down went pretty smoothly, considering that we had to break down nearly two tons of complicated mechanical machinery in less than two days. From standing atop our 17-foot tall wind and solar power sculpture and rotating mural to disassemble Todd’s wind collector, to getting the solar panels and reserve batteries loaded up, to breaking down the 7-foot tall, 7-foot in diameter, 7-sided rotating mural, to breaking down the massive surrounding structure – and all of its pistons and gears and chains, to scooping up nearly 3 cubic yards of decorative stone – all went fairly well – much thanks to help such as Glen Swanson, and Steampig artists/team members: Alicia Vanheulen and Thomas Birks.
There was a *lot* to talk and blog about during this huge 6 month project, and I missed out on that from being too busy each and every day of it – but if you would like a recap, progress pics, and more pictures of the device itself, you can find them all at http://facebook.com/infernaldevice
The project, is not over. We are re-grouping. We’ve all spent a lot of the last six months, and a lot of expense on making this project happen, and now comes the time when we recover, rest up, catch up on all those other things that have been screaming to be done these last few months… things like blog updates, new art, and standing obligations.
I’ve spent 6 months without posting new artwork, without making sales, without shipping most of the few sales I had made, and needing to catch up on the last rewards shipments from our kickstarter – and I’ve found myself in a spot where I *need* to sell things, but cannot afford to sell things if I have to pay to have them made or shipped to me. My at-home stock is all but depleted, and I have nothing on hand but a lot of paint and wood to paint on.
I have seven new paintings from the device itself, each 3 foot by 7 foot monsters making one continuous repeating 21-foot by 7-foot mural… but not the money to have them imaged.. as well as doubts as to whether I can sell 3 foot by 7 foot prints at the price I would need to sell them at.
So, I’ve put a few commissions for sale – to get me back into the swing on doing artwork, to get some new artwork on this site, and I figure since they are such favorites: I might as well add some new pieces to the “Airships and Tentacles” art collection since I have yet to get it published.
If you are interested in getting an artwork commissioned, and incredibly cheaply – there are several options available – a 24×24 inch painting (already added), an 18×12 inch painting (already added), and more engravings (I’ll have that offer up soon if it is not up already).
I made this book a while back, out of hardwood, and spent a lot of time sanding, carving, and polishing it. I also put a lot of love into making the securing system – two fat-ended brass pins to give me lots of room to fill it.
– I will fill it with every print from the Airships and Tentacles series
– each printed on a fine rough-edged rag paper
– each page annotated as the coffee table book would be, but in my own handwriting
– each page signed discreetly and numbered “1 of 1”
– each of these prints will be an entirely unique size from any editions made
– The front page will have “to [Your Name]” and my signature.
– To make it even more rare, I will make one unique work or original art to complete the piece. Yes, one page will be an original work of art to complete the series.
The Book size is roughly 13 inches by 15 inches, and will be a hefty and beautiful tome for your tabletop or shelf. You can also remove each print if you wish, to hang them, and secure the book cover away someplace safe.
It isn’t cheap… It’ll cost me about 20 bucks to print each imaged page – which means you’re getting this at no actual profit…maybe even a loss – but I am hoping that this sale would push us over that tipping edge of 50% funding. And I’ll do anything to ensure the success of our project… including this.
Yes, it will be well worth it if it sells – so don’t feel bad about grabbing this great offer and helping us to make something even bigger.
So, if you would like to have this book, it is available for a donation of $1350, as are many other great things, at our Kickstarter: HERE
ALSO:
$20 through our kickstarter gets you a signed and personalized print of any of the below (you’ll need to go to my gallery page to get full views… it was hell just putting this compilation of thumbnails together):
Steampunk Tales 10 (Featuring my cover) is out now – Lots of great reading, on your device of choice, for $2.99.
This piece is another digital work, something I rarely choose to do – one which I actually did have a lot of fun with. Woman, hair pins, Winchester rifle, guards… The story by G.D. Falksen, is a great story, but my particular episode of the serial was less action-packed and more intrigue. So, I went with the less action and more suspenseful story within the art, and am very happy with it.
I forgot to mention the rewards such as limited etchings on brass, paintings, and the like – but, if you’d like to know more, we’ve got a writeup about the project here:
Because we needed video up for The Infernal Device‘s kickstarter page, and didn’t have one, I decided to do a workshop video to talk about progress on the model. Problem being that I did not have any camera person to move the camera to key points like… I don’t know… my head, the model, the table of gears.
Still, I am proud of it – if not simply because I managed to not wear a helmet with blue spandex, nor am I waving a frisbee about.
If you would like to know just what the hell I am going on about in this video, you can see images of the parts we’ll be using, the part of the model already built, progress pics of building this drum, pictures of us and our works, and actual things about the Device and why we’re building it, details about our ArtPrize bid, all at InfernalDevice.net.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
